CHAPTER 54
I caught up with Deb in one of the little patches of green around the outside of the court, where she and Kimberley were wrapped round a sobbing Charlie, Paul, Paula and Candice not too far away, as the former high-flier-to-be puffed frantically on a cigarette, and I wondered how her addiction was treating her at that exact moment. Blake was at my shoulder.

“You’ll be thinking how lightly you got off, won’t you, love? Compared to the others?”

I reached for his hand, and it was there, along with a little of my resilience.

“You are turning into a mind reader, DC Sutton. Look at that woman, yeah? What I said? Fucked up, completely”

“Yes, but she still came out and said what she needed to. Put that bastard away for life, I suspect. Look at her now, talking to Candice, and think what she was like before, and take some pride in things”

“What for? Wasn’t me in the box this time”

“No, it was four women who wouldn’t have been within a mile of it without you stirring things up. You take credit where it’s due. Anyway, what’s the plan?”

“You were a bit lost in there, weren’t you? Too busy giving that arsehole death rays from your eyes It’s late, love. Meredith’s packed the jury back in its box for the night. We need to chill for a bit, and then I think it’s your place tonight. Early night, back here in the morning. Sammy’s taken the others off; just us here, and those two over there”

I looked where he indicated and about a hundred yards away I could see the other two victims. They had a quick chat together, then started over towards us. Eleanor Askew held out her hand.

“Thank you, DC Owens. We know who you are, isn’t it? Jasmine?”

“Yeah. You are one brave woman”

Charlie looked up from her embrace.

“Sisters, yeah? That’s what we are, all of us, that’s what Nana here says. All of us sisters, and that woman over there with Candice”

Eleanor smiled, and if I hadn’t already known she was missing teeth I would have spotted the falseness of her dental plate.

“I stayed on, Charlie. I wanted to…”

She paused, looking around, spending a few seconds staring at Paula, before continuing.

“I wanted to forget it all, yeah? Ever since that day, it’s all I wanted. Got a family now, two little kids of my own, but every time I look in the mirror I see where my teeth were, and I think of my babies… And then you come along, DC Owens”

“Diane, please”

“Thank you, Diane. I saw the papers, and I heard they were looking for others who’d met the bastard, but without you there’d be none of this. Thank you. As I started to say, I was going to do my bit and then sod off. Only so much I thought I could take, and then I heard Jazz here, and then Paula over there, and I thought Nell, you’ve got to see this to the end, got to bloody well know, isn’t it? And then this wonderful woman stands up and hits that piece of shit right where it hurts most. Well done, Charlie. Thank you. Sisters, yeah? Could I hug my little sis?”

I left them to it, and walked over to the wreckage next to Candice and Paul.

“How are you doing, love? Well done in there. Thank you”

She ground her cigarette out on top of a waste bin, laughing as she did so.

“Look at me, aye? All law-abiding now, not even littering. All this bastard’s fault”

I held out my hand, and she took it with both of hers.

“Those two, and that little girl, they’ll have said it. Well done, Diane. I will call you that. We’re sort of related, one cunt removed”

“I think the others said that a lot more politely.”

“Bet they did! Habits, you pick them up round where I’ve been working. That right, mate?”

PC Welby grinned back at the smile she was beaming at him at such intensity he should have started tanning. I kept my questioning light.

“What are you up to now, Paula?”

“Ych, Paul here’s been on my case, good lad that he is. Got me a sort of programme. That right, mate?”

“Yeah, Di. Halfway house sort of thing. Paula’s agreed to do a drug-dependency course. Off the smack for some time now, and she’s been reducing the methadone level for some time. Been a bit of a ride, hadn’t it, girl?”

“Yeah, didn’t think I could stick it, too painful, isn’t it? Easier just to… Then Paul here shows me the papers, says ‘this remind you of something, mate?’, and there’s the first trial, yours, and he says, ‘there’s some strength for you, isn’t it?’ and so what can I do?”

He smiled, and it was most definitely ‘good cop’ time.

“She seems to be sticking the course, Di. Got real hopes she can turn her life around”

“Yeah, yeah. I need something strong, though. No! I mean a coffee. That your boyfriend?”

I nodded.

“Good bloke, him. So very, very gentle, and patient, aye, but I’m watching your face. Diane Owens. Shit… I sometimes forget, so easy to do: not just me he ruined. So, anyone buy me a coffee?”

“Hang on, yeah? Be right back”

I walked back over to the other little group, smile in place.

“I don’t know what you are all planning, but I intend to pop off with Paula there for some coffee and most probably, knowing this one, a bacon sarnie. Anyone with us?”

I didn’t want to put pressure on them. She was an addict, a whore, an example of what most people would consider vermin. Ball in their court. Nell didn’t disappoint me.

“Another sister, yeah? I have my car, is people need a lift. Where to?”

Charlie sniffed, but this time it was from her tears, not her disdain.

“Could we go down by the Bay? Ain’t been there in ages, not felt safe”

So much unsaid, and not needing to be spoken. We parked down by the Norwegian church, where there was space enough for once, Deb disappearing but turning up again ten minutes after we had settled at a table outside the coffee and ice cream place by the lock. She had texted me with a drink order, so when she arrived we had it waiting, while she in turn had a very familiar cardboard box.

“Anyone in possession of a bladed article in a public place?”

It was, of course, one of Gemma’s speciality cakes. Paul had a multitool, and the presence of his uniform seemed to deter the café staff from enforcing any ‘only our food’ rule. The Spring sun was out, the coffee was more than acceptable, I was with the most wonderful man I had ever met, and Ashley Aaron Evans was looking down the barrel of a sizeable sentence. The girls were chatting away, Candice was looking smug, and the cake was exactly as I would have expected. Even without the anticipated bacon roll, it was a good moment in my life. One snapshot:

“Charlie?

“Yeah?”

“When did you decide on the name?”

“Er, last night. Tiff was talking about names in court and stuff, and when she found out my middle deadname she said it was a sign, and so I made up my mind last night”

“Bit of a surprise for me”

“You’ll get over it, sister dear”

In twos and threes we separated, each of us now with a life to get back to, and all agreeing to be at the court the following morning. I took my man back to the flat, once again by way of a couple of estate agents, and I am not ashamed, though perhaps a little embarrassed, to recall how, ahem, aggressive I was when it came to bedtime.

I was free, or nearly so. Over to you, Justice Meredith.

It was, of course, almost an anti-climax, as the jury didn’t return until the afternoon, but I did get hugs from three more people, who turned out to be Nell’s husband Warren and Jazz’s parents Mike and Andrea.

I caught Paula looking wistful at that, so I made a point of taking her hand as we drank yet another dire cuppa in the court’s café.

“Dum spiro, spero, girl”

“What, Di? Oh! I’d almost forgotten that one! Our Latin master was always saying it. Where did you get it?”

“Ah, I did languages at Uni. Always liked the little aphorisms, a world of thought in as few words as possible, yeah?”

That brought a grin.

“Like FTW, I suppose”

“Yeah, but probably best to leave it as a TLA considering where we are”

“Don’t know that one, Di”

“TLA is a TLA for TLA”

I paused, just long enough.

“Three Letter Acronym”

That brought a real laugh.

“Paul’s been on my case again, Di. Wants me to start some A-levels. There’s a support scheme for people who… A rehabilitation scheme to help those who’ve got a bit of an unfortunate history”

“You going for it?”

She shrugged. 2Dunno. I want to try and get clean first, before I make any plans, but, yeah. And I want to do something else. Write. Can’t say I haven’t got a story, can they?”

I squeezed her hand.

“Here’s one reader, if you get it done, girl”

She laughed. “Blackmail now, is it? Anyway, that your man waving?”

“Yeah…Blake? What’s up?”

“Jury’s back. Need to get moving so we can get seats”

The ushers had been nobbled, it seemed, and there was a block of seats reserved for five women in the front row, which was in a different courtroom to that of the first part of the trial. The others took up station behind us, the call was given to ‘rise’ and Meredith made his customary sweeping entrance.

Our former councillor was in the dock, and when I saw the armoured glass around it, I realised they were taking no chances, whether to protect him from angry citizens or us from him I didn’t know. He looked different to his normal self as he stood, and it was a few seconds before I realised why.

Fear. The bastard was finally, finally, frightened.

“And have you elected a foreman?”

This time, it was a middle-aged woman, and as the questions were asked in their customary order, I could almost read her mind: we could have done this yesterday.

Over and over again, the same words.

“Guilty”

“And is that the verdict of you all?”

“Yes”

I realised that Paula was finally crying, Jazz cuddling her as she sought a tissue for her own tears. Meredith looked over to us, with the slightest of nods. He took his time about the rest, though.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you are discharged. This court thanks you, each and every one, for your service. I would ask, however, that you remain in place while this matter is completed”

He turned his gaze on Evans.

“Stand, Evans”

What followed was sufficiently caustic to have removed patches of the pig’s skin, and Meredith was clearly just hitting his stride when he pulled himself up short, once more looking across to our sisterhood.

“I will not continue to list your crimes, Evans, nor recapitulate the horrors that these brave women have been forced by you to recount in this court. They have endured enough. I note that those who gave evidence so bravely in this matter have been joined by another of your victims, Detective Constable Owens. Without her courage, her example, her dedication to true public service, it is unlikely that justice would ever have been served in the way it has been this afternoon. DC Owens, this court thanks you, as well as the brave women who sit alongside you, all of whom have endured awful events and injury inflicted by an evil man. Does learned counsel have any mitigation to offer?”

“No, Your Honour”

“Thank you. Evans, I have already been given reports resulting from your previous trial. Accordingly, I am able to complete proceedings today. The charges laid before me, and of which you have now been convicted, fall into two groups, being the primary offences of rape, and what I do not consider to be in any way secondary in anything but listing. For the sake of completeness, which will be academic on this occasion, I sentence you to two years for each of the offences of abduction, bodily harm and threats to kill.

“For the offence of the rape of Eleanor Mair Askew, you are sentenced to life imprisonment, minimum term twenty years. For the same offence, in re Jasmine Skye Lenihan, Paula Amanda Cairns and Charlotte Diane Surtees, in each case the same sentence. Those sentences to commence on the completion of the term you are currently serving for the rape of Diane Owens. Take the prisoner down”

Off went Evans, despair replacing fear now, and as Blake murmured “Trial starts next week for perverting the course, and week after for the fraud stuff. He was told last night”, Meredith raised his left hand to us all, five fingers spread wide, and after a word from him to the usher, that woman passed us the message: see me afterwards.

Up we stood, out we went, and then once more we were in his little room, tea brewed, and served by him along with the justice.