Crime Writers and Other Animals

Crime Writers and Other Animals by Simon Brett Read Free Book Online

Book: Crime Writers and Other Animals by Simon Brett Read Free Book Online
Authors: Simon Brett
wanted to get back to my house, put on a video of some old
Tom and Jerry
cartoons or something like that, and let it wash all the horrid thoughts and images out of my mind. But they wouldn’t let me do that.
    I felt very lonely too. Although there were always people around – indeed, they wouldn’t leave me on my own for a second – none of them were friendly. They all looked at me as if I was carrying some awful infectious disease. I wanted someone there who’d just talk to me in a relaxed, simple way. I’d’ve loved to have one of the children from the park there to talk to. At one moment when I was particularly stressed, I said that to Detective Inspector Bracken. He gave me a very strange look.
    The lawyer they got me – there was no way I could have got one for myself, I’ve never had any cause to need a lawyer – was, I’m sure, fine, but she didn’t seem very interested in my case. Maybe it was just a job of work for her. She didn’t seem concerned about putting my side of things. But maybe that wasn’t what she was there for. Certainly she didn’t stand up to Detective Inspector Bracken much. He was so strong, so dominant, so like Papa.
    It was the same at the trial. There was this woman barrister who defended me. I’ve nothing against women. I like women. But I don’t think of them as strong. Probably that comes from having grown up with my parents. It was always Papa who was in charge. Mama was a kind of shadowy figure in the background. So I never really expected the judge and the jury to take much notice of my barrister.
    Also I don’t think she took the right approach for my defence. She kept saying it wasn’t just Bethany Jones who was a victim. I was a victim too. Then she said things that were a bit hurtful. She said just because I was odd, it didn’t automatically make me a criminal. She said, yes, I was a sad, rather pathetic figure, somebody who didn’t fit society’s norms. But that didn’t make me a murderer.
    I’m not sure that was the right way to go about it. Calling me ‘odd’ and ‘sad’ and ‘pathetic’ made me seem as if I
was
all those things. I thought she was playing into the hands of the other barrister. He was a man, much more forceful in his manner. He was like Papa, or Detective Inspector Bracken. He spoke in a way that didn’t brook argument. I’m not surprised that the jury believed what he said rather than the arguments my barrister put forward. If I’d known nothing about the case and I’d been sitting in that jury box, I’d have done the same.
    But of course I did know something about the case. I knew I’d never touched Bethany Jones, never touched any of the children. At the time those dreadful things happened to her, I was in my house watching Children’s BBC.
    There was another thing I knew, too. I knew my secret bits didn’t work like men’s are supposed to. I knew my body wasn’t capable of doing the things that had been done to her body. But I didn’t like to mention that. It was a bit embarrassing. Maybe, if I’d had a male barrister . . . But to talk to a woman – any woman – about that kind of thing . . . well, I couldn’t ever have done that.
    It wasn’t nice before the trial, or while the trial was going on. I was kept in this prison. ‘On remand’, they called it. They didn’t have any golden syrup in the prison. I asked for it, but you couldn’t get it. And you weren’t allowed to watch Children’s BBC.
    Also, the other prisoners were horrid to me. They all seemed to take it for granted that I’d done all those things to Bethany Jones. There was more than one occasion when only the intervention of the prison officers stopped something rather unpleasant happening.
    After the trial was over, though, and that horrid wrong verdict had been given, the prison

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