‘A regular, are you?’
‘The usual, please,’ she tells the waiter, who materialises, pen poised over his notepad, once we’ve sat down. ‘They do an excellent full English breakfast,’ she says to me.
‘That what you’re having?’
‘Yep.’ She folds up her sunglasses and puts them on the table, then wiggles out of her light jacket and lays it on the bench beside her.
‘Same for me, then.’
The waiter puts his pad and pen into his top pocket without noting our orders in it.
When he has gone, I turn to Claire. ‘So, what’s your connection with Goodman?’
‘Well, my son isn’t very well,’ she begins, her face falling. ‘He has kidney disease.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ I didn’t even know Claire had a son.
‘He got into a bit of trouble a few months ago and—’
‘With the police?’
She nods. ‘He was due in hospital for dialysis and instead he was at the police station. Simon brought him to the hospital.’
Simon. So, she’s on first-name terms with him.
‘Jack – my son – got little more than a slap on the wrist,’ she continues. ‘A warning. Minor offence, Simon said, and Jack was a minor himself. No one got hurt. No biggie.’
It occurs to me that it probably was quite a big deal if CID was involved with her son’s misdemeanour. Another thought strikes me. Claire would have asked for Simon’s number right away. She would have seen in him a useful contact. I’m not nearly as good as her at cultivating sources.
‘But he has checked up on Jack several times,’ Claire continues, ‘making sure he stays on the straight and narrow. It’s not easy being a single parent, especially with a teenage son.’
‘Tell me about it. Noah’s a preteen and that’s no walk in the park.’
‘Simon understood that,’ she adds, as if I hadn’t spoken.
He would, I suppose. Callum was a teenager when Melissa was sent down.
‘How’s Jack now?’ I ask.
The waiter arrives with our breakfasts and mugs of tea. As he puts down my mug, some of the tea spills over onto the table. I grab a paper napkin and mop it up, waving the apologetic waiter away.
Claire waits until he has disappeared before replying. ‘There haven’t been any more incidents, if that’s what you mean,’ she says, tucking in to her lunch ravenously.
‘It wasn’t. I was talking about his health.’
‘Oh. He’s still undergoing treatment. He has dialysis today, actually,’ she says. ‘Usually I go with him. Or my ex does. He was supposed to go with him this afternoon …’ She trails off, stabbing her fork into a sausage with unnecessary force.
I realise that’s probably what’s bothering her today. The fact that her son has to go to his hospital appointment alone. ‘Claire, you should go. I’ll cover. I can call you if there’s anything urgent.’
I’m not sure if she trusts me to hold the fort, but she nods and says, ‘You’re right. I’ll go straight to the hospital after lunch. Thank you.’
I’ve hardly touched my meal, my parents having drilled into me from an early age not to speak with my mouth full, but Claire has almost finished. She has a large appetite for such a small woman.
‘I still don’t get what Goodman was doing here the other day,’ I say.
‘Ah. As you know, he’s been campaigning relentlessly for his ex-wife’s release. The Criminal Cases Review Commission has just referred the case back to the court of appeal, and he thinks it would be helpful if Melissa were interviewed by a journalist. Preferably a local journalist.’
I’m aware I’m gaping at her, even though my mouth is full of bacon and beans. ‘A local journalist? Who?’ Stupid question. Claire doesn’t reply, but I already know the answer. I narrow my eyes at her. ‘Oh, no. You have to be kidding. I’m not doing it. And anyway, this isn’t an American TV series. I can’t just waltz up to the prison gate and demand to see an inmate.’
‘No. There’s a special procedure.’ She puts down her knife and fork and pushes an imaginary strand of hair behind her ear. ‘You have to go through the right channels. But it’s possible for a journalist and a prisoner to meet face to face. In certain exceptional circumstances, of course.’
I arch my eyebrows. ‘Such as?’
‘For example, when the journalist intends to investigate and bring to public attention the prisoner’s case. In this instance, the miscarriage of justice of which Melissa Slade was victim.’
‘Allegedly,’ I say. Claire shoots green daggers at me. ‘What makes you think this application will go through? Isn’t it a bit of a long shot?’ Now her look has become furtive. There’s something else she’s not telling me.
‘Let’s just say I’m fairly confident this will be approved,’ she says. I stay silent. It’s often the best way to get people to talk, as my job has taught me. ‘I went to school with the prison governor, OK?’ There it is. I should have known. Claire knows people everywhere who will pull strings for her. ‘We’re friends on Facebook.’ I almost scoff. ‘She’ll—’
‘Bend the rules?’
‘This is all above board. Jonathan, why are you being so unreasonable?’
This time I don’t answer because it’s a rhetorical question. Isn’t it? Am I being unreasonable? Simon Goodman did a favour for Claire and now I’m to be instrumental in returning that favour. That’s the way I see it. I’m not sure I’m the one being unreasonable here. I’m being used as a pawn in their game. This isn’t about trying to dig up a scoop. It isn’t about investigative journalism. It’s about writing an article, setting the tone so that the media and the general public will demand justice for Melissa Slade. This goes against my beliefs. For one thing, I pride myself with writing unbiasedly, and secondly I don’t know for sure that this woman is innocent. I don’t believe she’s innocent.
I slam my fist down on the table, making Claire jump. ‘I’m not doing it! I won’t be used! What if she’s guilty? You can’t expect me to—’
‘What if she’s innocent? Could you just think it over? Can’t you at least meet her before you make up your mind?’
I’m seething. My heart is thumping and I’m shaking. I’m about to protest, but I close my mouth. Claire’s words echo in my ears. What is she’s innocent?
What if she didn’t kill her baby? Why am I so convinced she’s guilty? The doubt started to creep in when I read her diary, but I shut it out. Am I being judgemental? Narrow-minded?
Claire glances at her watch. ‘I need to get going.’ She opens her handbag and I assume she’s hunting for her purse, but instead she pulls out a wad of papers and slides them across the table towards me. ‘Have a look at this. It explains everything. Can you sign the forms and leave them on my desk? I’ll pick them up later on my way back from the hospital.’
After smoothing down her skirt as she sidles across the bench, Claire gets up, folds her jacket over her arm and heads for the door. So much for buying me lunch. At the door, she turns round and I think she has remembered after all. She strides back to the table.
‘One more thing,’ she says. ‘I need an article in this week’s print edition. On the cover.’
‘But you said in the editorial meeting—’
‘I know what I said. I didn’t want everyone in on this. Anyway, the paper hasn’t been put to bed yet, has it?’ She throws this last retort over her shoulder, already halfway out the door.
My breakfast has gone cold. As I pay the bill and leave, I hear my mother’s voice in my head, scolding me for not finishing my meal.
For a while, I wander around aimlessly, somehow ending up in the grounds of St Mary Redcliffe Church. I remember coming here when I was little on a school outing. I sit down on a wooden bench to the side of the building. From here, I can see the piece of tram rail the guide told us about, which flew into the garden when a bomb landed on a nearby street during the Blitz. It has been left, standing almost upright, as a reminder of how clo
se the church came to destruction.
A lucky escape. Was that what Melissa had hoped for? Did she try and get away with murder? Or was she wrongfully convicted? Did she kill one of her babies? Both of them? I have so many unanswered questions whirring around my brain. Too many.
I have to write an article about a miscarriage of justice when I don’t know if that’s what this is. Claire clearly wants it slanted that way, though. I should have refused, insisted it was against my principles. Instead, I feel bad now about being objectionable. Her son is not well and I wasn’t very nice to her. Leaning forwards on the bench, I cradle my head in my hands and groan aloud. Write the article, Jon. Just stick to the facts. That’s all I have to do, report objectively. Yeah, right.
My thoughts turn to Goodman. How long have he and Claire been in cahoots? I remember Claire told me to get in touch with him that day in her office. I bet he was waiting for my call. Not for the first time, I get the impression I’m being manipulated.
I look at the piece of tramline again. Almost upright. Goodman seems like an upright citizen, though. And not just because of his name. He’s a superintendent in the CID, for a start. He believes in Melissa’s innocence more than anyone and he’s campaigning for her release. If anyone knows about justice, it’s him.
But then again, he let Claire’s son Jack off the hook. That can’t have been legal. Almost upright. Perhaps it seemed like the right thing to do, with Jack being sick, and Simon has been checking up on him, making sure he stays out of trouble. Unless he did all that so that Claire would fight in his corner, rally to his cause. I groan again, scaring an elderly man, who was walking past the bench. He glowers at me, clutching his heart.
Feeling more confused than ever, I make my way back to the newspaper offices, stopping at a bakery on the way to buy a cinnamon bun for Kelly.
‘To make up for not shouting you lunch,’ I say, placing my offering in front of Kelly, who is sitting at her desk.
‘There was no need, but that’s really nice of you. I love Danish pastries.’
I tell Kelly about the piece Claire wants me to write for the next print edition, although I don’t mention that I suspect Claire and Simon orchestrated all this a while ago.
‘It looks like it’s going to be the first article of many,’ I grumble. ‘I’m uncomfortable with supporting a cause I’m not sure I believe in.’
‘But if she is innocent, she deserves to be heard,’ Kelly says. ‘Too often in this country, victims of miscarriages of justice are simply ignored.’
I ponder this. ‘That’s true,’ I say. ‘That’s helpful, actually. So, you think she’s innocent, then?’ If I truly believed, as Goodman does, in Melissa Slade’s innocence, it would make it a lot easier to write this.
‘Nah. Her diary’s incomplete for a start. That alone smacks of dishonesty.’
‘Right.’ Damn.
‘In her last diary entry – the one about her grief – it seems deliberately emotional, almost as if she was no longer writing it for herself but aiming to garner sympathy votes from her readers.’
I ask Kelly to summarise the rest of the diary for me, resolving to read it myself as soon as I get a moment. Good intentions, Jon. When she has finished, I tell her about the forms I’m supposed to fill in for Claire.
‘Ooh. At least if you get to see her, you can make up your own mind about her.’
‘That’s pretty much what Claire said. But I don’t want to see her. And I have to write at least one article before I meet her.’
‘Why don’t you write this one as neutrally as you can? Then if you do interview Melissa Slade at a later date, you might have a better idea of whether she’s innocent or guilty.’
Kelly’s reasoning is much the same as mine, but it sounds less jumbled when she says it than it did in my head a little earlier. But I don’t know if Claire will let me get away with neutral and objective, keywords that have always driven my reporting.
‘And we still have time to investigate before the appeal, don’t we?’ Kelly continues. ‘When is it?’
‘The date hasn’t been set yet, but in three or four months’ time, I would think.’
‘So, basically, either Melissa killed her babies, or they died of cot death, or someone else killed them. Or possibly Amber died of cot death and Ellie was killed. I’ll make a list of everyone involved – people who lived in that house or who were there when the twins died – and we’ll work our way through it until we get to the truth.’
I find myself smiling and nodding and realise the role reversal is complete. Kelly is now guiding me and I’m grinning like a loon and nodding like a donkey. She fetches me a coffee and splits her cinnamon bun with me. Then she draws up her list while I read the information that Claire has printed out about prisoners’ access to the media. When I’ve gone through it, I start to fill out the forms.
Before going home, I leave the papers on Claire’s desk. It looks like I’ll be meeting Melissa Slade. I’m already dreading it. This is one interview I will have to prepare for. And prepare myself for, too.
Chapter 16
Melissa
June 2018
It creeps up on me when I least expect it. It pounces on me in the dinner hall or lies in wait for me in the shower. It attacks as I lie awake in bed at night or pervades my dreams while I sleep. Grief. Time eases rather than erases the pain of loss, or so it is said. I often wonder how much time it will take. It has been five years since Amber and Ellie died, and my wound is still as open and raw as if it only happened five days ago.
I still break down frequently. At the moment, there’s no one to see me cry and act as a bulwark against my sorrow. I was told I would have a new cellmate, but for the moment I’m on my own. I’ve been alone in my room for several weeks – since Cathy was released on bail, pending her retrial. New evidence has been found showing the extent of the domestic violence her husband subjected her to. A witness has come forward, too, apparently. I’m so happy for her, but, selfishly, sad for me.
I spoke to Cathy on the phone earlier in the week and I’ve been following her story on the local news. It seems highly likely she’ll be found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter. Provocation, not premeditation, her QC will argue, according to Cathy. She has served over six years in custody and so she should get to walk free. Her retrial is expected to end any day now. Then she’ll just have to wait for the verdict to be returned. A foregone conclusion. A slam dunk. A formality. As I told her on the phone, if she ever comes back to Haresfield, it will be to visit me.
I’m glad now that Simon persuaded me to ask for leave to appeal. I don’t want to be here without Cathy.
‘Your turn next,’ he said when he came to visit last week. He brought with him the news that our application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission has been successful. The wait has begun for the appeal date to be set. It’s going to be a long wait, I can tell, like it was when I was waiting for the verdict in my trial. No, more like waiting for my trial to begin the first time round. Interminable. Torture.
Martin May QC also came to see me in prison last week. I found it encouraging that he came in person instead of interviewing me by video link or sending a junior barrister. I always assumed he thought I was guilty. Perhaps he does believe I’m innocent after all. Simon said he has waived most of his fees. Pro bono. That’s just as well. I know the campaign has raised some money, but my legal fees have been sky-high, and Simon and my parents have footed a lot of the bill.
May was very reassuring. ‘We’ll focus on Ellie’s toxicology report in this appeal,’ he told me. ‘The fact that it was omitted from your daughter’s medical records fundamentally discredits the findings of Dr Roger Sparks, the pathologist who carried out her post-mortem.’
He paused here and ran his hands through his curls. I wondered if he was trying not to get my hopes up.
‘That’s good, right?’ I needed it in black and white. Good or bad?
‘Yes, indeed it is. We have other points t
o raise, but the failure to disclose the full medical report is on its own a weighty argument. As you know, the toxicology findings indicate that there was evidence of a natural cause of death.’ In a softer voice, he added, ‘If we’d had this information from the beginning, you would never have been tried for Ellie’s murder, much less Amber’s.’
I was on the verge of tears at the mere mention of my babies by name, but I held it together.
‘One more thing,’ my barrister said. ‘You can apply for bail if you wish to do so.’
‘What do you think I should do?’
‘Only you can make that decision.’
I could sense a ‘but’ coming, so I waited.
‘Sometimes an appellant arriving from prison is in a better frame of mind than an appellant who has been at home waiting for the hearing,’ May continued. ‘It goes without saying that the impression you make on the judges at the hearing is vital.’
Home. Not for the first time, I asked myself what that meant.
Martin May QC must have taken my hesitation to mean I wanted to ask for bail despite his advice because he said, ‘If we ask for bail, your request may be refused. And if you don’t ask for bail, I won’t have to reveal too much of our strategy to the prosecution.’
Until recently I felt I deserved to be here. I believed I needed to be punished. I was a terrible mother to my baby girls. I didn’t show them love. I didn’t protect them. I still feel accountable for their deaths. Perhaps I do deserve to stay here forever. But my son needs me and I can’t do anything for him if I’m inside. I have to be strong. I have to do whatever it takes to get out of here and help Callum. I can still be a good mother to him. It’s not too late.
The Guilty Mother Page 12