“Whatever I hear, it’s going to be ten times harder for you.”
“Perhaps, but after what you’ve been through—”
“That’s precisely the reason I have to come. Do you think I can sit and twiddle my thumbs here waiting for news, unable to even call you and check on you? You shouldn’t be alone with this.”
She looks exactly how she did the morning I told her that we wouldn’t be continuing with our knife act. Fiendishly determined. “I won’t be alone. Mum and Dad will be there, too.”
“I want to look this man in the face as much as you do. I feel like…” she trails off, thinking hard. When she speaks again her voice is soft and uncertain. “I feel like seeing justice done for Mirrie will make it easier to face the things ahead.”
With every mile south we travel closer and closer to her former home. The thought of passing by that house, or even near it, must be torture for her.
She implores me with her eyes. “Let me be your friend, Cale. Please?”
If she comes, I’ll have her with me on the journey and at my side in court, and I want that so badly. “All right. Thank you, sparkle.”
Sharrock’s hearing is in Wales, where most of his crimes were committed and where he was arrested. In the afternoon, I ride several miles across to a nearby village with a train station and book tickets for the day after tomorrow for me and Ryah.
Just before dawn on Tuesday morning, Anouk and Elke ride with the two of us to the station, and then take Jareth and Dandelion back with them. They wave to us from horseback as our train pulls out of the station.
We find our seats in the near-empty carriage. When the tea trolley comes down the carriage, I buy us both coffee and pastries. Ryah wraps her hands around her paper cup of hot coffee and stares at the fields flying past, her face blushed with sunrise. She’s wearing a blouse and a woolen skirt and her hair is in a neat ponytail. I haven’t seen her in anything but oversized jumpers, leotards and catsuits in weeks.
“You look lovely.”
She raises her eyes to mine in surprise. “Thank you. I wanted to look smart. For Mirrie.”
A feeling expands so rapidly through my chest that it’s almost painful. It’s not pain. It’s not even gratitude. It’s something primal, essential.
It’s love.
I stretch my hand across the tabletop for hers and brush my finger over her knuckles. She grabs my fingers and holds on for dear life. I’m in love with Ryah. The seed was planted the day I met her, and it’s been unfurling ever since.
I remember when we first started knife throwing together, and she gazed up at me with hazy eyes and parted lips and I pretended not to notice that she looked like she could use a thorough kissing. If she looks at me like that again, I don’t know if I’ll be able to resist.
I spend the next few hours and two train changes imagining her looking at me like that again. Maybe I should be thinking about my family and the grueling day ahead, but after seventeen years, the worst is nearly over. I can start thinking about the future.
We get off the train at Cardiff Queen Street and walk toward the Magistrates’ Court just after nine in the morning. The hearing is due to start at ten, and we meet my parents outside the sand-colored brick building. They’re both tense but in good spirits and greet Ryah warmly. Mum especially seems pleased she’s there.
Just before we head inside, I say to Ryah, “If anything upsets you or you need a break, just head out here and I’ll come find you when it’s over, okay?”
She takes my hand and squeezes it. “It’s sweet of you to worry about me, but I’m worrying about you.”
I look down at her slim fingers in mine. Instead of letting go, I hold her hand as we head into the courthouse. We take our places in the public gallery and watch silently as the various court officials file in. I suppose they’re prosecutors or defense lawyers. Or are they barristers? Perhaps they’re only clerks. I have no idea. All my attention is for one man, and one man only. He finally appears, shuffling into the dock in an ill-fitting suit.
Bernard Sharrock has rounded shoulders and wispy gray hair atop his hair. His eyes are flat, and he blinks myopically around the courtroom, as if not quite sure where he is and how he got here.
The judge enters, and we all stand, and then take our seats again. I find it difficult to follow what’s happening with Sharrock sitting so close. I can’t take my eyes off him.
Look this way, I think as loudly as I can. Look up at me. I want you to know it’s me, Mirrie’s brother, and she hasn’t been forgotten. Not by any of us, and she never will be.
The charges are read, and I recognize the names of Sharrock’s other victims. There are people sitting around us with grief-stricken faces. The families of the other dead women. I feel a connection with them, and a surge of triumph as Sharrock enters guilty plea after guilty plea. Several people are crying, but they’re good tears. Tears of release. Tears of gratitude that this nightmare is finally ending.
“On the murder, rape and unlawful detainment of Mirrie Hearn, how do you plea?”
Bernard Sharrock clears his throat and pauses for a moment. “Not guilty.”
Beside me, Ryah stiffens. A ripple has traveled around the courtroom and people are muttering and turning to each other. The judge looks up at the public gallery with a disapproving frown. Sharrock is still staring straight ahead, his face in profile.
As I stare at him, I finally realize what just happened. Not guilty. Not guilty? He says he didn’t kill my sister?