The Grave is my Witness

CHAPTER 1

WHAT LIES AHEAD

The silence in the dark of the night was disturbed by a gentle shudder of the closed bedroom door. It stopped almost as soon as it began. It shuddered again but this time it was much louder. In the short time before it stopped Jemma Jones had opened her eyes. It was the only part of her body that moved. She was trying to remember when, if at all, she slept with her bedroom door closed.

Suddenly flashes of light shone through the gap underneath the door. Before her brain could process that event, there was a loud single bang against the door. She did not move, and her heart raced as if it wanted to sever itself and to escape what was happening

Then began loud and frenzied scratching at the door, and vicious snarling sounds of a wild beast that was closing in on its prey but unable to complete the capture

And as suddenly as it began, the silence and darkness returned. Jemma dared not move even if she had a choice to do so. Whatever that was might be still out there, and the slightest movement might encourage a repeat performance, and perhaps successful at that.

She stared into the darkness until exhaustion closed her eyes and she fell into a deep sleep

That morning the events of the night were on her mind constantly. She had never had such a nightmare, nor was it such a real one. Was it some kind of an omen of things to come, of being hunted down alone? She fought to keep the episode off her mind, but each time it fought back. This continued until later that morning when she was driving along Main Street, when a truce was declared in that particular battle, and her thoughts turned to matters which were more imminent and troubling.

Jemma couldn’t recall ever driving along Main Street on a Wednesday morning. She wasn’t actually driving, because she was seated in the back seat on the left hand side. She couldn’t drive because she wasn’t old enough to hold a licence, but it wasn’t that far into the future before she would be able to sit for, and obtain, a drivers licence. But she thought she could drive in an emergency because the process seemed simple and methodical. Get keys. First find them, because her mother was always looking for them, especially when she was in a hurry. Insert key and turn to right, let go and listen for the engine come to life. No need to look at all the dials and lights on the dashboard. Her mother never did, and maybe that’s why she sometimes ran out of petrol, and sometimes when she had breakdown assistance she was told about the ‘warning light’. Move lever into gear, handbrake off, foot off brake and press the other pedal, and the car is in motion. Reverse the process when the ride is over. Nothing to it!

This time her mother’s sister was driving. Her mother sat up front next to her. It was an unusually quite journey because the circumstances were unusual. At this time of the morning, which was not long after 9am, Jemma would be in class. Her mother would be at work. Jemma could not recall ever being a passenger in a car with her mother being driven by her sister. She glanced at the rest of the seat to her right. Rubbish spread across the seat and had cascaded onto the floor. She studied the mess in some detail. It was mostly junk, candy wrappers, some with partially eaten candy still in the wrapper, chip packets some obviously empty but one that was not, empty drink bottles and cans, and scrunched up paper. There were other single random items, the largest being a folding umbrella, its shape suggesting that it may never be opened again with ease, or at all. Seeing that some, perhaps a lot, were hers, Jemma turned her attention to the outside.

Normally at this time of the day Main Street would be reasonably quiet. As they approached their destination every parking place was occupied, and there was movement of more people than usual. Jemma was drawn into looking at outside objects paying greater attention to them than she had ever before. It was like playing ‘I spy’ when she was much younger, except it was in much more detail. For the first time she noticed that the roofs of building were dirty, sometimes so dirty that the colour underneath was indiscernible. Not only did she notice that there was new growth of leaves on the trees, she noticed how bright green and fragile they were compared to when they reached maturity. In contrast to the new shiny green leaves she observed that the parked cars were not so new and definitely not so shiny. She wondered what the point was in washing a car. A clean car only became dirty again, but it still worked as well as when it was clean. People seemed to be walking faster than usual, and occasionally some would turn and look in her direction without breaking their stride. Her gaze was set on these people until she noticed ahead a large mass of people, and most were looking in her direction.

This will do her aunt said, breaking the silence and trying to be uplifting at the same time, rock star parking. She swung the car into a space marked out with red traffic cones, as directed by a traffic controller. There were others mixed with police milling around the area, directing traffic, controlling crowds, answering questions, checking things, and pointing in directions this way and that.

As Jemma and her mother opened their doors, almost simultaneously, her aunt called out good luck, and as soon as the doors were slammed shut the car pulled away, slowly because of the crowd.

‘Good luck’ resonated in Jemmas’ head. She hoped that what lay ahead wasn’t going to be determined solely by luck. The more that she thought about luck the more she dismissed the concept of luck until she convinced herself that luck would play no part.

Her mother held her hand and they walked briskly from where they alighted, across the footpath, their eyes fixed on the steps that were to be encountered. The steps led upwards to a white building, its entry point was flanked by towering open large heavy timber doors.

Before reaching the top of the steps, Jemma knew that people were looking, perhaps staring, at her, but she avoided looking in their direction. She heard voices, knowing that they were directed at her, or about her, but either by choice or circumstance, they were just merely noise and nothing more. Before passing through the entry she glanced to her left and saw on a notice board her name, followed by the words bnf and then her mothers’ name. The letters looked peculiar. She would not have known what they meant except that it was explained to her the day before. The letters stood for the term ‘by her next friend’. When this was explained to her she felt a sense of pride that her mother was not only her mother but a friend. And at a time like this a mother who was also her friend was a bonus

They walked into the building down an aisle separating rows of seats on either side. All seats were occupied except for the front rows where empty spaces could be seen. For a moment Jemma thought of a bride walking down an aisle on her wedding day. Except that this was no wedding. They were in a court house, not at a wedding, and the dull droning conversations were the opposite to the joyous sounds at a wedding

There were two courthouses in town. She was in the original court house which was used, except for today and the days that would follow, as a historic monument. A newer larger court house was built some years before to accommodate increased caseload, security, air-conditioning, and technology

When they reached the first row of seats, they were greeted by a somber James Keller. His appearance was somber and businesslike, and said ‘hello’ to her mother first, executing a token handshake with her, and then said ‘hello’ to Jemma and gave her a token handshake also. As he let go of her hand he motioned with his right hand and directed them to two vacant seats in