The Good Sister

by Gillian McAllister

  * * *

  —

  The prosecution calls Detective Sergeant Johnson,” Ellen says.

  It is just before lunch, and the lawyers look tired. The jury don’t. They look alert, keen to be finally getting into the details of the case. Not the neighbors or the social workers, curiously distant from the night in question itself. Here they are, midseason in the box set of our lives, pleased to be getting some answers at last.

  I see Becky’s body language shift, and mine probably does, too. This woman, Keysha Johnson, was the beginning of it. It began—and it ended—in A&E, of course, but the legal proceedings truly started with Keysha, and with the interviews, and then the charge.

  I blink, looking at Keysha as she crosses the court. She is regal-looking, wearing a charcoal-gray suit with a turquoise silk blouse. She holds herself upright, like an actor in a play. Her hair is braided in perfectly straight lines. They could’ve been done with a ruler. Between the plaits, I can see her scalp.

  She doesn’t look at the jury, or the judge, and certainly not at Becky, either. She takes her jacket off and lays it on the wooden shelf behind her, utterly at home.

  “Detective Sergeant Keysha Johnson,” Ellen says.

  “Yes.”

  “You are the DS in charge of child protection at Sussex Police.”

  “That’s correct,” Keysha says, tilting her chin slightly upward.

  “You were the first police officer on the scene after Layla was brought to A&E and declared deceased, and then you went on to investigate the defendant, overseen by Superintendent Christopher Jones, whose evidence is agreed and won’t be presented here today.”

  “That’s again correct,” Keysha says. She sounds almost bored.

  “I’ll leave you to talk me through it, then,” Ellen says. “From the beginning, please.”

  33

  Detective Sergeant Keysha Johnson

  Morning, Friday, October 27

  When the call came from A&E this morning, she had answered it in a bored tone. Drunks, domestic violence, more drunks. Thursday was the new Friday, and so Friday mornings were now as bad as Saturdays. But no. A dead eight-week-old. And the sister was looking after her, and not the mother. In suspicious deaths of children, it was always the parents, in Keysha’s experience. These calls always involved the parents. The investigations always involved the parents. They would deny it, but that’s how it always came out in the end.

  The atmosphere in A&E was strange. They should be used to death, she thought, but they didn’t seem to be. The consultant was red-eyed, leaning on her elbows over the reception desk, having an in-depth conversation with the triage nurse. Keysha was pointed in the direction of the aunt.

  There she was. Rebecca: Call me Becky. A strange thing to say to a police sergeant, but she would let her off for now. Keysha was watching, though. She appraised her body language. Arms folded across her chest. Defensive. Yes, Keysha was watching.

  Becky was tall and imposing, with bright, clear eyes, and had on a cardigan and jeans. No makeup. Middle-class, Keysha observed dispassionately. It probably hadn’t been violent, then. A few years ago, she would’ve winced at such a sweeping generalization, but not now. It was simply the truth.

  “Becky, I know this is a very difficult time,” Keysha said. “But I am going to need you to take me to the house where it happened.”

  “The house,” Becky repeated.

  It was funny. The woman was looking straight at Keysha, but there was nothing going on behind her eyes. Shock, Keysha supposed, though that didn’t exonerate anybody. Lord knows, criminals, too, are shocked by the results of their own depraved actions.

  “Martha will be here soon . . .” Becky said, checking her phone. It was ablaze with messages.

  Keysha frowned. She would have that phone off her soon enough, once she got the warrant, and she would search it properly.

  “. . . she’s on a plane.”

  The mother, Keysha guessed, though nobody thought to tell her. “Okay,” she said. “But nevertheless, because an infant has died, there is a procedure to follow, and I am going to need you to come with me now.”

  They traveled in Keysha’s car, in silence. Keysha’s phone in the glove box vibrated once and she did her best to ignore it. It was less than five minutes to Becky’s house. “Here on the left” were the only words that Becky spoke for the entire trip.

  The scenes-of-crime officer met them there. She was standing outside, handbag held in front of her. She was a prim old woman, married forty years, and she photographed crime scenes every day of her working life. Keysha found her fascinating. Did she go home and tell her husband of the things she had seen that day?

  Becky went inside with her, while Keysha waited in the car. It didn’t take them long. Keysha was dying to know the state of the scene, but she didn’t ask. She couldn’t go in. That was the scenes-of-crime officer’s job. Hers was to sit here and wait. To think.

  Next, she took Becky to the station. The first interview was exploratory. At least, that’s what they said. Becky didn’t want to come—she wanted to wait for Martha—but Keysha promised they’d have her back by the time her sister was home, that it would take less than an hour. The husband and son were waiting back at the hospital for her. The house was sealed off: a crime scene.

  “What happened?” Keysha said in the interview. She didn’t bother trying to look friendly, these days. She was forty, and she couldn’t be bothered anymore.

  “I was in with her. All evening. She cried all evening. I was texting Marc about it.”

  “Who’s Marc?”

  “My ex-husband.”

  “What did you do with your evening? You and Layla?”

  “Tried to stop her crying.” She darted a quick look at Keysha. “Watched TV.”

  “Oh, what did you watch?” Keysha said conversationally.

  “A film. A TV program. About house hunting.”

  “So a TV program.” Keysha tilted her head to the side.

  “Yes. All evening.”

  “Did you do anything else of note?”

  “Talked to Marc, on the phone, as well as texting. Nothing else. At all.”

  “When did you put the baby to bed?”

  “Elevenish.”

  “Right. What were you doing with her until then?”

  “Trying to stop her crying.”

  “Okay. How?”

  “Feeds. A bath. Walking . . .”

  “I see.”

  “And then my—our—son was brought home. He’d been at a sleepover and he hadn’t been . . . he had been scared. He’s an anxious type.”

  “And when was that?”

  “Around midnight.”

  “And then . . .”

  “I did one last check, later. Two . . . three? I had some wine. She was still grumbling. She hadn’t stopped, really. I fell asleep on the sofa. Woke up and checked her. And the next thing I remember is in the morning. I woke with a start, you know? When you’re used to being woken by the baby.”

  “Why were you used to being woken by the baby?”

  “I am—I was—Layla’s nanny. Unofficially. For a while. I’d had her the previous night as well . . . Martha’s husband was supposed to come home after the first night, but he stayed an extra night at a developers’ conference . . .”

  Keysha blinked. “I see.”

  “And then I . . .”

  Keysha waited. The silence seemed to fill the tiny interviewing room. Becky’s eyes started to water, but Keysha remained impassive: She could wait all day long.

  “I guess I sort of knew, then.” Becky winced. “I mean, I didn’t. But I was worried. When she hadn’t cried. So I got to the spare room and she was . . . Jesus. She was dead. I called 999. Did CPR on her . . . her little . . .”

  “So the last time you checked Layla was�
�when?”

  “That time I told you about, in the early hours.”

  “And how was Layla then?”

  Becky’s eyes moved to the side, avoiding contact.

  Keysha clocked it immediately.

  “She was fine. Normal.”

  “And you would’ve expected to be woken between the small hours and eight, by her?”

  “God, yes, absolutely.”

  “But you weren’t.”

  “No. And I was so tired and, I guess, quite drunk that I slept until eight.”

  “What do you remember about Layla at the two or three o’clock check?”

  Becky’s head sank to her chest. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I poked my head around the door. It was dark. She was pretty quiet. I don’t know. I just . . . I just didn’t want to wake her. That screaming had been . . .”

  “What?”

  “Intense. So I just opened the door a crack. All seemed well. I thanked my lucky stars she was quiet.” Becky gulped.

  “How much wine had you drunk?”

  “A bottle.”

  “Okay. So quite drunk, then.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is your memory of those small hours clear?”

  “No.”

  “No co-sleeping?”

  “No. None.”

  Becky was taken back to the hospital, and while it was fresh in her mind, Keysha took a note of their conversation. It always started with a timeline. Then she sat back in her chair and looked at the papers through narrowed eyes.

  Cot death, she hoped, despite herself.

  * * *

  —

  There was nothing found at the scene. The officer showed the photographs to Keysha. A Moses basket, which was seized and tested but showed nothing suspicious. A changing table with a mattress on the top. A blanket. A cuddly toy on the floor. No signs of violence. No blood. Nothing unusual or out of place.

  A week later, the call came. The postmortem: The cause of death had been given as asphyxiation. Blood and blanket fibers in Layla’s lungs. Smothering, as far as Keysha was concerned.

  Well, shit, she thought. She genuinely hadn’t expected that. Was she losing touch with her instincts? She thought back to Becky in the interview. She’d been shifty, that much was true, but Keysha didn’t think she was a murderer. Well, not until now, anyway.

  She looked again at the photographs of the Moses basket. Accidental asphyxiation was surely unlikely. Eight-week-olds couldn’t roll.

  Had the baby actually been in Becky’s bed? A bottle of wine. Accidental smothering: That would do it. But she’d denied co-sleeping. If she’d said they’d co-slept, she wouldn’t have been charged.

  Interesting. In her denial, she had incriminated herself.

  * * *

  —

  Becky got a lawyer immediately. She no-commented like a pro, and asked for the duty solicitor. Keysha telephoned him: an affable, sporty young solicitor from Hove, called Pete. She had always liked him. After fractious initial interviews, sometimes, late at night, they would smoke outside together. Disgusting habit, she knew.

  “Becky, if you were co-sleeping . . . charges wouldn’t be pressed,” Keysha said in their next interview. “Rolling-over smothering is very common.”

  Becky’s cheeks turned pink. “I wasn’t co-sleeping.”

  “Tell me exactly how you found her.”

  “On her back . . . white. Unresponsive.”

  “How did the room look?”

  “Just . . . normal.”

  “No signs of anything? A discarded blanket? A sign she had rolled over, maybe?”

  “No.”

  “Was the door closed or open?”

  “Closed.”

  “Okay, and how was it when you entered the room? What do you remember?”

  “It was dim. Um . . .”

  “Did you alter anything in the room, anything at all?”

  “No.”

  “Did you move the blankets? Move the Moses basket?”

  “I pulled the blankets off Layla to try and revive her.”

  Pete became obstructive after that, rendering any questioning pointless, so Keysha decided to look at the papers properly, then recall Becky.

  She took her time over the evidence, just the way she liked to. The phone. The Fitbit. The internet search history. She looked at them in turn. They were strange; they sat on the knife-edge between normal and suspicious. Hadn’t she had her fair share of desperate evenings when Lebron was little, after all? The texts she, herself, had sent . . .

  She took them in turn.

  The text messages to Marc at seven o’clock:

  Becky: Jesus, I’m worried about Layla. And me!

  Marc: It always feels worse at the time. I still have a list from when Xander was small. Here it is. Feed. Change. Burp. Fart. Tired. Dirty nappy. Cold. Hot. Lonely. Teething. Pain. Overstimulated. Understimulated. Ill. No Reason. xx

  Marc: Internet says if crying for no reason: sucking, swaddling, music, white noise, fresh air, bath, motion, massage. Take a break. You didn’t ask for this, Samuel, when you took it on. I know that. xx

  A phone call to him at 7:31, lasting three minutes.

  She turned to the Fitbit. Keysha’s tech assistant had downloaded it all for her.

  She clicked on the folder: data from 26 and 27 October. And there it was, a map of Becky’s movements, right on the screen in front of her.

  Keysha traced her finger across the map on the screen. She checked, then checked again: Always double-check everything, her old boss used to say to her.

  She sat back in the chair and folded her arms, looking up at the ceiling rose. How interesting this Becky was shaping up to be.

  On the screen, there were two blue lines. One moving away from her house, one moving back four minutes later. She had been four hundred yards down the road at 7:45 P.M., after the texts to Marc and the phone call. Keysha brought up Google Maps and typed in the address, then zoomed out, her eyes scanning. Ah, there it was. A Londis. The Calpol, purchased immediately. It wasn’t indicative of anything. It wasn’t. And yet, somehow, in that sensory part of her gut that came to life in investigatory moments like this, it just was.

  But, more than that, Keysha’s gut cried out: Becky had said she hadn’t left the house.

  Becky had lied.

  Becky had, Keysha suspected, left the baby alone. Later that evening, Keysha went to Londis to get their CCTV.

  “I went to Londis for the Calpol, yes,” Becky said in the third interview.

  Pete crossed and uncrossed his legs next to her. He shot Keysha a look.

  And, finally, Keysha found the Google search. Two words, googled at 9:12 P.M.

  Calpol + Overdose.

  Those two condemning words.

  Keysha brought up the medical evidence of the postmortem on her screen. Blanket fibers in the lungs. Minor signs of a struggle. A bruise on the back of the earlobe: an unusual location, almost always indicative of abuse.

  But more than that: the time of death. Between eight and nine thirty. Absolutely no later, the pathologist said. It would be impossible. Becky hadn’t even put the baby to bed by then. That was a strange thing for her to have said. Keysha suspected she’d been drunker than she said and had no idea of the timings, because Layla was found dead in the bedroom.

  And then: the delay. Potentially twelve hours between death and calling the ambulance. Delay in seeking medical attention: the biggest red flag there could be.

  It was always the way. They tried to fix it, to cover it up, concoct a story.

  Becky had looked in on Layla in the small hours, by her own admission. Keysha gritted her teeth and shook her head. It was fabricated. To make her look attentive. But of course she hadn’t looked in. A
few hours earlier, at between eight and nine thirty, Layla had died, and Becky had been the only person in the house.

  And so, when perpetrators realized they couldn’t cover it up, they faked it. A frantic 999 call, made hours after the event.

  The texts.

  The solo trip to Londis. The lie.

  There would be more evidence, but that was enough.

  Becky was charged with murder forty-eight hours later.

  34

  Martha

  Calpol.

  Overdose.

  Two incriminating words. Or are they?

  The more I think about it, the less sure I am. What would I google, if I were unsure of dosages? Maybe that, yes. There was no Calpol found in Layla’s body. That is not how she died. For the prosecution, this is about intent: evidence that my sister couldn’t cope. That she was looking for solutions.

  I glance sideways at Scott, sitting here next to me but not speaking, not allowed to speak. I shift my body closer to his, feel the warmth coming off him. His jaw is quivering. He’s trying not to cry. We link hands together in the public gallery.

  They show the jury the scenes-of-crime officer’s photographs. I can’t see them, and I don’t want to, though I can imagine them. The Moses basket in the corner, on the floor. The blanket. The changing mat on top of Becky’s old white chest of drawers that she’s had since university. Flappy, the yellowing old cuddly toy, found on the floor.

  The defense lawyer, Harriet, stands up. She doesn’t say anything for a few moments. She looks down, shuffling her papers, but doesn’t speak. Eventually, she looks up, and straight at Keysha.

  “Detective Sergeant Thompson,” Harriet says, “how many days passed between each of your interviews with the defendant?”

  “Between the first and the second: seven. Between the second and the third: one.”

  “I suppose, then, that Becky could easily have deleted those texts, and cleared her Fitbit?”

  “Yes.”

  “She could easily have already deleted a phone call.”