The Appeal
Page 30
She creates someone even lower down the social ladder than she is.
Charlotte
Lauren tells Issy things her ‘mum’ has heard, when really Issy overheard them. So instead of eavesdropping, Issy gives herself the higher status of being told: e.g. builders at The Grange. Issy mentions watching yoga on YouTube in an email to Sam on 30 June, and by 2 July Lauren is suddenly writing to Issy about spiritual issues.
Femi
With Lauren she has conversations she doesn’t have with anyone in real life. We don’t even know if Sam converses with her at this level of intimacy. Most have no time for her.
Charlotte
Lauren boosts Issy’s confidence by reinforcing what she wants to be true. Like having friends or being right for a part in the play. She blames Lauren for the mistake she made at work. So instead of feeling a failure, she convinces herself she’s a martyr.
Femi
It’s weird. Yet nothing in Lauren’s emails makes me think Issy is or isn’t guilty.
Charlotte
That could be the problem. It just doesn’t look good. Someone who emails an imaginary friend could be seen as unstable enough to kill someone who rejects them in real life. Especially when they confess to it.
Femi
Do we know why Tanner is so keen on this case? Seems personal.
Roderick Tanner, QC
Acting on evidence available at the time, he was instrumental in convincing Isabel to plead guilty to murder. He now needs to reach the truth. So yes, it’s personal. Thus far we are looking to reduce her sentence to manslaughter. However, I believe she is entirely innocent. But I need bright, intelligent people to see what I see before I can act.
Femi
Sorry, Mr Tanner, I didn’t realise you were still here.
Charlotte
Mr Tanner. Can I ask, what is Isabel like, as a person?
Roderick Tanner, QC
I would describe her as a survivor. We tend to consider survivors as strong and heroic. The reality is never as pretty or noble. Some survive because they deceive, some because they delude themselves. Others refuse to engage with reality.
Femi
Which is Isabel?
Roderick Tanner, QC
I’ll send through some correspondence from after Ms Greenwood’s body is discovered. We’ll meet Friday as usual.
FROM: Martin Hayward
SUBJECT: Sad news
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 14:10
TO: Current Members
Dear all,
It is with great shock and sadness that I must report the sudden death of Samantha Greenwood. I am unaware of the details, but as many of you already know, Sam was very distressed on Wednesday and left the rehearsal quite distraught. We wondered why she did not arrive for the play last night, and it now seems she passed away suddenly, very shortly after leaving us. I know everyone will join me in sending our heartfelt condolences to Kel.
While Paige replaced Sam in the play before we realised what had happened, it now seems only right to continue with the production, both in the spirit of ‘the show must go on’ and as a tribute to Sam and the work she put into rehearsals over the last few months. She was a new member, so we did not know her well, but she was a friendly and enthusiastic person who showed great promise as an actor. She will be sadly missed.
Kel has valiantly agreed to continue in his role for the remaining production nights. May I extend our sincere thanks to him, and urge all our members to rally round and support him, as I know you all will, at what must be a most sad and challenging time. Regards, Martin Hayward
FROM: John O’Dea
SUBJECT: Re: Sad news
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 14:32
TO: Martin Hayward
Thank God we already re-cast her in the play. John
FROM: Sarah-Jane MacDonald
SUBJECT: Sam
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 14:44
TO: Joyce Walford
Joyce, what’s happening at the Greenwoods’ now?
Sarah-Jane MacDonald
FROM: Joyce Walford
SUBJECT: Re: Sam
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 14:51
TO: Sarah-Jane MacDonald
Oh Sarah-Jane, it’s terrible. They put up a white tent. People are saying she jumped. But he could have pushed her. The state of her at that last rehearsal. Black eye, bruises, cuts. And him off with another woman. Doing her in is cheaper than divorce. Joyce
FROM: Sarah-Jane MacDonald
SUBJECT: Re: Sam
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 14:57
TO: Joyce Walford
Well, I saw Sam argue with that quiet girl, Issy, just as she left the hall on Wednesday. It could have been her, don’t you think?
Sarah-Jane MacDonald
FROM: Joyce Walford
SUBJECT: Re: Sam
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 15:02
TO: Sarah-Jane MacDonald
Issy? Oh no, she wouldn’t say boo to a goose, that one. If it wasn’t him, then Sam probably killed herself. I had an uncle do it. Very upsetting, and I didn’t even like him. When you get to my age, life is one sad thing after another. Joyce
FROM: Andrea Morley
SUBJECT: Hello
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 15:09
TO: Samantha Greenwood
Dear Sam,
I can’t stop thinking about it. Let me know what he said. Is it possible he doesn’t know all the details himself? If medical professionals are fooled to that degree, then anyone can fall victim. It might be wise to tread carefully. Andy
FROM: Martin Hayward
SUBJECT: Sad news
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 15:13
TO: Tish Bhatoa
Dear Tish, I’m sorry to email you with more bad news when you are dealing with enough yourself. However, I feel you should know our mutual friend Samantha Greenwood has passed away, apparently by her own hand. I understand you were at odds with her in the past, but feel you ought to know. Regards, Martin
FROM: Tish Bhatoa
SUBJECT: Re: Sad news
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 15:47
TO: Martin Hayward
That is truly terrible news. I sent her a message recently. It seems she didn’t receive it. I am in the Central African Republic and do not intend to return yet. Martin, I wish you were here to see what the world is. You would appreciate that you are not the centre of it. It would make you grateful. You might just value what you have, not what you want. The longer I’m here, the more strongly I feel I belong. The truth is I may never return. Tish
FROM: Martin Hayward
SUBJECT: Re: Sad news
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 15:53
TO: Tish Bhatoa
But, Tish, there is the matter of Poppy’s drugs. What will happen? Will she continue to receive chemotherapy at Mount More?
FROM: Tish Bhatoa
SUBJECT: Re: Sad news
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 15:54
TO: Martin Hayward
Is that what you want?
FROM: Martin Hayward
SUBJECT: Re: Sad news
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 15:59
TO: Tish Bhatoa
You know it isn’t. I am managing a situation, no more. But Poppy needs treatment of some sort. What should I tell Helen and Paige?
FROM: Tish Bhatoa
SUBJECT: Re: Sad news
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 16:00
TO: Martin Hayward
Tell them whatever you have to tell them. You’ll think of something.
FROM: Martin Hayward
SUBJECT: Re: Sad news
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 16:03
TO: Tish Bhatoa
Tish, please don’t desert me now. I need your help. Whether you stay out there or not, you’ll still need money.
FROM: Tish Bhatoa
SUBJECT: Re: Sad news
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 16:04
TO: Martin Hayward
I don’t need your money.
FROM: Martin Hayward
SUBJECT: Re: Sad news
>
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 16:05
TO: Tish Bhatoa
Then send the phials to me.
FROM: Tish Bhatoa
SUBJECT: Re: Sad news
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 16:07
TO: Martin Hayward
No. The phials will remain securely in Boston . . . unless you contact me again. Goodbye, Martin
FROM: Sarah-Jane MacDonald
SUBJECT: Sam
DATE: 6 July 2018 at 15:43
TO: Emma Crooks
Emma, I need your advice, and it’s deadly serious this time. Martin’s email implies Sam killed herself, but I think she was murdered. You remember Issy, the quiet girl at the committee meeting? She worshipped Sam, followed her around, bought things for her, latched on with an iron grip. Well, when Sam stormed out of the dress rehearsal, Issy followed her. Moments later I went outside myself and saw them. Sam had a hold of Issy’s arm and was snarling in her ear. I couldn’t hear what was said, but Issy looked devastated. She went back inside, collected her bag and left. The next day she emails Martin, all bright and breezy, and offers to play Sam’s role herself! I think Issy followed Sam home that night and killed her. Should I go to the police?
Sarah-Jane MacDonald
Femi
Again, Martin is very calm in the face of a crisis.
Charlotte
Tish withdraws from their arrangement. But Martin calls it a desertion. Was it really blackmail? He seems a willing victim.
Femi
It’s an exchange of some sort, but with a power imbalance. Martin needs Tish more than she needs him.
Charlotte
SJ wants everyone to see Issy as guilty.
Femi
I’m going to say that the final person ‘not who they say they are’ is Helen. I think Sam found out who she really is and that somehow led to her death.
Charlotte
Where’s the evidence?
Femi
Sam was consulting Andrea specifically about Helen. Andrea ‘Andy’ says ‘tread carefully’ because even doctors can be fooled. They ‘have to say something’. Sam was killed when she said something.
Charlotte
Just like in Africa. Only there she’s sent away. Here, where it’s supposedly more ‘civilised’, she’s killed.
Femi
Two communities, one raising money to cure a sick child, the other healing victims of war. Both so kind and caring, so intent on doing what they believe is right. Yet both refuse to see what’s wrong. Their solution is to silence the person pointing it out.
Femi
Because the alternative is to acknowledge the shame. Of enabling abuse, of hailing an abuser as a hero, of reducing a continent to a primitive war zone, of falling for a scam, of being conned by friends, or conning your friends in turn. All these things are not easy to acknowledge.
Charlotte
I know you have strong feelings about Western aid in Africa. Don’t let it affect your impartiality in this case. What do you always say to me about letting emotions get in the way?
Femi
Because what do you do, once you’ve acknowledged it? How do you atone for something like that? It’s not a simple case of paying the money back. Pouring cash into aid, or trying to pick up the pieces. The damage is done. Money won’t repair broken trust. There are some things you can’t un-know, says Andy. Well, there are some things that cannot be forgiven.
Charlotte
Let’s see what Tanner says on Friday.
Femi
We’ve nearly got this. There’s just something we haven’t seen yet. I’ll read through everything again tonight.
Femi
Wake up!
Femi
Come on, wake up!
Femi
Charl, are you awake? I’ve got it – what Tanner was talking about. This changes everything.
Charlotte
Yep. What?
Femi
That night of the dress rehearsal Sam tells the whole Fairway Players everything she’s found out about Helen and Martin, plus everything she’s discovered, courtesy of her own medical knowledge and that of her acquaintances. It shocks everyone. Not what she says, but because she says it. This community is not in the habit of questioning the Haywards. Whatever they may know or suspect, they would rather continue enabling the deception than challenge it. They all reject Sam there and then, except Issy. Sam rejects Issy outside in the car park. From that moment Sam is alone. That evening Martin emails Sam and Sarah-Jane. He addresses Sam’s outburst and discusses the play.
Charlotte
Ok, we’ve established all that.
Femi
He’s calm, he’s fair, he’s in charge – because Sam has shown her hand and she doesn’t have the one thing he fears everyone seeing. Sam arrives home to the message from Andy, calls her back and discovers what it is. She has to tell someone. She calls Martin and tells him. More about this in a second. Go back a few weeks . . .
Femi
Sam is hot on the case of a suspected ‘financial conspiracy’, courtesy of her inherent distrust of Tish Bhatoa and, quite possibly, her outsider’s perspective on this little community and the Haywards’ status at the top of it. She engages Andy to find out if Helen is lying about having a little boy who died. But she can’t afford a full search, so asks her to check records of death only. No record of his death in the UK. Sam takes from this that the little boy never lived, that it’s an emotive lie to raise sympathy and money. She’s almost right, but wrong.
Femi
Andy is intrigued by the case, or maybe she just likes Sam – who knows. For some reason she continues to look into Helen’s history. But she’s not the first. Remember Tish and her due diligence? We assumed she dug into Martin’s business history, but Helen is co-director of The Grange, and the company Tish employed to investigate their finances automatically studies her background, too. Andy looks ‘across the pond’ and, like Tish, discovers that Helen had a little boy who died – only he didn’t have meningitis: he had a mother who made him ill deliberately to gain attention for herself, until one day, tragically, she killed him.
Charlotte
Munchausen’s by proxy? They call it ‘Fabricated or Induced Illness’ now. It would be less well known then . . . not spotted until it was too late. That is so fucking tragic.
Femi
This is what’s in the ‘files’ Tish Bhatoa has: files from the US, where Helen was born and where she was arrested for the murder of her eldest child. Like the newspaper review says, her American accent is so convincing it could be real.
Charlotte
Femi, are you saying what I think you are?
Charlotte
Was she tried and convicted?
Femi
Perhaps, perhaps not, but there is enough evidence in the ‘files’ to throw a whole new light on this charismatic woman everyone loves, respects and protects.
Femi
Not only are there no experimental drugs, but also Poppy isn’t ill at all.
Femi
And whatever Helen tried to do to her first child, she started doing to Poppy.
Charlotte
SHIT! Where’s the evidence?
Femi
It all hinges on what Sam is doing when she accesses the database at Mount More. Only she doesn’t realise it at the time. Also, check out the words Martin uses to describe the effect Poppy’s cancer will have on their family. He repeats the phrase ‘legacy of tragedy’ that will ‘scar’ his family forever. Both are direct quotes from a genuine letter describing the death of a child from cancer. Given that his granddaughter does not have, and never has had, terminal cancer, it’s his only source of reference for such emotion. I’ve got pages of notes – sending you an email . . .
TO: Charlotte Holroyd
SUBJECT: New theory continued
FROM: Femi Hassan
Tanner told us the person who doesn’t exist is a matter of corroboration. When we heard it was Laur
en, we assumed it related to Isabel. Her existence as an imaginary friend is a character witness for Isabel after all, and probably led her to be found guilty. However, I believe he meant us to notice what Lauren corroborates about Poppy. I’ve been through this entire correspondence again and again – there is no independent evidence that Poppy is ill and actually having chemotherapy, other than from Lauren on 24 April and 31 May, or to put it more accurately, what Isabel, with her better-than-average medical knowledge, has made up. The Haywards, Reswicks and Tish Bhatoa are actively involved in the deception – there’s no corroborative reference to her Hickman line, chemo sessions, nothing. In fact we know Paige shaves Poppy’s hair off on 2 July so she can wear her wig.
When Sam gains access to the treatment records at Mount More, she is gone a long time. Only she doesn’t find Poppy’s notes, because there are none, so something else must keep her at that database. I believe it is Paige’s notes. She discovers that, as a child, Paige was hospitalised multiple times with minor complaints and conditions. Others have mentioned this in their correspondence, too: on 9 June, Marianne Payne tells Carol Dearing that ‘I remember Paige was poorly early on, with asthma first, then a stomach problem’. Sam mentions Paige’s medical history in passing to Andy, who struggles to find records for Helen under the name we know her by. It isn’t until Andy broadens her search and tracks her to the US that the truth starts to emerge. ‘You mentioned something about the mum being ill . . . I took a gamble across the pond and found something.’
Sam’s mistake is to assume Martin doesn’t realise his wife has a history of this psychological condition. I believe he not only knows, but uses it to create a situation he and Tish can exploit financially. We’ve seen how the family shelters Helen from the stress of reality – I think this is to keep her symptoms at bay. When Martin is in a dire situation himself, with his gambling addiction, financial worries from Olivia’s IVF and legal issues at The Grange, he can’t keep that stress from Helen. Imagine that she starts to act out again, this time with Poppy.
As Helen fabricates Poppy’s symptoms, Martin must do something and fast. Seeking help for his wife doesn’t occur to him, because it means acknowledging the awful truth of her condition and her history. So he looks for a doctor with overwhelming financial commitments, because they are more likely to be seduced by the promise of easy money. He finds Tish; with her parents in a five-star care home, her brother in Africa draining her finances and a fluctuating business income, she’s the ideal collaborator. He asks her to ‘pretend’ to treat Poppy, yet ensure Helen doesn’t damage the child’s health. In return for compromising her professional integrity, Tish will benefit from the fundraising appeal that he intends to use as a solution to his financial problems, too.