The Shadows of Justice

For Dad,

For everything.

At last, it was time. The moment of justice.

The door in the corner of the overly warm room, lit bright with yellow, autumn sun, creaked open and the twelve began filing through.

They had taken the same, familiar walk for so many mornings and afternoons. But this time was different. The procession was slower, footsteps measured. Heavier with the knowledge of expectation and the weight of such a judgement to be delivered.

As one, the eyes of those packed into the room found the foreman, as he politely held the door for his fellows. Each stare studied his expression, waiting to see and wanting to be the first to know.

The story had started with one veteran newspaper reporter, cynical as acid; such is the fate of a hack who spends fifteen years covering the courts. He passed it onto a young, sharp-suited detective, who told a friend of the victim’s family, who in turn handed on the golden nugget of insight.

So the ripples of knowledge ran. Like all such adages, each wanted to claim it for their own, and fast the whisper had spread.

Want to know the verdict before it’s announced? Keep your eyes on the foreman. If he can look at the defendants, it’s not guilty. If he can’t
…

And so each gaze was set upon this middle-aged, middle-class man, as ordinary as air. His skin was a little flushed, his shirt off-white with wear. His beard sprouted a hint unkempt, his fashionless glasses shined in the sunlight. And, as if he too was aware of the whisper, his own eyes were set away, upon the door, waiting as his eleven peers passed by.

Through one of the skylights, a gang of seagulls screeched a contemptuous call. Sunbeams floated in the still air. The footsteps of the jurors echoed across the old court’s aged boards.

And the moment drew nearer.

***

Every seat of the public gallery was full, just as they had been for every day of the hearing. Billboards carried the headlines of the daily developments. Countless thousands of excited words were cast into the ether by radio and television reporters. The web buzzed with the digital traffic of theory and speculation.

Each day, there was a queue outside the court for seats. And as the days went on, the disciplined line, so beloved by the British, would form earlier and earlier and grow longer and longer.

Only two seats were always reserved; those in the front row at the very centre. Around this orderly arrangement had grown a hierarchy of ghouls. The greatest of favours, the proudest of a bore’s boasts, be it at dinner table or bar, was to neighbour these seats; to feel the reactions of their occupants played out, so close, so very intimate, as each sting of evidence was aired.

For here was the victim. Someone who had to suffer, wherever they went, the reflex scrutiny that abets notoriety. As subtle as an earthquake, however much they might think otherwise, people would nudge each other and stare.

But at this moment, unique amongst all the weighty parade that had passed here, one seat was empty. The only one in the entire court to be that way; the only domino missing from the long line.

And the most paramount by far. The cog at the hub of the great legal machine. The reason all were here, the focus of every attention, even in her absence.

A weary man rested a father’s hand across where she had sat. He leant forwards, almost doubled, face flushed, sweat growing on the baldness of his crown. His eyes were a boxer’s: lined, wearied, pummelled and reddened by the repeated blows of the suffering he had endured.

And there had been so much. In the drowning, whirlpool hours of the crime itself, in the long weeks of this trial and in all the onerous days between.

But still, as with everyone else, his sight was set upon the jury box.

And now five were settled.

***

At the back of the court a woman sneezed and muttered an apology. But no one turned. On the bench, high at the head of the court, the judge tapped a hand on a pile of papers.

It would be his last case after sixteen years as the resident judge, a career spent dealing with the most notorious crimes the south-west of England had known. He would retire by Christmas, a decision the official announcement put down to a ‘desire to explore other avenues in life’.

There was no quote from the subject himself, a silence interpreted as more eloquent even than the laser words he reserved for the malfeasants who appeared here. Or perhaps it was a result of the eccentricities which, the rumours had it, the learned judge had been exhibiting of late. Something the kinder sorts put down to the fraying of the fragile human sanity so often seen in grief.

He picked at the purple blaze of his robe and let a slow stare slip across the cast of the law. Barristers adjusting wigs and gowns in poor impersonations of indifference. Solicitors, clerks, detectives. All waiting, all preparing for victory or defeat.

A pen fell from a bench, rolled an unseen percussion across the wooden floor and rested unclaimed.

At the far end of the tight knot of police officers, a tall, well-groomed detective pulled a distracted finger at the pure white of his shirt. His neck was red, and he itched at it before turning the irritable habit to the thick gold band of his wedding ring. The worth of six months of investigations would be decided in just a handful of seconds.

Decided by not even a sentence; a mere word or two.

On either side of the Chief Inspector sat a woman, one dark haired and a few years younger, and the other with auburn hair and a little older. Each was working hard to favour the other with the thin façade of a colleague’s neutral smile, and calm, professional composure. Even if they were far from the feelings pumping in their blood.

Now eight of the jurors were settled. And the ninth, a young man with a tussle of blond hair, was shifting a thin and threadbare cushion ready to join them.

Behind the plate glass of the secure dock a woman sat back, her legs crossed in serenity. Her face was unreadable, unreachable, remarkable for a lack of emotion in this tightening moment. What little expression there might be hovered aloof and detached. It was as if she were a scientist who had set in play this curious experiment, and who merely had to observe the triviality of its conclusions.

One hand rose and a long finger shaped a curl of ginger hair. The sunlight fell on the sprays of freckles which patterned the paleness of her face. Beside sat a man, similar but different in looks. He was leaning forwards, the pull of a T-shirt stretching across the inflated muscles of his chest. His hair stood short and spiked, a cleft pitting his chin. It was the director’s look of a classic star, but he was here to play no hero.

So often had it been said, amongst those who filed daily into the public gallery, how very unlikely they looked to be accused of such a crime. She 30, a landmark age that should be amidst the founding times of career and family. Him a year and a half older. And if all the claims and charges were true, such venomous bitterness seethed within the two siblings.

And some said, so very quietly and always checking over their shoulders to be sure of the confidence, if indeed it was true – how they had come to be this way – then perhaps it was difficult to wholeheartedly condemn them.

***

Outside the courtroom, along an unseen corridor, a door banged shut. On the press benches a couple of court artists sketched at notebooks. The reporters that encircled them were poised, ready to break the news for which they had been waiting.

Ten jurors were seated now. There was just one more before the foreman would have to turn to the court and all the assembled would see where his look fell. But, as if the whims of fate could never resist one final tease for the earthbound fools of the human race, the last juror was an older lady. She, of course, had to fuss with her jacket and smooth down her skirt before she could even consider the possibility of lowering herself to the wooden bench.

A stifled groan rose from the public gallery. The father raised an arm and rubbed at his chest, massaging circles around his heart. Each breath won felt a wearying battle. The black gown of an usher floated over and, with practice born of experience, passed across the platitude of a glass of water.

Overhead, the thundering clatter of a low helicopter beat across the clear blue of the sky. The judge’s eyes flickered upwards with a look that, were it possessed of physical force, would surely have been enough to shoot down the aircraft.

And the stillness settled once more.

On the press benches, at the far end, ready to burst out and break the story, Dan Groves inked and fattened the heading on his notepad.

Verdict
– At bloody last
.

He picked at the sticky cotton of his shirt. For every day of the six weeks of the trial, Dan had sat here. And for each of the five days the jury had deliberated he had waited. Like everyone else, drinking too much coffee. Trying to read a newspaper or magazine and fated always to fail. Jumping every time the tannoy crackled.

How many calls for barristers, solicitors and witnesses to attend a different hearing had they endured? Or routine reminders of fire safety procedures and requests not to leave bags unattended? How many before finally came the awaited words:

Verdict will now be taken in Court Three
.

Eleven of the jurors were eventually, at last, in their seats and settled. The foreman was finally turning towards the court.

And Dan couldn’t help himself from reaching out to grip the file – the fat folder containing his notes on this extraordinary case – heavy as it was with details of the intense and chaotic days of six months ago.

The days that had brought them here.

To the silent, resonating roar of this moment of justice.