20

  Judith and Constance sat in the prison interview room, waiting for Jaden’s arrival, Constance mulling over her discussion with Mr Mason even as they heard Jaden’s step in the corridor. Jaden slouched into the room, gave Judith a sulky glance and then sat down, folding his arms and legs tightly around his body. Constance was disappointed. She had hoped he would make an effort to impress Judith, to illustrate, with his attitude and behaviour, why Constance believed in him. Instead, with his brooding entrance, he appeared no different from most of the others she represented, day in day out, on a variety of more tedious charges, of which they were invariably guilty.

  Maybe it was the days of incarceration taking their toll on him. If he really was innocent – and Constance’s belief in him had been reinforced by her conversation with Mr Mason – then it must be difficult for him to maintain his composure, under constant challenge. In any event, if Judith was bothered by his petulance, she didn’t show it.

  ‘Hello Jaden. I’m Judith Burton.’ She stuck her hand out, her fingertips almost touching his chest and he was forced to take it, giving it a perfunctory shake. ‘It’s very nice to meet you, after I’ve heard so much about you and, of course, after watching your show.’

  Jaden didn’t respond but Judith continued, undeterred.

  ‘We wanted to talk to you about the trial, how it will work and who may be witnesses for you and against you. Has Nathaniel been in to see you yet?’

  Jaden nodded.

  ‘Good. He’s agreed to give evidence and he will be an important witness for you. But, first of all, have you thought, again, about the theft of Elizabeth Sullivan’s credit card? Is there anything else you remember now, that you could share with us?’

  Jaden took a deep breath and looked up at Constance. Then he shifted his gaze to Judith.

  ‘They were a present,’ he said, ‘the trainers.’

  ‘A present?’

  ‘Yeah. Like you get on your birthday.’

  ‘Was it your birthday?’

  He shook his head, then jumped to his feet. ‘I’m not a thief,’ he shouted, the words echoing around the walls, before dying down.

  Judith appeared unfazed by his outburst. She waited. Jaden bit his lip and then returned to his seat.

  ‘Look,’ he continued. ‘She was being nice to me, said her son was away, asked me what kind of shoes I liked and, before I knew it, she’d gone online and bought them for me. I wasn’t going to say no, was I?’

  ‘When did she buy them for you?’ Judith asked.

  ‘That night, when I went over.’

  ‘Was this before or after you went into the bedroom?’

  ‘Before.’

  ‘And, what about dinner?’

  ‘Um, after I think.’

  ‘What kind of time are we talking about?’

  ‘Around seven-thirty. And I know what you’re gonna say. The policeman’s already said the shoes were bought after she died. When you buy stuff at the weekend or in the evening, it doesn’t show up till the next day. That must’ve happened this time; that’s all.’

  ‘Thank you for explaining that to me. And you…what? Just forgot she’d bought them for you, when you were first questioned?’

  ‘There was a lot going on. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

  ‘I see. That clears that one up then. That only leaves the rape and murder charge.’ Judith was cross now. Constance could tell. Her lips had turned white and almost disappeared into the rest of her face. Didn’t Jaden realise this was his chance to convince her of his innocence? That histrionics and surliness, quite apart from this improbable explanation about the trainers, were not advancing his case? But Judith’s brusque manner had the effect of eliciting a spirited but controlled response.

  ‘Look. I didn’t rape no one and I didn’t kill no one,’ he said. ‘That’s it, nothing more to tell.’

  ‘We’ll have a very short trial then, won’t we? You’ll stand up and say that and we’ll all be home by lunch time.’

  Jaden sat himself up straight and focused on Judith, but he remained silent. She took that as her cue to continue.

  ‘All right. I’m pleased you’ve got all that off your chest,’ Judith said. ‘Now let’s get down to business, shall we? I understand you feel strongly about all of this. I would too if I was wrongly accused. But we are spending a lot of time, Constance and I, pulling the threads of your defence together, to get you out of here. And we need your cooperation to do so.’

  She paused to allow her words to sink in. Constance breathed again. Judith was definitely becoming more conciliatory in her old age.

  ‘I know you’ve talked to Constance about this before,’ Judith said, ‘but the post-mortem mentions marks on Liz Sullivan’s arms. Inspector Dawson thinks that means you tied Liz to the bed.’

  ‘I already said. I never.’ Jaden’s eyes flashed with the indignity of the accusation, but his voice remained calm.

  ‘You didn’t see any ropes in her bedroom?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She didn’t…suggest to you that you tie her up. I need you not to be embarrassed about any of this, Jaden. I know it’s hard; probably doesn’t help that we’re women asking you these things.’

  ‘She didn’t ask me to tie her up, I didn’t tie her up. I didn’t see no ropes. I don’t have no problem with you being women. Is that clear enough for you?’

  ‘Very clear. There was a chair in Liz’s bedroom. Do you remember it?’

  ‘No. I mean, maybe there was, maybe there wasn’t.’

  ‘Did either of you sit down on that chair?’

  Jaden shook his head. ‘No. We went in the room and we went straight to the bed.’

  ‘And, after you had sex?’

  ‘I put my clothes on. I went to the bathroom. When I came back, she was getting dressed too. I collected my stuff and I left. Why is that so hard for everyone to believe?’ His voice cracked around the edges and he looked away again.

  ‘Because you were the last person to see Liz alive and, if you didn’t kill her, it’s hard to explain her death. And humans like explanations for things. They don’t like random or sudden. They like cause and effect. Without you, we’re just left with her suddenly up and dying. Now she did have a serious and probably undetected heart condition and it is possible her heart just gave up, on its own. It’s just that people usually need to believe there was a catalyst. Do you understand what I mean?’

  ‘Sure, I understand. You mean something made it happen. I’ve been thinking about that too and I don’t remember her saying nothing about feeling ill. She was laughing and we ate dinner and, when she said goodbye, she was just fine.’

  ‘OK. Let’s focus on that for a moment. When she said goodbye to you, what exactly did she say?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Did she, for example, arrange to see you again?’

  Jaden sat up even straighter, nodded to indicate he had registered the question and then he closed his eyes tight for a few seconds. Then he shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t remember exactly,’ he said. ‘It was something like “I’ll see you this week, sometime”, very casual. But she also…she was kind of in a hurry to get me to go. She was checking her watch and her phone. So I made this joke that maybe she had another guy waiting and she was going to make him dinner too.’ He laughed at the memory. ‘She just said no, she liked to get an early night, but then I saw her light was on later, after my show, so she probably just said that – you know – so as not to hurt my feelings.’

  ‘Did she kiss you, before you left?’

  Jaden stared at his feet. Then he looked at Constance. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Why do feel bad about that?’ Judith asked, registering his embarrassment.

  ‘I feel bad because, I mean, I liked her and all that, but, I don’t know, when she kissed me, I got worried that maybe she was more into me than I was into her. I think she saw it, that I was not…comfortable with it and that’s why she got all casual and said “see you later” kind of thing, like it wasn’t important to her neither.’

  ‘Thank you, Jaden. That’s very good.’ And Judith meant those words. Of course, she might be being fooled – it wouldn’t be the first time – but Jaden’s level of engagement and whole demeanour shouted out to her that the exchange he described with Liz had really happened. But he misinterpreted her silence as disapproval again.

  ‘You don’t believe me?’ he said.

  ‘On the contrary, I absolutely believe you. My job, however, is to work out the best way to present all of this, so that the jury believes you too. One more confusing thing. It’s a detail and it may mean nothing, but I need to ask.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘There were some photos taken of Liz, shortly after she was found, lying on her back in bed. I’m going to share them with you.’

  Constance called them up on her laptop. Jaden looked closely for a few seconds, then he looked away.

  ‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ he said.

  ‘Like I said, it may be nothing. If you look at Liz’s forehead, there are some marks on her skin. Can you see them?’

  Jaden looked again and held the screen up close.

  ‘You mean here. Yeah. I see them.’

  ‘She wasn’t wearing a hat, a baseball cap, a headband, anything like that?’

  ‘Nope. It was a cold night, but it was really toasty in her flat. A bit too toasty, in fact. She had her hair loose, like in the photo, and no hat.’

  ‘OK. It was worth an ask. There’s no mention of those marks in the pathologist’s report. And in the photographs from the post-mortem, presumably later that day or the next, they seem to have disappeared. Probably nothing important.’

  Constance reclaimed her laptop and moved to a new screen.

  ‘All right. You already have Nathaniel in your corner. Let’s spend a few minutes talking about other people who could potentially give evidence, to help you. Constance, why don’t you run through your list?’

  21

  Luke sat in his bedroom, laptop before him, trying to brainstorm some additional ideas for his revised game. But first he had to calm himself down. ‘Blow’, ‘flow’, ‘go slow’.

  He didn’t like having the goalposts moved – and not once but twice. Didn’t Eric realise that each time Luke sat down to design a game he threw everything into it, every ounce of his strength and creativity? That when Eric had set out the original brief, Luke had stayed up day and night, living and breathing his prototype? That when Eric had scolded him and taped the sign around his head, he had gone for broke, unleashed his inner assassin with the game he had shown the team? And all the pieces had to fit together: story; characters; background; aim; even music. If you changed one of them, they all had to change. Eric talked glibly about ‘modification’; he might as well have said ‘obliteration’.

  But now Luke was calm, he told himself not to ruminate. There was no point. It was destructive. Eric couldn’t have known, until today, about the opportunity to pitch to the Olympic selectors. And Eric was right. They had to have a go; another opportunity like this may never come along. They had to embrace it. He had to adapt his game. And, the more Luke thought about it, the more he realised that, perhaps, a lot of his work so far, could be retained, after all.

  He could certainly live with ‘Midas’ as a theme; kings were always good in games, the bold colours they delivered, the plush materials which surrounded them, the possibility of designing elaborate kingdoms and the creation of strutting, conniving pretenders to the throne. And, despite Eric’s comments about the dispensability of the gold, Luke knew he would use it, and pots of it, everywhere. Midas’ kingdom would be dripping with it.

  Then, he could still utilise his rainforest setting and collection of interesting creatures. After all, the Mayan culture had their temples in the middle of the jungle. Granted, his monarchs were not going to be loin-cloth-clad, but this was a fictional creation and he knew he could make it all fit together.

  And, given his new potential global audience, he wanted to develop the sustainability angles of the game too. He had already given Eric palm-oil plantations, logging and oil exploration companies, belonging to a series of dastardly villains. Now he was going to create a local army of resistance fighters, building their own weapons using wholly natural materials. And the source of their wealth? You got it: gold. He would construct a secret gold mine, replete with intricate tunnels and a hierarchy of workers, to work the rich underground seams.

  After an hour of sketching out his ideas and scribbling down more, he took a break. He was feeling more positive than ever about the game. The trip with Eric to the South of France, however, worried him on a number of levels. First of all, would they have to share a room? Money was tight – he knew that, despite Eric’s relative largesse regarding his potential pay rise. Then there was Eric’s temper, or rather, ‘volatile nature’: the bear hugs and kisses, the foul mouth and physical threats. Eric was the closest Luke had ever met to a schizophrenic, his personality straining towards the furthest boundaries of the thermometer of human nature; one moment dazzling charm and warmth, the next menacing chill, morphing into the blazing heat of an uncontainable rage. Would Eric display any of this contradictory behaviour on their trip and, if so, how would he cope?

  Luke thought back to the night he had, unwittingly, spied on Eric after hours; how Eric had flung his phone across the room, screaming at some unsuspecting and absent female companion. He didn’t envy the intended recipient of Eric’s call that night. It was lucky he hadn’t managed to get connected.

  Perhaps it was all bluster, he mused. After all, even when Luke had disappointed Eric bitterly, with his first tentative steps into the design of the new game, Eric hadn’t actually hurt him. Terrified him, yes, and embarrassed him, but the combination of those emotions had led him to produce his best work yet, led to this moment when he was poised to take the top prize. And one thing he would say in Eric’s favour – he was not selfish. He was willing to share the glory with Luke, to allow Luke to rise up with him. And for that Luke would be eternally grateful.

  22

  Tom was at his desk again, laptop open, index finger switching around with tremendous speed and skill. He had searched online, only that morning, whether there were particular exercises you could undertake to strengthen your fingers. Someone had told him, some years back, that piano lessons were good; all those scales and arpeggios forcing your digits to hammer up and down the keyboard. He had almost asked his mum to find him a teacher.

  Then someone else had argued that was rubbish and that piano lessons were dull and he had assessed his chances of getting out of them within six months, if the dissenter was correct, as almost zero. That wasn’t his mother’s style. She made you stick at things once you’d started. Today, he was a tiny bit cross he hadn’t taken the pain of the lessons. Anything to give him a competitive edge would have been worth an hour a week of discomfort.

  Tom allowed his eyes to flick up and register his score. He was really motoring. Everything about today’s game had gone well, from his choice of character, with the word ‘Sully’ tattooed across his back, to his sublime, customised hunting knife, to the extra ammo he had collected from the first man he killed. There were only three of them left now, all racing at full speed to the top of the hill. His flag, with its falcon insignia, was tucked in his back pocket. He could see opponent two over to the East, closing in fast and contestant three was almost certainly directly ahead of him, masked by the rising ground. If he could keep his cool and avoid the various hazards the game designers would send his way, then he was on track for his best performance yet.

  Suddenly, number two had gone – not his doing: he had been surprised by some marauding robot buffalo and trampled underfoot. Ew! What a way to go! But number three was still in there and the dot representing him on the map, showed they were almost exactly equidistant from their goal. Tom began to scale the hill, leaping boulders, when he could, flinging ropes ahead and levering himself up on the trickier terrain. But unseen competitor three, his nemesis, must be progressing similarly quickly, as they remained neck and neck.

  Tom progressed swiftly to the top, to stand on the plateau, the entire universe spread out before him, the cross on the ground, where his flag must be placed to win overall, only a few steps away. As he advanced and reached back to draw it from his pocket, a curious, ragged man, with a wide-brimmed hat, clambered over the precipice, directly ahead of him. His opponent stood up tall and wide, a cross between a pirate and the Incredible Hulk. Then, sword in hand, he charged at Tom.

  Tom kept his cool. He knew it was risky, but he calculated that the other character’s bulk would make it difficult for him to stop when moving at full tilt, and the summit on which they were standing was little more than the size of a heliport. He waited, brandishing his own favoured weapon of the day, a pair of nun-chucks and then, at the last second, he stepped back. The other man’s momentum carried him onwards and right to the edge. For a second, Tom thought he had fallen over, but the pirate giant had checked himself just in time and now he clung, by his prehensile toes, to the rim, arms flailing, staring down at the valley floor, trying desperately to reverse his direction of travel and right himself.

  Without wasting any more precious time, Tom flung his nun-chucks and they wrapped themselves around the man’s ankles. The man gave him a regretful, over-the-shoulder, last glance, before tipping over and swan-diving to the ground, fifty feet below. Tom leaped forward and planted his flag.

  Party poppers exploded everywhere, the world was covered with their multi-coloured streamers and a crown came floating down from heaven to hang in the air above Tom’s avatar. First place after two seconds and a third. He had done it.