He looks down at Evan. It was pointless, this silence he bought them.

It was futile.

69.

Now

After First Day of Trial

‘As the defendant has previously been granted bail, you’re all free to go for now,’ the judge says to Joe.

I let myself out of the courtroom and watch Joe leave the dock.

I am a prosecution witness in the trial of my brother. Jason was my defence lawyer, when I was charged with perverting the course of justice for my role in the cover up. But, on the first day of trial, I took a plea bargain in exchange for giving evidence against Joe.

It seems amazing to me that I am functioning, that the news is still on, that the moon is still out, that dinner is made.

I arrive home with Paul and put him to bed, looking at that very moon. The curtains in his makeshift nursery are open, letting in a slice of pale light. Frannie’s house, next to mine, stands empty. Lydia is no longer next door, only Joe, though we are not permitted, by law, to speak.

Lydia got pregnant, last year. It’s not Joe’s, obviously. It is some guy’s from work. Lydia moved on determinedly, not looking back, and fair play, I thought.

Paul holds on to his feet, the way he did when he was tiny, and stares at me. I wonder if he misses Frannie, and if he misses her in the same way I miss her. That visceral feeling that I want her arms around my neck, her chest close to mine. I guess, looking down at him, that he does.

The trial will race back towards me tomorrow. I’ll be back there, in the box, speaking, answering questions. Paul will be at nursery, with no idea of what’s at stake.

‘Which book?’ I say, staring down at him. I pick him up from the cot bed, not yet ready to part with him, and hold him close to me. He isn’t Frannie, but he is part of her. The next best thing.

‘Gruffalo,’ he says. He brings the bottom of his jaw forward and his eyes catch the moonlight, and for a second he looks so like Joe that I clutch at my stomach, holding him even closer to me than before.

‘Okay,’ I say, plucking it off his miniature bookshelf and sitting in the dining chair I’ve brought up here. It has no cushion on it, isn’t a long-term solution, but we do the best with what we’ve got.

‘Mummy,’ he says, rolling deliberately from his back on to his side in my arms.

‘No,’ I say, pointing to my face in the twilight. ‘Auntie Cathy.’

‘Auntie Cathy.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Mummy?’ he says.

‘We’ll see her soon,’ I tell him, looking down into my sister’s eyes. ‘I promise, Paulie. I promise.’

‘And we’ll see the dinosaurs too,’ Paul says, dinosaurs and his mother both of equal importance to him. I look away with wet eyes, wait for the tears to clear, then look back at him.