Page 91 of Just Another Missing Person

“It is the prosecution’s view here today that there is no case to answer,” Patricia explains primly. A surprised murmur travels around the courtroom.

Julia’s chest pops clean with shocked relief. No case to answer. How can that be? The CPS won’t bring a case if they don’t believe in it. Something must have changed. Julia stares and stares at Patricia, trying to work it out. How can it be that a bullet has sailed past her, just missing her? She’s been lucky enough to see it, and feel the shiver as it passed.

She blinks, shakes her head.

Outside is pitch-black now, night fully descended by half past four. The courtroom is overly heated, stuffy. Julia waits for the prosecution to confirm what they mean.

“It is the prosecution’s view that the evidence against the defendant is insubstantial,” Patricia continues. Julia blinks. She isn’t dreaming. It’s really happening. “Despite her full confession and the evidence of the victim’s brother, the defense is likely to say, at the end of our case, that there is no case to answer, and so the State is minded to do so now, to save a jury’s time, and everybody’s costs.” Her jaw is set intoa hard line, as though she is tense. Julia tilts her head, looking over at Patricia and thinking.

“That seems like fairly substantial evidence, to me,” the judge says.

“Not so. The confession won’t be admissible. No other witnesses. Evidence Mr. Zac Jones’s sepsis was exacerbated partially by poor wound care and subsequent substance abuse.”

“But you brought the case to trial,” the judge says mildly.

“At this juncture, we don’t believe there would be enough to convince a jury beyond all reasonable doubt,” Patricia says, but her expression is sour.

“So your submission is—the State drops all charges against the defendant now?” the judge asks. “On a causation point?”

“That’s right,” Patricia says crisply.

“Very well,” he says. He takes his glasses off. “Though one wonders why we got this far at all.”

“Your Honor, sometimes things become crystal clear only when one is faced with the immediacy of them,” Patricia says evenly. “Many a defendant has changed their plea at the door of the courtroom.”

“All right, then,” the judge says slowly, wiping his glasses with the end of his red sash. “So be it,” he adds. Julia understands the logic—many defendantsdoplead guilty on the day of trial, and they get ten percent off their sentence for doing so. But none of this has come from Julia. Is news to her, in fact.

“Julia Day,” the judge says. “You are free to go.”

At this, at these unambiguous words, her head drops on to her chest, like somebody’s cut a string that was holding it up. Who cares about the logic, the reason of it? There was never any logic to any of this mess that started with Genevieve’scrime and ended with Price’s. Julia, for all her cynicism, for all her doggedness, is trying to learn to trust the good news when it comes her way, to treat it like a friend, to regard it without suspicion.

That night, the night it all unraveled, Price had arrived. He’d been following Julia, worrying about her involvement with Nines, a gang member selling fullz on the black market who Julia was sure could lead them to the person behind it all.

Price had used the element of surprise to grab the gun from Jonathan, and had shot him in the head, close range, right there, near his house on the beach; nobody knew it was him except Julia. The police would assume suicide: Price had used Jonathan’s gun, cleaned off his prints and left it lying beside him, in his right hand. They would conclude that Jonathan had realized Julia was on to him, and took his own life rather than go to prison.

It didn’t seem to matter to Price that Julia had betrayed him. When he found out she was in danger, he acted to save her, and take her home to safety. Nobody would ever know she’d been there. It was the same way he had always been with her: acting from the heart. As loyal as they come.

It would have been easy to extricate herself from corruption, morally: she knew she had found Sadie. She could find plenty of evidence that connected Jonathan to Sadie, and she knew Matthew would testify, too, now that Jonathan was dead.

But doing the easy thing doesn’t come naturally to Julia and, that night, she kept herself awake again, this time thinking not about Sadie or Lewis or Andrew or Emma but about Zac, instead.

And, after that, Julia had thought: this is enough. She was blackmailable, corruptible, bent. It could never happen again. She could never allow herself to have so much to lose again.

“I’ve got to come clean,” she’d said to Art that night on their bed, imploring him. And she had meant it, only her crime had been protecting her daughter, and not herself.

To her surprise, he hadn’t judged her. Hadn’t suggested that her occupation had finally pulled her into the underworld she’d spent two decades fighting. He’d simply said: “I know. I love you. I wish you’d told me.”

And Julia does, too. The fractures in their marriage had begun long before his affair. Cracks born out of her work and his resentment, and then her secret-keeping. Julia didn’t know the answers to these problems yet, but perhaps Art did.

So she had handed herself in, said she stabbed Zac, that she’d threatened him. She knew his brother wouldn’t care whether it was her or Genevieve: she is his true enemy, after all, clearly.

And now here she is. In the dock, her family up there in the public gallery. Art’s looking down at her. Last night, before the trial began, he showed her something he had ordered for their bedroom: a skylight, just like at their old house. “To sleep under. And to worry under,” he had said. “Builders coming next week to do it.”

Julia had leaned against him like a baby animal with no strength in its legs. Both because of the gesture to save their marriage, and because of the faith that she would be found innocent, would be sleeping in their bedroom again any time soon.

“I won’t change,” she’d said to him, their hands linked. “If I get off—if I stay policing. You know? It won’t change. You marry me, you marry the police.”

“I don’t care,” Art had said, Julia thinks genuinely. That was the moment she had realized that things may change between them. He’d read every newspaper article aboutthe Sadie story, about Julia’s role in uncovering it. And he’d witnessed Lewis’s blissful happiness himself, when he had come over to thank Julia.

---