Good Me Bad Me

‘So your mother left Daniel in the locked room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Please tell the court how you knew when a child had been brought home and placed in the room opposite yours.’

  ‘The door would be closed. It was only closed and locked if someone was in there.’

  ‘And presumably you went to school the next day?’

  ‘Yes, my mother drove me as usual.’

  One of the defence lawyers looks to his right, a small nod of the head in your direction. Confirmation of something. But what?

  ‘So the next time you saw Daniel was when?’

  ‘Thursday evening.’

  ‘And you saw him through the peephole, did you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you at any point have physical contact with Daniel when he was in the locked room? Were you able to comfort him or hold him at any point?’

  ‘No, the door was locked the whole time. But I would have if I hadn’t gone to the police on the Friday, the day after my mother killed him.’

  One of the defence lawyers stands up and says, ‘Objection, your honour, it’s our intention to prove our client is innocent of this charge. It clearly states on the autopsy report that the cause of Daniel Carrington’s death was suffocation. He was found face down on a mattress and as part of our cross-examination of the witness tomorrow we’ll be exploring another avenue.’

  ‘Overruled, the witness is merely referring to her original statement as the court would expect her to.’

  Another avenue. Meaning what? You’ve made your lawyers hungry, haven’t you? If you were playing hangman, it would be my head on the rope.

  ‘Why would you have had contact with Daniel if you hadn’t gone to the police when you did?’ Skinny asks.

  ‘It was my job to …’

  I pause, he told me to in our practice session. Let the jury come to you, Skinny said.

  ‘Take your time, have a sip of water if you need to,’ he prompts.

  I do as I’m told. He asks me to tell the court what my job was.

  ‘It was my job to clean up afterwards.’

  ‘After what?’

  ‘After she killed them.’

  Nine out of the twelve jurors, all of the women and four of the men, change position in their seats. Foreheads rubbed, throats cleared. A poke in the eye delivered, a blinding one. Months of disturbed sleep face them long after the trial is over. Changed for ever, by you. All of us will be.

  YOU’RE DOING WELL SO FAR, ANNIE, WORKING THE CROWD, BUT WHAT ABOUT MY LAWYERS, DO YOU KNOW HOW TO WORK THEM? WHAT ABOUT TOMORROW?

  I take another sip of water, try to focus on the plaque above the jury, but it keeps moving. Blurring and unblurring. Not half as reassuring as it was before.

  ‘In your video evidence you claimed your mother killed Daniel. How were you to know this if you didn’t have access to the room?’ Skinny continues.

  ‘I saw her do it through the peephole.’

  ‘Objection, your honour.’

  ‘Overruled, let the witness continue.’

  ‘You saw what exactly?’ Skinny asks.

  ‘On the Thursday evening, the day after she brought Daniel home, she went upstairs to the room.’

  ‘The room she called the playground?’

  ‘Yes. She didn’t ask me to go with her and watch, normally she would, so after a while I went up.’

  ‘Why did you?’

  ‘I was worried about Daniel, I wanted to help him so I went upstairs and looked through the peephole.’

  ‘Please tell the court what you saw.’

  Can’t get the words out.

  The room starts to swim a little, as do the edges of the faces in front of me. Hands holding pens. Nail varnish. I want them to stop writing. What are they writing about? Me? I’m not the one they should be writing about.

  ‘Shall I repeat the question?’ Skinny asks.

  ‘Yes please,’ I reply.

  ‘What did you see your mother doing when you looked through the peephole on the Thursday night, the night after she brought Daniel home?’

  ‘I saw my mother holding a pillow over his face. I tried to get into the room but she’d locked it from the inside.’

  I can feel tears building up, I can see him. Daniel. Asking for his mummy. Tiny he was, on the bed.

  ‘It’s clear the witness is upset, perhaps you would benefit from a break at this point?’ the judge asks.

  ‘I want it to be over.’

  ‘I’m sure you do, but are you able to continue?’ he asks, dipping his head and looking over his glasses at me.

  I reply, yes, because I owe it to Daniel, and to the others.

  ‘Please tell the court how long your mother held the pillow to Daniel’s face for.’

  ‘A long time. Long enough to kill him.’

  ‘Objection, your honour, the witness is not a medical expert therefore cannot be permitted to make a judgement on how long it might take for an individual to die.’

  ‘Sustained, would the jury please dismiss the witness’s last comment.’

  ‘Can you tell the court about the last time you saw Daniel on the Thursday night. Where was he and what was he doing?’ Skinny asks.

  ‘Lying on the bed, not moving. Mum had gone down to the living room. I tried to call to him through the peephole but he didn’t respond, he never moved again, that’s how I knew he was dead.’

  ‘And the very next day you went to the police and reported your mother.’

  ‘Yes, Daniel was too much. I wanted it to stop, I wanted it all to be over.’

  I hear somebody exhale to my left. You. Trying to unnerve me maybe, another piece on the chessboard moved. A bishop or king.

  Skinny goes on, questions me about how you controlled me, made me afraid. The torch you held to my face while whispering threats; the sleep deprivation; the psychological torment through the games you played; the physical attacks. The night-time episodes too. Members of the jury flinch and blink as they hear the extent of it. I knew Skinny would do this, he told me it was to illustrate to the court, to show that you are indeed sane, able to sustain these methods over years, all the while holding down a respectable job. When I tell the court about where you made me put the bodies, the cellar, all twelve of the jurors this time shift. Disturbing. Disturbed.

  I know I’m doing okay because we’re heading towards the last few questions and I haven’t tripped up yet. Your voice is silent now. I’m hanging on.

  Skinny faces the jury and says, ‘Let us not forget that the witness you see on the stand is a child who was groomed and sexualized from a very young age, in a household where one child, a son, had already been placed in care.’

  HE WAS TAKEN.

  He wanted to be.

  DON’T EVER SAY THAT AGAIN, ANNIE. EVER.

  ‘Objection, your honour, where is this heading?’

  ‘Yes, I agree, could the prosecution please remain on the matter in hand.’

  ‘Could the witness please remind the court how old she is?’ Skinny asks.

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘Fifteen, ladies and gentlemen. And could you please tell the court how old you were when your mother began sexually abusing you?’

  ‘Objection, your honour.’

  ‘Sustained, this has no relevance to the case.’

  I was five. It was the evening of my fifth birthday party.

  ‘No further questions, your honour.’

  ‘In that case, witness dismissed.’

  June tells Mike and Saskia I was ‘grand’, did really well. They both look relieved and agree to have me back here tomorrow at nine. When we drive out I close my eyes again, open them a few streets later. We eat lunch when we get home, afterwards I tell them I’m going to lie down, they nod. Sleep as long as you need, we’ll wake you if you haven’t come down for dinner, Mike says. When I checked my phone in the car there was a message from Morgan, she’d bunked off school for the day, could she come and see me in the evening. I replied telling her she could com
e over earlier, that I’d call her and let her know when. I call her as soon as I get into my room, knowing Mike and Saskia are at the front of the house. I tell her to hurry. She arrives on the balcony in minutes, breathless, makes a joke about being as unfit as her nana. We lie top to tail on my bed, she wriggles non-stop, her feet in my face. I tickle them, threaten to bite off her toes if she doesn’t stop. She laughs, says, like to see you try.

  I wouldn’t, I reply in my head, sitting up.

  ‘How come you’re off school as well?’ she asks.

  ‘I had to go to court, answer some questions about my mum.’

  ‘Why? Thought you hadn’t seen her for years.’

  Another lie told. The exhaustion of trying to remember who knows what.

  ‘They wanted to ask me what she was like when I was little.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘How come no one knew what she was doing?’

  ‘She was clever. Spectacular.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘People liked her, trusted her. She knew how to fool them.’

  ‘You remember all that from when you were little?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so, and from reading about it in the news.’

  ‘When your dad died, you must have felt pretty lonely without any brothers or sisters.’

  I nod, it’s true. I was lonely when Luke left. I’m glad I won’t be questioned about him in court, the jury would wonder why he found a way to escape sooner and I didn’t. All the fights he got into, the stealing. He did anything he could to be taken away, punished in a place kinder than home. Anything but tell the truth about you, the shame he felt, what you did to him for years.

  ‘What was it like where you used to live?’ Morgan asks.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Was it really different from here?’

  ‘It was in the country, surrounded by trees. There were birds everywhere, I’d watch them for hours.’

  ‘What sort of birds?’

  ‘Starlings.’

  A murmuration of starlings.

  ‘Like a swarm, they moved in perfect unison, dipping and rising as if they were one. A secret language, a tilt of a wing, a flick of a feather. They flew up, flew down, flew all around, they never stopped.’

  ‘A secret language? Like squawking and stuff?’

  ‘No, something more beautiful, more subtle.’

  ‘Why were they always moving like that, up and down?’

  ‘So the bigger birds wouldn’t catch them.’

  ‘Do you reckon that’s why your mum got caught, from not moving around enough?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Do you ever feel bad, like, I know none of it was your fault but it’s still your mum, isn’t it?’

  ‘They come to me at night.’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘Ask me to help them, but I can’t.’

  ‘Who are you talking about? You’re being weird, I don’t like it. You’re scaring me.’

  I’m just being me.

  ‘Let’s talk about something else, Mil. Tell me another story, another one about the birds where you lived.’

  Morgan’s face soothes me, her freckles, pale, not brown, a peaceful feeling when I look at her. I move up to the top end of the bed, so we’re lying next to each other.

  ‘Ready?’ I ask.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘It was late at night. I was washing my hands at the sink in my bedroom. I heard something behind me, scraping at the window.’

  ‘Were you scared?’

  ‘No, I turned round and it was there.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘It was staring at me, eyes wide as can be, saucers surrounded by white.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘An owl, through the window. It turned its head all the way round to let me know.’

  ‘Let you know what?’

  ‘It had seen what I’d done.’

  ‘What do you mean? What had you done?’

  ‘What I was told to.’

  ‘By who?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘It flew away. The things it saw, the things I did, too horrible for it to stay.’

  She bursts into laughter, tells me I’m full of nonsense, I should be an actress.

  ‘I haven’t finished the story yet.’

  ‘What, now you’re going to tell me it came back?’

  ‘No, it never came back but I think of it often, the shape of its face, a love heart. It looked into my window then left, flew away.’

  What it saw was too ugly to love.

  28

  I don’t remember much about getting to the court today, the drive there. The room painted cream. I’m back on the stand, one of the defence lawyers facing me. Beelzebub. I look closer but there’s nothing to see, a serious face in a gown and a suit is all, his wedding finger naked, no ring. Single? Divorced? I doubt he has a child of his own tucked up at home in a crib. How could he when he’s defending you?

  What he does is subtle, he’s better than my lawyers thought he was, much better, a slow build. I don’t even notice where he’s going until he gets there.

  Throat.

  Mine.

  ‘Do you like children, enjoy playing with them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s how you got to know Daniel Carrington, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘You played with him at your mother’s workplace, didn’t you?’

  ‘Once or twice, yes.’

  ‘Once or twice? I’ve statements here, one from Daniel’s mother and another from the woman who lived in the room next to hers at the refuge. They both corroborate you played with Daniel multiple times over a period of weeks, that you cared greatly for him, used to bring him treats. Is that true?’

  The trial’s not mine, not publicly anyway, yet I hear a choir start up in my head.

  There’s a dead man walking.

  His questions are familiar, I’ve practised them, but today after staying up all night hiding from you again, I can’t remember how to answer.

  ‘Would the witness please respond. Did you or did you not play with Daniel multiple times over a period of weeks? A simple yes or no will do.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I look like a liar now, the jury write in their pads. A stitch inside me comes loose, is unpicked. A small amount of stuffing slides out. A lot more when he suddenly shifts the direction of his questions. Veers off course. Tactics. Dirty.

  ‘When your older brother was taken into care, why didn’t you tell the social worker who interviewed you that he was being abused by your mother? Why did you lie?’

  Skinny is up on his feet immediately, challenges the defence.

  ‘Objection, your honour, an outrageous claim, the witness was four years old when she was interviewed.’

  ‘Sustained. This bears no relevance to the case and is a timely reminder to the defence that you are interviewing a minor.’

  For weeks and weeks we drove to see you in the secure unit, Luke, but you kicked off, refused to come out of your room, wouldn’t let Mum or me near you. Braver than me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell them, Luke, but neither did you. I was scared, she persuaded me she was playing nice games with you, that you enjoyed them. You were diagnosed with a conduct disorder, she tried to convince the professionals to let you come home, that it wasn’t your fault, probably a delayed reaction to our dad leaving. You smashed the common room at the unit to pieces the night after we left and the professionals said, no, it was safer for everyone if you remained at the secure unit. I wish I had told them, I wish I’d known how to, because things at home got so much scarier after that. I was to be her little helper from then on but I wasn’t enough for her. I wasn’t a boy.

  The defence lawyer looks at the judge and says, ‘I’d like to ask the witness about her statement claiming she saw her mother kill Daniel Carri
ngton.’

  The judge looks over at me, asks if I’m ready. I have to say yes, the only way out is through, Mike’s words ringing in my head.

  ‘Yes, I’m ready,’ I reply to the judge. He nods and tells the defence to continue.

  ‘You said you saw your mother kill Daniel.’

  ‘Yes, I did, I think so. He didn’t move after she left the room.’

  ‘You “think” so. You said in your video evidence you saw your mother kill all nine children. Are you now saying you can’t be sure whether or not she did kill Daniel?’

  ‘I am sure, it’s just hard to explain.’

  IT IS, ISN’T IT, ANNIE.

  You’ve been quiet so far, while Luke was being mentioned, but not now. Leaning forward in your seat, waiting.

  ‘What’s hard to explain?’ the defence lawyer asks.

  Another stitch unpicks, more stuffing leaks out. My mouth. Dry. I reach for the glass of water on the table to my right, spilling it, my hands shaking. On the edge. Me. I am.

  ‘He wasn’t moving so she must have killed him,’ I reply.

  ‘But you can’t be sure, can you? Daniel’s death was recorded as suffocation, could this not have been accidental after being left on the mattress with injuries rendering him immobile? Therefore, not directly at the hands of my client.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I’m not sure.’

  ‘There seems to be a lot you aren’t sure about today. I wonder what you would say if I asked you about the spare key to the room where the children were kept, the key my client claims you had access to.’

  ‘Objection, your honour, again, the witness is not on trial here,’ Fatty counters.

  ‘Sustained, could the defence focus on questioning the witness rather than wondering out loud or providing the court with a commentary.’

  The lawyer nods, walks towards me.

  ‘When you last saw Daniel, where was he?’

  ‘On the bed in the room she called the playground.’

  ‘Can you describe what position he was lying in, please.’

  ‘On his back, I mean on his front, he was on his front. Lying face down on the mattress.’

  The jury’s eyes pierce through me. Scribble, scribble. Liar, liar, they’re thinking. Pants on.

  ‘Which one was it? On his front or on his back?’

  I’m holding the crystal Saskia gave me, my knuckles crack as I clench my fist round it. All I can think is that June was right to play devil’s advocate: what if she can’t cope. What if the reality of being on the stand is too much for her.