Justice

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‘Right!’ Melissa said as she looked around at the eleven faces. Complexions ranged from teenage acne through to liver-spotted wrinkles. Dress codes panned from fraying casualness into her own sharp-cut suit. Skin colours formed a spectrum too: English birch to African mahogany. One of the women held a copy of the Guardian firmly under her arm, while one of the men countered with the Telegraph. A real hodge and podge of mix and match diversity. ‘Clearly we need a spokesperson,’ she continued. ‘If no one objects, why don’t I step up for it?’

    It was best, she thought, to be direct and get this thing kickstarted. With any luck they could wrap this up in under an hour and she could get back to the office and get on with something useful. The case seemed clear cut to her.

‘Perhaps…’ the Guardian reader said.

    Melissa smiled tightly. ‘Or did you want to volunteer?’ she asked.

    ‘Well… not exactly…’

    ‘Or nominate someone else?’

    ‘I…um…’

    ‘Of course if people want to take it to a vote.’ Surely with her tailored suit and chairwoman air, Melissa was the obvious choice. She very much doubted any of the others ran their own company.

    ‘Oh…no…’ Guardian woman said. ‘I just thought…’

    Melissa’s smile strained wide. ‘Yes?’

    ‘We should be a bit more democratic.’

    They were a jury not a political party for God’s sake.

    ‘If anyone else wants to step forward I’m happy for it to go with a vote,’ Melissa said.

    Everyone looked down and twiddled with the pencils they’d been issued with.

    ‘In that case, perhaps we should just get on with it,’ Melissa said. ‘Starting with Joshua Sanderson. The skinny one.’

Josh sat on the plastic chair and looked round the small windowless room. His lawyer hadn’t so much as stopped by to issue a shoulder patting reassurance; he’d be off somewhere, making important calls on behalf of important clients. Those who would pay him properly. Not those claiming legal aid.

    The evidence had sounded stark. The prosecutor’s questioning had been so aggressive, and even though Josh had stuck to his lines – the ones that he had practised, over and over – he’d kept stumbling.

It wasn’t like that, he kept wanting to say as the prosecutor pushed his own words into Josh’s mouth. It really wasn’t.

    He remembered back.

    He hadn’t really wanted to do the stag party thing, but Ralph had insisted. Cheryl had laughed and said, ‘Go on then, you may as well. Only don’t do anything daft.’

    It was only a few mates, a few beers, a night club.

But en route between the pub and club Ralph had spotted something. He cocked his head towards the small shop. ‘Looks like there’s been a break in,’ he said and Josh saw how the door had been smashed to pieces and a rough piece of board had been nailed over.

    ‘Yeah,’ he said. Only later did his mind reconstruct the look on Ralph’s face. That calculating look behind which things were ticking over and conclusions being reached.

‘Well,’ Melissa said, drawing her summary to a close. ‘I think it’s fairly clear that Mr Sanderson is guilty. After all he was caught red-handed. It’s a little less clear about Ralph Tranter. Does everyone agree?’ Hopefully they could wrap up on one of them immediately. Ten minutes discussion for the other. They could be back in the court room and out of here within half an hour.

    People looked down at the table and there was foot shuffling and that Guardian woman – Kat, she’d said her name was, or something ridiculous like that – muttered something.

    ‘I’m sorry,’ Melissa said. ‘Could you speak up a bit.’

    ‘I just think…well surely we need to discuss it properly.’

    Melissa swallowed back her sigh.

    ‘Discuss what exactly?’

‘I mean he did plead not guilty. And we do have his what-is-it? Testimony.’

    Surely nobody could give any credence to what that shifty, loser-type had said.

Looking back, the evening was a blur of drinks, head-split music and shoulder-jostle dancing. Some of his mates got chatting to some girls. Ralph had tried to get Josh in on it too, there were jokes about his last bid for freedom and lewd gestures and encouragement for him to at least snog someone. But his heart hadn’t been in it; his heart was Cheryl’s. Not like she would even be doing the same. Her night out with girls had been a tame affair of fruit based cocktails.

    The other lads all paired off until finally it was just him and Ralph. Ralph sticking by him, or just unlucky, he wasn’t sure.

    ‘I’d best get back,’ Josh said. He didn’t want to be out half the night.

    Ralph opened his mouth and looked about to protest. Then he changed his mind. ‘OK,’ he said.

    The air outside was fresh and clear, instantly sobering after the sweaty crush of the club. Ralph turned left.

    ‘Quicker this way,’ Josh said. The nearest tube was five minutes walk away.

    ‘Something I’ve got to do,’ Ralph said. And Josh followed him, back the route they’d come along earlier, back towards the pub, wondering what the heck Ralph was up to.

‘Well what do others think?’ Melissa said. She had tried to keep her tapping fingers still as she listened oh-so-patiently to Guardian woman’s points. Kat was the sort who’d give anyone the benefit of the doubt. She’d have found OJ Simpson not guilty. Give her several witnesses and a crime committed on camera and she’d still be arguing about state of mind.

    ‘Well…’ the grey haired man with M&S jumper and Telegraph said. ‘It does seem a bit hard to buy his story.’

    ‘Exactly.’ Melissa beamed. She turned her gaze to the next person on the table, a black youth slouching back into his chair.

    ‘The cops…’ he said. Melissa didn’t like to stereotype, but you could tell just from his accent that he was an underprivileged sort. ‘They was lying.’

    The mix up with the evidence was unfortunate. The lawyer for the defence had made a big issue of the minor inconsistency, as if a small confusion over the precise distance between the stationed officer and the door to the shop rendered all of his evidence suspect. The black youth wouldn’t believe his own name if a policeman said it, Melissa thought, as she sipped the foul coffee they’d been provided with. While Telegraph man might well believe in little green men from Mars if it was a nice young policeman telling him.

    But this was not a case of men from Mars; it was a clear-cut case of theft.

It wasn’t until they drew parallel with the shop, that Josh remembered the broken door. Ralph drew to a stop and reached into his pocket for cigarettes, making a great show of lighting one. He gazed into the window which displayed small notices and ads for wine.

    ‘Easy enough to nip inside,’ he said.

    ‘And do what?’

    ‘Well what d’ya think? Ciggies. Booze.’

    ‘That’s stealing.’

    ‘Stealing? Nah. Look it weren’t us that broke in now was it? It’s just lying open.’

    ‘Yeah. But…’

    ‘Like finding a coin in the street. That ain’t stealing.’

    ‘No. But…’

    ‘It’ll all be on their insurance.’

    ‘Yeah…’

    ‘Easiest thing in the world.’

    But… Somehow it was always difficult arguing with Ralph.

Things were not going Melissa’s way. Or rather they were only partly going her way; there was a three-way split: for, against and fence-sitting. Telegraph man and Guardian woman looked like they might come to blows. Perhaps she needed to change tack.

    ‘Why don’t we come back to Mr Sanderson,’ she said. ‘As it all seems to be getting complicated. Let’s talk about the other one. Ralph Tranter.’

    He was clearly guilty as hell, she thought, standing guard outside like that, clearly a key part of it all. But the evidence was less strong. He was a lying little toerag who deserved to be put away or fined or given community service or whatever it was they did with criminals these days. But it was hard to say that anything had been proved.

    She thought she saw the way through. A trade off. It was like that in business. Compromise and negotiation. Give a little on one, take a little on the other. Keep everyone happy.

    ‘Well,’ she said. ‘It seems fairly clear that he was involved in some way.’ Telegraph man nodded vigorously. ‘But…’ Everyone was looking at her. ‘Beyond all reasonable doubt.’ She paused to allow the words their full gravitas and her eyes ticked round the eleven faces one by one. ‘It’s a high hurdle. And rightly so.’ She believed that to be true, well of course she did. ‘Has it been proved?’

    ‘Well why else was he standing there?’ Telegraph man said.

    ‘He said he tried to dissuade his friend and it had nothing to do with him,’ countered Guardian woman.

    ‘Well he would say that.’

    ‘Well it might be true.’

    ‘Exactly!’ Melissa raised her hand in the same gesture with which she’d taken her Christian oath. Guardian woman had taken the atheist option she had noted. ‘And, whether we like it or not, we have to look at the evidence. The objective evidence.’ She had always been proud of her ability to look at things objectively. ‘And we can’t prove intent, just because he was standing there on the street….’

    ‘The policeman said he saw him encouraging the other one,’ Telegraph man said.

    ‘But the policeman was – by his own admission – ’ at least eventually, ‘too far to really do more than conjecture.’

    ‘You’re saying we should let him off then.’

    ‘I’m saying we can only convict if we’re sure beyond all reasonable doubt.’ She wondered what reasonable doubt actually meant, and hoped no one would ask.

    Telegraph man looked grumpy. Guardian woman smiled.

    ‘So, let’s just say,’ Melissa said, ‘at least for now, that just possibly this Ralph character might be innocent – not proven guilty that is – but what about Joshua?’

‘Well you can if you like,’ Josh conceded. It was getting cold and his alcohol high was beginning to lose its fizz. He wanted to go home. He thought of the fold-out sofa he slept on with Cheryl, the sag in the middle nudging them cosily close, and how with her growing bump she seemed to generate enough heat to keep the two of them snug even on the coldest night.

    Ralph was looking at him in that way he had, like there was something obvious Josh was missing. ‘The thing is,’ he said. Sentences that started that way were always ominous. Ralph looked down and patted his belly. It swelled out almost as much as Cheryl’s. ‘You’d get under much easier than me.’

    Even Josh’s beer befuddled brain could see he had a point. The board that had been nailed over left a gap at the bottom, but it wasn’t that wide. Josh had always been the skinny type. Svelte, Cheryl said, and he wasn’t quite sure what it meant but it sounded kind of cool and sexy. Better than scrawny arse, which was what he’d been called at school.

    ‘Hang on,’ Josh said.

    ‘Oh cummon. What’s with youse? It’s a doddle. Really. Just sitting there in the street, just ripe for the picking.’

    ‘But…’

    ‘We’re only talking a couple of packets of fags. A bottle of whisky. Maybe a chocolate bar or two…’

    Josh realised how hungry he was. His tea, cooked for him by Cheryl, seemed a mighty long while ago and beer calories, well they might swell out Ralph’s stomach, but they didn’t really serve to fill you up, now did they?

    ‘Go on,’ Ralph said, his voice all of a wheedle, making it sound so reasonable.

‘He was caught red-handed in the shop,’ Melissa said.

    ‘He was caught in the shop, yes,’ Guardian woman said, her face blooming red with her sincerity. ‘But he didn’t have anything in his hands.’

    ‘There were cigarettes and chocolate on the floor.’

    ‘But we don’t know when he dropped them. He says he’d already changed his mind.’

    ‘Changed it when he saw the policeman heading his way.’

    ‘Plainclothed policeman. So he wouldn’t have known. Besides he said he didn’t see anyone until they were there.’

    ‘It ain’t shoplifting till you’re actually like out the door,’ the black youth contributed.

    And I wonder how he knows that, Melissa thought. As far as she could tell the twelve of them were split pretty much 50:50. So much for getting away quickly and back to the office. At this rate they’d be here overnight. Surely they couldn’t do that. Not for a petty case of pilfering.

Somehow Josh found himself standing in the middle of the shop, the space lit only by the streetlamp through the windows. The air smelt of newspaper print and bubblegum. He brushed the dust off his jacket. It was strange being the only one in here and it being dark. Ciggies, chocolate and booze. Not much, mind. Just enough to fill a pocket or two and they’d be on their way. He leant across the counter and picked up a couple of boxes of Ralph’s favourite wheeze. He himself had been off them for several months now. Cheryl had persuaded him. ‘Can’t have you blowing smoke over the little un,’ she said. ‘Besides I want us growing old together, not you dying young of cancer.’ He’d never thought of it like that, not really. He’d only been eleven when he started – Ralph had been the one to get him into it of course.

He picked up a mega-size Mars bar and he could almost taste it.

    And then…

    He stopped.

    What the frigging hell did he think that he was doing? Him, a soon-to-be married man and father. He’d not nicked stuff from shops for years, and even then it’d never been more that a few jawsticking chews.

    Nope. He wasn’t going to do this. It was too risky. It wasn’t right.

    And just then he heard something behind him and his hands let go all that they were clutching and he turned.

Melissa watched as things got more and more out of hand. No matter how reasonable her tone, no matter how measured her arguments, Guardian reader clasped her arms tightly across her chest as if she were chaining herself to railings. The black youth was tapping his feet to an imagined tune and looking longingly towards the high-up windows, but he was backing Kat up whenever it came to everyone having their say. After more than two hours debate, the judge had grudgingly conceded that he’d accept a majority verdict, not a unanimous one; but that still meant it had to be at least 10-2. And unfortunately the not-guilty camp had a couple more stubborn followers.

    She breathed in the smell of dusty classrooms and stale bodies. She would wear them down; she had to.

The door opened with a clack and Josh started out of his reverie. His lawyer was there, a pudgy looking man with ill-fitting suit who looked like an overgrown teenager.

    ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We’re back in.’

    Four hours had passed. Josh tried to remember whether lengthy discussion was likely to be good or bad.

    He was accompanied back into the dock and avoided looking at Cheryl. He’d not be sent to prison, his lawyer didn’t think that. But there’d be a fine, when they were supposed to be buying stuff for the baby. Worse than that, there’d be a criminal record. That was the real rub. He’d lose his job with the security firm for sure. Who’d employ a thief to guard over property? Who else would take him on?

    Ralph stood beside him and Josh thought of the way he’d twisted things, making out it had all been Josh’s idea.

    He stood very still and waited. He looked at the jury. Some of them didn’t look too bad. But the woman who declared herself as foreperson looked formidable. Not an ounce of compassion in her black-suited body.

    It was Ralph who they did first.

    ‘And how do you find the defendant. Guilty. Or not guilty.’ The judge sounded bored.

    The foreperson woman hesitated, as if she thought she was one of the judges on the X-factor, trying to draw out the drama of the moment.

    ‘Not guilty,’ she said.

    Josh tried to think if that was better or worse for him, but all he could really think was jammy bastard.

    It was the same rigmarole. A different name. His name.

This was it.

    ‘Guilty. Or not guilty.’

    The pause seemed to last forever. Please, he pleaded to whoever, whatever, might be listening. Please. If not for him, for Cheryl and the baby.

Melissa hurried away, stopping off in the Ladies first. Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. A whole day of her precious time wasted over two petty thieves.

    The verdicts still stuck in her throat along with the slightly citric taste of guilt for not fully pursuing the cause of justice being done. But there was little justice in her being stuck there all night.

When she’d realised Guardian woman’s crowd would never allow a proper majority for guilty, Melissa had changed tack, successfully persuading some of the guilty-as-hell brigade along with her. Quite possibly, some of them had proper jobs and were being pragmatic too.

    As she came out of the cubicle, she saw a woman was by the sinks, bending over to wash her face. As she straightened up, her hand rested protectively on her heavily pregnant belly; Melissa saw how very young she was. Her eyes were rimmed red, and her features were somehow twisted up, as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Just for a second their gaze met in the mirror.

‘Thank-you,’ the woman mouthed.