CAUTION:REFERENCES TO CHILD ABUSE

CHAPTER 76
The ride up was as dismal, the walk across the tram tracks and up to the grey bulk of the courtroom serving to depress me further.

I wasn’t on duty that time, so I had picked out a simple blouse and skirt in white and grey, with a darker grey cardigan under my winter fleece. It was, of course, drizzling, and I realised I should have brought a proper coat rather than an umbrella, as it started to chill my shoulders.

I took my seat in the public gallery when the court opened and tried to centre myself, find a little calm space in which to settle. I could feel the old demons knocking at the door, and this time they had to be kept out. As I sat and waited for the judge, I must have given off some sort of aura, as nobody took the seats either side of me. Don’t go near the ticking bomb…then a body dropped into each seat, and I looked round to see Den and Kirsty. They each took a hand, and then Richard came in to join us. My nick was taking this extremely personally.

Pickstock, Petherick and Harton were there, Petherick in particular looking as if he hadn’t slept for weeks. Ma gave us a glare of pure hatred, and Harton caught where she was looking, and his own glare held nothing but contempt. My shoes cost more than you earn in a week, he was saying. My return glare told him that I knew which one of us was heading for Rule 45 and a long time on it. Nonce.

Wind your neck in, girl, and try and send your strength to some girl who has just had her thirteenth birthday. I had never hated my clients, I had never hated the stupid teenagers who had burned before my eyes, nor the idiot who had caused an old Rover to crash on a mountain road, but oh, how I hated him. I despised Petherick, but him, him and Ma, I found myself hating. Petherick was the weak pervert, the one who gave in to his needs and then shat himself over getting caught, but went back for more each time it was offered. Harton was the one who delighted in it, the one who would have justified it under interview, dirty little whore, she wanted it every time.

And her grandmother. Someone who had been blessed with everything I had ever wanted, and turned gold into filth, the reverse alchemy of pure and unadulterated evil.

Calm now, girl. Den felt me trembling, and kissed my cheek in reassurance, whispering “Keep it together for her, OK?”

“All rise!”

Judge Wetherby came in, robes flowing, face carefully neutral, and the show began. There was the ritual demand by the defence that the witness be produced in court, the counter-objection by the prosecution in regard to vulnerability, and the politely worded ruling by the Judge that the defence could go and take a running jump.

We had video screens in place, and a number of cameras to return images to a little girl in another place, and then she was there and the teasing out began, as Chantelle sat in a room of soft furnishings with one of Polly’s tribe. She was taken through an oath, which the judge herself administered in a heartbreakingly gentle way.

“Good morning, Chantelle. My name is David Ballantyne. You can call me David, or Mr Ballantyne, whichever you prefer. I would like to ask you some questions. I am sorry, but they will be about bad things, but we have a lot of time and we can take things as slowly as you need. Will that be OK?”

She nodded, then looked round at the social worker as if remembering something, and then simply said “Yes, David”

“Chantelle, we have a lot of cameras here, so you can see people. Can you see three people sat together?”

“Yes, that’s Peter, and Timmy, and my Nan”

“Peter Harton, Timothy Petherick, and can you remember your Nan’s name?”

“She’s called Charity”

“Charity Pickstock?”

“Yeah…”

“Chantelle…”

He took her through the shooting, slowly, gently, and several times she had to pause as the social worker attended to her, and then, and then…

“Chantelle, why were you in Joey’s caravan?”

“It was his turn, Nan said”

“His turn for what?”

“His turn to fuck me”

That was the moment breath was sharply drawn throughout the courtroom, and I looked at Wetherby as she made her notes, face neutral but knuckles white. The usher passed a box of tissues to the jury.

“Chantelle, did anyone else fuck you?”

“Yeah, Peter and Timmy, but it wasn’t their turn”

“Chantelle, I know this is hard, but can you remember how old you were when they started?”

She mumbled something. The social worker whispered to her, and I knew what it was, be strong, be brave, speak up for the court.

“Nine…”

Gradually, subtly, Ballantyne drew out her story, and I really cannot bear to go into any more detail. Finally, our man let her rest, but then it was the turn of the defence.

“Chantelle, I am Ewan Whybrow. I need to ask you some questions, and you need to remember that if you tell me things that are untrue, if you invent bad stories it will–“

“Objection. The witness has understood the oath she has taken. Badgering”

“Objection sustained. Counsel will bear in mind the age and circumstances of the witness.”

Whybrow dropped his head in a slight bow. “I am grateful to your honour for your assistance. Chantelle, how long have you known Mr Harton, Peter?”

“Since I was nine”

“Is he a good looking man?”

You bastard. I knew of one case where a rather strange judge had declared that an eight year old victim was a sexual temptress, and that was clearly the route that Whybrow was trying. That was when Chantelle seemed to wake up.

“No, he isn’t, he’s old, and fat, and his cock tasted all cheesy and nasty, and it fucking HURT and I never wanted to do it, but they hit me and tied me and I want them DEAD THE DIRTY BASTARDS!!”

That was also when the judge adjourned the court so that a little girl might have a chance to recover some control and some dignity, and when I saw the defence finally give it up as a bad job.

“Your honour, no further questions for this witness”

“Thank you. This court will reconvene in one hour”

“All rise!”

Den and Kirsty all but carried me out from the courtroom, straight to the public cafeteria, where Richard brought over a tray of teas. I was trembling with impotent rage, at the betrayal the old witch had wrought, flesh of her flesh, and then I started to drag myself back from the brink of screaming as the others talked quietly and held me, and finally I could pick up the plastic beaker of tea without spilling half of it over the table.

Richard was icily calm. “I think we have them, Annie, I think that little gamble from Whybrow cooked their goose big style”

“What the fuck was he doing, Richard? She’s the fucking VICTIM in all this!”

“He had no choice, girl. There’s no room for the smoke and mirrors shit, Darren closed that route down, all he had left was mudslinging, and if I want to be honest about it, I really don’t think his heart was in it”

“Yeah, but what he SAID!”

Richard sighed. “He has a job to do. He has to try his best. Look at it this way, if he didn’t try, then the bastards would have grounds for appeal, and trust me, Annie, that trial is over. There will be more witnesses, more evidence, all the stuff from the shops, and the forensics and stuff, but Chantelle has just convicted all three. Look, just go home, go home now and see your bloke, and do whatever it is you do to make the day better, and come back to work knowing that three pieces of shit will be going down hard.”

Den wrapped an arm around me. “Aye, lass, it’s time you got out of this place. Ring Eric, tell him to meet us at Kirsty’s, and we will have unhealthy food and excessive alcohol, OK?”

So I did, and then I rang Naomi to talk her through it, and we rode red-eyed back to Crawley, where Eric joined us for far too much Chinese food and stupid quantities of wine, and that night I lay in his arms in their spare bedroom and sobbed into his chest, and he knew, and understood, and held me, until I finally slept.

No dreams, none at all.