A Room Swept White

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘What does he do? What’s his job?’

  ‘He’s some kind of editor at London on Sunday. He ditched Ray as soon as the verdict went against her. Paul Yardley and Glen Jaggard couldn’t have been more different. They were with their wives all the way, totally supportive. I reckon that’s why Ray Hines is such an oddster. If you think about it, she suffered an extra trauma. Helen and Sarah were let down by the system, but not by the people closest to them. Their families never doubted their innocence. When you get a chance to read all the notes, you’ll see that Helen and Sarah consistently refer to their husbands as their rocks, both of them. Never mind a rock, Angus Hines isn’t even a pebble!’

  ‘What about the drugs?’ I ask.

  Tamsin looks puzzled. ‘Sorry, was I supposed to bring some?’

  ‘Rachel Hines is a drug addict, right?’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I heard two women talking about her on the Tube once. She mentions it herself somewhere too . . .’ I look around for the relevant bit of paper, but can’t remember which corner of the office I dropped it in, or even what it was.

  ‘Her interview with Laurie,’ says Tamsin. ‘Read it again – assuming you can find it among the debris of my once-immaculate filing system. She was being sarcastic, taking the piss out of the public’s ridiculous perception of her. She’s no more a . . .’

  The door opens and Maya comes in carrying two mugs of something hot on a tray. ‘Peace offering,’ she says brightly. ‘Green tea. Fliss, I need to speak to you as soon as poss, hon, so don’t be too long. Tam, please say we’re still friends. We can still have jolly nights out together, can’t we?’

  Tamsin and I take our cups, too stunned to speak.

  ‘Oh, and I picked this up from reception by mistake, hon.’ Maya pulls an envelope out of the waistband of her jeans and hands it to me. She flashes a sickly smile at us, waves the tray in the air and leaves.

  A cream-coloured envelope. I recognise the handwriting; I’ve seen it on two other envelopes.

  ‘Green tea?’ Tamsin snaps. ‘Slime is green. Snot is green. Tea’s got no business being—’

  ‘Tell me about Ray Hines not being a drug addict,’ I say, tossing the envelope to one side. I know there will be numbers in it, and that I won’t be able to work out what they mean, so I might as well forget them. It’s someone’s idea of a joke, and eventually they’ll deliver their punchline. It’s probably Raffi. He’s the comedian around here. One of his favourite topics of conversation is funny things he said and how much everyone laughed at them. ‘If she isn’t or wasn’t a druggie, why did anyone think she was?’ I ask, trying to sound as if my mind’s still on Rachel Hines.

  Tamsin stands up. ‘I’ve got to get out of here. You’ve been summoned, and if I stay, I’ll end up killing somebody.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Laurie wrote an article called “The Doctor Who Lied” – it’s somewhere in all this mess. Everything you need to know about Ray Hines is in it.’

  ‘What paper was it in?’

  ‘It hasn’t been published yet. The British Journalism Review are taking it, and the Sunday Times are publishing an abridged version, but both have to wait until Judith Duffy loses her GMC hearing.’

  ‘What if she wins?’

  Tamsin looks at me as if I’ve made the most idiotic suggestion she’s ever heard. ‘Read the article and you’ll see why that’s not going to happen.’ She leaves the office with a parody of Maya’s wave and a ‘Bye, hon’.

  I manage to restrain myself from begging her not to leave me. Once she’s gone, I try and fail to persuade myself to put the cream envelope in the bin without opening it, but I’m too nosey – nosier than I am frightened.

  Don’t be ridiculous. It’s some stupid numbers on a card – only an idiot would be scared of that.

  I tear open the envelope and see the top of what looks like a photograph. I pull it out, and feel a knot start to form in my stomach. It’s a photo of a card with sixteen numbers on it, laid out in four rows of four. Someone’s held the card close to the lens in order for the picture to be taken; there are fingers gripping it on both sides. They could be a man’s or a woman’s; I can’t tell.

  I look for a name or any writing, but there’s nothing.

  I stuff the photograph back into the envelope and put it in my bag. I’d like to throw it away, but if I do that I won’t be able to compare the fingers holding the card to Raffi’s fingers, or anyone else’s.

  Don’t let it wind you up. Whoever’s doing it, that’s exactly what they want.

  I sigh, and stare despondently at the papers on the floor. The envelope has made me feel worse about everything. I haven’t got a hope in hell of making Laurie’s film. I know it; everyone knows it. All these interviews and articles, the medical records, the legal jargon . . . it’s too much. It’ll take me months, if not years, to get on top of it. The idea that all this has become my responsibility makes me feel sick. I have to get out of the room, away from the piles of paper.

  I close the door behind me and head for Maya’s office, half hoping she’ll fire me.

  ‘You’re a dark horse.’ Maya folds her arms and looks me up and down as if searching for further evidence of my shady equestrian qualities.

  ‘I’m really not,’ I say. Then I take a deep breath. ‘Maya, I’m not sure I’m the best person to—’

  ‘Ray Hines rang me a few minutes ago, as I expect you already know.’ Wisps of smoke are rising from her desk. Tamsin’s bottom-drawer theory must be right.

  ‘What . . . what did she want?’ I ask.

  ‘To sing your praises.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘She’s never rung me before, and never returned my calls. Funny that, isn’t it? That she’d call me now. Apparently – though this is news to me – she had reservations about Laurie, ungrateful sloaney toff that she is.’ Maya smiles. It’s the sort of smile a waxwork might reject as being a little on the stiff side. ‘Sorry, Fliss, hon, I don’t mean to take my anger out on you, but, boy, does it make me mad. When I think how hard Laurie worked to get her out, and she has the nerve to say she never thought much of him . . . as if it’s up to her to dish out judgements, as if Laurie’s some jumped-up nobody from nowhere instead of the most garlanded investigative journalist in the country. She said he couldn’t see the wood for the trees, except she’s so stupid, she got it the wrong way round. Her exact words were “He can’t see the trees for the wood”. She’d still be in prison if it wasn’t for him. Has she forgotten that?’

  I give my best all-purpose nod. I want to know exactly what Rachel Hines said about me, but I’m too embarrassed to ask.

  ‘Do you by any chance know where Laurie is?’ says Maya.

  ‘No idea. I’ve been trying all day to get hold of him.’

  ‘He’s bloody well left.’ She sniffs and looks out of the window. ‘You watch – we won’t see him again. He was supposed to be in until Friday.’ She bends down behind her desk. When she reappears, she’s holding a well-stocked glass ashtray in one hand and an unambiguous, entirely visible cigarette in the other. ‘Don’t say a word,’ she tries to joke, but it comes out more like a warning. ‘I don’t normally smoke in the office, but just this once . . .’

  ‘I don’t mind. Passive smoking reminds me of how much I used to enjoy the active version.’ And makes me feel superior to the poor, weak fools who haven’t given up yet, I don’t add.

  Maya takes a long drag. She’s one of the oddest-looking women I’ve ever seen. In some ways she’s attractive. Her figure’s great, and she’s got big eyes and full lips, but she’s completely missing the chin-neck right-angle that most people have between their faces and their torsos. Maya’s open-plan face/neck area looks like a flesh-coloured balloon that’s been stuffed into the collar of her shirt. She wears her long dark hair in exactly the same style every day: straight at the top and elaborately curled at the bottom, held back by a red Alice band like a Victorian child’s
doll.

  ‘Be honest with me, sugar,’ she purrs. ‘Did you ask Ray Hines to ring and talk you up?’

  ‘No.’ No, I fucking didn’t, you cheeky bitch.

  ‘She said she’d spoken to you several times yesterday.’

  ‘She phoned me and said she wanted to talk. I’m going to ring later, set up a meeting.’ I leave out the part about Wendy Whitehead, and, to be on the safe side, the story of last night’s abortive rendezvous. Until I know what any of it means, I’m reluctant to hand it over.

  ‘She’s one step ahead of you.’ Maya picks up a scrap of paper from her desk. ‘Shall I read you your orders? Marchington House, Redlands Lane, Twickenham. She wants you there at nine tomorrow morning. Have you got a car yet?’

  ‘No. I—’

  ‘You passed your fourth driving test, though, right?’

  ‘It was my second, and no, I didn’t.’

  ‘Oh, bad luck. You’ll do it next time. Get a taxi, then. Twickenham by public transport’s impossible – quicker to get to the North Pole. And keep me updated. I want to know what Ray’s so eager to talk to you about.’

  Wendy Whitehead. I hate knowing things that other people don’t know. My heartbeat is picking up speed, like something walking faster and faster, unwilling to admit it wants to start running. Tamsin’s right: Rachel Hines wants to reel me in, and she’s afraid it isn’t working. I didn’t phone her back first thing this morning. It’s mid-afternoon and I still haven’t made contact. So she rings the MD, knowing I’ll have to meet her if the order comes from Maya.

  She’s clever. Too clever to say, ‘He can’t see the trees for the wood’ by mistake.

  ‘Fliss?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘What I said about nobodies from nowhere . . . I didn’t mean you, even if it sounded like I did.’ Maya flashes me a poor-little-you smile. ‘We all have to start somewhere, don’t we?’

  6

  8/10/09

  ‘How about if I buy the first drink tonight?’ said Chris Gibbs, not seeing why he should have to.

  ‘No.’

  ‘How about I buy all the drinks?’

  ‘Still no,’ said Colin Sellers. They were in an unmarked police pool car, on their way to Bengeo Street. Sellers was driving. Gibbs had his feet up, the soles of his shoes against the door of the glove compartment, safe in the knowledge that it wasn’t his to clean. He’d never have sat like this in his own car; Debbie would go ballistic.

  ‘You’ll do a better job than me,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the patience, the charm. Or is it smarm?’

  ‘Thanks, but no.’

  ‘You mean I haven’t come up with the right incentive yet. Every man has his price.’

  ‘She can’t be that bad.’

  ‘She’s deaf as a fucking door knob. Last time I was hoarse when I came out, from shouting so she could hear me.’

  ‘You’re a familiar face. She’s more likely to—’

  ‘You’re better with old ladies than I am.’

  ‘Ladies full stop,’ Sellers quipped. He thought a lot of himself because he had two women on the go, one of whom he was married to and one he wasn’t, though he’d had her so long he might as well be married to her; two women who reluctantly agreed to have sex with him in the vain hope that one day he might be less of a twat than he was now and always had been. Gibbs had only the one: his wife, Debbie.

  ‘Ask her nicely, she might give you a hand-job. Used to be a piano teacher, so she’ll be good with her hands.’

  ‘You’re sick,’ said Sellers. ‘She’s like, what, eighty?’

  ‘Eighty-three. What’s your upper age limit, then? Seventy-five?’

  ‘Pack it in, will you?’

  ‘ “All right, love, wipe yourself, your taxi’s here. It’s four in the morning, love, pay for yourself.” ’ Gibbs’ impression of Sellers was as unpopular with its inspiration and target as it was popular with everyone else at the nick. Over the years, the Yorkshire accent had become considerably more pronounced than Sellers’ real one, and quite a bit of heavy breathing had been added. Gibbs was considering a few more minor modifications, but he was worried about straying too far from the subtlety of the original. ‘ “All right, love, you roll over there into the wet spot, cover it up with your big fat arse.” If you want me to stop, you know what you have to do.’

  A few seconds of silence, then Sellers said, ‘Sorry, was that last bit you? I thought you were still being me.’

  Gibbs chuckled. ‘ “If you want me to stop, you know what you have to do”? You’d really say that, to an eighty-three-year-old grandmother?’ He shook his head in mock disgust.

  ‘Let’s both do both,’ said Sellers. He always caved in eventually. A couple more minutes and he’d be offering to interview both Beryl Murie and Stella White on his own while Gibbs had the afternoon off. It was like the end of a game of chess: Gibbs could see all the moves that lay ahead, all the way to check-mate.

  ‘So you’re willing to do Murie?’ he said.

  ‘With you, yeah.’

  ‘Why do I have to be there?’ said Gibbs indignantly. ‘You take Murie, I’ll take Stella White – a straight swap. That way we don’t waste time. Unless you can’t trust yourself alone with Grandma Murie.’

  ‘If I say yes, will you shut the fuck up?’ said Sellers.

  ‘Done.’ Gibbs grinned and held out his hand for Sellers to shake.

  ‘I’m driving, dickhead.’ Sellers shook his head. ‘And we’re wasting time however we do it. We’ve already taken statements from Murie and White.’

  ‘They’re all we’ve got. We need to push them for what they didn’t think of the first time.’

  ‘There’s only one reason we’re back here,’ said Sellers. ‘We’ve got nowhere else to go. Everyone close to Helen Yardley’s got a solid alibi, none of them tested positive for gunpowder residue. We’re looking for a stranger, to us and to her – every detective’s worst nightmare. A killer with no link to his victim, some no-mark who saw her face on TV once too often and decided she was the one – someone we’ve no chance of finding. Proust knows it, he just won’t admit it yet.’

  Gibbs said nothing. He agreed with Simon Waterhouse: it wasn’t as simple as someone close to the victim versus stranger murder, not in the case of a woman like Helen Yardley. Someone could have killed her because of what she stood for, someone who stood for the opposite. The way Gibbs saw it, Helen Yardley’s murder convictions had started a war. She’d been killed by the other side, the child protection control freaks who assume parents want to kill their kids unless someone can prove otherwise. Gibbs kept this insight to himself because he didn’t think he deserved the credit for it; as with all his best ideas, Simon Waterhouse had planted the seed. Gibbs’ admiration for Waterhouse was his most closely guarded secret.

  ‘He’s really lost it this time.’ Sellers was still talking about the Snowman. ‘Telling us we aren’t allowed to say or even think Helen Yardley might have been guilty. I wasn’t thinking that – were you? If her conviction was unsafe, it was unsafe. But now he’s put the idea into all our heads by telling us it’s forbidden, and all of a sudden everyone’s thinking, “Hang on a minute – what if there is no smoke without fire?”, exactly what he’s saying we mustn’t think. All that does is make us think it’s what he thinks we’re going to think, which makes us ask ourselves why. Perhaps there’s some reason we ought to be thinking it.’

  ‘Everyone’s thinking it,’ said Gibbs. ‘They have been from the start, they just haven’t been saying it because they’re not sure where anyone else stands. No one wants to be the first to say, “Oh, come on, course she did it – sod the court of appeal.” Would you want to stand up and say that, when she’s been shot in the head and we’re all breaking our bollocks to find her killer?’

  Sellers turned to look at him. The car swerved. ‘You think she killed her babies?’

  Gibbs resented having to explain. If Sellers had been listening . . . ‘I can see what you’re all thinking because I’
m the only one not thinking it. What that Duffy woman said – it’s crap.’

  ‘Duffy who?’

  ‘That doctor. When the prosecutor asked her if it was possible that Morgan and Rowan Yardley were both SIDS deaths, she said it was so unlikely, it bordered on impossible. SIDS is cot death – Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, where the death’s natural but no reason can be found.’

  ‘I know that much,’ Sellers muttered.

  ‘That was the quote: “so unlikely, it borders on impossible”. She said it was overwhelmingly likely that there was an underlying cause, and that the cause was forensic, not medical. In other words, Helen Yardley murdered her babies. When the defence called her on it and asked if, in spite of what she’d said, it was possible for SIDS to strike two children from the same family, same household, she had to say yes, it was possible. But that wasn’t the part that impressed the jury – eleven out of twelve of them, anyway. They only heard the “so unlikely, it borders on impossible” part. Turns out there’s no statistical basis for that, it was just her talking shit – that’s why she’s up before the GMC next month for misconduct.’

  ‘You’re well informed.’

  Gibbs was about to say, ‘So should you be, so should everyone working the Yardley murder,’ when he realised he would be quoting Waterhouse word for word. ‘I reckon Helen Yardley would have walked if it hadn’t been for Duffy,’ he said. ‘All the papers at the time printed the “so unlikely, it borders on impossible” quote. That’s what springs to most people’s minds when they hear the name Helen Yardley, never mind the successful appeal or Duffy being done for misconduct. And that’s just regular people. Cops are even worse – we’re programmed to imagine everyone on our radar’s guilty and getting away with it: no smoke without fire, whatever legal technicalities might have got Helen Yardley out. I only know different because of Debbie’s experience.’