Part Thirty Eight
Di's escort duty was performed with an inextricable mixture of disgust, residual pity and total horror. This was the accomplice of that evil woman who would have casually consigned half a dozen prisoners to a fiery choking hell if it hadn't been for the fire brigade. One woman did die, Shaz Wiley, thanks to him, and for months after Denny Blood was grieving over her, poor kid. Yet this man, like her mother, was shackled to an iron frame and would never again feel that true physical independence that so many people took for granted. She remembered pushing her mother about on rare days out and that confinement of spirit of both of them came back to her in a vivid memory flash. Yet, at bottom, the hardness in Di came out on top and she was no more forgiving than the rest of them as the Prison officer from Wormwood Scrubs guided Ritchie's wheelchair to the prisoner's dock.
As Karen, Yvonne, Cassie and Roisin were about to file down the staircase to the front row in the gallery. Lauren pulled Yvonne aside.
"Mum, I'm getting out of here. I've had enough. I've got business to do but I'll catch up with you later." She gave Yvonne a brief smile and was gone. Immediately, the atmosphere relaxed in the gallery as Yvonne and Karen slipped their hands into each other's. Cassie and Roisin were immediately felt to be a friendly approving presence on one side of them.
A rustling sound stole in over the lunchtime quietness of the courtroom and the key players assumed their positions. Jo Mills leafed through the thick sheaf of evidence which was placed before the court and readied herself to quietly crush the transparent tissue of lies that her quick mind had picked up on.
"Can I ask you, Mr Atkins how you supported yourself between when you arrived back in this country and when you received the £50,000 from your mother." Her chilly formal voice opened the battle.
"Oh, a bit of this and a bit of that," Ritchie smiled disarmingly at Jo Mills "Like the way I ran clubs in Spain for the tourists. I've been used to being my own boss for four years while I've been abroad."
"Can you be more precise on the matter." Jo Mills pursued, watching with growing contempt, "Exactly what was the nature of your recent enterprises."
"A bit of wheeling and dealing with some of my old man's mates. The Atkins name still carries some clout." Ritchie bragged to the court. He was going to bluff this one out just like his old man used to do.
"I refer the court to the evidence in the bundle of papers exhibit 5AX obtained from Clapham Local Authority Payroll Department confirming the identity of one Richard Atkins , date of birth corresponding to the accused before you as an assistant librarian at Clapham North library. It shows that he started his employment with them on May 3rd 2002 and that he left their employment on June 13th 2002 just two days before the explosion at Larkhall Prison. Does this assist your memory, Mr Atkins."
"I might have been, come to mention it." Ritchie said sulkily. He was beginning to resent this pushy upper class woman who didn't respond to the Atkins charm. This started to rattle him as it never had before.
"While you were employed at this library, did you at any time arrange for the loan of books to Larkhall Prison."
"I dunno. Clapham North library is a big place and some of the other lads might have sent a few books that way. I can't say I remember." Ritchie shrugged his shoulders with pretended indifference.
"I refer the court to exhibit 3LD which is a computerised record of the interlibrary loans from a Clapham North Library to Larkhall Prison which was salvaged from the fire. If you observe, there were a couple of entries in the whole six months before Mr Atkins, and, surprise surprise , a whole host of books are issued and to only one library, nowhere else in the entire county. Also I would draw the attention of the court to the fact that not one book was ever recorded as being sent back to Clapham North library from Larkhall prison despite Clapham's policy of only lending out for a month at a time before the loan is extended.
"Can I ask you again, Mr Atkins did or did you not arrange the loan of so many of your library rarest volumes, which you see listed in the evidence?"
There was a sullen pause. Cassie looked with total hatred at this guy's pathetic pretence of being the big time tycoon when she had held down a job that was the real thing.
"I take it that your lack of response is a yes." Jo Mills hard precise voice was directed equally at Ritchie and at the jury whom she turned to face with a slight flourish.
"I also refer the court to forensic evidence also retrieved by the police investigation showing traces of explosives. Can you account for this, Mr Atkins?" and Jo once again faced up to Ritchie.
"It's a lie." Shouted Ritchie." It's a set up. Nothing to do with me. How long am I going to be hassled like this? Is this British justice?"
"You will be continued to be questioned according to British justice, Mr Atkins, and I direct you to provide proper answers and stop trying to evade the questions. If you don't, I'll hold you in contempt of court." John Deed replied loudly and with a very precise intonation of a kind Ritchie had never come across before. George Channing winced visibly at both sets of painful memories.
Karen looked down at the court and the tattered remnants of an automatic sympathy natural to an ex nurse fell away leaving her feeling spiritually naked and emotionally reborn. A feeling of cold contempt for him put Ritchie and his kind forever on the opposite side of an invisible wall that made them forever unable to touch her in anything that they could do or feel or say. There was a huge feeling of release, a farewell to the past that had chained her down. She smiled sideways at Yvonne and she saw where her future lay. Yvonne's hand enfolded hers and gave her that extra tight squeeze
Jo paused for a second and glanced upwards to see how Yvonne was reacting to see her son being verbally shredded into little pieces. For her sake, the tone in her voice was comparatively muted but the interlocking irrefutable evidence and tightly reasoned logic was quite deadly enough. Surprisingly, George's bombastic and combative demeanour of the first week was fading as much as her hopes of her client's acquittal.
"I did not actually accuse you, Mr Atkins, of directly concealing the explosives in the books but your answer is answer enough."
A trace of the helpless little boy appeared from underneath the bravado.
"Can you explain to the court for what purpose you required the £50,000 that you received from your mother."
"To set myself up in business. My sister has all the fleet of cars. She's been sitting pretty on the money my old man left while I've had to make my own way in the world. It's not easy when your own father disowns you." Ritchie's reply tried the old guilt trip routine.
"That is not what I asked you, Mr Atkins. You have to explain to the court, including the jury, that the request for £50,000 was made for a specific purpose, how much of it is spent, what it has been used for and where any of the balance is held if any."
"It's been stashed away in a Swiss Bank. I ended up in a wheelchair before I could do anything with it. I'll need everything I can get the way I am right now." Ritchie's reply ended on a 'hard done by' note.
"Let us turn to the matter of the phone calls that you freely admit that Snowball Merriman made on the day before the explosion. You have admitted asking if Snowball Merriman was there. Why did you think she should be there at that moment of time? It was hardly her personal office."Jo asked with an edge of sarcasm.
"We talk on the phone. Snowball Merriman's my girlfriend. Hardly a crime is it." Ritchie snarled. Some of the Atkins spirit came back to him.
"No but the purpose for which the Reverend Mills has been used is, Mr Atkins. I ask the court to look at item 12F in the bundle of papers, which is the itemised phone calls from the prison which clearly indicates a series of phone calls made to your mobile phone over a short period of time. What were the purpose of the phone calls, Mr Atkins."
"Just usual boyfriend, girlfriend sort of thing. Nothing special."
"I will leave it for the jury to decide " Jo Mills retorted with a broad smile."And I shall pass on to the record of a phone call made to Karen Betts the night before the fire. Can you really pretend that it is a coincidence that Karen Betts came round to your flat that night presenting the perfect opportunity for you to plant the gun on Karen Betts and use her to smuggle the gun into Larkhall, the very same gun that was later stuck in her back by Snowball Merriman to enable her escape."
"You can't fit me up for this one. No way" shouted Ritchie, red in the face with anger.
"And let us turn to the direct testimony from Mrs Mills that she heard Snowball Merriman say 'Our baby's tucked up nice and safe, all ready for the weekend. Your mum thinks you've dumped me, Ritchie.' When this item of conversation which clearly indicates that 'our baby', meaning the gun 'is nicely tucked up for the weekend' meaning, is hidden for an unspecified event is placed side by side with evidence given before in court that Snowball Merriman phoned you up on Karen Bett's mobile- item 3C in the bundle of evidence- then the only conclusion that can be drawn is that not only were you available to meet Snowball Merriman with Karen Betts taken hostage but that you planned this in advance with her. Another fit up, Mr Atkins? Of course you're telling the truth and everyone else's lying."
"The kidnapping had nothing to do with me. I swear it. On my father's grave."
"As much as your word is worth." Jo Mills said dismissively and resumed her place.
"I have one question to ask the witness." George Channing quietly intervened. At a nod from John Deed she asked a very shaken Ritchie Atkins ready to sink into the ground and feeling that Wormwood Scrubs wasn't perhaps such a bad place to be.
"Can you remember the very first text message that Karen Betts ever sent to you."
A faint smile stole over his face and something of the Atkins memory bank clicked into operation.
"Yeah, not exactly easy to forget, that one. It said, 'Not much that legs can do but open or close but those things are above us whores.'"
Ritchie said faintly.
A sudden hush swept round the court and Karen had the sickening feeling that all eyes were on her for all to see. She didn't know where to put herself, even sat so close next to Yvonne. This part of the trial had appeared to go smoothly and she was calm and relaxed and ready to leave court with a nicely mellow frame of mind and this message from the past, her own, came back to haunt her.
"The Beautiful South song lyrics are too good for that nobbing …….." Cassie's loud voice broke the tension but trailed off when she saw John Deed's fixed stare directed in her direction. This was the first time in her life that a man had ever shut her up, her nobbing dad included. Jesus, she'd been let out by free pardon by pushing Grayling's body through a fiery furnace and she could hear the cell doors clang shut behind her. Unlike that posing wanker in the dock, this judge was the real thing. With a huge relief, she saw a faint smile which John Deed could not altogether suppress.
"I thank the gallery for providing the literary reference but I must strongly advise all those present not to try my patience too far as there are definite limits. There is an available cell ready for those who go too far. Court is adjourned for the day."
Ritchie was wheeled off out of the courtroom in the depths of depression as only Snowball's finest acting could save them. He had lost everything else in his life, his family, his mobility and maybe soon his liberty. The Charlie Atkins macho school of acting was a devastatingly inadequate outer protection to face the storms of life and even Ritchie knew this for the first time in his life.
Yvonne held onto a shellshocked Karen whose emotional death sentence had been reprieved at the last minute and they stumbled out of the court to let their emotions run free in the private waiting room. Was it so long ago that they were last there, both Karen and Yvonne thought at the same time? A warm rush of gratitude to Cassie swept through Karen for her intervention in the way only she could manage. Roisin clung tightly onto Cassie's arm in admiration of that boldness of spirit that had attracted her across the marriage lines.
Di's escort duty was performed with an inextricable mixture of disgust, residual pity and total horror. This was the accomplice of that evil woman who would have casually consigned half a dozen prisoners to a fiery choking hell if it hadn't been for the fire brigade. One woman did die, Shaz Wiley, thanks to him, and for months after Denny Blood was grieving over her, poor kid. Yet this man, like her mother, was shackled to an iron frame and would never again feel that true physical independence that so many people took for granted. She remembered pushing her mother about on rare days out and that confinement of spirit of both of them came back to her in a vivid memory flash. Yet, at bottom, the hardness in Di came out on top and she was no more forgiving than the rest of them as the Prison officer from Wormwood Scrubs guided Ritchie's wheelchair to the prisoner's dock.
As Karen, Yvonne, Cassie and Roisin were about to file down the staircase to the front row in the gallery. Lauren pulled Yvonne aside.
"Mum, I'm getting out of here. I've had enough. I've got business to do but I'll catch up with you later." She gave Yvonne a brief smile and was gone. Immediately, the atmosphere relaxed in the gallery as Yvonne and Karen slipped their hands into each other's. Cassie and Roisin were immediately felt to be a friendly approving presence on one side of them.
A rustling sound stole in over the lunchtime quietness of the courtroom and the key players assumed their positions. Jo Mills leafed through the thick sheaf of evidence which was placed before the court and readied herself to quietly crush the transparent tissue of lies that her quick mind had picked up on.
"Can I ask you, Mr Atkins how you supported yourself between when you arrived back in this country and when you received the £50,000 from your mother." Her chilly formal voice opened the battle.
"Oh, a bit of this and a bit of that," Ritchie smiled disarmingly at Jo Mills "Like the way I ran clubs in Spain for the tourists. I've been used to being my own boss for four years while I've been abroad."
"Can you be more precise on the matter." Jo Mills pursued, watching with growing contempt, "Exactly what was the nature of your recent enterprises."
"A bit of wheeling and dealing with some of my old man's mates. The Atkins name still carries some clout." Ritchie bragged to the court. He was going to bluff this one out just like his old man used to do.
"I refer the court to the evidence in the bundle of papers exhibit 5AX obtained from Clapham Local Authority Payroll Department confirming the identity of one Richard Atkins , date of birth corresponding to the accused before you as an assistant librarian at Clapham North library. It shows that he started his employment with them on May 3rd 2002 and that he left their employment on June 13th 2002 just two days before the explosion at Larkhall Prison. Does this assist your memory, Mr Atkins."
"I might have been, come to mention it." Ritchie said sulkily. He was beginning to resent this pushy upper class woman who didn't respond to the Atkins charm. This started to rattle him as it never had before.
"While you were employed at this library, did you at any time arrange for the loan of books to Larkhall Prison."
"I dunno. Clapham North library is a big place and some of the other lads might have sent a few books that way. I can't say I remember." Ritchie shrugged his shoulders with pretended indifference.
"I refer the court to exhibit 3LD which is a computerised record of the interlibrary loans from a Clapham North Library to Larkhall Prison which was salvaged from the fire. If you observe, there were a couple of entries in the whole six months before Mr Atkins, and, surprise surprise , a whole host of books are issued and to only one library, nowhere else in the entire county. Also I would draw the attention of the court to the fact that not one book was ever recorded as being sent back to Clapham North library from Larkhall prison despite Clapham's policy of only lending out for a month at a time before the loan is extended.
"Can I ask you again, Mr Atkins did or did you not arrange the loan of so many of your library rarest volumes, which you see listed in the evidence?"
There was a sullen pause. Cassie looked with total hatred at this guy's pathetic pretence of being the big time tycoon when she had held down a job that was the real thing.
"I take it that your lack of response is a yes." Jo Mills hard precise voice was directed equally at Ritchie and at the jury whom she turned to face with a slight flourish.
"I also refer the court to forensic evidence also retrieved by the police investigation showing traces of explosives. Can you account for this, Mr Atkins?" and Jo once again faced up to Ritchie.
"It's a lie." Shouted Ritchie." It's a set up. Nothing to do with me. How long am I going to be hassled like this? Is this British justice?"
"You will be continued to be questioned according to British justice, Mr Atkins, and I direct you to provide proper answers and stop trying to evade the questions. If you don't, I'll hold you in contempt of court." John Deed replied loudly and with a very precise intonation of a kind Ritchie had never come across before. George Channing winced visibly at both sets of painful memories.
Karen looked down at the court and the tattered remnants of an automatic sympathy natural to an ex nurse fell away leaving her feeling spiritually naked and emotionally reborn. A feeling of cold contempt for him put Ritchie and his kind forever on the opposite side of an invisible wall that made them forever unable to touch her in anything that they could do or feel or say. There was a huge feeling of release, a farewell to the past that had chained her down. She smiled sideways at Yvonne and she saw where her future lay. Yvonne's hand enfolded hers and gave her that extra tight squeeze
Jo paused for a second and glanced upwards to see how Yvonne was reacting to see her son being verbally shredded into little pieces. For her sake, the tone in her voice was comparatively muted but the interlocking irrefutable evidence and tightly reasoned logic was quite deadly enough. Surprisingly, George's bombastic and combative demeanour of the first week was fading as much as her hopes of her client's acquittal.
"I did not actually accuse you, Mr Atkins, of directly concealing the explosives in the books but your answer is answer enough."
A trace of the helpless little boy appeared from underneath the bravado.
"Can you explain to the court for what purpose you required the £50,000 that you received from your mother."
"To set myself up in business. My sister has all the fleet of cars. She's been sitting pretty on the money my old man left while I've had to make my own way in the world. It's not easy when your own father disowns you." Ritchie's reply tried the old guilt trip routine.
"That is not what I asked you, Mr Atkins. You have to explain to the court, including the jury, that the request for £50,000 was made for a specific purpose, how much of it is spent, what it has been used for and where any of the balance is held if any."
"It's been stashed away in a Swiss Bank. I ended up in a wheelchair before I could do anything with it. I'll need everything I can get the way I am right now." Ritchie's reply ended on a 'hard done by' note.
"Let us turn to the matter of the phone calls that you freely admit that Snowball Merriman made on the day before the explosion. You have admitted asking if Snowball Merriman was there. Why did you think she should be there at that moment of time? It was hardly her personal office."Jo asked with an edge of sarcasm.
"We talk on the phone. Snowball Merriman's my girlfriend. Hardly a crime is it." Ritchie snarled. Some of the Atkins spirit came back to him.
"No but the purpose for which the Reverend Mills has been used is, Mr Atkins. I ask the court to look at item 12F in the bundle of papers, which is the itemised phone calls from the prison which clearly indicates a series of phone calls made to your mobile phone over a short period of time. What were the purpose of the phone calls, Mr Atkins."
"Just usual boyfriend, girlfriend sort of thing. Nothing special."
"I will leave it for the jury to decide " Jo Mills retorted with a broad smile."And I shall pass on to the record of a phone call made to Karen Betts the night before the fire. Can you really pretend that it is a coincidence that Karen Betts came round to your flat that night presenting the perfect opportunity for you to plant the gun on Karen Betts and use her to smuggle the gun into Larkhall, the very same gun that was later stuck in her back by Snowball Merriman to enable her escape."
"You can't fit me up for this one. No way" shouted Ritchie, red in the face with anger.
"And let us turn to the direct testimony from Mrs Mills that she heard Snowball Merriman say 'Our baby's tucked up nice and safe, all ready for the weekend. Your mum thinks you've dumped me, Ritchie.' When this item of conversation which clearly indicates that 'our baby', meaning the gun 'is nicely tucked up for the weekend' meaning, is hidden for an unspecified event is placed side by side with evidence given before in court that Snowball Merriman phoned you up on Karen Bett's mobile- item 3C in the bundle of evidence- then the only conclusion that can be drawn is that not only were you available to meet Snowball Merriman with Karen Betts taken hostage but that you planned this in advance with her. Another fit up, Mr Atkins? Of course you're telling the truth and everyone else's lying."
"The kidnapping had nothing to do with me. I swear it. On my father's grave."
"As much as your word is worth." Jo Mills said dismissively and resumed her place.
"I have one question to ask the witness." George Channing quietly intervened. At a nod from John Deed she asked a very shaken Ritchie Atkins ready to sink into the ground and feeling that Wormwood Scrubs wasn't perhaps such a bad place to be.
"Can you remember the very first text message that Karen Betts ever sent to you."
A faint smile stole over his face and something of the Atkins memory bank clicked into operation.
"Yeah, not exactly easy to forget, that one. It said, 'Not much that legs can do but open or close but those things are above us whores.'"
Ritchie said faintly.
A sudden hush swept round the court and Karen had the sickening feeling that all eyes were on her for all to see. She didn't know where to put herself, even sat so close next to Yvonne. This part of the trial had appeared to go smoothly and she was calm and relaxed and ready to leave court with a nicely mellow frame of mind and this message from the past, her own, came back to haunt her.
"The Beautiful South song lyrics are too good for that nobbing …….." Cassie's loud voice broke the tension but trailed off when she saw John Deed's fixed stare directed in her direction. This was the first time in her life that a man had ever shut her up, her nobbing dad included. Jesus, she'd been let out by free pardon by pushing Grayling's body through a fiery furnace and she could hear the cell doors clang shut behind her. Unlike that posing wanker in the dock, this judge was the real thing. With a huge relief, she saw a faint smile which John Deed could not altogether suppress.
"I thank the gallery for providing the literary reference but I must strongly advise all those present not to try my patience too far as there are definite limits. There is an available cell ready for those who go too far. Court is adjourned for the day."
Ritchie was wheeled off out of the courtroom in the depths of depression as only Snowball's finest acting could save them. He had lost everything else in his life, his family, his mobility and maybe soon his liberty. The Charlie Atkins macho school of acting was a devastatingly inadequate outer protection to face the storms of life and even Ritchie knew this for the first time in his life.
Yvonne held onto a shellshocked Karen whose emotional death sentence had been reprieved at the last minute and they stumbled out of the court to let their emotions run free in the private waiting room. Was it so long ago that they were last there, both Karen and Yvonne thought at the same time? A warm rush of gratitude to Cassie swept through Karen for her intervention in the way only she could manage. Roisin clung tightly onto Cassie's arm in admiration of that boldness of spirit that had attracted her across the marriage lines.