Elaine blinked. ‘Yes, he did.’
‘That was very generous of him.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you ask him to buy it?’
‘No. In fact, he didn’t tell Barry and I until he’d almost done it.’
‘If someone had done that for me I would feel very, very grateful to them.’
Elaine looked at me. ‘We are. We’d have lost the house if Mike hadn’t bought it when the council decided to sell.’
I smiled at her. I would have bought Elaine’s house for her a hundred times.
‘I would find it hard to say anything bad about someone who had done that for me,’ Petra said, ruining the moment.
But Elaine looked straight at her. ‘I know what you’re implying, but that’s not right. Mike is as lovely as I said. He bought the house because he’s a good lad.’
‘I understand that you care very much for Mr Hayes and, in his own way, he probably cares for you. But that shouldn’t stop you from telling this court what you really think him capable of.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Elaine said and it was as if her hair stood on end.
‘I mean,’ Petra said, ‘I think Michael Hayes is a dangerous fantasist and I think you feel the same way.’
‘I do not.’
‘But can you sit there and say that you have no concerns about him at all? Can you honestly say you find the fact he killed Mr Metcalf totally shocking, totally out of character?’
Elaine hesitated, looking over at me. ‘Mike wouldn’t have meant to kill Mr Metcalf. He would never intentionally hurt anyone.’
‘Yes, but with his violent past and his stalking of Verity, are you surprised?’
Xander leapt up. ‘Objection. Mr Hayes is not on trial for stalking.’
‘Sustained,’ said Justice Smithson.
‘Apologies,’ Petra said, ‘wrong word. Perhaps I should say his devotion to Mrs Metcalf. Are you surprised this all ended in violence?’
Elaine scrunched up her face and for a moment I thought she was going to shout. ‘Not much surprises me when you’ve seen the things I have. When you’ve listened to the stories I’ve heard about children that make you wish you didn’t have ears.’
‘I understand that, Mrs Marks. I understand the nature of what you do. But you’ve already said you saw something different in Mr Hayes. Is part of that difference his instability, his violence?’
‘No.’ Elaine shook her head. ‘No, it’s not.’
‘Would you like to tell the court about the time you and Verity had to call an ambulance because Mr Hayes had become so out of control?’
Elaine looked first at Petra, then me. ‘That was years ago.’
‘Four years to be precise. And I think we would still like to hear about it.’
I wanted to put my hands over my ears, but I knew how that would look.
Elaine drew in a deep breath. ‘It was his birthday and we were having supper at home, just Mike, Verity, Barry and me. His mum had sent him a card and I should have handled it better. I should have waited for a quiet time to give it to him, but I just handed it over, across the dinner table. He read it to himself and Verity asked if she could see it, but he didn’t reply. He went very red and I wanted to reach out and snatch the card back because I realised what I’d done. He hadn’t spoken to his mother or heard from her for years and I just handed the card across the dinner table like a great big idiot. He stayed silent for ages and none of us could make him even look up, but then he threw the card on the table and went into the garden. Then he started screaming and we all went outside and tried to get him to stop, but we couldn’t. We couldn’t get him to move at all. We called an ambulance because we didn’t know what else to do.’
It’s ridiculous for Elaine to blame herself and I must remember to tell her that when this is all over. She wasn’t to know how seeing those bald words ‘To Mike, Love Mum’ written round the printed Happy Birthday was going to be too much. If you’d asked me before it happened, I wouldn’t have known it was going to be too much. And even though I was sitting round a table with V, Elaine and Barry, those words seemed like the bleakest, hardest thing I’d ever seen. It was like nothing else existed, as if they had picked me up and thrown me back into my bare room in my miserable flat. I don’t remember leaving the table, I don’t remember going into the garden, but I can still hear the sound of the scream, or more accurately I can still feel it, because it wasn’t a scream of pain; it was more like a release, like an air bubble popping, like an acknowledgment of all the times I never made a sound.
‘Were you worried for your safety?’
‘No – I was worried about his.’
I sneaked another look at V but she still had her head down, although she was shredding the tissue she had been holding, its white fibres falling to the floor at her feet.
Petra put her glasses back on and flicked through her notes. ‘I have the medical report here. Michael was seen by a Dr Hahn that evening. He was injected with a high dose of Valium and spent the night on the ward. Is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dr Hahn’s diagnosis reads as follows, and I quote: “Severe case of nervous exhaustion, semi-psychotic episode brought on by shock or maybe PTS.” That’s post-traumatic stress. “Am satisfied no need for sectioning, but have advised patient and family to seek help from GP. Patient would benefit greatly from a course of therapy and possibly medication. Have advised they seek this help at the earliest opportunity.”’ Petra looked back up at Elaine. ‘Did Michael visit the GP?’
‘No.’
‘Did you want him to? Did Verity want him to?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you argue about it?’
‘A bit.’
‘What were Mr Hayes’s reasons for not going?’
‘He said he was fine.’
‘But in your and Verity’s opinion he wasn’t fine?’
‘We thought he could do with some help.’
Petra sighed and turned her back on Elaine, placing the papers back on her desk.
‘He’s a good lad,’ Elaine said, her voice rising over the court. ‘Mike is a good lad.’
It appears I still haven’t learnt that people can always surprise you. I told Xander not to worry about Kaitlyn; I said I was pretty sure she was in love with me and either way we were good friends, so she would be on my side. We like to do that, don’t we? Pretend to ourselves that we know someone, that we’ve worked them out, that their motives are clear, that we have insight. But really it’s all an illusion. None of us knows anything about what goes on in the heart of another. You have to reach the level which V and I have to achieve that and it takes so many years and so many experiences that there is only ever one person with whom you can hope to have that connection in life.
I even felt sorry for Kaitlyn as she took the stand because she looked so translucent, as if the wood she was surrounded by was reflected in her skin. She was dressed in much the same way when V and I saw her cast surreptitious glances over at her as the court settled. I knew without looking that V wasn’t returning the looks and I knew also that the luminosity of V’s presence would be intimidating Kaitlyn. In the end she turned her watery blue eyes to me and her mouth flicked up into a small smile, which I reciprocated.
‘I believe you and Mr Hayes have spent quite a bit of time together since he started working at Bartleby’s?’ Petra said.
‘Yes,’ Kaitlyn replied. ‘We got on well from the beginning.’
‘And what were your initial impressions of him?’
‘I was surprised by how modest he was, if that’s the right word. I mean, with his reputation, I was expecting one of those brash City boys, but Mike was never like that.’
‘What reputation?’
‘Mainly how well he’d done at Schwarz. When his appointment was announced, Lord Falls, our chairman, made a really big deal out of it and we all expected this loud, cocky trader to walk in. But he was the opposite of that.’ Kaitlyn smil
ed over at me again, which I was starting to find a bit irritating. I hoped V didn’t think there was actually anything between us.
‘Although I believe things never quite came together for Mr Hayes workwise?’ Petra said, which seemed like an odd question.
‘No. He was quite …’ Kaitlyn looked like she was searching for the word ‘… quite volatile.’
‘In what way?’ Petra asked and I too wanted to know the answer.
‘I have friends on his team and they would often talk about him shouting at them. He once made my friend Lottie cry. He told her she was useless and incompetent in front of their whole team.’
I felt a click in my brain, like a wheel I was unaware of turning.
‘Is that behaviour unusual?’
‘Not as unusual as it should be. But also, Lottie lives next door to Mike and he never really acknowledged her. She said they could pass each other in the street and he wouldn’t even smile. I stay at her house quite a bit and it often sounded like there was a party going on next door, when we knew he was home alone.’
‘A party?’
‘Yes. Lots of loud music and banging.’
‘Maybe Mr Hayes was in fact having a party?’
‘No, Mike didn’t know enough people to have a party.’ Kaitlyn glanced up at me apologetically, but I didn’t mind her saying that because who is there worth knowing? ‘I know this sounds terrible, but once Lottie and I were so intrigued we stood on a bench to look over the garden wall. All the lights were on in Mike’s kitchen and he was sort of running around, banging into the walls and the table, like he didn’t even register they were there. He was playing music at top volume, Oasis I think it was, and he was crying. It was really sad. Both Lottie and I were quite upset by it.’
I tried to breathe deeply but my body felt as blocked as my brain.
‘Did you talk to him about what you’d seen?’
‘No, I was too embarrassed. I just tried to be as friendly as I could and make it clear that he could talk to me if he needed to.’
‘Would you say Mr Hayes is a heavy drinker?’
‘Yes,’ Kaitlyn said and I felt the room tip. I saw my mother passed out on the sofa and tried to work out if it made it better that my sofa came from Heal’s and hers was full of cigarette burns. There is no law that says we become our parents, Elaine once said to me.
‘He often came to work looking the worse for wear and he often smelt of stale alcohol. At the time I thought that was maybe what was affecting his performance.’
‘But you still spent time together outside of work?’
‘Yes, a bit. We went for drinks and he came to my house for dinner one night.’ A faint blush rose up Kaitlyn’s cheeks, which in anyone else would have gone unnoticed, but in her radiated like a beacon.
‘And what did you talk about?’
‘All sorts,’ Kaitlyn said. ‘He told me about his upbringing and how he always felt like an outsider, which I sympathised with, working in the environment I’m in. We talked about work, a bit. And of course Verity.’ She nodded over at V when she said this and I couldn’t help following her. V was looking straight at her, her face set like a mask. I repeated the word ‘sorry’ in my head over and over as I stared at the side of V’s head, willing her to hear. Eventually she rubbed the side of her face and I relaxed slightly, knowing she’d received the message.
‘And what did he say about Mrs Metcalf?’ Petra asked, looking over at V herself.
Kaitlyn bit her bottom lip. ‘He was very protective over her. I could tell something was up between them but he didn’t admit it for ages.’
‘What do you mean by something was up?’
‘Well, she was never around for a start and he was always making excuses about where she was and stuff.’ Kaitlyn looked at me again and I could tell she was sorry for what she was saying.
‘So you were under the impression that Mr Hayes and Verity were a couple?’ Petra asked, but I could tell in her tone this was rehearsed and I dreaded the answer.
‘Oh yes. He referred to her as his girlfriend the first time we went out after work. I bumped into him once in a deli near to where we live and he said he was buying supper for them both.’
‘He specifically said that?’
‘Yes. He bought steaks because he said they were Verity’s favourite. I felt sorry for him because he seemed so agonised by the decision; it felt painful.’
‘But Verity wasn’t there?’
‘Not in the shop, no.’
‘Nor at home?’
‘I presume not.’
‘But he gave you the impression that they lived together at Windsor Terrace?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did Mr Hayes ever confide in you about his relationship with Mrs Metcalf?’
‘Yes.’
I felt a wash of shame run through me when Kaitlyn answered; my whole body cringed at V knowing I had ever discussed her with anyone else. ‘After I’d known him for a few months he told me that she’d moved out, but he gave the impression it was just so they could sort out their differences.’
‘Which were?’
‘I think he said they disagreed about how they should live.’
Petra raised her eyebrows and let out a stream of air. ‘So I take it you had no idea about Verity’s marriage?’
Kaitlyn shook her head. ‘None at all. In fact I bumped into Mike on what I now know was the morning of the wedding and he told me it was Verity’s sister who was getting married.’
‘And you never had cause to doubt him?’
‘None at all. I felt sorry for him. If I’m honest I thought it sounded like Verity was playing him a bit, but he was too in love with her to do anything about it.’
‘But I believe this wedding was how you began to uncover the extent of Mr Hayes’s lies just before the murder.’
‘Yes,’ Kaitlyn said and I sat up straighter, as if called to attention. ‘I knew Mike was hiding something and I had tried googling him and Verity, but he is virtually non-existent online and I didn’t know Verity’s surname, so I didn’t really come up with anything. But one night, about a week before the murder, I was scrolling through Facebook, you know the way you do when you’re bored, looking at photos of friends of friends without really knowing why you’re doing it. Anyway, I came across an album of photos of an acquaintance who’d been to Angus Metcalf’s wedding. I’d read about it in The Standard so I started looking. I’d seen a photo of Verity at Mike’s house and suddenly I’m looking at her in all the pictures and I realised she was the bride.’
I could feel my breath high in my throat, like a trapped bird.
‘What did you do with the information?’ Petra asked.
‘I confided in Lottie, but we didn’t really know what to do.’ Kaitlyn paused for a second. ‘It made me realise that he’d built this whole fantasy around Verity and I was worried about what he might do.’ Kaitlyn glanced up at me and her translucent skin coloured slightly. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous after everything’s that happened but I still think Mike is a genuinely nice guy and I think he believes the lies he tells. I don’t think he’s trying to deceive anyone more than himself. And he’s very convincing. Like I said, when I first met him I really thought Verity was playing him, I wanted to help him get out of what I thought was a damaging relationship.’ She shook her head.
My seat felt too small for me. I couldn’t remember if what Kaitlyn was saying was true or not. It felt like there were only versions of the truth and nothing was absolute. Something was opening beneath me, a hole which threatened to swallow me and a feeling of inescapable terror washed through me. ‘It’s OK,’ I said under my breath, ‘V and I are in love and that’s the only truth worth knowing.’
Petra nodded sagely. ‘I believe you were staying at Lottie’s house, next door to Mr Hayes, on the night of the murder.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Perhaps you could tell us what you saw.’
Kaitlyn shifted her weight. ‘I’d been worrie
d about Mike that evening anyway because I bumped into him on the way home from work and he said he was on his way to see Verity. He was incredibly agitated and wasn’t really making sense. He said something about her needing him, but it didn’t ring true, especially considering what I knew by then about the wedding. He’d called in sick to work that day and he looked feverish. I tried to stop him, but he wasn’t paying any attention and was a bit rude, if I’m honest. Lottie and I discussed it all evening and decided I would talk to Mike the next day and, if that didn’t work, we’d maybe try to talk to the company doctor or someone about him.’ She paused for a moment. ‘We went to bed around midnight, but were woken at about two twenty a.m. by shouting outside. We got up and looked out of the bedroom window and saw a man I now know to be Angus Metcalf banging on Mike’s door. We talked about going down but he seemed drunk and angry and we didn’t know what to do. After about ten minutes Mike opened the door and the shouting intensified. We couldn’t see anything because they’d gone just inside the house, but it was pretty obvious they were fighting, so I called the police.’
‘Did you go downstairs?’
‘Not at first, no. We were scared. But then Verity arrived in a taxi and went running up the path and we could hear her screaming so I went outside. Lottie tried to stop me, but I had to help.’
‘And what did you find?’
Kaitlyn touched her finger to her lip. ‘It was horrible. Mr Metcalf was lying just inside the door, covered in blood, not moving at all. But the strangest thing was that Mike and Verity were standing just behind him, embracing.’
‘I know Mr Jackson made a lot of this when he questioned you, Miss Porter, but to be clear, when you say embracing what do you mean? Were they kissing?’
‘They weren’t kissing, no. I could only see Verity’s back. She was leaning against Mike and he had his arms wrapped tightly around her.’
‘Where were her arms?’
Kaitlyn thought for a moment. ‘By her side I think. But I’m not sure.’
‘So she wasn’t returning his embrace, as you put it.’
‘I don’t know. But whatever, it was really strange. I mean, her husband is on the floor dying or dead and she’s allowing the man who killed him to hug her.’ And of course Kaitlyn couldn’t understand this. No one will ever understand V and me, which is what makes us so wonderful.
Our Kind of Cruelty Page 22