Back to the prosecution’s question. What did she remember from the night Ed was murdered?
‘I’ve already said in my statement.’
There was a frown from Lily’s direction. ‘Always be respectful,’ she had said. ‘Be prepared to go over and over the facts.’
Carla gathered herself. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that I am so tired.’
She flashed a smile – one of her best – at a young man in the jury who had been eyeing her up since the trial began. He was on her side. ‘Dress soberly,’ Lily had said. But she’d been unable to bring herself to wear the awful outfit that had been presented to her. Instead, she had insisted on wearing a chic jacket and her favourite figure-hugging black skirt. It was attracting, she could tell, a lot of attention.
‘Is it possible to sit down while I am giving evidence?’
The judge gave a brief nod. Thank goodness he was a man. She stood more chance of getting him onside too, providing she played her cards right.
‘Ed and I were at home together. He was drunk again.’ Her eyes closed. ‘He began yelling at me. Insisting that our baby wasn’t his …’ Her eyes brimmed with tears.
‘And was he the father of your child?’
Carla’s chin jerked up. ‘Of course. I loved my husband. I would never have been unfaithful to him. I will take a DNA test, if you like, to prove it.’
The prosecutor was walking up and down. ‘But is it not true that on the night of the murder, your former boyfriend Rupert Harris paid you a visit at home? Were you thinking of leaving your husband for him?’
Carla was so shocked that for a minute she couldn’t speak. Her own barrister seemed taken aback too. He was a young man who kept looking at his notes as if nervous of forgetting something. But according to Lily, he was ‘just right for the job’.
‘No,’ she finally managed to say. ‘Rupert was just a friend from college. Besides, I knew he had just got engaged.’
The horrid prosecution barrister raised his eyebrows as if to indicate that he doubted whether this would put her off. ‘Please tell us what happened next, Mrs Macdonald.’
She glanced at the jury. There was a woman with a pinched face sitting next to the sympathetic-looking young man. Carla addressed herself to her. ‘Ed was shouting at me. He began to shake my shoulders. His fingers were hurting me. I was so scared …’ She paused and pressed her hand to her chest. ‘I pushed him away, but he fell against the wall. He was drunk. He couldn’t balance properly. His head began to bleed and I felt terrible. So I tried to stem the blood with a cloth. But he pushed me away again. His eyes were blazing with anger.’ She paused again. They had to believe her. They had to.
‘Then … then he picked up the carving knife, the one he’d just used to carve the chicken.’
She clutched at her throat, as if he was brandishing it in front of her right now. ‘I thought he was going to kill me.’
The court was deathly quiet.
‘Then I heard the door open …’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Per certo.’
‘In English please, Mrs Macdonald.’
‘Sorry. I am certain.’
Carla wet her lips. This was the tricky bit, Lily had warned. The part that the jury might not be sympathetic to. ‘I ran out to the hallway. There was a man standing there. I didn’t know what was happening, I thought he wanted to hurt me too. I was so scared.’ A sob escaped through her lips. ‘Then I panicked and ran.’
The prosecutor’s face was impassive. Blank. ‘Can you describe this man?’
‘I’ll try.’ Carla’s voice trembled. ‘He was quite tall with dark hair and brown eyes – I can’t remember much more, I wish I could!’
‘So do we all, Mrs Macdonald.’
What Carla didn’t say – Lily had advised her not to, as she said it would muddy the waters – was that the more she thought about it, the more she felt that she remembered him from somewhere.
‘Did you take your baby with you when you made this desperate run?’
That wasn’t fair. He knew she hadn’t.
‘No,’ whispered Carla, and collapsed into sobs.
There were disapproving murmurings among the jury.
This wasn’t good. Somehow she had to make them understand what she had gone through. Forcing herself, Carla lifted her tear-stained face. ‘I had postnatal depression after my baby was born. I told my barrister that.’ A large sob escaped her mouth. ‘And my mother died in Italy of cancer on the very day I gave birth. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye. I know I shouldn’t have run off and left Poppy behind. But I just wasn’t thinking straight …’
Carla had her head in her hands, although her fingers were open wide enough for her to look at the jury. Instead of disdain or disbelief, the woman with the pinched face was weeping quietly into a tissue. Was it possible that she had had similar troubles?
Carefully, she started speaking again through her tears. ‘It was wet and cold. I wanted to go back for my baby, but I thought I heard footsteps behind me in the park. So I ran into a pub for help. Someone called the police, but they arrested me! For his murder …’ Great sobs were coming out of her mouth now. Hysterical huge gulps. There were murmurs of sympathy from the jury. Someone handed her a glass of water. Her legs gave way.
‘I think,’ said the judge softly, ‘we should take a break here.’
She had done well, the barrister had told her, his face looking flushed with excitement. Very well. The jury looked as though they were on her side. Mind you, you could never tell.
‘Does he know what he’s doing?’ she asked Lily later.
‘Carla, what have I said before? You’ve got to trust me.’
The trial went on and on. ‘Six days,’ Lily had predicted. Right now it was on its tenth.
The worst, after her own testimony, had been when Rupert was called. ‘Yes, I did care for Carla once upon a time,’ he had told the court. ‘But now I am happily married. My wife was my fiancée when I called in with a present for Carla and Ed’s new baby. I was surprised by the tense atmosphere. Ed had clearly been drinking and didn’t make me feel welcome. So I left after a few minutes.’ He spoke rapidly, flashing nervous glances up at a girl with blonde hair in the gallery. Instinctively, Carla knew that he was torn. He couldn’t be too nice about her, in case his wife thought he really had been having an affair with her. She was thankful when he finally left the stand, shooting her an apologetic look.
An expert witness had then pointed out that the small amount of blood on Carla’s clothes did not prove that she had hurt Ed. That it was more likely to have been from the head injury that her husband had sustained in falling when she’d pushed him away in self-defence – a fact backed up by the autopsy findings. Nor were there any fingerprints on the knife, apart from Ed’s.
Carla’s head began to whirl. So many people, saying so many things, as if they knew her! An expert on bereavement. Another on postnatal depression and the link with the strain of a premature birth. Both were used by the prosecution to claim Carla might have behaved unpredictably. Her defence cross-examined them, claiming this would be why her memories were so unclear. Her barrister, who thankfully seemed to grow in confidence as the days passed, called an art dealer who spoke about Ed’s ‘reputation for being up and down’. A medical report on his drinking. A statement from the bank about his debts. Photographs of the terrible gash on Ed’s body. The carving knife.
She felt numb. As though all this was happening to someone else.
Now finally they had finished. As they sat waiting for the verdict in a room nearby, Lily was very quiet. The barrister had gone outside to make a phone call.
How was it possible that her entire future could be decided by a pack of strangers? Carla’s knee began to jerk up and down. She was back at school again. In Coventry. Carla Spagoletti.
‘The jury’s back.’ It was the barrister, his face taut. ‘That was quick. We’re being called in.’
61
Lily