A Room Swept White

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘Exactly,’ said Sam. ‘I’m glad it’s not just me.’

  ‘Even the strongest mind can’t withstand the Simon Waterhouse brainwash effect,’ Charlie told him.

  ‘I wanted to know what Grace Brownlee felt so defensive about, so I turned up unannounced at her house last night. Didn’t take long to trick her into telling me by implying I already knew.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘How much do you know about adoption procedures?’

  ‘You need to ask?’ Charlie raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Normally, if there’s any chance a child in care might go back to its biological parents, that’s the favoured option. While the case is being decided, the kid might go to foster parents. If the final family court decision goes against the birth mother, that’s when Social Services start looking for an adoptive family. But some local authorities – and Culver Valley’s one of them – have something called concurrent plan adoption that they use in a few select cases. It’s massively controversial, which is why a lot of councils won’t touch it with a bargepole. Some people say it violates the birth parents’ human rights.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Charlie. ‘Paige Yardley was one of those special cases.’

  Sam nodded. ‘You take a couple that you think would be ideal to parent a particular child, get them approved as foster parents, which is quicker and easier than getting them approved to adopt, and you place the child in their care as soon as possible. In theory, there was a chance Paige would go back to her birth family, but in reality everyone knew that wouldn’t happen. Once it was official, once Helen and Paul Yardley had been told their daughter was no longer theirs – then the Brownlees were approved as adopters, and adopted the child who already lived with them, with whom they’d formed a stronger bond than you’d normally expect in a fostering situation, because, unofficially and off the record, the social workers had given them to understand that they were getting Paige for keeps.’

  ‘Isn’t that also a violation of the prospective adoptive parents’ human rights?’ said Charlie. ‘There must be cases where the family court surprises everyone by deciding in favour of the birth mother. Presumably the social workers then have to say to the foster parents, “Oops, sorry, you can’t adopt this child after all.” ’

  ‘Grace Brownlee said they were told repeatedly that there were no guarantees, so in theory they knew things might not go their way – they wouldn’t have been able to say they were misled, if it came down to it – but heavy hints were dropped that it would go their way, and that Paige would soon be their legal daughter. She was a high-profile baby, the only surviving child of a woman suspected of murder. Social Services were determined to do their very best for her, and they thought the Brownlees would be ideal. Both lawyers – middle class, high-earning, nice big house . . .’

  ‘Nose-rings? Serpent tattoos?’ said Charlie. Seeing Sam’s puzzled expression, she said, ‘I’m kidding. People are so predictable, aren’t they? Wouldn’t it be fantastic, just once, to meet a respectable solicitor with a serpent tattoo?’ She let out a yelp of a laugh. ‘Ignore me, I’m in love.’

  ‘The Brownlees were hand-picked,’ said Sam. ‘They were in the process of jumping through all the hoops would-be adopters have to jump through. One day they were invited to a meeting and told a baby girl was available for them – there were still formalities to be gone through, but that was all they were. But the good news, they were told, was that they didn’t have to wait for the legal stuff to be signed off – all they had to do was apply to be foster parents and they could have their future daughter living with them within weeks. Sebastian Brownlee was keen but Grace had her doubts. She’s less smug than her husband and more cautious. She hated the nudge-nudge-wink-wink element.’

  ‘So that’s what she meant by “We did nothing wrong”?’

  Sam nodded. ‘Even once it was all done and dusted, court-approved and official, she was paranoid that one day Paige – Hannah, as she is now – might be taken away from them because of the underhand dealings at the beginning. Nothing her husband said to her could convince her it wasn’t dodgy.’

  ‘Was that likely? Paige being taken away, I mean.’

  ‘Impossible. Concurrent plan adoption’s not illegal. As you say, technically the verdict can still go in favour of the birth parents, and if it does, the prospective adopters have to lump it, which they know from the start.’

  ‘In some ways, it’s quite sensible,’ said Charlie. ‘I mean, from the kid’s point of view, it has to be better to be placed with the adoptive parents as soon as possible.’

  ‘It’s barbaric,’ said Sam vehemently. ‘All the time the birth mother thinks she’s in with a shot. Helen Yardley must have thought she and Paul stood a good chance of keeping Paige – they knew their sons had died naturally and they believed they’d be treated fairly. Some hope! All along, Social Services and Grace and Sebastian Brownlee – two strangers – knew that Paige was well on her way to her new family. Grace has felt guilty about that ever since, and I don’t blame her. It’s no way to treat people. It’s not right, Charlie.’

  ‘Maybe not, but lots of things aren’t right, and a good proportion of those lots of things are stacked up in our in-trays. Why’s this got to you?’

  ‘I’d like to pretend my reasons for feeling like crap are noble and altruistic, but they’re not,’ said Sam. He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything to Simon. What was I thinking of?’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ said Charlie.

  ‘There was one thing I didn’t understand: how could the social workers be so sure Paige Yardley wouldn’t be returned to Helen and Paul? I mean, it was hardly your average care case. I can imagine a local authority knowing all about some unsavoury families’ long histories of abusing and neglecting their children, saying they’ll never do it again, then getting wrecked and doing more and worse. Those children being taken away from their mothers might seem like a done deal, but Helen Yardley was different. If she wasn’t guilty of murder, then she was completely innocent. If her two sons were victims of cot death – which hadn’t yet been decided in court, so no one could claim to know – well, then Helen had done nothing wrong, had she? So why risk concurrent plan adoption? That was what I wondered.’

  Sam exhaled slowly. ‘Shows how naïve I am. So much for innocent until proven guilty. Grace told me the social workers all knew Helen had killed her babies, and they had friends at the hospital who knew it with as much certainty, who had been there when Helen had taken both boys into hospital, when they’d stopped breathing on several occasions. A social worker even said to Grace that she’d spoken to lots of doctors, one being Judith Duffy, all of whom had told her that Helen Yardley was, and I quote, “the classic Munchausen’s by proxy mother”.’

  ‘Maybe she was,’ said Charlie. ‘Maybe she did murder them.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Charlie.’ Sam started to walk away from her. She was about to follow him when he turned round and came back. ‘Her convictions were overturned. There wasn’t even enough evidence for a retrial. It should never have gone to court the first time. Is there anything more insane than making a woman stand trial when there’s no solid evidence a crime’s been committed? Never mind whether Helen Yardley committed it – I’m talking about a high chance that there was no “it” in the first place. I’ve seen the file that went to the CPS. Do you know how many doctors disagreed with Judith Duffy and said it was entirely possible Morgan and Rowan Yardley died of natural causes?’

  ‘Sam, calm down.’

  ‘Seven! Seven doctors. Finally, after nine years, Helen clears her name, then some bastard murders her, and there I am, supposedly investigating her murder, trying to get some kind of justice for her, for the sake of her family and her memory, and what am I doing? I’m listening to Grace Brownlee tell me about some contact centre care supervisor who claimed to see Helen try to smother Paige right in front of her.’

  ‘Leah Gould,’ said Charlie.

&nb
sp; Sam stared at her blankly. ‘How . . .?’

  ‘I’m reading Nothing But Love. Simon wanted me to, but he was too proud to ask. Luckily I can read his mind.’

  ‘I’m supposed to read it too.’ Sam looked guilty. ‘Proust wasn’t too proud to ask.’

  ‘Not your cup of tea?’

  ‘I try to avoid books that are going to make me want to top myself.’

  ‘I think you’d be surprised,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s full of brave, inspiring heroes: the Snowman, if you can believe it; Laurie Nattrass; Paul, the loyal rock of a husband. And that lawyer, her solicitor – I can’t remember his name . . .’

  ‘Ned Vento?’

  ‘That’s the one. Interestingly, he had a female colleague, Gillian somebody, who seems to have worked just as hard on Helen’s behalf, but so far she hasn’t once been described in heroic terms. I get the impression Helen Yardley was a man’s woman.’

  ‘Doesn’t make her a murderer,’ said Sam.

  ‘I didn’t say it did. I’m only saying, she seemed to lap up any attention that came her way from valiant male rescuers.’ A classic Munchausen’s-by-proxy mother. Wasn’t Munchausen’s all about getting attention?

  Something else bothered Charlie about Nothing But Love: several times in the first third of the book, Helen Yardley had asserted that she hadn’t murdered her two babies; rather, they had died of cot death. Unless Charlie had misunderstood, and she didn’t think she had, cot death, or SIDS, meant an infant death for which no explanation could be found, so it was odd for Helen Yardley to say that was what her boys had died of, as if it were a firm medical diagnosis. It was as nonsensical as saying, ‘My babies died of I don’t know what they died of.’ Wouldn’t a mother who had lost two children to SIDS be more likely to search for a proper explanation, instead of presenting the absence of one as the solution rather than the mystery? Or was Charlie reading sinister undertones into Nothing But Love that weren’t there?

  ‘What shouldn’t you have mentioned to Simon?’ she asked Sam.

  ‘Any of this. I was angry about Social Services stitching up the Yardleys and I was letting off steam, but it’s got nothing to do with Helen’s murder and I should have kept my mouth shut, especially about Leah Gould. Simon waved an Observer article in my face in which Gould was quoted as saying she’d made a mistake – hadn’t witnessed an attempted smothering, had overreacted, was deeply sorry if she’d contributed to a miscarriage of justice . . .’

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Charlie. ‘When you told Simon that Grace Brownlee was invoking Leah Gould’s eye-witness account as proof of Helen Yardley’s guilt, he decided that talking to her couldn’t wait any longer.’

  ‘If Proust finds out I covered for him, my life won’t be worth living,’ said Sam glumly. ‘What am I supposed to do? I told Simon no, unequivocally no, and he ignored me. “I want Leah Gould to look me in the eye and tell me what she saw,” he said. I should go to Proust . . .’

  ‘But you haven’t.’ Charlie smiled.

  ‘I ought to. We’re supposed to be investigating Helen Yardley’s murder, not something that might or might not have happened in a Social Services’ contact centre thirteen years ago. Simon’s more interested in finding out if Helen Yardley was guilty of murder than he is in finding out who shot her. If Proust gets even a whiff of that, and he will, because he always does . . .’

  ‘Sam, I’m not just sticking up for Simon because he’s Simon, but . . . since when do you disregard the life story of a murder victim? Helen Yardley had a pretty dramatic past, in which Leah Gould played a crucial role, by the sound of it. Someone should talk to her. So what if it was thirteen years ago? The more you can find out about Helen Yardley the better, surely? About what she did or didn’t do.’

  ‘Proust’s made it clear what our collective attitude has to be: that she’s as innocent and undeserving of what happened to her as any murder victim,’ said Sam, red in the face. ‘For once, I agree with him, but it’s not up to me, is it? It’s never up to me. Simon flies around like a whirlwind doing whatever the hell he wants and I can’t even pretend I’ve got a hope of controlling him. All I can do is sit back and watch events slip further and further from my grasp.’

  ‘There’s something Simon cares about more than he cares whether or not Helen Yardley was a murderer, and more than he cares who shot her dead,’ said Charlie, not sure she ought to be sharing this with Sam. ‘Proust.’

  ‘Proust?‘

  ‘He was at the contact centre that day too. Simon’s only interested in what Leah Gould saw because he wants to know what the Snowman saw – if he witnessed an attempted child murder and lied about it in his eagerness to protect a woman he’d already decided was innocent. Proust’s the one he’s going after.’ Charlie admitted to herself that she was scared of how far Simon might go. He was too obsessed to be rational. He’d been up most of last night, apoplectic with rage because Proust had tried again to invite them for dinner. He seemed convinced the Snowman was trying to torture him by forcing an invasive friendship on him, one he knew would be anathema to Simon. It had sounded far-fetched to Charlie, but her doubts, when she’d voiced them, had only inspired Simon to flesh out his paranoid fantasy even more: Proust had worked out a new genius way to humiliate him, rob him of his power. How can you fight back when all someone’s doing is saying, ‘Let’s have dinner’?

  Easily, Charlie had told him, desperate for sleep – you say, ‘Sorry, I’d rather not have dinner with you. I don’t like you, I never will, and I don’t want to be your friend.’

  Sam Kombothekra rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘This gets worse,’ he said. ‘If Simon’s going after the Snowman, I’m going after a new job.’

  ‘Where’s Waterhouse?’ was Proust’s first question. He was arranging envelopes in a tower on his desk.

  ‘He’s gone to Wolverhampton to interview Sarah Jaggard again,’ said Sam. One he’d prepared earlier, no doubt. Charlie tried not to smile. ‘You didn’t say you wanted to see Waterhouse, sir. You only mentioned Sergeant Zailer.’

  ‘I don’t want to see him. I want to know where he is. The two are different. I take it you’re up to speed on our case, Seargent Zailer? You know who Judith Duffy is?’ Proust flicked the envelope tower with his finger and thumb. It shifted but didn’t fall. ‘Formerly a respected child health expert, latterly a pariah, shortly to be struck off the medical register for misconduct – you know the basic facts?’

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘Sergeant Kombothekra and I would be grateful if you’d talk to Dr Duffy for us. One pariah to another.’

  Charlie felt as if she’d swallowed a metal ball. A faint groan came from Sam. Proust heard it, but went on as if he hadn’t. ‘Rachel Hines could well be our killer’s next target. She’s vanished into the ether, and there’s a chance Duffy knows where she is. The two of them met for lunch on Monday. I want to know why. Why would a bereaved mother have a nice cosy meal with the corrupt doctor whose fraudulent evidence put her behind bars?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Charlie. ‘I agree, it’s odd.’

  ‘Conveniently, Duffy and Mrs Hines are each other’s alibi for Helen Yardley’s murder,’ said Proust. ‘Duffy won’t talk to us, not willingly, and I was on the point of hauling her in unwillingly, but this strikes me as a better idea.’ Proust leaned forward, drumming his fingers on his desk as if he were playing a piano. ‘I think you could persuade her to talk to you, Sergeant. Establish a bond. If it works, she’ll say more to you than she would to us. You know what it feels like to have your ignominy splashed all over the papers; so does she. You’d know exactly how to approach her, wouldn’t you? You’re good with people.’

  What are you good with?

  Pariah, ignominy – they were only words. They could have no power over Charlie unless she allowed them to. She didn’t have to think about the events of 2006 if she didn’t want to. Recently, she had been choosing not to, more and more.

  ‘You don’t have to do it, Charlie. We’ve no right t
o ask you to.’

  ‘By “we”, he means me,’ said Proust. ‘The disapproval of Sergeant Kombothekra rains down like an avalanche of tissue-paper, feather-light and easy to shake off.’

  ‘I knew nothing about this,’ said Sam, pink-faced. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me. You can’t treat people like this, sir.’

  Charlie thought of all the things she’d read about Judith Duffy: she’d cared more about the children of strangers than her own, both of whom had been sub-contracted out to nannies and au pairs so that she could work day and night; she’d tried to fleece her ex-husband when they got divorced, even though she earned a packet herself . . .

  Charlie hadn’t believed a word of it. She knew what trial-by-media did for a person’s reputation, having been through it herself.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. The Snowman was right: she could persuade Judith Duffy to talk to her if she tried. She didn’t know why she wanted to, but she did. She definitely did.

  13

  Saturday 10 October 2009

  My mobile phone buzzes as I emerge from the underground. One message. A lifelong believer in sod’s law, I expect it to be Julian Lance, Rachel Hines’ solicitor, calling to cancel the meeting I’ve just travelled halfway across London to get to, but it’s not. It’s Laurie. I can tell straight away, because at first all I hear is breathing. Not heavy, not threatening – just the sound of him trying to remember which button he pressed, what he wanted to say and to whom. Eventually, his recorded voice says, ‘I’ve got the latest version of my British Journalism Review article for you, the one on Duffy. Yeah.’ There’s a pause then, as if he’s waiting for a response. ‘Do you want to meet, or something? So I can give it to you?’ Another pause. ‘Fliss? Can you pick up the phone?’ The sound of air being expelled through gritted teeth. ‘Okay, then, I’ll email it to you.’