You Had It Coming by B.M. Carroll (snow like ashes series .txt) 📗

Bridget sets the list to one side. She’ll have a closer look at Fergus Herrmann and Laura Dundas back at headquarters.

‘How about repeat offenders? Did Mr Newson have any clients who were accused more than once?’

Emily blinks. ‘Not while I’ve been working for him.’

Bridget is recalling that disturbing conversation with Suzanne Newson, where she compared the offenders to a ‘conveyor belt’. Was Suzanne exaggerating?

Bridget steers the conversation towards the family. ‘Do you have much to do with Joshua, Mr Newson’s son?’

‘Not much. Just slotted him into William’s diary once a week for coffee or lunch.’

‘Do you like Joshua?’

A slight pause. ‘He’s okay, I suppose … But he’s not the same calibre as his dad.’

‘Is that your opinion or general opinion?’

‘General.’ She shifts in her seat. It’s obvious that this topic is making her uncomfortable. ‘I’ve heard that he’s not very thorough, doesn’t always do his homework and his clients have suffered the consequences. And he has a temper. He blows up, shouts at his secretary, slams doors. William never lost his temper.’

Interesting. The question is whether it’s relevant. Joshua’s temper tantrums could be superficial or a sign of him being troubled at a much deeper level. His lack of thoroughness could also be interpreted in different ways.

‘Did Mr Newson’s ex-wife ever call him at the office?’

‘Suzanne? No, not since their divorce.’

‘Did he ever speak about her?’

‘He asked me to organise flowers for her birthday, and for Mother’s Day. That’s about all.’

Sending flowers can mean lots of things. Affection. Contrition. Control.

‘Any other women in his life? A girlfriend or partner?’

‘No, strangely. He was such a nice man. Clever. Thoughtful. Kept himself in good shape. If I were twenty years older …’

Emily smiles, and suddenly all Bridget can see is insincerity. She’s not sure whether she should believe this young woman. About William Newson being so perfect, about Joshua’s temper and shoddy standards, about anything.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket. She knows without looking that it’ll be Cara, calling about the missing Opal card and protesting her innocence.

‘Thank you for seeing us, Emily. Here’s my card. Call me if anything else comes to mind. Make a record of Mr Newson’s files and who asks for them over the coming weeks. Make sure they’re all accounted for. We may need to organise a warrant at some stage.’

‘Sure. Of course. Anything you need, anything at all.’

They shake hands again, her long fake nails curling around Bridget’s hand. Cara would probably like the peach-coloured polish. Cara would definitely like her hair, that bright blonde, straight but somehow voluminous too.

Bridget watches Emily stride through the foyer in her high-heeled shoes, heading towards the lifts that will take her up, up, up to a job that strictly no longer exists: executive assistant to a dead man. Did she really come in early out of habit, or was there another more sinister reason? Is this list that she has given them complete?

Bridget raises an eyebrow at Patrick. ‘What do you think?’

He clicks the top of his pen a few times. ‘Not sure. She seems too good to be true.’

Your Honour, members of the jury, I want to take a moment to talk about lies. Why do we lie? Two main reasons. We lie to get what we want. And we lie to protect ourselves, or others. Some children learn how to lie from a young age and are naturally adept at it. Some never learn; they just can’t pull it off, not even as adults. Megan Lowe and Jessica Foster are in the former category – we have heard compelling evidence that these girls are accomplished liars. Megan told her parents she was staying the night at Jessica’s. Jessica told her parents she was staying at Megan’s. Both sets of parents testified that they would not have given their daughter permission to attend an all-night party with boys who were barely known to them. These initial lies were to get what they wanted: to be able to go to the party. Of course, that was just the start of it. They told lies about how much they’d had to drink that night. They told lies about how they ended up in the master bedroom. They told lies about what was said, or indeed not said, while they had sex with my clients. Why all these lies? Well, it was to protect themselves, of course. Megan stated that she felt embarrassed and regretful the next morning. But it was to protect their parents, too. Megan and Jessica didn’t want to disappoint their parents. They didn’t want to shock or disgust them. They wanted to give them a narrative that was more palatable than the ugly truth. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my clients engaged in what some of you regard as morally questionable behaviour; however, their path to this courtroom has at least been an honest one. Lies cannot prevail over honesty … no matter how difficult it is for these young ladies and their families to face the truth.

19

MEGAN

Nobody likes being called a liar. It’s humiliating, insulting, disempowering. In a courtroom there’s no opportunity to immediately defend yourself, to respond with something to negate the accusation before it settles in people’s heads and forms an irreversible part of the narrative. It’s true they lied about where they were that night, but it was within the range of normal teenage behaviour. William Newson called them ‘accomplished liars’, as though they had been honing their deception skills for years. That was extremely unfair, and untrue.

Every muscle in Megan’s body aches. There’s paint in her hair and in the cracks of the skin on her hands. Her fingers are raw from scraping sandpaper on wooden trims and scrubbing walls with sugar soap. She is hoping to get two coats on the skirting boards and doors today. Probably too ambitious.

Music is playing from her phone, which is hooked up to portable speakers. There’s a lot of time to think. About William