Murder: Joint Enterprise Page #4

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I got on another one that went to Derby.

And that one I DID wait for.

I was walking along the Ashbourne Road, and I was thinking,

"Ashbourne Road begins with an A.

"I'll just keep walking until I see a road that begins with a Z."

I stuck out my thumb.

A lorry driver came. Straight away.

Just like how the bus was right there.

He was going to Carlisle.

It was very quiet after.

We slept in Mum's bed that night.

We got taken into care. Fostered.

Apart.

I ran away back to the flat to see if Mum had come back.

But I didn't have a key. I could see in.

All our things were still in there.

The woman who was fostering me,

she said they'd have given the flat to another family, but they hadn't.

That's how I knew she was coming home.

We did get back to the flat. Erin got to 17. They said she could look after me.

It's high-risk, having them meet.

Not that I could prevent it.

Coleen's waited nine years for this, and she's never given up hope.

Her mother's like the Virgin Mary and Cheryl Cole rolled into one for her.

Things go well, she'll glow with 100 watts of innocence right through the trial,

and we'll blow everyone else out of the water.

Things go badly, I'm not sure she'll even care if they send her down.

COLEEN SOBS:

There is something about being locked out of your own flat and looking in.

It's like being dead.

COLEEN WHIMPERS:

'I talked to her. She's amazing. She's beautiful. Like Erin.

'I said, "I knew you were coming back."

'Erin said you were dead, but I knew you weren't.

'I knew you loved us and you wanted to come back,

'but something meant that you couldn't.

'And everything I said, she was just like,

' "Yeah, that's it, that's it." '

She understood. She could see it.

I knew everything there was to know about her. And she understood me.

I told her everything that happened -

Erin wanting to go and live at Watermeadow Place

and the day it all happened,

and me thinking,

"If she just wasn't a virgin, she wouldn't be wanting to go.

"She'd have moved on in herself and she'd be happy where she was."

And everything that happened because of that. And she understood me.

I'm not saying she's faultless. She made a mistake, and it was this -

she allowed her resentment at Erin's refusal to take her advice

to get the better of her and she sided - briefly but significantly -

with Hollick, and she goaded her sister.

If there was joint enterprise of any kind between Stefan and Coleen,

it was to that end and that end only.

Relieving her 27-year-old sister of her burdensome virginity.

She said it wasn't my fault, it was HER fault.

She said it couldn't be helped.

It...it COULDN'T be helped.

We cried together for Erin.

First time I've cried since that night.

When she was going, she held my hand.

She smells the same.

She's going to pray for me. Pray they let me go.

Sisters don't kill sisters.

Google it - "sister killing sister".

You get Cleopatra, Roman legends, some Icelandic rock band.

Sisters don't kill sisters. Sororicide, it happens. Their brothers kill them.

Sometimes they kill their brothers. But sisters? Google it.

Actually, don't Google it till after the trial.

My mum, right... My brother, OK, fair enough,

deep down he's not as much of a c*nt as I am,

but with her, it's like we're Cain and Abel and I'm the...

You know, which one's the bad motherf***er?

Well, that's how she sees it.

And what fucks me off the most, right, is that I'm the one who tries.

He doesn't give a sh*t, him. Like, Mother's Day. "What? What's that?"

Yeah? I'm sending her flowers from Afghani-f***ing-stan,

and he lives three streets away poncing off her wage packet

but he's the one with the sunshiny arsehole.

Not when I got my leg blown off. She says to me,

' "Well, they're not going to want you now, are they?" '

HELICOPTER WHIRRS AND SOLDIERS SHOUT

Would you catch me saying something like that to my godson?

'Move back, move back!'

'F*** off.'

Bring it on.

Murder stops time. It's like musical chairs.

One minute there's music and running around, and the next - bang -

there's not enough room for someone, they're gone.

Everything that was going on before, all that merry dance,

all that fiasco we call life, now you have to make sense of it.

At least, that's the job of the prosecution.

I won't see my godson just yet.

They don't want him in a place like this. I can see that.

Not that he IS my godson yet. He's not even been christened yet.

Not even welcomed into the family of Christ until I'm out of here.

In limbo is what he is.

Waiting.

'Every day she sat there. Every day.'

Stayed right to the end, right till the judge sent the jury out.

She'll be there now.

Not in the public gallery, they empty that,

but maybe in, like, a caff round the corner.

Waiting for the jury to come out.

Waiting for the verdict, same as me.

Wondering what it's going to be.

Wondering what she'll say to me.

Wondering if we'll live together again.

I saw once, er, where a tennis player won a match

and he climbed up through the crowd to his dad, right up in the stand.

That's what I'll be like.

If the jury comes back in and the judge asks their decision

and they say, "Coleen Lowell - not guilty," that's what I'll be like.

Straight to Mum.

I plotted a simple line. I held to it. I stayed above the fray.

She was glowing, I was glowing.

All the time, above my head, like a banner, "Sisters don't kill sisters."

'She's nailed-on guilty.'

I don't care what Arlo f***ing-Raglin says.

I saw him in the gents'.

When I was at school, there was a kid.

When you were having a piss, he'd walk along the line at the urinal -

five, six, seven of you taking a leak -

give each of you a push.

Just a little push, but you'd be covered in piss.

That's what came back to me when I saw him in the gents.

'What I keep thinking about, erm, I was in a band once.

'You know, for about two weeks.'

And, erm, anyway when you go on stage in a pub or whatever and they dim the lights down,

just for a minute, people shut up and they look at you.

Right, and you plug your guitar in and you get this...

All of a sudden, this quite loud, kind of buzz and crackle and clunk.

You know, you're wired up.

And you're stood there and you're thinking,

"F***ing hell! The possibilities."

Yeah, so that's what I keep thinking about.

- HE SPITS

- Who puts pips in grapes now?

BELL CHIMES:

A great leveller - piss in your pants.

My wife gives me these, otherwise I eat Pringles.

"Sisters don't kill sisters," he says.

Well, this one did.

The next best thing to pissing his pants...

boyfriend of the accused, Heskett Jupp.

That took the smile off his face.

It was like I blocked it out of my mind.

He saw the two of them together. The sisters, on the bed.

After Stefan had fled, you know, the co-accused.

Like they were waiting.

He'd never told anyone. Not even Coleen.

Blurted out of him in court.

One alive, one dead on the mother's bed.

Court went quiet.

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