‘I’m trying to help.’ There was a snap in my voice. ‘He stabbed my husband. I don’t have to help him. But if I were to put in a word – say he’s a good kid, we know he didn’t mean it and so on – it might make a difference. Or I could say maybe he just wanted to scare us with the knife – it wasn’t meant to go in.’
‘I asked you to do that and you said no. Why the change?’
I took a deep breath. ‘Because Mike will die if he doesn’t get a liver transplant. It’s too long to wait for a donor, but if a family match were available . . .’
She stared at me. ‘Please tell me you’re joking.’
‘There’s no other option. The transplant list will take too long, Cassie’s not a match, Benji’s too young – it has to be a relative.’
She laughed, a short bark. ‘I have to hand it to you, Al. You found a backbone after all these years.’
‘I don’t have a choice. He’ll die otherwise. And if he does – well, Jake could be looking at a murder charge. Manslaughter, at least.’
She leaned forward to stub out her cigarette, but I could see that had struck her. Mike was her son’s father, if nothing else. ‘Why should we help? You think that’s all we are, poor relations you can harvest for body parts? Christ, Ali, it’s like Never Fucking Let Me Go.’
We’d have laughed at that, once. ‘I’m trying to keep your son from years in prison.’ As if her son was all Jake was to me, as if I hadn’t practically raised him when he was a child. ‘And to stop Mike dying. If he dies he won’t go on trial. Is that what you want?’
‘He might get off anyway.’ She toyed with her cigarette. ‘It’s only my word it wasn’t consensual. And the prior . . . relationship. The police seem to know all about that, not to mention my previous boyfriends.’ I said nothing. ‘I need someone to say they saw what happened. Or he confessed to them. Someone who spoke to him right after.’
She’d explained it as if to a child, but there was no need. I knew what she wanted as soon as she started talking. I’d forgotten how clever she was. How she’d powered through Oxford barely even trying, which was why her failed degree was such a shock. ‘I didn’t see it. You know that. I’d have . . . you know I’d have said.’
She didn’t say: do I? But I heard it in the air between us. ‘I need to be believed, Ali. If this doesn’t work . . . if those people in court say I lied or they don’t believe me or that maybe I wanted it . . . it will kill me. I really think it will kill me. I can’t sleep, I’m all alone here. Every time there’s a noise outside or downstairs I find myself standing in the middle of the floor, and the adrenaline, it’s drowning me, like I literally can’t get a breath in and it feels like I’m going to die.’
‘A panic attack.’ The women in the refuge often had them.
‘Yes. You know, sometimes I even ask myself – well, we did it before, so could it really be that bad if I didn’t want it this time? Could it really make so much of a difference that I can’t sleep, can’t eat? I tell myself to pull it together. Is it really worth all this, you hating me and Jakey in there and Mike . . . but I can’t help it, because this is the truth and this is how I feel. It is different. It’s the difference between hugging me and choking me. I can’t explain it but until you’ve been held down like that . . . until you know how weak you are as a woman, how helpless, you’ll never understand.’
‘I don’t hate you,’ I said, and even to myself it failed to convince. Hadn’t I wanted to kill her just days ago? Hadn’t I fantasised about punching her over and over in her lying face? Hadn’t I told the police all her secrets, the ones she’d trusted me with, her worst moments and darkest deeds? ‘I wish I could help. But I didn’t see it. He didn’t say anything to me when I woke him. He was passed out cold.’
‘But he could have. No one else was there. No one else would have heard. He might have said, I’m sorry, or, I didn’t mean to hurt her, or she wanted it. Something like that.’
I couldn’t imagine Mike saying any of those things. He wasn’t usually one for apology or pleading. He didn’t see the point – what was done was done, no sense in dwelling on it.
She said, ‘Maybe you didn’t remember right away. In the shock. Or you didn’t want to believe. But maybe you’ll go away and think about whether you heard anything that night, anything to back my story up, and if you do you’ll go to the police again.’ She looked me in the eyes. ‘After all, it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve lied to them.’
She had me there. The implicit threat, the knowledge that this line was one I’d crossed before. I couldn’t say I was too moral to do it. I wasn’t.
‘And if I do that?’
‘Well. Maybe then I could talk to Jakey and explain the situation.’
I understood her perfectly. There was no need to say anything else. After all, we’d been best friends for over half our lives. ‘If I do . . . No one can know I was here today. It’s a crime.’
‘Right.’
‘Your neighbours?’
She shrugged. ‘Bunch of potheads and sleep-deprived mums. They don’t even know my name. I can always say I didn’t let you in.’
It was shocking, how easy it was, when it came down to it. To lie. To break the law. And what a choice to make – saving Mike’s life, lying, committing a crime myself. I could go to prison for something like that. Both Mike and I could end up in there, if I did what she wanted. Saving his life so he could go on trial and probably be convicted. ‘Can I think about it?’
‘Don’t take too long. Sounds like Mike’s in a bad way.’ Had she no feeling left for him, after all those years of being together? I nodded, then I got up and went out, down the smelly stairs, leaving her standing in the doorway with her too-big sweatshirt wrapped around her bony body.
Chapter Thirty
DC Devine had this way of looking at me, a long slow blink, that I found very unnerving. I’d always struggled with eye contact. It wasn’t encouraged in my family. You kept your head down, got on with things. I’d gone to see him first thing in the morning after getting back from Birmingham. It had been a long sleepless night, wrestling with myself. But, in the end, I knew I was prepared to do it. Why else would I have gone to see Karen? She was always going to ask for something in return. ‘You said you saw nothing that night. That Mike said nothing to you.’
‘I – I was in shock, I think. I didn’t realise the significance. Karen was in such a state and I didn’t understand what was going on at first. I couldn’t make sense of it.’
We were in the nasty interview room, the one where one side of the table had the veneer all picked away, leaving a rough surface that caught at unsuspecting fingers. He had a notebook in front of him but hadn’t written down anything I was saying. Instead he leaned back in his seat.
‘Tell me again what happened.’
‘Well, I went outside to see where Mike was. Karen was screaming and crying, a real state, and I thought maybe there’d been some kind of accident.’
‘This was after Ms Rampling came into the kitchen and said, Mike raped me, yes?’ How could he remember these facts off the top of his head?
‘Yes, I suppose, but I couldn’t – I didn’t take it in right away. Mike was on the swing seat, and he was slumped over, and I thought he was asleep, but then he said, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt her.’ That was the phrase I’d come up with as I lay awake last night. Ambiguous, slightly, but hopefully enough to appease Karen.
‘Meaning Karen, as you interpret it now?’
‘I suppose so. I don’t know for sure.’
Another slow blink. ‘You didn’t mention this at the time, Mrs Morris.’
‘No. As I said, it was all such a jumble. It just came back to me and I thought it might be . . . relevant.’
‘Because it suggests he did attack her?’
I put my hands on my knees to stop them shaking. I had to keep it together, hold on to all the bits of my life that were flying out of control. ‘I don’t know. It could do.’
‘Which you were previously sure could not possibly have been the case.’
I stared at the damaged table. They should throw it away, get a new one that wasn’t so scarred. ‘He’s my husband. I just wanted to protect him, I think. That’s natural, isn’t it?’
‘Meaning you lied to protect him. You do know it’s a crime, to obstruct a police investigation?’ I thought of the jumper I’d found in Benji’s room. I’d taken it out, bagged it up and put it in the garage, unsure of what to do with it. If I destroyed it, that was a crime. But if they searched the house again they were sure to find it. What did it mean? Had Mike put it there himself? Or perhaps someone else had found it, discarded, and thrown it away on the rubbish pile, not knowing what it was. I tested myself to see if I could believe that. I couldn’t.
My heart began to race. ‘No! No, not at all, I just didn’t remember. That must happen all the time. Right? You don’t remember and then suddenly a bit of time passes and the shock eases and it comes back. Isn’t there . . . I remember reading some research about witness interviews, how unreliable they are.’
He tapped his notebook. ‘Mrs Morris. Back in 1996, when Mike was interviewed about the murder at your college, you also spoke to police, correct?’
‘Yes. They spoke to all of us.’
‘And you gave him an alibi. You said he’d been with you all night.’
‘Yes.’ How had I been able to do that, a callow twenty-one-year-old looking a police officer in the face and lying? Driven on by love of Mike, or at least what I’d thought was love; by the need to ‘get him’ before it was too late. By the need to not go back to my old life, fearful every moment of my father’s rages, his flying fists. Fearful of turning into my mother, diminished, defeated. ‘Well, not all night, obviously. Most of it.’
‘Is there anything about that night you find yourself suddenly remembering?’ I was foolishly stung by his tone, as if I’d thought we were friends. Tears pricked my eyes. Stupid. He was never my friend.
‘Nothing. It was such a long time ago.’
He straightened the papers in front of him, with neat, careful gestures. In another life, if I was younger or he was older and we weren’t in this situation, I might have found him attractive. ‘Rape trials are notoriously difficult, Mrs Morris. The conviction rate is terribly low, even if the woman calls us right away, and even with forensic evidence. Having a witness to the assault can often swing the balance.’
It took me a stupidly long time to realise what he wanted from me. When I did, I almost laughed in confusion. ‘But you can’t – I can’t do that. Surely you can’t – make a wife testify, against a husband?’
‘You can’t be compelled to testify, no. But you could do it voluntarily. To put right a wrong. It would – send a message.’ It was so close to what Vix had said, what seemed like a lifetime ago, but wasn’t even weeks. I wondered what she would think of me now.
‘I can’t.’ And yet I kept butting up against these barriers, these lines I said I wouldn’t cross, only to be pushed over them. Life skewing wildly to the left.
He looked at me over the table for a long time. Then he stood up. ‘I’ll be in touch, Mrs Morris. If you change your mind, or you remember anything about Martha’s death, do let me know.’
I’d never been to a prison before.
I repeated that to myself with something like amazement. How lucky I’d been, to be able to say that. I was forty-three and I’d never been to a prison before. I looked around the waiting room at the other women – younger than me, I was sure, many of them, yet some were here with grandchildren. Waiting to see their sons, the children they’d birthed and raised who were now behind bars. I tried to imagine Benji here, in this room with flickering fluorescent lights, and vending machines that were sticky with fingerprints, and the sad box of toys in the corner. I couldn’t. Benji would never be anywhere like this – that was the point of all those piano lessons and bedtime stories and dentist visits. But then, I’d never have thought Jake would end up here either.
Karen’s text had come in shortly after I’d spoken to DC Devine. Payment for services rendered. He’ll see you, was all it said. She wasn’t going to make it easy for me, and why should she? I’d have to convince him myself.
At least it wasn’t an adult prison. I didn’t think it had sunk in what that meant, the difference in a few weeks’ accident of birth. Jake was in a glorified school, where they’d rap his knuckles and give him tough love. Not a grown-up jail with the rapists and thieves and killers. But maybe he would be, if convicted. He was over eighteen already, and I knew the boys in this place were at most twenty-one. He’d stabbed Mike in the liver. He almost killed him. It was planned, it was intended. The sentence for that would surely be long, unless I intervened.
The other women were on their feet, as if by some signal I couldn’t hear. I stood up too, painfully conscious of how much my shoes cost. As if they’d notice, or care. Oh God. I was sweating. My throat was dry. I felt trapped, even though when this was over I could leave. Jake couldn’t. We all shuffled into a line as the door opened, and a bored-looking female guard passed a wand over us. It was like the airport, only with less sense of urgency. I shuffled forward with my plastic bag clutched like a baby, having left my expensive handbag (£600) in a locker. The woman in front of me was wearing what looked like pyjama bottoms, printed over in puppies, and a sagging vest top showing her breasts, which hung down almost to her waist. Her hair was dyed with streaks of red and purple and she could have been any age. Thirty? Fifty? I was horrified by this place, and by my reaction to it even more. Her huge gold earrings set off the wand, and she was pulled to one side. I took her place, assuming I’d zip through as I always did at airports, and I actually jumped when the detector went off.
‘I don’t . . . sorry . . .’
The guard sighed, so disinterested she could hardly look at me, and patted me down. Under my arms. Round my breasts. Between my legs. It was humiliating, and I stood spread-eagled in my Toast dress (£160) and felt her rough hands roving over me, and I was horrified to find tears in my eyes. What would Karen say? She’d be disgusted with me. She must have been here so many times already, despite living miles away, despite having no car. There was no way she’d leave her boy in here alone. She’d done everything she could for him over the years – working for idiots, grinding her teeth and getting on with it, demanding the extra funding at his school and the tutors and the support. Fighting to keep him in his father’s life, even though no one but Karen knew it. I used to admire that. Before I knew I was the duped wife in it all.
I wasn’t going to think about Karen.
I was waved through, feeling shrivelled and fearful, like I’d done something wrong, and the room was huge and noisy, waves of sound crashing against the walls like in the canteen at school. The boys were so big, in their yellow tabards, with their tattoos. Meaty hands resting on tables. Shaved heads. Bulging muscles as they hugged the women, their mothers and girlfriends and the children brought to see them, already semi-hysterical with fear and joy. And in the middle of them was Jake. He was sitting at the table looking thin and hunched, like a wartime evacuee. The tabard was too big for him. He’s only a kid, was my first thought. Not much older than Benji. Hardly older than Cassie at all. Imagine Cassie in a women’s prison. She had, after all, broken the law by sending that picture, though she didn’t realise it. Perhaps breaking the law wasn’t such a big transgression as we thought. All too easy to cross that line. I made my feet walk towards him and then I stood in front of him.
He looked at me. His hands were neatly folded. Such delicate hands. Mike’s hands. Why did I never see it before? Because you didn’t want to, Ali. I wanted to reach out and flatten his hair, as I had when he was little. Again, I felt tears rising up, in my eyes and nose. I couldn’t cry in front of Jake.
‘Hi,’ I said, and my mouth was so dry I could hardly speak. He looked at me. ‘Can I sit, please?’
He jerked his head in assent.
‘Um . . . I can get you a tea, or . . . a soft drink or something? Food?’
He looked towards the vending machines. A flicker on his face. ‘Juice. I don’t drink that caffeine crap.’
The walk to the vending machine was welcome, a chance to compose myself, fumbling change until my fingers were metallic. The juice box tumbled out and I scrabbled for it in the bottom. I used to give Benji these. I still did sometimes. Jake was only eight years older. How could he be in here, when he drank the same drinks as Benji? Benji had believed in Santa Claus until two years ago. Asked to write an essay in class on how they’d learned there was no Santa, that was how he learned the truth, and he had to bite his trembling lip all day. Maybe I’d babied him too much.
Jake stabbed the straw in and drank without saying thank you.
‘How are you?’
He shrugged. ‘Alright.’
‘The other guys, are they . . . is it violent or anything like . . .’
Shrugs. ‘The guards stop anything like that. They leave me alone mostly.’
‘Oh. Good. That’s good.’
We faced each other. This boy had stabbed my husband, almost killed him. And yet I felt guilty. ‘Jake. I want you to know that I – I understand why you did what you did. You must have been very angry.’
He said nothing. The slurping of the juice was rude, childish, and I tried not to let it annoy me.
‘But you hurt him. He’s really sick. Jake, he’s – the doctors say he needs a transplant. His liver.’ I didn’t know how to talk to him. I was speaking to him like a child, like Benji, and here he was in prison. ‘Jake . . . do you see what I’m saying? Mike is really, really sick.’
He didn’t react. Did I expect him to be sad? He tried to kill Mike. Perhaps he was sorry Mike wasn’t dead. I couldn’t believe that of sweet, sensitive Jake, who’d cried so hard that day I told him we were leaving town. ‘I know you didn’t mean to hurt him like you did,’ I risked. My throat felt like it was closing over. ‘Jake, I – I know we let you down. Moving out of London. We didn’t see you enough. I’m sorry. I wish I could change things, but I can’t.’
What You Did Page 20