‘Well, it’s not long now until your trial. I just want to go through a few things with you today.’
‘Will I be chained up in the dock?’
‘No. Before the trial, you’ll be taken to see the court. A nice woman’ll show you round. I know her. She’ll tell you all about the procedures and what will happen. We already know that you’ll be sitting beside me, your parents behind us, instead of in the dock. Will that be all right?’
Sebastian nodded. ‘Is that because they don’t really think I did it?’
‘No, it’s because you’re a child. They only put adults into the dock now.’
‘Will you tell the judge that I didn’t do it?’
‘You remember Irene Clarke, your QC?’
Sebastian nodded vigorously.
‘Well, she’ll put the case to the jury.’
Daniel opened his pad and took the lid off his pen. Sebastian stood up and moved around the table to look at the papers in Daniel’s folder. He leaned against Daniel and inspected again his business cards, his mobile phone, his ink pen and the flash discs that Daniel kept inside his leather-bound folder. Daniel could smell the boy’s clean hair and his strawberry breath. The gentle weight of the boy against his shoulder was poignant. Daniel remembered asking for love from strangers: leaning against them, for affection which was neither offered nor expected. And so Daniel did not shift away from the weight of the boy. He made notes on his pad, being careful not to turn and accidentally reject him. After a moment, Sebastian sighed and walked back around the desk, holding Daniel’s iPhone in his hands. Daniel had turned it off when he entered Parklands House. Deftly, Sebastian turned the phone on.
Daniel reached out his hand, palm upward. The boy was smiling and their eyes met.
‘Thank you,’ said Daniel, in expectation. He was not sure why he had allowed Sebastian to take his phone and now believed it would be returned without a fight.
‘I get to play with my mum’s phone.’
‘Great, sure you can do that when she next comes to see you.’
Sebastian ignored him, sitting back in the chair, scrolling through Daniel’s address book.
Daniel tried to remember how Minnie had acted when he was being defiant. She would have given him her cold look, with the same eyes that could flood with warmth. He would be persuaded that she was stronger. Daniel felt his heartbeat increasing at the thought that he might not be able to control the boy. Finally Sebastian looked up and Daniel met his gaze. He remembered the steel in Minnie’s eyes. She had never been afraid of him. He could not imagine that he could communicate as much strength as she had done, but Sebastian turned away as if stung and relinquished the phone into Daniel’s palm.
‘So,’ said Daniel, taking off his jacket and facing Sebastian. ‘The prosecution are going to put Ben’s mum in the witness box. Probably she’ll be first, then your neighbours and one or two of the kids from the area and from school.’
‘Who?’ asked Sebastian, his face alert again, his green eyes clear and focused.
Daniel flipped through his notes. ‘Poppy … Felix.’
‘They don’t like me, they’ll say I’m bad.’
‘That’s why the prosecution are calling them. But we won’t let them say you’re bad. Legally, they are not allowed to introduce evidence about you being of bad character. It’s irrelevant and not fair. Irene will put a stop to that. I just wanted to let you know about this because I think Ben’s mum and then the kids you know will be hard for us all to watch in court, but it’s not the main part of their case. You need to try and not get upset by it, OK?’
Sebastian nodded.
‘We’re finalising the details of your proof now. Are you sure there is nothing else you know that you want to tell me?’
Sebastian looked to the side for a moment, then shook his head fiercely.
‘All right.’
‘Will I get to testify?’
‘No. At the moment the plan is that you won’t testify. It’s not the nicest experience and I’m sure court will be hard enough just watching. But we’ll need to wait and see how the case goes. Irene may decide at a later date that she wants you to testify, but we would talk to you about that if it came to it. OK?’
‘OK.’
‘The main part of their case will be the forensic evidence, and that will probably go on for a long time. A lot of what happens in court is boring and scientific and it won’t make much sense, but you need to try and stay alert. People will be watching you.’
Sebastian sat up suddenly. It was as if the idea of being watched thrilled him. He clasped his hands and smiled at Daniel, his eyes sparkling.
‘Really?’ he said. ‘Watching me?’
Daniel stared at the boy and Sebastian met his gaze. There was no shame in the boy’s eyes. No sense that what he had said was inappropriate. But he was a child, after all.
‘Your mum and dad were here to see you yesterday, were they?’
Sebastian’s shoulders fell. He nodded, looking at the table.
‘I know it’s hard. You must miss them.’
‘I think you’re lucky,’ said Sebastian, looking Daniel in the eye.
‘Why?’
‘You didn’t have a dad.’
Daniel inhaled slowly. ‘Well, y’know, sometimes boyfriends can be just as bad,’ he said.
Sebastian nodded. Daniel was sure the boy understood.
‘I want to get out soon to look after her. Sometimes I can make him stop.’
‘I know how you feel,’ said Daniel. ‘I used to want to protect my mum too, but you have to look after yourself. You have to remember that you’re the little boy and she’s the grown-up.’
It was the kind of thing that Minnie might have said.
After work, Daniel walked to the Crown on the corner of his street, with his hands in his pockets and his chin down. It was autumn now, and there was a chill in the air. Daniel almost turned back for his jacket, but couldn’t face the stairs again.
Inside the bar was bright and warm, a log fire crackling in the corner and the smell of pub food and damp wood in the air. Daniel ordered a pint and sat at the bar, turning the glass before him, allowing it to settle. Usually he would read the paper, but not tonight. He was sick of newspapers; each one he picked up either featured Sebastian, unnamed but referred to as ‘Angel’s child murderer’, or else he would be mentioned second hand, in opinion pieces about the ‘broken society’. Ben Stokes was already immortalised, a martyr for goodness, for childhood itself. He was never simply Benjamin Stokes, eight years old, but Little Ben, or Benny, always depicted in the same way: a school photograph taken two years before his death, two front teeth missing and the hair on the side of his head sticking up. He was the angel of Angel, and so Sebastian had become the devil.
The constant media commentary was new to Daniel. Some of the teenagers he had defended in the past had not been much older than Sebastian and had lived tougher lives, but they had been almost invisible to the press. Their cases were given a few lines at the side of the page, near the fold. What did they matter? They were just kids in gangs, controlling their own population. It was the natural order.
It was only three weeks now until Sebastian’s trial. Just thinking about it caused Daniel’s mouth to become dry. He took the first sip of his beer. Daniel was ready for trial, yet felt futile before the will of the courts.
As Daniel stared at his pint, he remembered the boy’s eyes from earlier in the day, the intensity of them. His thrill at the thought of going to court. The truth was that Daniel didn’t know what the boy was capable of doing. Despite the warm bar, Daniel felt a chill.
‘How’s it goin’, Danny?’ said the barman. He was in his fifties with a belly that hung over his belt and a face that was heavy with the stories he had heard. ‘You havin’ a hard week?’
Daniel sighed and smiled, shaking his head. ‘Just the usual.’
‘Where’s your good lady got to? Not seen her in ages.’
‘She move
d out.’
‘I’m sorry, mate,’ the barman said, polishing a glass and placing it under the bar. ‘I thought you guys were tight.’
‘Some things aren’t meant to be, eh?’
‘Yeah, plenty of other fish, like they say.’
The barman’s gentle Cockney voice faded to the other side of the bar, as he served a couple who had just come in, the woman shivering from the night air.
Daniel stared at the amber liquid in his glass. It was warm in his hands. Slowly, he took another sip, watching the sun set on Victoria Park, splitting the low clouds with a tawny pink light. The air in the bar was warm and comforting, sweet with the smell of cider and beer and hot food.
Things were clearer to him now, simpler, yet still he felt driven. He wanted Sebastian’s case to start and he wanted to find out more about Minnie’s life. He wanted to understand her. It felt like that moment in a run when he found his pace and his breathing steadied. That time when he thought he could keep running for ever. He had run the London Marathon like that in 2008.
His dinner was served and he ate his burger mechanically, then left, walking back to the flat with his hands in his pockets and his chin down.
He took the stairs slowly but ran the last few steps as he heard his telephone ringing.
‘Hello?’
‘Is that Danny?’ He recognised the female voice but struggled to place it.
‘Danny, it’s Harriet.’
He took a deep breath.
The hall was dark but Daniel did not turn the light on. He slid down the wall and listened with the phone nestled between his shoulder and his ear. He rested his elbows on his knees.
‘How are you?’ he said. With his knees pressed against his chest, he could feel his heart beating. He wondered what she had to say, whether she still wanted to accuse him.
‘I needed to call you back. The more I thought about it, I was … unnecessarily rude. I’ve just been feeling so sad for her. I hope you understand that. She had a hard life, and I miss her now she’s gone, but I know you must be feeling it too. No matter what went on between you, you were close once and it must be a terrible loss.’
Daniel didn’t know what to say. He cleared his throat and took a breath.
‘I never approved of all that business of taking in all those children …’
‘Of her fostering, you mean? Why not? She was good at it, wasn’t she?’
‘She was a good mother, but I suppose I couldn’t see the point in it. I thought she was just torturing herself.’
In the dark, Daniel frowned.
‘Thanks for calling me back.’
‘Well, she wouldn’t have liked me talking to you like that, anyway.’ Harriet’s voice cracked and thickened for a moment, but then regained control. ‘I didn’t wake you, did I?’
‘No, I’m just in.’
‘You still working as hard? You always did work hard.’
There was silence for a moment. Daniel could hear Harriet sniff, and the sound of the ten o’clock news.
‘What was it you wanted to know about her, Danny?’
He stretched out his legs in the hall, and rubbed a hand across his eyes. He was not ready for this now. The week had left him bled, weakened. He took a deep breath before he replied.
‘Well, I didn’t blame you for not wanting to talk to me. You lost your sister. I didn’t want to make all that harder for you. It’s just … it’s only now hit me that she’s gone. Even at the funeral, I think I was still – angry with her. We never sorted all that out, but now she’s gone, I suppose I really … miss her.’
When he said the words miss her, his voice thickened. He took a breath to catch himself.
‘I went back to the house … the farm. I hadn’t seen her – hadn’t been back there for so long. It was … I don’t know, it made me remember things. It was so many years ago, but it didn’t seem like it. She left me a box of photographs too. I suppose I realised that there was so much I didn’t know about her …’
‘Tell me what you want to know, pet, and I’ll tell you.’
‘Well, I want to know why she was so sad?’ He swallowed.
‘Well, you know she lost her little one, and then her husband, pretty much one after the other.’
‘Yes, but she never talked about it, and I don’t know the full story.’
‘Well, only a year after that she was taking in other people’s bairns. I couldn’t understand it. I still don’t understand it. She was a good nurse, a good mother; I suppose she had to take care of people. She was one of those people who need to care for others.’
‘I remember her telling me that was what happiness was … She never talked to me about Norman and Delia. Always avoided it – said it was too painful.’
Harriet sighed. Daniel heard her husband asking if she wanted tea.
‘What did you mean when you said she was punishing herself?’ Daniel asked.
‘Well, when your little girl is taken, you become a foster parent where they send you a new little girl every few months. But each one is never her …’ Harriet’s voice thickened again. ‘How could she stand it? And you know that until you came along they were all girls, every single one.’
Daniel put a hand over his mouth.
‘She said,’ Harriet’s voice cracked again, and she allowed a single gasp of a sob, ‘that Delia had brought out so much love in her … she didn’t know what else to do with herself, you see. She just had to keep on giving … It was that which killed her, believe you me! She died so alone, and it’s not right when she loved half the world’s unwanted.’
‘I never knew any of that,’ said Daniel. He pressed his back against the wall, his mind bright with memories in the darkened hall. ‘When I was little, when I first moved to stay with her, it was like she was the talk of the town. There were all these stories flying around about her. You wouldn’t believe …’
‘Aye, there would have been. Little towns like that’re full of small-minded people, aren’t they now, and she was such a character. She was a city girl. She loved London; she was happy there. It was Norman who wanted her to move up to Cumbria. I mean … Cumbria … for the love of God. Minnie in Cumbria! After he died, I just couldn’t understand why she stayed. She had no connection to that place. Move back to London or move back here, I told her, anything but stay in that bloody place.’
‘She liked the farm, the animals.’
‘That was just an excuse.’
‘She raised a family there. She had a home …’
‘Even if she’d come back to Ireland … but she was determined to stay, as if it was her penance.’
‘Penance for what?’
‘Well, she blamed herself, didn’t she? As if she would ever have knowingly harmed that little one. She loved her more than anything else in this world.’
‘What happened?’ Daniel was whispering. ‘A car accident?’
‘Yes, and can you imagine losing a child of six? And their only child. And Delia was such a wee lamb. She was the brightest, funniest child you ever knew. She was the spit of Minnie when she was wee. Black curls and the brightest blue eyes you ever saw. She was a darling. I was working in England myself when it happened and I came as soon as I heard but the wee lamb was nearly gone by then …’
Daniel held his breath.
‘She was still conscious, you see … drifting in and out. The worst injuries, and she was in such terrible pain. Minnie just couldn’t take it. She was holding her hand and the little one was saying to her, Am I dying, Mammy? And, oh God, she was fighting it so hard, fighting to hang on. Minnie was suddenly so calm. I just remember her whispering to Delia: It’s all right, pet, you’ll be my angel still …’
Harriet began to cry softly. Daniel stood up and put the hall light on. Its sudden brightness strained his eyes and he shielded them with his hand. He turned it off again.
‘Minnie blamed herself because she was driving when it happened?’
‘She was driving … but it wasn’t just t
hat.’ There was the sound of Harriet blowing her nose. ‘Delia had a party that night, you see. She was at one of her friends’ houses for a birthday party and Minnie went to collect her. One of the other little ones wanted to go home then too and Minnie offered to give her a lift, so as to save her dad the trouble, you know …
‘Good God, I remember like it was yesterday. Minnie told me that Delia was wearing her best dress with the tiny daisies on it and that she just looked so sweet. She told me Delia was carrying a bit of cake from the party in a blue napkin. I still remember – she said it was a blue napkin.
‘Minnie, God forgive her, she gave Tildy, Delia’s friend (I’m sure that was her name), the front seat with the seatbelt and all. Delia was in the back, without a seatbelt. That was how it was back then, Danny, in the seventies … no such thing as safety. Hadn’t even been invented …
‘Minnie said that the little one was singing in her ear – Delia always loved to sing in the car. She had an elbow on each of the passenger seats, like, y’know how kids do, or did back then anyway, and Minnie told her sit back, but then … that was it.’
‘What was it?’ said Danny, his thumbnail between his teeth.
Harriet started to cry again. ‘They swerved. The roads were wet, you see. There had been so much rain and those bloody country roads, they were wet and slippy. Minnie said that Delia didn’t make a sound, not even when she … hit the windscreen. Oh, God! I’m sorry, Danny, I can’t do this just now.’
Harriet was weeping. He heard her sharp intakes of breath.
‘I just wanted to say that I was sorry,’ she cried, ‘for the other day.’
‘I’m sorry to have upset you.’ His chest was tight. ‘Thanks for calling back.’
‘She loved you, you know,’ said Harriet, sniffing. ‘She was proud of you. I’m glad you made it up for the funeral. She would have wanted you to be there.’
Daniel hung up. The flat was cold. He had a pain at the back of his throat. He walked into the living room, which was also cast in darkness. The photo she had left him was like a black cut-out against the white fireplace. Without turning on the light and picking it up, he could see her face. It must have been the late sixties, early seventies: the colours were brighter, happier than real-life colours, as if they had been painted, snatched from the imagination instead of life. Minnie was in a short skirt and Norman wore dark horn-rimmed spectacles. The child too was almost unreal: porcelain cheeks and white pearl teeth. She was like Ben Stokes: stolen from life when she was still perfect.
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