Witness - [53]

‘Do you do this for all your witnesses?’

‘Not all,’ he said. There was a warmth in his eyes. Fiona checked: he didn’t wear a ring. With a jolt she understood that she really was attracted to the man. She felt a flush spread across her neck and cheeks. It was years. There had been a few relationships since Jeff but it was awkward with having Owen and though she liked the men she’d never fallen in love with any of them. And so she’d never gone all out to make something long-lasting develop. Shelley reckoned it was a deliberate tactic. Once bitten twice shy. Fiona just argued that she hadn’t met the right person yet.

‘But a case like this,’ he was saying, ‘it’s very hard to get people to testify. I’ll do all I can to get them on board, and keep them there.’

‘There are other witnesses?’

‘There are. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you more than that.’

Fiona thought back to the day: she’d been so focused on Danny that she recalled little else. She remembered the churchgoers streaming across the grass, Danny’s mum and sister among them. But before that? Kids on bikes. A man on his mobile. She couldn’t even remember what he looked like.

They reached the side street and Joe showed her to the entrance which was specially for witnesses; he rang the intercom and a guard opened the door. They had to walk through a metal detector, and the guard searched Fiona’s bag.

Upstairs, they reached a suite of rooms. Joe took her in and they were met by Francine, a volunteer with the witness service, who would explain all the procedures and look after Fiona during the trial.

‘Come through,’ Francine said. ‘It’s a bit of a warren.’

They went along a narrow corridor with rooms off to the sides. Fiona glimpsed people waiting in chairs, some in the corridor itself. Waiting to give evidence. It would be her turn in a couple of weeks.

Francine took them into the kitchen and made tea for them. There was a whiteboard on the wall, columns with names and abbreviations. Francine noticed her reading it and explained: the case, defendants and witnesses, which volunteers were assigned to who, which court it was in.

The place reminded Fiona of a local clinic: the interface of public and professional, the whiteboard, the waiting area with toys and magazines.

‘You can’t discuss your evidence with me,’ Francine explained, ‘but any questions you have about the process I’m here to answer. And if I can’t, I’ll find someone who can.’

‘Are any of the courts free?’ Joe asked.

‘I’ll check,’ Francine said. She turned to Fiona. ‘It helps to see where you’ll be. Sometimes we just use photographs to explain the layout, but I’ll find out if we can go in.’

Fiona sipped her tea. People – volunteers, she assumed – were coming and going, chatting to each other. Occasionally someone altered an entry on the whiteboard.

Francine came back. ‘Yes, we can get a look now,’ she said.

‘Are you all right if I leave you with Francine?’ Joe asked Fiona. ‘I need a word with them in the office.’

‘Fine.’

‘I’ll see you back here.’

The courtroom was more or less as she imagined except for the frosted glass box that surrounded the dock. She remarked on it.

‘That’s to prevent the defendant from communicating with their supporters. They’ll be behind them in the public gallery.’ Francine gestured to the bank of seats at the back of the court. ‘This is the witness stand. You can go in if you like.’

Fiona did. Opposite her was the jury box and to her right the raised dais where the judge would sit. In the well of the court were the lawyers’ benches and then above those to Fiona’s left rose the dock and public gallery.

She felt exposed. ‘They said there’d be screens?’

‘That’s those.’ Francine pointed to maroon curtains bunched at the back of the witness stand. ‘Don’t know why they call them screens – sounds better, I suppose. They pull those round before you come in and just leave them open so the judge and jury and the barristers can see you. You’ll come in from the stairs there.’ Francine showed her a flight of steps that led up to the witness stand from below the court. ‘It means you won’t need to walk through open court otherwise there’d be no point in the screens.’

The air in the room was dead, sound muffled. Fiona felt a chill along her arms as she imagined it full of people. She wondered what other murder trials had unfolded here, what horrors had been spoken about by people standing on this spot.

‘It can be a bit daunting,’ Francine said. ‘Some people get nervous, then often it’s not as bad as they thought. And I’ll be with you all the time. You’ll be given a copy of your statement to read through when you arrive and then when you get called I’ll accompany you. The prosecution barrister will talk you through your evidence then each of the defence barristers will have an opportunity to question you.’

‘Each?’ It hadn’t occurred to her that there’d be more than one, but of course there would.

‘Two defendants – they’ll be running separate defences.’

Fiona came down the steps from the witness stand. ‘How long will it take?’