Harriett looked around the crowded courtroom for a familiar face. She found one. Her brother’s terrified, wide eyes mirrored hers. Harriett tried to smile, tried to look less afraid, but her whole body had been shaking since they’d brought her back into the courtroom. The jury had made their decision. It was too quick; the solicitor said it could be a good thing, but at the age of eighteen and naïve—as they’d tried to show her—she knew it was bad news. The tired-looking solicitor wouldn’t have made a good actor, his “game face” was non-existent, even she could read his thoughts. She knew her version of events didn’t seem plausible, and she had lived them. If only she’d been arrested a few months prior, she would have been tried as a minor.
Her fingers dug into the worn wood as she waited to see what her fate would be. It didn’t seem right to have strangers make a decision about her future. They didn’t know her, they only knew what the solicitors had told them, what the police said had happened, but they didn’t know. They hadn’t been there and, mentally, neither had she. Her solicitor didn’t care; he’d gotten her name wrong three times. How had it come to this?
She winced as a splinter pierced her finger. She put it to her lip and the pain seemed to soak up a little bit of the stress.
She’d been sitting with the solicitor as he talked about what would happen when they returned to the courtroom. The jury had decided. She didn’t really care, she just wanted it over. She wanted to go home.
‘I just want to go home,’ she told him again.
He sighed like he was dealing with a child. She was a child, she wanted to scream. Just because her useless parents had made her an adult before she was ever a child. This wasn’t fair. But he interrupted her, ‘We have spoken about this. You have to prepare yourself. You know we didn’t have enough evidence to acquit you. We had to rely on the compassion of the jurors. Your clean record. Your responsibility and upbringing.’
He sighed and looked at his watch again. He’d told her this, but it didn’t change the fact that she wanted to go home. Although, where would she go? She wasn’t allowed to go home. It was never really home, even though she had never lived anywhere else.
She found her brother’s face again and nodded at him as he stood between two strangers—not her parents, as she’d hoped. They had disowned her from the moment the police had turned up on the doorstep. They had cared more about what the neighbours thought and how they could get out of it, not their own daughter. Believing she was innocent seemed incredulous to them. They’d swept her away like they did with every problem in life. Not seen and not heard was the Lamleys’ view on life, which was especially true for her and her brother. Harriett wasn’t quite sure why they’d had children in the first place. Well, she knew, for the financial benefits. Harriett recalled hearing some of the neighbours talking about her parents sponging off the government, saying her parents were experts at exploiting the system.
Fred was only three years younger than her, though they looked very similar and people often mistook them for twins. She wondered how he’d managed to sneak into the courtroom without an adult. But Fred was clever, he always knew how to get around things. He was the master of manipulation because his quiet manner was mistaken for stupidity. He winked at her and she tried to smile but her mouth refused to work, and she ended up with a wonky mouth as a tear slid down her face. She tried to be brave for him, but she couldn’t do it. It was too late, she was the one who would escape now, but not to London as they’d planned. She would be going somewhere she would never want him to follow.
‘All rise.’
Harriett was already standing up, her legs feeling wobbly like a newborn fawn, her finger throbbing now. How could such a little bit of wood cause so much pain? She put her finger to her mouth again, but the solicitor made a gesture and she put her hand down. She pulled some skin away, trying to get to the splinter, and blood started to pool on the surface of her thumb. She clenched her hand, the thumb on the inside protected by her fingers, something she would learn not to do in prison. If you hit someone, it made it easier to break your thumb.
She looked around again just in case her parents had come, but it was a foolish hope, and what comfort would it really bring her? They had never cared, and she hated herself for wanting them to care. She found the kind eyes of Dr Maytree, although they were filled with tears as well. It made her seem more human; doctors had always felt like different human beings to her. Harriett had seen many doctors over the years for her “problems”, as her mother called them. Dr Maytree was the only one who had helped her, along with her father, who was also known as Dr Maytree. She’d helped Harriett secure the job in the nursing home where it had all gone so horribly wrong.
Locking eyes with Fred, she couldn’t really hear what the judge was saying. He was talking to the jury, or someone was. Asking them if they’d all decided. Harriett wondered what they did after. Did they go home and think about the person they thought they knew? Did they make dinner when they got home, talk about the girl and what she had done? Were they allowed to talk about it? She bet she was the subject of gossip across many a fence. Apparently, anyone could be called to jury service. One of them even looked like a serial killer to her. She’d made up stories about each one of them to try and take her mind off everything that was said as if it was happening to someone else. The solicitor had made her out to be unstable, vulnerable, from a bad background. She wasn’t unstable, she just couldn’t handle things like everyone else. She blacked out and couldn’t remember things, the result of a head injury from when she was young. But Doctor Maytree said that was her condition. That she was a good kid. She’d told the jury and Harriett had been grateful. But Doctor Maytree also had to say other things; she wasn’t allowed to lie.
Fred’s eyes were much bluer than hers, she realised. Hers had flecks of green, his nose larger than hers, but they had the same ears and a mouth which was a little too thin, with a tendency to go blue in the winter. She could feel the blood pooling in her hand as the judge carried on talking. Harriett wasn’t really aware of much other than her brother, the pain and the blood. There had been a lot of blood that day at the nursing home. So much blood. She didn’t realise humans had so much and it could spread so far. It had trickled off the bed and pooled on the floor.
Fred’s eyes widened as the result—was it a result or an announcement? A sentencing, was that it? A verdict, maybe? Her mind couldn’t grasp words, she couldn’t hear what they said, what she had been condemned to, what her future was going to be. But Fred’s eyes told her. The tears in his eyes told her. His body slumping onto the seat told her. The strangers reaching out to him told her. The arm reaching out from Doctor Maytree told her. All the signs told her; she didn’t need to hear the word.
Guilty.
Then, all she saw was glorious blackness.