“What did you see?”

“It was dark. There were no lights around there at night. It was hard to see anything at all. The little sister jumped out. I was going to go after her when I heard sirens coming. Figured she didn’t need me anymore. Turned the car around to drive home. Almost ran over that boy.”

“What boy?” Rachel asked.

“I don’t remember,” Rick added quickly, realizing he’d said too much. “I’m eighty-one. Memory isn’t what it was.”

“You remember everything, Rick,” corrected Rachel. “Who was that boy you almost ran over? What was his name?”

“I saw him here. Two, three summers ago,” he said, warming to the subject and Rachel’s attention. “Saw him one afternoon in the garden. They take us out to get sun like we’re fucking tomatoes that need to be ripened. I went up to him and told him I remember what he did all those summers ago. He looked rattled. Left soon after. Never saw him again.” He laughed wryly. “Not surprised. Always running. Like a rat.”

“What was his name, Rick?”

“Rat,” said Rick hoarsely, as his laughter became a cough. “That’s what they should have called him. Looked like a rat. Ran like a rat.”

“Rick,” said Rachel. “What was his name?”

“Better to forget some things. There are folks in this world that a man can’t afford to cross,” he rasped in between coughs. “I’m senile but not that senile. All these years I kept my mouth shut. Why would I open it now?”

The old man’s spasm of coughing worsened so that Rachel could barely make out his last words. She rushed to a water cooler in the corner of the room and quickly filled a cup with water. By the time she returned, he was bent over, spluttering into his hands. When he lifted up his head, his lips were covered with blood.

“What’s wrong with him?” Rachel asked a uniformed nurse who’d rushed over, decked out with a mask and gloves.

“Lung cancer,” the nurse whispered grimly.

The nurse approached Rick and talked to him in a loud voice, as if he were deaf. “We’ll have to move you to the clinic. I need you to stand up so we can get you in the wheelchair.” She grabbed Rick’s arm and helped him stand while an orderly maneuvered a wheelchair in place.

Rachel watched Rick being wheeled away for treatment as he continued to cough uncontrollably into a wad of Kleenexes the nurse had given him. Rachel wished there was a way to get him to cooperate. To appeal to his better nature. The problem was that Rachel doubted that Rick had a better nature.

On the way out, Rachel took a brochure off a stand in the reception area. It had the same glossy Photoshopped pictures of blossoming gardens and breathtaking views of paddocks that she’d seen on the website. At the back of the brochure was corporate information. The retirement home was owned by Blair Developments. That shouldn’t have surprised her. The Blair family’s interests were, after all, extensive.

Rachel was driving back to the hotel when she realized her phone was vibrating. She answered it on speaker while signaling to make a left turn.

“Is that Rachel?”

“Yes,” Rachel answered over the click of her turn signal.

“This is Renata. From the florist shop. I was so focused on looking for old orders that I didn’t look at the current orders. There’s an order for a premium bouquet to be delivered to Jenny Stills’s grave tomorrow morning, eight A.M. sharp. My courier isn’t too happy to be working so early.”

37

Guilty or Not Guilty

Season 3, Episode 8: Consent

If you’ve been following this podcast, then you’ll know that this trial is all about consent.

Prove that K consented to sex that night, and then Scott Blair walks free. Prove that she didn’t, and he goes to jail. It really is that simple. And complicated. Because therein lies the rub.

Since K and Scott Blair were the only ones on the beach that night, there are only two people who know what happened. Scott Blair, the defendant. And K, the complainant. This case will depend almost entirely on who the jury believes more.

Will it be Scott Blair? A champion swimmer born and raised in Neapolis. A local boy expected to put his hometown on the map by winning big at the next Olympics. Many people in this town are rooting for Scott, and they’re vocal about their belief that he’s been falsely accused. Others see him as a sexual predator.

Or will the jury believe K, the teenage girl who says that Scott Blair raped her? The girl with the bright smile and big dreams of becoming a physiotherapist before the events of last October brought her world crashing down. K has had to move schools. Twice. She’s now being homeschooled. She’s been attacked on every front. Her morals have been questioned. Her motives for accusing Scott Blair have been questioned. She’s lost friends. There are people in this town who won’t talk to her family. She can’t even leave her house because in a town like this, everyone knows, everyone stares.

K can’t defend herself publicly. She’s a material witness in the trial and she can’t say a word until after she testifies, due to the risk it could damage the prosecution’s case. She and her family have had to take all the abuse being directed at her without being able to say a single word in her defense.

Tomorrow, K will finally have her chance to speak. She’ll take the stand and provide the most crucial testimony of the trial. And the most harrowing.

To remind you, K is only sixteen. Yet she will have to relive every single thing that happened to her that night. She’ll have to do it in public. To a room full of strangers. In excruciating detail. She’ll be asked the most intimate questions imaginable. How many times he penetrated her. Where. How. And so on. Think about that for a second. She’s a teenage girl.…

If that’s not horrible enough, then K will have to do it all over again during cross-examination. Defense attorney Dale Quinn will try to trip her up. Twist her words. Do everything that he can to damage her credibility, to portray her as a liar. Or a fantasist. Or both. He’ll put on his best manners. His softest voice. He’ll be considerate. He will feign concern.

Let there be no doubt that it will be ugly. Dale Quinn’s job is to defend his client. The sad reality is that the only way he can do that effectively is by decimating K’s testimony.

That’s how trials work. It’s medieval. It’s not about getting to the truth. It’s about who can put on a better show. And Mitch Alkins and Dale Quinn are among the best showmen around.

Scott Blair, incidentally, gets to choose whether he testifies. He could get through this entire trial without ever opening his mouth. It’s up to his lawyers to decide whether he takes the stand, or never utters a single word in his own defense. The decision of whether he testifies will likely depend on how damaging K’s testimony is.

Most defense lawyers prefer their clients not to testify. Their reasoning is that it’s the prosecutor’s job to make the case. The defense doesn’t have to make any case at all. So why put their client on the stand and risk something damaging coming out during a brutal cross-examination? That’s the logic anyway.

So we have this unfair disparity in rape cases where the victim gets—let’s call it what it is—violated. Twice. The first time in the attack. The second time in court.

Meanwhile, the defendant—the man accused of perpetrating the brutal crimes against K—well, he does not have to make a peep. All he has to do is turn up in court each day with a solemn face and the shell-shocked demeanor of the falsely accused.

K will not have an easy time of it on the stand. She will likely spend hours testifying for the prosecution. She may spend even longer being grilled by the defense. Her testimony will be put under a microscope. It will be poked and prodded by Scott Blair’s formidable legal team as they look for lies, or inconsistencies. Anything to damage K’s credibility. Anything to get their client acquitted.

The process is so awful that it makes me wonder why a teenage girl would go through this nightmare experience if her accusations are false. If she is making it up.

I’m Rachel Krall and this is Guilty or Not Guilty, the podcast that puts you in the jury box.

38

Rachel

The dark outlines of fishing trawlers moved slowly against a pink-tinged sky as Rachel did hamstring stretches by a bench overlooking the sea. Dawn was breaking over Neapolis on the most important day of the trial.