His face turns a peculiar shade of purple.
It isn’t me he’s concerned about. It’s his track record – his career. Am I supposed to feel sorry for him?
“I just don’t have the energy. What’s the point when I’m going to be found guilty anyway? Because I will. She’ll see to that.”
Brian grits his teeth. “I don’t take cases I can’t win,” he says vehemently. “I told you that at the start.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think you fully appreciate what you’re up against.”
“We’ve been over and over this. I get the picture.”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure you do. Don’t you understand? Alicia can get to anyone. If my own brother won’t even back me up then what hope have I got? I might as well admit defeat. Get a lighter sentence.”
Brian looks like he’s about to explode. “Will you let me do my job?” he spits. “I can do this Isabel. We don’t have to prove you’re innocent. We just have to cast a shadow of doubt. No jury will convict you if they’re not convinced.”
He makes it sound so easy.
“But what about Alicia and Jody?”
“Just trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
I rest my head in my hands.
What if he’s right?
If anyone can defeat them, it’s Brian. He’s one of the top lawyers in the country.
But what if that’s not enough?
“It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
“OK,” I finally submit. “Let’s see what you can do.”
In my dreams, I pictured this moment many times. I imagined the crowd of waiting paparazzi. I felt my muscles tense as they zeroed in on me with their telephoto lenses and thrust their microphones in my face. But in reality, the security guards escort me through the back entrance and lead me quietly inside. I am almost disappointed.
This is the most important day of my life! Doesn’t anybody care?
The courtroom itself seems smaller than they look on TV. I had assumed I was going to be sitting with Brian, but instead, I am seated in a semi-partitioned area at the back, with a custody officer for company. I spot Millrose, sitting importantly beside the prosecution lawyer. It takes me a moment to place her. It seems so long ago since I sat in her interview room, watching my life unravel.
I sense people watching me from the public viewing area behind. It is an uncomfortable feeling – one that’s grown all too familiar. Nervously, I glance round to see who’s there. Kate and Rhett smile back broadly – a little too broadly while Deacon sits like a stone beside them, his shoulders stiff as boards. Our eyes meet, but his expression is grim. He’s under no illusions – this is going to be tough.
During the long, agonising wait, I worry incessantly about the safety procedures for the building. Visitors have to go through a metal detector, but what about matches? Flints? Sticks? Alicia can start a fire from anything. Anywhere. I’ve seen her.
“Court rise.”
A deferential hush falls over the courtroom as the door opens. Judge Bagshott is a walking skeleton. His feet barely touch the floor as he sweeps into the courtroom, tall and imposing in his wig and gown. He barely even looks my way as he sits down and begins to wade through the proceedings.
This is all so surreal.
I bite my lip as the prosecution lawyer begins to set out his case. He paints me as this awful, callous person who sets fires for both pleasure and profit and says that I attacked Holly because she’s not the girlfriend I wanted for my brother. I glance nervously at the jury and twelve suspicious pairs of eyes meet mine.
They’ve already made up their minds.
I know I should be listening intently to the proceedings, hanging on every word that will decide my fate, but instead I find myself thinking of ten-year-old Alicia again. Now that she has jogged my memory, it is all coming back to me in big, nauseous waves. I remember a teenage Jody, sullen and weak-willed. She was a bit of a weirdo. A loner – with a suspected drug and alcohol problem. But no one reported her, or asked if she was OK. We didn’t think it was our place. In fact, the only person who noticed her at all was Julio, and he soon lost interest once the next pretty girl caught his eye.
But what about Alicia, disturbed little Alicia? Looking back, of course there were signs, clues that something wasn’t right; the strange little scorch marks on her clothing, the smoky smell that permeated her hair. No one ever saw her play with fire, but we all knew she did.
“They make me climb into people’s houses in the middle of the night,” she told me, that fateful day.
“To rob them?”
“No, to burn them down.”
“Really?” I raised my eyebrows sceptically. She could tell I didn’t believe her.
You see, I’d met Alicia’s father and older brother when she and Jody arrived at camp. They’d seemed warm and friendly, full of amusing banter. I quite fancied the brother, actually. He had curly black hair and smelled of musky aftershave. So it was for his benefit, rather than the dad’s, that I recounted Alicia’s tall tale at Parents’ Day, but both laughed it up a storm. I had no reason to believe they were not who they seemed to be. No reason to think anything sinister.
As I sit, trembling in the dock, Alicia’s pitiful little voice rings in my ears:
“Please don’t make me go home, Isabel. I can’t – I just can’t!”
But I just thought she was making excuses. Everybody loved Camp Windylake. No one wanted the summer to be over.
Why go after me? I wonder. Why not the father? The brother? My crime seems so small by comparison.
A familiar figure slips into the public gallery.
It’s Julio. He came.
I force myself to focus on what’s happening. The first witness is making her way to the stand.
Oh god, it’s Holly.
She looks awful – thin and pale, with a long scar that runs all the way down her temple. I plead with my eyes, but she looks away. Flinches when she accidentally glances in my direction, as if I’m too painful to look at. I look back at Julio again, but he has eyes only for Holly.
He’s not here for me.
And with this crushing realisation, I sink a little lower.
The prosecution lawyer asks Holly what kind of relationship she had with me, prior to the assault.
I watch as she takes a deep breath.
“She never liked me. I could tell.”
That’s not true!
“She would act friendly when Julio was around, but as soon as he left the room, it was another story.”
“What?”
The whole courtroom turns round to stare at me. I hadn’t meant to speak out loud; I was just so shocked by Holly’s deceit. The judge transfixes me with his glare and puts his twiggy finger to his lips. He might as well put a gun to my head. I am mute, gagged, unable to say anything as Holly continues to run down my character.
“Can you give me an example?”
“Yes, when Isabel came for Christmas, I thought we were all having a lovely time, but when Julio left the room, she leaned over to me and said:
‘You need to break it off with Julio… before you get hurt.’ It was the way she said it that got to me. Her voice sounded really chilling. It sounded like… a threat.”
It wasn’t like that at all – those weren’t even the words I used. I only asked her if she was sure she knew what she was doing. There was nothing sinister about it at all. I was only looking out for Holly!
How can she do this to me?
“Can you tell us what happened on the night you were attacked?”
“Yes – I finished work late and I was just about to go home when I got an abusive phone call from Isabel. I’d been getting a lot of those in the weeks before the attack. Usually, I just ignored them, but I’d had enough. I decided to go over to her house and have it out with her once and for all.”