“Right,” Ellen says, sounding exasperated. “At no point has the defendant, the victim’s mother, or anyone who had care of Layla said that she was accidentally smothered. Becky had sole care of Layla at the agreed time of death—between eight and nine thirty that evening. She would have known, and indeed would have admitted, that it was accidental, if it was. If it was accidental, the baby would have been discovered having rolled over, or caught in her blankets. The defendant’s own account is that Layla wasn’t even in bed at that time.”
Harriet stands, but Ellen gets there first. “I will withdraw that commentary,” she says. Then, looking at the witness: “So your evidence that Layla’s injuries might have come from an accident are irrelevant, because that isn’t the evidence we have.”
“That we know of.”
“You say these injuries would present themselves in a case of accidental smothering. Would they all? Even the bruised gums?”
“It’s possible.”
“All the time? Every single time?”
“Not every single time, no.”
I find myself looking across at Becky, wondering what she thinks about all of this. If she did it, if she didn’t . . . because if she didn’t do it, all of this—this conjecture—it’s pointless, isn’t it? An expert saying one thing, the next saying another . . . she might be sitting there knowing that she didn’t do it. How strange that would be.
“Retinal hemorrhages—how often do they last eight weeks from birth?”
“It is possible that they do.”
“Is it likely?”
“It’s possible.”
“Is it rare?”
“It is quite rare for them to last eight weeks.”
“Right.” Ellen sighs, as though she is dealing with an idiot, a criminal. “So your hypothesis is that Layla did not die because of homicidal smothering. She died of accidental smothering, or of something benign and undetectable, and the findings of hemorrhages were incidental to this? Or maybe that she rolled over prodigiously early, for the first time, that night—and nobody saw? And she was found on her back, by the defendant’s own testimony?”
“Yes.”
“Is that likely?”
“It is possible.”
“You say CPR or shaking to wake a baby can cause retinal hemorrhages.”
“Yes.”
“So your position is that the injuries might have been caused after Layla’s death, after she was found dead in her cot?”
“Yes, they could have been.”
“Are the other injuries consistent with taking place after death?”
Jada looks at her feet. “Well . . .”
“Because the body behaves differently before and after death, does it not? The blood stops flowing, for example?”
“It does.”
“So the quality of the injuries—do they look to you like they occurred before or after death, in terms of inflammatory reactions?”
“Before. But it is possible that—”
“Right. Thank you.” Ellen leaves a meaningful pause. “Nothing further.” She heaves a sigh. She sounds exhausted, baffled, confused. Just confused by this expert, and all of her unlikely, ludicrous evidence.
And she’s not the only one.
So that is that. I sneak a look across the public gallery, then at Scott. He was right. There is no defense. There are no facts. They have bent each beam of truth, refracted it naturally away from Becky, but it is a construct. The truth of it is that one beam—abuse, a spotlight explaining every single injury—fits. This defense—that one symptom was caused by one unlikely event, another by another—seems unnatural. Precarious. Like it could tumble down at any moment.
The conviction I felt in Becky’s front garden has disappeared. This isn’t a murder investigation, and I am no sleuth. It’s just a slow unraveling of a tragedy, a tragedy my sister caused. It must be.
The truth is, there is no truth. We will never know.
Conviction or acquittal. I am never going to know.
That is the truth of it.
57
Becky
7:50 p.m., Thursday, October 26
You left her?” he says. He’s holding her close to him. Her mouth is right by his ear. The noise must be unreal.
“Only for five minutes,” I say. I wave the bottles at him, both held in my right hand. “Calpol.”
“Oh,” Marc says.
Credit to him, he doesn’t belabor the point. I shouldn’t have left her, obviously. But he knows, more than most, the stress of it.
“You sounded like you could do with a hand anyway . . . and I wanted to talk to you,” he says.
“Okay,” I say dully.
“What’s going on, Sam?” He rises, going to stand by the mirror over the mantelpiece. “Who’s that?” he says to Layla, pointing to her reflection.
“Nothing,” I say sullenly. I’m not sure he hears me over the crying. “It’s just . . .” I say, looking at my ex-husband in the mirror.
His smell lingers in the living room. Not aftershave, not deodorant, not washing powder. New carpets, that’s what he’s always smelled of. And I have always loved it.
“This arrangement,” he says. “It can’t be long-term, can it?”
“I don’t know,” I say, over her screams.
Marc sits down again with Layla. “It’s mad,” he says.
“It’s mad how incompetent I am,” I say. To my surprise, my voice cracks, expanding around a lump in my throat. “Mad,” I say.
Marc doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me. Blue eyes open wide, so trustworthy. I could tell him anything.
“Look at their life,” I say.
I gesture and Marc passes Layla to me. She quietens, still crying, but more of a low, discontented grizzle. I lay her down in my lap and her fists close around my fingers. Her little warm hands.
“Martha and Scott’s?”
“Yes. Look at it. They’re running a charity. He earns a shitload with his computer stuff. It’s perfect, isn’t it? Their perfect flat, their perfect, charitable endeavors, their perfectly planned baby.”
“Is it?” Marc says. He rubs a hand thoughtfully over his chin.
This is what I’ve always loved about him. He considers my opinions. He doesn’t dismiss them, as Martha and Scott do. Bloody Becky, they think, exchanging a wry glance. But Marc never does. Never would.
“And then look at me!” I say, sounding hysterical, even to myself. “Failed at design school. Failed at set dressing. Failed at marriage,” I say, catching his eye.
“I failed at that, too,” he says softly, sadly. “Not to mention the baby making.”
I take a deep breath. And suddenly, here I am. After years of avoidance, of pride, of defiance, here I am, ready.
And I know it’s not just the wine talking. It is me. “I’m sorry, Marc,” I say. “I should never have given up on us. I should never have slept with somebody else. It was . . . God, it was beyond stupid.”
“It was,” he says. “It was.”
“I regret it every day. I regret this nannying every day,” I say, looking at Layla, “and I regret that.”
“Well, at least you’ve admitted it,” he says, a small smile on his face.
“How do you mean?”
“Oh, Sams. I think sometimes you’re so prickly, worrying about what people think of you, that you never truly say how you feel. You think they’ll judge you.”
“But they do.”
“So what?” he says, looking at me. “So what.”
“Thank you,” I say to him. But I’m not done yet. The weeks of pent-up thoughts are racing out, across the living room, to my ex-husband. “And now this. I’m a failed nanny, too. I was never a good mother,” I say thickly, my voice sounding coated. “It’s just that Xander was easy.”
“No,” Marc says, standing up and coming to sit next to me on the chair. He sits on the arm, his hand dangling casually behind my back. I can feel the warmth of it. My entire mind is focused on it. “No way. Remember when Xander had winter vomiting? And then teething right after?”
“Vaguely,” I say. I think it was the only time I’d ever been seriously sleep deprived. “In the spring,” I say. I only remember that because I ate an entire Easter cake, in bed, at 4:00 A.M.
“He was sick for three nights straight,” Marc says. “No sleep. I had a big job on and you just did it all, Sammy. Cleaning up the sick. Changing the beds. Comforting him. And then the teething. I got home one night and your eyes were just black with how tired you were. But there you were, rubbing Bonjela onto his gums even though it was late.”
I remember that night. He sent me off for a bath. I fell asleep and woke in the tepid water. He dried me off, in the bedroom, and I fell asleep in the towel.
“You just did it all,” he says again. “You can do anything you put your mind to.”
“You remember all that?”
“I miss it,” he says. “I’ve missed it so much. I have Xander half the time, since we split. But I miss it. The other parent.” His eyes meet mine. “You.”
“I wouldn’t miss me,” I say.
I have never once considered how hard it must have been for him. I slept with somebody else and, out of respect for himself, he had to move out. But I’d never once thought I had consigned him to co-parenting, to McDonald’s trips alone with his son, to lonely evenings and solo school runs. How selfish I am.
“Sam, listen. You got pregnant at nineteen and you coped with it. You gave up your career for Xander. You found a job that let you work around him. You never resented it, even though you weren’t doing what you wanted. And as for us . . .”
“Well, yes,” I say. I look up at him, and his arm shifts, finally connecting with my shoulders. I lean into it. I can’t help but do anything else. “What about us?”
“You ditched your arse of a husband. As you rightly should.”
“I slept with somebody else. Somebody I didn’t love. What an idiot,” I say forlornly.
“With good reason,” Marc says with a sigh.
His other hand reaches down to rub Layla’s stomach. She’s still grumbling, but also watching us, her navy eyes catching the lamplight.
“Not really,” I say. “You were a bit . . . we were withdrawn and lazy. That’s all. The usual.”
“It wasn’t usual,” he says. “It wasn’t laziness.”
“No?”
He sighs, then says nothing, looking across the living room in silence.
“What?” I say.
“Do you remember my mumps?” he says.
“Yes,” I say.
How we had laughed at his moonface. Martha had said it was cruel, and we had just laughed even more.
“When Xander was two.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, that’s why,” Marc says simply.
I’m still looking up at him. His expression is unreadable.
“When we started trying again . . . when it took ages, I saw the doctor. I didn’t want to, but Dad said I should. So I did. And that’s . . . I’m the reason. The mumps. I couldn’t give you a baby because . . . I can’t,” he says. “That’s why.”
I look down at Layla, then up at him again. His eyes are wet. I don’t think I have ever seen him cry.
“Oh,” I whisper.
“So,” he says, dragging the back of his hand underneath his eyes, “I withdrew. I just couldn’t handle it. I developed this dickhead persona. Shouting at Xander, at you. Acting macho because—”
“Marc,” I say.
“I know. I know I should’ve told you. You could’ve left. Had a baby with someone else. Or at least stopped hoping your period wouldn’t come.”
I swallow hard, remembering those months—those years—of bathroom tears. Of checking my boobs so often that I convinced myself they were sore, a phantom pregnancy symptom created by checking for one. Of pregnancy tests done anyway, in hope, and searching for lines that weren’t there.
But then I think of Marc. Ill with mumps. Rendered infertile. Being told by a doctor and acting normally that night—whenever it was—around us. Not feeling like he could complete his family because of something that had happened to him. Mumps. So quotidian. So unfair.
“Marc,” I say again.
“I’m so sorry, Sam. I should’ve said. Instead, I went the other way. Those stupid FutureLearn courses. I felt like if I filled my head with other stuff, with distractions, then maybe it wouldn’t matter. God, what an idiot. It’s no wonder you slept with somebody else. I don’t blame you.”
“God,” I say, trying to take it all in. Trying to work out whether it’s a betrayal or a welcome confession. I scout around, searching, but I find no resentment. I find only one thing: sympathy. And regret. “You poor thing,” I say. I reach up for his hand and hold it.
He starts to cry properly, fully. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“I’m sorry, too . . . I’m sorry we didn’t find a way through.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I wasn’t surprised, though. When you slept with someone else. I know how many nights you wanted to . . . and I just rolled away from you. I just couldn’t. I felt faulty.”
“You’re not faulty,” I say, leaning against his body. “You’re never faulty, to me.”
“That’s why I was so nasty, anyway. Being a man, I suppose.”
“You weren’t nasty. You were just a bit—hey. You had a lot going on.”
“I was trying to assert my masculinity. With telling-offs. With temper.”
I breathe in his new-carpet smell and say nothing as he shakes beside me. I rhythmically stroke the rough skin on the back of his hand, letting him cry. “That’s why you were nice, when we split up,” I say. “That’s why you’ve always been so nice to me.”
“It was like a pressure cooker. And then when I moved out, I felt like . . . I felt like me again. I wasn’t going to make any babies, and nobody was expecting me to. And we just reverted, didn’t we? I didn’t imagine it, did I?”
“No,” I say. “We did. We did just go back to the way it was. The way we were.”
“And now . . .” he says.
He shifts his weight, and I move over, and suddenly we’re both sitting, squeezed in too tight, in the armchair together.
“Not sure this is big enough for my arse and yours,” Marc says.
I can’t help but let out a laugh. That humor of his. So base. I have always loved it.
“And now what?” I say.
Layla starts crying again and I try my best not to feel irritated. Marc looks at me.
“She’s loud, isn’t she?” he says. “No wonder you’ve been going bonkers.”
“She’s so loud,” I say.
“You need to quit this job,” he says carefully.
“I know. I do know that. I can’t do it anymore. I feel so— God. I feel so mad. I forgot Xander the other day. I left him at the school gates again, because Martha was late, and I didn’t have a phone.”
“Oh, Sam. We can’t let that happen. Their needs can’t trump our little family’s. And you’re not mad.”
“I am. I feel angry at her,” I say. “I feel angry at Layla.”
“I see,” he says. “I see.”
He’s nodding, thinking. Wondering what to do, I suppose.
“Well, Samuel,” he says. “Enough of that. We hardly stopped being together, anyway, did we?”
Layla shifts on my lap. Her eyelids are drooping, but she startles awake each time sleep approaches.
I realize I’m holding my breath. “No,” I say. “We didn’t.”
I look at the clock on the mantelpiece. Cl
ose to eight o’clock on the twenty-sixth of October. The day we worked it all out. The day love won out.
“So how about we . . .” he says, looking at me carefully.
I say nothing, just look back at him, the widest smile in the world on my face. Ever so slowly, he leans down, and kisses me deeply, his tongue tantalizing, his lips soft.
Home. I am home among the new carpets.
Home.
58
Martha
The defense has two witnesses remaining: a midwife and Xander. Becky is not giving evidence—exercising her right to silence—which is a fact I try not to dwell on. Ethan tells me it’s what most defendants charged with murder do. That she will have been advised to do it. That, because she has no explanation, the best way forward is to not state her case. That if she takes the stand, the jury may judge her. But still.
The midwife is called. She is a no-nonsense West Country woman called Bridget Evans.
“Just a few questions,” Harriet says, looking tired and pale after the expert witness evidence.
“Okay,” Bridget says. She has a dark, low ponytail, which spreads down her back, but the roots are a bright white, like a badger’s. Her face has an earthy, ruddy quality. No makeup. A sort of plump smile; her cheeks fill out as she smiles at Harriet.
“Tell me about Layla’s birth.”
“It was—gosh, I do remember it so well,” she says. “It was a bit of a bugger, to be honest. Martha—” She indicates me, perhaps unprofessionally, and I nod, embarrassed. “Well, let me tell you. I saw Martha when she was hardly dilated at all. She kept coming back, she was in so much pain! I felt for her. She has one of those brittle bodies, skinny, that feels pain easily. That’s my theory, anyway. I sent her away, then she came back, I examined her, sent her away again, and so on. On the morning of Layla’s birth, she came back, told me she’d been sitting with her leg cocked on the bed all night. I admitted her at that—not because I thought she was in established labor, but because I felt sorry for her. I wanted her to believe that it was happening, you know, that it was time. The body follows the mind, sometimes, in that way. Anyway. Things did move after that. She spent some time in the pool, which she didn’t want to get out of, to be honest. Then it really ramped up, and she was moaning, but Layla got stuck in the birth canal. We just couldn’t get her out for love or for money. The ventouse followed, then the forceps.”
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