He Said/She Said(38)
A male juror in a blazer nodded as the tattooed man curled his lip.
‘And how has this case affected your career?’
Jamie put a sag in his spine. ‘It’s destroyed it before it had a chance to get going, to be honest. I should be doing my year in industry now. I had a place with McPherson and Barr, the award-winning architectural firm. They were behind the new eco-estates being built on brownfield sites in the inner cities? It’s a very prestigious placement; they only take on one graduate per year. I was just about to start my placement when these allegations were made and unfortunately the firm found it necessary to suspend me pending a verdict. So I’m currently rather in limbo.’
The story fell out whole. I tried to catch Jamie’s eye. You can’t lie to me, I thought. I know you. I’ve seen your rotten heart.
This was too much for Fiona Price; for a few moments she hung her head in grief at a young man’s career derailed, before continuing. ‘Your father is a successful housebuilder, is he not? In fact, it’s not an exaggeration to say that he has an empire property, with new builds happening all the time. You don’t need letters after your name to make your mark. Why not simply go into the family business?’
Jamie gave a bright blue blink. ‘It’s important for me not to cruise on my father’s reputation. And besides, the future of the industry must be sustainable, responsible housing. That’s where my interest lies. I suppose you’d call it a vocation as much as a profession.’
The irony struck me that a man on trial for rape could be so seductive.
‘You are a young man with a very great deal to lose,’ said Price. ‘It must be very distressing, then, that your career is on hold.’
‘Your Honour,’ interrupted Polglase. ‘My learned friend is seeking to try the matter on consequences, not on the evidence.’
Price didn’t miss a beat. ‘In order to assess how my client might act in a given situation, one has to take into account how much he’d have to lose if he did so. Let us move on, Jamie, to how this case has affected your personal life.’
‘I’ve barely slept since they arrested me,’ he replied. ‘That’s a long time to be tired. Even now I can barely believe this is happening to me.’
Fiona Price straightened a pen on her desk, then changed her tone.
‘Are you married? Have children?’
‘I’m engaged to be married. My fiancée Antonia is here.’ He smiled at Antonia, who simpered in return. For the first time, it struck me; she had been in court since the first day of the trial, which means she couldn’t be appearing as a witness. Why hadn’t they called her? Why wouldn’t they call her?
‘Any children?’ said Price.
‘No children yet, I want to do things the right way round, but I’m very hopeful on that front.’
You could see the female members of the jury melting. Even I was struggling to superimpose the rapist’s sneer over the blinking schoolboy in the dock before me.
‘For the benefit of the jury, the alleged incident took place on the Thursday. Let me know how you came to be at the festival, and how you met the complainant.’
‘Sure,’ Jamie nodded. ‘Of course. I was supposed to be going down to Cornwall with an old schoolfriend, Peter, but a couple of days before we were supposed to travel, he broke his leg abseiling with the Venture Scouts.’ Of course he fucking did, I thought. What next? A digression into Peter and Jamie’s other hobby of helping little old ladies across busy roads? ‘So I went down on my own, on one of the coaches that was laid on from London, and then just set up camp.’ He gave an embarrassed half-smile. ‘It wasn’t the best start to the festival. Pitching the tent on my own didn’t come easily to me. Peter was the scout; that was his area really. Actually, once I’d got the tent all set up I felt a bit down about even being there. I’m not a natural loner. That’s why I was walking around the campfires that night, looking for people to chat to.’ He cast his eyes down, then up again, gave it the full Princess Diana. ‘Lots of the campfire circles were quite big, it wasn’t like you had to ask to join them. I didn’t even look to see where I was sitting, I just sat down in the first space I saw. At first it was a general group chat, about other festivals they’d all been to, whether the weather was going to be clear for the eclipse, that sort of thing.’
‘And how did you strike up conversation with Miss Taylor?’
He turned slightly so that I could see him in profile. I wondered if his looks would count for or against him.
‘Well, once it got really dark, the guitars came out, and that meant we could only really talk to the people next to us. So we got chatting about this and that. She was really well travelled, she’d been to lots of festivals. I told her it was something I wanted to get into but my girlfriend wasn’t really keen.’
Price twirled a pen between her fingers. ‘So the complainant knew you were in a relationship?’
‘Well, I thought . . . there was a bit of a spark between us.’ Jamie looked apologetic, as if, even after what Beth had put him through, he didn’t like to speak badly of her. The mumsy juror put her head to one side. ‘She put her hand on my thigh when we were talking and I thought that I ought to get that out of the way, quick, so that flirting was off the table.’