Page 86 of The Vet from Snowy River
That had been when her belief in herself disintegrated.
Sue dug a lacquered talon into her leg and it snapped her back into the present. ‘You’re up,’ she hissed.
‘We’ll now hear the matter of Vera De Rossi,’ said the magistrate. ‘Is Vera in the courtroom?’
She stood up. ‘Yes, Your Honour.’
‘The charge against you is brought about by private prosecution; do you understand what that means?’
‘Yes. The police haven’t charged me with an offence, instead a private citizen has done so.’
‘Do you understand that the Department of Public Prosecutions can step in at any stage and take over prosecuting these charges?’
‘Yes, Your Honour.’
‘And you have legal representation, I see.’
She was beginning to feel like a parrot—an anxious parrot in a black wool dress slightly moth-eaten on one sleeve. ‘Yes, Your Honour.’
‘You have been charged with a crime under theSurveillance Devices Act of 2007,namely installing a listening device to record a private conversation. How do you plead?’
She swallowed. This was it, the crossing of the line. ‘I plead not guilty, Your Honour.’
The magistrate nodded. ‘Trial date will be set in due course. Dismissed. The court will take a short recess and be back in session at ten am.’
‘Okay, that’s done, let’s go,’ said Sue.
‘That’s it? So quick?’
‘That’s court for you. Wait six hours for a two-second appearance. Come on, you can buy me a coffee and we can begin our two-day strategy blitz.’
‘Can we wait a moment? Just until Aaron and Sykes get clear of the building. I can’t face them.’
‘Vera, my pet, my love, my girl. A word of advice.’
Oh heck. Sue was going to make her be brave.
‘You’ve got to look at that dickhead ex-boyfriend of yours, and look hard, Vera. Get used to it. The more you face him, the easier it will be for you, and guess what?’
‘What?’ She whispered it, because the court clerk was frowning at them.
‘Here’s the icing on the cake bit … the more you look at him, really look, the harder it’s going to be for him. That’s the thing about being a scumbag. Deep down inside, below that reptilian part of his brain where his advertising revenue means more to him than his self-respect, heknowshe’s just a scumbag now. And you looking at him is going to remind him of that every time. Use that power, Vera.’
Crap. Okay, she could do this. She stood up, turned, and her eyes looked straight into his dark brown ones.
His hair was short, almost soldier short, and his suit snappy, as though he’d ditched journalism to sell upscale real estate. The other thing that struck her was how … weak he seemed. As though the outer slickness was a showy cover to stop people seeing the lack of substance beneath. She tried to imagine him running into a burning building to bundle baby animals into his pockets and snorted. He’d never do it. Not for an animal, not for a person. Never for her.
Their relationship had sparked into existence shortly after Aaron moved to the newspaper. Flowers, drinks, a crazy Sunday date laughing their way through food trucks and music gigs at a local brewery open day. Promises hadn’t been spoken, vows hadn’t been said … but promises could be made in other ways, and she’d made them; thought he’d made them in return. When she made breakfast for a guy in her sun-filled apartment, wearing nothing but his shirt, she was promising ‘I care for you’. She thought she was being promised ‘you can trust me’ in return. Why else give her flowers? Hold her hand on afternoon walks through Tallaganda National Park? Plait her hair, cook her risotto, bring her almond croissants from a bakery all the way over in Canberra?
He’d not meant any of it.
Vera wiped her damp palms on her skirt. ‘Okay, eye contact made, but I think that’s my bravery just about worn through, Sue. Let’s get out of here.’
‘You got it.’
CHAPTER
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