I spread the timelines out on the bed and look at them.
Layla died between eight and nine thirty. Becky was out at quarter to eight. Somebody could have been in the house. With or without Becky.
No. That’s mad. Ludicrous.
I start a To Do list, instead.
Visit the house.
Research wrongfully convicted mothers.
My handwriting is shaky, unpractised. It looks more like Becky’s spidery scrawl than my own.
I stand by the window and hold the list in my hand. Scott appears in the bedroom. He asks me a question with his eyebrows.
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘I’m not doing anything.’
‘What is it?’
‘Just … solutions.’
‘Solutions?’
He takes his trousers off and changes into shorts. Our flat is always too hot during the summer. The veins are standing out on his hands.
‘Just explanations. Other than …’
His face drops. ‘Other than Becky?’
‘Well. Yes.’
‘I thought you were leaving it to the jury,’ he says. He runs a hand through his blond hair.
I am standing, framed in the floor-to-ceiling window, staring at him. ‘No. Why should I?’
His hand drifts slowly down to his side. ‘You know what I think.’
‘I don’t know how anybody knows what to think.’
‘Who could it have been, other than Becky?’
‘I don’t know. Anybody. There was a whole evening where we don’t know what happened, Scott.’
‘But everything points to her.’
‘No, it doesn’t. It’s just slander. Road rage and leaving Layla alone and forgetting Xander – none of it is evidence about how Layla died. About what actually happened.’
‘But it is,’ he says softly. ‘That’s why it’s being brought up.’
‘But … there is other evidence.’
‘Is there?’
‘Yes. Like who she is. What I know about her …’
‘People act out of character all the time,’ Scott says.
‘This is killing, Scott.’
‘I know,’ he says, spreading his hands wide. ‘But.’
‘What? What’s the but? I’m just trying to see if there’s anything else that someone might’ve—’
‘Nobody’s missed anything. Sweetheart.’ He moves towards me, slowly. He reaches a hand out. ‘I just want you to be happy again,’ he says. He waits for a moment, looking at me, then sits down heavily on the bed.
I can hardly believe he is the same person whose arm would feel weighty and secure across my shoulders as we walked along the river together at university.
‘Martha. You’re hurting yourself. Going over and over it like this. It’s like picking a scab,’ he says gently. His eyes are damp.
Our gazes have finally locked, after what feels like months. Suddenly, I am anchored. I was adrift, and now, here I am, not yet at shore, but anchored by him, my husband. Safe.
‘What was the but?’ I say, still frozen in the window.
Scott is looking at the floor.
‘Say she gets off …’ he says.
I grit my teeth at the phrasing.
‘Would you leave another baby with her?’ When he looks back up at me, his eyes are watchful.
‘No,’ I say quietly. ‘Not at the moment. But maybe something will happen?’ It sounds hopeless, even as I say it. ‘Maybe someone else was seen.’
I think of the near-endless procession of witnesses to come.
Experts and doctors.
And Marc …
‘We’re not going to know anything. They will either decide that she did it or she didn’t. There’s nothing you don’t know. The trial won’t help. You’ve got to stop thinking it will provide the answers. The answers are … the answers are in moving on. Keeping on,’ he says.
He has said it to me before: during bad jobs and the recession, when we were in negative equity. During a horrible holiday, once, staying in a hotel that had slugs. ‘Keep on keeping on.’ I had always loved that. His calm optimism. On the last night of that holiday, with the slugs leaving trails around the bed late one night, I said, ‘Keep on keeping on,’ and felt actually, properly happy, a bubble of pleasure in my chest, there with my husband in a slug-infested nightmare. It was as though he had taught me to enjoy life despite itself, and not merely to wait for the good times. I felt dizzyingly liberated. I can choose to be happy, no matter what, I found myself thinking. ‘Exactly,’ he smiled at me. ‘Keep on keeping on.’
I shake my head now. There seems to me to be an endless amount of information I wasn’t aware of. Hardly any of it is material, but almost all of it is new. The previous conviction. Maybe the defence have bombshells, too. Maybe there is a medical reason; a pre-existing condition. Something congenital that caused my baby to suffocate. Is there such a thing? Oh, please say so: that she died naturally, not knowing it even herself. In my mind I can see her eyes closing peacefully; those translucent eyelids.
But … maybe Becky went somewhere before or after Londis? Maybe Becky left Layla with somebody when she went to Londis?
On my pad I write down everybody’s name. As many as I can think of. All of us: Mum, Dad, Becky, Scott, Marc, Xander, Marc’s parents, Becky’s neighbour Theresa. I strike through the names of those who have strong alibis at the time of death.
There they are. A list of suspects. I hold the pad close to me. I’ll never show it to anybody – of course I won’t – but it feels both good and horrible to see them written down. Like I am doing something.
Next to each name left, I make a note of where they say they were between 8.00 p.m. and 9.30 p.m. on the night Layla died.
My pencil stills across one name: Marc’s. Where was he? Alone. Fitting a carpet for work, so he said. Could anybody vouch for that?
WEDNESDAY
* * *
26
Martha
‘Ms Blackwater, is it true you were in another country the night it happened?’
It’s the same reporter again, the one with the curly hair. She’s wearing a wrap-around top. I can see the top of her ribcage above it, two small sweat patches underneath her armpits.
I look at her, again, and she looks back, expectant.
I push past her and into the courtroom.
The next witness, Alison, is one of the few people in Becky’s life who I didn’t really know. She is the mother of a school friend of Xander’s. She was at Becky’s house at 11.50 p.m. on the night in question. A few hours after Layla’s death.
I tried to ask her about it – what she saw – at the school gates, where I lurked for a few days until I saw her, back in the winter. But she told me she couldn’t discuss it. I went again the next day, but that time, she looked frightened of me and my pale, haggard form. I didn’t go back again.
It’s like a fragmented nightmare, a kaleidoscope. One piece of evidence to my left, one to my right. Another behind me, another in front. Perspectives of paramedics, nurses, neighbours, friends. I look at them all, these different angles from which to view the same crime, but I can’t piece them together myself and decide whether or not my sister is guilty of killing my child.
Alison enters the witness box at ten o’clock. Outside the windowless courtroom, the sun blazes relentlessly. It’s the kind of weather that would once have had me wanting to take a sabbatical and do insane things. Get a tabloid newspaper and a smoothie – one of those ridiculously huge ones from Costa or similar – and head to the beach, buying a disposable barbecue on the way.
She is wearing flared jeans and a kimono. I almost smile to look at her. I know exactly what Becky would think of her, and I dart a look across at the dock. ‘Fucking hippie,’ Becky would say. ‘A kimono.’
Alison tells the prosecution barrister that her son Forrest goes to school with Xander, and that she has one other child.
‘Tell me about the night of October the twenty-sixth,’ Ellen says. ‘
You saw the defendant between three and four hours after, as we allege, she had smothered Layla to death.’
27
Alison Jones
11.50 p.m., Thursday 26 October
Alison poured herself a measure of cucumber fizzy water in her kitchen. She had organized her day around this evening. She’d written one thesis chapter – she’d had to turn off the internet to do it – and here she was, halfway through her reward. She was watching reruns of Sex and the City in the snug. Jones, her husband – she’d always called him by his surname; everybody did – was out, and the boys had a friend over. It was totally joyous, these hours alone on the cracked old leather chesterfield.
She took the drink back into the snug. Upstairs was utterly quiet, and she immersed herself in Carrie and Big’s world.
It felt like only moments had passed but, when she checked her watch, it had been three hours.
She walked across the landing and stood outside Forrest’s room. She could hear something from within. Creepy music, but complete silence otherwise.
She opened the door a crack and recognized the film immediately. Oh shit. It was The Shining. She would recognize it anywhere. For fuck’s sake. Jones loved horror films. They must have found his recording.
‘What’s this?’ she said. The words were out before she looked at Xander, and her heart seemed to expand in her chest. Oh, no. Poor, anxious Xander, who earlier had asked her innocently if there would ever be another world war. And now this. Her unmanageable children had indoctrinated him into watching hardcore horror. She would be the talk of the school gates.
His long, lanky legs – he was huge for a nine-year-old – were drawn up to his chest and he was so frightened, so bloody frightened, that his shoulders were jerking. His eyes were fixed on a point on the wall to the left of the television. He couldn’t even look.
‘Okay, that’s enough horror,’ she said brightly. ‘Off,’ she commanded.
‘It’s not even that scary. It’s so crap it’s funny,’ Forrest said.
Ralph didn’t look bothered, either. She guessed it was too much to expect her two children to think of Xander, and his nervous disposition. No. Not nervous, exactly. Worried. Wanting to please people, to not be in trouble, so much so that he would go along with watching a terrifying movie.
‘You alright, Xander?’ she said to him.
‘Not really,’ he said, meeting her eyes across the room. And then he unfolded his limbs and came to her.
Oh shit. This was real. He was upset. He would tell Becky – and Becky could be fierce.
‘Oh no – it’s not real. It’s not real at all,’ she said. ‘I always imagine the cameramen and the sets, when I’m frightened.’ She looked at where they were on the Sky player. It was paused just ten minutes from the end: the damage was done.
‘I want to go home, Alison,’ he said. He often spoke in this formal way. She doubted her children knew the Christian names of any of their friends’ parents.
He wiped his cheek with one of his adult-sized hands and looked at her, standing in his pyjamas in the middle of the room. Forrest snorted derisively and she gave him a look.
‘Oh, no, Xander. It’s not real. Let’s watch something nice to get rid of the memories,’ she said.
‘Beauty and the Beast?’ Forrest said snidely.
‘I want to go home.’
‘Okay,’ she said, realizing there was no use trying to salvage the night. ‘You’ll all have to come in the car.’
She texted Becky and then bundled everybody into the car. She didn’t make them put their proper clothes on. Becky hadn’t read the text by the time she was turning the key in the ignition. It was unusual for her. She was usually an immediate replyer, one of those people who responded seemingly before you had even sent your message, and always with questions.
Forrest and Ralph were quiet in the back of the cold car. Xander was in the passenger seat, mostly because he was almost as tall as she was, but also because he was still shivering with fear. The Shining. What were they thinking?
It was less than a five-minute drive to Becky’s, and she still hadn’t read the text by the time Alison pulled up outside the house. She called Becky’s mobile, but it rang out and went to her chirpy voicemail, so Alison sat in the car for a few minutes longer.
She looked at the house. All of the lights were off, except one. The front room was in darkness. The kitchen, too, the taps just catching the reflection of the street lights. Only one upstairs window was illuminated. A bedroom. Surely it was alright to knock? Anyway, what was worse: risk annoying Becky by disturbing her at a late hour, or risk traumatizing her child by making him stay the night with her tiny psychopaths?
She got out of the car, pulling her coat around herself, and rang the doorbell.
There was no answer. Ten seconds went by, then twenty. She glanced back at the children in the car. Forrest and Ralph were watching something on an iPad. Xander was staring straight ahead. Alison wondered if perhaps she should just try the door, and send Xander in by himself.
No. She’d wait. Her breath clouded the air in front of her and she stamped her feet, trying to keep warm. The early-winter cold seeped through her thin trousers and she drew her coat tighter around herself.
Ah, finally. Light pooled in the hall, and there was Becky, showcased in the frosted glass. She was tall, but tonight her frame seemed unusually hunched, her shoulders rounded as she undid the locks. She was usually so confident, so self-possessed: a quality Alison greatly admired.
‘So sorry, Becky,’ Alison said to her now. ‘Did you see my text …?’
Becky’s face was grey. She swallowed. ‘No,’ she said, sounding spaced out. Her eyes looked strange. Not teary, exactly, but older. More lined, somehow. Like she hadn’t slept for a few nights. Like she had the flu.
‘Xander … um, well, Forrest and Ralph, they watched …’
‘Sorry?’ Becky said.
Her hair was bundled on top of her head. She had no make-up on, and Alison was struck by the circles underneath her eyes. One of her hands was shaking, and the other was wrapped around her waist. Was she ill? Perhaps, Alison thought, looking closely at her, she was drunk.
‘Sorry – what?’ Becky said again.
‘No, no, I’m sorry,’ Alison said, ‘disturbing you like this.’ God, she really was grey. Alison had never seen a complexion that colour. Little dots of sweat sat on Becky’s upper lip, which she dashed off when she saw Alison looking. Her finger came away wet, and she wiped it on her jogging bottoms.
‘They watched a mental film. I’m so sorry, I should have noticed, and stopped them. Xander is … well, he’s very frightened. He wanted to come home.’
‘Right, okay,’ Becky said. She nodded distractedly and then – for the first time in the entire exchange – looked beyond Alison to her son in the car.
She didn’t ask what film. She didn’t say anything further. She merely made a defeated kind of gesture, motioning to Xander, who went dutifully inside. He disappeared into the house, into the rooms beyond the kitchen. To bed, alone.
‘It was The Shining. I’m sorry,’ Alison said.
‘Sure,’ Becky said. ‘Whatever.’
Whatever? ‘I didn’t get the impression he’d watched anything like that before.’
‘I don’t really know, to be honest,’ Becky said, not looking at her.
‘Anyway, I’m really sorry for any anxiety he—’
Becky waved off her apologies with her hand, then went to close the door on her.
The rest of the house was silent, she noticed.
Completely and utterly quiet.
28
Martha
‘Thank you, for that,’ Ellen says. She looks pretty pleased with herself. ‘So, just to clarify: you definitely could not hear baby Layla crying when you dropped Xander back?’
‘No. Absolutely not.’
‘How sure are you?’
‘One hundred per cent,’ Alison says.
She is fi
rm and clear, just as Becky would be in the witness box. Becky was always good at choosing friends that are just like her. Fat lot of good it’s done her, though, that selectiveness. They’ve shopped her. Every last one of them.
‘Good.’ Ellen sits down.
Harriet rises. ‘How distressed would you say the defendant appeared, on a scale of one to ten?’
‘Um,’ Alison says. She pushes her hair back.
‘Slightly distressed? Very?’
‘Only slightly. She was just … weird.’
‘Right. So not, perhaps, as distressed as somebody might be had they committed murder just hours before?’
‘The witness cannot possibly answer that,’ Ellen says. She doesn’t stand, doesn’t even look up.
‘Okay. Not very distressed, then? Not in shock?’
‘Well, no.’
‘And remind us why you were there. With Xander.’
‘He was frightened.’
‘He was frightened and who did he want to see? Who did he ask to see?’
‘His mum,’ Alison says quietly, a slight catch in her voice.
‘His mother,’ Harriet says, turning to the jury, her voice loud, almost too loud, for her small frame. ‘And how did he seem when he went into the house?’
‘He just … he just walked past her and went in.’
‘Entirely at home, then.’
‘He seemed at home, yes.’
‘Did he – who knows his mother best – seem at all troubled by her behaviour?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing further.’
They don’t mention the lack of crying. Whether or not Becky did it, by that point Layla was dead. And she ought to have known it. What spin could the defence put on that? None.
I stare at Alison as she leaves.
Could Marc have been there? Is that why Becky took so long to answer the door? Was she hiding him?
‘Now,’ the judge says. ‘The prosecution is going to play the 999 call made at 7.59 a.m. the next day.’
No Further Questions Page 14