‘And you visited the GP with this?’
‘Yes. He said it was a broken rib,’ said Garrington.
‘Why do you think Conrad used the knife?’
‘Speculation,’ protested Mr Sweeney.
‘Trying to establish cause,’ Mrs Patel said.
‘Rephrase the question,’ decided the judge.
‘Did Conrad tell you why he used the knife?’
‘He’d seen Jason hit me; he thought he had a knife an’ all. He wanted to defend himself,’ said Garrington.
‘Did Conrad Quinn believe he was in danger from Jason Barnes?’ said Mrs Patel.
‘Yeah, the way he was carrying on: like he was off his head.’
This from someone who’d been drinking, snorting coke and had chased down Luke Murray to deliver a beating, thought Andrew.
‘You refer to Jason Barnes?’
‘Yeah.’
Andrew heard Val groan, and the judge looked across at the public gallery.
Thomas Garrington went on parroting Conrad’s evidence, but in his version it was Conrad who had thrown the knife in the river and Conrad who had sworn them to silence.
‘What do you say to the allegations Conrad Quinn made in this court that you had a knife and that you stabbed Jason?’ Mrs Patel sounded stern, unsympathetic as she put the question.
‘It’s not true.’ His eyes were big and blue and it looked like he was close to tears.
‘Can I remind you that you have sworn an oath to tell the truth and only the truth. Who stabbed Jason?’
‘Conrad did.’
‘Is there anything else, Thomas?’ she said quietly.
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell the police. But Conrad was a mate and well… I knew he’d done wrong but I couldn’t turn him in.’
During the break, he and Val were waiting by the windows overlooking Crown Square, going over and over the bare-faced cheek, the audacity of Garrington’s story, decrying the exploitative shock value of the photo, all in hushed whispers.
‘What if they fall for it?’ she said. ‘The jury. Think Jason was the aggressor.’
‘They won’t,’ he said. ‘They’re intelligent people.’
Val baulked, ‘We don’t know that.’
‘They’ll believe you, Val,’ he said, ‘what you say happened, not this garbage.’
She pulled a face. Still worried. ‘I’ll just go to the loo before they start back.’
He nodded.
A couple of minutes later, he saw Louise and Ruby coming up the nearby stairs.
‘Louise,’ Andrew said as she reached the hallway. She stopped. She nodded, polite, a little guarded.
‘You remember Ruby.’
‘Hello,’ he said. Bizarre, the stilted introductions, when they had sat in court only a few feet away from each other hearing about their sons, sharing the aftershocks from that terrible night all over again.
He was going to carry on, talk about Garrington’s testimony, then he sensed rather than saw Val returning. He twisted round: she was standing across the foyer; she shot a look of such loathing their way that Andrew almost recoiled. He felt she would misinterpret this, weave it into whatever false picture she was composing of his relationship with Louise. He noticed Louise follow his glance. Then Val pivoted on her heels and stalked towards the court.
Louise stood there, red spots of colour blooming on her cheeks.
‘I’m sorry,’ Andrew said, heartsick and hurting. ‘I’d better go.’
He wanted to reassure Val, to explain, to make her believe that Louise was no more than a friend, but then perhaps being just a friend was too much for Val to take. She still blamed Luke, clung to her belief that he was the bogeyman, that he deserved no pity or concern and that by extension his family was to be shunned. Even after all they had heard in court. Sometimes he thought Val’s strength, her conviction, was a flaw rather than a virtue.
Louise
Mr Sweeney got up; he looked grim. ‘You called Luke “wog boy”, is that right?’ he said to Thomas Garrington.
Louise felt apprehension wash through her again. She glanced at Ruby, wishing she could shield her from the abuse, from a world where strangers hurled insults and blows because of a person’s skin colour. Ruby raised her head, a gesture of pride and defiance, and Louise’s heart rose with love for her.
‘I can’t remember.’
‘You called him “dickhead”, yes?’
‘Yes,’ Garrington said.
‘You called him a “dirty nigger”?’ said Mr Sweeney.
Louise flinched.
‘Can’t remember,’ Garrington said.
‘You called him a “knobhead”?’ said Mr Sweeney.
‘I can’t remember.’
‘You hit him, forcing his head against the window?’
‘I pushed him,’ Garrington quibbled.
‘And he hit his head against the window?’
‘Yes,’ Garrington said.
Louise deliberately let her vision blur, gazing into the middle distance. ‘Look at me, Mum.’ The first time Luke had scaled the sycamore outside the house. Her heart had swooped with fear for him. He must have been forty foot up, legs astride a bough. ‘Trust him,’ her grandad always said when Luke was tiny. ‘Most kids know what they are capable of.’ Luke in the tree, burnished by the late autumn sun. King of all he surveyed. The joy of him, the thrill of him. She had crowed with delight. She wrenched her mind back to the here and now.
‘You had a knife in your boot?’
‘No I never.’
‘You had a knife,’ Mr Sweeney insisted, ‘and Nicola Healy was heard to say, “He’ll shank you.”’
‘She meant Conrad.’ The boy’s face was stark with anxiety.
‘An independent witness, with no vested interest in the outcome of this case, swears that Nicola Healy was referring to you. That it was you who boasted about having a knife.’
‘She’s wrong, then,’ said Garrington.
‘Are you asking the jury to take your word over that of an innocent bystander?’
‘Yes, ’cos it’s true.’
‘You had taken cocaine and been drinking alcohol earlier that evening?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How does it make you feel, cocaine?’
‘High.’ Someone laughed. Garrington betrayed the trace of a smirk. He was forgetting to play the penitent. Louise felt irritation whip through her.
‘Hyped up, aggressive?’ Mr Sweeney suggested.
‘No.’
‘Perhaps the mixture of alcohol and cocaine prompted you to seek out a confrontation, to become violent?’
‘No.’
‘You kicked Luke Murray?’
‘Yes,’ Garrington said.
‘Where?’
‘In the garden.’ People laughed. Louise felt a rush of hatred, dizzying, almost robbing her of control. She balled her fists, bit her tongue.
‘Where on his body?’ Mr Sweeney said quietly.
‘His legs.’
‘How many times?’
‘Don’t know.’ Garrington chewed at his lip.
‘Ten, or twenty?’
‘Not that many,’ he said.
‘How many?’
‘Maybe four.’
‘You wanted to hurt him. And when Jason Barnes tried to stop the abuse, you pulled a knife. I think you’re lying to me, to the jury, to Jason Barnes’ parents. You’re lying to save your neck.’
‘I’m not! Conrad had the knife.’
‘Luke Murray had humiliated you, hadn’t he? The picture he had taken on your birthday at the house party, he had posted it on the internet, made a fool out of you. You were humiliated, is that fair to say?’
Garrington hesitated. ‘Yeah.’
Louise heard Ruby beside her give a little sigh.
‘So you wanted revenge, and when Jason Barnes tried to prevent you, you were prepared to do anything to stop him.’
‘No.’
‘This is a pack of lies, isn’t it?’ said Mr Sweeney.
‘No.’
‘Where did you get rid of the knife?’
‘I didn’t have a knife,’ Garrington said.
‘You usually carry one.’
‘No.’ He was red-faced now, frowning.