Mr Hurst looks affronted. ‘I’m simply trying to establish whether this witness has any ulterior motives that may influence his testimony.’
Marco’s eyes move back and forth, trying to follow their arguments.
Judge Spencer intervenes. ‘Unless you intend to introduce evidence of a conspiracy, Mr Hurst, you’re on very shaky ground. Perhaps you should choose another line of questioning.’
Sitting next to me, I feel Sienna suddenly stiffen. Her fists are clenched and the muscles in her jaw, shoulders and her arms have seized up, locking her into a statue-like pose. She’s not even blinking. Nothing moves except for the fingers of her right hand, which flutter up and down on her thigh. It’s our signal.
Slowly her head turns and her eyes meet mine. Wide. Scared. She turns back to the courtroom and I follow her gaze across the bar table to the lone bewigged figure sitting above everyone else, tapping at his laptop.
Ronnie Cray pulls Sienna outside and into a consulting room, almost kicking the door open and leaning hard against it, making sure it’s closed.
‘You’re sure?’
Sienna nods.
Cray’s lips peel back. ‘Shit!’
Sienna flinches.
‘It’s not you,’ I tell her. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’
The DCI wants to pace but the room isn’t big enough. She wants to smoke. She wants to dump this box of vipers on someone else.
Pulling me aside, she whispers angrily. ‘What in glory’s name do I do? Who do I tell? He’s a Crown Court judge!’
‘You have to stop the trial.’
‘Only he can do that!’ Cursing, she spins away and tries to pace again. ‘I need to think. I need to talk to some people. Take advice. A judge! A fucking judge!’
She looks at Sienna. ‘You have to be sure, one hundred per cent, do you understand?’
Sienna nods.
Cray opens her mobile and shuts it again. ‘Come on - I’ve got to get out of here.’
Too agitated to wait for the lift, she walks down the curving staircase. Ruiz intercepts me on the landing.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I can’t talk. Wait for me.’
Minutes later we’re outside. Monk is behind the wheel. Cray doesn’t say a word to him. She’s trying to work out what to do . . . where to go . . . what happens next.
Opening her mobile, she stares at the screen. It can’t be in a phone call. It’s not secure enough. She flips it closed.
‘I’m going to Portishead,’ she says. ‘I need to see the Chief Constable.’
She looks at Sienna. ‘You need to tell him everything.’ Then she addresses me. ‘Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Not a word.’
‘What about Ellis?’
‘He’s our problem now.’
50
Ruiz is sitting quietly, letting me talk. We’re sharing a wooden bench in Castle Park, overlooking the upper reaches of the floating harbour. Ducks and gulls dot the water, waiting to be fed by toddlers in strollers and older siblings who wobble on training wheels.
The Old Brewery rises abruptly from the opposite bank. The weathered brick walls are stained with bird shit and soot, yet are still preferable to modern glass and concrete. Somewhere nearer the cathedral a busker plucks the strings of a banjo and a flower seller with a brightly coloured cabin is setting out buckets of blooms, tulips and daffodils.
Ruiz hasn’t said a word. The sun radiates through a thin mesh of clouds, highlighting the grey in his hair and making him squint when he raises his eyes. His hands are big and square, no longer calloused. A boiled sweet rattles against his teeth.
‘What would you do?’ I ask.
‘Nothing.’
‘Why?’
‘You have a suicidal schoolgirl who has been sexually abused claiming that she slept with a County Court judge. She doesn’t know his name. She can’t remember the address. She’s also facing a murder charge. You have no forensic evidence or corroboration.’
‘She recognised him.’
‘You can’t stop a trial and destroy a man’s career on that sort of evidence.’
‘So what’s Cray going to do?’
‘She’s going to commit professional suicide.’
A gust of wind ripples the water and topples the tulips and daffodils in their buckets.
Ruiz continues: ‘My guess is she’ll go to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who’ll shit himself and call the Attorney General. There’ll be a full judicial inquiry, which is rare, and unless the investigation finds corroboration, Ronnie Cray can kiss her career goodbye.’
‘And the trial?’
‘They’re not going to stop an expensive, high-profile murder trial on the word of a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl.’
‘But the photographs in the suitcase . . . ?’
‘Someone took pictures of jurors - it’s not enough. You need evidence of a juror being approached or intimidated. Payments. Threats. Admissions . . .’
Ruiz stands and works the stiffness out of his back. His body looks too big for his clothes.
‘So there’s nothing we can do?’
‘Not without evidence.’
His eyes hold mine for a long time, blue-grey and uncomplicated. They seem to belong in the face of a younger man - a police constable who began his career more than thirty years ago, full of expectation and civic pride. A lot of water has passed under that bridge - violence, corruption, scandal, banalities, mediocrities, absurdities, insanities, hawks, doves, cowards, traitors, sell-outs, hypocrites and screaming nut-jobs - but Ruiz has never lost his faith in humanity.
I’m tired. Dirty. Weary of talking. My mind is full of fragments of broken lives - Ray Hegarty’s, Sienna’s, Annie Robinson’s . . . I want to go home. I want a shower. I want to sleep. I want to put my arms around my daughters. I want to feel normal for a few hours.
Ruiz drops me at the terrace and turns off the engine of the Merc, listening to the afternoon quiet and the ticking sound of the motor cooling. Ugly dark clouds are rolling in from the west, moving too quickly to bring rain.
‘I thought maybe I’d head back to London,’ he says. ‘Water the plants.’
‘You don’t have any plants.’
‘Perhaps I’ll take up gardening. Grow my own vegetables.’
‘You don’t like vegetables.’
‘I love a good Cornish pasty.’
Wrinkles are etched around his eyes and his slight jowls move with his jaw.
I ask him to hang around for another day - just to see what happens. Maybe I’m being selfish, but I like having him here. With Ruiz what you see is what you get. He’s a man of few contradictions except for his gruff exterior and gentle centre.
Ever since I was diagnosed and moved out of London, I seem to have lost touch with most of my long-time friends. They call less often. Send fewer emails. Ruiz is different. He has only known me with Parkinson’s. He has seen me at my lowest, sobbing at my kitchen table after Charlie was abducted and Julianne walked out on me. And I have seen him shot up, lying in a hospital bed, unable to remember what happened yesterday.
As I get older, friendships become harder to cultivate. I don’t know why that is. Perhaps by middle age most people have enough friends. We have a quota and when it’s filled we have to wait for someone to die or retire to get on the list.
Glancing at his watch Ruiz suggests it might be ‘beer o’clock’. He waits while I shower and change before we walk as far as the Fox and Badger where I leave him with his elbows on the bar, gazing at a pint of Guinness turning from a muddy white to a dark brown.