Page 57 of The Quarterlands (Dark Water #4)

He sent Alex on ahead and took a moment to call Reed, whose rumpled suit and haggard face made it clear he’d pulled an all-nighter. The charge in his holotie had almost completely run down and was glowing a sinister orange.

“How’s it going?” Josiah asked.

“Badly,” Reed growled. “Tyler has access to the best IT techs in the world. It’s madness to think I can crack their encryption in one night. I could work at it for forty years and still get nowhere.”

“I have more faith in you than you do,” Josiah told him patiently.

“You’re a world-class brain, Cam. You chose to work for Inquisitus rather than go and work for a shit like Tyler.

You could have earned a fortune at a company like Tyler Tech, but you’re a decent man, and you wanted to give something back. ”

“I’m an idiot who could have afforded a dozen Destiny ducks by now if I’d only made different career choices,” Reed grumbled. But Josiah could see his eyes were still scanning his screen, his fingers scrabbling at top speed across the keyboard, even as they spoke.

“I’ll leave you to it. Remember to eat.”

“Yeah, you too,” Reed muttered absently. “Wait – what?”

“Never mind.” Josiah finished the call and stood there, considering their options.

He couldn’t ask the judge to delay the trial on the vague hope that new evidence might come to light at some point.

Their only course of action was to soldier on and hope that Reed came good, and draw out their testimonies as much as possible in the meantime to buy him time.

Alex was rocking back and forth in his seat by the time Josiah took his beside him.

Realising that Alex was reciting his song in his head, Josiah put a firm hand on his knee, which immediately calmed him.

The entire court was buzzing as the assembled media and public anticipated Alex’s evidence.

Finally, the judge entered, the court was called to order, and Byrne called Alex to the stand.

Gone was the scared teenager who’d appeared at his trial for driving under the influence of drugs.

Gone, too, was the shell-shocked, ashamed young man who’d embezzled his father’s money.

This Alexander Lytton wasn’t one that the media had seen before.

He held his head high and spoke in a clear voice, taking his time to consider each question, speaking earnestly and honestly straight from the heart.

Josiah was so proud of him. It couldn’t be easy facing a hostile press and George Tyler across the courtroom and holding his ground, but Alex did – and some.

He spoke eloquently of his past, clearly owning his mistakes, making no excuses for himself.

There was no sign of the petulance that had marked his brother’s paralympic win, or his old antagonistic relationship with the press.

He was a compelling witness, raw in his honesty, sparing nobody, least of all himself.

“When you first met Solange, what did you think?” Byrne asked.

“That she was gorgeous, breathtakingly beautiful, and she was, inside and out. She was a lovely person.”

“What was the nature of your relationship?”

“We became lovers very quickly. I felt as if she understood me. She said her parents had died in a duck crash, and that bonded us. I didn’t realise it was a lie, that she’d been rehearsed on how to get close to me.”

An excited gasp went around the court. This, finally, was the meat of the story. Alex went on to explain Solange’s past and how Tyler had found her in the Quarterlands with the intent of trapping him.

“Can you tell us why Mr Tyler went to all this bother?” Byrne asked .

“Yes. He was having an affair with my mother. He was devastated when she died, and he blamed me. He wanted his revenge on me.”

There was a startled silence, and then the courtroom erupted in a low hum of noise.

They had expected revelations, but this was juicy stuff.

Alex explained that his mother had met Tyler at university and fallen in love with him before she met his father.

Byrne had statements from Noah and Charles corroborating both the university romance and the affair.

Tyler looked murderous, his face tight and pinched, although he had to have known this would be revealed.

Alex continued with his testimony. It was long, detailed, and slow. All the better for their purposes, with Reed bashing away at cracking that encryption back at Inquisitus.

Alex told a story that was truly shocking.

Josiah glanced around the court as Alex spoke of being prostituted, with agonising pauses, often looking down, his eyes haunted.

Surely, only a trained actor could produce a performance so touching?

The press, who had so far viewed this case as an absurd spectator sport, suddenly looked chastened as, for the first time, they entertained the possibility that Alex might be telling the truth.

What about the jury, though? They were harder to read, but they listened carefully, and Josiah thought he detected some pity in their expressions as they heard Alex out.

Alex’s testimony took several days. He was allowed frequent breaks, and he needed them. Josiah made sure he ate and drank during every recess, however little he felt like it. In the evenings, he flopped onto the sofa, exhausted, the minute they arrived home.

One night, Josiah sat beside him, removed his shoes, drew his legs onto his lap, and massaged his feet.

“S’nice,” Alex murmured. “S’like Spain.” He rarely mentioned his time in Spain, but Jabir’s statement had filled in the blanks. Josiah wasn’t surprised that Alex didn’t want to talk about it.

“What happened in Spain?” he asked quietly.

“I barely remember it. I was in a bad way mentally.” Alex shivered. “I hope I never feel that way again. It took me a long time to decide I wanted to live and to feel halfway normal again.”

“You’re doing a great job on the stand,” Josiah told him encouragingly. “ Brilliant, in fact. The jury might be able to discount Ted and Mick, but you’re on a different level.”

Alex managed a grateful smile but was clearly too exhausted to reply.

Byrne’s questioning was measured and, for her, relatively gentle, but at least it eased Alex into being on the witness stand. Josiah knew HMS’s questions would be very different in tone, and they were.

“You’re asking us to believe that Mr Tyler went to all these lengths to create this elaborate plot, and all to pay you back for what happened to your mother?”

“It’s what happened,” Alex replied politely. “If you find it unbelievable, you should ask Mr Tyler what’s in his character that compelled him to go to such lengths, not me.”

“Mr Tyler is busy running one of the world’s biggest tech companies, but somehow we’re led to believe that he had the time to find a girl in the Quarterlands and tutor her in how to attract you and then to go about ensnaring you?”

“As I said, it’s what happened,” Alex replied firmly but without anger. “Anyone who knows Mr Tyler is aware that he’s an extremely driven man, with huge reserves of energy.”

“What was the plan in sending this Quarterlands girl to you?”

“To make me fall in love with her, and then to reveal it was all a lie, so I would experience the same heartbreak he’d felt when he lost my mother,” Alex explained.

“That wasn’t what happened, though, was it? Why?”

“I didn’t fall in love with her.” Alex gave a rueful smile. “In fact, I finished with her, so he came up with a different plan to destroy me.”

“Why didn’t you fall in love with her, if she was designed to be so perfect for you?” HMS had a sneering tone in his voice as he tried to show how absurd this whole scenario was.

“I don’t know, but the truth is, I’ve never been in love.

I think my mother’s death broke something in me.

” Alex’s voice cracked with the force of his honesty.

“I think, maybe, I’ve never allowed myself to fall in love because of her, because I don’t deserve it, or because I’m scared of the pain of losing someone I love, the way I lost her.

I’ve pushed away some wonderful people as a result of that, people I adore and wish I could love in the way they deserve.

” He looked straight at Josiah as he spoke. “Solange was one of them.”

HMS looked momentarily wrong-footed by Alex’s candour.

He cleared his throat. “Let’s move on to the agreement you and Mr Tyler made to create a new kind of duck.

You say this was all part of this scheming to get back at you?

Are you saying that he was behind the theft of millions from your father’s business? ”

“No,” Alex said firmly. “Tyler didn’t make me steal that money. I did that myself. I wouldn’t lay that on him. He set the trap, but I was the one who walked into it.”

The press looked impressed by his honesty and refusal to pass the buck, but whether they actually believed him… Josiah guessed he’d find out when he read what they had to say about it.

“I put it to you that you invented this whole pack of lies because your pride was hurt when the court sentenced you to servitude. Not just any servitude, either. You’d viewed Mr Tyler as a friend and then you were forced to become his servant.

It rankled with you. You came from a privileged background, and you envied your brother, Charles, his success.

You were angry with everyone that you’d failed to make the duck design work. ”

“I was mostly angry with myself,” Alex said mildly. “I loved those designs, and I desperately wanted them to work.”

“Ms Alajika testified that you were a moody and difficult boyfriend.”

“I was, but not to her,” Alex replied. “I’ve never met the woman who was in this courtroom claiming to be Solange.”