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“You don’t ignore Brendan Sadler if he wants to talk to you, and he tends to leave an impression.”
“You’ve already admitted that the defendant is an occasional customer and a town legend, not someone you know well. He’s a white male in his early thirties, with short dark hair and a slim build. There are endless numbers of people in this town matching that description. How can you be so sure it was him you were talking to?”
“You’re not from around here, are you? Anyone in Mannith would recognise any of the Sadlers.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Where I’m from is irrelevant to these proceedings.” It’s hard to keep the irritation—or the accent—out of my voice. And it’s disturbing to hear my family talked of in this way.
I attempt to steer the questioning back onto safer ground. “How’s the sound quality in The Angel?”
“It’s a bar. There’s music and chatter. But I’m used to holding conversations over it. And it’s not like he was speaking quietly. To be honest, I was getting a little thrill from talking to him.”
God save me from my brother’s endless appeal to the opposite sex.
“Can you remind me of exactly what he said?”
She nods and reels it off without looking at her notes. “‘I’ll make them pay for what they did to my sister. It’s been six years. Long enough for the prohibition on taking revenge to have started to fade. But not long enough for me to have forgotten.’”
“And what did you think he meant by that?”
For the first time, she hesitates. “I knew he might do something violent. But I was imagining a fight, not a murder. And an attack on someone his own age, not an old bloke. It sounded all gangster and cool. Now it makes me cry to think I didn’t do anything to stop it.”
“I’ll make them pay for what they did to my sister.” Somehow, I manage to repeat the hateful words. “Does that mean anything to you?”
“Who knows? I assumed it was Gabriel Thornber he was angry with, rather than the old man. God knows what he did to Brendan’s sister. Dumped her, raped her, or got her pregnant, at a guess?”
“There’s no need to speculate if you don’t know,” I snap.
I ask a few more probing questions. She’s sure about the time Bren arrived, because he made an entrance. She’s sure about the time he left. She followed him outside, and she recognised his distinctive car. I’ve hopefully managed to create some room for doubt, but it’s a depressingly perfect testimony.
“If the next witness has got a story like that, I’m mesmerising them myself,” Mum says, after court ends for the day. “I don’t know if she was bewitched or out for easy money, but I’m not going to sit there and listen to people lie about my baby boy.”
I shake my head. “No. No mesmerism. No blackmail, bribery, or intimidation. You promised. Just trust me to do my job.”
* * *
Over the next few days, Imran and I work our way through several more witnesses. A customer in the bar, who didn’t hear the conversation but whose description of the basic facts matches the barmaid’s perfectly. A man at the petrol station, where Bren apparently parked his recognisable car and showed his infamous face while paying. Someone in the village near Thornber Manor, who’d seen him come screeching in. The manor’s gardener, who’d watched him spin to a halt on the gravel driveway and storm inside, holding the extremely noticeable Victorian silver revolver which police evidence suggests was the murder weapon and which was found covered in Bren’s prints—hardly surprising, considering that it’s a family heirloom.
No one seems obviously bewitched or acting under duress. The neighbour and the gardener are probably Thornber loyalists to some degree or another, but the timings and detail in their stories correspond with the seemingly more neutral and trustworthy witnesses.
My parents honour my request to avoid any attempts at perverting the course of justice, but none of the testimony bodes well for the case. And worse, while I’d never admit it to him or to the rest of the family, I’m starting to doubt my own brother. Next time I meet with him, there are going to have to be some hard questions.
Could he really have done this to take revenge on my behalf and be too ashamed or worried about my reaction to tell me the truth?
TEN
When Friday night of the second week hits, I cannot wait to do some exercise, have a long hot bath, then go to bed.
The bath’s a luxury. Growing up, my mum was a big believer in long soaks, for purposes of both ritual and relaxation, and she entirely passed the habit to me. But my London flat only has a shower.
While I’m luxuriating in the water, drink in hand, there’s a knock on the door. “Hello?”
“It’s me, Connor. Can I come in?”
I smile to myself. Maybe sleep can wait. “Any time.”
The door’s locked, but his magic makes short work of that issue.
I stretch out in the bubbles, trying to look as languorous as possible and hoping my face isn’t too red from the heat.
