by M. J. Hyland
She’s alone at the edge of the aisle, behind the dock, and she’s staring straight on, head up, like somebody’s told her this is how she’s got to sit, and she’s acting self-conscious like she does when she’s having her photo taken.
I keep on watching her and cough a bit to get her to notice me, but she won’t. I don’t blame her, but I wish she’d look at me at least once.
If the judge would let me out of the dock for a minute, I’d sit beside her and tell her I’m sorry for the way things ended up, sorry for the way I treated her when she came to see me at the boarding house. I’d tell her that I was wrong to talk to her the way I did.
It’s half-two and there’s commotion in the courtroom. My mother’s collapsed in her seat and she’s being carried out.
At first I think she’s had a heart attack and the fear goes through me, right through to my bowels.
They carry her out like a length of carpet, two court officials hold her head and shoulders and two coppers hold her legs. The middle of her body hangs down and her dress rides up her thighs.
I’ve got a sudden memory of a morning before school on a hot day when we were in the kitchen and it was so hot my mother hitched her dress up and tucked the corners into her knickers and I went bright red and looked away.
I go red like that now and the double courtroom doors are held open and the courtroom’s dead quiet and when my mum’s carried through the door she says, ‘My bag.’
As soon as she’s left, the prosecutor, Mr Nielsen QC, continues making his opening speech to the jury, keeps talking as though nothing’s happened.
‘Members of the jury,’ he says, ‘I’m going to provide you with the factual outline of this case, the skeleton, if you like, to which I will gradually add more flesh as we proceed and, when I have finished outlining the factual framework, I want you to consider this simple question very carefully.
‘Why would a man, who says he had neither an intention to do grievous bodily harm, nor to kill, bring a heavy weapon into the bedroom of his neighbour in the dead of night and strike with sufficient force to kill?'
He speaks slowly, every word important and yet every word spoken as though he’s bored, as though the conclusion is so obvious, the outcome so clear and necessary, that there’s no need for emphasis.
‘You will hear evidence,’ says Nielsen, ‘that the prisoner had a heated argument with the deceased and that the deceased had borrowed and failed to return the prisoner’s alarm clock in a timely manner—'
Nielsen laughs, looks at the judge and the judge gives him a wry, tight-mouthed grin and says, ‘I trust there was no pun intended.’
‘None at all,’ says Nielsen. ‘In any case, the prisoner’s response to this rather trifling matter was to reach a fever pitch of anger. You will also hear evidence…’
As Nielsen goes on, Perkins scratches his hands like a man bitten by fleas and, when he’s not scratching, he’s moving documents in and out of his black folders as though he hopes that moving them will erase what’s there and replace his watery words with better ones.
Middleton and Davies have both been in the witness box giving evidence about my arrest and I’ve fallen asleep.
I’m woken by one of the coppers and the courtroom’s empty again.
Perkins comes to the dock, three black folders in his arms.
‘You should probably try and stay awake,’ he says.
‘I didn’t sleep last night.’
‘Why not?'
‘It’s too cold in the cell and I don’t have my pills.’
‘All right. I’ll make sure you get some blankets and some pills. But you’ve got to stay awake during the proceedings. It makes a very bad impression on the jury if you fall asleep.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’ll bring some blankets from home.’
‘Thanks.’
He nods. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
The coppers take me down to the holding cell.
The next morning I look round to the public seats and up to the gallery.
I want to see my mum again, want to see that’s she’s okay. I don’t expect my father will come, but I expect her.
The gallery’s full. Schoolchildren and university students, probably law students, most of them taking notes, being ushered in and out by teachers and told to be quiet, not to lean over the gallery rail.
The pathologist’s in the witness box for three hours and the upshot is just like Perkins said. There was a blow to the right of the skull, the right temple, at least one blow—but perhaps more than one—and the blow was struck with a force sufficient to cause an acute subdural haematoma.
Nielsen gets the pathologist to go into graphic detail about the injury and how it might have taken as long as an hour for Welkin to die, that he might have been in agonising pain or paralysed from the neck down, unable to call for help.
Perkins tries to discredit the evidence about the length of time it took Welkin to die and all he manages to do is cut the time down by half an hour and, by going over and over how long it took, I think he has made it worse. And when Perkins asks, ‘Is it possible that the defendant, Patrick Oxtoby, might have delivered only a single blow?’ the pathologist says, ‘Yes, but in my professional opinion it would have been delivered with tremendous force.’
‘In your report,’ says Perkins, ‘there is a reference to only one contact point, one site of impact. This suggests, does it not, that there was only a single blow?'
‘It might, or it might suggest accuracy of repeated blows.’
Perkins raises his voice. ‘This seems an unlikelihood does it not? Two blows to the very same site? Two blows to precisely the same contact point?'
The pathologist looks at the judge and says, ‘Yes. Perhaps that’s unlikely. But not impossible.’
‘Not impossible, but unlikely?'
‘Yes.’
Perkins gets onto the subject of Welkin’s drunkenness and the pathologist admits that it’s possible Welkin’s state of intoxication contributed to death. Marginally, he says, to a negligible extent.
Perkins says, ‘No further questions’ and the court’s adjourned.
I’m taken back down to the holding cell.
There’ll be no more today.
‘You’ve got company,’ says the copper who takes me down to the holding cell. ‘His name’s Gardam and he’s on for murder.’
I go in.
My cell-mate stares at me and I wonder if it’s finally time for a proper beating.
He’s about thirty, muscular, and he’s got tattoos on his arms and hands.
I sit on my cot which means I’m pretty close to him. Closer than I want.
‘Hiya,’ he says.
He goes on staring at me. The whites of his eyes are yellow with smears of red, like eggs with blood in them.
‘Hello,’ I say.
He doesn’t say any more and he doesn’t look interested in violence.
The cell’s already a bit warmer with two men in it and, so long as he doesn’t want any aggro, it’ll be better to have mute company than none at all.
When dinner arrives, Gardam gets up from his cot and shouts at the officer through the hatch, ‘We don’t want any.’
I won’t tell him I wanted the food. I won’t cause any trouble until I know who I’m dealing with.
At half-eight an officer comes to the cell with Perkins and he’s got two thick, woolly blankets with him.
‘I hope you can get some sleep,’ he says. ‘Tomorrow’s a big day.’
‘Thanks,’ I say.
‘The landlady’s going to be in court tomorrow,’ he says. ‘She’s appearing for the prosecution, but based on things you’ve said earlier it seems to me that it’s likely she’s going to be very much on your side. Am I right?'
‘Yeah. She is. She liked me.’
‘And there was never any friction or trouble between you?'
‘That’s right.’
He looks at his watch.
‘I�
�d better dash. See you tomorrow morning.’
He leaves.
I go back to the cot.
‘Is that your brief?’ says Gardam.
‘Yeah.’
‘He seems a bit nervy or something.’
‘A bit.’
‘Doesn’t that make you shit yourself? That your brief’s got a kind of lispy voice?'
‘He’s okay in court though,’ I lie. ‘I think he’ll be good.’
He’s silent for a minute, then says, ‘Want to hear something funny?'
‘Yeah.’
‘Since the death penalty ended a few years back you’re about ten times more likely to be done for murder.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘That’s a laugh.’
We’re silent for a minute.
‘Do you want one of these blankets?’ I say.
‘He brought them for you, but.’
‘I don’t need two,’ I say.
I stand and go to his cot.
‘Well, if you don’t want it,’ he says. ‘I might as well take it.’
I give him the blanket and go back to my cot, which isn’t far away.
‘I hate red,’ he says.
He’s talking about the colour of the blanket I’ve just given him. ‘What did you do?’ I say. ‘What are you on trial for?’
‘Killed my wife.’
‘Right.’
23
It’s Wednesday, day three of my trial, just gone 11 a.m. and already the courtroom’s sticky with heat. The radiators are turned up too high and the jurors are wearing bright summery clothes, as though they’ve made a mistake, turned up out of costume, and they pay even less attention than usual to what’s being said. They might as well be on an excursion, a day out to ride paddleboats or to picnic by the river. Worst of all is the foreman, a lanky man with a thin black moustache, who’s wearing a shirt with flowers on it and he makes sure I’m watching when he yawns.
‘Your Lord, if it pleases the court,’ says Nielsen QC, ‘I call Mrs Bridget Bowman.’
Bridget’s brought into the court by the usher.
She’s the fourth witness for the prosecution.
If I’d seen her in the street, I’d not have recognised her. Her face is bloated and her neck is wide and thick, as though there’s a lot of fat stored there waiting to go down to the rest of her body.
She climbs into the witness box and the usher closes the door, making sure her hands and feet are securely inside, like he’s closing the passenger door of a car.
After Bridget’s sworn in, Nielsen looks at the jury and nods three times, slowly, as though to say, Now, listen carefully to this. It won’t take a minute, then you can go back to your boat ride.
‘Your full name please.’
‘Bridget Jane Bowman.’
‘Your title?'
‘Mrs.’
‘Your occupation?’
‘Landlady.’
Bridget leans forward, puts her mouth nearer the microphone.
‘You have been the proprietor at 128 Vauxhall Street for fourteen years? Is that correct?'
‘Yes.’
‘And you take in boarders who must stay for a minimum of four months and who each pay a bond equivalent to six weeks’ half-board?'
She pushes her face forward, even closer to the microphone and says, ‘That includes breakfast and dinner.’
‘Mrs Bowman,’ says the judge. ‘We’ll be able to hear you so long as you speak nice and clearly. There’s no need to gobble up that microphone. We don’t have many to spare.’
He smiles at her, hoping she’ll like the joke, but she just nods and moves back in her seat.
Nielsen continues. ‘Half-board, then?'
‘Yes. And my boarders also have their rooms cleaned weekly and their laundry and—'
‘Mrs Bowman,’ says Mr Nielsen, ‘please remain pertinent and relevant to the question in question.’
‘Sorry,’ she says.
‘Mrs Bowman, when, in the early hours of the twenty-ninth of August, you went to the bedroom of the victim, Mr Ian Welkin, a young boarder at your premises, did you find that he was quite clearly dead?'
Some of the jurors look across at me soon as they hear the word dead.
Bridget nods.
‘For the transcript, Mrs Bowman, and so that the jury can hear you, you’ll need to say yes.’
‘Yes.’
She turns round and looks at me. There’s no anger about her. She’s nervous, but she’s made this effort to look at me.
I smile at her.
She looks back to the prosecutor.
‘When you went to the room at—’ Nielsen refers to his notes ‘—approximately six o’clock on the morning of Saturday, the twenty-ninth of August, you found Mr Welkin was quite plainly dead?'
‘Yes.’
‘How did you ascertain that he was dead?’
‘I checked his pulse and then his breathing.’
There’s a taste of dirt in my mouth.
‘You also stated in your interview with the police that there was blood coming from his nose and mouth.’
‘Yes, but—'
‘And, after you tested for a pulse and for breathing, you found no signs of—'
The judge coughs. ‘I think you might be labouring the point here, Mr Nielsen. I don’t think the fact of death is in any dispute. We have a corpse and a coroner’s report to prove it.’
Nielsen smiles. ‘Yes, of course.’
It’s Perkins’ turn to cross-examine Bridget.
‘Mrs Bowman, did you ever feel in any danger when you were in the company of the defendant, Mr Patrick Oxtoby?'
‘Never,’ she says. ‘He was always gentle and courteous. He was very respectful.’
‘And did you ever hear him threaten the deceased?'
‘No. I thought they were getting along very well. Mr Welkin liked Patrick. He told me so. I was very shocked when I found Ian was dead.’
‘And on the evening of the incident in question you spent some time with Patrick in the sitting room drinking brandy and talking?'
‘Yes.’
‘And the mood was courteous and respectful?'
‘Yes.’
Perkins doesn’t ask what the chat was about that night, but I know Nielsen will.
‘The general demeanour of the defendant from the time he arrived at your establishment a week earlier, and up to and including the night in question, it was a good and cheerful mood?'
‘Yes. Patrick was always kind and in good spirits.’
She goes on to say that I shouldn’t be called a murderer: ‘The prosecution makes it sound like it’s his profession when they call him a murderer, but I know he didn’t mean to kill Ian Welkin.’
One of the jurors, one of the women, whispers something to the man next to her and the man shakes his head as though to say Only an idiot would believe that crap and the foreman looks at me like he wishes I was dead.
Nielsen re-examines Bridget.
He gets her to mention the business with the missing clock, and that I said ‘Fuck this’ when I stood in the kitchen doorway, and that I said ‘Fuck this’ again on the night of the murder when I left the sitting room.
And then:
‘Mrs Bowman, as I understand it, on the evening before Mr Welkin’s death, the defendant had several cross words with the deceased. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I have this right. You and the prisoner were in the sitting room with the deceased and you and the prisoner were sitting very close together on the settee.
‘As I understand it, the prisoner had his hand on your leg and then the deceased wanted to sit beside you and the prisoner shouted, “I’ll kill you if you touch her” and then he stormed upstairs—'
‘No,’ she says. ‘He didn’t say that and it was Mr Welkin who was sitting close to me and he was the one who had his hand on my leg and Patrick lost his temper a little bit—'
She realises her mistake and stops.
‘I have no further questions,’ says Nie
lsen.
When Bridget’s released from the stand, she walks by the dock without looking at me and it’s pretty obvious to me she wants the jury and all the people in the gallery to know she’s had no physical contact or association with me and never would.
I tap the shoulder of the copper on my right.
‘I’m not well,’ I say.
I’ve a terrible shooting pain in my head and I’m dizzy with a churning gut, a bit like vertigo. You might never before have thought of jumping, but when the ground swirls up, you have that sick urge to jump.
The copper calls for the usher so I can be taken down from the dock and an adjournment is called. As soon as the courtroom’s cleared and I start to move, I’m sick in the dock.
‘Oh shit,’ says the copper.
I want to talk to Perkins and see if it’s not too late to plead guilty to manslaughter and bring an end to this.
The copper takes me down to the holding cell, supports me under the arms, takes the steps slowly.
He’s got a kind sort of face. He even smiles at me.
‘Are you able to walk now?’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ I say.
He takes me into the cell.
‘All right?'
‘Yeah.’
A few minutes later he comes back with water in a paper cone and a box of tissues so I can wipe myself clean.
‘Knock on the door if you want to throw up again,’ he says.
Gardam’s come back from his day in the dock. ‘How was it?’ he asks.
‘Bad,’ I say. ‘It’s all turned against me.’
‘Me too. There was a friend of my wife’s in the witness box saying my wife never hurt a fly and she cried so hard they took her out of the box and she went out and probably had a fag and then came back right as rain. I don’t think my self-defence story’s going to work out.’
‘Was it self-defence?'
‘Not in the legal sense probably no.’
We both stop talking, stop and go stony quiet, but not because of what he’s said. We stop because there’s the smell of fish and chips outside. The smell of vinegar’s strong and so is the smell of the salty batter.