MS. Isn’t it true, Ms Joyce, that the only evidence of what my client had allegedly done, was what Angel told you he had done? There was no real evidence of abuse inflicted by him. There was only your belief in what she told you?
HJ. She was seriously malnourished with visible bruises. Her right index finger had been severed.
MS. But why did you assume that implicated my client? Why my poor client, when your sister’s real complaint was that he had already left her?
HJ. It was obvious.
MS. Obvious to whom? Wasn’t there another explanation? Didn’t it occur to you that your sister might be lying, creating a story of systematic, violent abuse in order to cover up what she had done to herself?
HJ. No, that didn’t occur to me. Angel’s a truthful person.
MS. My client always thought so too, Ms Joyce. He’s never suggested otherwise. Which leads me to this. Could it be that you helped her with the invention you both took to the police? Two minds working on it, with yours predominant, concocting a story for them which would hide Angel’s shame and reinvention?
HJ. That’s nonsense.
MS. I suggest it isn’t nonsense. It’s the only sense, isn’t it? If Angel was such a truthful person? You pushed her into making fantastical allegations.
HJ. I didn’t.
MS. It was your way of cleaning her up, wasn’t it, Ms Joyce?
Silence from witness.
Sigh from Ms Shearer.
MS. Please answer.
HJ. The suggestion’s beneath contempt.
MS. So be it. You went to the police. They were shocked by the finger and the bruises and they accepted the allegations, hook, line, and sinker. You were sent to a place for vulnerable persons and handled with kid gloves.
HJ. Not kid gloves, surely. They mark so easily. Objection from Prosecution Counsel. Pejorative statement, Counsel must stick to questions and refrain from comment.
MS. All right. We’ll move on. Ms Joyce, if the allegations of sexual abuse were true, why was it that your sister refused a full medical examination?
HJ. Did she?
Objection by Prosecution. Witness cannot speak for what was going on in another witness’s mind outside her presence. Unfair.
MS. All right, point taken. Shame’s a powerful factor, isn’t it, Ms Joyce? You wanted her to push her shame on to someone else. You say you don’t know why an intimate medical examination was refused, but I suggest you do. You didn’t want anyone to know how little she had suffered. How much did you really know about what was in her mind when you persuaded her to refuse?
HJ. She didn’t want to be touched. She didn’t want anyone to know…
Witness falters. I know she did not want to be touched.
MS. Didn’t want anyone to know, Ms Joyce? Wasn’t it you who didn’t want anyone to know how much your sister was capable of inventing? How corrupted she was?
HJ. I waited for her to come out. That’s all I did. I was waiting to take her home. I don’t know, didn’t know if she was examined. I thought she was.
MS. You didn’t know? Surely you told her to refuse. Otherwise I could see your surprise. Angel Joyce refusing a finger up her vagina? That would be a first, wouldn’t it? Interruption from Prosecution; rebuke from HHJ McD.
HJ. Stop. Please stop.
PART TWO
CHAPTER EIGHT
All women were bitches. That was the only sentiment upon which he and his sister had agreed.
The moment would be soon. Frank Shearer could feel it in his bones. It was not quite near enough. In the quiet of early morning the frustration was less, because at this time of day he could feel he was lord of all he surveyed, not quite an emperor, but at least a governor. He could ignore the imminent presence of the manager, due in at eleven or whenever it suited him, ready to bark orders, talk about targets and tell Frank he was a lazy bastard. Between eight and ten a.m., he could lose himself in admiration of the space, the bright lights, the location, the metallic sheen on the bonnet of the nearest, newest Mercedes. He could even turn a key in the ignition, listen to the purring of an immaculate engine, imagine he owned the power of it and could drive it away into another dawn in another place, safe in the pale upholstery.
He could drive away, or be driven. At this time, Frank could forget that his first task of the morning was to dust and remove fingerprints from all fifteen of the models on display without transferring the dirt to his clean suit; or fail to remember how he was the lowest of the low in the pecking order of this business with a job not greatly admired in the larger world, either. His name badge described him as ‘consultant’, which meant he was a car salesman who could not afford to buy the cheapest of the branded, all-leather interior, air-conditioned Mercedes Benz and BMWs he was employed to persuade other people to buy. He was the slightly ridiculous man who came to work from the suburbs on the tube, to cut a swathe amongst all this mechanised glamour while possessing none of it. Not even a real salesman; the cars sold themselves, or not: the fools who inspected them could not be conquered or persuaded although some of them could be nudged. There was nothing creative about parroting by heart the specifications of every machine: he could blind them with science and even simulate love for the things and the people, while knowing that, at a pinch, he could just about afford to hire one of the Mercs for a whole weekend. Frank was a man who was employed for his suit and his manner, who longed to punch the manager in the jaw and dreamed of the day when he could tell him what to do with his job. The day was coming, but not yet. Frank took a flying kick at a large cardboard advertising sign which announced the best discounts on BMWs alongside a depiction of a tanned male hand flourishing a set of car keys towards an awestruck woman who smiled with huge, parted lips and ultra white teeth. The message was Buy this car… blow jobs for life. He sent the sign skittering across the floor to thump into the flank of a Mercedes, the feeling of satisfaction quickly displaced by horror as he raced over to the car and examined it for a scratch. So powerful, these machines, and yet so vulnerable in their perfection. There was no mark, but he caught sight of someone staring through the window to see him leaning over to look for it with his bum in the air. A woman on her way to work laughed at him. That’s how powerful he was.
Frank Shearer did not even like motors and yet he was forced to tend them like babies. Should they require to be bathed in milk, he would have to oblige. It was still half dark outside, and cold. At least he was out of the rain, and the location alone saved him from car salesman ignominy.
He told himself, often, that there were plenty of men out there who would love this job or at least that was the sort of shit the manager came out with every day, and in one way it was true. Kids of all colours were always hanging round, sidling in, saying any chance of work in here, lingering to admire and inhale the smell of engine power, just wanting to be within touching distance of all that high octane image-enhancing, penis-extending stuff. Stars in their eyes, treasuring vicarious ownership. The distant cousins of the swaggering drug dealers and thieves who also ventured in, ready to buy for cash, but still overawed by the ambience. Not their kind of place, really; too upmarket and respectable looking, a small cathedral for sainted vehicles and at least it had that going for it. The harsh neon lights emphasised the shiny, high colours and gave him a headache.