The Sun Will Still Shine Tomorrow (37 page)

Jacob Moor fell forward, gripping the sword with two hands. The handle of the sword powered into the stone floor and the weight of the Worshipful Master did the rest.

The sword travelled through his ribcage into his heart and out the other side of his body in a grotesque spectacle witnessed by everybody, blood bright red, arterial. He’d died instantly, the temple filled with the rich cloying smell of congealing blood.

The trial hadn’t gone well for Stephen Kyle and he knew before the guilty verdict came he’d be spending the best part of his life in a prison cell. The other Brothers had got off lightly; they’d stuck together and blamed Kyle, Jacob Moor and Claire Macbeth as the main instigators.

They’d taken a slap on the wrist and their lawyers had plea bargained for covering up the crime. The prosecutor had wanted the charge of accessory to murder which carried a far lengthier sentence but had settled for a guilty plea to the lesser charge of concealment. They all got between three and five years. Roddam and John Markham had been forced from their positions in Northumbria Police as had the four Berwick policemen.

Their careers had been destroyed.

Big Tam Dalgleish was in court and noted the length of their sentences. He took notes and every single name. He’d be arranging his own little welcome home party for the Island Keepers when they were released, especially Father Thompson after Ashley had revealed he had been one of the main instigators in his son’s death.

Claire Macbeth stood trial two weeks later. Her solicitor Anne Haslam had begged her to allow her to introduce the abuse suffered at the hands of Jacob Moor and how she’d been forced from the age of fourteen to endure that abuse and the torture she’d suffered.

Claire Macbeth had refused. She might as well plead guilty, her solicitor had said at one point and even threatened to walk away from the case.

Claire Macbeth didn’t fear prison. She had at first. She’d been terrified as the prison van had driven up to the gates of the female wing at HMP Durham, She Wing as it was known to the inmates.

The vilest women in history had been housed here: Myra Hindley and Rose West were two that came to mind. But then, as each day passed and the weeks turned into months, she realised that it was no worse than the hell she’d endured since fourteen years of age.

And so she should be punished; it was to be expected, deserved. She’d sent the poor boys out onto the causeway, coerced them, and persuaded them, never imagining that so many wouldn’t make it.

She was giving them a chance to escape when she’d altered the clock in the Ship Inn by a few minutes. Jacob had his timing down to perfection, literally down to the second. He’d look at the clock and on the dot he’d order the prisoner to be brought before him. And Claire had watched Jacob’s face as she’d persuaded the poor unfortunates to attempt the crossing.

Jacob was watching a game, he was watching a horse race with his stake firmly fixed on the favourite. Only she’d tampered with the odds on more than one occasion and begged Jacob, generally between the sheets, to give them just a squeak of a possibility; claimed it excited her.

Jacob didn’t mind: it added to the power, added to the thrill of the chase, so to speak. So what if they escaped, they’d never return to their island hell, that was for sure.

Claire wiped a tear from her eye with a crisp white handkerchief as she sat at a table looking out of her barred prison cell. But why so many and why Tom Wilkinson? Tom should have made it with time to spare. What went wrong?

She sat with Anne Haslam awaiting the van that would be taking her to Newcastle Crown Court.

“So what do you think my chances are, Anne?”

Anne shrugged her shoulders. “They’d be better if you let me–”

Claire held up a hand. “No, Anne, I’ve made my decision. I’ve lived these memories for too long and now, thank God, they’re in the past. I’ve no intention of reliving them.”

“They raped and tortured you, Claire, for heaven’s sake.

They abused you mentally and physically for years. You owe it at least to…”

The solicitor’s voice tailed off as she looked over at Claire Macbeth shaking her head with her hands over her ears. She was blocking it out, refusing to even talk about it again.

Anne Haslam sat in amazement that incredible afternoon when her client had broken down in front of her. And she’d blurted it out between the tears and the sighs and the solicitor had sat and listened until eventually she’d shed tears as well. Only God knew what was going on inside the poor girl’s head but this was her way of dealing with it. She didn’t deserve prison; she deserved a medal, an OBE or an MBE for the poor boys she’d saved from those bastards.

She’d been charged with murder and Anne Haslam had reasoned with the prosecuting lawyer that the charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility was more apt. The prosecutor agreed but, after meeting and assessing Claire Macbeth, quite rightly suggested she’d recovered from her ordeal well and, although a little withdrawn, would not fool a jury into thinking she was crazy.

But then again she didn’t want to. She had the right, the right to preserve the self-respect denied to her for so long.

The prison van pulled onto the quayside and was met by a frenzied media circus. It was the sixth day of the trial, the jury having been put up in an undisclosed hotel over the weekend.

Television journalists and cameramen fought for the best vantage points and a line of police officers kept the pack at bay. The crowd was equally divided. To some she was a murderess, to others a victim. Word had gradually filtered from the island of the abuse she’d suffered at the hands of Jacob Moor and Stephen Kyle and a video had appeared on the internet which left little to the imagination. Jacob Moor had been the director and Stephen Kyle the willing participant carrying out the grossest acts imaginable on a terrified fifteen-year-old girl.

It had been part of Jacob’s private secret collection that had been taken in a burglary three days after his death. The person who’d posted the video had chosen the moment well.

As the prison van door opened, the appearance of Claire was met with a few cheers, a muted half attempt at a round of applause, and one or two jeers. A women’s group stood in silent admiration with placards held aloft that read
Free Her Now
and
Claire Is Innocent
.

Jamie Powell looked on and caught the briefest of glimpses of his one-time lover. He then turned and headed into the court building to meet Ashley Clarke.

Claire had been charged with three murders carrying the mandatory life sentence for each one. Her defence was a simple one: she’d never intended to send the young men to their deaths; she was helping them to escape. She was their only chance.

The prosecuting lawyer, a large red-faced man in his early sixties, was beginning to wear her down. He was asking the same questions again and again and was even beginning to annoy the judge. Claire looked at her watch. He’d taunted and accused her and goaded her for just under an hour. It was a game to him, a game.

“So, Ms Macbeth, if you say you were helping to save those poor unfortunates how come they all ended up in watery grave?”

Claire wanted to answer, wanted to tell him she didn’t know, possibly alcohol, possibly something else. He didn’t give her a chance.

“Not a very good success rate, is it? Three young men you sent out onto an already flooded causeway and three bodies in the morgue.” He looked along the line of jurors and over to the packed gallery.

“Not very good odds are they, ladies and gentlemen?”

“There were others, sir,” Claire replied meekly.

The lawyer Holmes paused. “Others, you say?” He smiled at her and again at the jury.”Others, you say?” He leaned forward, rested his hand on his chin.”Then where are they, young lady?”

Anne Haslam couldn’t believe her luck. She removed her glasses and looked up from her notes. She stood up slowly commanding the attention of the courtroom. It was a well-planned interruption, well-rehearsed, she just hadn’t expected her learned friend to open the door quite so early or easily.

“Actually, your Honour, I’d like to call an additional witness.”

The judge looked down at his notes. “Name please, Ms Haslam.”

“Jamie Powell, your Honour.”

Claire recalled the name, looked around the gallery. Her eyes focused on a man she vaguely recognised. He fidgeted in his seat, looked nervous.

“Objection,” yelled the QC Holmes.”There’s no mention of a witness by that name in my briefing.”

She walked forward to the bench. “I do apologise, your Honour,” whispered Anne Haslam to the judge as she let out a sigh and fluttered her eyelashes in his direction. It worked every time.

“He’s literally only just been located this weekend; we’ve had a private detective on the case. I haven’t had time to inform the court though I did try to call you this morning.”

“Objection, your Honour.”

The judge held up a hand, irritated by Holmes’s voice.

“The lines don’t open till nine, Miss Haslam.”

Anne Haslam fired in the final nail. “The witness is critical to the case.”

“And who is Jamie Powell, Ms Haslam?”

Anne Haslam paused… ignored the judge and her learned friend as well as the public gallery, aware all eyes were on her. She glanced at Claire Macbeth then met every gaze of the twelve jury members before announcing.

“Jamie Powell is a young man Claire Macbeth helped to escape.”

The Newcastle Evening Chronicle carried the dramatic news of Claire Macbeth’s acquittal later that afternoon. Ashley had met up with Anne Haslam within an hour of the trial ending and the first editions of the newspaper had been placed on her desk. Ashley picked it up and surveyed the headlines.

“Incredible, Ashley,” the lawyer said, shaking her head. “Who’d have thought this last week? I honestly thought we were dead and buried and the poor bugger was heading back to Durham.”

“Yeah…” replied Ashley, “who’d have thought.”

“It was the video, you know, the video that turned the tide, got the jury on her side. Whoever posted that video did us a huge favour.”

Ashley nodded his head.

The break in at Jacob Moor’s house was the easy bit. Viewing and posting that video on the internet was tough. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life and it would remain his secret forever.

And to think at one point he thought that Claire was making it all up. He doubted her time and time again until he’d eventually managed to locate Jamie Powell alive and well in Wolverhampton.

“How is she, Anne?”

“She’s good, Ashley… considering.” The lawyer closed the newspaper, removed her glasses and spoke.”I’m sending her on a long holiday, Ashley. Do you know she’s never ever been

abroad.”

Ashley shook his head.

“A local women’s group started a fund and I’ve managed to locate the estate of her late father that Jacob Moor was looking after. She’s not poor, Ashley, and a long holiday is just what she needs. The thing is, I don’t know if she’ll ever go back to the island.”

“Memories.”

“Bad memories, Ashley.”

Ashley spoke. “Where does–” A loud rap on the door interrupted him and announced the arrival of Claire Macbeth. Ashley stood and was immediately aware of his legs letting him down. He’d experienced the same sensation as an eighteen year-old in the boxing ring at training school in Hendon. The policemen showed her into the room, gave a cursory nod then left.

It was a reserved smile, a sad smile. Claire Macbeth looked at her hard-working and meticulous, clever lawyer and the man whose tireless detective work and sheer determination had freed her.

She broke down.

Anne Haslam took her client in her arms and the lawyer’s pent-up emotion and stress of the trial broke her too. Ashley looked on as the two women sobbed their hearts out. It lasted a full two minutes before the lawyer was able to compose herself. During that time Ashley left quietly.

Epilogue

One month later

It was a love like Ashley Clarke had never experienced before. Alexis had never been far from his thoughts over the last year and had crept more and more into them during the trial. He’d blamed the job, not Alexis. Alexis had blamed him. It was time to exercise his demons. Alexis… always Alexis.

Everyone deserved a second chance. They’d agreed on a holiday, a week in Bermuda… not a bad place to start, he thought with a grin. The climate was nice at this time of the year, he’d been told.

After the holiday they’d fly back to the UK and if they felt the same way about each other possibly rent a place together for a while. It would take time, of that there was no doubt, but Ashley felt like he had all the time in the world for this girl.

She’d agreed to meet him at JFK airport in New York where they’d spend the evening and, as the wheels touched down on the runway, his stomach was turning cartwheels. He’d drunk too much red wine, an indication of his nervous disposition on an aeroplane and of course that first meeting.

As he descended the aircraft steps he sobered up rapidly. He fumbled for a square of chewing gum to freshen his breath. He walked into the terminal and, after what seemed like an eternity, collected his suitcase from the baggage reclaim.