The One Safe Place (28 page)

"We have, your honour."

The convention of address made him visibly unsure whether to look at her or at the judge. He swung toward her as she spoke again. "Do you find the defendant David Francis Fancy guilty or not guilty of murder?"

The foreman opened his mouth and placed the knuckles of his right hand against it to muffle a couple of coughs. He'd been too eager to finish them. A further throat-clearing emerged ahead of his reply, so that Susanne couldn't be certain what he'd said. Seemingly the clerk was, because she said, "Is that the verdict of you all?"

"It is, your honour."

"Do you find the defendant Kenneth Feslie Fancy guilty or not guilty of murder?"

The foreman turned fully to the clerk again. "Not guilty."

He'd already said that once, and this time he said it too clearly for Susanne to be able to delude herself that he'd uttered only one word or to ignore the gleeful murmur of the family behind her. She felt her clenched fists and her legs shaking. "Is that the verdict of you all?" the clerk said, as though a denial could be any consolation.

"It is, your honour."

The judge's eyes appeared to flash like bulbs. His lenses had caught the light again as he leaned forward to beckon the clerk to him. He murmured briefly to her, and Susanne forced her hands to relax, though that admitted more of an ache to the dents her nails had dug in her palms. Perhaps he was refusing to accept the verdict—perhaps he could do that in England. The clerk returned to her position in front of the jury box and said, "Do you find the defendant David Francis Fancy guilty or not guilty of manslaughter?"

"Guilty."

That was the verdict of them all, and they all found Kenneth Leslie Fancy guilty too. Susanne felt as if the family behind her was leaning closer to her at each response, though perhaps it was only that their mutters of resentment were growing louder. The foreman sat down, looking relieved that his job was done, and the judge frowned over his spectacles at Susanne, so sharply that although she realised at once the warning was aimed at the people behind her, some of his disapproval seemed to settle on her. She pressed her knees together with her hands to keep them still and waited for him to speak.

He stared at the jury before turning to the men in the dock. Weary disgust weighed down his eyelids and the corners of his mouth and retarded the turning of his head, a disgust which Susanne was beginning to suspect he felt not only for the case but also for the courtroom, for his profession, for maybe the entire world. Certainly that was how his voice sounded to her as soon as he commenced speaking, the cold stabbing voice of a teacher who hated to teach. She closed her eyes so as not to see the light destroy his whenever he moved his head, only to discover that shutting out one of her senses made it harder to grasp what he was saying; clumps of words got stuck in her brain and shut out whatever he said next. "... this deplorable incident... all too representative of the growing violence on our streets... behaviour made to seem acceptable by films and television... breakdown of law and order leads inevitably to anarchy... duty to rebuild the wall of law against the tide of violence... behaviour which may be considered acceptable abroad will not be tolerated here... people taking the law into their own hands..."

Suddenly Susanne wondered how much of this was directed at her or at Don. She snapped her hot eyes open and saw the judge leaning forward between his hands, which were flattened on the desktop. He might as well have had no eyes. "David and Kenneth Fancy, I find you equally culpable in this matter. Whatever provocation you may consider yourselves to have received, you and your kind must be taught that you cannot bring the law of the jungle to this country. Each of you will serve a term in prison of not less than five years."

"Fucking hell," Kenneth Fancy said, and his partner in the dock agreed at once, stressing the second word. They seemed to Susanne not only to be articulating the mutters of protest behind her but also, although she loathed the notion, to be expressing her own outrage, as if they'd stolen her voice and substituted theirs. They continued to object, largely in the same words, as they were dragged away to the cells, kicking some of the courtroom furniture en route, but Susanne was hearing what Marshall had hoped the verdict would be. Five years wouldn't even have let Don see him reach maturity.

The court rose as the judge did, and she held onto the wooden barrier in front of the public gallery as the over-inflated balloon which the resolution of the trial had made of her brain threatened to leave her body to cope for itself. Her lips rubbed together as the judge turned his back on her, presenting her with the sight of the wig draped like a slice of a sheep over his head, and she might have said something aloud if she hadn't had to close her eyes and lean on the barrier to steady herself.

Sounds of the courtroom drained from her head, and a little of the nauseating heat did. When she looked around her she was alone except for a clerk who was approaching her. "Are you all right, miss?"

For a moment Susanne wondered how anyone could make such a cruel joke, and then she realised that the form of address was only a mistake. She pulled her left hand from beneath her right so that her wedding ring glinted dully, and held up that hand to tell him she didn't need his help. The diamond caught the light, which seemed to pierce her eyes and reach into the depths of her. She let go of the barrier and found she was still standing. Since she could stand, she could walk. But when she walked out of the courtroom, everyone who had been sitting behind her was waiting, and all of them stared straight at her.

The reporters were between her and the Fancy contingent, and at first that was some relief. Most of the family, the women in particular, looked ready to go for her; only the eldest, a man with a fat dead cigar poking out of his mouth, was holding them back. He gave her the impression of a teacher barely managing to control a classful of delinquents—at least, that was her sense of him until she saw the naked hatred he was focusing on her. Then the reporters converged on her, veterans and youthful ones alike looking as though they were auditioning for the same role, chorusing for her attention. "Mrs. Travis, what do you—" "Mrs. Travis, will you be—" "What is your—" "How do you—" A lanky pale young woman with microscopic silver barbells in her earlobes and a great deal of red hair caught Susanne with her question. "Mrs. Travis, are you happy with the court's decision?"

Susanne experienced such a rush of disgust that she felt as though more than words might spill out of her mouth. "I've seen better verdicts in bad movies."

"What do you think it should have been?"

"Don't ask. You wouldn't want to print it, or at any rate I hope you wouldn't. You British aren't supposed to go in for that stuff."

"You'd be—" the redhead began, but a man in a stubbly tweed hat interposed his question. "Will you be taking it further, Mrs. Travis?"

"Such as where?"

"The High Court has been known to overturn Crown Court decisions, though of course it could go either way."

"You're saying some judge could let those, those I can't think of a word, out of jail before they've even done five years?"

"I'm not saying that would happen, just that it's possible. I'm not saying it's likely."

"It shouldn't be possible. I used to think we were too hard on our criminals in Florida, but right now I wish I could send those two over there. Back there we call murderers murderers." Maybe she oughtn't to be speaking so freely to the press, but she was distracted before she quite knew why what she had noticed should matter. "Where did they go?"

Most of the reporters looked over their shoulders. "Who, the—" said the redhead. "Oh,
them
."

She was dismissing the Fancy family as if they no longer mattered, but Susanne was afraid they did. Where had they taken their hatred? Marshall wouldn't be out of school for almost an hour, and she could think of no way they would be able to discover which school that was, but just suppose they did? "Excuse me now, you'll have to excuse me," she said, and had to walk at the reporters to make them let her through.

If the pay phone in the lobby had ever possessed a directory, that had been either stolen or removed so that it couldn't be. She had her address book in her purse, and by the time she reached the phone she'd found the number of the school. The public address system called for a policeman as she fed the coin box and poked the numbers on the keyboard. The receiver at her ear rang twice, and was halfway through a repetition when it was interrupted, and the digital payment display reverted to zero. "Bushy Boys," a woman announced as if challenging whoever heard her to laugh.

"That's Bushy Road School, right. Could I—I should say, I'm just checking one of your boys is there."

"Who would that be?"

"Marshall Travis in the eighth grade, year, I mean. Right now he should be in his Bible, scripture," Susanne said, raising her voice to be heard above another summons to the policeman, "religious education class."

"Then I expect he is, madam. May I ask where you're calling from?"

"Who I am, you mean? I'm his mother. Susanne Travis. Didn't we meet once? You're the girl with the big wooden earrings, yes?"

"We've no girls at Bushy Road. Where are you exactly?"

"At the courts."

"Of course, you would be. Sorry. How did it turn out? Is it over?"

"If it isn't, if..." Susanne stared at the zero composed of fragments which seemed about to crumble into the fog of the display. "Yes, it's over. Anyway, you're certain Marshall's there."

"I've no reason to suppose he's not," the secretary said, sounding a little rebuffed. "Was that why you called, or was there a message?"

"No, don't tell him anything," Susanne said so hastily that she almost forgot why she'd called in the first place. "No, wait, why don't you tell him, tell him if by any chance I'm not there when he comes out of school to stay there till I pick him up."

That seemed to cover the situation, and so she thanked the secretary and hurried out into the sunlight, which was far too bright and warm for the way she felt. More reporters crowded toward her, photographers fired at her with their cameras, but she showed them her tight lips as she shoved between them and ran along a street called Dolefield to the car park. She couldn't help realising how easy it would be for someone to pretend to be her on the phone: they would only need to sound sufficiently American to convince the school secretary, who hadn't asked her to prove who she was. Marshall was too sensible to be in danger from anyone like that—he would want more proof than the secretary had. But as Susanne hurried past shoppers loading purchases into their cars and unlocked her right-hand door, she was seized by apprehension. She wasn't going to him only to reassure herself that he was safe. Sooner or later she would have to tell him what the judge had said.

In the morning Marshall drank his juice and ate his cereal until his mother went out of the kitchen. He didn't feel nauseous, he might even be hungry, but lifting the glass or the spoon to his mouth seemed to call for more effort than he could sell to himself. He trod stealthily on the pedal so as to tip the remains of the cereal into the bin and threw in a length of paper towel to conceal the evidence. Since his mother was still drawing the curtains in the rooms downstairs, he eased the refrigerator open and lifted the carton of juice out of the shelf in the door and emptied his glass into the gaping cardboard beak. He was holding the carton when his mother emerged from the front room and caught sight of him. "Is that dead? Didn't I put another one in the fridge?"

"There's some left, mom. I'm fine, I've had enough," Marshall said, and almost threw the carton in the trash, having confused himself into forgetting what he'd claimed on its behalf. He shut it in the refrigerator and hurried upstairs as his mother brought in the bottle of milk which had been left on the doorstep. He brushed his teeth and threw a handful of water into his eyes and kneaded his face with both hands through a towel, and felt as much like going to school as he was likely to feel. He grabbed his bag from next to his bed and checked that he'd loaded it with all the books he needed on a Friday, and glanced into his parents' bedroom as he headed for the stairs. The pang which he experienced at the thought of not having to say goodbye to two people no longer felt quite so much as though someone was fishing in his guts. "I'll see you tonight, mom," he called.

She came quickly out of the front room, holding a textbook. "Nearly the weekend. Think of something you'd like to do, that maybe we can both do if you like."

"Sure."

"Anything you need right now? I won't know if you don't ask."

"I'm fine, mom, really. Don't worry about me."

"I'll do my best," she said, resting her hands on his shoulders while she planted a kiss on his forehead. For as long as that lasted he couldn't see her eyes, and wondered if she was being reminded of kissing his father. His father's smile tugged at his mouth as her eyes met his again, and he turned away awkwardly, nearly sweeping the answering machine off the hall table as he hefted the strap of his bag onto his shoulder. He blundered out of the front door and along the path through the scent of lavender, and waved to her from beyond the gate. "Be good," she called as if to help him pretend life had returned to normal.

An electric cart was murmuring along the road, slow as a hearse. It stopped with a rattle of bottles whenever the driver arrived at a house where he delivered milk, and Marshall's thoughts matched its speed and intermittence. Did he still want to live here now that the men who'd killed his father were going to jail? Did he maybe want to stay until they were released and see what happened then? He imagined convicts bigger and nastier than they were taking a dislike to them or, better yet, taking a liking they didn't want to be taken, then had to fight to clear his mind of screams and naked hairy struggling flesh.

The sight of the main road, its sidewalks crowded with boys uniformed like him, seemed to help. Some were bound to have heard the verdict, and he wanted to be prepared for whatever they might say, probably things he'd said over and over to himself last night until at last he'd managed to fall asleep. He couldn't see anyone he knew to speak to as he reached the traffic lights by Bushy Road just as the green men gave a last flicker before glaring red. Having thumbed the button to let it know he was there, he glanced around in case any of his friends were nearby, and was confronted by a four-legged placard outside the newspaper shop.