‘Do you want to read first?’ he said, shy now that he had shown – twice – that he wasn’t all anger, all business, all threat to my family’s very existence.
‘Yeah, cool.’ I took my seat on the purple fluffy cushion to the left of the sofa and nearer the television, Logan Carlisle took the other one.
Five hours later we knew three things:
1. He was joking about lapsang souchong tea – he drank coffee.
2. Reading court documents was tiring and we’d both worked up a huge appetite.
3. Poppy Carlisle and Serena Gorringe had both been absolutely screwed during the court process.
‘Is this as bad as it seems?’ Logan Carlisle asked me. He sat back, leant against the sofa and then proceeded to stretch his long, solid arms up and his legs out, carefully avoiding my neat piles and the heavily highlighted pages. ‘As a lawyer, are you reading this and thinking that everything was going against them when they walked into that courtroom? That the very real possibility that they both wouldn’t end up in jail hadn’t even occurred to anyone involved?’
‘Yes, it’s as bad as it seems,’ I replied, frowning as my eyes wandered over the highlighted pages. ‘They never had a chance,’ I reiterate. ‘Their briefs . . . what were they thinking? They didn’t call any witnesses to show what sort of man Marcus Halnsley was. They didn’t call the ex-wife to talk about if there’d been abuse allegations against him in the past. And I bet you there were loads.
‘They didn’t look for any of the other pupils he’d groomed – because what he did to Poppy and Mum was too slick to be something he just fell into. They didn’t bring in medical records, even though both girls would have needed medical attention.
‘It’s like they almost literally phoned that defence in. And this is only halfway through day two!’ I sat back and recapped my highlighter. ‘I’m sure Grandma and Grandpa will have paid Mum’s legal team a lot of money but they wouldn’t have known that they weren’t doing their job properly.’
We sighed dramatically, hopelessly, in unison.
‘I wasn’t expecting these to be a cheery read,’ Logan Carlisle said. ‘I mean, I don’t know what I was expecting, but this is depressing the living daylights out of me.’
‘And me. And I look at these types of documents day in and day out . . . what a mess.’
‘I could use a drink,’ he stated.
‘One coffee coming up.’
‘No, a real drink.’
Minutes later I handed him a condensation-covered beer that I kept in the fridge for when Conrad came over and settled down with a large glass of white wine for myself. ‘I already feel completely demoralised,’ Logan admitted.
‘We can’t let it get us down. I mean, we know your sister went to prison so it must have been bad.’
‘No, you’re right. It’d explain why your mother didn’t tell, though. With all this’ – he tapped the top of the nearest pile – ‘if I were her, I would have kept my mouth shut, too.’
I pressed my finger on the black screen of my phone to bring it back to life: 20:32. ‘Shall we call it a day?’ I said to him. ‘Start afresh again . . . I don’t know, when do you want to come back?’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Yes, I want to get all of this done as soon as possible.’
‘I have Sunday lunch with my family tomorrow. It’s the one time we get together and have a chance to . . .’ My voice dried up like a drop of water in a hot pan when I saw his face. ‘I’ll see if I can move it.’ I could not move it. Mum insisted on Sundays together at least once a month. She wanted us to connect, never forget how much we mean to each other.
‘No, no, I don’t want to take you away from them. What sort of a git would I be if I did that? Let’s just get back to it after these drinks.’
‘OK,’ I said miserably. I was so hungry. So hungry. Saturday nights on the sofa with a takeaway and my next favourite binge-watch was what I looked forward to all week. Sometimes Zeph would persuade me to go out, sometimes my mate Howie would ask to drop by, but Saturday nights were made for me to be alone and chill.
‘You have other plans?’ he asked.
‘Not really. Just food and TV.’
‘Don’t let me stop you.’ He started to stand up.
‘No, no, look, you must be hungry. Do you fancy getting a takeaway, pausing for a bit to eat it and then getting back into it?’
‘If you don’t mind losing your Saturday night to this.’
Of course I minded. But I had to show willing, which in turn would keep him onside and away from my mother. ‘Not at all. Tonight it’s pizza. You fancy pizza?’
‘Yes, I could eat a pizza. I could definitely eat pizza.’
Now
My knickers are urgently tugged down and then off . . . his fly is practically ripped open . . .
June, 2019
Over the days and days we spent together poring over and over the papers, Logan grew quieter and quieter. His brows knitted themselves together so often he was just one big frown, his eyes darting over the highlighted pages as if searching for the words that he’d missed the first time round that would confirm what he thought, what he knew to be true. As time went on and the days became more days became weeks, became a month of working almost every evening and most weekends on the papers, he became almost mute. Because, I realised, he had come to understand that Poppy could have done it. That while Mum walking free might have been a mistake, the only evidence about who did it pointed clearly to Poppy.
I kept suggesting we re-examine the papers, thereby drawing out, elongating, basically delaying the moment we had to admit that neither of us were sure about our loved ones and their involvement in this crime. It could have been Poppy. It might have been Serena.
‘Are we just going to do this indefinitely, then?’ Logan finally asked just over a month after we’d started. I’d known him nearly two months now and he was actually quite good company. He was respectful of my space, always clearing up after himself, asking before he did anything, conscious of imposing himself on my time.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied as I rubbed my hands over my eyes to hide from the truth. ‘Maybe. Hopefully. Probably.’
I felt Logan stretch forward to put down the paper in his hands on the top of its relevant pile and then straighten the stack before he sat back. He reached out and gently took my hand away from my face. He was half smiling at me, as though he knew what I was doing and why, and wanted to do the same himself.
‘This didn’t work out the way I thought it would,’ he admitted.
‘Me neither.’
‘I thought I’d find the back-up I needed to prove my sister was innocent and then I would have that vital bit of evidence everyone missed to take to your mother and force her to confess.’ He grimaced at his own naïvety. ‘I seriously thought I’d be able to say to her that she needed to come clean to the authorities before I went to them and they launched a reinvestigation. I had visions of there being a big retrial and Poppy having her conviction overturned and walking away with the apologies of the court. I could even see my dad’s face as he had to apologise to her for not believing in her all those years.