Innocence Read Online Free Page B

episode sound much worse than it had been. She also admitted she had been just eighteen at the time, as well, and, as he remembered, she’d said she was twenty-­three.
    Besides, he had been impotent and violent only with Maggie. They could have brought on any number of other women to testify to his gentleness and virility, though no doubt if they did, he thought, his promiscuity would count just as much against him. What did he have to do to appear as normal as he needed to be, as he had once thought he was?
    The witnesses for the prosecution all arose to testify against Reed like the spirits from Virgil’s world of the dead. Though they were still alive, they seemed more like spirits to him: insubstantial, unreal. The woman from the bridge identified him as the shifty-­looking person who had asked her what time the schools came out; the Indian waiter and the landlord of the pub told how agitated Reed had looked and acted that evening; other ­people had spotted him in the street, apparently following the murdered girl and her friend. Mr. Hakim was there to tell the court what kind of videos Reed had rented lately—including School’s Out —and even Bill told how his colleague used to make remarks about the schoolgirls passing by: “You know, he’d get all excited about glimpsing a bit of black knicker when the wind blew their skirts up. It just seemed like a bit of a lark. I thought nothing of it at the time.” Then he shrugged and gave Reed a pitying look. And as if all that weren’t enough, there was Maggie, a shabby Dido, refusing to look at him as she told the court of the way he had abused and abandoned her.
    Towards the end of the prosecution case, even Reed’s barrister was beginning to look depressed. He did his best in cross-­examination, but the damnedest thing was that they were all telling the truth, or their versions of it. Yes, Mr. Hakim admitted, other ­people had rented the same videos. Yes, he might have even watched some of them himself. But the fact remained that the man on trial was Terence J. Reed, and Reed had recently rented a video called School’s Out , the kind of thing, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that you wouldn’t want to find your husbands or sons watching.
    Reed could understand members of the victim’s community appearing against him, and he could even comprehend Maggie’s hurt pride. But why Hakim and Bill? What had he ever done to them? Had they never really liked him? It went on and on, a nightmare of distorted truth. Reed felt as if he had been set up in front of a funfair mirror, and all the jurors could see was his warped and twisted reflection. I’m innocent, he kept telling himself as he gripped the rail, but his knuckles turned whiter and whiter and his voice grew fainter and fainter.
    Hadn’t Bill joined in the remarks about schoolgirls? Wasn’t it all in the spirit of fun? Yes, of course. But Bill wasn’t in the dock. It was Terence J. Reed who stood accused of killing an innocent fifteen-­year-­old schoolgirl. He had been in the right place at the right time, and he had passed remarks on the budding breasts and milky thighs of the girls who had crossed the road in front of their office every day.
    Then, the morning before the defense case was about to open —Reed himself was set to go into the dock, and not at all sure by now what the truth was—a strange thing happened.
    Bentley and Rodmoor came softly into the courtroom, tiptoed up to the judge and began to whisper. Then the judge appeared to ask them questions. They nodded. Rodmoor looked in Reed’s direction. After a few minutes of this, the two men took seats and the judge made a motion for the dismissal of all charges against the accused. Pandemonium broke out in court: reporters dashed for phones and the spectators’ gallery buzzed with speculation. Amid it all, Terry Reed got to his feet, realized what had