Murder: Joint Enterprise Page #5

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Raglin, face like a smacked arse.

There it was, out there like someone else had said it. DOG BARKS

Stefan Hollick's lawyer says, "When was the last time you saw Erin Lowell alive?"

And I just... I said, "She was on the bed, but she was dead then."

"What bed, where?"

"In Coleen's mum's room, lying there with Coleen." "When was this?"

"The night she died." "What time?" "About ten."

Just... Just like they were waiting.

Everything went quiet.

And then they just started tearing through those pages in them binders what they have.

"You were there at the flat on the night," he said.

Just a LITTLE push.

"Was I? Yeah, yeah, I was. Yeah, I WAS there."

Then I looked at Coleen.

"Heskett Jupp." I thought, "Heskett Jupp, not H."

CHILDREN SHOUT IN BACKGROUND

- I'm going!

- Stefan's brief asked me what I said to that.

I said, "I don't say anything to that."

He kept on.

"What's your reaction to what the witness said?"

Nothing. Nothing.

Silence.

Then she said, "It's true."

Nothing quite like the sight of a highly paid QC

with a dead sheep on his head trying to summon up a sh*t-eating smile.

Rethink.

Raglin gets his wits about him.

He starts trying to unsettle the whole thing to suit him.

Crown seems very surprised by this.

Perhaps they'd like to take some time to consider developments.

F*** you, Raglin.

Answer the f***ing question.

Why was she cowering in the bathroom when PC Sinton arrived

if she was lying on the bed 20 minutes before?

The Crown couldn't give too much credence to what he said or it would

look like a most catastrophic oversight on their part.

Did he answer the question?

There was a lot of... hurried scrabbling back

through witness statements and the interviews.

- Did he f***!

- His honour suggested a short recess.

He asked for a recess.

Rethink. Regroup.

Give the man credit - he knows a turning point.

I think of something untouched by this.

Like stinking cells, the sh*t people do to each other, lies they tell.

What is it?

A baby.

A newborn baby, think of that.

One, right, I'm a man of violence.

How many times have I heard that in the last three weeks?

I was a soldier for eight years,

you don't get the medals I've got frothing milk.

Two, the leg.

I'm sensitive about the leg, I've got a short fuse.

You know, I am sensitive about the f***ing leg, as it happens.

But it wasn't Erin who called me a cripple, it was my "co-defendant".

So what does that prove?

Three, my so-called brief.

Right, having him defending me and Raglin defending her,

that's like putting pea-shooters up against f***ing Iron Man.

Yeah, sisters don't kill sisters.

It might not be true, but at least it's f***ing memorable.

Rethink. Regroup. Return. Here are some questions.

H said he peeped in at the bedroom door

and saw Erin dead on the bed, with Coleen beside her.

How could he tell she was dead? He peeped in and ran away.

How could he tell that Stefan Hollick had already departed?

Good questions. Did I ask them? I did not.

I asked a different question, and then I answered it.

Why was Coleen in the bathroom when the police arrived?

Finally.

Because, when Coleen broke out of the bathroom where Stefan Hollick

had imprisoned her, she found her sister dead on the floor.

Naked. Dead.

I thought of Mum.

She thought of her mum.

Her mum, who's here today - as she is every day -

standing by her wrongly accused daughter.

The dead woman's naked body -

what they always say, in newspapers, on the radio.

I used to think that about Mum.

I didn't want that to be her.

I did not want that to be Erin, either.

Incredulous, and inconsolable...

I bit her to wake her up.

Bit her hard.

My client put a dress on her sister and laid her on their mother's bed.

I thought I heard him.

And then she heard a sound, the sound of the door.

Perhaps it was the sound of H scuttling off into the night.

Coming back.

Or perhaps it was the sound of someone coming back?

Stefan Hollick, coming back.

For his jacket, for his wallet, for who knows what else?

Beside herself with fear,

Coleen did something that she is deeply ashamed of.

She abandoned her dead sister.

I left her on the bed.

I hid in the bathroom.

I thought he was coming, I called the police.

You may think that's forgivable.

Coleen Lowell doesn't.

Give the man credit, that was class.

And that, right there, that's where I won the case.

When they arrived, the police had to break down the bathroom door.

We could have done without the f***ing mother.

He's not my nephew.

He's my son.

My brother was away on a job when he was conceived,

but he hadn't worked that out.

She didn't want him to.

She told him the baby was premature, but it wasn't.

He came in here, actually, came to break it to me

that they were going ahead with the christening.

That they couldn't wait now. You know, not now.

She wrote to me, begging me not to tell him.

I just showed him the letter.

Yeah, that was a short visit. Won't be repeated.

He'll never be able to look at that boy

without seeing me shagging his wife.

The man she was living with died and left her some money.

I said, "This is where Erin wanted to live.

"This is where you told me in a dream to scatter Erin's ashes."

And she said, "This is where we'll live.

"There's two flats left, we're going to look round them both."

And we're getting the tattoos -

the one me and Erin were going to get.

She wanted to take one last look around the flat on her own.

I've arranged everything here.

In court they wanted to know why his fingerprints

were on the neck of the bottle.

He said he'd used it to batter at the bathroom door.

He wanted his jacket back, the photos of his godson.

I'm one of those people that other people like kicking.

I'm talking about my old man, teachers at school,

coppers, obviously,

officers in the army, the f***ing Taliban,

Coleen Lowell and her smartarse lawyer.

And my brother, now that he's found out,

and his slapper of a f***ing so-called wife.

I started thinking, do you know what?

I am sick of getting up just to get kicked back down again.

And in here, right, there's loads of people like me.

People who've taken a kicking.

And not just one kicking - I'm talking about a lifetime of kicking.

They've got someone else now, doing the showing-round. She knew Erin.

She's going to show us round.

Whether he did it or not, I'm not really sure any more.

But SHE did.

But then, who am I to judge?

SCREAMING AND GIGGLING

B*tch!

Open the door!

Right...

You can stay in there, you cow!

- Grow up, Erin.

- F***ing slag.

Open the door.

What were you doing?!

LAUGHING:
Sh*t.

You're joking.

RATTLING THE DOOR

- What were you doing with her?

- What you got a knife for?

- Eh?!

- All right, f***ing calm down.

- Why didn't you wait for me?

- Have you gone f***ing mad?

- What's he doing to you?!

- Put the knife down.

Why didn't you wait for me?

Come in here, come on, we'll talk about it.

Open the f***... Open the door!

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