Fierce September (30 page)

Hate campaign
.

Oh well, we were either already doomed or about to be proved innocent. Might as well ask that too.

‘And I would also ask: are you helping to make people hate us by putting things you know to be untrue about us on the internet?’

The lawyer hurtled towards me. I cowered back, glad the dock was raised above floor level. A couple of cops sprang at him, wrestling him away from me. He seemed to collect himself, for he stood quite still for several seconds, breathing deeply.

‘I apologise. It’s all right, I won’t lose control again.’ The officers let him go but didn’t step away from him. He straightened his gown. ‘Never have I been so insulted. Never.’

‘It is a very serious accusation,’ the judge agreed. ‘If there is no substance for it, then Juno will face consequences that will be added to her sentence.’

Just then a young woman came in and handed a paper to the old man. From what I could see it was a computer printout. He handed it to the judge who said to Mr Hainsworth, ‘Please sit while I consider this report from the New Plymouth police.’

We waited. I held onto the ledge in front of me for support. I looked at my thirteen friends sitting there, acting as my lawyers.

Thank you.

Silvern was grinning at me, her eyes bright. She would do so much better than me up here.

The judge put the papers down. ‘Mr Hainsworth, you will be interested to know that the lie-detector test shows that Juno has told the truth about her involvement in the abduction of Willem Brasted.’ She ignored the hiss from the audience and went on. ‘The test shows that she helped save him and that she had no idea who harmed him.’

The lawyer raised his eyebrows and drawled, ‘With respect, Your Honour, I find I can’t place much credence in the test of a girl such as she is.’

‘The test was done on her and her three companions,’ the judge said. ‘All the results show that the young people rescued him, that they are in no way implicated in his abduction.’ She raised her hand to halt his protest. ‘We have accepted the reliability of this testing process for more than twenty years, sir. There is no reason now to question it.’ She waited for a second but he didn’t reply. She became brisk. ‘You will be wanting to clear your good name.’ Did she put an ever so slight stress on
good
? ‘And so I ask you if you are willing to take a lie-detector test yourself? I’m sure I have no need to remind you that the accusations Juno of Taris is making are serious in the extreme.’

I waited, heart thumping.

‘Well, Mr Hainsworth? Is there a problem?’

He put both hands to his head and groaned. ‘Of course there’s a problem, Your Honour! How can I be calm enough to take the test when my character has been so horribly impugned?’

‘By taking the test to prove the nature of your character, sir.’ She was firm. ‘Kindly make up your mind, but might I also remind you of the saying that mud sticks. You would, I think, be wise to scotch these rumours once and for all.’

I managed not to look at her, for I had the feeling she doubted him.

Brighton Hainsworth groaned again, and this time I heard the terror in it. I had no pity for him.

‘Very well. I have no choice. I shall take this test, distraught as I am, and I can only pray that my emotional state won’t affect the results.’

The judge sighed. ‘You know as well as I do that one’s emotional state has no effect on the test. But since your distress is real and evident, you may retire and calm yourself while I prepare the questions.’ She signalled to the police to escort him out of the room.

He walked past me without acknowledging me. I felt no hate from him, just a roiling mass of anxiety.

Welcome to the world you helped create, Mr Hainsworth
.

The judge put down her pen. ‘Juno, these charges are extremely serious. I must caution you that you will be in equally serious trouble if they are proved wrong.’

I leaned my elbows on the ledge because my legs were struggling to support me. ‘I know they are serious, Your Honour.’ A rush of energy surged through me and I straightened up. ‘They are every bit as serious as the charges against us over the internet. Charges we know are utterly false. We haven’t been able to defend ourselves and so everybody believes that we’ve done the dreadful things said about us.’ I dropped my voice. ‘What they say on the net is that I’m supposed to have agreed to a plot to release the virus that killed my grandmother. To me that is more wicked than anything I have accused Mr Hainsworth of. I loved my grandmother. I loved her dearly and I miss her.’ I couldn’t keep going.

The judge tsked. ‘I do hope the television audience relishes all the emotion of this court today, but I do not, young woman, and you will do well to remember that.’ But she took pity on me. ‘You may sit down while we wait.’

A policewoman led me to a chair beside the dock. I was glad to sit. I tried to smile at Mother. My mouth wouldn’t work. She was striving for calm. Hera reached up to stroke her face and whispered something. Mother relaxed. I felt cheered. Camnoon’s face was as serene as ever. My stratum all sat on the edges of their seats. They looked expectant, not worried. I hoped they were right to be so.

I kept my eyes away from the people behind my friends. They talked among themselves and sent spiteful looks in my direction.

Too late – it was too late if I was wrong. And if I was, then I had destroyed forever our chances of being able to live at peace in this country.
Don’t think of that, don’t think
of it.
But why this interminable delay? Would Brighton Hainsworth never come back? He’d been gone now for more than half an hour. The test would take less than a minute. What was happening?

I looked up at the judge. She was reading papers on her desk, her face calm.

The door behind me opened. I stood quickly and returned to the dock before the judge had time to order me to. It was lucky I did. Brighton Hainsworth was being escorted by two policemen who had trouble holding him even though his hands were cuffed behind his back. As he passed, he kicked the chair I’d been sitting on, making it fly across the room. He shouted, ‘Release me at once! This whole thing is a beat-up, can’t you see that, you stupid cops! Let me go or I’ll take you to court and have you clapped in jail for the rest of your miserable lives.’

The judge banged the gavel until he quietened. The policemen didn’t let him go.

‘The results of the test, please.’

The court clerk handed her a paper. She scanned it. There was a curious atmosphere in the room, an air of waiting, of expectancy – the rabid hate against me had vanished as everyone focused on the judge and the document in front of her. At last she raised her head.

‘Sir, you answered no to this question: “Brighton Hainsworth, did you knowingly infect another person with the pandemic virus?” That was a lie.’ She let the rush of chatter continue for several moments before she banged the gavel. Into the silence she read the next question. ‘You answered no to the question: “Have you at any time posted on the internet things which you knew to be untrue about the Taris group”. She waited a beat, but she looked shaken. ‘That too was a lie.’

I felt giddy. The blood seemed to have vanished from my head. I sank to the floor of the dock. The policewoman rushed over to help me up, then kept her arm around me as she led me to a chair. I sat down, trying to believe that now the hate would stop.

Noise buzzed through the room; the cameras swivelled, searching to catch shocked faces. The judge let it go on for perhaps a minute before she raised both her hands, palms out. It was more effective than the gavel. The chatter ceased.

‘First I will deal with the charges against Juno of Taris. Charge number one of breaking quarantine. This court deems that you have already been punished, first by being held in custody overnight and secondly by being subjected along with your compatriots to the abusive lies spread about you.’

I think I gaped at her.

She went on, ‘The second charge of conspiring to abduct Willem Brasted is dismissed. You are free to go.’

I burst into tears. The judge didn’t comment, but seemed to fix all her attention on the lawyer. ‘Brighton Hainsworth, you will be held in custody pending your trial. Officers, take him away.’ She waited while he was hustled, swearing and kicking, from the courtroom. Then she looked directly into the camera.

‘It is clear from today’s revelations that the hysteria regarding the Taris group has been whipped up by people such as Brighton Hainsworth for purposes of their own. I want to remind you that the facts,’ she stressed the word, ‘indicate that the people of Taris have done nothing wrong, nothing wicked. They did not bring the virus. They did not spread the virus. On the contrary, we owe them a debt of gratitude for their part in stopping the disease. Any further attempts to discredit them will be taken very seriously indeed. That is all. The court is adjourned.’

She left the room. 

C
HAOS ERUPTED. REPORTERS AND CAMeras dived at me, but the kindly policeman was there warding them off. ‘Juno,’ he said, ‘we need to get some answers from you. If you’ll come with me please.’

I stood up. Mother did too, saying, ‘We’ll all come. We have all had a part in what’s happened. You need to speak to us all.’

He opened a little gate in the barrier separating the seating from the court. ‘Follow me. All of you.’

Even Camnoon came. We made a crowd in a room too small for us. I sat on the floor, leaning against the wall with the rest of my stratum. Hera climbed on my lap.

‘Bad man. He’s mean.’

‘Yes darling. Hush, it’s all right now.’ I hoped it was, for I had used all my strength.

They brought food and drink before they questioned us: bread rolls, cake and tea. I ate everything. No breakfast and too much emotion make for a huge hunger.

The man who questioned us was Superintendent Smithson whom Mother had demanded to speak to only last night. He went through our story piece by piece. I was relieved to let Silvern, Marba and Paz answer the questions. When Biddo had to explain how he’d found the lists, Superintendent Smithson raised his eyebrows. ‘Impressive.’

We came to Hera’s part in it. Mother said, ‘Willem warned us not to tell of her unusual abilities. He said it could be dangerous. Please – if you can – will you keep her out of it?’

He didn’t promise, but he smiled when Hera said, ‘Willem’s my friend.’

Somebody knocked on the door and came in. ‘The media, sir. Want to know if you’ll be holding a press conference.’

‘Yes. When I’ve finished here.’

‘They want to talk to the Taris people too, sir.’

‘Of course they do, Grantham. They’ll just have to wait.’

But the questioning was nearly done. Then Superintendent Smithson told us what to expect from the media over the next few days. It sounded daunting. ‘I advise you to make a statement now. I’ll be able to protect you to some extent. Who is your spokesperson?’

Camnoon said, ‘I will speak for us.’ He smiled briefly at Silvern. ‘Silvern, I know you would do it better, but I think this is a case where restraint will win the day over excessive emotion.’

She bowed her head. ‘I comply with your wisdom, Camnoon.’ Then she grinned at him. ‘Although it’ll kill me to keep my mouth shut.’

It felt good to have a reason to laugh again.

The superintendent led us out of the room, down a corridor and back into the courtroom. It was jammed with people and cameras. We lined up in front of the bench. The superintendent stood above us on the dais where the judge had sat. But what he said next astonished us, made me furious too. Beside me, Silvern hissed.

The authorities knew from the start that we were innocent, he said. The dates of our arrival didn’t match the onset of the pandemic. At first, the police thought the pandemic was just a terrible coincidence, but they let the hate against us rage while they tried to track down its source. ‘The group who carried out the bombing refused to speak. They maintained they acted alone, but the hate-speak all over the net always suggested otherwise. We were unable, despite our best efforts, to track the accusations to any person. Until today.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘You will be as shocked as I am at the revelation that this latest pandemic has been deliberately spread by a group of people in the country. A group who clearly wanted to blame the Taris group.’

‘Any idea why, sir?’

‘No. Nothing at present.’

The questions kept coming, fired from all over the room. Then somebody called out, ‘Can we hear from the Taris people?’

Camnoon stepped forward. ‘I am Camnoon, one of the elders of Taris and one of the original settlers.’ He spoke of the deep distress we had suffered from the accusations. ‘We are a people of peace. Such deeds as we have been accused of form no part of who we are. We owe our lives to the people of Aotearoa. We seek to honour that by being good citizens, people who contribute to the well-being of all. That is how we have lived our lives and that is how we continue to live our lives.’

But they wanted facts, they wanted a story. In the end, Silvern got her wish, but Camnoon’s dignity tempered her telling. She didn’t indulge in dramatics, and the story of the attack on Mother and of finding Willem was chilling and powerful because of it.

They wanted to know how we had known Willem was on the train. Without a moment’s hesitation, Silvern said, ‘We didn’t know, but we’d overheard something in town that day –
They’re sending Willem to New Plymouth
then?
We tried to contact him after Sheen was attacked and we got worried when he didn’t reply.’