Protecting the Desert Princess(26)

                On many occasions throughout the long day Mikael rather wished that Layla had left, for what he had to say was not pretty.

                There was a furious audible gasp from the gallery as he reminded the jury of a witness’s testimony—an ex-boyfriend of the deceased had stated that she preferred her sex rough.

                God, no wonder he was loathed by so many, Mikael thought as the lights in court seemed to flicker as social media lit up, demanding that Romanov’s guts should be hated.

                Still he did not look up to the public gallery.

                ‘My client has never denied that intercourse took place before the deceased fell in the stairwell,’ Mikael said. ‘Nor has he denied that the sex was violent. But that was by mutual consent.’

                Still he did not look up—even when the judge called for someone to be removed from the public gallery for shouting obscenities at Mikael.

                He pointed to the gallery once, though, as order was restored. ‘Up there is emotion,’ he reminded the jurors. ‘Down here we examine facts.’

                The court broke for lunch and Layla hoped he would come and find her, so that she could tell him how well he was doing, but he was nowhere to be seen.

                ‘Where’s Mikael?’ Layla asked Wendy, who was walking towards her.

                ‘He just texted me and asked if I would take you to lunch.’

                ‘Oh.’

                ‘What would you like to eat?’ Wendy asked as they stood in a café, and Layla frowned. It was so much easier with Mikael.

                ‘What that man is eating,’ Layla said.

                ‘A burger?’

                Layla nodded.

                ‘With the lot?’ Wendy checked.

                Layla had no idea what she meant, but nodded.

                Despite the company, it was possibly the best meal of Layla’s life—and then it was back to court to watch Mikael at his savage best.

                ‘My client has freely admitted that he was angry she had stayed out so late, and that she was drunk when she got home and an argument ensued. Arguments happen—so does make-up sex.’

                The lights flickered again.

                Hour by hour he shredded the prosecution’s arguments, twisted words, questioned statements of so-called fact, reminded the jury of the amount of alcohol and drugs involved, inching them towards his conclusion.

                ‘Did she ask the paramedics to get him away from her?’ Mikael demanded. ‘Did she plead with the treating doctors and nurses to keep this monster away? No, she did not. In fact, as we heard from the senior nurse who took her to the operating theatre where she subsequently died, she asked to see her boyfriend.’

                Mikael watched as a couple of jurors frowned.

                ‘Does that sound like a woman in abject terror? Does that sound like a woman who had been raped and beaten in a stairwell to you?’

                Mikael was the second most hated man in Australia today.

                His client was the first.

                But for Igor he delivered the best defence he knew how.