These Delicate Creatures
Two
The courtroom is rammed with press already by the time he arrives.
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He has to show his badge four or five times on his journey from the security gates through to the courtroom itself and up to the public gallery. A small sheet of A4 paper is hanging off the corner of one of the benches. Michael Tierney – Scope Magazine, it reads. It’s barely enough room for his thigh. He apologises as he ploughs through the aisle, nearly knocking Brian Arthur from the Telegraph clean off the balcony into the jury. He squeezes himself down between a man he doesn’t recognise and a spindly woman he remembers vaguely as a Barbara something. He thinks she might be from the Independent, but she’s too absorbed in her phone to pay him any notice.
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‘Sorry,’ Michael wheezes, as he sits himself down between them.
The man grunts uncomfortably and smiles. ‘No bother. Join me and my fellow sardines.’
Michael laughs. ‘Absolutely.’
The man is heavy set, perhaps somewhere in his sixties, with whiskery eyebrows and a bald head that seems to shine brighter than the horrendous courtroom lighting. The man leers over thin spectacles at Michael. ‘You been here for the whole thing then?’
Michael nods. ‘All seventy-four hours of it so far.’
The man groans. ‘I’m covering for Francine – Mail Online?’ Michael nods, remembering the other woman he had been sitting next to, with the purple overcoat and the heavily pregnant belly. ‘Went into labour last night. Got the call at five. Thought fuck this but they tell me this one is worth seeing.’ He gestured vaguely to the courtroom, still alive with the chatter of people taking their seats. ‘It’s been an interesting case?’
Michael tilts his head apathetically. ‘So-so. It has its moments. Bit grim at times.’
‘I hear Ian Daley hasn’t been allowed in the courtroom?’
‘Request of the wife, I think,’ Michael said, ‘She said she felt too threatened to have him in the room.’
Michael wasn’t sure, but it seemed as though the man rolled his eyes. “Who knows with this lot, eh? I mean, either this man is totally evil, or he’s pissed off a lot of women.’ The man chuckled to himself. ‘Makes you ask, doesn’t it. Which is more likely? Sorry – Alastair Finch.’ He extends a chubby hand to Michael. Michael takes it and shakes. ‘What do you think?’
Michael looks out vaguely to the courtroom as it begins to descend into a natural lull. ‘I don’t know. Either could be true. He seems like a bit of a scumbag if I’m honest. And I don’t know how the fuck you keep thirteen women on the go and maintain your sanity.’
Alastair did something halfway between a laugh and a dry heave. ‘One wife is more than enough I think.’
A voice from the pit drones to rise, and they all do. The courtroom became suddenly engulfed in an expectant silence. The judge files in first. A stern woman in her fifties with short, cropped hair and piercing eyes. The way she leers over the bench reminds Michael of a vulture. Then the jury shuffle in shortly afterwards and whisper silently to themselves. To the surprise of the jury, a door opens at the back of the room, and a man walks in, wearing jeans and an old hoodie, led by two police officers in uniform.
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‘Is this our man?’ Alastair says, a tone of surprise in his voice.
Michael had been checking his phone when Ian Daley had walked in. Anna hadn’t replied, which was odd, but he is too distracted at that moment to think too hard on it. ‘That’s him.’
The papers had printed pictures of him. The mugshot was the main one. A pale face, beset with scars and washed out beneath a mop of dark hair and a grey jumper. But this was the first time Michael had seen him in the flesh. He is small, only about 5’7. He almost bows into the room, nodding his head deferentially to the judge as he passes her. He thanks the guards, one of them shooting him a smile before he leaves. He pulls out the chair behind the prosecutor’s desk silently and stands behind it, nodding gratefully to his lawyer with a meek smile. He looks oddly vulnerable from this distance.
“Be seated,” the judge intones. There’s a low rumble as everyone sits.
“That explains why none of the victims are here,” Alastair whispers. “I mean, if you want to see the main jailed, why wouldn’t you show up?”
The judge began with some introductory remarks; mentioning something about the seriousness of the offences, and how some of the nature of the questions that were going to be asked would likely be difficult to hear. Michael doesn’t hear any of it. He’s too busy staring at the man sitting beside the defence council, thumbing silently and respectfully through a folder of notes, and drumming a nervous rhythm on the desk with his fingers. From this angle, Michael can almost see his eyes. They’re buried under dark rings, almost obscured by his soft black hair, but they are blue. Quite brilliantly blue. Michael’s eyes are blue.
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Daley seems to take a moment to gather himself before he walks to the pulpit. Michael notices his lawyer, Carson, give his knee a few gentle squeezes before he leaves. He sits down and smiles weakly, his eyes flicking almost imperceptibly to where the jury are.
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Carson stands, giving a nod to the judge. The lawyer is taller than Daley. His lean shoulders are rounded, and his head sprouts from them at an odd angle, making him look permanently stooped. His head is large, with thinning blonde hair and sporting thick rimmed glasses that perch precariously on the end of his nose. Despite his rather odd shape, the lawyer has an odd charm about him. His weak frame seems to hide within it a peaceful deference, like a feeble dandelion perfectly at ease in the storm.
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‘Your honour, if I might,’ the lawyer begins, in a soft Aberdeenshire accent, ‘I’d like to begin questioning with a few opening remarks? The prosecution has been notified.’
The judge peers sternly at the prosecution’s table. The woman sitting there nods curtly. She is sitting with two other lawyers, whose heads are buried in their notes. The judge waves her approval.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ Carson says, folding his hands over his stomach, ‘It won’t have escaped your attention that my client has not been present at the court so far for any purpose other than to hear the charges laid against him. My client would like to make it known that this was, as the Judge has previously informed you, at the request of one of the key witnesses. My client, although wishing to respect this request, has often spoken of his desire to speak as a witness in this case, out of a desire to personally defend his innocence. But of course, my client has accepted the wishes of the key witness and has abstained from attending.
‘The questions which I shall now put to the client are, at my client’s request, deliberately exposing. My client is very passionate that his innocence is not found by a lack of evidence, but by an abundance of it. He is, without question, accepting that infidelity occurred against the key witness. He wants to stress without question, that he had relationships with the thirteen women who are speaking out against him, and the five women who have remained silent. He completely accepts that he was a terrible husband, that he lied to his wife about the other women, and he lied to the other women about being married. He is accepting, without question, that he has been a truly awful husband. But what he refuses to accept are the charges laid against him. That he, in a jealous rage, imprisoned his wife in the basement of their flat, raped her and beat her. He refuses to accept, that he coercively controlled the other women into keeping their silence and raped them in several times as the CPS suggests. As you will see from the questions I shall put to the accused, this man is a deeply flawed and at times deceptive individual, but he is not, by any means, a criminal.’
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Daley’s eyes have not left the desk. He smiles almost regretfully. Carson turns to him and removes his glasses.
‘Tell me, Ian. When did your affairs begin?’
Ian takes a breath. Michael breathes with him.
‘Almost as soon as I married.’
‘And when was that?’
Ian thinks. ‘Eleven years ago. I married the day before my twenty-eighth birthday.’
‘Was your relationship not happy when you got married?’
‘It had its moments. Sometimes we were happy, other times we weren’t.’
‘Can you explain to the jury what the source of your unhappiness was?’
Ian glances at them. ‘If I’m honest, it was my wife’s line of work.’
‘Can you remind the jury what that was?’
‘She was a model. I suppose, a type of model.’
Carson finished polishing his glasses. ‘Can you be more specific?’
‘She was working on a private pornographic website.’
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‘Objection; relevance?’ The woman’s voice cut across the stillness of the court, though there seemed an undertone of boredom to it. ‘The witness’ wife has already disclosed her line of work.’
Carson smiled pityingly at the defence lawyer, and then addressed the judge. ‘My client is discussing initial tensions in their relationship which has undeniable relevance to any abuses further down the line.’
The judge nods. ‘Overruled. Continue counsel.’
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Carson smiled sourly. ‘But your wife was quite open with you about her work, was she not?’
Ian nodded. ‘She was, and I think I pretended to be more okay with it than I was.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Because I felt like I loved her. She was brilliant, and frankly, a little out of my league. I didn’t want to seem controlling.’
Michael shifts in his seat and pulls out his phone. Anna has posted something on Instagram. Without even thinking, he flicks open his phone. It’s a photo of her fingers wrapped around a Starbucks cup; her pink lips slightly parted to accept a straw sliding between them. One blue eye is just in shot under a woollen hat. Michael double taps it.
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‘Did you tell her how you felt?’
Ian sighs. ‘I couldn’t. I just couldn’t find the words to say.’
‘An affair can’t have been the answer to this problem, though, Ian.’
Ian makes a barely perceptible movement, that looks like a twinge of annoyance. ‘I know. I was an idiot.’
‘Then, why do it? Why start a profile on the dating website?’
‘It just drove me mad,’ Ian says, ‘Every day she’d be on that damn website. Messaging her subscribers, reading their messages telling her how beautiful she was, telling her how many nuts they’d busted – sorry – over her. It’s like they had a piece of her that was mine. I felt powerless. I wanted someone to give me every ounce of themselves. I suppose I’m a bit of a romantic like that, but when I’m with someone, I want to feel like I’m all theirs, and they’re all mine.’
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Michael’s thumb finds its way to the likes on Anna’s picture. There are a hundred or so already. He clicks on it and scrolls. He knows the name he’s looking for and finds it almost instantly. Dean again. He sighs audibly and feels a sudden tension in his temples.
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Carson shoots a look of feigned confusion at the jury. ‘Well, I think I probably should ask the question that everyone’s thinking, Ian. Why so many women? You could have had just one affair, surely. But eighteen?’
Ian hangs his head. ‘I guess I became hooked on the chase. It was like a kind of validation, I suppose. But you’re right. That was wrong. I just needed the attention.’
Carson steps back behind his desk.
‘Ian, did you lock your wife in your basement?’
Ian shakes his head. ‘No, I did not.’
‘Did you beat her around the face and in the stomach?’
Ian sits up straighter. ‘I did not.’
‘Did you rape her in the basement?’
Ian’s face twitches. It could be discomfort, but it could also be a smile. ‘I did not.’
‘Then why has your wife accused you of these crimes?’
‘I believe she is angry at my affairs. Which she has every right to be.’
Carson smiles and nods at the judge. ‘That’s all for now, your honour.’