After Dr. Holmes, a few witnesses are brought in to testify about “the defendant’s character.” Somehow these shock me more than anything. One of Becca’s old teachers says Becca was suspended from school in year nine for fighting, and in year ten for bullying. I didn’t know about any of this. I glance at Becca: Her head is down, warped reflections dancing in the glass that screens her. Her defense lawyer cross-examines the teacher to show that, both times, Becca claimed to be defending a friend who’d been threatened by the other people involved.

“We never managed to establish whether that was true,” the teacher says, “so Becca was suspended.”

A girl around Becca’s age is up next. Becca stares at her as she takes the stand. They were at school together, apparently. The prosecutor asks about the “incidents” in years nine and ten.

The girl addresses the jury directly; she seems self-assured, her earrings tinkling. Or perhaps she’s just avoiding looking toward Becca. “Bec always liked to think she was defending people but she took it to extremes sometimes,” she says. “She’d get it into her head that people needed to be taught a lesson. Think she saw herself as a bit of a crusader.”

I glance around, sensing people absorbing those words, needed to be taught a lesson.

It feels like the truth of what happened that Friday, and the weeks before, is just a toy to be bounced around and bent out of shape. The way the prosecutor presents the evidence is so clever, it plants doubts even in my mind. Is Becca the strong, protective cousin I’ve always looked up to, or the deluded “crusader” they’re making her out to be?

I screw my eyes shut and think about jabbing my fingers into my ears. Then I hear them announce my mum’s name and my eyes spring open.

Seeing her from a distance, in these unfamiliar surroundings, makes me jolt. She looks so poorly. She’s wearing a navy headscarf, knotted at the back, her skin paper-white in contrast. Her fingers are thin where she clutches the edges of the witness box, her face gaunt under the lights.

She’s fading away. And this was all for her. I want to stand up and shout it: We did it but we did it for a reason. We were wrong but we thought we were right.

Something makes me glance to the left and, through a gap in the rows of people, I catch Richard’s eye. It’s almost as if he’s read my thoughts and turned toward me at that exact moment. I burn with shame, wrenching my gaze away.

“Ms. Thomas,” the prosecutor says to Mum, “could you confirm your association with the victim and the defendant?”

“I was Nick’s partner,” Mum says, “and Becca, the defendant, is my niece.”

“Did you have a good relationship with Mr. Wood—Nick?”