The Good Sister

by Gillian McAllister

  “Warm and protective. A hand around the baby’s head.”

  “Nothing further.”

  “How far away were you from the window?” Ellen says as she gets to her feet, as though she can’t possibly wait.

  She shouldn’t be going in for the kill already. I fiddle with a loose thread on my jeans. Let us have this moment, the moment where this nice woman saw Becky with Layla. Let us remember it. Less than an hour or so before Layla died, she was held, a hand cupped tenderly around her head. Perhaps Layla thought it was me, momentarily. Perhaps Layla leaned in, ever so slightly, the longer, golden hairs along the nape of her neck just tickling Becky’s hands. She was safe, and Becky was calm and protective, her body soft, her voice low.

  “Erm . . . God,” Frannie says, tucking a long strand of hair behind her ear. “I have no idea.”

  “Your house backs on to theirs, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “The nursery that Layla was in has two windows—front and back. It’s a long room. Let’s look at the scenes-of-crime officer’s photographs.” She flicks through the bundle and directs the jury to look at them, too. “Here is the bedroom,” she says.

  I close my eyes. No, not the scenes-of-crime officer’s exhibits. Not during this defense witness’s evidence that Becky was doing nothing wrong during Layla’s final hours.

  She holds up a photograph. It was taken in the morning and the light is wintry, milky. The Moses basket lies, discarded, on the floor. Flappy scrunched up next to that. The first photograph shows the front window, the second one the back. I had always liked that room. Last night, looking up from the street, I could see right through it. Front to back, like it was a tunnel.

  “So the back of your house backs on to the back of Becky’s. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So there are two gardens between you.”

  “Yes.”

  Ellen puts the photographs down. “Twenty meters, thirty, would you say?”

  “Yes. Probably.”

  “It’s thirty-two.”

  “Okay, thirty-two,” Frannie says.

  I wonder why they play these games.

  “How clearly can you really tell someone’s emotions, their stance, their real body language, from thirty-two meters, and through two windows? Thirty-two meters would be . . . it would be out of this room, and into the corridor beyond. Notwithstanding the fact that it was nighttime, and, by your own evidence, the room was dimly lit.”

  “Is there a question in this monologue?” Harriet says, not standing up, merely turning her head toward Ellen like a polite patron to a waitress, eyebrows raised.

  “How clearly could you see?”

  “Well, I thought I—”

  “Can you clearly see the faces of the public gallery here?”

  “Just about, yes.”

  “Well, they are only fifteen meters away, Frannie.”

  “I could see her.”

  “Did you like looking?”

  “I . . . what?”

  “Did you like looking at them?”

  Frannie blushes. “Yes, it was . . . I was . . . it was a hard time, and I liked looking.”

  “A ‘hard time’?”

  “Well, I was living alone for the first time, and I liked . . . I liked looking at that image, of Becky holding a baby.”

  “And so you saw what you wanted to see.”

  “No, I—”

  “Nothing further.”

  * * *

  —

  When we get home, Scott sits down in the big love seat, right next to a framed black-and-white photograph of Layla on the wall.

  When I told Becky about my first date with Scott, she raised a hand to me and said, “Let me guess—he’s a nice guy?”

  “Yes,” I had said. “But isn’t Marc?”

  She smiled then, dimples showing on either side of her cheeks. “He’s not a Nice Guy,” she said.

  I hadn’t known what she meant. She seemed to know more about life and its rules than I did, and that night, when I saw Scott’s number flash up on my phone, I thought: Are you a Nice Guy?

  I supposed he was. But what was wrong with that? As I answered, a cold fear arrived in my stomach: Was I settling? I ignored it. If I didn’t pay it any attention, it would go away.

  I pull the laptop onto my knees now, and begin to google.

  Babies who died for no reason.

  Babies who look like they were smothered but were not.

  Accidental smothering false conviction eight-week-old.

  There are some relevant hits. I read them voraciously, making meticulous notes on my pad. I think of Frannie’s evidence, of Becky cradling Layla in the window, backlit. Becky is innocent. I let the words turn around in my mind. Could she be? Her damning Google search, the overheard shouting. Could they all be nothing? Bits of stray evidence caught up in the search, like ocean debris? Okay, I think to myself. Maybe.

  Could Marc have let himself into Becky’s house during that five-minute Londis window? Is it even possible something could have happened then? The prosecution said the death wouldn’t have been after nine thirty but could have been as early as eight. Becky was at Londis at seven forty-five. It’s possible something could have happened when Becky was at Londis . . . something accidental. Something they then covered up. What was that bruise? Maybe it was that?

  Maybe Marc came over and something happened. Together, they staged an accident. Positioned Layla in the cot. Waited it out. Called the ambulance in the morning.

  They’d thought they could fool everyone into thinking it was cot death, that the medical tests wouldn’t reveal the truth.

  Or maybe Marc had done it—I recall that shouty, fatherly temper of his—and Becky was covering for him. They figured she would be more likely to get away with it than him. A man. The sister would never be convicted, they’d reasoned.

  That could be it.

  But why wouldn’t they have a party line? Why didn’t they concoct something? A fall? Co-sleeping? She could’ve said co-sleeping, and got off.

  It doesn’t make any sense.

  I read and read the internet, and my notes stretch to four pages, before Scott looks up.

  “What are you doing?” he says.

  “Research.”

  “Researching what?”

  “Accidental smothering of young babies,” I say. “And I’ve been thinking about whether somebody else could’ve been there that night, too.”

  Scott doesn’t say anything, which is almost worse than a diatribe. He merely exhales, nostrils flaring, and shakes his head. He reaches for the remote control and turns the television on.

  The local news blares out into the room. They’re covering our case, and he changes the channel.

  51

  Judge Christopher Matthews, QC

  I can’t believe the ex-husband said all that stuff,” Christopher says to Rumpole in the garden. “Bloody idiot.”

  The dog is sniffing the hydrangeas Sadie planted one Tuesday afternoon when he was working. They are turning brown around the edges of their petals.

  “Can you imagine?”

  Christopher has seen plenty of ill-advised witness performances. Ex-lovers, barbed answers to questions not asked. Lies told, of course. Contempt of court, and the rest of it. But he’s never seen anything quite like this. An ex-husband, sure his wife is innocent, despite all the evidence to the contrary. And looking at her from the witness box with that look on his face. Maybe they were in on it together.

  Nevertheless, he thinks the barrister was nasty, going for their relationship history. He almost said something, but decided not to after a moment’s thought. Let them go for it, he thought. Whatever.

  He stands now, in his garden, worrying away at Marc’s evidence, but can’t find what bothered him most about it. He go
es inside, leaving Rumpole in the flower bed, and sits at the breakfast bar, not knowing what to do with himself.

  It comes to him, five episodes of Game of Thrones, four beers, and six hours later: Marc respects Becky. He looked at her with respect in the courtroom. And so when she told him she was innocent, he believed her.

  When was the last time Christopher looked at Sadie that way? He remembers, once, referring wryly to her nursing career as wiping bottoms in an unusually vicious, alcohol-fueled moment at a dinner party when he chose to prioritize the cheap laugh over the offense it would cause. She never mentioned it, but he saw her shoulders tense. He should have apologized. Why didn’t he?

  What did she think of him at the end? Does she miss Rumpole? She’s never said, and he has never inquired. Does she still love him? Not according to their divorce petition, no.

  He sets his can of beer down on the arm of the sofa and pulls his laptop over. He will email her, he thinks.

  As he types, a peculiar sensation comes over him. It is something to do with the stillness of his house. The only sound is Rumpole, turning around in the corner of the living room.

  Layla.

  That’s who Christopher is thinking of. The baby who died: by accident or from something sinister, he isn’t yet sure. But there is something weird about it. That is where the goose bumps come from.

  Something isn’t quite right.

  Something isn’t quite fitting together, somehow.

  friday

  52

  Martha

  I go to Becky’s house in the early morning. This time, I let myself in.

  I wonder dimly if Scott knows of my absences: my late-night wanderings, my early-morning outings. He probably notices, as I notice his. Maybe he thinks I am seeing somebody else. That I don’t love him.

  I shifted closer to him in bed last night, my skin against his, but he didn’t wake. He would have had no idea it had happened.

  I’m standing in the hallway, my spare key in my hand, and it’s the overpowering smell that does it. The smell of their home. I never used to be able to smell it, I was there so often. I close my eyes as I think of it. Takeout with Marc and Becky while Xander played on the floor, back when they were happy. White wine in Becky’s garden. Taking Layla over there for the first time, when she was just three days old and it still hurt to sit down. Xander cradling her clumsily while we watched anxiously. It was all ahead of us then, or so we thought.

  It was one such night, maybe just over a year ago, when she was still raw from her split with Marc, when she asked me about Scott. A couple of glasses of wine down on a Saturday night, she said, “Do you honestly really love him?”

  “What?” I almost laughed. “Scott?”

  “Well, ignore me, if you want,” she had said, sloshing wine everywhere as she gestured. “I married for love, and look where I am.”

  “But what do you mean?” I said. I shouldn’t have asked.

  I knew what she meant.

  At my bachelorette party, in the quiet underground of a spa, I had asked her how she knew Marc was the one. She had wiggled her toes against the hot wall of the sauna and said, “If you have to ask, he’s not.”

  “I just don’t think you’re that into each other,” she said simply, pouring more wine for herself.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said.

  But now, I remember the ruthlessness of it. Ruthless.

  That is one word I might use to describe her.

  There will be evidence upstairs. I know it. Poked around in—by the scenes-of-crime officer, the police, and maybe the medics. But there’ll be other evidence, too. A life, stopped. A glass of water, half-empty, on Becky’s bedside table, perhaps, or a half-full laundry basket.

  I can’t take any more steps into her hallway. It’s enough, for now, to smell Becky’s house. I leave after just a few minutes more.

  As I’m walking down her drive, my hand on the cool metal of her garden gate, I feel it. It’s conviction. That’s what it is. The complete, assured conviction that somebody did this to Layla.

  And that it wasn’t Becky.

  A murder happened here. My body knows it. And it tells me it was Marc.

  I get in my car and drive in the direction of his house.

  * * *

  —

  Marc answers his door with a confused expression on his face. It’s six o’clock in the morning.

  He’s wearing a gray T-shirt and jogging bottoms. He looks up the stairs behind him, then shuts the door, standing barefoot on the welcome mat outside in the heat. I guess Xander is there, and he doesn’t want him to hear.

  “God,” he says. “Martha, if this is about—”

  “Was it you?” I say, unable to stop the words tumbling out of my mouth.

  He says nothing.

  “Was it you?” I ask again.

  He pauses for a second, raking his hand through his hair. “This again,” he says. His voice breaks. “You really think I did it.”

  “Did you go over to see Becky? What about when she went to Londis?”

  He raises his head to look at me. “I can’t imagine you’re going to believe me,” he says. “But it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. I wasn’t there.”

  “You tried to help her, didn’t you? After? You covered it up . . . you said nobody came over. You didn’t say went over.”

  He blinks, and that sentence—evidence I was so sure about—seems to evaporate into nothing.

  “I didn’t go there,” he says. “I wish I could tell you how I felt the moment I got that call, Martha.” He meets my eyes. “The call in the morning about Layla. It was the worst moment of my entire life. And Becky, she . . . I don’t know what you think, but, Martha, her heart is broken.”

  “Because she is accused?” I say.

  “No. Because she lost her niece. Her niece that she loved and cared for so much. She feels guilty. Not because she is guilty, but because she feels it. Layla was in her care and . . .”

  He doesn’t break my gaze. His eyes dampen, but still he keeps looking at me.

  “You never doubted her?” I say. “You never once thought she’d done it?”

  “No,” he says. “Not once, not ever.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I say. I’m genuinely curious. How could he possibly know?

  “Because . . . because I know her. Inside out,” he says. “And I know grief, too. It’s obvious. She doesn’t eat.”

  I don’t say anything. I just carry on looking at him, feeling utterly lost, on my brother-in-law’s doorstep.

  “Look, Martha, if you come again, I’m going to need to inform somebody,” he says gently.

  I turn and walk away without another word.

  He is convincing. His tearful gaze is convincing. His threat, imparted gently, reluctantly. It is the Marc I know well. My brother-in-law. No wonder the barrister didn’t ask him. Of course he wasn’t there.

  I’m an embarrassment. A desperate woman.

  * * *

  —

  I walk to the beach and try to forget I saw Marc. Try to forget the look he gave me.

  The trial will close on Tuesday and then the jury will commence its deliberation. At the start of this week, I couldn’t imagine today. But here we are. The days are the same length, the same rhythm, meted out by God, even though their weight, on us, is heavier than mercury. Scott is right. I’ve got to stop trying to solve it and move on somehow.

  The sea sparkles in front of me.

  I flew to Kos on the Wednesday afternoon. A few hours. Hardly anything, I thought. Like driving to Oxford. Hardly any distance.

  I would sign the documents on Thursday. Get a lawyer instructed to purchase the property. Return Friday morning. A fleeting visit to ensure all was safe, to see the children and hold their warm hands for a few moments. To ensure they had a pre
mises. And then I would hire somebody: properly. Spend the rest of my maternity leave with Layla. And with Becky. Maybe we could do the admin between us, jointly.

  I was already on the return plane, waiting on the runway, when I got the call. The door hadn’t shut yet, people were still milling about, putting their hand luggage above me—a man’s zip from his hooded jumper swung perilously close to my face—and so I answered my phone, ringing in the depths of my handbag.

  It was Becky. The last call I ever took from her. It’s still in my call records, frozen in time.

  It took me more than two iterations to understand it. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. The man was still trying to get his bag into the overhead locker. His zip was still swinging. Toward me and then away from me, toward me and then away from me.

  We started taxiing. I woodenly turned my phone off.

  Logical Martha overrode the other. Just get home. Get home and sort it out.

  But I never came home again. Not really.

  * * *

  —

  Scott is in a shirt and boxers in our bedroom when I return at eight in the morning. I don’t like the vertiginous sensation of being up in a flat that overlooks the sea: the expanse of it. I don’t tell him where I’ve been. What I’ve asked Marc.

  “You don’t need to wear a shirt,” I say, suddenly irritated at the pretense of it all. At the Masai masks hanging on our wall that we brought home from some exotic holiday or other. Status symbols. That’s what they are. And where did status get us? I want to pull them off the wall, but I resist. I rage at the sea views we purchased, like they were a tonic to cure all modern ills. At the shirt he insists on wearing to the trial for the murder of our daughter.

  “I know. But it’s . . . you know. It’s court,” he says.

  He likes to follow the rules. They are the scaffolding of his life. Taking a bottle of wine when invited to somebody’s house for dinner. Sending birthday cards, thank-you cards, sympathy cards. He’s good at all of that: etiquette. I’ve always found it charming, like he has fully bought into the world he lives in, not questioning his choices, like I am.