500 Miles from You (Scottish Bookshop #3)(79)

She blinked. She had barely slept and the drone of the engines was making her want to drop off (everyone else was comfortably snoozing), but every time she came close to doing so, she remembered, yet again, what the day was for, and bolted back upright again.

SOUTHWARK CROWN COURT was a squat, ugly brown 1980s building, put up by someone who had obviously taken their inspiration from a supermarket. It was faceless and bureaucratic, neither terrifyingly grand nor trying to be welcoming. It simply was. Lissa supposed in some way that was the point.

It was boiling. A damp, oppressive heat. Lissa couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so hot. She was wearing far too many clothes, it was ridiculous. She pulled off her large coat and jammed it on top of her wheelie bag, making it unwieldy and hard to get past the crowds on the tubes. She’d forgotten about those too. So many people! How did anyone get anywhere? And could she really have forgotten about this in such a short space of time? She felt herself begin to sweat. This was the last thing she needed, to look damp and flustered.

Roisin—short, businesslike, and dressed in a smart black suit and heels that looked like absolute torture to march about in all day—met her at the side entrance. People were milling around and Lissa was anxious, concerned about seeing the boy’s mother again, jerking back to the memory of everything that had happened before, again and again.

She looked around nervously. How would the family of the defendant be? Angry? Frustrated? Violent?

Instead she saw a mixed lineup of smartly dressed solicitors and barristers hurrying in and out of entrances; clerks with huge bundles of papers and files, sometimes rolling them along in carrying cases; and other people, some dowdily dressed, smoking patiently by the bins or sitting staring into space. It did not feel like a cheerful place, nor was it meant to.

“You’ll be fine,” said Roisin, sitting her down in the witness waiting room after they got buzzed in. It was completely plain and bare, and the coffee was absolutely disgusting, served in a thin white plastic cup. Lissa kept forgetting and took automatic sips of it.

She read over her statement again. It was just as she recalled it, and she felt her heart begin to thump. The day, the person she’d been visiting. Seeing the boys in the walkway. And the flash, the hideous flash, of the phone, glinting in the sun; the crunching of bones; the squelching of flesh.

The rush. The ambulance. The sitting. The begging, the bargaining. The faces.

She started to cry.

“You’ll be fine,” said Roisin, glancing at her watch. “Come on! You’ve been a big tough A&E nurse! You’re used to all sorts! How come this one is bothering you?”

She remembered the boy’s soft face lying on the hard pavement. “It just does,” she said.

“Well, distract yourself,” said Roisin. “How’s country life treating you?”

At this Lissa felt herself turn pink. “It’s all right,” she said.

“Seriously? Lots of cows to talk to?”

“Yup,” said Lissa. “Lots of cows.”

“Isn’t it freezing? I couldn’t handle the weather.”

“It’s fresh,” said Lissa. “I quite like it. It’s better than . . .”

She indicated out the tiny window: the heat shimmers coming off the pavement, the scent of rubbish rising into the stuffy air, smoke everywhere.

“Well,” said Lissa, “I quite like it.”

“I see your point,” Roisin sniffed, and Lissa bent again to the black-and-white sheet of paper.





Chapter 61


Cormac woke early that morning, the room stuffy already, excited about something before he remembered exactly what it was. He sat up, grinning to himself. Then he stopped and felt worried instead. Today was the day. He was going to meet Lissa.

He told himself to stop being daft. He was a grown man, and he felt like a teenager on a first date. Getting overexcited was only going to lead to disappointment. Plus, she was stressed out and worried anyway; the last thing she’d be thinking about was him. But he could be there, take her to lunch—he was proud of discovering somewhere lovely to take her—listen, get to know her. That was all. Yes.

He still couldn’t keep that infernal smile off his face as he got into the shower and pondered the new, slightly flowery shirt Kim-Ange had persuaded him to buy. It wasn’t his style at all and had been to his mind hideously expensive, but Kim-Ange had been extremely persuasive on the issue, and sure enough, nobody had pointed and laughed when he’d worn it to the pub for half an hour just to give it a tryout.

The way he was thinking about Lissa, though . . . nothing about Emer or Yazzie had ever come close to. No. He was being ridiculous. Overthinking everything.

But it was the first time in such a long time that he’d just felt so . . . so alive.

He thought back to Robbie. He’d better call Lennox and see how he was doing, although so far no news felt like good news. And Lissa would be seeing him, of course . . .

Don’t go overboard, he told himself. She was in for such a tough day. Testifying in court. Reliving that awful time. He had to play it cool.

Or, he also found himself thinking, he could turn up early, go support her in court. It wasn’t right she had to be in court by herself. He could just say hi, just let her know that he was there for her. Would that be weird?

It was a glorious day out there. Perhaps he would take a stroll—just a casual stroll—in his new shirt along the south bank, a place he had come to . . . Well, it wasn’t Scotland. But it definitely had something. So. He could take a stroll. Get a lovely cup of coffee that took someone quite a while to make grinding beans and stuff, and, well, he could see where the day took him.