(///overturned.strawberry.confinement – Aphrodite’s Rock, Cyprus)

Laura never forgot the moment when they had first locked eyes. They had been working along the same row from opposite ends and each had spied a particularly fine strawberry. They both grabbed for it and their fingers briefly brushed against each other. They looked up at one another, held each other’s gaze for what felt like an eternity, and then he had graciously stepped back and allowed her to place it into her punnet.

As they continued to work in the warm summer sunshine, they exchanged glances, but both seemed to lose their nerve when there was a chance to speak. And after a few short weeks, when the farm thanked them for their efforts and they went on their way, Laura found herself pacing up and down, determined to go and speak to him. But when she looked for him he was gone. And so that was that.

Except that it wasn’t. The memory of him lingered, always just on the periphery. And a couple of years later she was browsing online when his face suddenly popped out. The same wavy hair and those eyes which she had gazed into. But the expression was different. This was not him in the sunshine with a look of health and energy. This was him pallid. This was a mugshot.

She read with horror that one Sebastien Durand had been found guilty of murdering his brother in the garden of their home in the south of France, and he had been sentenced to life in prison. Laura found herself crying. She didn’t know this man, had never known this man. And yet she sensed this was wrong, that he couldn’t be guilty.

Her friends told her she was being ridiculous. She couldn’t possibly have known what was in this man’s heart when she had failed to get to know him two summers before. She should just forget about it. And she tried to. She went to pubs and clubs. She had a couple of dates with people her friends were certain were right for her. She tried to move on from something that she knew was a fantasy. But deep down she kept being tugged back, it seemed too real. She couldn’t have felt those deep and irrational feelings for someone with evil in their heart, she wouldn’t countenance it. And as she sat and imagined him in his confinement, sitting solemnly in a bare cell with no light and no hope, she determined to help him.

It became an obsession. She read all the background to the case. She did a crash course to revise her school French. And then she booked some time off work and travelled to southern France, to the area where the crime had happened.

Sebastien had been found guilty because he was holding the knife, over his brother Lucien’s body, when a neighbour saw him over the fence. His DNA was all over the scene. Nobody else’s was ever found. Nobody else had been seen in the vicinity. His story that he had discovered the body a few minutes before, had pulled the knife out and just stayed there in shock was never believed. ‘The obvious justification that all killers fall back on’, the prosecutor had said.

After a few days of toil, Laura sat in a café, nibbling on a pastry she barely tasted, and looked again over her notes. It was true that the brothers had been close growing up, always outside playing, thick as thieves. But the prosecution had claimed they had become more distant as adults and alluded to an overheard argument about caring for their mother’s health issues, claiming it represented some discord, a disagreement that might have led to murder. And the circumstantial evidence seemed to point to Sebastien as well. A scribbled note had been sent to Lucien urging him to return home, written unusually in green ink, the maverick colour known to have been favoured by Sebastien. And Lucien had apparently texted Sebastien to return, but prosecutors argued that Sebastien had done that himself to throw police off the scent.

Laura stared mournfully at her undrunk coffee. Her belief that he was innocent felt unshakeable. But feelings can wilt when faced with facts, and the more she stared at those facts, the more she knew that it was time to head back home and put this behind her.

But as she trudged back to her hotel, thinking about checking flight prices, she couldn’t escape the sense that she was being led to a conclusion that wasn’t true. The motive, such as it was, wasn’t enough. And it wasn’t proven, the argument had only been the word of the neighbour. The neighbour who had also alerted the police after seeing Sebastien in the garden. The neighbour who had apparently been furious with the brothers years before, when as children they had kicked a ball over the fence and shattered parts of his greenhouse, destroying his award-winning tomatoes.

What if this resentment had festered for years? She got back to her room and started to research once more. She knew his name and after an hour of so of searching she discovered that he hadn’t won prizes at the annual horticultural show for years, not since that incident in fact, while prior to that he had been a regular champion. Had he plotted revenge for years and finally sensed his chance? After all, he was the only witness to everything, and yet he had never been questioned. What if he had sent the note?

There had been a photograph published of the original. Everyone had focused on the colour rather than the handwriting itself. But what if she could somehow match the handwriting to the neighbour’s, then she could have a case. But how to get him to write something down. Well that proved the easy bit. She arrived at his door with a petition against the recent local decision to cut down some historic trees. It was straightforward to convince him to sign it and write a comment. It was enough.

She went to see a handwriting expert. The match was quickly confirmed. She went to see Sebastien’s lawyer to ask if it was sufficient evidence to appeal, to have the verdict rescinded. The lawyer spoke to the police. The police spoke to the neighbour. By all accounts, he sat down quietly, smiled ruefully, and said he thought the green ink would have been enough.

Within weeks, Sebastien’s guilty verdict had been overturned. He clasped his lawyer and as bedlam ensured in the courtroom his parents rushed towards him, overwhelming him with hugs.

As the emotion subsided, the lawyer told Sebastien that he would never have been freed if it hadn’t been for a young English lady who had tirelessly striven to prove his innocence, her motivation unknown. Sebastien said he would like to meet her.

The lawyer guided Sebastien to a quiet room behind the courtroom and led Sebastien in. There stood Laura, holding a strawberry.

They locked eyes and didn’t look away.

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Why This Location?