The Shadows of Justice (16 page)

The cameras were all zooming in to capture the single shot that told the story in an instant, the summary of a young woman’s torment.

A moan escaped her mouth, an inhuman, unearthly sound, and Annette tensed with the shock of a sudden decision. She sprang down the steps, half stumbled but righted herself, began sprinting hard, dodging around the fringes of the pack, moving fast, her long legs flying across the grey paving stones of the sunlit plaza.

Through the sticky heat of the late afternoon they ran.

The plaza was a mirrored box, relentlessly reflecting the sun’s power. From the silvered windows of the courthouse, the Civic Centre and the concrete paving, the withering rays attacked them.

Roger Newman stood stunned, overwhelmed by yet another ordeal in days which had become filled with so many. He shouted for his fleeing daughter, then began running after her, calling her name, time and again.

“Annette! Please! Annette!”

Even through the disguise of the breathlessness, the apprehension and incomprehension in his voice was pitiful. The scales had tipped a little further against a man’s sanity. Ivy was alongside Newman, running too, that dense usher’s robe a black cloud in his wake.

Dan grabbed Nigel’s shoulder and pulled him to join the pursuit. Other journalists were following. Some strained even to take the steps to get underway, an ignoble testament to an increasingly sedentary profession.

Annette was running towards the tower of the council building. She was still moving fast, filled with the strength of youth, but something else too – that strange spirit which had come upon her.

They rounded a couple of park benches and an old lady resting there, her coat pulled tight around her shoulders despite the day’s warmth.

Nigel’s face was streaming with sweat. They’d discarded the tripod, but the camera remained a dense, unforgiving weight. Dan reached out, took it and received a nod of thanks. The scarce breathing air was too precious to waste with words.

Annette passed the grey, sixties monolith of the Civic Centre. From the glass doorways people watched the careering procession. She was still running determinedly; she hadn’t even glanced back, despite her father’s shouts.

They passed under a couple of thin and pasty trees, this concrete expanse no place to live a fulfilling life. The temporary seconds of the shade were a relief from the pervasive heat. The concrete of the plaza had spent the day baking in the sun and was keenly releasing its stored energy.

Their reddened and breathless reflections passed in one of the algae-green, rectangular ponds. A couple of seagulls bobbed and ducked, their whiteness stark in the grimy waters.

They were nearing the Theatre Royal. Annette dodged around a line of traffic, crossed the road and tumbled through a yellow door into the multi-storey car park. Her father stumbled and crashed into a young couple carrying shopping bags. He ignored the cries and careered through the door after her. Ivy hesitated, pulled off his gown, screwed it into a ball and followed.

Dan lurched to a halt.

“What’re we doing?” Nigel gasped, as best he could. “We’re running out of time. Shouldn’t we be getting the story on air?”

“Maybe. But I’m getting one of those feelings about this.”

The rest of the pack were catching up; a couple more reporters and El at their head. All were panting hard.

Above, they could hear running feet. Through the concrete panels of the car park walls, a tall, thin silhouette was still sprinting.
A hundred yards behind were a couple more figures. They were on the sixth floor, one below the roof.

Dan handed the camera back to Nigel. He stepped back to get a better shot and began tracking the line of runners. Annette was jogging up the final ramp which led to the open air. Her pace was easing. A car passed, then another. One hooted a horn.

Newman and the usher were fifty yards behind. Echoes of Roger’s shouts resonated from the walls of the car park.

“Annette! Please, stop! Annette!”

A group of onlookers were gathering. A couple of young women, a man dressed in a suit, a trio of schoolchildren. A woman pushing a pram joined them, a young boy biting hard into an ice cream at her side.

The sun dipped behind the Civic Centre. The plunge into sudden shadow could have been a dive into a cooling sea.

Annette emerged onto the roof level. She was walking now, but still moving determinedly, even robotically. She looked thinner than ever and her hair stuck up in spikes against the clear background of the sky.

The two figures of her pursuers were closer, perhaps twenty yards behind. They’d also slowed to a walk. Roger was reaching out his arms.

“Annette! Come on love, let’s stop all this, eh? We’ll get through it, like we always do – together.”

The young woman had reached the corner of the level. There were no cars here, all now retrieved by their owners after a day’s work or shopping. A low fence ran around the concrete wall, the odd tuft of moss colouring its mundane, functional greyness.

Roger was stepping carefully towards his daughter. “Come on Annette. Let’s go home – please.”

The silhouette turned. A palm raised. Newman stopped, the sun flaring from the pate of his head.

“Come on love, this is silly. Let’s go and get something to eat and have a bottle of wine. We can get through this.”

He was trying to catch his breath, the words coming in staccato gulps. Ivy made to walk forwards, but Newman stopped him.

The dark outline of the young woman stretched out to find a foothold and pulled herself up onto the wall.

As one, the crowd of onlookers gasped.

“Annette,” Newman pleaded. “What’re you doing? That’s dangerous. Please, come down.”

She ignored him and turned her face forwards. Towards the court building and the statue of justice looking back at her.

Upon those below, the understanding of the look was lost. It could have been contempt, loathing, sadness or simple incomprehension. But at the proud lady, and her sword and scales, Annette stared.

“Shit,” El whispered. Nigel too was groaning. Beside him a man called 999. The woman was pulling her son away. But he was resisting, trying to turn back.

“Is she going to jump, Mummy?” the boy asked.

In the distance a siren wailed. At the top of the car park, perhaps seventy feet above them, Annette spread her arms wide.

And now Newman’s voice was filled with panic.

“Annette! You’re frightening me. Love, please come down. We can do whatever you want. We can go out for a meal. Or we can go home and talk. Just come down… please.”

A seagull screeched in the sky. Newman took a careful pace forwards, then another.

The figure of his daughter began to rock back and forth.

“Annette! Don’t do this. You’re scaring me. What about college? What about the company? You’ve got so much more to do with it.”

Another siren joined the first. Newman stepped forwards again, Ivy beside him. The usher was crying silently, tears streaming down his face.

“Please Annette!” Newman begged. “Don’t do this.”

The silhouette turned. A hand raised, as if waving. An easy breeze gently ruffled the spikes of Annette’s hair. It could have been nature’s fond goodbye to one of her beautiful creations.

The young woman’s feet shuffled on the narrowness of the ledge. A couple of loose chippings fell and clattered down to the pavement.

The crowd drew in a collective breath. They had become one in fear and dread. People began to reach out for the comfort of friends.

Annette looked down, studied the expanse of the concrete below. The patterns of the paving stones, the dark waters of the ponds, the trees, the lines of benches.

And gazing over them all, the guardian statue of justice.

To the cloudless sky, Annette lifted her head. She took in one final taste of the sweet air and caress of the warming sun. And then she fell, pitching forwards in a graceful dive, plunging in a curving, elegant arc, flying in freedom through the perfect, autumn’s day until her body smashed into the pavement.

Dan managed one look. Just a brief, half-second, no more than a snapshot, but enough to capture that vision for always.

The shattered body. The fingers of fresh blood stretching from the lifeless head. The cracked porcelain of those fine cheekbones. The one open eye, more contented in death than it was in life.

He fell to his knees and was violently sick.

In the unlikely refuge of the satellite van they sought shelter. Away from the ambulances and the hopeless efforts of the paramedics. Away from the police officers, stretching out the plastic tape of a cordon and trying not to look at that which they were protecting. Away from the gossips, gathering to share their thin and faux horror.

And away from Roger Newman, crying into the arms of the usher. A blanket around his shoulders, despite the heat of the day. A mug of tea thrust into his shaking hand, from which he had taken not a sip. A policewoman trying to guide him to one of the vans parked beside the multi-storey.

As sleepwalkers, Nigel and Dan trudged back to the court. Not a word, not a gesture, just weighted legs moving in automatic time. A pair of friends and colleagues, united over years by the bonds of humour, professionalism and a savouring of life, now with nothing to share except that of which they dare not speak.

So much they thought they had seen and faced down, so much they had come through. But never like this. A black cloak had been cast over them, excluding all light from the world, even on this sunshine day.

It was half past five. An hour until
Wessex Tonight
took to the air. But never had a deadline felt so inconsequential. It was as important as a wash prior to the guillotine or watering the garden minutes before Armageddon.

Nigel pulled the door closed. It was a time for shutting out the fear of reality. In the van they stood, and stood was all they did.

On every wall, the windscreen, the seats, even on the clocks, there was the broken, lifeless face of a 17-year-old woman. A personal ghost, to be with them always.

“What do we do?” Loud asked, quietly.

“Who cares?” Nigel replied.

He stepped across to the front of the van and sat on the passenger seat, head bowed between his knees. Loud folded his arms and sucked at his teeth. Dan reached for a bottle of water and swigged hard. It cleared some of the tang of sickness, but he could still taste bile. He poured a cascade over his head. Some splashed onto Loud and the edit desk, but the engineer didn’t react.

There was only stillness and silence. And it was enough. The safety of the half light of the cramped space. A place that was not
out there
, an unwanted existence where young women were so traumatised by the evils inflicted upon them that they could embrace death from the top of a car park.

Dan’s mobile rang. Mechanically, he answered. It was Lizzie. One of the news agencies had put out a flash about Annette’s suicide.

“Did you see it?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you film it?”

“Yeah.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you ok?”

“No. I’m fucked up.”

“Ok, we can talk about it later. You’d better get on with editing the report.”

The thought had hardly occurred to Dan. “The report?”

“I know you’ve had a traumatic time. But it’s a huge story and it’s your job – your duty – to get it on air.”

“Whatever.”

He cut the call and turned the mobile off. The silence returned. The clock ticked around to twenty to six.

“What we going to do, then?” Loud asked.

“I’m going home,” Dan replied. “I’m going to get so drunk I won’t remember my own name, let alone…”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence. From this moment, he never would. The sight must be banished, exiled, confined to a corner of the memory from which it could never escape.

A banging on the door made them recoil. It was Adam, tie low on his collar, face streaked with sweat.

“Did you film it?”

“I wish people would stop asking me that!” Dan shouted. “Yes, we fucking filmed it, all right? She landed a few feet from me. She died a few feet from me. Splat, dead, dead, dead, right by me. We saw the lot. We filmed everything. I’ve even got some of her fucking blood on my trousers if you want a look. Ok?!”

“Don’t you start—”

“Then don’t you start coming in here and—”

Dan felt a pair of arms around him. The grip was firm, but kind. It was Nigel.

“Calm it down,” he said. “We’ve all had a shock.”

“No bloody shit,” Adam grunted.

“Yeah, right,” Dan snorted.

“We’re all supposed to be on the same side, here,” Nigel continued.

“What are you going to do?” Dan asked Adam. “Are you going after the Edwards?”

“What’s the bloody point? I couldn’t even get them for kidnapping. I hardly stand a chance of pinning Annette’s suicide on them. What about you?”

“I’m going home,” Dan replied, determinedly.

“Home?”

“Yes, home –where I live. The only place I want to be right now. Curtains closed, on the sofa, bottle of whisky in hand. And oblivion, ASAP. Anything but this.”

“Like hell you’re going home. We need you to tell people what the Edwards did.”

Dan picked up his satchel and stepped deliberately down from the van.

“I’m out of here. I quit. From the TV and your bloody police work, too. I can’t take this shit any more. I never asked for it and I don’t want it.”

Adam grabbed Dan’s jacket and slammed him back against the side of the van. He tried to slap the detective’s arms away, but he was too strong, too intense, hurtling too fast down the red tunnel of his rage. His eyes were wild and his breath smelt stale.

“Get back in that fucking van and start telling people what happened here today.”

Flecks of foaming spittle flew with the words. Adam was set rigid and staring, veins standing out dangerously, the hot blood pumping hard. His arms were locked, his look with them.

As for Dan, his heart was hammering, his head pounding. But despite that he felt numb and detached, so far away from the world, drugged with the horror he’d seen.

Nigel tried to push between them, muttering calming noises. But it was an ineloquent rambling from an unexpected source which broke through the flaming trance.

“I dunno, but… well, I know it’s not down to me, but… I reckon he’s right.”

Loud was leaning out of the truck. He looked surprised with himself, but also determined with the discovery of what was right. “I mean – if the law can’t get ‘em, then we’re the next best thing – aren’t we?”

Nigel was nodding too, and holding out the memory card of the pictures they’d filmed. He kept it at arm’s length, as if fearful of the horrors confined in the nondescript plastic box.

Dan let go of Adam’s jacket, took the card, and stepped back into the van.

***

The merciless turning of the clock had taken the time on to a quarter to six. But for once, the pressure of the deadline was welcome. It allowed no time to think or feel, only to react.

“We’ll do the report chronologically,” Dan told Loud. “It’s the quickest way. Put down some pictures of Adam coming out of court, then we’ll go to that bit of his statement about the words of the jury and judge speaking for themselves.”

He used the couple of minutes to sketch out the rest of the script and accept a decision he knew was already made. Upon both shoulders were demons, whispering and urging, pushing and pleading, telling him to give in. For the sake of Adam, Loud, Nigel and Dan, himself, but most of all for Annette.

He should resist, remember the rules. The mantra learnt and repeated from the earliest days onwards.

Never get involved
.

But in life, there were times to cross the line.

After Adam’s words, Dan wrote one more segment of script. ‘As the police made their views clear, the Edwards emerged – apparently deliberately – and there was a confrontation.’

Loud inserted the exchange between Martha and Adam. Then it was time for Martha’s interview, her reaction to the verdict. Her gloating face filled the monitors.

“Blimey,” Loud grunted. “That’s going to make her look bloody evil, given what happens later.”

And to that, Dan’s only reply was an iced smile.

It was ten past six. They had reached the most difficult part of the report. Dan took a few seconds to think, while Loud laid down Roger Newman’s garbled statement, followed by Annette running away.

Over that shot Dan said nothing. The action of the pictures, the camera rolling as they ran captured the drama in a way commentary never could. Less is more, one of television’s golden rules.

“Now the tricky bit,” Dan said to himself.

Loud edited the pictures of Annette running along the car park and to the roof, her father and Ivy following.

A few words were scribbled down, crossed out. Dan tried a few more. They still weren’t right. Not for something this important.

The clock measured off another minute.

6.20.

Dan tapped his pen on the notepad and took a swig of water. Outside, Nigel was setting up the camera. He kept looking at his watch. Loud glanced up at the clock.

And still the seconds passed.

“Don’t try to be clever, idiot. If in doubt, just KISS – Keep It Short and Simple,” he muttered and began writing.

“Clearly distraught, Annette ran to a nearby car park, her father in desperate pursuit. And then, in the middle of a city, in front of hundreds of onlookers, on a beautiful, cloudless day, came the moment that despair drove a young woman to take her own life.”

Loud went to lay down the shot of Annette jumping, but Dan reached out and stopped him. “We don’t show people dying on the TV, my friend,” he said kindly. “At least not at half past six, with kids watching. Stop the sequence when she’s standing on the ledge. That’s plenty enough.”

Nigel was standing outside the door watching. As the last shot of the report was laid, he leaned forwards and gave Dan a gripping hug. Loud watched for a moment and then joined in.

***

In years of enthusiastic practice, Dan had come to realise an unexpected truth about his passion for beer. Drunkenness can be much more about mood than intake.

The younger version of today’s man had noticed he could grow tipsy on just a few pints, if he was feeling buoyant. But if he was down and dour, even a swim in a lake of ale was unlikely to make an inroad on his sobriety.

Thus it was this evening. Dan had supped a few pints and they hadn’t shifted his mood in the slightest.

In truth, it was worse even than that. He had partaken of a fair measure of spirits too, although he could probably claim that was a professional requirement. The caring cameraman and guardian that was Nigel had jogged to a corner shop and bought a half bottle of cheap whisky.

He offered it across as Dan prepared for the live broadcast.
The gift was so gratefully received it was difficult not to snatch. The amber firewater restored colour to the complexion, roughened the voice and steadied the nerves. And so, once more, they’d got away with it.

Lizzie rang afterwards and pointedly didn’t mention Dan hanging up on her. But she managed to do so in such a way that the omission was painfully obvious. It was always there in its absence, like a tooth newly missing from a mouth.

The editor-beast pronounced the report
pretty acceptable
,
but went on to issue a catalogue of demands for a follow up story tomorrow. Dan made soothing noises, pretended to take diligent notes of the insane litany of demands and ended the call as soon as he could.

Some days, enough was more than enough.

He went home, gave Rutherford a cuddle, took the dog for a short run around Hartley Park, showered, changed, caught a bus and headed for town. As an afterthought, Dan ordered a burger and chips from a stand. The day’s disarray meant he’d forgotten to eat.

In the hideaway of a forsaken corner of a backstreet bar, Dan sipped at his beer, gathered his fortitude and slowly allowed the memories to return. The pub was quiet and he was left undisturbed.

It was as he began operations on the third of the succession of pints that Dan reached a resolution. He took out his mobile and sent Katrina a text message. With a woman like her it had to be finely judged.

Hell of a day. Horrible what happened. I know you were close to Annette – hope you’re ok?

It took another half a pint’s debate before Dan added a kiss and sent the message. He sat back and finished the drink. It was time to move on.

He began walking, towards the plaza and the courts. If there was to be any chance of sleep tonight this stampede of screaming thoughts would have to be calmed.

The Chancellery was the nearest bar to the courts, its frontage looking out on the plaza. And it was to there that the weary and woebegotten traveller of the soul slowly headed.

***

The city was filled with the night. Caves of darkness dominated with only the rare intrusions of streetlights and shop windows. People passed, chatted and chuckled. Taxis, cars, buses and motorbikes rumbled and buzzed.

Life went on. It always did.

The air was still warm but sharpening as the memory of the sun’s benevolence faded. From the cellar of a club came the piercing sound of a band tuning up. A line of joggers puffed their way by, each wearing a reflective vest flaring in the occasional flash of light. Pigeons watched from ledges, cooing their contentment as they settled for sleep.