Chloe struggled to retain her composure, she wanted to stand up and scream at her former employer, berate him for making her hell complete. But she didn’t. She took a deep breath and stared at him, noting that David sat behind was embarrassed. Surely this was unethical? No one seemed to care.
“If you had the transcripts of some of the thousands of messages there have been between my brother and me over the years, you’d see far worse than that. We all argue, siblings fight...that is life!”
“Fight Miss Parker? Really?”
She groaned, anger threatening to blow at any second, “Mr Bremmer, are you trying to insinuate that I at less than ten stone could have beaten my brother who was half a foot taller and several stone heavier into a pulp outside my apartment because we had a falling out?”
He grinned, looking poignantly at the jury before returning his eyes to her, “I don’t know Miss Parker, should I be?”
Chloe sighed and looked at the ceiling briefly, the last thing she wanted was to irritate the jury with her behaviour, but she was struggling to not scream at the defence counsel.
“Miss Parker?”
She dropped her eyes to him again, “yes?”
“Did you see your brother after the conversation with him on the phone at approximately nine pm?”
Tears suddenly prickled at her eyes, this was more of a rollercoaster than anything else she’d ever known, “the next time I saw him after that conversation was in the hospital mortuary...dead.” She averted her eyes, not wanting anyone to see her cry, but just saying the words brought such vivid memories of the last time she saw Owen.”
“Objection to this line of questioning your honour,” finally the prosecutor stood and offered his resistance at the line of questioning. “Miss Palmer has never been a suspect in this case, and reliving the last time she saw her twin is hardly appropriate or relevant!”
Max Bremmer stood, “I’m merely trying to identify the mindset of the witness on the night in question.”
The judge, an elderly man shook his head, “Make it relevant Bremmer, or it will all be struck from the record. We’ll adjourn for a few minutes, give the witness a moment. Court will reconvene in thirty minutes.”
They both nodded, and the prosecutor retook his seat. It had given Chloe a moment to regain her composure, but the words from Max, his need to identify her mind set, as she took that in, she knew the moment was doomed. She followed the clerk out of the court, but a thick black fog had descended, and the nausea and fear were back.
Luke wanted to kill someone himself, this was worse than he’d ever imagined. Poor Chloe, a lamb to the slaughter. Where was the justice in doing this to her? He couldn’t wait for the day to end, to find her, to make her realise that they had something worth fighting for. Phil seemed to think that this court case would be the end of the nightmare for her. Hopefully with relief, with the closure of it all, just maybe she’d see him in a different light. It was selfish to hope that from her misfortune any good would figure him, but he honestly had nothing else.
He was sat watching, hidden in the corner of the full court room when the door opened and the bench re-entered the court, then another door revealed Chloe, brave, strong with her chin tilted high in the air. If he’d doubted that he loved her, then in that moment...as it hit him between the eyes like a sledge hammer - the protective instinct, the admiration, the concern...so many emotions that she elicited, he knew in that moment that he did, wholeheartedly.
Luke watched her sit down, raise her eyes, and then confront the animal that was the defence lawyer. She had a composed look on her face, but he knew that her eyes were wide, her jaw tense, she was struggling.
“So Miss Palmer, the last time you saw your brother was after he had died. But did you see him prior to that?”
She shook her head, “no.”
He nodded, “so at no point did you see him before his death but after your phone argument?”
As she sighed a response, the prosecutor objected again, and this time Max was told to cut to the point.
He smiled at the judge, “the reason is about to become clear your honour.” He turned once again to Chloe, “Miss Palmer, what was your reaction to your brother’s death?”
Chloe spluttered, almost choking, and through tear filled eyes she looked up at her former boss, “how do you think I felt?”
He shrugged, “I’m not sure, that’s why I’m asking you.”
Swallowing her nausea, she glared at him, “I was devastated, I miss him every day, even now.” She turned to glare at the accused, he had the decency to look po-faced. “He was my brother and part of me died when he died. Have you never lost anyone close Mr Bremmer?”
He tilted his head, acknowledging her ability to throw the question back at him, and Luke saw that she would be formidable in the courtroom in her own right. Again his pride and his desire for her threatened to overwhelm him.
“I’m clearly not the one being questioned here Miss Palmer.” He paced elaborately in a manner Luke was familiar with from TV crime shows. “So, in the days following his death, his funeral? How was that?”
Luke saw Chloe glare at him, the assistant on the bench and then finally to the Prosecutor who finally added an objection.
“Mr Bremmer you’ve drawn out this point for what feels like two days. Spit it out or I will sustain the objection.” The judge was clearly losing his patience, and not before time.
Nodding he turned back to Chloe, “You weren’t at his funeral were you, the devoted sister?”
Luke held his breath, terrified at the look of devastation on poor Chloe’s face.
Chloe swallowed elaborately, she wanted to scream, to jump up and tear at Max Bremmer’s eyes, the room was full to bursting, family, friends, journalists. The world would now know what happened in the days and weeks following her brother’s death.
“No.” She said quietly, “I wasn’t at his funeral.”
The courtroom seemed to let out a collective gasp, and she felt sicker than she ever had. In grief people did strange things, and unfortunately, her reaction was very dramatic. She couldn’t imagine life without Owen, then there was the interminable guilt that their last conversation had been an argument. Her last words were to stop interfering in her life, when all he’d ever done was look out for her. The ‘what if’s were horrendous, she’d sit staring out of the window of her flat to the spot on the pavement where her brother had taken his last breath, and question what would happen if they hadn’t argued...he’d never have been in her part of town, if she’d answered her phone she’d have known he was coming, been looking out for him...instead, he died, alone, in pain and in view of the window that she lay sleeping behind.
As it was a murder case, it took weeks before his body was given up for a funeral. Whilst Chloe hated the thought of seeing him in a coffin, her vibrant handsome brother, but whilst it still hung over them, no one could get closure, move on. There was too much time to think and rethink, over analysing everything.
It was selfish to look at the bottle of sleeping tablets that her GP had almost foolishly prescribed when her grief meant sleep eluded her. But she did look at them, a lot. Several times. And she never thought about the impact on her friends or family, when one evening she couldn’t be lifted from her dark place, she opened a bottle of whisky, and took them one by one, all twenty one of them, each interspersed with a slurp of the bitter liquid. She only hoped as she lay on her bed to sleep that Owen would be waiting for her as she drifted off. The chance to apologise, to hug him just once more was all she asked for.
But it wasn’t Owen she saw, but the bright lights of the Emergency room as she was fed salty liquid via a tube that caused her to vomit in a dramatic and undignified fashion all over the place. Then she slept...so tired. When she’d woken later she was on a ward, her mother pale and drawn in a chair next to her, too exhausted to cry anymore.
“I can’t cope Mum,” she whispered, her voice a croak, paining her traumatised throat.
Her mother nodded, “I know darling. You need help...” She gulped loudly, “if I hadn’t come to see you...You’d...” Her mother swiped at a tear, “you’ve turned away from us, you don’t answer your phone. For some reason I was more worried last night than usual. Oh you silly, silly, girl!”
As her mother stroked her hair, Chloe started to sob, suddenly all the grief and guilt that had caused turmoil inside came crashing to the surface. After that moment she’d dipped into deep depression, realisation and acceptance that she really would never see Owen again hit her like a sledgehammer.
She was admitted to a psychiatric ward and subjected to lots of treatment, but it wasn’t until John Farmer, a middle aged psychiatrist appeared on the ward that she saw some light. He’d been on holiday for the three weeks she’d been there, but on their first meeting, a one-to-one conversation in his small but homely office he handed her a paper on the Five Stages of Grieving. Reading it in bed that night, she silently thanked Elizabeth Kubler-Ross for her analysis of life. She recognised all the stages, and knew that she was far from recovered. But if she’d known that all her feelings were normal then she may never have tried to end her life. She knew that. It was her inability to deal with his death, her inability to discuss it with anyone - because if she talked about it, then it was real, and she had to accept it, and that was what led to her spiralling so rapidly out of control.
Looking back into the courtroom she could barely believe that she was the same person as she was in those few months. But she was stronger now. Taking a deep breath she looked back at Max Bremmer and David beside her.
“I wasn’t at his funeral as I was in hospital.”
There was another gasp, and Chloe looked up at her parents, terrified at what impact this would have on their fragile daughter, but she wasn’t fragile anymore, she wasn’t going to hide anymore.
“You were ill?”
She shrugged, “I’d tried to end my life Mr Bremmer, as you’re well aware.”
Luke felt the bottom drop out of his world. Suddenly so much made sense, there had always been some secret, some past that she fought to hide, even Phil hadn’t told him everything, and know he knew why. He looked at her sat in the box, knowing now why she’d felt so scared being there, and hating the defence team for putting her through this. But in the last ten minutes she’d grown in stature and confidence. Maybe accepting and acknowledging this was cathartic, maybe this would be the final chapter for her. Sitting back he relaxed, she was an amazing person, and he was in awe as she turned to the jury and carried on talking.
“Losing my twin brother was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. It shook my whole world. But it was the senselessness of it all that made it so hard to deal with.” She sighed. “And yes I blamed myself, I blamed myself for not being there to help him, that he was outside my bedroom window, dying and I didn’t know! That twin bond failed me. And it was the guilt that made me want to end my life, I don’t have that guilt anymore Mr Bremmer, because I know that someone killed him, this was no accident, no mistake, this was murder...for the price of a mobile phone.”
The room was silent, as the defence lawyer glanced to his bench, any cheap hit he’d hoped to have had failed. The point of her being in the dock was purely a smoke screen, a desperate attempt to distract from the evidence against Malcolm Pinker. It had failed dramatically because of Chloe. They’d banked on a blubbering idiot who could be manipulated into any answers; instead they got a strong woman. Like a phoenix from the flames.
Stepping out of the witness area, she saw her parents; stood together nervously holding hands, then they saw her and their faces burst into smiles. Running to them she threw herself into their arms.
“I am so, so sorry!” Tears flowed as the three stood in a group embrace, smiling, laughing and crying simultaneously, all so relieved that they’d all got to this point, surviving after Owen.
As with hands still linked, they turned for the door, Chloe stopped dead in her tracks, there in front of her was Loukianos Petrakis, the man she’d dreamed about every night and day since she’d left him, his image had replaced the one of Owen as she’d last seen him every time she closed her eyes. But he was here, in her World, when she was at her most exposed, and any pleasure to see him was replaced by nausea, anxiety, and the spinning of the room as everything became black.