The Verdict

by C. J. Cooper

Genres: Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

One morning, a jury summons arrives on Natalie's doorstep. She is one of twelve people to decide whether a man is innocent or guilty of a horrific crime. But in the weeks after the trial, Natalie can't shake the feeling that the verdict was a terrible mistake. That they let a guilty man walk free. So when she crosses paths with the accused by chance, she decides to do whatever it takes to find the truth. Because as Natalie knows, sometimes you have to take justice into your own hands.

Release date: February 18, 2021

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 304

Sample

It landed on my doorstep on Valentine’s Day, one of two envelopes among the pizza flyers and minicab cards. It looked official, so I opened the other envelope first: a letter from an estate agent, promising that properties in my road were in high demand. I wasn’t disappointed, truly I wasn’t. I had no expectations of Aidan any more. No doubt she’d be getting something, propped on a breakfast tray with croissants and a rosebud. She looked like the type who’d expect it.

I tore at the brown envelope carefully, and there it was, bulky text in Valentine’s pink: Jury Summons. I wasn’t sure whether I was daunted or excited. It was my first summons, and at thirty-six I supposed I’d got off lightly. I’d have to take time off work. Get Alan to cover. I checked the dates – two months away. If Easter fell then, he wouldn’t be happy. I felt a shiver of Schadenfreude. Tough.

I misted the leaves of the dragon tree with a mixture of water and plant food – low dose for the winter months, just enough to keep them green and shiny – picked up my bag and left for the office.

One thing I’ve always liked about civil servants: they don’t do Valentine’s Day. I worked briefly in a magazine office when I was younger, and there would have been at least one ostentatious flower delivery, a minimum of three cards left on keyboards and hushed giggling in the kitchen. At Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, no one seemed to see any significance in the date. Or perhaps they were being sensitive. I suppose that’s possible, even for people who work on VAT policy.

Alan was at his desk already. He always gets in before me, though not nearly as early as he claims. Once or twice I’ve arrived before my usual time and he’s turned up ten minutes before I’d normally be there, looking shocked and muttering some nonsense about delayed trains. He thinks, you see, that if he arrives before me, he’s justified in sloping off at five on the dot, regardless of whatever shit is hitting the fan. It annoys me but I don’t say anything. It’s not like I have a lot to get home for myself.

I logged into my computer and went straight to my diary, clicking through to April. There was bound to be some post-end-of-financial-year stuff to deal with, but nothing had been scheduled so far except the usual team meetings and staff one-to-ones. I ticked the box next to Alan’s diary and viewed his schedule: nothing there that wasn’t in mine. I blocked out the week then wondered if it would be enough. The letter had only given me a date to turn up at the court. How long did jury service take?

‘Alan?’

He swivelled his chair in my direction. After the office reorganisation he’d somehow got the seat at the window, the one next to mine. I was flanked on either side by desks. So much for seniority.

‘Morning, Natalie. Good weekend?’

‘Fine, thanks. You?’ He started to reply, but it wasn’t like I was interested. ‘Have you ever done jury service?’

He leaned back in his chair, pleased to be able to dispense his wisdom. Alan’s older than me, in his pre-retirement phase, and he likes to instruct me when he gets the chance. It doesn’t happen often.

He said, ‘Twice, actually. I got a murder the first time.’

I was impressed in spite of myself. ‘How long did it take?’

‘About a month.’ He read the dismay on my face. ‘The other one was arson, though. We were in and out in a week. They were going to give us another case, but it was coming up to Christmas and they didn’t bother in the end.’

Beyond the partition behind my desk, Malcolm, another of my team, raised his head like a meerkat. ‘Have you been summoned then, Natalie?’

I nodded. ‘How are you supposed to plan how long you’ll be away for?’

‘They say to assume two weeks, but it depends. Look on gov uk.’ Alan again. He had that look he gets when he’s thinking, like he’s constipated. I could guess why: he wasn’t sure whether to be pleased I wouldn’t be around to keep tabs on him or dismayed that he might actually have to cover my work.

‘Right, you’ll be holding the fort for the second half of April then.’ Might as well strike while the iron was hot. I’d better tell Fiona, my boss, too; let her know I wouldn’t be contactable and to keep an eye on Alan. The idea was faintly thrilling. It had been a long time since I’d been able to forget about the BlackBerry while I was on leave.

Malcolm was talking again, saying something about fraud cases going on and on. Would I want that? I wondered. The complexity could be enjoyable. And it might be good to have some proper time away from the office, interesting to lose myself in something other than work. And better fraud than something horrific – child abuse, say, or rape.

‘I was the foreman both times I was on a jury.’ Alan’s lips had a self-satisfied curl. ‘You probably will be too, Natalie.’

I didn’t like him knowing things I didn’t. ‘Why?’

‘Oh, you see all of human life on a jury.’ He laughed. ‘You forget that not everyone …Well, this kind of job is good training in a way.’ I stared at him. VAT policy? ‘I mean, we’re used to looking at evidence, formulating conclusions. Even just chairing a discussion. Most people don’t have that kind of experience.’

God, he was full of it. But he had a point. After all, what was a trial but a process? I understood process. I trusted it. I’m a bureaucrat, that’s what we do.

And sitting there then, I thought: he’s right. I am well qualified for this. Whatever case I get, I’m going to do my best to do a good job.

That was what I thought. Exactly that. Pay attention, because this bit’s important. Back then, that was all I wanted: to do a good job; by which I suppose I meant that I’d play my part in making sure all the evidence was scrutinised, that I wouldn’t allow myself to be blinded by prejudice or carried away on flights of fancy. That I’d do what I could to make sure the jury reached a conclusion on the basis of whatever facts were presented to us.

What I didn’t aim for then, before I’d set foot in that courtroom, before the witness statements and the diagrams and the photos and the video, was to find the truth.

That came later. After the scream. And I think now it might have been better if it had never come at all.

I’d brought two books. Everyone said there was a lot of hanging around. Someone told me they’d waited three days even to be assigned to a case. It sounded like a monumental waste of time, though I’m not knocking my colleagues at Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. All those private-sector idiots who claim that if they ran their businesses the same way as the DVLA or the NHS or the courts or whatever bit of the public sector they’re whinging about at the time, they’d go bust…Well, how many businesses have to serve everyone, whether they can pay or not? How many of them are led by people who have to get re-elected by their customers every five years? How many have a few hundred other people who see it as their job to take a pop at them every week at Prime Minister’s Questions?

So I’m not going to complain about the waiting. I’m not.

I’d started out with some book on change management – Reaching for the Stars, or some such rubbish, which a colleague had pressed earnestly into my hands on learning I’d be out of the office for a couple of weeks. I’d just volunteered to run a staff group on the topic, hoping to tick off the required corporate contribution for that year’s performance appraisal, doing your actual job no longer being sufficient for the top of the office. I’d stuck with it for a couple of chapters, but my eyes were glazing over and I’d switched to P. D. James in the interests of being awake if and when I was called. The woman opposite glared at me when she saw the cover – perhaps she considered reading something called The Murder Room poor taste in the circumstances – but I ignored her.

A slight woman with short grey hair and an east London accent had already talked us through the housekeeping arrangements: the passcode for the door into the jury corridor, the evidence needed for travel and expense claims, the location of the canteen and the loos. She’d taken a register, and we’d watched the video on how it all worked, shown on a TV that got wheeled into the room on a stand. It was like being back at school, and I found that oddly reassuring; for once, it was someone else’s responsibility to make sure everything went according to plan.

There were two other TV screens in the room, mounted on the walls at either end. They showed a table with a list of cases – the name of the defendant and the judge, the number of the courtroom, a reference number and a column headed ‘Status’, which was mostly empty. The court served south-east London, and the defendants sounded as cosmopolitan a bunch as you could hope for: a David and a Mark, Jayden and Tyrone, a Sayid, and Aaliyah and Lisa for the girls.

All of human life.

I wondered who I’d get. Just before lunchtime, I found out.

The grey-haired woman reappeared and read out a list of names. Isabelle Fernandez, Brian Clifton, Natalie Wright … I got to my feet, and around the room others stood too, exchanging nervous smiles. We trooped out trailing scarves and bags and lined up against the wall of the waiting room as if about to face a firing squad. An usher, a motherly woman in spite of her voluminous black cape, introduced herself as Janet and led the way down a corridor and up a flight of stairs, turning to put her finger to her lips before opening the door to a second corridor, off which the courtrooms apparently lay.

Portraits lined the walls, stern-looking photographs of judges past. All of them white, all but a couple men. About halfway down, Janet stopped and pushed open another door, standing to one side and gesturing to us to pass. The court opened up before us, all dark wood panelling, the judge in scarlet robes and others – the barristers, I presumed – in black, just like I’d seen on TV. Janet guided us to the jury box, squeezing us onto the wooden benches, hips and elbows touching. But the crush was temporary: more names were read out and a handful of jurors were escorted from the room. I didn’t understand why. Had it been random, or had those of us who remained passed some kind of test? But there was no time to ponder, because now we were twelve. The Twelve. And there was an oath to be taken.

We spoke in turn, Janet whispering to each of us to check which version we wanted – Christian, Muslim, the affirmation of the atheist. We were a mixed bunch, Spanish, Chinese and Scottish accents among the London and Estuary English, some stumbling over the words, one man confounded by the task of holding the Bible in one hand and the laminated card with the words of the oath in the other. I gave my affirmation flawlessly, if I say so myself. Foreperson material, I imagined the others thinking.

When we were finished, the judge leaned forward and peered at us over her spectacles. The Honourable Victoria Something – her name sounded Nigerian, but I didn’t catch it properly – was a kindly looking soul, though I imagined her atypical background meant there was steel there somewhere. She told the usher to hand a folder to each of us. She was still talking, her accent pure RP, as I followed her instructions to open it and lift out the first sheet of paper; then for a moment her voice faded away as I read the words of the indictment.

Intentionally penetrated…did not consent…

Oh God, no.

…did not reasonably believe…consented…

Rape. It was a rape case.

I swallowed, and my hands were cold as I replaced the folder on the ledge in front of me. I tried to stop the thoughts that were already running through my head: the statistics on conviction rates; the difficulty of proof…I breathed deep.

The clerk was speaking now, addressing someone on the right-hand side of the room. The defendant. ‘Are you Ian Craig Nash of 236A Mountford Road, Lewisham?’

Lewisham. Like me. I raised my eyes and looked at him. Short brown hair, unremarkable face. He was wearing a dark-blue T-shirt, lightly muscled arms sticking out of the sleeves. Why didn’t he have a jacket? The courtroom was so cold. I pulled my own coat more closely around me.

‘Yes,’ he replied, his voice quiet. The clerk read out the charge and asked for his plea, and then one of the lawyers was on her feet – they were all women, I saw now. Of course: only a rape case would have bucked the norm like that. She was calling a witness. It was all too quick – shouldn’t there be some kind of interlude, a chance to catch our breath? The woman on my right coughed, then cleared her throat and coughed again. A police officer was stepping into the witness box. I picked up my pencil and held it poised over one of the scrappy sheets of notepaper I’d taken from my folder.

I can do this, I told myself. I just had to watch, and listen, and think. I would focus on the evidence, the stories they told. There had to be proof, evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. I’d watched enough courtroom dramas to know that was how it went. That was the bar: no more, no less. All I had to do was to test what I heard, assess whether the standard had been reached. I could keep a cool head – it was what I did every day. And I’d make sure the eleven other people on the jury did the same.

The police officer was holding up his hand, swearing his oath in the voice of someone who had done this before but still didn’t like it. I wrote the date at the top of the paper, then PC Alex Watson.

It had begun.

We heard only two witnesses that day: the first, PC Watson, twenty-something, awkward but seemingly diligent; then a young detective, DS Emma Willis-Jones. I didn’t like her, her pointy nose and her tanned face – a drop of winter sun somewhere – shiny hair tied back in a ponytail, just the way I bet it was when she played netball with the other popular girls at school. Unlike the constable, she wasn’t wearing uniform, and her blue and white striped shirt was unbuttoned at the neck to show a silver pendant. She gave her evidence in a clear voice, not needing to check her notebook. She was capable, composed. I suppose in that way she was a bit like me.

They were easy to listen to – dry facts delivered without emotion. I scribbled away as they spoke, my pencil hardly pausing: the arrival at the neighbour’s flat, a woman in tears, the allegation, knocking at another door in the small block where they both lived, the arrest. He had seemed calm, PC Watson said; there hadn’t been any trouble getting him to the station. I noted it all down, my pencil growing blunt, a soft crackle as I finished one sheet of paper and started on the next.

I sat in the second row of the jury box and from time to time I looked at my fellow jurors, the four in front and the three beside me. They seemed alert enough, but they scarcely picked up a pencil between them.

At one point we were asked to leave the court; it wasn’t clear why. Janet led us back up the stairs between the rows of benches and through a door in the panelling at the back. This was the jury room, and from then on, we would enter and exit the court that way. It was small and windowless, with grubby cream walls and a large table in the middle with just enough room on each side to squeeze into the seats around it. A door at the end opened into a tiny loo with a sink, and in one corner a smaller table held an aged television, a bottle of water and a stack of plastic cups.

We shuffled into seats, excusing ourselves as we went, unsure of each other. A tall woman with blonde hair took the seat opposite me. I’d seen her in the waiting room – she’d been knitting. I liked that, that she’d come prepared to wait, to fill her time doing something useful. She said, ‘I saw you taking lots of notes.’

I shrugged self-deprecatingly, though I suppose it might not have been a compliment. ‘It’s the way I listen. I find I concentrate better if I write things down.’ It was half true. The other half being that I thought it might be helpful to have a record of what people had said, given that we were supposed to be using that to decide whether or not a man was a rapist.

She said, ‘I’m no good at taking notes. Can’t read my own writing.’ She laughed raucously and I wondered whether the sound would carry into the court. I wanted to tell her to shush, but it seemed a bit much given we’d only just met. Maybe when I was foreperson…

I wondered whether I should suggest some introductions, treat it like a meeting. Perhaps the others would be relieved if someone took charge. I sat up a little straighter in preparation, looked around the table. A few seats down, a stuffy-looking kid in a jumper adjusted his glasses on his nose and said, ‘Shall we do introductions?’

Oh shut up, foetus.

But before anyone had the chance to respond, the door opened and Janet was ushering us back in. The judge watched us as we took our seats. We’d been able to leave our bags in the jury room, and there was less shuffling and arranging of arms and legs than there had been on our first arrival. I picked up my pencil, poised for action, but there was no need. Quarter to four and apparently we were done for the day. I looked up at the dock as we trooped back out. He was staring straight ahead, the skin on his arms a bluish pallor. I hoped he’d wear something with long sleeves the next day.

Out in the spring sunshine I found myself shaking off the air of the courtroom, grateful to be able to go home. I was already wondering about her – Chantelle, that was the name of the woman who said she’d been raped. Not ‘the victim’, I reminded myself; it wouldn’t be right to think of her that way. We hadn’t seen her yet, and I let my imagination wander to what she’d be doing this evening, whether there’d been people in the public gallery who’d tell her what had happened today. Whether she wanted to hear every detail or couldn’t bear to talk about it. Whether she’d be able to eat, or later, to close her eyes and sleep. I imagined how I’d feel standing in that witness box: was there anything she could do to ready herself for that?

And I thought about him, the accused. Ian. Would they let him go home, or would he be spending the night in a cell? I had no idea how it worked. We’d been told the trial would last three to four days. It didn’t seem long. Three to four days and he’d be either walking out under the same sky as the rest of us, or taken away to locked doors and iron gates, to a world without choices. I wondered if he suspected which way it would go. I wondered if he hoped for justice or feared it.

As I crossed the car park I heard footsteps quickening behind me.

‘Natalie?’

I turned to see one of the other jurors, a woman with a tired smile and sensible eyes. ‘It is Natalie, isn’t it?’

‘Hi, yes. Sorry, I don’t think…’

‘Helen, Helen Owens.’ I saw her wondering whether the surname had been a good idea. Then, ‘Don’t worry, I know we’re not supposed to talk about the case.’

I smiled as if the thought hadn’t occurred to me. ‘It’s nice to be out so early. I hadn’t realised court days were so short.’

She nodded. ‘I know. Someone at work told me to make the most of it. I think we’re all in the wrong jobs.’

‘What do you do?’

‘Social worker. I’m based in Hackney.’ That explained the tired eyes, I thought; she must have seen it all. ‘You?’

‘Civil servant.’ I added my standard dinner-party line in case she thought I was a spook. ‘I work for the taxman.’

She was quiet for a moment. It usually has that effect. Then, ‘Are you heading back to London Bridge?’

She chatted for the ten minutes or so it took to reach the station, not seeming to require much in the way of a response. She was a few years older than me, a couple of daughters in school, no mention of her husband but she wore a ring. As we parted, she said, ‘I don’t see how we’re going to reach a verdict.’

I shrugged, knowing what she meant and trying not to worry about it. ‘It’s only the first day. They might have more.’

‘Yes. I just hope … You know, one person’s word …’

It was what I feared too. I said, ‘It’s innocent until proven guilty. If there’s no real evidence, I suppose there can only be one verdict.’

And even as I said the words I thought: can it really be that simple? But Helen was nodding. It was that simple. There was no other way for it to be.

At home, I picked up my BlackBerry and tapped in the password. I hadn’t taken it to court, unsure whether I’d be allowed to keep it with me, and as far as Alan was concerned I was out of commission for all but the direst emergency. He’d been given strict instructions to leave me a voicemail if there was anything that needed my attention; I was pleased to see there were no messages. I scrolled quickly through the day’s emails – as quickly as it’s possible to scroll through 186 items, anyway – but resisted the temptation to respond to any of them. If I gave Alan the opening, he’d assume I’d pick up anything difficult.

When I’d finished, I went to the sitting room and pressed a finger into the soil in the pot holding my dragon tree. Dracaena marginata is one of the easiest house plants to keep, but nevertheless it’s important to water it at appropriate intervals. Too much is as bad as too little: it starves the roots of oxygen. The soil was on the edge of crispness, so I added a moderate amount and gave the leaves a spray of plant food.

Later I settled in front of the TV with my dinner on a tray. Maybe I’d watch a film, enjoy the luxury of the extra time; but flicking through the channels, a nature programme caught my attention. A squirrel was burying some nuts, watched from a distance by another one. I thought I recognised the voice providing the commentary – an actor, Scottish. Who was it?

‘The would-be thief is in for a surprise.’ Shot of the nut-burying squirrel peering suspiciously over his shoulder. ‘He’s been spotted, and this squirrel has a trick up his sleeve …’

Was Chantelle watching television now? Or reading a book or a magazine, trying to take her mind off things? Or was she lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, imagining how it would be to stand there in that courtroom, the things she would have to say? And what about Ian? Was he desperate for his chance to tell his side of the story? Or terrified that when the moment came, he’d be caught out, his lies exposed in the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights?

‘The squirrel has only pretended to bury the nuts, and now he’s off to find another hiding place.’ Squirrel number two had come out of hiding and was pawing at the spot recently vacated by squirrel number one. After a while, he stopped, empty-handed, realising he’d been duped.

Such deceitfulness, even in the animal kingdom. Why expect people to be any different? We’re hard-wired for it. We’re the worst of the lot.

I thought of Aidan. He’d thought he was going to get away with it. He’d thought he was the cunning one, but he was squirrel number two. It had taken me a while, but I’d got wise to him in the end. I found myself smiling as I reached for my glass of wine. Yes, I’d seen through him eventually. And then Aidan found out he was dealing with squirrel number one.

The woman on the stand was in her early fifties, auburn hair well cut and streaked with grey. Her voice when she spoke carried a tremble of anxiety.. . .