The Girl Who Came Back (26 page)

Dean’s humiliation was hard to watch; harder still was discovering what he’d been hiding all these years. A crush, yes, they’d all known about that, but to have taken things so far …

‘You have even,’ the lawyer continued, ‘written about your fantasies as if they were reality, describing to your eager followers the taste of Daisy’s – Danni’s – kiss, the feel of her breasts, right up to the taking of her virginity.’

Joe was so tense by now that Jules tightened her hold on his hand to try and calm him. ‘Remember, it’s not true,’ she whispered. ‘He never did any of those things.’

‘In his head he did,’ Joe growled, ‘and that’s bad enough. The guy’s sick.’

‘… and here,’ the lawyer was saying, ‘is a post claiming that Danni enjoyed rough sex and you were happy to give it to her. “The rougher the better, she loves to pretend I’m raping her, very happy to oblige. Totally awesome.”’

Jules’s eyes closed. Her heart was like a clenched fist in her chest, trying to ward off any more. So Daisy had been betrayed, brutalised and shown no mercy at all at the end by one of her closest friends.

When it came time for Amelia to perform – for that was what she did on the stand, perform – it was no easier to bear. In many ways it was far worse.

She lied, wept and whispered her way through her lawyer’s questions, glancing occasionally at the jury, or up at the judge, but mostly she stared at Samia Henshawe QC, an elegant, self-assured woman with a kindly voice and exotic eyes, who was taking her carefully through the friendship she’d built up with Daisy and how much it had meant to her.

Were Jules not hearing it with her own ears she’d never have believed anyone capable of lying so convincingly, especially in a court of law. In halting, breathy tones Amelia described days she’d spent with Daisy that Jules knew had never occurred, much less in the way she was claiming. There had been no shopping trips, just the two of them, with Amelia spending hundreds, sometimes a thousand or more pounds on Daisy, any more than there had been sleepovers at Crofton Park with midnight picnics and long, secret chats about the boys they fancied, or the film company they were going to start when Daisy left college (which Amelia would finance), or how eager Daisy was to help Amelia to find her mum.

‘So when you sent the text telling Daisy you’d actually found your mother,’ Samia Henshawe said gently, ‘you totally believed Daisy would be thrilled for you and want to discuss what, if anything, you should do about it?’

‘That’s right,’ Amelia replied meekly.

‘And when Daisy came did she have any thoughts on it?’

Amelia’s eyes went down as she shook her head. ‘Not really. I mean, she did, but not like I was expecting.’

‘Please tell us what she said.’

Amelia shrugged nervously. ‘She got angry with me. She said I was insane for always trying to find my mum when it was obvious my mum didn’t want to know me.’

Looking injured for her, Henshawe said, ‘This must have come as quite a shock, when she’d always been so supportive over the matter before?’

Amelia nodded. ‘Yes, it was. I didn’t know what to say. I really thought she was going to help me, but she kept going on about me being a loser and how no one liked me so why did I think my mum was going to be any different?’

Henshawe frowned. ‘So some pretty hurtful stuff?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you ask her to stop?’

‘I’m not sure … I was so upset … I was crying and asking her why she was being so mean …’

‘Had she ever been like it before?’

‘Not very often.’

‘So she had been like it before?’

‘Only once or twice when she said things to humiliate me in front of other people, or she’d call me a stalker who needed to get a life.’

From the public gallery Stephie yelled, ‘Because you are a stalker, you lying bitch.’

Stephie’s mother yanked her back to her seat as the judge called for order.

‘One more interruption like that and I’ll have you removed,’ he warned Stephie.

Everyone turned back to Amelia, whose eyes were swimming in tears.

Very gently, Samia Henshawe said, ‘I won’t ask you to repeat any more of the things Daisy Bright said to humiliate you, or how you felt when she accused you of being a stalker. I’ll just ask if you forgave her for this cruelty?’

‘Of course,’ Amelia whispered, ‘because mostly she was lovely and kind and I really, really wanted to be her friend.’

‘Why? What was it about her that drew you to her?’

‘Well, I suppose because she was popular, there was always something going on around her … She had this performing arts society, and everyone always wanted to be involved.’

‘Was that Daisy’s only attraction for you?’

Amelia appeared flummoxed for a moment, until apparently catching on she said, ‘There was her mum, too. She was always really lovely to me. I used to think, if I had a mother, I’d want her to be just like Daisy’s mum.’

‘So you came to think of them as a second family?’

‘Yes, definitely.’

Appearing moved by that, Samia Henshawe allowed a moment for it to sink in with the jury.

Jules was staring hard at Amelia, willing her to look her way, but Amelia simply kept her head down in her convincingly puppy-whipped way.

‘She’s told so many lies already,’ Em murmured, ‘that I’m almost afraid to hear what’s coming next.’

Feeling much the same way, Jules glanced along the line to Kian again. His eyes came to hers and he shook his head, clearly as stunned as she was by the false and yet appallingly believable picture being painted of their innocent daughter.

Resuming, Samia Henshawe said, ‘Let’s return to July 14th and how Dean Foggarty came to be in the stable with you and Daisy.’

Joe growled, ‘She hasn’t even asked how come they were
in
the stables.’

‘It’ll be taken care of on the cross,’ Jules assured him, confident that it would be.

‘Did you invite Dean to visit you that day?’ Henshawe asked.

Amelia shook her head. ‘Not exactly. I mean, I’d told him before that he was welcome at any time, but I had no idea he was planning on coming that day.’

‘So what happened? Did he just show up?’

‘Yes.’

‘You hadn’t sent a text telling him you had a surprise for him?’

‘No, definitely not.’

Jules glanced at Dean, and the bitter look on his face was enough to convince her that Amelia was lying about that too.

But where was the text?

‘What happened when he arrived?’ Henshawe asked. ‘What were you and Daisy doing?’

‘I was sitting on a straw bale, crying, and Daisy was telling me to grow up and pull myself together. Dean came in and asked what was going on, so Daisy told him I was making a fool of myself over my mother.’

‘And what did Dean say to that?’

‘I can’t remember him saying anything. He just kind of looked at me, and then at Daisy.’

‘Did you ask him why he’d come? Or even how he’d got there?’

‘I didn’t get the chance, because he called Daisy outside to talk to her. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but when he came in he told me Daisy was on the phone to her dad saying she didn’t need a lift home because I would take her later.’

‘Were you OK with that? She’d been pretty horrible to you, so I expect you were keen for her to go.’

‘I was and I wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t want her to go on being horrible to me, but I still really wanted to be her friend and I thought that if she stayed we could work things out.’

‘But that isn’t what happened?’

Amelia shook her head miserably. ‘No, it isn’t.’

‘So tell us what did.’

Her breath shuddered on a sob as she said, ‘It was while Daisy was on the phone to her dad that Dean started saying that she shouldn’t have been so mean to me. He said she always got away with things, and it was time she got her comeuppance. I didn’t know what he was talking about at first, but when Daisy came back he suddenly grabbed a ball of raffia string and twisted it around her hands. Then he pushed her on to the floor and attached the string to a hook in the wall. Daisy was screaming at us that we were both crazy and we should let her go, but Dean was already tearing off her jeans. She tried to kick him away, so he told me to grab her legs. I didn’t want to, but I was afraid of what he would do to me if I didn’t.’

‘So you held her legs?’

‘As best I could, but she was going berserk and I wasn’t strong enough.’

‘So you threatened her with a knife?’

Amelia nodded dolefully.

‘Where did the knife come from?’

‘I ran back to the house to get it.’

‘With the intention of using it?’

‘No, definitely not. It was only to make her lie still for Dean.’

‘And did it work?’

‘Yes, it did.’

‘Did you cut her before he raped her?’

‘Yes, but only by accident. She moved suddenly, and the knife went into her face.’

‘So you didn’t purposely injure her?’

‘No.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Joe seethed.

‘What happened next?’ the lawyer asked.

‘She kept shouting and screaming and calling us names, especially me. She said I was a waste of space and I should do everyone a favour and stab myself because no one wanted me as a friend. Dean kept telling me to shut her up. They were both shouting at me, so loudly and angrily … I didn’t know what to do … I was so scared and confused … I just … It was like I wasn’t myself any more …’

‘This is when you started to stab her?’

‘No, no. I didn’t stab her. It was Dean. He grabbed the knife from me and just went berserk.’

‘But the wounds were caused by a left-handed person. Dean is right-handed.’

‘I don’t know about that. I only know that he did it with his left hand.’

‘You noticed at the time that he was using his left hand?’

‘I think so. I mean, yes, I did.’

‘And you didn’t try to stop him?’

‘I couldn’t. He was too strong for me and I’d never been in a situation like that before. It was terrifying … I couldn’t think straight … I just knew I wanted him to stop, but I didn’t know how to make him.’

‘So when did he stop?’

‘It must have been when he realised Daisy wasn’t shouting or fighting any more.’

‘Did he say anything to you then?’

She nodded. ‘He looked at me and said, “What the fuck have you done? You’re a bloody mental case.”’

‘And what did you say to that?’

‘I don’t think I answered. I was so shocked. I couldn’t believe what had happened.’

Unable to take any more, Jules collected her bag and went to find the nearest Ladies. Never in her life had she imagined having to suffer anything like the scene she had just witnessed. That the girl could be allowed to stand there lying through her teeth, twisting one fact after another, trying to turn herself into the victim rather than the manipulating, cold-blooded killer that she actually was, was enough to turn Jules herself into a killer too, if it was the only way justice could be done.

Em found her as she was splashing cold water on her face. ‘It’s over for today,’ she said, handing Jules a wad of paper towels. ‘I’m not sure what we’re going to do now, we’re all so shell-shocked by that pack of lies. Surely to God the jury saw through it.’

‘I don’t know that they did,’ Jules answered roughly. Her throat was parched; her face was so white and strained across the fine bones it seemed likely to tear apart with grief. ‘Where’s Kian?’

‘He was talking to Andee as I left. We should probably go and find him.’

Much later that evening they were all sitting in the pub bar sipping the drinks Misty had served, and picking at the food rustled up by Marco. Everyone was there: Daisy’s friends and their parents, the entire Kesterly contingent of Kian’s family, Joe, Em and her husband, even Andee Lawrence and Dougie, the mayor.

They talked around everything that had been said that day, how easy it was going to be to pick holes in it, how certain it was that Dickon Bruce would show Amelia and her father to be nothing but liars.

‘What that girl hasn’t told us yet,’ Andee said quietly to Jules as she was leaving, ‘is why, when she had a knife in her hand, didn’t she use it on Dean to save Daisy? In fact, nothing she said is adding up, from how Dean just happened to turn up, to running off to the house to fetch a knife … Why didn’t she just raise the alarm while she was gone? If she knew what Dean was intending, and she’s already said that she did, any normal person would have gone straight for the phone. So, whatever the jury might be thinking tonight, I’m fully confident that by this time tomorrow everything will have turned on its head.’

The following day’s cross-examination didn’t follow the pattern anyone was expecting. To begin with, Jules and Kian had imagined Dickon Bruce tearing Amelia’s lies about her friendship with Daisy to shreds, but it wasn’t even he who asked the questions, it was Laura Cosgrove.

‘Where did you meet the deceased?’ she asked.

‘At the Kesterly gym.’

‘Did you become friends right away?’

‘Yes, we did.’

‘And how long ago was this first meeting?’

‘About two and a half years.’

‘So roughly eighteen months before Daisy was brutally hacked to death?’

As Jules flinched and Amelia’s eyes narrowed, there was a protest from the defence that the judge seemed to ignore.

Directed to answer the question, Amelia dropped her head and spoke so softly that the judge asked her to repeat it. ‘That’s correct,’ she said, managing to sound shaky and picked on.

From there Laura Cosgrove moved on to the afternoon of July 14th, when Amelia had sent the text to Daisy. Apparently she had no interest in dates or detail of the fictitious shopping sprees; saw no importance in how often Daisy had stayed over at Crofton Park, which was never, nor did she ask Amelia to tell the court exactly what she and Daisy had discussed during their conversations about Amelia’s mother. Jules knew very well that the conversations had never taken place; if they had, Daisy would have told her.

Lies, lies and more lies. How could anyone do it? Clearly swearing an oath meant nothing to that family
.

‘When you sent the text about finding your mother,’ Cosgrove asked, ‘did you expect Daisy to reply right away?’