‘So that means that the attack could conceivably have happened around six o’clock at night?’ said Daniel, with one eyebrow raised.
‘That’s correct, or it could have happened some hours before.’
Daniel and Irene looked at each other. Already Daniel could see Irene presenting this in court.
It was cooler when they emerged from the pathologist’s office, but the London streets still felt dirty and noisy and stuffy. It was just after five o’clock and crowded, people navigating each other like fish; cars honked at cyclists; people talked on invisible mobiles. Taxi doors slammed; buses breathed in and up from the road, out and down towards it; jets coursed soundlessly through the blue sky above it all.
‘Well, that was useful,’ said Irene, putting on her sunglasses and taking off her jacket.
She had strong, square shoulders, like a tennis player, and Daniel admired them. He pulled off his tie and put it into his pocket. ‘Let me buy the Queen’s Counsel a drink, then?’
They were early enough to get tables on the street. They sat opposite each other, sipping ale as the shadows lengthened and tired summer wasps floated lazily around empty glasses.
‘To you,’ Daniel said, chinking glasses with her.
‘So,’ Irene said, leaning back, observing him. ‘Do you think Sebastian did it?’
Daniel shrugged. He could feel the sun on his brow. ‘He’s adamant that he didn’t do it. He’s a weird little kid but I think he’s telling the truth. He’s just messed up.’
‘I found him unsettling, but I … barely spoke to him.’
‘He’s bright. Only child. I think … probably quite isolated. He’s said some stuff to me about his father attacking his mother. They’re wealthy, but I don’t think it’s a happy home.’
‘I could believe that. The father seems like a misogynist – he didn’t want us on the case because I’m a woman.’
‘No!’ said Daniel. ‘It was me. He thought I was too young and inexperienced.’
Irene sighed and shrugged, and then looked more serious: ‘With what we heard from Gault, there could easily have been another attacker, you know. Sebastian has an alibi from—’
‘Three o’clock … and the statement from the man who said he saw Sebastian fighting after that time sounds like he was led on by the police or just confused. There’s nothing distinctive about his description of Sebastian … and what with the distance and the foliage –I’ve been to the park – I’m sure we can undermine it. If only we could get something useful on tape.’
‘I even watched the tape myself in case we missed something. Typical, of course, that the police only requested the council tapes …’
‘You found others?’
‘Well, two pubs in the area have CCTV. We’re still going through those tapes, looking for the boys, but also this second sighting supposedly of Sebastian …’
‘I know, if only we had something on tape that put someone else, not Sebastian, in the adventure playground at the time …’
She rested her chin on her hand and looked into the distance, across the street at the buses and cyclists. Daniel liked her face, which was shaped like a melon seed. He watched as she pushed strands of hair behind her ears.
‘I’m still bruised from the last time,’ she said finally. ‘Do you ever think of it?’
Daniel sighed and nodded, running a hand through his hair. They had both been stung by a guilty verdict that saw the teenager returned to the system that had raised him. They had each warmed to the tall boy, who had skin taut and brown as a chestnut, and a smile bright and quick as innocence. He had been born in prison to a crack-addicted mother and brought up in foster care. They had fought hard for him, but he was guilty and he had been found guilty.
‘If I’m honest, one of the reasons I wanted this was because of losing for Tyrel,’ she said.
‘I went to see him a month or so ago. He’s waiting for an appeal … I went to tell him there wasn’t going to be one. He’s really thin.’ Daniel looked away.
‘And this one,’ Irene continued. ‘I know he’s supposed to be eleven, but he’s tiny … or is that what eleven-year-olds look like? I’m out of touch … I mean at least Tyrel looked like a young man.’
Daniel took a long drink.
‘You need to let it go,’ he said. ‘I’m sure QCs aren’t supposed to worry about all this stuff.’ He winked at her and smiled, but she did not return his smile. She was looking away again, remembering. ‘God, we got so drunk that night.’
Towards the end of it, Irene had put beer caps into her eyes to impersonate the judge who sentenced Tyrel.
‘My sister couldn’t understand why I was so down afterwards,’ Irene continued. ‘She kept saying to me, but he was guilty – as if that mattered, as if that negated what we were trying to do. I remember that terrible look of fear he had when he was sent down. He just looked so young. I felt strongly then, and I still do, that he needed help, not punishment.’
Daniel ran both hands through his hair. ‘Maybe we’re in the wrong job.’ He laughed lightly. ‘Maybe we should go into social work.’
‘Or politics and just sort it all out.’ Irene smiled and shook her head.
‘You’re a great barrister, but you’d be a rubbish politician. They’d never shut you up. Can you imagine you on Newsnight? You’d be ranting. You’d never be asked back.’
She laughed, but then her smile fell. ‘God help Sebastian if he’s innocent. Three months in custody until trial is hard enough on an adult.’
‘Even if he’s guilty, it’s hard,’ said Daniel, finishing his pint.
‘It doesn’t bear thinking about,’ said Irene. ‘Most of the time I appreciate the justice system. You have to, don’t you, in our line of work. But when it comes to kids – even kids as old and streetwise as Tyrel – you just think, God, there must be another way.’
‘But there is, England and Wales are out of step with much of Europe. In most other European countries children under the age of fourteen don’t even appear before a criminal court.’ Daniel laid his palms flat on the table as he spoke. ‘Kids are dealt with in civil proceedings by family courts, usually in private. I know the outcome can often be the same with violent crime – long-term detention in secure units – but it’s all done as part of a care order, not as … custodial punishment.’
‘Compared with Europe we seem medieval …’
‘I know, ten years old and you go to criminal court. I mean … ten years old! It seems ludicrous. Scotland was eight until earlier this year. God, I can remember being eight, ten years old … the confusion, the fact that you’re so small, and so … unformed as a person. How can you be held criminally responsible at that age?’
Irene sighed, nodding.
‘Do you know the age of criminal responsibility in Belgium?’
‘Fourteen?’
‘Eighteen years old. Eighteen years old. Scandinavian countries?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘Exactly, fifteen years old. And we’re ten! But what really makes me angry is the fact that it’s not about money or resources or any of that crap. Roughly what per cent of the people you defend are from troubled backgrounds: drugs, domestic violence … ’
‘I don’t know. I would say eighty per cent, easily.’
‘Me too. Vast majority of clients have had really difficult upbringings … D’you know how much a damaged child in the care system will cost the state throughout the course of its life?’