When I returned to court, I entered the public gallery as someone whose own evidence had been completed. I did not join the witnesses still waiting or tell them what I heard.
The distinction mattered particularly because Beth had not yet given her evidence. Our conversations during those days concerned practical support, not reports from the courtroom.
The financial case was set out without the theatrical language the street had used. Records, supplier confirmations and the independent review established the six thousand four hundred and twenty pounds. Celia had admitted the financial offending in the proceedings. Her plea concerning the murder was not guilty, and the court treated that as the question to be tried, not an automatic consequence of the other admission.
I heard the familiar totals again. Income, genuine expenditure, the diverted money, the remaining balance. Priya’s authorised and repaid loan was distinguished from false reimbursement claims. The flower receipts were included in the loss rather than added to it a second time.
Helen’s August questions appeared in their original place in the correspondence. Seeing the unanswered follow-up on a screen made the delay look painfully simple.
David Rook described the invoice Martin had sent him for confirmation. He explained how he knew it did not represent the hire claimed and how he had supplied the genuine record. Martin’s sponsor role accounted for his access to the copy. No secret command of the fund’s banking was required.
The original communications had been obtained and examined through the investigation. I was not being shown a collection of screenshots assembled by the women in our kitchens.
The message from the evening was played. The original record confirmed the time I had been asked about: twenty twenty-four. Martin referred to the disputed document. Behind him came the sentence I remembered: “That isn’t the one I gave you.”
The message did not contain an attack. It did not reveal who would die or who would be accused. It placed voices and a subject in a room at a time supported by the original material.
Celia did not dispute being the woman in the recording. Twenty twenty-four, at the hall. I looked at the transcript rather than at her. She had asked me to put her back in Vivienne’s sitting room by twenty past.
The messages between Martin and Celia made the pressure more explicit than anything she’d told me. References to passing on supplier material appeared beside demands for information about Beth. The old guesthouse details had been supplied. Subsequent messages complained that the information was no longer useful and demanded something current.
I watched Celia while the exchanges were read. She looked down for some and directly ahead for others. Her expression was not evidence I could interpret from the gallery.
The defence made sure the jury heard Martin’s conduct described as pressure, not a benevolent attempt to correct accounts. Celia had feared exposure. She had been threatened with the loss of her reputation and relationships.
The prosecution did not need Martin to become a good husband or an honourable man for his death to matter. It relied on the communications to explain the conflict and the stakes for Celia.
The two propositions occupied the same courtroom: he had behaved cruelly, and she was accused of choosing lethal violence in response to a situation she wanted to control.
The jury would have to consider the accusation, not vote on which person they preferred.
At the afternoon break, I went outside alone. I did not call Beth to tell her the wording of messages being discussed before her own evidence. I walked round the block, bought water and returned when I was supposed to.
I thought of her sitting in my kitchen, deleting apologies from a reply. She had already known the effect of Martin’s control without needing a courtroom to validate every feeling. The evidence concerned events and responsibility, not whether she was allowed to leave him.
Back inside, the questioning turned to the use of false expenses to conceal personal withdrawals and the delayed legitimate accommodation request. The case did not suggest Celia had killed for exactly six thousand four hundred and twenty pounds, as though murder had a price label.
There was the money, the threatened exposure, the information she could no longer provide and the position she feared losing. Those supplied a possible motive. The remaining evidence still had work to do.
When we left that day, I understood more of the bargain Celia had described. I also understood why knowing the bargain had never been enough.
It took me to the hall door.
It did not, on its own, tell me whose hand had lifted the award.