Approaching the entrance to the building, and the sea of media that seemed to live outside, I remembered that out-of-the-blue comment I’d made after the trial broke up for the weekend to that journalist Gemma Moore when she’d stuck a microphone in my face outside the courtroom. About how that dinosaur expo last Easter had been the last time I’d seen my daughter truly happy and carefree.
It was true and I would give my right arm to see Rosie back playing with her dinosaurs and creating havoc in her bedroom as she faced down one plastic herd of carnivores against another of its herbivore rivals.
I hoped against hope that day would come soon.
“Well, if everything is coming to an end shortly,” I said to Declan, “I certainly won’t miss all this.” I waved my hand in the media’s direction.
He stole a glance at me and smiled. “Not keen on the spotlight, eh? I must say, though, you were pretty good with that journalist on Friday afternoon, really spoke from the heart. Which was great, as we needed the focus to remain on Rosie and not on what Madeleine Cooper said.”
But today, just as we had in previous days, we walked through the mass of cameras, keeping our eyes focused on the doors in front of us. I said nothing and Declan kept up his usual script of “No comment” to their litany of questions.
I’m still not quite sure what it was that had made me stop and say something to them the other day. Possibly because Madeleine’s words had made more of an impression on me than was comfortable. In any case, it hardly mattered, but it did have the effect of making them even more insistent than usual, and now they crowded around, blocking our entrance, hoping for a fresh insight.
Making our way purposefully into the building, we headed toward the bank of elevators and waited to be taken up to the fifth floor. I straightened my shoulders. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t miss this building, either, when all of this was over. I had better not get called for jury duty anytime soon, I thought ruefully to myself.
Then again, I did have a very good reason for being excused.
A moment later, we were exiting onto our floor. Some errant reporters had made their way in and now waited outside the courtroom. That had been happening more frequently, hence my broken silence the other day. I spied Gemma Moore among their numbers and, acknowledging her from before, I made brief eye contact, but that was it. Her relentless pursuit of Madeleine over the last year or so had in fact scared the living bejesus out of me, and now I didn’t want to do anything else to ignite her interest in me.
Declan held the door to the courtroom open for me and I entered. The room was just then only about half-full, and we took our usual seats without hesitation.
Madeleine, Tom and their solicitor weren’t there yet. Glancing at my watch, I realized it was only about ten minutes or so until our Monday-morning session was scheduled to start. Weird. They had been here bright and early all last week and I wondered if they were held up in traffic. Or had perhaps just given up?
But if they had, surely we would know about it?
Saying as much to Declan as we got settled, he shrugged and said basically what I’d been thinking, when suddenly the court bailiff approached us.
“Mr. Roe?” the man said. “Judge Dowling requests to see you and your client in his chambers this morning.”
Declan wore a confused expression. “What’s this about?”
The bailiff shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. If you could follow me, please.”
After gathering the papers that he had been arranging on the table, Declan shoved the lot back into his briefcase and nodded to me. I grabbed my things and followed unquestioningly.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to him.
“I really don’t know,” he replied, looking concerned.
In my mind, I started going through all of the possible scenarios that could have happened in the previous weekend that we needed to have a private audience with the judge. Had Madeleine and Tom been in an accident and were laid up at the hospital? Maybe after her testimony they had decided they wanted to settle? Or perhaps they’d skipped the country and were currently headed to Timbuktu? Idea after idea floated through my head—all of them wrong.
Nothing—nothing—could have prepared me for what happened next.
The bailiff opened the door to the judge’s chambers and upon our entry we discovered that Madeleine and Tom weren’t running late, nor had escaped the country. They were already there, as was their solicitor, Townsend. There were also two other people in the room: one a younger man I didn’t recognize, aged around nineteen or twenty, I surmised, as well as an older gentleman who had the look of another solicitor or legal representative of some kind.
The younger of the two looked as if he had just rolled out of bed a half an hour ago and found a crumpled and ill-fitting suit balled up in the back of his wardrobe. He wore a pair of glasses that seemed far too big for his face, but held himself in such a way that it was evident he was confident about himself—appearances aside. He met my gaze with a knowing look that conveyed he felt he was the smartest person in the room just then.
The look chilled me.
The other man looked to be somewhere in his mid-sixties and was carrying on a quiet discourse with Judge Dowling—it was clear that they knew each other. How, I wasn’t sure. The man wore a carefully tailored navy blue suit and his hands were manicured and buffed. He was well turned out and put together, and I was curious to know who these two strangers were and what their sudden involvement in our case could be.
“Ah, Mr. Roe and Ms. O’Hara,” said Judge Dowling. “Good morning.”
Declan seemed to be studying the room. “Good morning, Judge.” He paused. “Forgive me for being so blunt, but I’m hoping someone can tell us what is going on.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Not our plan to catch you unawares, but something important has developed over the weekend,” replied the judge. “Mrs. Cooper, I believe you wanted to say something.”
I turned my attention to Madeleine, who had been sitting quietly next to her husband. She wore an expression on her face that I was unable to read, but I noticed in that moment that her hands were shaking. She was nervous about something. I wondered if she was about to say they were ready to mediate a settlement.
