"All this shouting and accusing and pointing fingers is all very well and good when it comes to facts, but what begs the question now is motive. Why do such a thing?" the sallow man asked the room.

"I mean" he carried on. "This family were perfectly happy, they lived a plentiful life, and Marta Harrison had everything she coukd wish for; a son, a loving husband, a nice home, plenty of food on the table. Gerard Harrison brought in the money that kept this dream alive. Why ruin your own happiness?"

"How do you know they were happy?" the squeaky man butted in.

"How can you say they weren't?" the sallow man followed up, quick as a wink. "It's my argument, you're challenging, you prove your point first."

I raised an eyebrow. That was rather insighted. It sounded like something out of a metaphorical handbook on how to be a barrister. Hmmm.

The squeaky man snuffled and reshuffled his papers, seemingly realizing he had jumped the gun a little.

"Argument removed" he eventually muttered. "Carry on."

"Gladly" the sallow man smiled cuttingly, before doing just that.

"That and the curious actions of Mrs. Harrison during the time after she was supposed to have committed this murder."

I sat up a little, pen poised. I liked curious actions.

"She went out shopping" the sallow man announced. "Went out and didn't return until the police came looking."

He left this news to rattle around the courtroom a little. I didn't consider it much of a talking point, but I noted it down and put a few question marks around it. The sallow man was right when he said this was a curious point.

"Now, let me appeal to your human nature" the sallow man carried on. "If you had just committed a murder such as the one you see in front of you today, would you have the nerves of steel to instantly walk out of the door on a shopping trip?" You'd be shaking, on edge, surely? People would notice, and there would be talk. And as far as I am aware, we have no witnesses to state Mrs. Harrison was acting out of the ordinary during her time out of the house. On top of this, when she was called back by the police, she was indeed in considerable distress having been told the news. All completely natural, if she had known nothing about the murder. And since the court has ruled that these forensics are not enough to base a full conviction on as of yet, I see no other evidence that forms any sort of conclusion that would point to Mrs. Harrison having killed her husband" he finished levelly. He had kept his head beautifully throughout the whole speech, I thought admiringly.

"Your Honour" the squeaky man squeaked. "I contest! There is indeed evidence that not only disproves this bogus theory that has been placed in front of you, but, I believe, concludes this proceedings. May I call to the stand Marcus Harrison? I understand it may take a few minutes..."

I watched with interest as a young man barely over eighteen, sitting in a rather grand wheelchair, was slowly manoeuvred down towards the witness box by four strong policemen. Despite the sallow man's speech being, in my opinion, quite good, I had barely written anything down on my notepad throughout, as most of what he said fell into my category of "case winning speculation". Not the most creative title, I knew, but it basically meant that everything I put in that category was stuff the barristers had made up to make their version of events seem more believable. The other category was "actual facts". I was really nailing it on the creativity front.

At long last, Marcus Harrison was sitting in his chair, in the witness box, looking, I noted, rather nervous. The squeaky man turned and smiled at him, but personally I thought that smile looked more like an angry Chihuahua baring its teeth.

"Are you Marcus Harrison?" he squeaked. The boy in the wheelchair nodded, and then at a prompt from someone near him, hesitantly said yes.

"And, just to tidy this little point up, where were you at the time your father was killed?" the squeaky man asked. Again, the boy had to be prompted to reply.

"I was upstairs, in my room. But I couldn't have killed him, because he was downstairs and I was upstairs, and I need servants to help me down the stairs" he explained. The squeaky man nodded.

"Very good" he praised. "Now, did you, from your room upstairs, hear any sort of argument? Any loud noises, coming from downstairs?"

"No" Marcus Harrison replied.

"You are...quite sure you heard nothing?"

"Yes, er, yes. I didn't hear a thing."

"Very well" the squeaky man smiled, turning to the judge and to the sallow man. "What we have here, ladies and gentlemen" he announced "is a cold blooded killer."

There was no significant amount of uproar, which was silenced instantly by the judge, with a rather ferocious bellow. I half expected him to say 'Order in the court!' but obviously that was far too cliché for this judge in particular.

"Explain your accusations, prosecution" that same judge ordered, now seemingly as calm as a hot summer's afternoon. I noticed the sallow man looking slightly hot under the collar, and I feared for his case.

"Well" the squeaky man began, and there was now a definite sense of wicked victory in his tone, "If I may, perhaps, turn to this young man, and ask him how it was that he ended up in his current situation?"

"No!"

The word exploded out of Marta Harrison so suddenly and violently that everyone stared. She sprang to her feet.

"There will be no more talk of this! This matter is of the death of my husband, we do not bring up history dead and buried!"

Her Spanish roots were obvious in the way she spoke and the way she stood. She was a lady of passion and flair, and as she glared furiously at the squeaky man the whole room seemed to hold its breath.

"I'm sorry?" the squeaky man asked carefully. "In a court case, Mrs. Harrison, nothing cannot be said. If it needs to be said, it should be."

"It does not need to be said!" Marta Harrison spat. "It was a mistake. A dreadful mistake. But it means nothing here."

"You say it was a mistake" the squeaky man squeaked cunningly. I saw the intent in his eyes before, I thought, anyone else did.

"Tell us the story, Marcus" he added, looking back to the boy in the wheelchair.

"I...It..." Marcus stammered, as the whole room watched carefully. The boy seemed to be struggling with something in his head that nobody else could see.

"I was four at the time. It was a Sunday, and I was playing in the garden of our house, with Father, and Mother was bringing something back-I can't remember what-from one of her old friends. She used the little cart we had, I remember it coming up the drive, it used to make the most awful racket. I ran up to her in the cart, shouting and waving, but she didn't see or hear me, and then...I got trapped under the cart and it went right over the top of me."

The story was so carefully told and had such power that it barely seemed to come from the boy's lips. I looked down. I didn't want to hear any more on this case, not now. That last part had been a bit too much to bear.

I saw Mr. Vendradaire's arm slip down from his lap, and I very quickly masked my issues and wrote the main points down on my notepad. I did not want or need comforting.
Especially from him.

"She says it was an accident, Your Honour" the squeaky man repeated, fortunately with a little bit of sensibility this time. "But it seems an odd sort of accident."

I realized now that getting Marcus Harrison to tell the story had made it easily twistable. Now, I reckoned, pretty much the entirety of the room would be dead against Marta Harrison.

The squeaky man left the silence hanging just long enough for it to become unbearable, and then he spoke.

"May I make another point, Your Honour?"

"You may" the judge agreed hoarsely.

"This alleged shopping trip, and the missing weapon used for the beating. It would be so easy just to take the weapon with you, wouldn't it, and throw it in a hedge, never to be found again?"

There was a general nodding of heads. The judge surveyed everything from up in his chair. Marta Harrison had long since slumped back down, looking defeated, and Marcus was looking uneasily around. He obviously wanted to be down.

"I reckon" the judge sighed "that it's about time I sum up."

The judge began his talk, but I wasn't listening. If that was the end of the case, why hadn't my other point been addressed? Had nobody noticed it? There was something fishy going on here, and I didn't like it one bit. On the face of it, Marta Harrison looked guilty as charged, but just that one little blip on the radar really bugged me. It made no sense, and everything had to make sense somehow, which meant everything that had been said in this courtroom had been completely and entirely wrong. As the closing rituals began, I was in a completely different world, and Mr. Brenkley had to almost pull me up and lead me out with the rest of the jury.

One little problem, I was thinking. Where would it lead?

My last lil' sketch is of Allie and Smart. The fact they ended up together on this project is totally irrelevant to the road ahead. Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.