by Val McDermid
4
Seeing someone else in the kitchen besides her mother, Magda felt cheated. She'd been screwing her courage to the sticking place all morning, readying herself for confrontation, only half-listening to Catherine's tales of student life, and now the moment would have to be postponed. Almost as soon as she'd had that resentful thought, it dawned on her that the woman rising from the kitchen table seemed too familiar to be a stranger. As her mother pulled her into a hug, Magda kept her eyes on the other woman.
'Darling, I'm so glad to see you,' Corinna exclaimed, drawing her so close Magda felt smothered. 'What a week for you.'
Magda patted her on the back, pulling away to let her sister greet their mother. 'Hello,' she said with the formal smile of a woman who has been properly brought up in the kind of circles where outsiders at the lunch table were taken in one's stride. She eyed up the not-quite-stranger, taking in black hair stranded with silver and an overall impression of comfortable plumpness inside jeans and a nicely cut baggy blue shirt. A pleasant face with an air of mischief. But it was the eyes that tugged at her memory - calm, watchful, a startling pale blue with a darker rim. Like a husky, Magda thought.
The woman leaned one hip against the table, looking entirely at home. She nodded at Magda and Catherine. 'You don't remember me, do you?'
Catherine, freed from her mother's embrace, looked her up and down, frowning. She'd always had a much stronger visual memory than her sister. 'You're one of the minders, aren't you? I don't remember which one, but you're one of them.'
'The minders?' the woman said, sounding amused.
'What we called our babysitters,' Magda said. 'Mum's undergraduates. You were always temporary, therefore generic.' She shrugged an apology. 'No criticism implied. It's the nature of the thing. You were only ever in Oxford long enough to do a degree. None of you was ever in our lives for long.'
'So which one are you?' Catherine demanded, irrepressibly blunt as always.
Corinna groaned. 'What can I say? I did my best. Somehow, the whole manners thing didn't take with Catherine.'
The woman laughed. 'I'm Charlie. Charlie Flint. I used to read you Winnie the Pooh, Wheelie. You always liked Eeyore best.'
Catherine gave a little snort. 'Still do. Only sensible one of the lot of them.' She stuck a hand out. 'Good to meet you again, Charlie Flint.'
Charlie shook hands. 'And you.' She cocked her head to one side, studying both Newsam girls. 'I wouldn't have recognised you, Wheelie. But I think I'd have been able to pick Magda out of a line-up.'
Magda acknowledged her comment with a raise of the eyebrows then turned back to Corinna. 'Where's Dad?'
Corinna crossed to the range and opened one of the doors, releasing a cloud of steam and the dense aroma of chicken, ham and pastry. 'He's got an Open Day at school. He's got to be there to show prospective parents round.' Magda's expression tightened but she said nothing. 'He'll be back around three, he said.' Corinna checked the pie, replaced it in the oven, then set a pan of potatoes to boil on the range top.
'Never mind,' Catherine said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. She grinned cheerily at Charlie. 'Mum, does Charlie know we have something to celebrate or are we going to have to go through the whole gruesome explanation?'
'Catherine, for heaven's sake,' Corinna said sharply.
'If you mean the court verdict, yes, I know about it,' Charlie said. 'And maybe I should leave you to it. I don't want to intrude.'
Magda caught the quick flash of annoyance on her mother's face, so she was surprised when Corinna said, 'Of course not, Charlie. You're not intruding.'
'Hardly,' Magda said. 'I feel like my whole life has become public property lately.'
Charlie smiled. 'It's never pleasant to be the focus of media attention.'
Catherine's eyes widened and her expression turned to astonishment. 'That's where I know you from,' she said with an air of satisfaction. 'Not just from being a minder. You're the one that was in the news.' She turned to her sister. 'You remember? The guy that got off with murder then went and killed those other women.' Then back to Charlie. 'You're the one that got him off.'
Charlie's expression didn't change from one of pleasant interest. 'That's not how I would describe what happened but yes, some elements of the media have chosen to express it in those terms.'
'Catherine' - Corinna dumped a bottle of red wine heavily in front of her younger daughter - 'Charlie is a guest in our home. We generally don't insult our guests.'
'Not until they've had a drink, at least,' Magda said, shrugging out of her jacket and bringing four glasses to the table. 'I apologise for my sister. I think I should just have cards printed so I can hand them out as I follow her through life. "Magda Newsam is very sorry about her sister's lack of tact."'
'Or we could institute the Catherine Newsam award for tact and diplomacy,' Catherine said. 'I'm sorry, Charlie. When I'm interested in someone or something, I tend to open my mouth without considering the consequences.'
'Keep working on the charm, then,' Charlie said. 'That'll probably save you from getting slapped too often.'
Catherine looked shocked for a millisecond, then she burst out laughing. 'Harsh,' she said, approving. 'So if that's not the way you'd describe what happened, what is?'
'Charlie might not feel like discussing it,' Corinna said, her tone repressive.
'Please, Charlie,' Catherine said. 'We've all been so wound up about the horrible trial, it'd be a welcome distraction.'
'Nothing like other people's problems to take your mind off your own,' Charlie said drily. 'It's really not that interesting.'
Magda had been following the conversation without taking her eyes off Charlie, wondering whether her newly discovered sexuality meant she'd be going through life seeing dykes everywhere or if it would wear off with time. Now she said, 'Wheelie's right. It would be so nice not to be constantly circling my own obsessions.'
Charlie puffed her cheeks up then let out a long noisy breath. 'All right. But I need that drink.' As Magda poured the wine, Charlie composed herself. 'I'm a psychiatrist. I have a particular interest in treating and studying psychopathic personalities. '
'What does that actually mean?' Catherine asked. 'It's one of those things you read in the papers but you're never quite sure what it actually consists of.'
'Psychopaths are individuals who don't have the capacity for empathy or remorse. How their actions affect other people is a matter of complete indifference to them. They lie, they try to control the world so it runs their way. The smart ones are glib and manipulative and learn how to fit in.'
Catherine groaned. 'Sounds like most of the men I know.'
'You've been unlucky, then. We reckon they only make up about one per cent of the population. Mostly I work with people who have been convicted of serious criminal offences, but sometimes I deal with people who have other mental health issues. Their psychopathy is a side issue when I see them, but there is always a certain amount of concern that if they're released into society at large their mental state will lead to them committing serious violent crime. As a result of my professional experience, I ended up as a criminal profiler and an expert witness.' Charlie made a wry face. 'I was doing well. Just like Schollie's alumnae are supposed to.'
'And so you should,' Corinna said. 'You were one of my better students.'
Charlie laughed. 'I find that hard to believe, given how much time I sneaked off doing other things.'
'You're not here just to work.'
'You never said that at the time,' Charlie said. 'Anyway . . . I was called in by the Crown Prosecution Service on a murder case down near Leicester. They had a suspect awaiting trial and they wanted my expert testimony in support of their case. It was pretty much routine for me. I arranged to interview the suspect, a man called Bill Hopton. I ended up speaking to him on four occasions and by the end of our sessions I had some serious concerns. I asked for a meeting with the CPS lawyer.' She sighed and drank some wine.
'I told
him that my professional opinion was that Bill Hopton was a psychopathic personality who was capable of sadistic sexual violence. That chances were he would go on to commit violent sexual assaults or rapes that would likely end in murder. But I was equally convinced that he hadn't committed this particular murder. It just didn't fit with the picture I had built of his personality type.'
'I bet that made you popular,' Catherine said.
'Just a bit. The lawyer tried to get me to change my mind, but I wasn't prepared to alter my professional opinion to fit their theory of the crime. So I was bumped off the case. Which would have been the end of it if the defence hadn't got wind of what had gone on. They came to me and asked me to be a defence expert witness. I said no, I can't, it's a conflict of interest, I only have the information I have because I was hired by the CPS, so technically it belongs to them. So they went away and I thought I was done with Bill Hopton. Which was fine by me, because he was a particularly unpleasant and scheming individual.
'Months went by and I forgot all about the Leicester murder. Then one morning I walked into the lecture theatre at the university where I teach and a process server slapped a subpoena on me. Whether I liked it or not, I was going into the box for Bill Hopton. And I was very uncomfortable about it, because I knew how circumstantial the prosecution case was. People think it's all like CSI these days, but it's not always that straightforward. This victim had been stripped naked and dumped in a pond, so the forensics were negligible.
'Bill Hopton had been seen hanging around outside the victim's workplace. There was plenty of CCTV footage putting him there. The defence argued that he liked sitting in that particular square because he could piggyback free Wi-Fi from one of the cafes without actually having to spend any money.' Charlie checked the point off on her finger. 'The murder weapon was a wheel brace from a Vauxhall of the same sort of vintage as the one Hopton drove, and his car was missing the wheel brace. The defence claimed there had been no wheel brace when Hopton bought the car, and they produced the woman who'd sold it to him, who said she didn't think there had been one.' A second finger joined the first. 'Hopton had given an alibi that turned out to be a lie. But the defence said he'd lied because he didn't want to admit being with a prostitute. They produced the hooker, who was a pretty pathetic witness, but she stuck to her guns.' A third finger. 'And then there was me.' Charlie ticked off the fourth finger then folded her hand into a fist. 'I couldn't lie. And the jury, quite rightly, found Bill Hopton not guilty.'
'I bet the prosecutors were fit to be tied,' Corinna said.
'They were furious and they let me know it,' Charlie said. 'I reckoned my days of being an expert witness for the prosecution were over. So I went back to the rest of my life. Interviewing psychopaths, lecturing in Manchester and hanging out with my entirely normal wife Maria.'
Magda tried to keep the startled look from her face. It wasn't that they'd been inculcated with homophobia; it had always been a case of hating the sin but loving the sinner. Nevertheless, she couldn't remember anyone ever being so casual about homosexuality in this house. Visitors who knew the Newsams knew better than to tread on their doctrinal toes. So nobody blasphemed in front of Corinna and nobody talked about being gay or having an abortion when she or Henry was around. Yet here was Charlie, openly referring to her lesbian partner as a 'wife' without being thrown out in disgrace as Jay had been all those years before. Maybe her parents were mellowing. Maybe her own revelation might pass off with less drama than she'd feared.
She realised she'd missed some of Charlie's narrative and forced her attention back to their visitor.
'. . . at least two years later. But this time there was no doubt about it. It was exactly the kind of frenzied, careless attack I would have predicted. There was forensic evidence galore and digital evidence on Bill Hopton's computer. But because he was moving around, it took them a few weeks to track him down. And by that time, he'd killed three other women.' Charlie's voice dropped and she looked suddenly older, lines appearing round her eyes as they narrowed. 'I felt like shit, I'll be honest. I knew I'd done the right thing, but I still felt as if I should have been able to prevent what had happened.'
'Surely there was nothing you could have done,' Corinna said.
'I did recommend that Hopton should be sent to a secure mental hospital, but his lawyer screamed human rights abuse - his client had been found not guilty by a jury, he was an innocent man, the authorities were just trying to get off the hook. Nobody wants to get caught in the middle of that kind of aggravation,' Charlie said. 'So he walked free to kill four women.'
'And the media love a scapegoat,' Magda said. 'Is that why they ended up going over the top on you?'
'Partly. But it really kicked off when the family of one of the victims wanted somebody to pay for their loss. Literally. They decided to sue me for failing in my duty of care. Other relatives of the dead women got on the bandwagon and then one of them had the bright idea of complaining about me to the General Medical Council.'
'But all you did was testify in support of an innocent man,' Catherine said.
'Well, that's not how they see it.' Charlie drained her glass and reached for the bottle. 'Nobody else was ever charged with the Leicestershire murder, and the police are still happy to go off the record with journalists and tell them they're satisfied that they had the right man on trial. And that my testimony was the key to him getting off. And that's why I've been all over the papers.'
'So what happens now?' Corinna asked.
'I have to wait for the case to come to court. And for the GMC to hold a disciplinary hearing. Meanwhile, I can't practise. The university has suspended me on full pay. I'm picking up bits and pieces of teaching and stuff just to get myself out of the house. Poor Maria, she's the world's most down-to-earth person, and she's having to deal with me in all my anxiety and paranoia.'
'Is that what you're doing in Oxford? Teaching?' Catherine again, curiosity overcoming sensitivity.
'I wish. No, I came to visit a colleague. And since I was staying just round the corner, I thought I'd drop in on Corinna.' Charlie tipped her glass to her hostess. Then she turned to Magda. 'I didn't realise I'd be butting in at such an awkward time. I'll be honest. I'd seen the coverage of the trial in the papers, but I didn't make the connection with you.' She spread her hands in a gesture of apology. 'They didn't use your maiden name and I guess in my head I still think of you as Maggot.'
Magda felt the rising tide of a blush in her throat. 'It's funny,' she said. 'Nobody called me Maggot for years. But you're the second person recently who's used my old nickname. '
'Really?' Charlie looked relieved that her shifting of the subject had worked. 'Some kid you used to know? Or another one of your minders?'
Magda looked at her mother, her chin rising and her shoulders squaring. 'Someone who used to be one of our minders until my mother threw her out of the house.'
Corinna rolled her eyes. 'Now who's going over the top? I presume you're talking about Jay Stewart. For the record, Magda, I did not throw Jay out of the house.'
'You told her she wasn't welcome any more. Because you didn't want a lesbian around your kids.' Suddenly the temper of the room had changed. All the emotion that Magda had been holding in check for months was bursting from its confines.
'I said no such thing.' All the warmth had drained out of Corinna's voice.
'Well, why else would you tell her to go? The only thing that had changed in her life was that she'd been outed on the college grapevine. What? Was it coincidence that that was the week you decided you didn't want her in the house any more?' Mother and daughter glared at each other, but Corinna said nothing.
Catherine turned to Charlie, shaking her head, and said, 'And they say I'm the one who puts her foot in it. I bet you're really glad you came.'
Magda seemed oblivious to the interjection. 'I'm waiting, Mum. If it wasn't because she's a lesbian, why did you cut Jay out of our lives?'
'Whatever you might think, Magda,
I'm not homophobic. I've always known Charlie's gay and it never got in the way of our friendship. I was always happy to have Charlie take care of you kids.'
'So why?' Magda's voice was almost a howl. This wasn't how she'd planned today, but she couldn't figure out how to back down now she'd come this far.
Corinna glanced at Charlie as if she might have an answer. Charlie simply shrugged. 'I had good reason,' Corinna finally said. 'And it was nothing to do with who Jay chose to sleep with. I'm sorry, Magda, but I'm not going to tell you why.'
'You're going to have to do better than that, Mum.'
'No, Magda, I'm not. I'm entitled to my privacy. I don't have to tell you everything.'
Magda looked as if she couldn't decide whether to burst into tears or throw something. 'Well, whatever your stupid reason, you're going to have to lift the fatwa. Because if Jay's not allowed in this house, I won't be here either. I've been trying to find the right time to tell you this, but it's obvious there's never going to be a good moment. Jay and me, we're together. She's my lover.' She didn't wait for a response from Corinna, but turned to Charlie. 'I'm glad you're here. Maybe you can explain to my mother that this isn't the end of the world.'
'Oh, for goodness' sake, Magda. Of course I don't think it's the end of the world,' Corinna snapped.
Magda's expression changed as something dawned on her. She rounded on Charlie, face scarlet with anger. 'That's why you're here. You're here because my mother realised Jay and I are more than friends. You're the token lesbian, the one she can use as a shield against the accusation of being a raging bigot. She had to dig back into ancient history, but finally she came up with one. You should be ashamed, letting yourself be used like that.'
'You're making yourself ridiculous, Magda.' Corinna had the implacable chill of an iceberg on collision course. 'Charlie, I'm so sorry.'