The court building was warmer than I expected and less grand. Security took a few minutes. Finding the right waiting area took longer because, despite the instructions, I turned left where I should have gone right.
A volunteer showed me the waiting room and pointed out the water. I had visited the courtroom beforehand, but I couldn’t remember whether the door beside the witness box had been blue or grey. For some reason that worried me more than the questions.
That morning, I refreshed my memory from my own statements through the arrangements provided. I found phrases that sounded unlike the way I would now explain the events. I left them in their time. The person who made them had not known what the following year would contain.
I did not sit in the public gallery while waiting to give evidence. Other witnesses had their own arrangements. We could exchange a greeting without comparing what we planned to say.
When I was finally called, my legs felt oddly light. I followed the usher, entered the witness box and made the affirmation. Then I saw Celia.
Her hair was shorter. She looked tired, ordinary and terribly familiar. For a moment I remembered her gathering pencils from the library floor. Then I looked towards the person asking the questions.
I described the meetings, the evening, the photograph from Tom. The questions established what I had seen and what I had later been told. I explained my note of the notebook additions and the conversations Celia had initiated with me. Where I needed to consult a statement, I followed the court’s direction rather than pretending to remember every word unaided.
Then the defence barrister stood.
She was courteous. That did not make the questions easy.
I had known these women only a short time. I had become close to Beth. I knew about the financial allegations before some later conversations. Could those things affect how I interpreted Celia’s words?
“They could affect my interpretation,” I said. “That’s why I’ve tried to distinguish the words from what I thought they meant.”
She asked about the café account. Had Celia told me every detail that morning?
“No.”
So the fact she mentioned something later did not, by itself, prove she had invented it later?
“No. Not by itself.”
I heard a small movement in the courtroom. I kept looking at the barrister.
She turned to the timing. I had been occupied with Beth, moved between rooms, checked my phone. I could not say when Celia re-entered the house.
“That’s correct.”
“She could have been there earlier than twenty thirty-six?”
“Yes. I can’t give an earlier reliable time.”
“So your evidence doesn’t place her at the hall until a particular minute.”
“No. I wasn’t at the hall.”
The answer cost me less once it was spoken. It had always been true. Fear had made admitting it feel like losing something I ought to protect.
The barrister asked whether I had discussed the case with friends. I described the contacts honestly, including the meeting about statements Celia had attributed to us. I explained its purpose and the limits we had tried to keep. I did not claim we had achieved perfect isolation from one another’s worries.
When the prosecution asked further questions, I returned to what I had directly heard: the false errand admission, the meeting, the account of help and the request that I remember an earlier return.
I did not add a conclusion about murder.
At last, I was told I could leave the witness box. I checked the arrangements before leaving the building. When my evidence was finished and I was free to attend as an observer, I could return on later days. Until then, I had not watched other witnesses to make their account part of mine.
Outside, Tom stood up from a bench. He had waited without asking for updates from the courtroom.
“Tea?” he asked.
“Yes.”
We walked to a café. I told him I had answered, including the questions to which I didn’t know the answer. I did not ask whether he thought I had sounded convincing.
That evening, I decided to return for some of the public evidence after my own part was complete.
I had given the court my corner of the evening.
Now, within the rules that applied, I would hear how it fitted beside the others.