Part Forty Four
"I'll be at work today, Yvonne." Karen's familiar voice spoke into Yvonne's ear, as filtered through the mobile phone contact."I'll be keeping an eye on Larkhall and making sure everyone's behaving themselves."
Yvonne immediately felt a pang of disappointment which indicated to her well enough the way her feelings were heading. While sitting for hours on a none too comfortable bench, no better than a church pew, Yvonne had become accustomed to Karen at her side even the lowering cloud that Lauren represented counterbalanced the feeling of well being.
"You mean that Denny or Al might be kicking off," Yvonne asked with a similar slight levity of tone.
"I mean Sylvia, Yvonne.Too much time without me around gives her the wrong ideas. You be good with Merriman in the box. Don't want to have to bail you out of Farringdon Police Station." Karen finished on a semi serious note.
"I've got Cassie to keep me out of trouble. And Roisin and Lauren." Yvonne laughed. "Don't work too hard."
"Phone me up when the trial finishes and I'll meet you straight after." Karen's last words sounded by the faintest sounds of a kiss.
The ancient courtroom of the Old Bailey had not changed for centuries apart from the invention of the electric light. Nothing else had changed except another layer of paint on the walls. Today saw a new departure as Jo had, with the aid of the resourceful Coope, plugged in an overhead projector which threw a shaft of light upon the back wall.
"Giving a lecture today, Mrs Mills," John Deed enquired of Jo as he walked up to take his accustomed place. Jo carefully wrote 'Snowball' in neat letters in the middle of the screen which was thrown upon the wall in huge letters. It was an enormous illuminated blackboard for all to see.
"Yes, and I know who'll be teacher's pet," George riposted acidly to an unheeding Jo.
"Karen will be sorry she's missed the illuminations," Yvonne spoke out of the side of the mouth to a grinning Cassie.
"I'd love to draw a gallows round Snowball's nobbing neck." Cassie replied to Lauren who grinned in appreciation. Cassie could always be counted upon to lighten things.
Lauren seemed more friendly while Karen was away but a little standoffish to Yvonne. Even so, they were all keyed up in seeing a major drama unfold, of Snowball being finally placed in the dock after being the unwatchable presence in the sidelines that they tried to avoid as much as they could. John Deed resumed his seat with his usual outward imperturbability though secretly, he was very sharp and alert, ready for anything after yesterday's performance. In turn, George was a low key presence and Jo committed to memory the last few details and her hopes to chance fate and the scales of justice.
Di Barker escorted Snowball into the court and Snowball was immediately the focus of attention of all onlookers. She was dressed in her tight black jeans and the very same low cut purple top which exposed as much of her breasts as she could get away with. Her blond hair curled in waves past her shoulders and her brilliant false white smile bestowed an unfocussed acknowledgement to all sides of what she saw as her star status. How she narcissistically saw herself was how she truly saw herself as being.
"That murdering tart means to charm and smarm her way out of this one," cursed Yvonne.
"The evil bitch," agreed Lauren."She looks as if she's going to the Oscars." At least they had that anger and loathing towards Snowball to unite them.
"We'd have been the ones to drag Karen back, this time." Cassie said with a light laugh, to lighten the atmosphere."
Roisin prayed silently for those left behind in Larkhall and those since released and for the strength of mind for Jo to steer her way through this trial while Babs lips mouthed similar thoughts.
Jo Mills took her accustomed place, her mind whizzing with the sheer multiplicity of the whole conspiracy going round in her mind. She must not give way to confusion, she thought, or else the jury whom she had to convince would go blank faced with total confusion and the case would collapse. A quick peek up to John Deed saw his understanding smile of reassurance which steadied her nerves at the crucial moment. Once she got started, she would be all right, she reassured herself. She always was, up till now. Just pace yourself and don't rush it.
"In your testimony yesterday, Ms Pilkinton, you said distinctly that, I quote '. Mr Fenner "suggested that you might be interested in knowing that Larkhall ran the interlibrary loan scheme.' and that he behaved in a way that was not consistent with his responsibilities as a Prison Officer," Jo started in an easy relaxed way.
"The guy acted like a real creep, ma'am," Snowball's Florida drawl and her wide expansive smile tried to charm Jo. "Hey, he was staring down at me all the time that he was talking to me."
Privately, Jo could just imagine a sleazy shifty character like Fenner acting in the way that he did but had to make the best of a good argument but a bad witness.
"So, what sort of books did you have with you that made Mr Fenner think that you might be a possible librarian, Ms Pilkinton."
"I'd kinda got a couple of movie star books with me, ma'am," Snowball replied with that fixed smile and southern drawl."Books that would help me with my craft."
"I place before you, my lord, the exhibit of the list of items that Ms Pilkinton declared when she was first admitted to Larkhall Prison - Item 1A in your bundle, my lord - and it consists of 'English Drama 1588 - 1642, Films of Gloria Swanson, The Divine Garbo, The life of Joan Crawford, Pictorial History of the Silver Screen.' I also place the advert of Ms Pilkinton in her stage guise of 'Snowball Merriman', the name that she has habitually referred to throughout the course of the trial as a somewhat curious badge of pride- item.
"A girl can have her dreams. Joan Crawford started off doing skin flicks as Lucille LeSoeur in Hollywood. I promised miself that all the girls in my class in Wigan would be laughing on the other side of their faces when they saw me on the silver screen while they ate their popcorn watching me at the local Gaumont cinema." Snowball's veneer cracked and her harsh Northern tones expressed her pent up anger." Besides Snowball Merriman sounds sexier than Tracy Pilkinton." Snowball suddenly and disturbingly switched back to her smoother, sexier Floridaspeak, remembering her audience at all times.
"So you are telling me that it was Mr Fenner who suggested to you the idea that you could be library redband at Larkhall library in return for sexual favours, Ms Pilkinton." Jo Mills quietly interposed, her prosaic question getting in the way of Snowball's advert on her mental film credits that were ready to roll.
"Like the way he treated me like a whore." Snowball's harsh staccato Wigan voice cracked back."Half the women in prison end up that way because of some man in power who's treated women that way from when they were little."
"Ms Pilkinton," John Deed's voice recalled Snowball Merriman to order more firmly than usual. He felt very uncomfortable as if he were on trial for his own colourful sexual history. Womaniser though he admitted he was, he denied the implicit charge of being a sexual predator."You will confine your remarks to exactly what happened. While you may, or may not be making valid general observations, a court of law is hardly the time and place for it.
"Sorry, sir." Snowball's little girl voice, appealing for sympathy shifted roles yet again."I was forgetting meself."
"So the fact that your boyfriend Ritchie Atkins started work at Clapham North library May 3rd 2002, four days before you Snowball were admitted to Larkhall Prison on May 7th 2002 was purely coincidental." Jo Mills spoke in her softest, most dangerous tones. "And two days before your boyfriend Ritchie Atkins visited Yvonne Atkins in Larkhall on May 5th 2002 is likewise a coincidence. And the evidence given before in the trial is that the suggestion about the interlibrary scheme came from you and not Mr Fenner."
"As God is my witness," Snowball's rugged dependable Wigan accent rang out."Every word I speak is the truth." Already, Snowball hated this posh woman before her who refused to show any weakness. It was always women who were the dangerous ones, like her, like Betts, like Atkins.
"She doesn't follow the same God that I do," Babs uttered with a degree of hatred for this evil woman that, for once in her life, she felt unashamed of and no inhibitions of both thinking and saying what came to her most naturally.
"Steady, Babs." Yvonne joked."I don't want to have to go the local nick and have to stand bail for you. Besides, we'd be on our best behaviour for this judge."
"You, well behaved, and for the law with your record." Cassie joked.
"Yeah, for this judge. If I'd come across him years ago, I'd have stayed straight."
"So might I." Cassie retorted, a grin splitting her face from ear to ear.
"This will be put to the test in due course," Jo Mills replied ominously.
"I refer the court once again to exhibit 3LD, the computerised record of the interlibrary loans from a Clapham North Library to Larkhall Prison which was salvaged from the fire. If you observe, there are a profusion of requests made from the exact time that Mr Atkins started work for Clapham North library from only the one library. For whom were these books requested, Ms Pilkinton?"
"For me, ma'am. So that I could progress my art, surely." Snowball's brightly insincere voice changed roles again."Can't a girl advance her mind if she wants to."
"The records show that not one book was ever recorded as being sent back to Clapham North library from Larkhall prison"
"I hate giving books back, ma'am."
"Despite the fact that forensic evidence after the fire establishes in its findings of the remains of a hardback book containing traces of explosives , two Anthony Trollope volumes of accumulated works, item 1L in the bundle, my lord." Jo paused to let the words hang on the air. It was a cheap shot which she would normally not have resorted to but the back of her mind was finding that this whole contrived act was getting under her skin, only she had to focus in on the matter to hand.
"These two books were listed as being received in from Clapham North library, amazing coincidence, just five days before the fire and happen to be very large black leather bound books. I have brought along two identical volumes which I traced down for the court to look at," and Jo heaved two very large, ancient, leather bound volumes out of a large holdall which landed with a thud on the bench before her.
"Remember these, Ms Pilkinton. I think you might not be as avid a reader as you have made yourself out to be or else you would not have been so careless with them as to let them be incinerated."
John Deed wondered how a woman with such a slim frame would be able to manhandle such weighty volumes and he gestured to the stronger of the ushers to give her a hand.
"I am not bringing these volumes into court as evidence to be numbered but as facsimiles of the real books that were used as concealment for the bomb that blew the library apart."
And Jo Mills let the trap shut tight on her. She picked up her marker pen, drew in a line to the left, wrote 'Ritchie' in neat letters on the screen. She drew a similar line going upwards and to the left and wrote "Fenner." It was like drawing the spokes of a wheel with Snowball as the hub and Ritchie and Fenner being two points on the circumference of the wheel. The circle of conspiracy was being marked out for all to see. Cassie's idle remark about a childhood game called hangman wasn't that far out.
Snowball's face was rigid with shock seeing these two volumes look up at her accusingly. The last time she had seen their like was the moment when she was at her most hyper with the thought of £50,000 in her greedy hands and to hell with anyone who stood in her way. She had sliced with her razor blade rectangular shapes into the written thoughts of an author's experiences of long ago, carelessly scattering the remains so that a fount of knowledge would harbour a crude home made bomb. Not that she gave two thoughts to this. Like everything else, it was a means to an end. The shock to her was that she had broken the Eleventh Commandment, the only one she believed in, "Thou Shalt Not Be found Out."
"These matters are extremely complex for a jury to fathom and I ask your forbearance. On this OHP, I shall try and demonstrate the circle of conspiracy for you so that it will help you to concentrate on the fundamentals of the case."
"In the testimony that you gave the court yesterday, Ms Pilkinton," Jo continued, "You stated that it was Mr Fenner who asked you to spy for him, find out what Atkins was up too, that, to quote, "He said he had her on a tight leash, and that if I had any trouble from her, he'd have her on the end of his spike" Were those his very words, Ms Pilkinton."
"I guess so," Snowball replied warily in her Floridaspeak but becoming more confident. "They hated each other."
"Which might make him susceptible to a concocted tale designed to set him off on a wild goose chase when in testimony given earlier before and, I quote,
'When she'd been in Larkhall for about a fortnight, she told me there was going to be a break out', that it would be Yvonne Atkins and that you were believed even if you had been there for two weeks because Yvonne Atkins had made two previous escape attempts.' I put it to you, Ms Pilkinton that you floated this rumour to distract attention from your very real escape attempt because, again in your own words ' My feeding him little snippets about what Yvonne Atkins was supposedly up to was my way of keeping him sweet. It always pays to have an officer on your side.' Can you explain the curious use of the word, 'supposedly', Miss Pilkinton? It suggests a certain element of falsehood and deception, does it not?"
"It's all right with your fancy airs and your law degree, Miss High and Mighty. You don't know what it's like to claw your way up from the gutter where my mother brought me up. I didn't want to grow up the same way so I followed me dreams, to Hollywood or so I thought, till I got turned into a junkie and a whore. It was only meeting Ritchie," and here her face softened, like a lovestruck teenager, "that made me feel that some good could come out of it all. And finding God." Snowball spoke up in her best sincere gritty down to earth North County accent, ending superbly on a religious note as she automatically held her hands together, palms upward.
"We have heard much testimony, Ms Pilkinton, about how, as a lay preacher, you turned the doubting congregation around with your Parable of the Cigarette Lighter. Tell me more about it. "John Deed interposed. He had been unnaturally restrained in the course of the hearing but the urge to intervene and feel more part of the proceedings and not like some god on high had become unbearable.
Snowball was in her element as she grabbed at the chance to polish up her rather soiled image. The knowledge that her liberty was at stake added inner desperation. Can't let an actress see your stage nerves, she reasoned to herself.
"I came to the country where I was born because I could not stand the ungodly ways of Hollywood." She exclaimed, an evangelical light in her eyes. "I had seen the degradation women suffer at the hands of covetous men seeking their satisfaction from the innocent flesh of women who followed the same dream that I had. Like me, they had their dreams of stardom only to queue at the backdoor of a man who promised to make them rich and famous. They just had to show what they were worth on the Casting Couch. You know what that is. Under some man's sweaty body while he screws you and, when he'd had his fill, passes you to his friend who teases you with that same dream. Prick teasers, men like them call us. Yet what is more cruel than to offer a young girl the chance of being a star only to make her over into being a whore. The odd bit part here, the odd bit part there, and you have the rent to pay, bills to pay. And you wake up some day and you realise that you've got no further than if you had stayed at home and stuffed chicken in a chicken factory. At least you are being paid honest wages."
The tirade of rage poured out in a stream of words that shook the audience rigid as, behind the obvious con tricks of her earlier testimony. At last, the real Snowball appeared under her theatrical props.
"…………So that's why I became a Christian," Snowball smiled shyly, clutching a tiny pocket Bible. "And why I wanted so much to spread the faith when the rest of the girls were starting to doubt."
"Yes, Ms Pilkinton," Jo spoke softly, a part of even a sceptic like her being stealthily influenced against her will. "So when you had done Reverent Mills a favour, you asked him for a favour in return."
"The Reverend was very kind to me, ma'am." Snowball reverted back to Floridaspeak.
"In earlier testimony, his exact words of explanation were. 'Her mother had been taken ill. She explained that her mother was the only member of the family in her life as her father had cruelly abandoned her mother when she was very young, had beaten and abused her mother. She had always been close to her and that she had tried to get through on the phone but the hospital kept passing her from one person to another." Is that a fair description of the reasons why you made use of the Reverend's phone?"
"It surely is, ma'am." Snowball beamed.
"Then, Miss Pilkinton, which hospital was your mother in. Where does she live." Jo asked at her most innocent.
Snowball stopped mid stride. That simple question had not occurred to her.
Jo reached for her felt tip and another line was drawn in vertically upwards and the word "Reverend" was inscribed. Jo smiled in satisfaction as the immense complexities of the case were reduced to a simple geometric structure.
"I don't know. I just got the phone number to phone up on. Last thing I'll do is to pester me mum about where she's living. With me locked up, how the 'ell could I go and see her. Might as well be in Greenland or Southend for all it mattered."
"We shall pass on to the phone calls you supposedly made to your poor ill mother," Jo added with growing confidence and placing the emphasis where it could do the most damage, "and I refer the court to exhibit 5D, the coat that the Reverend Mills positively identified that he donated to you to form the altar cloth for a backdrop for the Open Day, the occasion when the bomb went off. I ask the court to recall testimony from Mrs Mills where she positively identified the coat that she was wearing when she tried to escape.
"Mrs Mills," John intoned."I am aware that you have an extraordinarily long and complex case to present which seems likely to spread the entire length of the day but might this be a good point to adjourn the hearing for lunch. It will enable all parties, especially the jury, to follow the case when they have time to reflect. Court is adjourned." At a nod from Jo. With a click, she switched the light off which, for once would bring no respite for Snowball.
The court assembled in a breathless hush in the afternoon and Jo clicked on the overhead light and the names etched out in cross examination with the sharp defined lines leapt into light. The two black volumes spread their ancient weight of learning to the side of where Jo stood, luckier than their incinerated counterparts at Larkhall prison, Jo had not finished with them yet.
"Ms Pilkinton, you have testified that your boyfriend Mr Atkins…….couldn't get enough of me, that he kept in contact with you whilst you were in prison but it was
'On and off' that he 'chose to start seeing Miss Betts who stole Mr Atkins from under your nose."
"That's what happened. Men are like that," Snowball replied sulkily.
"But Mr Atkins was different you say. Yet we have heard testimony that it was Mr Atkins who made the running apart from the one phone call she made."
"He comes back to me." Snowball shrugged her shoulders.
"Yet we have evidence from a series of phone calls from Larkhall Prison phone records, - exhibit 12F in the bundle of papers, clearly establishing that the phone was used to ring Ritchie's mobile on several occasions. I put it to you that these calls were made far from calling your poor ill mother that, in fact were made to Mr Atkins, especially from testimony from Mr Ajit Khan and Mrs Atkins that a phone call was made immediately before the bomb explosion from and in the expectation that Mr Mills would be absent from the room. I put it to you that this is how the conspiracy was hatched in all its facets, including, I suspect the way that Miss Betts was ensnared to enable the gun to be smuggled into Larkhall prison, the same gun that you used to force her to drive you to meet your lover, Mr Atkins.
"Pardon me, ma'am. But that bitch stole my man as God is my word." ." Snowball replied brightly, that false perfect smile somehow back in place. Her reply had a peculiar reply that started in Floridaspeak and shifted abruptly into her Wigan accent.
Jo shook her head in wonder that this woman had this peculiar rubber quality that bounced back in the most unexpected fashion. Something in her did not function in the way a normal human being did, even those she had arraigned at the dock.
"We'll let the jury be the judge of that." Jo replied shortly, not wishing to get drawn into Snowball's fractured world.
"Let us turn to the matter of the bouquet of flowers that Mr Atkins had delivered to Yvonne Atkins, Ms Pilkinton." Jo started to say.
"'Scuse me, ma'am." Snowball jumped in."Did I have anything to do with what that sweet boy did for his mother?" Snowball's American drawl and suitably bemused expression attempted to put the same distance between her and the bouquet as her choice of words did for Yvonne.
"I am coming to that in due course, Ms Pilkinton. The court has heard testimony from Mr Atkins himself that the words on the card read "I love you, Mum." He directly qualified it by emphasizing with the words 'No more, no less.' Yet I direct the court to Exhibit P1 in the bundle of papers which I would like to be extracted since it is of particular significance."
At this point, John Deed looked at the index list at the front of the bundle felt through the weighty bundle of documents and found the plastic sheet. He carefully extracted the card and leaned forward to place it in Jo Mills hands.
"The card I have in front of me has been in the possession of the police immediately after the explosion and, besides the floral motif, bears the words "Don't place your Bets till the rod's in K's bag. I love you, Mum. Ritchie." Is this the exact same card that you gave to Mr Fenner to alert him to a supposed conspiracy. Testimony has been given by Mr Fenner……."
"And you believe that creep?" sneered Snowball in her hard Wigan accent.
"You might be as well as to listen to the testimony before it is given, Ms Pilkinton." John Deed intervened. "That is usual in a court of law. Or haven't you read the script?"
"I'm sorry, sir." Snowball flashed her best seductive smile at John Deed who found it hard to remain wooden faced.
"Pray continue with your question, Mrs Mills." John Deed intoned, deliberately wrenching his gaze away from Snowball towards the healthy reassuring normality of Jo.
Mr Fenner testified that you asked him. 'Isn't rod another name for a gun? That means there's a gun hidden in Karen Betts' handbag to help Atkins escape.' The question I ask you, which Atkins, Ms Pilkinton?" Jo finished, the tone of her voice pitched with a hardness and dominance that placed her under scrutiny for all to see as if she were pinned under a microscope.
"There's nothing I wouldn't do with my man." Snowball replied, her act sustained even at this point.
"By which, I ask the court to conclude that there was a deliberate plan to place Yvonne Atkins in the frame of a third attempt at a prison escape by the snare of the bouquet of flowers which is most calculated to prey on a mother's natural susceptibilities. At the same time, there was a secondary objective in implicating Miss Betts as at least an unconscious accomplice at a moment when there was no reason to suppose that Mr Atkins and his mother had achieved a touching reconciliation after a painful estrangement. And there was, from Mrs Atkins point of view." Jo threw at Snowball.
Yvonne had watched Jo all this time…………
Jo carefully drew a line for all those in the court to see from 'Snowball' diagonally downwards and to the left and wrote 'Karen'. She drew a similar line vertically downward from the word "Snowball" and where the line stopped wrote "Karen." She turned around with a smile of satisfaction and let the illuminated vision focus the attention of the jury who had followed the exposition with total fascination.
Snowball's eyes swiveled around the courtroom, the downturn of her mouth on both sides expressing truly .She was like a hunted animal who was pinned in on nearly all sides by the hunters with the big exception that this hunt was morally justified.
"Let us turn to the last piece of the jigsaw, the part played unwittingly by Al McKenzy.
She testified that you asked her to steal Yvonne Atkins's radio because, I quote 'her radio alarm clock was disturbing Ms Pilkinton's beauty sleep. She asked me to steal it for her and bring it to you in the library. I refer the court to evidence given earlier in the proceedings that this corresponds to the remains of the radio alarm clock, exhibit 6A in the bundle of evidence. I put it to you, Ms Pilkinton, that the radio was used for a more deadlier purpose than broadcasting the latest hits on Radio 1, namely to be constructed as a timing detonator for the bomb, that it could be constructed in perfect security where, with your enhanced status as a red band, you had direct and almost sole access to the library. Let me ask you, Ms Pilkinton, what happened to the bomb detonator, sorry radio alarm clock, if you are going to find an alternative explanation for your actions."
"Course I need mi beauty sleep," Snowball counter attacked."Are you going to say, Miss High and Mighty, that I make bombs for a living? I know nothing about summat like that. Only reading mi lines."
Jo was momentarily thrown by this. At the back of her mind, she knew that this was a hidden weak spot in her case. Then again, who knows what Snowball had learned in her troubled life and just how far back her criminal past stretched and the breadth of it.
"I leave the jury to be the judge of this along with everything else you have sworn on the bible as a Christian. Now let us turn to your actions on the morning before the explosion. Al McKenzie also testified that the stalls for the open day had been set up in the art room, but at the last minute the prison officers made you move the library books into the corridor and that, I quote 'It scared the shit out of her.' you told her to 'quit bugging her, that Al McKenzy 'helped move all the books in to the corridor.' She described you as
'Really weird', that 'first you insisted that they had to be in alphabetical order, but when you asked her if S came after or before T, you just told me to put them anywhere.'
Can you explain your rather inconsistent behaviour, Ms Pilkinton before I do?"
"Don't know. Everyone was bugging me that day. You just get that way." Snowball replied with real venom in her eyes. Even she couldn't lie her way out of this.
"Then I will," Jo riposted with all the confidence in the world. Her breathing was audible to anyone near her, most unusual for someone as cool in court to her.'You searched out for the two volumes that were precious to you and not for their literary content. These volumes." And Jo brandished one of the volumes aloft with all her strength for all to see.
"I cannot definitely and conclusively prove that the duplicates of these volumes contained the bombs in question but I can show that these represent, in their context, the focus of all Ms Pilkinton's twisted schemes, the purpose for which she twisted so many people round her little finger- for her escape with her lover, Mr Atkins and £50,000 that she stole from Mrs Atkins."
And with a flourish, a final line was drawn from the word 'Snowball' in a straight line to the right finishing the word "Al" and a circle was drawn round all the names of the victims of the conspiracy, the circle of conspiracy. At that, Jo Mills sat down, drained and exhausted and the courtroom mentally sat round each other with Snowball stood, finally cornered and at bay. This time, she was the focus of attention and her deeds were written in illuminated script projected on the nearest to a screen that she would ever achieve in her life. This time, however, this level of fame wasn't welcome.
George had stood on the sidelines, uncharacteristically silent through this cross examination. The forensic skill of a barrister of long standing gave her the ability to argue a case from either side of the line with equal sense of conviction. This time, the long standing antagonism she had felt for Jo was overlain by the fact that jo spoke the absolute truth and a part of her entered Jo's world, despite herself. Her own case didn't stand up and she knew it. All she knew was what would Neil Houghton say when he heard of this. If she was a bad loser, the thought flashed on her for the first time in her life that he was a far worse loser than she was.
"Take your time, Mrs Mills." John Deed said in his measured tones though his heart had leaped in admiration at the unsurpassed heights that Jo had achieved, as momentous in his mind as the first explorer to climb the heights of Mount Everest.
"My lord, there is little left to demonstrate on the lesser charge of grievous bodily harm of Mr Atkins but I have one question to ask of you,Ms Pilkinton. Where did you get the gun with which you forced Miss Betts to drive you out of Larkhall?"
"Can't say."Snowball uttered tersely in her Wigan voice."It just turned up."
"Indeed," Jo smiled at this pathetic reply."So you have similarly nothing to say denying the forensic evidence listed in the bundle of papers….."
"All these papers," Snowball sneered."Do you get off at night in planning to do me down? All that work for just little old me?" Snowball finished, changing back to Floridaspeak but without the false charm.
"As I was about to say," Jo cut back into the verbal crossfire, from experience inside and outside court,.hardly raising her voice."The forensic evidence listed item 5B, identifying the bullet extracted from Mr Atkins body with the shot fired from your gun, or was it Mr Atkins's gun." She finished with hard precise pronunciation of the consonants. For just that second, a few genuine tears came to Snowball's eyes which she brushed away with an angry gesture.
"Hold it a moment, Mrs Mills." John Deed interposed, his sharp eyes having focussed on an area of skin right by Snowball's left eye which her hair had carefully trailed down over."Ms Pilkinton, I insist that you explain how and exactly when did you come by that injury."
"Fell down a flight of stairs at Larkhall. Steps are slippy. It's happened before." Snowball replied sulkily.
You bitch, Snowball. Yvonne mouthed to empty air. Your sneaking ways overheard from the one occasion that we were talking about the old days when we'd shoved Bodybag down a flight of steps. I'll tell Karen about that ,one of these days.
"I refer you to what is hopefully my final reference to the evidence listed, the medical report dated June 16th 2002 from Larkhall Prison , one day after the explosion which dressed what appears to be human scratch marks. I think that this flatly contradicts
.Ms Pilkinton's testimony that 'she had no reason to fear my fellow inmates.' I cannot speculate who, of the prison inmates inflicted these wounds," and here Jo's eyes flicked up to Yvonne and a faint smile passed her lips," But I think the court can safely conclude what the other prisoners really felt about Ms Pilkinton seeing that one of them died in the fire and six others were nearly killed. The prisoners privately identified her as the author of it, witness the failed escape attempt. The only possible conclusion that can be drawn from why Ms Pilkinton refused the offer of voluntary segregation intended for her safety was that it was the necessary precondition of her second attempt at escape.
"In connection with this, I offer the only words of truth Ms Pilkinton has uttered which was her testimony yesterday and, I quote. 'The stupid git just had to try and save Karen Betts' miserable life. Ritchie was trying to get the gun off me. He told me I was going too far. I was only giving her what she deserved. Always the way with a bloke though, isn't it. No matter who they sleep with, no matter how pointless it is, they still have a soft spot for them. He thought he'd try and play the hero. I didn't mean to shoot him, it was an accident. If he hadn't tried to stop me blowing that bitch's brains out, he'd still be able to walk.'"
Jo paused for a few minutes as she was feeling really emotionally drained, out of breath and her voice was starting to crack.
"My final question to you, Ms Pilkinton, is that I see that you were apprehended at Gatwick Airport with a consignment of a kilo of cocaine in your bags. Can you explain the following to me, how you were able to slip through Miami airport although your name was on the front page of the newspapers, yet you chose to go into a security hornets nest of Heathrow Airport of all places which would be certain to catch you. The events of September 11th 2001 would make that plain to anyone."
For once in her life, Snowball had nothing to say.
"In which case, the only conclusions that can be drawn are that, firstly, you planned to get caught, secondly that you could escape the electric chair in Florida and, thirdly, that you would end up in Larkhall Prison where you knew from Mr Atkins that his mother was in prison and that would come in very useful. Everything else flows from this."
"Does this conclude your case." John Deed intoned, restraining the urge to applaud the finest moment he had ever witnessed inside a court.
"Yes, my lord." Jo replied, very huskily, her voice hardly able to articulate by then.
A dead silence settled over the court as the OHP threw large illuminated script on the ancient walls of the Old Bailey making the extraordinary complexities somehow crystal clear for all to see . Jo was utterly exhausted but she knew that she would start to climb into the extraordinary mental high of the reaction post trial comedown. Perhaps this was the ultimate addiction of being a practicing barrister.
Yvonne, Lauren, Cassie, Roisin and Babs just sat there spellbound feeling justice coming alive so intensely before their eyes, flowing through their veins, justice so richly felt if delayed. George stood silent, for the first time lost in admiration at Jo's performance. She was professional enough that nothing in her past intense jealousy could deny. And Snowball felt a blind hatred of everything around her, of life itself, as Di led her back to where she knew now Larkhall was her destiny, not the silver screen.
"I'll be at work today, Yvonne." Karen's familiar voice spoke into Yvonne's ear, as filtered through the mobile phone contact."I'll be keeping an eye on Larkhall and making sure everyone's behaving themselves."
Yvonne immediately felt a pang of disappointment which indicated to her well enough the way her feelings were heading. While sitting for hours on a none too comfortable bench, no better than a church pew, Yvonne had become accustomed to Karen at her side even the lowering cloud that Lauren represented counterbalanced the feeling of well being.
"You mean that Denny or Al might be kicking off," Yvonne asked with a similar slight levity of tone.
"I mean Sylvia, Yvonne.Too much time without me around gives her the wrong ideas. You be good with Merriman in the box. Don't want to have to bail you out of Farringdon Police Station." Karen finished on a semi serious note.
"I've got Cassie to keep me out of trouble. And Roisin and Lauren." Yvonne laughed. "Don't work too hard."
"Phone me up when the trial finishes and I'll meet you straight after." Karen's last words sounded by the faintest sounds of a kiss.
The ancient courtroom of the Old Bailey had not changed for centuries apart from the invention of the electric light. Nothing else had changed except another layer of paint on the walls. Today saw a new departure as Jo had, with the aid of the resourceful Coope, plugged in an overhead projector which threw a shaft of light upon the back wall.
"Giving a lecture today, Mrs Mills," John Deed enquired of Jo as he walked up to take his accustomed place. Jo carefully wrote 'Snowball' in neat letters in the middle of the screen which was thrown upon the wall in huge letters. It was an enormous illuminated blackboard for all to see.
"Yes, and I know who'll be teacher's pet," George riposted acidly to an unheeding Jo.
"Karen will be sorry she's missed the illuminations," Yvonne spoke out of the side of the mouth to a grinning Cassie.
"I'd love to draw a gallows round Snowball's nobbing neck." Cassie replied to Lauren who grinned in appreciation. Cassie could always be counted upon to lighten things.
Lauren seemed more friendly while Karen was away but a little standoffish to Yvonne. Even so, they were all keyed up in seeing a major drama unfold, of Snowball being finally placed in the dock after being the unwatchable presence in the sidelines that they tried to avoid as much as they could. John Deed resumed his seat with his usual outward imperturbability though secretly, he was very sharp and alert, ready for anything after yesterday's performance. In turn, George was a low key presence and Jo committed to memory the last few details and her hopes to chance fate and the scales of justice.
Di Barker escorted Snowball into the court and Snowball was immediately the focus of attention of all onlookers. She was dressed in her tight black jeans and the very same low cut purple top which exposed as much of her breasts as she could get away with. Her blond hair curled in waves past her shoulders and her brilliant false white smile bestowed an unfocussed acknowledgement to all sides of what she saw as her star status. How she narcissistically saw herself was how she truly saw herself as being.
"That murdering tart means to charm and smarm her way out of this one," cursed Yvonne.
"The evil bitch," agreed Lauren."She looks as if she's going to the Oscars." At least they had that anger and loathing towards Snowball to unite them.
"We'd have been the ones to drag Karen back, this time." Cassie said with a light laugh, to lighten the atmosphere."
Roisin prayed silently for those left behind in Larkhall and those since released and for the strength of mind for Jo to steer her way through this trial while Babs lips mouthed similar thoughts.
Jo Mills took her accustomed place, her mind whizzing with the sheer multiplicity of the whole conspiracy going round in her mind. She must not give way to confusion, she thought, or else the jury whom she had to convince would go blank faced with total confusion and the case would collapse. A quick peek up to John Deed saw his understanding smile of reassurance which steadied her nerves at the crucial moment. Once she got started, she would be all right, she reassured herself. She always was, up till now. Just pace yourself and don't rush it.
"In your testimony yesterday, Ms Pilkinton, you said distinctly that, I quote '. Mr Fenner "suggested that you might be interested in knowing that Larkhall ran the interlibrary loan scheme.' and that he behaved in a way that was not consistent with his responsibilities as a Prison Officer," Jo started in an easy relaxed way.
"The guy acted like a real creep, ma'am," Snowball's Florida drawl and her wide expansive smile tried to charm Jo. "Hey, he was staring down at me all the time that he was talking to me."
Privately, Jo could just imagine a sleazy shifty character like Fenner acting in the way that he did but had to make the best of a good argument but a bad witness.
"So, what sort of books did you have with you that made Mr Fenner think that you might be a possible librarian, Ms Pilkinton."
"I'd kinda got a couple of movie star books with me, ma'am," Snowball replied with that fixed smile and southern drawl."Books that would help me with my craft."
"I place before you, my lord, the exhibit of the list of items that Ms Pilkinton declared when she was first admitted to Larkhall Prison - Item 1A in your bundle, my lord - and it consists of 'English Drama 1588 - 1642, Films of Gloria Swanson, The Divine Garbo, The life of Joan Crawford, Pictorial History of the Silver Screen.' I also place the advert of Ms Pilkinton in her stage guise of 'Snowball Merriman', the name that she has habitually referred to throughout the course of the trial as a somewhat curious badge of pride- item.
"A girl can have her dreams. Joan Crawford started off doing skin flicks as Lucille LeSoeur in Hollywood. I promised miself that all the girls in my class in Wigan would be laughing on the other side of their faces when they saw me on the silver screen while they ate their popcorn watching me at the local Gaumont cinema." Snowball's veneer cracked and her harsh Northern tones expressed her pent up anger." Besides Snowball Merriman sounds sexier than Tracy Pilkinton." Snowball suddenly and disturbingly switched back to her smoother, sexier Floridaspeak, remembering her audience at all times.
"So you are telling me that it was Mr Fenner who suggested to you the idea that you could be library redband at Larkhall library in return for sexual favours, Ms Pilkinton." Jo Mills quietly interposed, her prosaic question getting in the way of Snowball's advert on her mental film credits that were ready to roll.
"Like the way he treated me like a whore." Snowball's harsh staccato Wigan voice cracked back."Half the women in prison end up that way because of some man in power who's treated women that way from when they were little."
"Ms Pilkinton," John Deed's voice recalled Snowball Merriman to order more firmly than usual. He felt very uncomfortable as if he were on trial for his own colourful sexual history. Womaniser though he admitted he was, he denied the implicit charge of being a sexual predator."You will confine your remarks to exactly what happened. While you may, or may not be making valid general observations, a court of law is hardly the time and place for it.
"Sorry, sir." Snowball's little girl voice, appealing for sympathy shifted roles yet again."I was forgetting meself."
"So the fact that your boyfriend Ritchie Atkins started work at Clapham North library May 3rd 2002, four days before you Snowball were admitted to Larkhall Prison on May 7th 2002 was purely coincidental." Jo Mills spoke in her softest, most dangerous tones. "And two days before your boyfriend Ritchie Atkins visited Yvonne Atkins in Larkhall on May 5th 2002 is likewise a coincidence. And the evidence given before in the trial is that the suggestion about the interlibrary scheme came from you and not Mr Fenner."
"As God is my witness," Snowball's rugged dependable Wigan accent rang out."Every word I speak is the truth." Already, Snowball hated this posh woman before her who refused to show any weakness. It was always women who were the dangerous ones, like her, like Betts, like Atkins.
"She doesn't follow the same God that I do," Babs uttered with a degree of hatred for this evil woman that, for once in her life, she felt unashamed of and no inhibitions of both thinking and saying what came to her most naturally.
"Steady, Babs." Yvonne joked."I don't want to have to go the local nick and have to stand bail for you. Besides, we'd be on our best behaviour for this judge."
"You, well behaved, and for the law with your record." Cassie joked.
"Yeah, for this judge. If I'd come across him years ago, I'd have stayed straight."
"So might I." Cassie retorted, a grin splitting her face from ear to ear.
"This will be put to the test in due course," Jo Mills replied ominously.
"I refer the court once again to exhibit 3LD, the computerised record of the interlibrary loans from a Clapham North Library to Larkhall Prison which was salvaged from the fire. If you observe, there are a profusion of requests made from the exact time that Mr Atkins started work for Clapham North library from only the one library. For whom were these books requested, Ms Pilkinton?"
"For me, ma'am. So that I could progress my art, surely." Snowball's brightly insincere voice changed roles again."Can't a girl advance her mind if she wants to."
"The records show that not one book was ever recorded as being sent back to Clapham North library from Larkhall prison"
"I hate giving books back, ma'am."
"Despite the fact that forensic evidence after the fire establishes in its findings of the remains of a hardback book containing traces of explosives , two Anthony Trollope volumes of accumulated works, item 1L in the bundle, my lord." Jo paused to let the words hang on the air. It was a cheap shot which she would normally not have resorted to but the back of her mind was finding that this whole contrived act was getting under her skin, only she had to focus in on the matter to hand.
"These two books were listed as being received in from Clapham North library, amazing coincidence, just five days before the fire and happen to be very large black leather bound books. I have brought along two identical volumes which I traced down for the court to look at," and Jo heaved two very large, ancient, leather bound volumes out of a large holdall which landed with a thud on the bench before her.
"Remember these, Ms Pilkinton. I think you might not be as avid a reader as you have made yourself out to be or else you would not have been so careless with them as to let them be incinerated."
John Deed wondered how a woman with such a slim frame would be able to manhandle such weighty volumes and he gestured to the stronger of the ushers to give her a hand.
"I am not bringing these volumes into court as evidence to be numbered but as facsimiles of the real books that were used as concealment for the bomb that blew the library apart."
And Jo Mills let the trap shut tight on her. She picked up her marker pen, drew in a line to the left, wrote 'Ritchie' in neat letters on the screen. She drew a similar line going upwards and to the left and wrote "Fenner." It was like drawing the spokes of a wheel with Snowball as the hub and Ritchie and Fenner being two points on the circumference of the wheel. The circle of conspiracy was being marked out for all to see. Cassie's idle remark about a childhood game called hangman wasn't that far out.
Snowball's face was rigid with shock seeing these two volumes look up at her accusingly. The last time she had seen their like was the moment when she was at her most hyper with the thought of £50,000 in her greedy hands and to hell with anyone who stood in her way. She had sliced with her razor blade rectangular shapes into the written thoughts of an author's experiences of long ago, carelessly scattering the remains so that a fount of knowledge would harbour a crude home made bomb. Not that she gave two thoughts to this. Like everything else, it was a means to an end. The shock to her was that she had broken the Eleventh Commandment, the only one she believed in, "Thou Shalt Not Be found Out."
"These matters are extremely complex for a jury to fathom and I ask your forbearance. On this OHP, I shall try and demonstrate the circle of conspiracy for you so that it will help you to concentrate on the fundamentals of the case."
"In the testimony that you gave the court yesterday, Ms Pilkinton," Jo continued, "You stated that it was Mr Fenner who asked you to spy for him, find out what Atkins was up too, that, to quote, "He said he had her on a tight leash, and that if I had any trouble from her, he'd have her on the end of his spike" Were those his very words, Ms Pilkinton."
"I guess so," Snowball replied warily in her Floridaspeak but becoming more confident. "They hated each other."
"Which might make him susceptible to a concocted tale designed to set him off on a wild goose chase when in testimony given earlier before and, I quote,
'When she'd been in Larkhall for about a fortnight, she told me there was going to be a break out', that it would be Yvonne Atkins and that you were believed even if you had been there for two weeks because Yvonne Atkins had made two previous escape attempts.' I put it to you, Ms Pilkinton that you floated this rumour to distract attention from your very real escape attempt because, again in your own words ' My feeding him little snippets about what Yvonne Atkins was supposedly up to was my way of keeping him sweet. It always pays to have an officer on your side.' Can you explain the curious use of the word, 'supposedly', Miss Pilkinton? It suggests a certain element of falsehood and deception, does it not?"
"It's all right with your fancy airs and your law degree, Miss High and Mighty. You don't know what it's like to claw your way up from the gutter where my mother brought me up. I didn't want to grow up the same way so I followed me dreams, to Hollywood or so I thought, till I got turned into a junkie and a whore. It was only meeting Ritchie," and here her face softened, like a lovestruck teenager, "that made me feel that some good could come out of it all. And finding God." Snowball spoke up in her best sincere gritty down to earth North County accent, ending superbly on a religious note as she automatically held her hands together, palms upward.
"We have heard much testimony, Ms Pilkinton, about how, as a lay preacher, you turned the doubting congregation around with your Parable of the Cigarette Lighter. Tell me more about it. "John Deed interposed. He had been unnaturally restrained in the course of the hearing but the urge to intervene and feel more part of the proceedings and not like some god on high had become unbearable.
Snowball was in her element as she grabbed at the chance to polish up her rather soiled image. The knowledge that her liberty was at stake added inner desperation. Can't let an actress see your stage nerves, she reasoned to herself.
"I came to the country where I was born because I could not stand the ungodly ways of Hollywood." She exclaimed, an evangelical light in her eyes. "I had seen the degradation women suffer at the hands of covetous men seeking their satisfaction from the innocent flesh of women who followed the same dream that I had. Like me, they had their dreams of stardom only to queue at the backdoor of a man who promised to make them rich and famous. They just had to show what they were worth on the Casting Couch. You know what that is. Under some man's sweaty body while he screws you and, when he'd had his fill, passes you to his friend who teases you with that same dream. Prick teasers, men like them call us. Yet what is more cruel than to offer a young girl the chance of being a star only to make her over into being a whore. The odd bit part here, the odd bit part there, and you have the rent to pay, bills to pay. And you wake up some day and you realise that you've got no further than if you had stayed at home and stuffed chicken in a chicken factory. At least you are being paid honest wages."
The tirade of rage poured out in a stream of words that shook the audience rigid as, behind the obvious con tricks of her earlier testimony. At last, the real Snowball appeared under her theatrical props.
"…………So that's why I became a Christian," Snowball smiled shyly, clutching a tiny pocket Bible. "And why I wanted so much to spread the faith when the rest of the girls were starting to doubt."
"Yes, Ms Pilkinton," Jo spoke softly, a part of even a sceptic like her being stealthily influenced against her will. "So when you had done Reverent Mills a favour, you asked him for a favour in return."
"The Reverend was very kind to me, ma'am." Snowball reverted back to Floridaspeak.
"In earlier testimony, his exact words of explanation were. 'Her mother had been taken ill. She explained that her mother was the only member of the family in her life as her father had cruelly abandoned her mother when she was very young, had beaten and abused her mother. She had always been close to her and that she had tried to get through on the phone but the hospital kept passing her from one person to another." Is that a fair description of the reasons why you made use of the Reverend's phone?"
"It surely is, ma'am." Snowball beamed.
"Then, Miss Pilkinton, which hospital was your mother in. Where does she live." Jo asked at her most innocent.
Snowball stopped mid stride. That simple question had not occurred to her.
Jo reached for her felt tip and another line was drawn in vertically upwards and the word "Reverend" was inscribed. Jo smiled in satisfaction as the immense complexities of the case were reduced to a simple geometric structure.
"I don't know. I just got the phone number to phone up on. Last thing I'll do is to pester me mum about where she's living. With me locked up, how the 'ell could I go and see her. Might as well be in Greenland or Southend for all it mattered."
"We shall pass on to the phone calls you supposedly made to your poor ill mother," Jo added with growing confidence and placing the emphasis where it could do the most damage, "and I refer the court to exhibit 5D, the coat that the Reverend Mills positively identified that he donated to you to form the altar cloth for a backdrop for the Open Day, the occasion when the bomb went off. I ask the court to recall testimony from Mrs Mills where she positively identified the coat that she was wearing when she tried to escape.
"Mrs Mills," John intoned."I am aware that you have an extraordinarily long and complex case to present which seems likely to spread the entire length of the day but might this be a good point to adjourn the hearing for lunch. It will enable all parties, especially the jury, to follow the case when they have time to reflect. Court is adjourned." At a nod from Jo. With a click, she switched the light off which, for once would bring no respite for Snowball.
The court assembled in a breathless hush in the afternoon and Jo clicked on the overhead light and the names etched out in cross examination with the sharp defined lines leapt into light. The two black volumes spread their ancient weight of learning to the side of where Jo stood, luckier than their incinerated counterparts at Larkhall prison, Jo had not finished with them yet.
"Ms Pilkinton, you have testified that your boyfriend Mr Atkins…….couldn't get enough of me, that he kept in contact with you whilst you were in prison but it was
'On and off' that he 'chose to start seeing Miss Betts who stole Mr Atkins from under your nose."
"That's what happened. Men are like that," Snowball replied sulkily.
"But Mr Atkins was different you say. Yet we have heard testimony that it was Mr Atkins who made the running apart from the one phone call she made."
"He comes back to me." Snowball shrugged her shoulders.
"Yet we have evidence from a series of phone calls from Larkhall Prison phone records, - exhibit 12F in the bundle of papers, clearly establishing that the phone was used to ring Ritchie's mobile on several occasions. I put it to you that these calls were made far from calling your poor ill mother that, in fact were made to Mr Atkins, especially from testimony from Mr Ajit Khan and Mrs Atkins that a phone call was made immediately before the bomb explosion from and in the expectation that Mr Mills would be absent from the room. I put it to you that this is how the conspiracy was hatched in all its facets, including, I suspect the way that Miss Betts was ensnared to enable the gun to be smuggled into Larkhall prison, the same gun that you used to force her to drive you to meet your lover, Mr Atkins.
"Pardon me, ma'am. But that bitch stole my man as God is my word." ." Snowball replied brightly, that false perfect smile somehow back in place. Her reply had a peculiar reply that started in Floridaspeak and shifted abruptly into her Wigan accent.
Jo shook her head in wonder that this woman had this peculiar rubber quality that bounced back in the most unexpected fashion. Something in her did not function in the way a normal human being did, even those she had arraigned at the dock.
"We'll let the jury be the judge of that." Jo replied shortly, not wishing to get drawn into Snowball's fractured world.
"Let us turn to the matter of the bouquet of flowers that Mr Atkins had delivered to Yvonne Atkins, Ms Pilkinton." Jo started to say.
"'Scuse me, ma'am." Snowball jumped in."Did I have anything to do with what that sweet boy did for his mother?" Snowball's American drawl and suitably bemused expression attempted to put the same distance between her and the bouquet as her choice of words did for Yvonne.
"I am coming to that in due course, Ms Pilkinton. The court has heard testimony from Mr Atkins himself that the words on the card read "I love you, Mum." He directly qualified it by emphasizing with the words 'No more, no less.' Yet I direct the court to Exhibit P1 in the bundle of papers which I would like to be extracted since it is of particular significance."
At this point, John Deed looked at the index list at the front of the bundle felt through the weighty bundle of documents and found the plastic sheet. He carefully extracted the card and leaned forward to place it in Jo Mills hands.
"The card I have in front of me has been in the possession of the police immediately after the explosion and, besides the floral motif, bears the words "Don't place your Bets till the rod's in K's bag. I love you, Mum. Ritchie." Is this the exact same card that you gave to Mr Fenner to alert him to a supposed conspiracy. Testimony has been given by Mr Fenner……."
"And you believe that creep?" sneered Snowball in her hard Wigan accent.
"You might be as well as to listen to the testimony before it is given, Ms Pilkinton." John Deed intervened. "That is usual in a court of law. Or haven't you read the script?"
"I'm sorry, sir." Snowball flashed her best seductive smile at John Deed who found it hard to remain wooden faced.
"Pray continue with your question, Mrs Mills." John Deed intoned, deliberately wrenching his gaze away from Snowball towards the healthy reassuring normality of Jo.
Mr Fenner testified that you asked him. 'Isn't rod another name for a gun? That means there's a gun hidden in Karen Betts' handbag to help Atkins escape.' The question I ask you, which Atkins, Ms Pilkinton?" Jo finished, the tone of her voice pitched with a hardness and dominance that placed her under scrutiny for all to see as if she were pinned under a microscope.
"There's nothing I wouldn't do with my man." Snowball replied, her act sustained even at this point.
"By which, I ask the court to conclude that there was a deliberate plan to place Yvonne Atkins in the frame of a third attempt at a prison escape by the snare of the bouquet of flowers which is most calculated to prey on a mother's natural susceptibilities. At the same time, there was a secondary objective in implicating Miss Betts as at least an unconscious accomplice at a moment when there was no reason to suppose that Mr Atkins and his mother had achieved a touching reconciliation after a painful estrangement. And there was, from Mrs Atkins point of view." Jo threw at Snowball.
Yvonne had watched Jo all this time…………
Jo carefully drew a line for all those in the court to see from 'Snowball' diagonally downwards and to the left and wrote 'Karen'. She drew a similar line vertically downward from the word "Snowball" and where the line stopped wrote "Karen." She turned around with a smile of satisfaction and let the illuminated vision focus the attention of the jury who had followed the exposition with total fascination.
Snowball's eyes swiveled around the courtroom, the downturn of her mouth on both sides expressing truly .She was like a hunted animal who was pinned in on nearly all sides by the hunters with the big exception that this hunt was morally justified.
"Let us turn to the last piece of the jigsaw, the part played unwittingly by Al McKenzy.
She testified that you asked her to steal Yvonne Atkins's radio because, I quote 'her radio alarm clock was disturbing Ms Pilkinton's beauty sleep. She asked me to steal it for her and bring it to you in the library. I refer the court to evidence given earlier in the proceedings that this corresponds to the remains of the radio alarm clock, exhibit 6A in the bundle of evidence. I put it to you, Ms Pilkinton, that the radio was used for a more deadlier purpose than broadcasting the latest hits on Radio 1, namely to be constructed as a timing detonator for the bomb, that it could be constructed in perfect security where, with your enhanced status as a red band, you had direct and almost sole access to the library. Let me ask you, Ms Pilkinton, what happened to the bomb detonator, sorry radio alarm clock, if you are going to find an alternative explanation for your actions."
"Course I need mi beauty sleep," Snowball counter attacked."Are you going to say, Miss High and Mighty, that I make bombs for a living? I know nothing about summat like that. Only reading mi lines."
Jo was momentarily thrown by this. At the back of her mind, she knew that this was a hidden weak spot in her case. Then again, who knows what Snowball had learned in her troubled life and just how far back her criminal past stretched and the breadth of it.
"I leave the jury to be the judge of this along with everything else you have sworn on the bible as a Christian. Now let us turn to your actions on the morning before the explosion. Al McKenzie also testified that the stalls for the open day had been set up in the art room, but at the last minute the prison officers made you move the library books into the corridor and that, I quote 'It scared the shit out of her.' you told her to 'quit bugging her, that Al McKenzy 'helped move all the books in to the corridor.' She described you as
'Really weird', that 'first you insisted that they had to be in alphabetical order, but when you asked her if S came after or before T, you just told me to put them anywhere.'
Can you explain your rather inconsistent behaviour, Ms Pilkinton before I do?"
"Don't know. Everyone was bugging me that day. You just get that way." Snowball replied with real venom in her eyes. Even she couldn't lie her way out of this.
"Then I will," Jo riposted with all the confidence in the world. Her breathing was audible to anyone near her, most unusual for someone as cool in court to her.'You searched out for the two volumes that were precious to you and not for their literary content. These volumes." And Jo brandished one of the volumes aloft with all her strength for all to see.
"I cannot definitely and conclusively prove that the duplicates of these volumes contained the bombs in question but I can show that these represent, in their context, the focus of all Ms Pilkinton's twisted schemes, the purpose for which she twisted so many people round her little finger- for her escape with her lover, Mr Atkins and £50,000 that she stole from Mrs Atkins."
And with a flourish, a final line was drawn from the word 'Snowball' in a straight line to the right finishing the word "Al" and a circle was drawn round all the names of the victims of the conspiracy, the circle of conspiracy. At that, Jo Mills sat down, drained and exhausted and the courtroom mentally sat round each other with Snowball stood, finally cornered and at bay. This time, she was the focus of attention and her deeds were written in illuminated script projected on the nearest to a screen that she would ever achieve in her life. This time, however, this level of fame wasn't welcome.
George had stood on the sidelines, uncharacteristically silent through this cross examination. The forensic skill of a barrister of long standing gave her the ability to argue a case from either side of the line with equal sense of conviction. This time, the long standing antagonism she had felt for Jo was overlain by the fact that jo spoke the absolute truth and a part of her entered Jo's world, despite herself. Her own case didn't stand up and she knew it. All she knew was what would Neil Houghton say when he heard of this. If she was a bad loser, the thought flashed on her for the first time in her life that he was a far worse loser than she was.
"Take your time, Mrs Mills." John Deed said in his measured tones though his heart had leaped in admiration at the unsurpassed heights that Jo had achieved, as momentous in his mind as the first explorer to climb the heights of Mount Everest.
"My lord, there is little left to demonstrate on the lesser charge of grievous bodily harm of Mr Atkins but I have one question to ask of you,Ms Pilkinton. Where did you get the gun with which you forced Miss Betts to drive you out of Larkhall?"
"Can't say."Snowball uttered tersely in her Wigan voice."It just turned up."
"Indeed," Jo smiled at this pathetic reply."So you have similarly nothing to say denying the forensic evidence listed in the bundle of papers….."
"All these papers," Snowball sneered."Do you get off at night in planning to do me down? All that work for just little old me?" Snowball finished, changing back to Floridaspeak but without the false charm.
"As I was about to say," Jo cut back into the verbal crossfire, from experience inside and outside court,.hardly raising her voice."The forensic evidence listed item 5B, identifying the bullet extracted from Mr Atkins body with the shot fired from your gun, or was it Mr Atkins's gun." She finished with hard precise pronunciation of the consonants. For just that second, a few genuine tears came to Snowball's eyes which she brushed away with an angry gesture.
"Hold it a moment, Mrs Mills." John Deed interposed, his sharp eyes having focussed on an area of skin right by Snowball's left eye which her hair had carefully trailed down over."Ms Pilkinton, I insist that you explain how and exactly when did you come by that injury."
"Fell down a flight of stairs at Larkhall. Steps are slippy. It's happened before." Snowball replied sulkily.
You bitch, Snowball. Yvonne mouthed to empty air. Your sneaking ways overheard from the one occasion that we were talking about the old days when we'd shoved Bodybag down a flight of steps. I'll tell Karen about that ,one of these days.
"I refer you to what is hopefully my final reference to the evidence listed, the medical report dated June 16th 2002 from Larkhall Prison , one day after the explosion which dressed what appears to be human scratch marks. I think that this flatly contradicts
.Ms Pilkinton's testimony that 'she had no reason to fear my fellow inmates.' I cannot speculate who, of the prison inmates inflicted these wounds," and here Jo's eyes flicked up to Yvonne and a faint smile passed her lips," But I think the court can safely conclude what the other prisoners really felt about Ms Pilkinton seeing that one of them died in the fire and six others were nearly killed. The prisoners privately identified her as the author of it, witness the failed escape attempt. The only possible conclusion that can be drawn from why Ms Pilkinton refused the offer of voluntary segregation intended for her safety was that it was the necessary precondition of her second attempt at escape.
"In connection with this, I offer the only words of truth Ms Pilkinton has uttered which was her testimony yesterday and, I quote. 'The stupid git just had to try and save Karen Betts' miserable life. Ritchie was trying to get the gun off me. He told me I was going too far. I was only giving her what she deserved. Always the way with a bloke though, isn't it. No matter who they sleep with, no matter how pointless it is, they still have a soft spot for them. He thought he'd try and play the hero. I didn't mean to shoot him, it was an accident. If he hadn't tried to stop me blowing that bitch's brains out, he'd still be able to walk.'"
Jo paused for a few minutes as she was feeling really emotionally drained, out of breath and her voice was starting to crack.
"My final question to you, Ms Pilkinton, is that I see that you were apprehended at Gatwick Airport with a consignment of a kilo of cocaine in your bags. Can you explain the following to me, how you were able to slip through Miami airport although your name was on the front page of the newspapers, yet you chose to go into a security hornets nest of Heathrow Airport of all places which would be certain to catch you. The events of September 11th 2001 would make that plain to anyone."
For once in her life, Snowball had nothing to say.
"In which case, the only conclusions that can be drawn are that, firstly, you planned to get caught, secondly that you could escape the electric chair in Florida and, thirdly, that you would end up in Larkhall Prison where you knew from Mr Atkins that his mother was in prison and that would come in very useful. Everything else flows from this."
"Does this conclude your case." John Deed intoned, restraining the urge to applaud the finest moment he had ever witnessed inside a court.
"Yes, my lord." Jo replied, very huskily, her voice hardly able to articulate by then.
A dead silence settled over the court as the OHP threw large illuminated script on the ancient walls of the Old Bailey making the extraordinary complexities somehow crystal clear for all to see . Jo was utterly exhausted but she knew that she would start to climb into the extraordinary mental high of the reaction post trial comedown. Perhaps this was the ultimate addiction of being a practicing barrister.
Yvonne, Lauren, Cassie, Roisin and Babs just sat there spellbound feeling justice coming alive so intensely before their eyes, flowing through their veins, justice so richly felt if delayed. George stood silent, for the first time lost in admiration at Jo's performance. She was professional enough that nothing in her past intense jealousy could deny. And Snowball felt a blind hatred of everything around her, of life itself, as Di led her back to where she knew now Larkhall was her destiny, not the silver screen.