‘I’m not sure we could take you on but would you reconsider the witness protection programme? If we go that route,’ Joe added, ‘someone else takes the reins. I’d have nothing more to do with you. Minimum number of people involved, all very secretive – understandably.’
Mike shook his head. ‘My boy…’ Let alone Vicky. No way would she give up hearth and home and family to be shunted off somewhere like criminals.
Joe sighed, turned his coffee cup round, lining up the handle. ‘Retraction isn’t an option.’
‘Say again?’
‘When you signed your statement, you were giving your consent to give evidence if required. You were told that at the time.’
‘And if I won’t?’ Mike demanded.
‘You’d get a witness summons, if you failed to attend you could be held in contempt of court, arrested, fined, even imprisoned.’
‘What! You wouldn’t do that!’
‘It wouldn’t be up to me,’ Joe said. ‘I wouldn’t have any say. Be down to the judge.’
‘And they’d really do that?’ The guy was telling him that if he didn’t sacrifice his family, he’d end up in prison.
‘Oh, yes. This is a very serious matter. Prosecution is in the public interest, a hostile witness would not be tolerated.’
‘I couldn’t pay a fine, I’m signing on. Get banged up-’ Mike pushed his plate away, the pastry untouched, he couldn’t eat.
‘If you told your wife-’
‘You don’t know Vicky.’ Mike pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, squeezed his eyes shut tight. This was a total disaster. He sat up, looked across at Joe. ‘If it was down to me, if it only affected me, I’d not think twice. That’s why I came forward in the first place.’
‘I could talk to her.’ Joe took a drink.
‘No,’ said Mike quickly, ‘it wouldn’t help.’ Vicky had him by the balls and now the criminal justice system did too. Pulling in different directions.
‘There is another way.’ Joe folded his hands on the table, leaned in, his voice a shade quieter but still unruffled, like this was a chat about the weather not Mike’s future going in the shredder. Mike looked at him.
‘You could testify and not tell your wife.’
‘But the papers, the news,’ he objected. The murder had been front page stuff all along, it would be again once the trial started.
‘You’ll be an anonymous witness. Your name won’t be used. Mr B or whatever.’
For some mad reason Mike thought of Reservoir Dogs, the scene where they got their names, Mr Pink complaining.
‘She won’t know,’ Joe said. ‘And you won’t be the first person to do it.’
‘Straight up?’ Mike smelt hope, he felt the prospect of a solution dawning before him. Maybe this could be fixed. He would be able to do what he’d wanted to do all along and still have Megan and Kieran and Vicky.
‘I’d say it’s your only option.’ Joe took another sip of his drink.
He’d have to lie to her, something he didn’t like, but then he didn’t like the ultimatum she’d given him. The lie would be there between them. Things would never be the way they had been. But that was true already. Vicky’s selfishness, as he saw it, her refusal to let him take a stand and the way she’d twisted things when he’d told her about Stuart, had changed things. A side to her he didn’t like, a hardness. Not willing to put herself in his shoes for five minutes, or even think about the Macateers, what that mother must be going through. I’m all right Jack, that was Vicky’s take on it, looking out for her own and sod the rest. So, Mike’s way of thinking, a lie here and there wasn’t the be all and end all any more.
‘I’ll do it,’ Mike told Joe, ‘but she mustn’t know.’
Joe dipped his head, drained his coffee.
‘Don’t ring the house, and no letters,’ Mike warned him.
‘I can text you,’ Joe suggested, ‘will that be all right?’
‘Yeah, text’s fine.’ Mike pulled his plate back, bit into the pastry, famished now, the sweet raisins and currants just the job.
‘Good.’ Joe took his number and got to his feet, said he’d be in touch.
Mike felt better. So much better that he whistled all the way home: ‘Here Comes The Sun’.
He told Vicky that he’d retracted his statement and that the police were not happy with him. She studied his face and he half thought she’d spotted the lie but then she just said, ‘It’s for the best, Mike.’
A couple of weeks before the trial, Joe texted him to arrange something called a pre-trial visit. It just so happened that Vicky was there when the text came through, doing her books at the kitchen table. Mike was filling in his notes for Jobseeker’s Allowance. He had written: Visited library and searched online for vacancies; filled in an application form for a packer at a fulfilment centre, and was considering what to put next when his phone went. He picked it up and saw it was a text from Joe. He wanted to kill it but he felt her eyes on him, so he opened the message and skimmed it, his mind scrabbling, like a rat in a tin, for a cover story.
‘Who’s that?’ Vicky’s eyes pinned him to his chair.
‘Our kid,’ Mike’s voice was creaky, ‘wants to know if I’m up for a pint tonight.’ Martin never asked Mike for a drink, they only met up at family dos these days, but it was the best Mike could come up with.
‘Thought he did five-a-side on Tuesdays,’ she said, one eyebrow raised, her pen tapping the table.
‘Not all night.’ Mike stood up. ‘Anyway, I can’t be arsed.’ He went up to the toilet, read the text again, then deleted it. And prayed that they’d not have reason to see Martin any time soon.
So many lies, just to tell the truth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Cheryl
Joe, and this volunteer Benny, showed Cheryl where she’d give her evidence. It was a little room down in the basement, empty apart from a table and two chairs. There was a monitor on the table and a camera fixed on top of that. That was where Cheryl would sit. Benny would sit in the other chair.
Milo was at the crèche at the Town Hall. ‘Think of it as a rehearsal for you both,’ Joe had said. ‘On the day you’ll know what’s what.’
Cheryl looked round the little room. There were no windows or anything so it felt like you were underground. Everything looked new and clean, like it was for show. With the three of them standing there it felt crowded.
‘What will they ask me?’ Cheryl said. A sickly, cold feeling creeping through her – not long and it would be the real thing.
‘The prosecution barrister will take you through your statement, first,’ Joe said.
‘I’ll see them on the screen?’ Cheryl pointed to the monitor.
‘Yes. And you’ll have a microphone attached to your clothes but your voice will be distorted. The big screens in the courtroom will be switched off and only the judge and jury and the barristers will see you on their screens. Then the defence barristers will question you. You’re likely to get two sorts of questions: those that cast doubt on your evidence – did you really see such and such, can you be certain, can you remember clearly – and other questions which will examine your motives, try and cast doubt on your credibility as a witness.’
Cheryl didn’t like the sound of that. ‘They gonna say I’m a liar?’
‘They will imply you might have other reasons for coming forward because of an existing relationship with the defendants,’ Joe said. ‘A grudge, or an attempt to get the reward money. Don’t let them get to you, stay calm. If you do start getting upset count to five before you answer. There’s only one thing that matters and that is giving your evidence: what you saw, what you heard, telling the court what happened.’