The Girl Who Came Back (27 page)

‘Yes, I thought she would.’

‘Because she was a kind and sensitive friend?’

‘Most of the time, yes.’

‘So she did reply and she came to see you?’

‘That’s right.’

‘When she arrived, did you go into the house first, or straight to the stables?’

‘Straight to the stables.’

Why did you go to the stables? You have to ask her why.

Cosgrove said, ‘I believe the stables are some distance from the house. Did you drive Daisy there, or did you walk?’

‘I drove.’

‘And had Daisy ever been to the stables before?’

‘Yes, a few times, we even camped out there once, after my dad had sold the horses.’

As Jules’s mouth fell open Stephie shouted, ‘You are such a liar!’

The judge’s head came up. ‘I’ve already warned you once,’ he said crossly, and moments later a bailiff was escorting a fuming, crying Stephie from the court.

Jules was watching Amelia, wondering how it felt to lie with such a flagrant disregard of the fact that people in the room
knew
she was lying. Including her father. There had never been any camping out, and as far as Jules was aware there had never been any horses either – or none that had ever been mentioned to her and Daisy.

‘You told us yesterday,’ Laura Cosgrove continued, ‘that Daisy wasn’t as sympathetic to the discovery of your mother’s whereabouts as you’d expected her to be.’

‘No, she wasn’t.’

‘Could this be because you hadn’t actually found out where your mother was?’

Amelia’s face hardened. ‘I thought I had,’ she stated coldly.

‘Because you’d tracked down someone living in Cornwall with the same name and who was the same age?’

‘That’s right.’

Jules waited for Cosgrove to tell her that the police hadn’t found anyone who’d met the criteria when they’d carried out their own search, but all she said was, ‘I believe you knew from the age of nine that your mother was dead, but you decided, perhaps in your teens, maybe even later, that a mysterious disappearance would evoke more sympathy and interest than the plain truth.’

Amelia’s eyes flashed as she stiffened. ‘That’s not true,’ she replied, glancing at her father.

Cosgrove moved on. ‘Dean Foggarty claims that Daisy was already tied up when he arrived at the stables. Is
that
true?’

‘No, it isn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to do that. Daisy was taller and stronger than me. She could easily have fought me off. Anyway, I had no reason to tie her up.’

‘You had plenty of reason if it was your intention to kill her …’

‘My Lord …’

‘Quite.’

Unapologetic, Cosgrove said, ‘She wouldn’t have been able to fight you off if you were threatening her with a knife.’

‘Where’s the question?’ Samia Henshawe demanded.

‘Were you able to tie Daisy up because you were threatening her with a knife?’ Cosgrove rephrased.

‘I didn’t tie her up. Dean did, when he came.’

Jules looked at Dean. The intensity of his loathing as he stared at Amelia made it clear to Jules, and maybe the jury, that the girl was still lying, but it was her word against his.

‘OK, so let’s go back to the text you sent Dean telling him you had a surprise for him. Would I be correct in thinking that Daisy was the surprise?’

‘No. I mean, I didn’t send Dean a text.’

Cosgrove said, ‘Did you know about Dean’s Facebook page, the one we’ve seen here in the court?’

‘No, that was the first time I saw it.’

Cosgrove appeared surprised. ‘Really? Are you sure that previous knowledge of this page wasn’t what persuaded you to urge Dean to rape Daisy Bright?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘But you knew from reading the page, didn’t you, that it was what he wanted?’

‘Yes, but … I mean, I never saw the page, so no.’

‘Yes or no?’

‘No.’

Surely to God someone had checked her computer.

Jules asked Andee during a recess, ‘Wouldn’t someone have checked her computer?’

‘Yes,’ Andee assured her, ‘and apparently she did view the page, several times.’

‘So why didn’t the prosecutor pursue it?’

Andee shook her head in bewilderment as she said, ‘It’s a question I’d like answered myself. Perhaps she’ll get round to it this afternoon.’

‘You say,’ Laura Cosgrove declared, ‘that you went to the main house to fetch a knife.’

Amelia simply looked at the lawyer. Clearly she’d been schooled only to answer if there was a question.

‘I know I’m asking myself,’ Cosgrove continued, ‘and I’m sure the jury is too, why on earth you didn’t seize this opportunity to raise the alarm?’

Amelia’s eyes went down as her breath caught on a sob. ‘I – I don’t know,’ she stammered. ‘I wish I had … I just wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘But you claimed to know that Dean was about to rape your friend, that seems pretty clear to me. So why didn’t you raise the alarm?’

‘I – I’m sorry. I know I should have. I wish I had.’

‘So we’re agreed that you didn’t put a stop to what was happening when you could have? Instead, you held a knife to Daisy’s face while …’

‘No, no I didn’t do that.’

‘But you’ve already told the court that you did.’

‘But not in the way you’re making it sound. I didn’t want her to be hurt …’

‘So what did you want?’

‘I don’t know. I – it all happened so fast …’

‘Isn’t it true that you tricked Daisy into coming to see you with the sole purpose of seeking revenge for the way she and her mother had rejected you several months before? You planned the whole thing, Amelia …’

Amelia was throwing panicked looks her father’s way. ‘I know how it must seem,’ she protested, ‘but I swear it’s not how it happened. I really cared for Daisy. I’d never want anything bad to happen to her …’

‘And yet according to your own testimony you stood by while she was stabbed no fewer than fifteen times …’

‘I didn’t stand by …’

‘Then what did you do?’

‘I – I can’t remember. I – I was shouting at him to stop. I tried to grab him, but he was too strong.’

Cosgrove eyed her coldly.

Amelia eyed her back.

‘It was you who carried out the stabbing, wasn’t it?’ Cosgrove said quietly.

Amelia’s eyes flashed. ‘No! It was him,’ she cried, pointing at Dean.

‘With his left hand?’

‘I don’t know. If you say so.’

Cosgrove’s manner remained chill. ‘What I say, Amelia, is that it was your left hand that carried out the stabbings, it was
you
who lost control, not Dean Foggarty …’

Henshawe was on her feet, but Laura Cosgrove was already saying, ‘No more questions, my Lord,’ and with a flourish of her gown she retook her seat.

The other part of the trial that had always remained in Jules’s mind was the judge’s summing-up.

‘When you go away to make your deliberations,’ he told the jury, ‘I would ask you not to forget at any point that an innocent young girl lost her life that day. I think this fact has been somewhat overlooked at times during the past few days, but it is why we are here. I will remind you again that the charge is joint enterprise, so it is your job to decide whether Amelia Quentin and Dean Foggarty conspired to cause harm to Daisy Bright that resulted in her death. But even if you decide there was no conspiracy, the fact that they were both present at the killing can render them each as guilty as the other.’

He’d said much more, but that was the part that had stayed with Jules and Kian. It had encouraged them to believe that the judge, at least, was on their side.

The jury came back into court far sooner than anyone expected. It was impossible to know whether this was a good sign, or not, but Kian and his mother were optimistic.

Jules had no idea how she felt; all she knew was that no matter what the verdict turned out to be, it was never going to bring Daisy back.

It was only when the foreman declared them both to be, ‘Guilty as charged,’ and a buzz of surprise threaded through the court, that she realised she was losing her grip on the world.

As Joe clutched her in an embrace she watched Dean sobbing and looking around for his parents. She saw them, hunched and broken, helping to hold one another up as they made their way to the door. They would probably be allowed a few minutes with their son before he was taken back to prison to await sentencing.

Jules’s heart was breaking for them; she didn’t want to believe he was guilty any more than they did, but there was no getting away from the Facebook page and all it implied.

Next to him Amelia was as white as a sheet and staring at her father in a state of abject shock. She clearly hadn’t expected this, and by the look of him, nor had he. They must have told themselves, had perhaps even been assured by their lawyers, that she would walk away from her crime, that being who they were, with the contacts they had, the law could be made to work in her favour.

They knew now that when it came to taking the life of an innocent girl, they were no more special in the eyes of a jury than anyone else.

That ought to have been an end to it; the guilty verdict should have brought the closure they so desperately needed, and maybe it would have if the sentencing hadn’t made such a mockery of it, had even seemed to trivialise Daisy’s life.

For the premeditated – and in Jules’s and Kian’s book it had always been premeditated – killing of their precious only child, the judge, who they’d thought was on their side, had decided that Amelia Quentin need only be sentenced to five years in prison.

The old boys’ network might not have achieved the verdict they’d wanted, but in the light of that failure the sentencing was no doubt being viewed as a triumph.

It was Dean’s punishment that came as the biggest shock. The judge’s comments were scathing as he accused the boy of plotting everything, most particularly the rape.

‘Whether it was the intention to end Daisy Bright’s life after committing this appalling act we will probably never know,’ he stated gravely, ‘but it did end, and so the sentence I am going to impose on you, Dean Foggarty, is for ten years.’
Ten years
, twice as long as Amelia.

Jules watched as they were taken away. She had no idea how Amelia was feeling, she only hoped it was terrified and ashamed and as guilty as she undoubtedly was. As for Dean, though she still couldn’t make herself believe that he’d deliberately harmed Daisy, she still couldn’t forget the Facebook page.

‘Are you OK?’ Kian asked as they left the court.

Jules shook her head. She had no idea how she was feeling. All she knew was that this wasn’t an end to it. It couldn’t be, because there was simply no way that they or their daughter had received proper justice from this court.

AMELIA DIDN’T WRITE
to Jules from prison, which was just as well because Jules would have torn the letter to shreds rather than read a single word her daughter’s murderer had to say.

Dean wrote during the first week of his sentence, covering page after page with the detail of what had happened that day, swearing that everything had taken place the way he’d told his mother, and the court. He was sure, he said, that Amelia had erased the text from his phone while he was holding Daisy after it had happened, sobbing his heart out and trying to will her back to life.

I loved Daisy more than anyone else in the world
, he wrote in a careful, almost childlike hand,
she meant everything to me. That stupid Facebook page was all a front. Daisy knew about it, because we made it up together. I can see now that we got carried away and went too far, but it felt like a joke at the time. We had no idea it would backfire the way it did. She knew I was gay, she was the only one I ever told, and we thought, stupidly I can see that now, that if I made it easy for my parents to find the page they wouldn’t suspect how I really am. They have really strong views about homosexuals, and I was afraid of what they might do if they found out. Daisy said I should tell them anyway, that she’d come with me if I wanted her to, and if they threw me out I could always come and live with you.

I miss her so much, and I hate myself more each day for not being able to save her from the evil that calls itself Amelia. I deserve to be where I am just for that.

I swear I didn’t rape her, Jules, at least not in the sense everyone means it. I truly believed, so did Daisy, that if I made myself do as Amelia said she’d let Daisy go, but it turned out she was lying. There’s something horribly wrong with her, as frenzied and out of control as she seemed while she was attacking Daisy, it was like she was enjoying it. I just know that she’d planned it all, from the lie about her mother, to getting me there, to trying to frame me for what she did. She’s a maniac, a psychopath, she shouldn’t ever be allowed to go free.

I hope this letter hasn’t upset you too much, but I feel desperate for you to know that you were never wrong about me. I always loved Daisy more than anyone, and I always will.

Jules had wept a lot over that letter. She still had it somewhere, but she hadn’t looked at it in a long time, although she’d answered it to let Dean know that she believed him.

I showed your letter to a detective we’ve become friendly with
, she told him,
her name’s Andee Lawrence. She gave it to a lawyer who wasn’t involved in the case, but apparently without any new evidence there can’t be a new trial. I know you weren’t asking for that, but I’m sure you must have been hoping. If anything changes of course I will do my best to support you, and if it’s any consolation meanwhile, Kian believes you too, and so does the detective who read the letter.

He’d written again, telling her how much her words had meant to him, and letting her know that his parents, on the advice of their spiritual leader, had moved away from Kesterly. They were in Leicester, apparently, but Dean didn’t pass on an address and Jules didn’t write back to ask for one. She saw nothing to be gained from remaining in touch any more, it would be painful for them all, and do nothing to help them move on.