Hard (9 page)

‘Well,
it’s
a good job I came then, isn’t
it.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes. Now,
we’ll
go into the kitchen and I’ll
put the kettle on.
I’ll
make tea, I’m sure you could
do with one.’

I nodded. ‘But you can’t make it. You know you can’t make it.’

He frowned then lifted his eyebrows, and I knew he was remembering
the past. I had to make the tea. I had to know what was in the cup.
Tea, sugar, milk and water.
Nothing else.
No, nothing else…

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I won’t make the tea. You’ll make the tea, and
then you’re going to pack a bag.’

I jerked my head up, frightened at the turn of events, at feeling
out of control. I had a job to do here, the perfect opportunity to obey a
command from my past, but I knew I
couldn’t
do it.
Wouldn’t
do it.
I’d
planned for
Michael to stay a short while then pack him off again, hoping no one else found
out.

‘What?’ I stared at him, widening my eyes.

‘I said
,
you’re going to pack a bag.’

‘What for?’

‘Because you’re coming to stay with me.’

Chapter
Four

Then

I was taken up some stairs and along a corridor to a room that
reminded me of those on TV, a place where police interrogated witnesses. It
seemed at odds with the building — one that was opulent and erected in days
gone by, all dark, carved wood and high ceilings. I wondered if this was where
prisoners were kept before being taken into the courtroom but dismissed it,
because
hadn’t
I heard somewhere that those rooms were
below the ground floor? It
didn’t
matter where they
were anyway. What mattered was that I was here, in this austere room, being led
towards a chair reminiscent of one from school — orange plastic with grey metal
legs — and a table with chipped white Formica and tea-stain rings.

The security guard pressed me down with a hand on my shoulder — unnecessary,
I thought — my back to the door. I glanced up at him, hoping
he’d
be forthcoming with reassurance. He
wasn’t
. He just
looked at me impassively,
then
went to stand against
the wall to my left, hands clasped in front of him. This
wasn’t
on, but who was I to just get up and leave? For all I knew I had to stay here
due to some law or other. If they suspected
I’d
been
with that man, maybe they had every right to do this.

‘I don’t know why I’m here,’ I said. ‘What am I here for?’

‘Not for me to say, really,’ the guard said.

His grave expression got on my nerves, and I wanted to jump up and
shove him, poke him in the chest and demand answers. Except from what
I’d
gathered so far he wouldn’t give any and it would be a
waste of my time.

‘Who are we waiting for?’ I asked, thinking I had a right to know.

‘Not sure.’ He shrugged.
‘Maybe the police.’

I held back a reply burning to come out — the police? —
as
it would have been a squeak. I frowned, wondering how it
had come to this. All
I’d
done was join a trial in
session.
Had been squashed
between a woman and that
man, minding my own business. And then that man had said what
he’d
said and everything had gone tits up. I
wouldn’t
be coming back tomorrow, I knew that much. Even
though the man had frightened me, now that
he’d
gone I
felt braver. I’d have done anything he’d asked five minutes ago, but now, when
I was safe from the likes of him, I decided that no, I wouldn’t be returning.

With the guard staring at an oblong, frosted window opposite that
let in
meagre
light because it was so dirty, I had
nothing to do but think until whoever was due to see me arrived. I was
frightened, no doubt about it, my legs a bit wobbly and my stomach rolling
over, but at the same time I was angry. I was an innocent here, taken out of
that court as though
I’d
done something wrong, and I
thought I deserved the pleasure of being pissed off about it. Would they let me
ring someone to let them know where I was?

I drummed my fingertips on the table and gazed around at the
pea-soup-
coloured
walls with darker
scuff marks
where maybe someone had kicked out or struggled.
My mind went into overdrive then, and I entertained scenarios where people were
manic to get out, to prove they
hadn’t
done what they
were being accused of.

A bit like
me, really.

The sound of the door opening had me jolting, and I turned to see
the questioning solicitor from the courtroom.
Brown hair,
handsome face, a man out of a fantasy.
He smiled tightly, studying me as
if he wondered whether I needed studying like that — all narrowed eyes and lips
a thin, tight line. From the looks of him
he’d
already
come to a conclusion about me, and it didn’t seem to be a good one.

‘Look,’ I said, the unfairness of the situation rising inside me.
I twisted around further. ‘I don’t know who you think I am or what I’ve done,
but I’m just a gawker. I came in to be nosey, all right? I was bored, had
always wanted to watch a court in session, and
that’s
it.’

He broadened his mouth into a smile that
could
only be taken
as condescending, and closed the door, then walked to the
chair on the other side of the table. He sat, placing a thin blue file on the
desk, and took an expensive silver pen from the outside pocket of his black suit
jacket. He leaned back, lifted one leg to rest his ankle on his knee, and put
the end of the pen in his mouth.
Ran it along his bottom lip.
A mouth made for kissing if ever there was one.

I thought I knew what he was up to, trying to put me under
pressure, staring at me like that. Yet he nodded as if confirming something to
himself, shook his head,
then
abruptly sat upright,
both feet firmly on the floor. He leant forward, forearms on the table, one
covering the bottom half of the file, and smiled. This time it appeared genuine.
Reached his hazel eyes — the same
colour
as that man in court.

‘Sorry about this,’ he said, extending a hand and offering it to
me.

I
didn’t
know whether to shake it or not.
Whether if I did it was some form of trap where
he’d
lull me into a false sense of security, pretending to be friendly then swiping
it away with a nasty barrage of questions. To be polite I took his hand in
mine, his firm grip unsurprising,
his
skin soft and
warm. He held on for a moment too long — a moment that had me blushing and
cursing
myself
for being so lame, so taken with him — then
released to spread that hand on top of the file. I stared at his long fingers,
at the webbing in between, and his perfect nails.

It looked like
he’d
had a manicure, and
for some reason I wanted to laugh at that. Not that there was anything wrong
with a man having a manicure — I mean, they were all the rage these days, plus men
having facials and whatnot, weren’t they — it was just that I didn’t know any
men who actually indulged. Or any who would admit to having had one. The men in
my circles were brash, loud, and thought a woman was just someone to hang out
with when they fancied sex. Like John.
I’d
needed to
broaden my horizons, to meet other people, ones on the other end of the
spectrum to those I knew, which was why I’d stopped going down The Wheatsheaf.
Stopped seeing John.
Stopped going out to clubs with Cara
and Lynne.
They’d
wet themselves now if they knew what
I’d got myself into.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked, needing to break the silence, to stop
myself staring at his hands. I lifted my head to look at him, trying to show
him I had nothing to hide.

‘I can’t go into too much detail, obviously, due to legalities and
being mid-trial, but there’s a concern for your safety.’

My stomach clenched and I wanted to be sick. My arms and legs felt
boneless, and my head…it seemed to be empty for a second or two.

‘What?’ I managed.

I wanted to rage that
I’d
just walked in
off the street, that I’d planned to watch the session then go home and write
about it, not be up here, being told I was in danger. That was what
he’d
meant, wasn’t it? A concern for my safety translated to
me that I was in danger, and even a dim spark would
realise
it was in relation to that man.

‘The gentleman behind you in the courtroom,’ he began, rolling his
pen between finger and thumb, ‘has been known to…cause problems. Now, I don’t
wish to alarm you but —’

‘Alarm me?’ I blurted, ready to get right up and walk the hell
out. ‘Bloody alarm me? Of
course
I’m alarmed. What
problems? What am I meant to be in danger of?’

‘Please, calm down.’ He reached across and covered my hand with
his.
Curled his fingers so one of the tips brushed the
underside of my wrist.
‘Let me just explain.’

‘I think you f
—
 
ought
to,’ I said, pleased that I
hadn’t said the rest of that word. In the
circumstances
it would have been understandable if I had, but he was so refined I didn’t want
to appear the common-as-muck woman he undoubtedly saw me as. A twenty-something
slung up not brought up.

He looked at me for a moment before shifting his attention to the
guard. ‘Would you mind bringing up some tea? Perhaps some lunch?’ He returned
his gaze to me, tilting his head in question.

‘What?’ I asked, unsure if he was asking me if I wanted a
sandwich.

‘Lunch?’ he asked. ‘I have an hour before court resumes and really
must eat. Would you like anything?’

I shook my head yet answered, ‘Yes. Please. Anything will do.’
Then wondered if, knowing my luck,
I’d
be brought an
egg sandwich and wouldn’t be able to eat it. Or one of those so-called All
Breakfast efforts that made me
want
to gag. ‘Cheese,’
I added. ‘Or ham and pickle. Or just ham. Please.’

He nodded, and the guard left the room. It felt different with him
gone, less threatening, and I supposed that was because I’d seen him as my
jailer, the one who’d had the unfortunate job of being the messenger, the one I
shouldn’t want to shoot but did. I swallowed, smiled an
embarrassed
smile at the solicitor, and shifted, uncomfortable under his gaze.

‘I haven’t done this quite right,’ he said, his accent telling me
he hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth but that he didn’t hail
from my neck of the ravaged woods either. ‘My name is Michael Jacobs. And you
are?’

‘Rebecca,’ I said. ‘Rebecca Matthews.’

‘Right then, Rebecca Matthews.’ He
smiled,
another genuine one. ‘Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?’ He opened the
file and took out a legal notepad. Poised his pen over it and looked at me,
waiting for me to speak.

I
didn’t
, just smiled stupidly instead.

‘How about,’ he said, ‘you tell me exactly what happened from the
moment you decided to enter court until you were brought up here.’

I told him while staring at his stiff white shirt collar, and once
I’d
finished I idly wondered if that collar was
uncomfortable, whether it rubbed and he couldn’t wait to take it off at the end
of a long day.
Couldn’t
wait for a woman to run her
hands across his bare chest. Lick it. Graze her teeth over it. I shook my head
to clear it of stupid thoughts and smiled a bit, hoping I could go now that
he’d
heard my little story.

‘Repeat that again, what he said after he’d asked where you were
going.’
Mr
Jacobs pulled his eyebrows together and
drew a circle around a sentence of his notes.

‘He asked me if I saw the woman on the stand, then said she’d be
next.’ A shudder went through me at having to remember it yet again.

‘What do you think he meant by that?’

‘It sounds mad, but I took it to mean she’d be killed. But I
didn’t
want to think that because it sounds silly, doesn’t
it?’ I fiddled with my fingers in my lap.

‘Perhaps to some it might. Go on. What else did he say?’

‘He said…’ I swallowed. ‘He said that I’d be back here tomorrow
and if I wasn’t he’d find me.’

Now that I came to think of it,
Mr
Jacobs telling me there was a concern for my safety brought all the fear I’d
felt in that courtroom flying back. I’d taken what that man had said as the
truth, that he’d meant what he’d said, and then, once I was safe, I’d shoved it
to the back of my mind as though I’d imagined it. But I
hadn’t
,
and now I began to
realise
that there
was
cause to worry. Why had he picked me
to talk to, to grab hold of? Had I just been in the wrong place at the wrong
time? He could have chosen the woman next to me, but saying that, she was
older, maybe less likely to believe him. Me, being younger…yes,
he’d
chosen well.