‘What everyone wants to know is the truth.’ The barrister uses words like a masseuse uses her hands: strong but silken; persuasive but never too obvious. There is never a suggestion that the arguments posed are anything other than a conclusion that only the most intelligent can perceive. Toby watches the back of counsel’s horsehair wig, the tiny ribboned pigtails hitting his collar as he turns this way and that.
Outside the court he had managed to fight his way through the press cordon, where photographers scrummaged in front of the barriers the court had erected to corral them. He had kept his head bent low, ignoring the hoarse voices shouting Laurel and Rosie’s names. He tried to keep calm, tried to put out of his mind the call he had received on route to the court from a writer called Max Saunders.
‘I’d like to bring them together,’ the man had said.
‘Laurel and Rosie?’ Toby had asked, amazed, struggling to hear what Max was saying over the thunderous traffic that surrounded him.
‘Laurel and Hazel, yes. I think it’s in Laurel’s interests. It could help in her parole application if she has the support of her family. She hasn’t had that for all the years she’s been in prison, has she?’
‘No,’ Toby admitted, hurrying round a corner as the Royal Courts of Justice came into sight. ‘But I’m struggling to see how it would help. Neither of them has ever spoken about the crime. Won’t it just open up Pandora’s box? Our position in the parole process is that Laurel has been rehabilitated, no more and no less.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Max had countered. ‘But what support does she have on the outside? What kind of community? She needs that, doesn’t she? Maybe Hazel could offer it to her?’
‘And she’s willing?’ Toby had asked, slowing down as he approached the mass of people waiting on the pavement outside the court. He halted, trying to think, to compute the benefits and disadvantages that this proposal could have for his eldest niece.
‘Well, I’m getting there,’ Max told him. ‘But I thought we should start the ball rolling with Laurel. There’s no point to any of this if she won’t agree to see Hazel.’
Inside the courtroom, the panelled walls stretch high above them and natural light is minimal. The colour palette is all reds and browns and blacks, and the antique cream of the wigs that bob before the judge on his bench at the front. Toby sits directly behind the barrister, his head permanently down as he scribbles notes on the legal pad before him. This is Laurel’s application and so her barrister is up on his feet first. Then it will be over to the parole board’s legal team to try and oppose her application for a judicial review of their decision.
Through it all, Toby can feel the eyes of Debbie Swann’s sister, Joanna Denton, boring into the back of his tired old suit from a few rows behind in the courtroom’s mahogany seats. He understands why she needs to be there, that Kirstie’s family should be represented at the hearing. And he accepts, too, the awful symmetry of them both being relations of the protagonists of this drama. Nevertheless, he wishes it were not Joanna who was here. Today, with his bloated stomach and ever-present nausea, he feels more in tune with the grief of Debbie Swann than the white-hot rage of Joanna.
‘We would say, quite categorically, that in light of the negative press that has surrounded Ms Bowman for many, many years, the Respondent parole board has paid far too much attention to the wishes of the public and, as such, has failed to apply the presumption in favour of release, on terms that we say, my lord, are unacceptable and, quite frankly, wrong in law. We submit, to the contrary to the Respondent’s recent decision . . .’ here, the barrister waves a piece of paper in the air at which the judge raises one grey eyebrow ‘. . . that in light of the rehabilitation work the Applicant has achieved; the undertaking of her recent GCSE course; and her work in the prison library, she no longer faces the insuperable obstacles that disqualified her before.’
Fifty minutes later the hearing is over. Toby gathers his papers and shakes the barrister’s hand vigorously, unable to quell the adrenaline surfing through his bloodstream. He can’t wait to leave the court and call Laurel in prison. Tell her that, for once, things have gone their way. Their application for a judicial review of the decision of the parole board has been granted and a full oral hearing where that decision will be analysed will be held very soon.
He pushes out of his mind for the moment that he is also obliged to tell her about Max’s phone call. Give her the news that, after all this time, her sister may be paying her a visit.
‘Congratulations!’ Joanna’s voice coming from behind him is laden with spite. ‘Off to let her know the result, are you?’
Toby looks at her briefly before picking up his briefcase. ‘Ms Denton,’ he says politely. ‘How are you?’
‘Pretty disgusted with today’s outcome, as I’m sure you can imagine.’ Joanna stares at him, cheeks sucked in as if she has swallowed a glass of bile. She throws a glance at Laurel’s barrister, chatting amiably to his opponent. ‘It’s a disgrace,’ she hisses. ‘The parole board are perfectly within their rights to make any decision they see fit.’
‘All due process, Ms Denton. As you know,’ Toby says lightly. ‘Everyone is entitled to a fair hearing.’
‘My niece didn’t get one, did she? Little Kirstie hasn’t had her say.’
‘I’m not going to debate jurisprudence with you here, Joanna. I think the court has just done that.’
He turns his back on her and squeezes out of the row of seats.
‘Life should mean life,’ she calls after him, her voice rising, uncontrolled. ‘Kirstie was a baby. A baby . . . How can you help her killer? She bit the ear off a toddler. You disgust me, Toby Bowman. You make me sick!’
Toby bows his head and continues on his way. He doesn’t respond.