Liam had phoned Maureen at home, telling her that something had come up and he might not be in court tomorrow morning. He sounded stiff and strange but she didn't want to press him. It would be a complication to do with Michael and she didn't want to take in another shred of information. She couldn't stop thinking about Liam now, wondering where he was and what had happened, wondering whether she should have asked.
"That's forty minutes," said Kilty, under her breath. "Maybe they're not coming at all."
Neither Maureen nor Leslie answered. They had both decided that they weren't coming but didn't want to leave yet, just in case.
"What if we-"
"Ssh," said Leslie. "Another twenty and then we'll go."
"I need the loo," said Kilty.
"Just wait," said Maureen.
Another ten minutes passed and they were wriggling around, shuffling their numb buttocks on the cold step, when three cars and a large white van came round the corner, lighting up the Park Circus Health Club with their headlights. They stopped in the street and all the doors opened, everyone piling out and running up the stairs to the door. They didn't bother to knock – they had a big metal bar with handles on it and smashed the door open at the first try, shouting that they were the police and to stop.
In the hall a woman turned and ran, the yucca plant got knocked over and everyone was shouting, women screaming, doors being smashed in, orders to stop. All around the genteel square lights went on and people came to windows to watch the furor, squinting out into the darkness. A woman at a third-story window was holding a baby. She smiled and said something to a man standing at her shoulder. Two neighbors spotted each other at their windows across the square and waved.
Aggie Grey had tipped them off. The police had informed her of their timetable so she could get there with the photographer and do their media department's job for them. When she had passed it on she told Maureen it was top secret and she had to sit somewhere that the police wouldn't see her. She told Maureen to sit in the dark, not to move, smoke or do any bloody thing that would draw attention to herself. Everything Maureen had told her had checked out, from the agency in Warsaw to the Newcastle connection. Aggie said she had even found a file interview with an anonymous woman who had been through the network and managed to get away while she was in Dublin. She was still trying to source the interview but they had enough confirmation to run the story anyway.
Aggie was standing at the bottom of the stairs, a photographer at her side. He raised his camera in readiness and waited, setting off flashes as the police began to filter out of the club's smashed door, bringing with them skinny women in thrown-on clothes, one holding a bandaged hand in front of her. The bodybuilder had a surgical collar on and his massive arms cuffed behind his back. Two or three men were hustled into the back of the van, covering their faces or looking away.
When all the noise and bustle was done, when the cars had shut their doors and driven away and the van had left the square, when the neighbors had finished waving and shrugging to one another, the three women were left alone on the stairs. Leslie lit a cigarette. "Good one," she said.
Chapter 46
Maureen was alone in the witness room. Paulsa had been called to give evidence and had been in there for forty minutes already. He had arrived this morning in slow-blink, tiptoeing mode. She couldn't imagine anyone managing to sustain a conversation with him for longer than three minutes – he seemed pretty off it and she didn't suppose he would make a very good witness. She was the last one, knew she would be the final witness and hoped she would be left until the afternoon. She didn't want the jury to come up with a verdict before Monday.
She was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt with trousers she had bought that morning, and felt grown-up and ready for them. She hadn't seen Liam before she came to the witness room, didn't know if he was out there or not. She suddenly thought that he might have been arrested for Michael, or something to do with Michael, but it was nonsense. She knew it was nonsense.
There was only an hour left until lunch when the door opened and the police officer gestured for her to come with him. She stood up, gathering her newspaper, breathless with nerves. He led her through the back door, along a narrow passageway and into an antechamber with an intimidating large oak door at one end. Next to the door stood a bald man in a black gown and bow tie. He nodded to the uniformed man, acknowledging acceptance of the package. He took the newspaper from Maureen, set it down on a chair at the side and opened the door.
It was very bright in the court, lit from above by windows in the ceiling. The body of the room was hidden behind a large wooden wall but she could hear a thundering silence, a man coughing, someone whisper. The usher pointed her up a small, steep set of wooden stairs and, as Maureen climbed, the room came into view.
It was grander than the small-claims court. The judge was sitting in a duck egg blue alcove above her, between two pillars and below a symbol of the crown, all ribbons and unicorns. Below the witness box, sitting at a large table, were the lawyers in their funny costumes facing the judge with their backs to the public. The overhead windows didn't extend to the public gallery and the benches were in shadow. Liam's face caught her eye. She went to wave, delighted to see him, but stopped her hand at her waist. Liam was looking worried and sitting next to Winnie. He seemed to be holding her hand. Winnie, she noticed, had not brushed her hair.
Straight across the room sat the jury, a mess of color, body shapes and hairdos, a welcome injection of reality in the pantomime. They were in a little wooden pen, facing her on three benches of five, like a roller coaster train dipping into the courtroom. She could tell by their expectant faces that she was billed as the finale. They were sitting forward, waiting voraciously. It was hot in the room and, high up in the booth, Maureen was hotter than most. She began to sweat furiously.
Angus was sitting to her left, in a wooden gallery, flanked by guards. He opened his eyes a little, like a pleasured child, and mouthed one word: Pauline. Maureen grinned at him and gave him a cheeky little wave. She saw the confusion and fear in his eyes and looked away.
The bow-tied man swore her in, holding out a Bible for her to put her hand on, and she found herself taking the oath to someone else's God very seriously. The man told her to sit down on the wooden seat and went off, clambering down into the body of the court and up another small set of stairs into the judge's booth, standing slightly behind him.
A lawyer from the table went to stand up but hesitated with his knees half bent as the judge checked his watch. The judge nodded to him and he got up. He had a little black goatee beard, and wore a white wig and a gown. He walked all the way across the room and stood next to the jury, one arm laid along a dividing wall, his head tipped back affectedly. Beneath his gown his suit was expensive, his shirt well pressed. "Missss O'Donnell." It was a long hiss, a theatrical attempt to get everyone's attention and, she felt sure, malign her as unmarried. "Could you tell us how you met Douglas Brady?"
Maureen cleared her throat and leaned nervously towards the microphone. "I met him-" The microphone gave off a high-pitched crackle.
The bow-tied man came galloping over to her, leaning over the wall of the box. "Don't lean in so far, stay back a bit," he said. She sat forward a little and he winked at her. "Super," he said, his eyes twinkling. She watched him go back to the judge's box. His was the only friendly face she could see in the room and she wanted him to come back.