Chapter 27

I didn't thinkthat I would have been able to face any of the trial without having Tom by my side every step of the way. The press coverage of it had been very much on the side of how a big strong man could have fought off a poor little woman.

The more that came out, the more the press tried to push it to me being the one in the wrong. My sexuality was called into question. It was assumed that I led her on when I was drunk. It was assumed that it was some kind of weird love triangle with me and her ex-husband, some even suggested that we were a thruple. It had been an almighty shit show from start to finish, and Christ knew what they were going to say once the evidence I was about to give was reported on. Hopefully they would just lose interest.

Now, standing in the dock in the High Court in Glasgow, I really wasn't sure how much they would be forgetting this story. I gave my affirmation that I promised to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Advocate McAdams then took over and started to ask me about what happened.

"Were you aware of Mrs Gibson before your encounter on the night in question?" he asked.

I glanced at Tom in the gallery, took a deep breath and began to tell them my story.

"I was."

"And can you tell me in which capacity you were aware of her?"

"I first met Mrs Gibson when she was a teenager as part of a prize the boy band I was in had offered to her." My hands started to shake as I spoke.

"That was the prize of a date with yourself and the other members of your band, was it not?"

"It was."

"And are there any other times that you have been aware of Mrs Gibson?" he asked.

"Yes, very recently Mrs Gibson has been sending me gifts, notes, and flowers. When I started my recent tour, she got into my hotel room and left things on the bed for me." I squeezed my hands together trying to get them to stop trembling.

"Was she authorised to be in your hotel room?" Advocate McAdams asked.

"No, Sir."

"What was it that she left in the room?"

"There was a note, flowers, chocolates, and a bottle of champagne. There was also a card, and a framed photo of the time I met her at the date she won."

"Sounds like the kind of gift one might leave for someone you're in a relationship with. Were you ever in a relationship with Mrs Gibson?"

"No," I answered, shaking my head.

"You mentioned that she left you some champagne."

"Yes," I confirmed, my mouth starting to get dry.

"The gift of champagne for a recovering alcoholic?"

"Objection, My Lord. Was that a question, or a statement from Advocate McAdams?" Natasha's solicitor interjected. The judge agreed and asked Advocate McAdams to stick to asking questions.

"Apologies, My Lord, I will rephrase," McAdams replied. "Mr Love, are you a recovering alcoholic?"

"I am," I admitted.

"Is your struggle with that particular addiction well known?" he asked.

"It was covered widely in the press at the time and was one of the reasons I left the band that I was in. I would imagine it was pretty well known." My palms got sticky with sweat as I rubbed them together.

"So, as someone with a keen interest in your life and well being, Mrs Gibson would be well aware of your issues and subsequent recovery?" he suggested.

"I would assume so. It was front page news for a while," I pointed out.

"And as someone who is a recovering alcoholic, would you expect someone that professed to love you and care about you to leave you the gift of a bottle of alcoholic beverage?"

"No, Sir, I would not. It would be the opposite of what I would expect of someone in that situation," I agreed, licking my lips trying to get some moisture back in my mouth.

"And what did you do when you discovered that the defendant had been in your hotel room?"

"I called the owners of my record label," I answered.

"Not the police?" McAdams countered.

I shook my head. "I guess I was in shock. I honestly didn't know what to do about it, but on top of the other things that I had received from Mrs Gibson, I was worried that this was getting worse and wanted their advice on the best thing to do about it."

"And what did they suggest?"

Again, Natasha's Advocate interrupted with an objection, saying it was hearsay, which the Judge agreed with.

"Apologies again, My Lord. What happened after you called the owners of the record label?" he corrected.

"I went to the manager's room and the police were contacted."

"Did you call the police?"

"No, Alex and Johnny – the owners of the label," I corrected, "they did that."

Question after question was asked about what had happened after that initial night in my hotel room. Had I seen her again, had anything else happened? I did my best to be as clear as I could with the answers that I gave. Slowly but surely the questions crept towards the night where I was ushered into the back of the car with Natasha waiting inside.

"Now, Mr Love, on the night of the twenty-seventh of April, you were performing in O2 Academy in Glasgow. Is that correct?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"And as Mr Thatcher made us aware during his testimony, he was not present when you left the stage that night, is that correct?"

"Yes, he had been called away." I was trying not to panic about what was coming. I looked again to Tom in the gallery. He smiled and gave me a double thumbs up, mouthing ‘you're doing great' back at me.

"Mr Love, in your own words, can you walk us through what you told the police happened that night?"

I took a deep breath and bowed my head for a moment, summoning up the calm I was going to need to get through the next part of my testimony.

"When I got off the stage after the concert, I asked where Mr Thatcher was, as he was usually there to accompany me. I went to my dressing room to use the bathroom and collect my things. While there someone came into the room and told me there had been a sighting of Mrs Gibson in the venue, and I needed to leave via the fire escape opposite and get into the car waiting for me outside."

"And do you know who it was that came into your dressing room?" McAdams asked.

"Yes, it was Mr Trevor Gibson," I confirmed.

"And what happened once you got into the car?"

"I discovered that it was Mrs Gibson in the driver's seat. She threatened me. She told me that she was taking me somewhere that we could talk."

"Was she armed?" McAdams prompted.

I sighed. "She had a gun."

"Did you fear for your life?"

"Yes." My voice trembled.

"Did she say or do anything else that made you concerned?"

"We parked in a car park and waited for Mr Gibson to arrive. But when he did, she pointed the gun at him and told him there had been a change of plan. Instead of him getting in the car with us as he seemed to suggest he had been meant to, she drove off without him. He seemed shocked that she did that."

"Where did Mrs Gibson take you?"

"To a cottage in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea where I was."

"Didn't it cross your mind to escape? You're taller than Mrs Gibson, couldn't you have overpowered her and got away?" he asked, beating her Advocate to the punch. This way it appeared more sympathetic to me.

"It did. But I didn't know where I was, I didn't know if she knew the area more than I did. She was armed with a gun; I didn't want to antagonise her into using it. I thought I might stand a better chance of survival if I just did what she said."

"Was the gunshot wound the only injury that you received from Mrs Gibson?" he prompted again.

"No, she hit me with the butt of the gun two or three times across my face," I confirmed.

Advocate McAdams looked to the court and to Natasha as she sat beside her own Advocate. "Why couldn't you defend yourself from the blow, Mr Love?"

"Mrs Gibson had tied me to a chair."

"I would like to draw the court's attention to exhibits ten through twenty-seven. Photographs taken at the crime scene showing the chair and rope in situ, and the injuries sustained by Mr Love that go hand in hand with his testimony here today."

On the large screen in the courtroom which Tom had said was used to show maps and CCTV footage of my abduction when he was testifying, the images McAdams was discussing appeared. I thought I had been prepared to see them—I had been warned that they were coming, I had been shown them in private. But there was something about them being presented to everyone publicly that made my heart start to pound in my chest. I looked away from the images. I tried to look away from the gaze of all the people, but suddenly it was too much to deal with.

"Mr Love, are you feeling alright?" the judge asked me as I started to sway on my feet.

"My Lord, perhaps we can have a minute." I heard McAdams say as the room started to spin. The Judge agreed and Advocate McAdams started to approach me with a glass of water in his hand. I wanted to reach out and take it from him, but my legs buckled from under me, and I slumped down into the stand.

"Lennox? Lennox are you alright?" I heard McAdams' voice full of concern. I couldn't slow my breathing down enough to answer him. Panic had adrenaline coursing through my system. Every inch of me was trembling.

The Judge announced a one-hour recess and asked people to clear the courtroom.

"I – need – Tom," I stuttered out between breaths. McAdams looked at the public gallery where Tom was standing, staring at me unmoving, and gestured for him to come down.

The Advocate called over to someone else, "Can you get Mr Thatcher here please, and it might be worthwhile to get one of the first aiders in."

"It's – panic," I stumbled out.

An indiscriminate amount of time passed, and suddenly Tom was beside me.

"Shhh," he soothed, taking my hands in his own. "Remember that first day I met you. What did we do? Remember?"

I tried to nod in reply, but I wasn't sure that it was recognisable. Tom squeezed my hand tighter. "Breathe in through your nose." He did what he had told me to do. "Hold," he reminded me. "Out through your mouth," he told me, making an exaggerated example of what he was saying. "In through your nose, hold it, out through your mouth."

I kept looking at him and let the sound of his voice soothe me, following his instructions until my breathing settled into a more normal pace, and my heart rate started to come down. I could feel my eyes starting to prickle with tears.

"I'm sorry," I uttered as a lone tear trickled over my cheek.

Tom cupped my face, wiped the tear with his thumb, and stared into my eyes. "You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. This is panic at seeing what a cruel thing that woman did to you, reminding you of what happened. Your body is just trying to defend you. Don't dare say sorry, you're simply trying to survive."

A first aider appeared over Tom's shoulder. "I think we're okay now," Tom replied to their arrival without even looking over his shoulder. "Aren't we?" he asked me.

Silently I nodded. He handed me the water that McAdams had approached with earlier. "Drink this slowly."

Again, I listened, and did what he told me, sipping at the cool water, giving my body the time it needed to settle. Slowly the staccato nature of my breathing started to disappear, the trembling of my hands started to pass, and my legs returned to a solid form again, capable of taking my weight.

"Ready to stand?" Tom asked.

"Yes," I replied, as Tom took the glass from me and handed it to McAdams who was still standing on hand in case he was needed for anything.

"Big breath." Tom smiled at me grabbing my forearms with his hands, encouraging me to lock my grip on his arms in the same way. I took a deep breath and Tom pulled me to my feet. For the briefest of moments I swayed until my balance settled and I was able to be released and stand under my own power.

"I'm so embarrassed," I announced.

"Don't be," McAdams replied. "You'd be surprised how many times it can happen. You're not the first to go down in the witness box, and I can guarantee, you'll not be the last." He smiled genuinely at me. "Do you want to continue? We have ways to work around it if you don't."

I shook my head and took Tom's hand in mine. "No, I want to see it through. I just wasn't expecting it to hit me like that is all. But I want to finish this. I have to."

McAdams bowed his head once in acknowledgement. "Let me go and talk to the court and inform them that you would like to proceed."

"Are you really okay?" Tom asked once the Advocate was out of earshot.

"It was seeing the blood on the scene, knowing that it almost cost me my life, seeing the injuries. I actively avoided looking in the mirror after it happened, because it was a reminder of it all. And I know that they showed me the photos in the trial prep, but it's different seeing them here, feeling like everyone is looking at me and at them. It started to feel like I was on trial, not her."

Tom's arms surrounded me, and he pulled me in against him, hugging me tightly. "You did nothing wrong. I know that the press make it seem different and that everyone assumes things about it. Until you've had a gun pointed at you, you have no idea how you'll react."

A sudden thought came to my mind. "Have you been shot?" I asked him, pulling back from his hug.

A wincing smile crossed his face. "The scar on my shoulder."

"You told me that was a car accident!" I stared at him in shock.

"I mean it was, I crashed the car because they shot me."

My eyes widened. "You are not funny. Why didn't you tell me the truth?"

"I didn't want to be that person that makes it all about them. You didn't ask about it until you were healing well, and I didn't want you to think too much about it happening to anyone else."

I shook my head. I got that he was trying to protect me. But he was still a twat for hiding it. "Any other courtroom revelations?"

He chuckled softly. "No, that will do us."

I glared at him with a hint of humour on my face, a smirk almost forming on.

"Come on. Court is back in twenty minutes, and we can get you some fresh air before that." He smiled and led me slowly from the courtroom.