Page 53 of Cuckoo

I am ushered back into one of the small, beige consultation rooms behind the courtroom by my assigned security. Grosvenor and her junior are waiting for me and she is pacing up and down excitedly.

‘An early finish! It’s a good sign. We’re rattling Dodgson, debunking his argument that you were angry and emotional when you arrived at the house. He’s going to spend the rest of today looking for another angle to pursue,’ Grosvenor tells me enthusiastically. It’s the first time I’ve seen her look soalive, brown eyes shining and her thin mouth curved up in a Cheshire Cat grin.

‘What do you think he’s going to try and say tomorrow?’ I ask warily.

‘Whatever it is, we’ll have rebuttals,’ she tells me confidently, pouring herself a cup of water from the dispenser in the corner. She takes a long sip before leaning over her documents. ‘Let’s get to work, team.’

‘My mother is coming,’ I said smugly to the little girl standing next to me. Our teacher was busy securing my ridiculous lion headdress. ‘She can’t wait to see me because I’m the lion,’ I added, as though it wasn’t obvious.

The girl nodded but I was sure she couldn’t possibly understand. After all, she was just a chorus deer. I was the lion, with lines to say and everything.

I was nine and it was the school play: a strange story written by our drama teacher, set in a jungle where a pride of lions decides to become vegetarian and live in harmony with their neighbours, the dancing deer. In hindsight, it was a way for her to push her own vegan agenda, but at age nine, invited to take one of the most coveted parts, I didn’t care. All I cared about was that Mother had promised to be there and had spent a surprisingly undramatic afternoon helping me make my costume. I couldn’t wait for her to see me up on that stage, performing, being successful. She might even be proud of me.

So the lights went down and I waited nervously backstage, hopping from foot to foot and fiddling with my fake paws.

The zebra had gone out and introduced the play and I waited until it was my first moment onstage. I marched out proudly, swinging my butt a little to give my tail some impetus. I tried to look out into the audience but the spotlights were blinding and the audience one dark mass of unrecognisable silhouettes. I decided to ignore it. Mother was out there, I knew she was. So I carried on regardless, and gave it my all. I roared and I sang and I leapt and I laughed, and the audience clapped and I imagined her clapping along, perhaps nudging the couple next to her and saying proudly, ‘That lion there, that’s my daughter!’

But at the very end when the house lights came up and we were on our final song– in which we interacted with the audience, running down the aisles and throwing confetti on everyone– I saw a couple of newcomers stumble through the doors at the back and my heart sank. I heard a shrill giggle and knew for sure it was Mother. A few of the other parents turned and shot disapproving frowns in her direction. She deflected them by exaggeratedly shushing her companion, a man I had not seen before. I stood onstage blinking, unsure what to do. She didn’t even notice me, staggering along a row to protests from the other parents as she tried to find two vacant seats.

When the song was over, everyone rushed out to meet their parents, praise and laughter filling the air. I sat at the back of the hall behind the costume rails, my arms folded, not wanting to see her. She had missed the entire performance.

Eventually, she came looking for me. She reeked of alcohol and cigarettes, and was stumbling a little in heels that werehigher than any the other mums had been wearing. Her date stood back a little awkwardly, nodding to me.

‘Darling!’ she called musically, loud enough for the parents nearby to turn and look. ‘Oh, Claire, darling, you were just wonderful! What a fantastic little cougar you were!’ She laughed a little too loudly, teeth bared as she did so.

‘Good job, kid,’ her date added.

‘I was a lion,’ I corrected her quietly, but she hadn’t heard me. She hadn’t seen me at all. All this praise was not for my benefit. I had trusted her when she’d promised to come, trusted that she would be there to support me. But instead she had gone on a date, got drunk, and forgotten all about me until it was too late.

I decided that day that I wouldn’t trust her again. If you don’t trust people, they can’t let you down.

Now I study Grosvenor’s determined expression and feel a flicker of fear in my belly. I’m having to trust her, this random woman whose only loyalty to me comes from her pay check, to prove I did not murder Lilah.

Chapter Forty-Seven

The next morning our start time is postponed several times until it’s fixed at 11.30. We’re told this is at the request of the prosecution. ‘Dodgson could just be trying to rattle us or to buy himself more time because he’s so concerned about the evidence,’ Grosvenor tells me conspiratorially.

The delay makes my stomach roil in nervous anticipation, and even though she remains outwardly calm I can tell by the way that Grosvenor keeps shifting pens on the desk before her in the consultation room that she, too, is concerned.

By the time the trial resumes I’m a jumpy, nervous wreck, desperate to know what prosecuting counsel’s new line of attack will be.

When I see the next witness walking down the aisle, I recognise her instantly, and know for sure that this round of questioning is not going to go in my favour.

Maggie Thurnwall

Maggie is slowly walking down the aisle in the courtroom, taking her time, as though my entire future isn’t hanging in the balance. Bloody Maggie, the receptionist who caused arift between Noah and me. One of the very few times we quarrelled.

She is wearing a plain grey dress suit, similar to the one she used to wear when she prevented me from visiting him during working hours. She gives me a look of open disgust, wrinkling her nose in disdain, before taking her place and nodding to the prosecution to begin, as though we’re all here at her command. As though she’s the judge. It annoys me, how uptight and pretentious she is, but I’m hoping we can get this over with quickly. In and out. I’m not sure how much more I can stand to listen to before my ability to remain calm and detached is tested too far. My jaw tightens.

‘Mrs Thurnwall, please will you share with the courtroom how you came to know Claire Arundale?’ Dodgson says, one polished brogue tapping lightly on the floor as though to hurry proceedings along.

‘I worked at Pulitzer Haas as their receptionist for three years. Before I left, I came to know Claire around October of 2024. She was infatuated with one of our employees, Noah Coors.’

Oh, so I’m on trial for loving my fiancé?I refrain from rolling my eyes.

‘What do you mean by infatuated?’

‘Well, at first she didn’t actually come in, you see. But I noticed her loitering around outside the building. It’s my job to notice things like that, suspicious behaviour in and around the premises, you know. I noticed her particularly because she had this bright red peacoat she always wore and so it stood out. Anyway, the first time she was just sitting outsideeating her lunch, nothing special. But then she came back every day after that. A lot of people eat in the courtyard outside the office, of course, but it was the way she sat facing the entrance every day. As though she was waiting for someone, looking for someone.’

---