Page 302 of These Tears

My fingers clench around the edge of the bench.

Conall half-rises from his place behind counsel, but as he opens his mouth, a burst of static tears through the courtroom, followed by Cromwell’s voice: ‘…stamps a shipment without opening it… cash… Arthur knew nothing, but Melody Crane did… shame she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.’

Every muscle in me locks.

Finally.

People recoil, and Elias’ eyes narrow before they flick to Cromwell, but when he finds the uncertainty on the man’s face, worry darkens his own. His hands close around the ledge inside the secure dock.

The district judge looks up sharply. ‘Clerk, what in the world is going on with the media system?’

The clerk fumbles for the controls. One of the court security officers moves to the door while another speaks urgently into his radio.

The recording cuts, then catches on another part of yesterday’s conversation – when Cromwell talked about the dead Cranes with far more knowledge than an innocent man should possess.

Hearing it again is different. In his office, I’d been too busy surviving the conversation to grasp how ugly it really sounded.

Elias goes rigid. His eyes leave Cromwell and slowly drag to find me.

At first, there’s the confusion that had taken hold of everyone. But when my own faint voice breaks alongside Cromwell’s, I watch the pieces align behind that blueness. The moment he realises I had gone to see Cromwell on my own, he surges against the ledge. Guilt gives a vicious kick against my sternum. I knew exactly what he’d think about this, but I did it anyway.

The custody officer beside him steps closer, one hand rising towards his shoulder.

‘Mr Crane,’ he warns.

Elias deflates before the man touches him, but every part of his demeanour remains aimed at me. His shoulders draw hard beneath his T-shirt as fury strips the exhaustion from his face until he looks as if he might break through all that wood, but then the devil’s voice fills the room again.

People jerk upright like a single outraged organism. The usher hurries towards the side door, the clerk speaks into a telephone beneath the bench, and someone near the rear calls for the sound system to be isolated.

‘Turn it off!’ the judge snaps. ‘Nobody is to leave the courtroom!’

I meet Conall’s eyes – his face is drained of colour.

The prosecutor is already on his feet, talking over the chaos about unlawful recording, prejudice to proceedings, contempt and other big, legal words.

My confidence loses a little of its swagger, but the fire is, at least, spreading.

‘Sit down!’ the judge warns the barrister. ‘This material is not before the court and will not presently be treated as evidence.’

Beyond Conall, Elias holds his gaze on me.

The rage is still there, but his lips are now parted as fear takes the stand. For me.

As the voices keep rolling from the speakers, his attention travels from them to Cromwell.

The bastard’s face has gone a blotched kind of red. He finds me across the courtroom and gives me a look that could level mountains.

The soundless threat from his office is stark within it.

I pull myself straighter anyway. The moment extends until the doors at the back burst open, and a court officer stumbles in, breathless, one hand pressed to his earpiece. ‘Judge,’ he says, waiting until the judge acknowledges him, ‘the audio has been published online. The media outside are already playing it.’

A vicious satisfaction unfurls inside me.

The room goes still around the next loop of Cromwell’s voice.

Phones begin vibrating across the press row despite every warning to silence them. Reporters stare down at their screens, then towards Cromwell’s seat.

There’s no taking it back now.