Wrong Place Wrong Time(84)

The defendant, in handcuffs, is led in by a security guard with one delicate hoop earring in his ear, and put in the dock.

Joseph Jones. Young, thirty-year-old Joseph. How strange it is to look at him and know the date on which – as things stand – he will die, Jen thinks, looking at those distinctive elfin ears, his goatee, his narrower shoulders, almost boy-like. He could be anyone’s son. He could be Todd.

The judge addresses the court. ‘Earlier, we finished hearing from the second witness for the prosecution, Witness A, and now, we call the third,’ he says simply.

The court is already in session. Jen works it through in her mind. So Kelly’s last-minute ‘conference’ must have been a witness summons. Trials never know which day they will need their witnesses on, until the previous one finishes.

‘Thank you, Your Honour,’ a barrister says. A woman with retro thick glasses. Her wig just covers their pale stems. Jen had forgotten it was the past until she saw those NHS glasses. They look almost like the ones kids wear today: funny how fashion works. ‘We heard yesterday from Grace Elincourt, HSBC employee, who confirmed that Joseph Jones regularly deposited and withdrew large sums of money into a company bank account.’ She looks pointedly at the jury. ‘We heard earlier from Witness A that he also regularly instructed his foot soldiers to steal cars. And to corroborate this, the state now calls the next witness to the stand and, for this, we must ask again that the jury and the public gallery temporarily depart.’

Jen’s mind is whirring. The public gallery and jury out only indicates a few things: evidential issues, matters of law and procedure, admissibility arguments.

And anonymous witnesses.

Everybody except the lawyers leaves. Jen loiters, watching people who presumably have as much vested in this as she does, drinking vending-machine coffee, talking. The same way they always have in courthouses. The only difference is fewer mobile phones.

She pops outside, stands on the courthouse steps, wanting to witness the world here in its 2003 snapshot. She watches the cars, brand-new-looking but old, too, N reg, P reg. A lawyer stands nearby, smoking, just thinking. The buildings are the same. Same sky, same sun. She met Kelly only the preceding March; their relationship is hardly six months old.

She spins in a slow circle. You wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t know. The world doesn’t know how much it’s changing.

‘Jury back to courtroom one,’ an usher says from the foyer, and Jen heads inside, her eyes lingering on the city horizon for just a second. She’s about to find something out. Something she can never un-know.

In the courtroom, her eyes take a second to adjust after the glare of the September sun, but after a moment she sees what she expects: the witness box has changed. It is secured by a black curtain.

‘Witness B,’ the female barrister says, her voice as crisp and clear as a natural spring, ‘is a serving undercover police officer. His anonymity,’ she addresses the jury, ‘is to preserve his and the police’s methods and working arrangements and his safety. So, now, to Witness B. You do not need to state your name for the record. How would you like to swear your oath?’

Whoever is behind the curtains says nothing. The barrister waits, then approaches the curtains after the silence throbs in the courtroom for too long. Jen holds her breath. Surely, surely, surely this is not her husband.

The barrister re-emerges after a second and approaches the bench. Jen hears it, then, a murmured discussion. ‘He wants his voice anonymized. He’s got an accent. We did make a formal application,’ the barrister is saying.

Jen can’t catch it all. She can only hear snatched phrases. She can only understand because she’s a lawyer.

‘But Your Honour, in the interests of open justice …’ the other barrister says. Their debates continue in mumbled prose that Jen strains to hear.

‘It’s important in open court to be heard as you are,’ the judge announces after a few minutes more.

‘Witness B, the oath?’ the barrister prompts. Wait … this witness is a witness for the prosecution, not the defence. So …

Jen hears a sigh. A very, very distinctive, pissed-off sigh. And then a single word: ‘Secular.’

Three syllables. And there it is. What Jen perhaps already knew: Kelly is Witness B.

She had it all wrong. Kelly isn’t involved in crime. He had been trying to stop it.





Day Minus Six Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Eight, 11:00





‘I worked with him, yes,’ Kelly’s voice says, ‘for several months last year.’ He has disguised his Welsh accent, smoothed it out like planing wood. Jen is fairly sure only she would know this was him. The verbal cues you pick up only through twenty years of marriage.

‘And what was your role?’ The questions continue even though Jen’s mind is still trying to process it. The fact keeps repeating on her like shockwaves after an earthquake. He’s a police officer. He was a police officer?

Her eyes trail upwards to the tiny windows at the top of the courtroom.

He never told her. He never told her, he never told her, he never told her. Her life is a lie.

Thoughts gather around her like a crowd of reporters asking questions. How could he have kept this from her? Kelly? Her happy-go-lucky, trustworthy husband, Kelly? It doesn’t even explain anything. Why are they seeing the repercussions of this lie twenty years later? Why is Todd involved?