‘Is it not true that as soon as other children get to know you, they do not want to be friends with you?’
‘No!’
The court was spellbound. On the screen, Sebastian’s cheeks were pink with rage.
‘I have here care notes from the secure unit where you are currently on remand. The warden has specifically mentioned your inability to get on with the other children and to form friendships …’
Irene stood up. ‘My lord, I must protest. My client is an innocent boy on remand in a secure unit where he is by far the youngest child among a number of severely disturbed teenagers. I should think it obvious, and to my client’s credit, that he would find it difficult to form friendships in these circumstances.’
There was a small pause and Daniel relaxed as both Jones and Baron conceded Irene’s point.
‘Let’s get back to the subject of Ben’s murder … Murder, after all, is what interests you. You had Ben Stokes’s blood on your clothes and your shoes: how did that feel?’
‘What do you mean?’ Sebastian’s temper left him for a moment, as he was drawn into Jones’s abstraction.
‘Well, when Ben supposedly burst his nose and his blood got on to your clothes and your shoes, how did it feel?’
‘All right. It’s just blood. Everybody has blood.’
‘I see, so you felt quite good with Ben’s blood on you, when you walked home?’
‘I felt OK. It was just a natural thing.’ Sebastian was looking up in the corner of the screen, as if remembering. His thin smile had returned.
‘What about when Ben was hurt, how did you feel then?’
‘Well, he was hurting. I wasn’t. I didn’t feel anything.’
‘What do you suppose Ben was feeling?’
‘Well, he fell down and he was bleeding, but that is sometimes what happens when your nose gets banged. Sometimes … you don’t have to hit someone very hard … sometimes they can just get slapped and their nose starts bleeding. Noses are quite sensitive.’
Daniel felt pain in his diaphragm. Sebastian seemed so far away. Behind the screen, it was as if he was in another dimension, lost to all their efforts to save him. He was irreclaimable, gone. The court heard a boy who lacked empathy discussing random violence, but Daniel knew that Sebastian was specifically referring to King Kong hitting his mother.
‘Did you hit Ben, Sebastian, to make his nose bleed?’ Gordon Jones was almost whispering.
Daniel was surprised that Sebastian could hear. If it had been in open court, Jones would have had to speak louder.
Sebastian shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Blood … is natural,’ repeated Jones. ‘Everyone has blood … When you had Ben’s blood on you, you felt fine. Had you ever had anyone else’s blood on you, Sebastian?’
‘Well … my own … if I got hurt.’
‘I see, anyone else?’
Sebastian was pensive for a moment, green eyes to the side and looking upwards, remembering. ‘My mum’s blood … I don’t mean when I was born, because being born there is a lot of blood, and it gets on to the baby, but afterwards if she got hurt and she touched me, sometimes it would get on to me.’
‘I see. Have you ever caused another to bleed?’
Irene rose to her feet. ‘My lord, I must question the relevance of this line of questioning.’
Baron nodded and cleared his throat loudly. ‘Yes, Mr Jones, if you could try to stick to the point.’
‘Very well, my lord. Sebastian – did you tell the police – and I read now from the transcripts of your interview:
‘Do you know whose blood might have been on your shirt?
‘A bird’s?
‘Why, did you hurt a bird?
‘No, but I saw a dead one once and I picked it up. It was still warm and its blood was all sticky.’
Again Irene rose to her feet. ‘My lord,’ she began, but Baron silenced her with a hand.
‘I will hear the answer,’ he said. ‘But Mr Jones, Miss Clarke is correct, you must make your question clear.’
‘Yes, m’lord.’ Irene sat down.
‘You remember telling the police that, Sebastian?’ said Jones.
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you think the blood on your clothes belonged to the bird and not to Ben?’
‘I got confused. The bird was another day.’
‘I see, another day. Did you hurt this bird?’
‘No,’ said Sebastian, but then he paused. His eyes turned up and to the left of the screen as he considered. Daniel thought he looked like a young boy saint, persecuted. He pulled his lower lip into his mouth and sucked it. He released it with a sound that was almost like a kiss. ‘I helped it …’
‘Tell me about the bird, Sebastian. What did you do to it, to cause its blood to transfer on to your clothes?’
Again, Sebastian’s eyes rolled upwards as he remembered. The eyes of the boy seemed enormous on the big screen.
‘Well … there was a bird I found in the park one day. It had a broken wing. It was a pigeon or something. It was turning round and round because it couldn’t fly. It was going to die, you see. It would get eaten by a fox or dog or a cat, or it would just starve to death …’
‘I see, so what did you do?’ Jones had his body turned towards the jury, but each time he addressed Sebastian he would look in the direction of the camera.
‘I stamped on its head; I had to put it out of its misery, but it didn’t die. Its claws were still moving.’ As if the words were not enough, Sebastian raised both hands up before his face. He held his hands like claws and made them twitch. ‘So I had to end it.’
‘What did you do?’ asked Jones.
‘I pulled its head away from its body, and then … it was still.’ Again Sebastian looked upwards and to the left, remembering. ‘But I had the bird’s blood on me then.’ Sebastian turned to look into the camera again. He rubbed his hands together, as if washing them.
Daniel clasped his hands tightly together, under the table. They were damp with sweat.
‘Why did you decide you needed to kill the bird, Sebastian?’ whispered Gordon Jones, still turned from the boy.
‘I told you. It would have died anyway. I had to put it out of its misery.’
‘You could have taken it to the vet. Why did you not want to help the bird? Why did you decide to murder it?’
‘I don’t think vets help pigeons with broken wings,’ said Sebastian. His tone was authoritative, condescending. ‘The vet would have killed it too, only with a needle.’
The word needle seemed to pierce the skin of silence in the room. There was a rustle, as the people in the court shifted in their seats.
‘How did you feel when the bird was dead?’ asked Jones.
‘Well, it was only little and it had to die, so that was a shame. But it was better that it didn’t suffer.’
‘Ben Stokes was only little. Were you upset when he died?’
Sebastian blinked, twice or maybe three times; he turned his head to the side, as if in anticipation of Charlotte’s fingers coursing through his hair.
‘Well … I’m only little too,’ he said. ‘Why is everyone so interested in Ben? He’s dead now, but I’m still here.’
The room was unnaturally silent.
‘No more questions for this witness, m’lord,’ said Jones.
‘Miss Clarke?’ Baron asked.
Daniel almost could not breathe, but he watched Irene stand up. Despite the evidence, she seemed strong, valiant.
‘Sebastian,’ Irene called.
Her voice was clear and awakened the room. Sebastian turned anew to the camera, blinking.
‘Ben Stokes was your friend. What did you like about him?’
‘He was funny and … he could do very good backward rolls. I can’t do them. They hurt my neck.’