“And how would you describe that relationship?” she asks me.
“Good, to begin with, and then strained and unpleasant.”
“Why strained?”
I consider for a moment. “He behaved as though he disapproved of me, of my job, of the clothes I wore, and the films I liked to watch and the books I liked to read. He claimed to like the classics, though it must be said, they were pristine and unread on his shelf; I preferred Stephen King and James Herbert. And I actuallyreadmy books.”
“And why do you think he disapproved of you?” Allison asks.
“Speculation,” the defence lawyer pipes up. He looks familiar; I’m fairly sure I saw him at one of the annual Foxton Melas.
“Overruled,” the judge says before she turns back to me. “You may answer.”
“I later discovered that I…wasn’t his type. He liked me in his youth, but then the Vice Chancellor’s daughter caught his eye, and when he broke up with me, he told me that she was ‘more suitable’, and fit in better with his long term plans.” I shrug. “In the end, it was the best possible thing that could have happened. A few months later, I began a relationship with my now-husband.”
In my peripheral vision I see Peter flinch. He can’t be surprised; I was on the court listing as SadieMills, not SadieStewart. I guess there’s a difference between reading it and hearing it out loud.
“Were you aware that Mr Lang was in debt?”
“No, never. He used to have a lot of the finer things in life - his watch, his car, his suits - but he never seemed to be in trouble. I just thought his job paid very well, and that it probably gave him the knowledge to make his money work for him with smart investments.”
“And when was the last time you saw the defendant in person?”
“A couple of months before my daughter was born.”
“A couple ofmonthsbefore she was born,” Allison muses for the benefit of the jury. “So you were visibly and unmistakably pregnant?”
“Yes. I was out here,” I gesture a few inches in front of my flattening stomach. “He even commented on it.”
“Oh? What did he say?”
“He said, and this is a direct quote, ‘Jesus, you’re pregnant’, and then he told me that he hadn’t known that I was.”
We then move on to the day of the attack and the injuries I suffered, with photos as supporting evidence, and I can’t help feeling sick when I think of how close I came to disaster. My daughter was threatened, and now that I’ve held her in my arms, nursed her, taken a ridiculous amount of photos of her because I want to preserve every minute… God, I can’t bear it, and my voice starts to crack.
“And when Detective Antoniou informed you that they had arrested Mr Lang in connection with the crime, what was your reaction?”
I breathe in deeply, looking directly at Peter, who won’t meet my eye. “Disbelief. I never thought in a million years he had it in him to be a part of something so terrible. That he’d harm me, and my baby, just for the prospect of easy money.”
“Objection!” the defence barrister barks.
“I’m sure, but overruled in this instance.” I like this judge. She looks at me, and I swear there’s a sympathetic twinkle in her eye. “Though I advise Mrs Mills to be careful going forward.”
“Fair enough,” I reply.
When it’s the defence’s turn, the barrister does his best, but he’s got a hard job, and he knows it. He tries to place the blame of my break-up with Peter at my door; he tries to imply that I was having an affair with Leo before that point, obviously pressed to do so by his client; he tries all sorts of insinuations, but he just ends up looking petty.
I behave as though I find his line of questioning bizarre, by blinking, raising an eyebrow, asking him to repeat questions I find particularly victim-blaming.
Eventually, I suppose in desperation, he points out my sarcasm when answering Peter’s observation that I was pregnant, and establishes that I’m ‘acerbic and combative’ in my interactions with Peter historically.
“Can I please clarify the question?” I ask him innocently. “Are you saying that, even if I had ever called the defendant a low down, selfish, spiteful individual with a debilitating and well deserved inferiority complex, which I didn’t, this would justify what he did?”
“Allegedydid,” he fires back at me.
“No, no,” I blithely insist, “hediddo that, and he treated me with the most profound contempt and disrespect when we were together.” I tip my head to one side. “So,isthat what you’re saying?”
From the grin Allison fails to smother, I think my point is well made.
