‘We’re going to be driving up the West Coast,’ Reubyn says, without taking his eyes off the road. ‘It’s quite remote out there.I’ve found us a good camping spot where we can stay tonight. The weather’s going to be crap for the next day or two, so we just need somewhere to hunker down, really.’
George rolls his eyes. ‘Brilliant. Somewhere to hunker down. I’m glad we travelled halfway across the globe for that.’
‘The more remote, the better, I reckon,’ Elis says. ‘That was always the point of coming somewhere like this – to get away from everyone.’
‘Too bad we can’t get away from you,’ George says, his quip garnering a couple of awkward laughs.
Polly hasn’t engaged in their conversation and instead mutters expletives as she attempts to do something on her laptop. She’s hotspotting off her phone but the signal is getting increasingly temperamental the further they get from Queenstown. Elis is equally untalkative, and the chatter in the back fades away.
With no audible distractions, Miles focuses all his attention on the landscape in an attempt to clear his head. The whole point of this getaway is to allow his mind to switch off from the awful events of the trial and forget about his stalker. He’s determined to do it. Miles is still convinced he’s in the best place for a mental detox: views as dramatic as these must be able to distract from any thoughts. He attempts to frame each vista and examine every detail – anything to set his mind on a different track.
They pass a barren vineyard, with rows of twisted remains, and another where vines flourish under black nets. Then a field with a cluster of stumps where a chainsaw has been taken to a copse. For hours they drive on, the views changing rapidly. The highway remains flat but around it the terrain oscillates – up and down, wide and then suddenly narrow. Mountain ranges tumble into hills, and plains give way to rugged slopes that corner into great gorges. They pass lakes and pine forests. Fields of grasses that are foreign shades of green and sickly brown. The road skirts an enormouslake, and, briefly, the sun is out and cuts shards off every inch of the water. Behind it, mountains are half obscured by heavy cloud.
In the back, Polly has given up on trying to work and has fallen asleep. Miles’s limbs are increasingly restless, and his fidgeting hand creeps into his pocket, where the envelope is folded. He pinches at it, squeezing the blistered packaging under the surface. As he makes his way down, he feels something solid. The temptation to open the envelope itches away at him, but he knows he must wait until he’s alone if he wants to swerve any unwanted questions. A new prickle of worry runs through him. No journalist’s letter he’s ever received has come in a padded envelope. And if a reporter didn’t hand-deliver this package to his hotel, then there’s an obvious and alarming explanation for who did.
Chapter 30
The Trial
One of the defence’s key jobs was to pick apart the alleged motive for Caira’s murder. It was flaky anyway, this suggestion that Miles – a man with an unblemished record and no history whatsoever of violence – had launched a deadly assault on her simply because their date hadn’t ended a certain way. But the prosecution still tried to make it stick. And Eleanor had her work cut out to not only show Miles’s good character but also discredit the prosecution’s attempts to sully it.
It was also down to Miles’s defence to put forward more plausible motives for Caira’s murder that might exist elsewhere. To that end, Eleanor called Briony Edwards, a regional manager of social services. She was a recently retired wiry, grey woman with a downturned mouth and baggy eyes, and the decades she’d spent dealing with human misery seemed written into the lines on her face. Once the oath had been sworn, Eleanor began by asking about her career background. Briony confirmed she’d spent more than twenty years working in the same department that had featured in the docu-seriesGuardian Angels.
‘In your experience,’ Eleanor said, ‘have you, or any of the staff you’ve managed, ever been on the receiving end of hostile or intimidating behaviour while at work?’
A wry smile formed on Briony’s face, combined with a barely detectable eye-roll. ‘Unfortunately, yes. That’s very common.’
‘And why is that, Mrs Edwards?’
‘Parents sometimes don’t react well when they’re told they’re not providing suitable care for their children.’
‘I see. And how would you describe a typical reaction?’
Briony shrugged. ‘Denial. Frustration. Anger.’
Eleanor then gestured towards a TV set in the corner of the courtroom. ‘I’m going to show you a clip from the documentary seriesGuardian Angels, in which Ms Kennedy explains to the parents of a child that there will be a court hearing to decide whether their son is to enter foster care.’
The video played, showing Caira calmly explaining to a man and a woman what their upcoming court process would entail and why it was happening. The man, dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a grubby grey T-shirt, appeared twitchy and unsettled from the beginning. Both parents’ faces were pixellated, but even so, the man’s behaviour became visually more aggressive as the clip went on. Anger flared in his body, and the video ended with him being restrained by two security guards while he attempted to move towards Caira, his neck straining angrily as he lunged at her.
When the clip was done, Eleanor resumed her questioning. ‘Mrs Edwards, would you describe what we just saw on that clip as an unusual reaction?’
Briony considered that for a moment. ‘It’s quite an extreme reaction, but not completely unusual.’
Eleanor nodded. ‘Have you yourself ever witnessed a social worker being subjected to this kind of physically aggressive behaviour?’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘And are you aware of any cases in which any members of the families you serve have developed an obsessive dislike for a particular social worker?’
‘Yes.’
‘And in such situations, have you ever been aware of any social worker becoming fearful for their own personal safety?’
Briony nodded, sadly. ‘Yes. I’m afraid so.’
‘And my last question for you, Mrs Edwards, have you ever come across a situation where a social worker has feared for their life as a result of their work?’
‘Yes, I have.’
