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CG:So what happened? It says the conviction was quashed.
EH:Indeed it was. Turns out he was right. Itwashis daughter.
CG:Hold on, she was dead – you just said so yourself. How on earth did he manage to prove that? It was just his word.
EH:No, a witness came forward. The son.
CG:Leo?Really?
EH:No, an older boy. Jamie? Had quite the record – petty theft, vandalism –
CG:[heavily]
I know. I met him.
EH:Well, in that case I don’t need to elaborate.
CG:I’m confused – from what I remember he couldn’t stand Barry.
EH:Indeed. No love lost there, evidently.
CG:Which is why I’m struggling to join the dots – why would he lift a finger to help Barry? What was in it for him?
EH:All I know is that he bowled into his father’s solicitors months after the trial completely out of the blue. Said he’d actuallyseenDaisy put the material on the phone. In fact, he claimed he was the one who showed her how to do it.
CG:Blimey.
EH:Quite.
CG:But didn’t that put him at risk of being prosecuted himself?
EH:He certainly could have been. His only defence was that he insisted he didn’t know what she was planning to do. Apparently she just told him she wanted to get Barry in trouble with Sharon by downloading something. She didn’t say anything about the porn, but needless to say Jamie was only too happy to help her land Barry in it. And from a great height. That much always made sense.
CG:The file I saw said Barry’s conviction was overturned in December 2018.
EH:Right. Hence him being removed from the Sex Offenders Register.
CG:But Barry must have been seriously hacked off with Jamie, mustn’t he? He could have come forward a lot quicker than he did and saved Barry from doing time at all.
EH:I’m just checking back through my notes. Ah yes, here it is. We did initially consider whether Jamie should be charged, but Barry insisted that he didn’t want that, and he took his share of responsibility for why Jamie had done what he did – previous difficulties in their relationship, not being there for him as a father, etc., etc. Reading between the lines, I suspect Barry was just relieved Jamie had come forward at all.
CG:[thoughtfully]
I see.
EH:Seems the love lost was love found, in the end. Don’t you just adore the criminal justice system?
***
Erica Somer is just pouring her first glass of wine when the call comes through. It’s been a beautiful day – bright sunlight and a breeze off the water, and she’s been tempted more than once to just log off her laptop and take a book outside. But she didn’t; she never does. The work is tough, heart-breaking sometimes, and the child abuse cases are always the worst, but that’s why she does it. She’ll never have children of her own now, but there are others out there who still need someone to step up and care. It’s gone five o’clock now, though, and she has a clear conscience. She puts the bottle back in the fridge and goes out on to the terrace at the back, to the view of the sea and the boats. They used to live further along the coast, but that whole area is being redeveloped into homes and offices and a marina and Giles said it was time to go. She hadn’t understood why he lived there at all, at first – why he’d put so much effort into renovating those three cottages into a dream space of whitewashed walls and polished stone floors – not when half the view was the chimney and industrial ugliness of a disused power station. But she came to understand – both the appeal of the place and the mind of someone who could want to live there – and when the demolition started and they decided to go, she felt obscurely bereft. But the compulsory purchase was generous, and they found this house.
She takes a sip of wine and raises her hand to shield her eyes, telling herself that maybe that deep red sail she can see leaning into the wind is Giles. Giles and his daughters, who are over from Canada for six weeks, for a holiday, and will come again at Christmas, for the wedding.
Seven years they’ve been together. Or maybe, more accurately, six. Because in the midst of that time there was the cancer and the treatment and the not wanting to be with anyone at all. But Giles never went away. He didn’t push, but he didn’t leave.He waited, and he was there when she finally felt able to be there as well, and now, at last, she has said yes.
She’s hungry all of a sudden, and is getting up to find crackers or olives or some cheese, when the phone goes. She stares at the screen. Now that’s a call she wouldn’t have expected.
‘Baxter? Blimey, that’s a surprise.’