The humming in her ears grew louder, a static that interfered with her sight as well as her hearing. They went along and down some other stairs into a room where Francine asked her to wait a minute. Then she took her up a narrow wooden staircase and into court.
The drone in Fiona’s head persisted as she read out the affirmation. She could see the piece of card trembling in her hand and her own words sounded muffled. She took another slow breath, tried to focus on what she could see rather than the turmoil inside.
The jury sat in front of her across the court, two rows of them, a mix of men and women, different ages, most of them white but there were two black women and an Asian man. The judge up on his dais at Fiona’s right was looking at papers, and below, slightly to the left between her and the jury, were the benches with lawyers and clerks. Fiona could sense but not see the crowd of people in the public gallery; there were whispers from there and an occasional cough.
The prosecuting barrister, a tall, skinny man, began talking Fiona through the main points of her testimony. The questions were easy, her replies straightforward, and the swarm in her head subsided. If she stuck to simple facts, didn’t submerge herself in the memory, she could keep it together.
‘Yes, I heard this bang, the shot, and looked out of the window.’
‘What did you see?’
‘I saw him falling,’ she answered.
‘What did you do?’
‘I asked the woman I was with to ring an ambulance then I ran outside. To go and help.’
‘If I can refer the jury to the map, Your Honour,’ said the barrister. ‘The witness was at this point here when she crossed the street.’
Fiona watched him identify the place on a large map that was on the screens.
‘Tell us what happened as you crossed the road.’
‘A car came along, very quickly. I nearly ran into it. They braked and swerved then drove on.’
‘Which direction did they come from?’
‘My left, erm, from the north.’
‘From here.’ He indicated on the map.
‘Yes.’
‘Can you describe the car?’
‘It was a BMW, silver.’
‘Did you see the occupants?’
‘Yes. There were two people in the front but I only got a good look at the driver.’ She had lurched to a halt inches from the vehicle, seen his face, angry and intense.
‘You later identified this person as Samuel Millins?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did Samuel Millins communicate with you in any way?’
‘No – he just glared at me.’
‘And when the car drove off, what did you do?’
‘I went to try and help.’
‘What did you find?’
The boy lay on his back, one leg buckled to the side, his arms outflung. ‘The boy, Danny, there was a wound in his chest; he was losing a lot of blood.’ Pooled in a slick beneath his shoulders, soaking into the grass, into the hard earth among the daisies and dandelions.
‘What did you do?’
‘I took my cardigan off, tried to use it to stop the bleeding.’ His eyes locked on hers.
‘What happened then?’
‘He stopped breathing. I couldn’t find his pulse. I began CPR, tried to start the heart.’ Her voice cracked a little; she cleared her throat. The smell of soap on his skin, the fine down on his cheek. The sun on her neck, his blood warm on her hands. The memory clawed at her. She blinked and tried to relax her shoulders.
‘And then?’
‘The ambulance came and the people from church – his family.’ They were here, Fiona thought, listening to her, drowning in their own memories. How could they bear it? To wake every day with that loss in their hearts, the absence, the child missing from their world. At work she had dealt with women who miscarried, whose babies were stillborn limp and blue, or whose babies were sick and couldn’t be saved. Fiona had witnessed their grief, offered what comfort she could, but to lose a child after fifteen years – to lose him to violence, the bite of a bullet tearing his future away. She thought of life without Owen, squashed the thought.
The barrister representing Sam Millins was a podgy man with a beard. He thanked her for coming but he was a little concerned with some points of her evidence and he’d like to examine these.
Fiona swallowed and felt her ears pop.
‘How would you describe your state of mind when you left the house to attend to the victim that day?’
‘Well, I was worried, frightened and shocked, I think.’
‘Yes. Thank you. And when the car almost ran you over, is it fair to say that added to your shock?’
‘Yes.’ She had been shaking, her nerves electric, senses sharp as glass.
‘You say the car used its brakes. Did it come to a halt?’
‘Not completely, it slowed then went faster again.’
‘So you only saw the driver momentarily?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she agreed.
‘When the victim sadly died you were eager to help the police?’
‘Of course,’ Fiona said.
‘You wanted to do anything you could to bring those responsible to justice?’
‘Yes,’ she answered.
‘And you were asked to see if you could identify the driver of the car from video records held by the police?’
‘Yes.’ Remembering the smooth way Joe had organized it so she wouldn’t get a chance to freak out.
‘So you were determined to find the culprit among the records you were shown?’
‘No,’ Fiona objected with an eddy of dislike at the implication she was on some sort of vendetta, ‘only if he was there.’
‘You glimpsed the driver for one fraction of a second, in a state of deep shock, yet you expect us to accept that you could identify his face many days later?’
‘Yes,’ she insisted.
‘And you had absolutely no doubt?’ He almost sneered, implying her certainty was preposterous.
‘No. He was just like I remembered.’
‘Witness identification is notoriously unreliable, you could have been mistaken, after all.’
‘I don’t think so. In my experience shock heightens the senses, it was like seeing a snapshot of him and he was distinctive enough for me to spot him immediately when I saw him on the video.’
‘Distinctive?’ The man frowned.
‘He looks like Johnny Depp,’ said Fiona, slightly embarrassed, ‘but different hair.’
There was whooping and cheering in the court and the judge got irritated. The clerk called for quiet.
‘So your identification was based on the notion that the man driving the car looks like a film actor?’
‘One particular film actor.’ She would not be made a fool of, she’d not back down. ‘That makes him memorable.’
Someone wolf-whistled and the judge put his hand to his head and then said gravely, ‘If there are any more interruptions from the public gallery I will clear the court. That is not a threat, that is a promise.’
‘You work in the area for the NHS. That is correct?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed.
‘For how long?’
‘Twenty-one years.’ Where had the time gone?
‘You must know the community well.’
‘Yes, the families.’
‘And we all have families,’ he said. ‘You would know my client then?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You can’t be sure?’ He seized on any inference he could.
She had to be alert, not lose a jot of concentration. ‘I’m sure.’
‘You hadn’t ever seen him in the neighbourhood before that day in June last year?’
Each question was chipping away at her certainty. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ Had the man proof that she’d met Sam Millins before? Could she have forgotten? Had she visited his mother, his sister, in the course of work? The ringing started in her ears.