I wasn’t sure how I would muster any strength to confront Clark in court, knowing my life would be in his hands – a life that had been shaped by this man’s greed and cruelty.
Andrew’s eyes shifted from worry to confusion as he transitioned from the squat he had assumed to grab me when I’d first dropped to the floor, to a slump as he sat down next to me, both our backs leaning against the cold tiled wall.
‘Fran, I need you to be completely honest with me now. What’s going on here?’
I placed both my hands against my face, which was extraordinarily moist with sweat, so I moved them to my abdomen, where I could still feel moisture seeping through the fabric.
‘Get me some new clothes, and I can tell you everything.’
I couldn’t bear to look at him again. The very thought of him knowing that my life was in his hands was, simply put,unbeschreiblich: not just indescribable, but also some sort of unspeakable. The amount of power that this wretch of a man now yielded over me must have made him nurse some kind of semi as he approached the witness box. I’m sure when he’d got the call, it had all come together for him: who I was, Macleod and O’Neill, and how he was now the one who could put me away for good. He hadn’t even had the decency to take that bronze ring off his finger. He still wanted the world to think of him as a gracious philanthropist.
After the fire had ravaged St Nicholas’s, Clark had visited while the firefighters had let us see what little we could salvage. I still remembered Clive glaring at him, furious, as someone explained that the small trinkets I called toys had been completely burnt to ash. I couldn’t take it in, I was just wondering where Edith’s body was being carried away to, and how I had so utterly failed to save her.
I have no real memory of when and how we were taken away from my parents by social services, but for as long as I couldremember, protecting Edith had always beenmyresponsibility. Wasn’t that what older sisters did? You don’t want to know how devastating failing at that would feel for a little girl.
But a memory I can recall even more vividly, was looking up at Clark, who stood there like some kind of aristocrat gazing down at a street urchin. The man who had promised us that everything was going to be all right, that we wouldn’t be going to bed cold or hungry anymore. He had sworn to us he was going to fix everything for us at St Nicholas’s. Yet of course, he and his powerful friends had covered it all up as a freak accident so that no one would even remember what happened to Edith.
Even then, I was old enough to know that this man and cronies had let this happen. He had let my little sister die, and I remember thinking how good it would feel to kill him. Right there and then, I made a vow to myself that if I ever got the chance to in the future, I would take it.
Predictably, the St Nicholas’s fire was traced by investigators to an electrical fault caused by outdated wiring, apparently completely unforeseen by everyone. But not to Clark. He’d known full well about it.
My skin throbbed with a deep, anxious energy now as I watched that same man give a warm smile to the judge, shake the bailiff’s hand, and swear vivaciously on the Bible. He and Isla exchanged what seemed like polite greetings as she approached him.
‘Mr Clark, thank you for being able to join us today.’
‘Oh, it’s my pleasure.’ He rethought the word. ‘My honour,’ he amended.
‘You knew Gordon O’Neill well, is that correct?’
‘I knew him very well for fifty or so years, although we did fall out of touch in the past fifteen years or so. He lived some hundred miles or so away and we just…lost touch.’
That was a lie. They all stayed in touch; that was why they wore the rings.
‘As is prone to happen to good friends,’ Isla said warmly as she looked through her notes. ‘Could you describe Gordon O’Neill to me, please?’
‘As nice and as human as they come. A really warm, nice fellow who was nothing but sweet, generous and kind. He was part of our Heart of Hope Foundation, a little group of us middle-aged men in the community who wanted to give back, make a difference to those less fortunate.’
The way he described it made me want to projectile vomit onto the people sitting below me, right then and there.
‘And the late Thomas Macleod?’
‘Thomas, a fine fellow, real salt of the earth kind of chap. Don’t have a bad word to say about him, God rest his soul.’
My fingers wrapped around my thighs to give them something to squeeze, my leg tapping against the carpeted floor of the dock. In my peripheral vision, I could see one of the officers glance at me, bewildered by my shift from existential boredom to sheer, unadulterated fear. Clark wouldn’t incriminate himself now, surely? He couldn’t truly say how we were connected. In doing that, everything would come spilling out, right?
‘Were there any other connections between the three of you? Anyone else who knew you three at all?’ Isla asked.
‘Not really, other than our family and friends, but it’s not like we all went to work in the office together. We mostly had our other lives to get on with, but we would come together once a week or so to do good work for our community.’
‘Thank you, Mr Clark. Would you now be able to clarify to the jury if you have seen the woman on the stand before?’
A hot shiver pulsed through my body as Clark’s head rotated and his eyes fixed on me. He’d always had a flair for the dramatic, and he trembled now as he leaned forward.
‘I have. She came into my shop a few weeks ago.’
I gulped.
‘And how would you describe her? How did she come across?’ Isla questioned. ‘And please remember that you are under oath, so be as honest and candid as possible.’
