The jury deliberated for six hours. Victoria sat with me during that wait, which felt like a year. When we were told that the jury was ready to return a verdict, she was ebullient, assuring me that a quick turnaround was definitely a good sign. For all her bluster, she was completely wrong on that count. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. The word echoed around the courtroom as people gasped and one man shouted something angrily from the gallery. I stood there, my hand reaching for my throat, trying to remember to breathe and failing. I looked towards Jimmy, who was sitting with his head on Sophie’s shoulder as John patted his arm mechanically. Only Jimmy’s sister, Annabelle looked at me, tilting her head as though she were sizing me up for the first time.
And that was that. I was sentenced to sixteen years and taken to Limehouse a week later. I missed the window for an appeal, stuck in shock and unable to know what to do next. But then George Thorpe came along, a middle-aged white man here to save the day as he imagined he was born to do. He had an appeal granted, arguing that there was further eyewitness testimony which was not sought out by police at the time.
I appointed Thorpe at considerable cost after I got here, realising that Victoria Herbert was much more interested in promoting herself as a glamorous attack dog than actually being one. She appeared in Grazia off the back of my case, barely pretending to bat away praise and using the word ‘empowered’ far too much. The staggering fee my new brief charged was made possible because he offered to do it on a buy now, pay later basis. I could see his rationale for this – he wanted some publicity and I could give it to him in spades. I imagine he was aiming for QC, and felt like a high-interest murder case might bolster his chances. He was quite the showman. At the many high-profile trials he’d worked on, the media slavishly reported on his arguments, his floral language, his habit of thumping the table when he was mid passionate defence of his clients. Thorpe had a stellar success rate which meant I felt relaxed about his final bill. Whatever happened, I’d have enough money to put him on a permanent retainer once I’d laid claim to the Artemis empire. Credit to Thorpe, he exposed every possible flaw in the trial, and he used the press to highlight those flaws, knowing that they’d run any story they could on the Morton murderer. During the trial, they’d painted me as a bitter and damaged girl in love with her step-brother （he wasn’t of course, but the tabloids love them some incest-lite）， but once I’d been sentenced a new angle was needed. Now I was damaged, but no longer bitter. My fragility was played up – ‘She had nobody really, except for Jimmy’ – and images of me were printed where I looked shy and vulnerable rather than hard and arrogant. These photos were provided by old workmates judging by the clothes I was wearing, and I’m only in them because they were mandatory. It’s amazing what you can decide somebody is like simply from a photo. Thorpe had an old school friend who worked in PR seed some stories about Caro’s mental health problems and hints were dropped about her eating disorder, her love of a good party （read: drugs） and her temper. Awful tactics really, but this isn’t a discussion about media ethics and besides, I would’ve taken one hundred stories ripping Caro to shreds if it had helped my case. I’d have read them even if they hadn’t helped my case.
I have been festering in Limehouse for fourteen months now, and waiting on the appeal for nearly half that time. When I first appointed him, I would call George Thorpe daily, and write long letters to him urging him to explore the balcony again or to force Caro’s therapist to testify to her mental state. I was desperate to be out in days, not weeks, and I was furious every time the lawyer told me to be patient. When it became clear that I would be here for a while, I fell into a depression of sorts. I’m not somebody who gets depressed. I sometimes feel a rising panic in my throat and a need to escape, but I’d never understood people who get so sad that they retreat from life. Perhaps prison makes us all more empathetic, or maybe it’s just natural to get depressed in a place which has strip lighting and communal showers. I started to sleep more, and for a time it felt as though my brain were swimming in treacle. My thoughts slowed down, I stopped exercising and on one particularly low day, I watched the Emmerdale omnibus all the way through with Kelly constantly telling me who everyone was without wanting to slam her head against the wall once.
One day eight months in, I woke up and did 500 press-ups. I was fed up of this alien mood and scared that I would languish in it forever if I didn’t force myself to climb out of it. So I started a strict regimen, waking up at the same time every day, pushing my body harder and harder with exercises in my cell and walks around the yard. I spent hours in the library reading anything that would give my head a break from this place, and I pestered my lawyer again, but this time with more focus.