by Ruth Mancini
Alex looks at me for a long, hard moment. I recognise the look, instantly. It’s one he’s given me on many occasions in the past, when I’ve asked him a question that he doesn’t want to answer. When he’s playing for time, more like, trying to think up his next lie.
‘What was it, Alex?’ I say again. ‘If you don’t tell me the truth, I swear...’
Heads are raising and people are watching us. I can tell that Alex finds all of this excruciating, that he is mortified – first by the police presence, and now this public display of emotion on my part.
‘What did you give him?’ I screech.
Alex takes my arm and guides me away from the waiting area and down the corridor in the opposite direction, towards some empty seats.
‘Sit down, Sarah,’ he says, meekly. ‘Everyone’s looking at us.’
‘I don’t care. And I don’t want to sit down.’
‘Please.’ He sits down anyway and puts his head in his hands.
‘Just tell me,’ I hiss at him, softly this time. ‘If you don’t tell me, I’m going to scream.’
Alex looks up. His eyes are bleary and his face is red. ‘Diazepam,’ he says.
‘How much?’
‘Ten mils,’ he says.
‘Alex, he’s completely out of it!’
‘And then another five. That’s all. I swear...’
‘Why? Why would you do that?’
‘He was fitting. Repeatedly. He had a generalised seizure that lasted for ten minutes. It was a medical emergency. I was trying to save his life, Sarah.’
‘No! Ben was fine. It was you. You! You gave him something, something that made him fit. What else did you give him? I want the truth!’ I lean forward and grab him by the shoulders and start to shake him. ‘Tell me the fucking truth!’
‘Sarah, please. Stop it. I swear. I...’
I let go of him, suddenly. ‘He didn’t have a fit. Did he?’
Alex looks at me for a long moment and then finally shakes his head.
I look at him in astonishment. My tongue is heavy and my mouth dry. I lick my lips. ‘So, what happened? You just decided that it would be fun to drug my little boy?’
‘It wasn’t like that, I swear!’
‘So, what was it like, then? Did you do it for attention? What?’ I hold out my arms, and shake my head at him.
His eyes take on a faraway look. ‘I... I don’t know.’
I look at him in silence for a moment, before asking, ‘How did you give it to him?’
‘What?’
‘The diazepam? How did you give it to him?’
He hesitates. ‘Rectally.’
I wrinkle up my face in disgust.
‘I’m not a paedophile, Sarah,’ he hisses at me.
I put my hands on my hips and face him, as he sits in front of me, his face racked with guilt and pain.
‘You’re a doctor. The fucking irony.’ I laugh, an empty, hollow sound that floats off down the corridor. ‘Ben couldn’t have been in safer hands.’
Alex looks at his feet. ‘How did you...’
‘How did I find out? I guessed. Eventually. Although, God knows I should have known, right from the start.’
Alex looks at me and says nothing. He lifts his arm and wipes at his brow.
‘I saw a photo of you in a magazine,’ I tell him. ‘Your parents were there too. And then it all made sense: the things you said, at the hospital last time. The medical terminology you used: “partial seizures”, “generalised seizures”. The words just rolled off your tongue. And then I got a copy of your witness statement, and saw that you’re a neurologist – the type of doctor that would know all about seizures. And your name: James Alexander Barrington-Brown.’ I punctuate his middle name with a contemptuous sneer. ‘How could you do this to Ben?’ I sob, suddenly. ‘How could you do this to me?’
Alex reaches over, and tries to take my hand. I snatch it away. ‘Please, Sarah,’ he begs me, tears forming in his own eyes. ‘Please hear me out. I’m begging you.’
I know that this is the point where I should tell him that he doesn’t deserve it, that he doesn’t deserve a chance to explain. I should just call Hood and Hindley right back again, tell them what Alex has done to Ben, that he’s admitted it this time. That if he’s done that to Ben, then surely he could have harmed Finn too?
But what evidence do I have? I know that’s what it comes down to. As far as I know, Finn was with Darren or Marie – or one of their friends, God knows who – when Finn was bruised and poisoned; and how am I going to prove that Alex was on the ward that night, that he was the one who pulled out the dialysis line?
I need to know the truth. I need an explanation, an explanation for everything, one that will stop my world from spinning unevenly on its broken axis and set me back on my feet again. I need Alex (or Jay, or James – or whatever he really calls himself when he’s not lying to someone) to tell me what I need to know.
Oh, God. Is ‘Jay’ his client-of-an-escort name? I wonder, suddenly. His porn name. I think back to our jokes with disgust. I think of him in bed with Ellie, and then in bed with me.
At the top of the corridor, through the double doors, I can see that it’s started to snow, the glare of the streetlights transforming the flakes into a big white sheet. I want to run outside, to disappear into the mist, to throw myself into the elements and let the wind take me away. Instead, I sit down next to Alex and put my head in my hands. I press my fingertips hard against my temples; the pressure feels good, solid, real.
Time stands still for a moment, and then I hear Alex say, ‘Sarah, whatever you believe, whatever you think of me right now, there is one thing you have to know, and that is that I love you. I’ve lied to you mercilessly, I know. But I never meant to hurt you or Ben. I swear. I would never have done that intentionally. I love you. I loved you from the moment I first clapped eyes on you. That part is not a lie.’
I look up at him. I immediately think back to the moment he first clapped eyes on me, in the coffee aisle at Waitrose in Holloway. I think about the moment when he’d rescued me at the checkout and I know now, with a heart that’s sinking deeper and deeper by the minute, that my initial instincts had been correct: it was all way too good to be true. This handsome, well-dressed, well-spoken stranger, zooming in on a woman like me... I should have known. I did know, I reprimand myself, but I ignored it. I cringe, inwardly, as I realise that I’m nothing but a stereotype: a pathetic, lonely, single mother, so desperate for affection, for a father for her son, that I have refused to see what’s been right in front of my very eyes, all along. What kind of a fool have I been? I open my mouth, but my anger has been replaced with self-loathing and my words now come out in a pitiful gasp. ‘How did you... how did you...’
‘How did I what?’ Alex looks at his knees, penitently.
‘How did you come to be in the supermarket that day? The day we met?’
He sighs, deeply, and looks away down the corridor at the snow-white gauze outside the window. ‘I followed you.’
‘You... you followed me?’
He looks at me, plaintively, his forehead creasing. ‘I wanted to talk to you. I was worried about Liss and what she was going to say, in court. I was just planning to talk to you, to be honest with you. I wanted to beg you not to tell anyone about me and Liss... about... about the true nature of our relationship. My parents... they don’t know.’
‘But...’ I break off as I mentally retrace my steps. ‘I went to... to the police station that day. At Walworth. And then on the Tube. You followed me all that way? All the way to Ben’s nursery?’
He nods and looks down into his lap again, his face flushed.
‘How did you know who I was?’
‘The Internet. Your photo is on your firm’s website.’
Of course. I can feel my own face flushing as I piece it all together, as I realise just how contrived my supposedly romantic rescue in the coffee aisle really was. ‘So, you followed me from the nursery to Waitrose... you
watched me... and when I dropped the coffee jar, you saw your opportunity... and then you pounced.’
Alex reaches for my hand. I flinch as if he’s hit me. ‘It wasn’t like that, Sarah,’ he protests.
But we both know that it was.
‘So, at what point did you decide that it would be more fun to lie to me?’ I ask him. ‘To sleep with me, to spy on me, to manipulate me into giving away the confidential details of my client’s case?’
Alex puts his head in his hands and leans forward, his elbows on his knees. ‘I was going to tell you the truth. I wanted to. So many times, I wanted to. I hated lying to you. You have to believe me, Sarah. I love you. I’m still glad we met.’
I look up at him, in disbelief. Does he not realise how sick that sounds? I survey him in silence for a moment. I roll my tongue around my dry mouth and stand up. ‘I need a drink of water.’
Alex leaps up. ‘I’ll get it.’
He walks over to the water cooler and comes back with a plastic cup in each hand.
I lift my cup and take a deep gulp, and then another. ‘So, what happens when your parents find out the truth about Finn? About Ellie?’
He turns and looks, searchingly, into my eyes. ‘I was rather hoping that they wouldn’t.’ He continues to look at me with a pained expression on his face and I realise with incredulity that he’s actually asking me for a favour. ‘If it comes out in court, it will be unthinkable.’ He speaks quickly. ‘My mother adores Finn. But she’s highly respected, socially, as is my father. If she finds out that Finn’s mother is a... a... call girl, it will kill her. Her reputation would be in ruins. I mean, it would be a big deal for any mother to accept, but in the circles my mother moves...’ He tails off. ‘The thing is, Sarah... my father’s titled.’
‘Anna told me. He’s a life peer.’
‘No,’ Alex says, quietly. ‘He’s a hereditary peer. As his only son I’ll inherit the peerage. It means bugger all to me, to be frank, but it’s a big deal to my mother. We’re a dying breed, it seems. My mother intends that I marry well, into a family with similar rank and title.’
‘And wealth, presumably.’
‘And wealth,’ he agrees.
I think about this for a moment. ‘So, your father’s... what? A duke? A viscount?’
‘A baron,’ he mumbles.
‘And when he dies, you’ll be a baron too?’
Alex nods.
I heave a sigh, and look away. ‘So, what were you doing with me? I mean, beyond your self-preservation, your selfish interest in Ellie’s case, that is. You could have had yourself a baroness, a lady – a woman with wealth and style, someone your mother would approve of. Why would you possibly be interested in a commoner like me?’
‘Because you’re real!’ he explodes. ‘You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re beautiful and you’re real! Have you any idea how it feels to be with someone and to know that your wealth and social status are more important to them than who you are inside? I love you because you’re you, Sarah. And because you needed me in a way that I’ve never been needed before, and for all the right reasons. You made me feel special. You made me feel alive.’
‘And Ellie? “Liss”? How did she make you feel?’
Alex sighs. ‘It was never going to be anything more than it was. We both knew where we stood.’ He turns to face me, his eyes boring into mine. ‘Liss doesn’t want it all to come out any more than I do, you know? We both agreed, for Finn’s sake, that we’d keep it under wraps.’
‘And that’s why you carried on seeing me,’ I sneer. ‘You wanted to find out what her defence was. You wanted to know if she’d changed her mind, if she was going to expose you, to send your dirty secret “out into society” – is that the correct terminology? Make it known that your son – your mother’s grandson – is the bastard child of a whore.’
Alex winces visibly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I know that it’s unforgivable. But the consequences for my family...’
I feel my anger rising again. ‘And what about the consequences for me? Did you even think about me, once, when you were quizzing me about her case? Did you ever consider that if I told you anything, I could be struck off? That my career would be over?’
‘I’m sorry. But you didn’t tell me anything, did you? Not really.’
‘Not for want of you trying!’ I yell.
I put my head in my hands again and rewind back through all the conversations we’ve ever had, trying to recall exactly what I might have said to Alex about Ellie’s defence. ‘Oh my God.’ I look up suddenly. ‘The case papers. The ones you helped me scan. The ones you moved into the kitchen cupboard.’
Alex shakes his head. ‘I didn’t read them, Sarah. I was going to, I admit it, but then you came home and I didn’t get a chance.’
I stand up, and move back down the corridor towards the water cooler, my mind fit to burst with disconnected thoughts and tangled-up emotions. There’s so much that bothers me about the web of lies Alex has woven that it’s hard to unravel it and pick out the individual threads, but something – something beyond hurt and humiliation and anger – is gnawing away at me. Something specific that I can’t put my finger on. Something to do with Finn...
I march back down the corridor towards Alex.
‘You told me that your parents were dead,’ I accuse him. Alex looks up, surprised, no doubt, that I’ve asked him this. Of all the lies he has told me, this is hardly the worst.
‘Well, yes,’ he admits. ‘I didn’t want you to ask questions about them, to find out who they really were.’
‘And your brother?’
‘That was all true,’ Alex insists. ‘Every word. I did have a twin. He did drown when we were five.’
‘So how did he drown?’ I ask. ‘What happened?’
Alex gives me a look that tells me he’s exasperated, but knows at the same time that he has no right to be. ‘Do you really want to...?’
‘Yes,’ I snap. ‘I do.’
‘OK.’ He sighs. He takes a deep breath. ‘He was born with a severe neurological disability. His problems were very similar to Ben’s.’
I feel my mouth fall open. ‘He was learning disabled?’
‘Severely so. Like Ben, he couldn’t talk or walk or dress or feed himself with a spoon. But I didn’t know the significance, not at the time. I didn’t know what it meant until years later. As a five-year-old kid I just accepted it: that’s how he was.’
I stare at him. ‘Go on,’ I say.
‘His name was George.’ His lips form a smile and his eyes mist over. ‘My memories of him are few, but I do remember that I adored him. My family owns a large estate in Esher, Surrey. It’s where I grew up. I remember spoon-feeding him his porridge in the morning and pushing him around the grounds in his wheelchair, with the au pair’s help, pointing out frogs and butterflies and making daisy-chains for him to put in his hair.’ His voice falters and begins to crack. ‘One day, I decided that I was going to teach him to walk. I asked the au pair to help me. She told me that we could try. We were down by the lake. We lifted George out of his wheelchair and sat him on a blanket on the grass. But then he suddenly toppled forwards and... he... he fell.’
‘Fell... where? Where did he fall?’
Alex looks up at the ceiling. I can see that his eyes are filling with tears, which he tries to blink away. ‘Into the lake,’ he says. ‘He’d had a seizure. And then he drowned. Or at least that’s what my parents told me, years later. I don’t actually have any memory of it at all. I don’t remember anything beyond me and the au pair taking him out of his wheelchair that day and settling him on the grass. The next thing I remember is that the au pair had been sacked and sent home and that my brother wasn’t there any more. I must have wiped the whole incident from my memory, because I kept asking my parents where he had gone and when he was coming back. They batted my questions away for a year or so, before telling me that I’d imagined him, that I’d always been an only child. Then, when I found the photograph of hi
m in the attic, they finally told me the truth...’
Alex leans forward suddenly and puts his head in his hands. His shoulders begin to shake, gently, and then to heave up and down, as he begins to sob, loudly, uncontrollably.
‘And the truth is, that it’s my fault he died,’ he says, lifting his head, heavy gasps escaping from his throat.
‘What do you mean, it was your fault? You were five years old,’ I say, confused. ‘How could it have been your fault?’
‘But I took him out of his wheelchair. I let him fall. I let him fall into the lake. I should have... I should have done something to save him.’
I say, ‘I think that maybe you’ve been trying to save him ever since.’
He looks up.
‘I think you’re sick, Alex,’ I tell him. ‘What you did to Ben... You need to see a doctor. A psychiatrist.’
Alex puts his head back in his hands. I wait while he sobs softly for a moment, the seed of an idea implanting itself in my mind.
‘You’re a neurologist,’ I say.
‘Yes.’
‘Which hospital do you work at?’
‘Nine Elms. South side.’ His words are muffled.
Nine Elms. I remember that name. Why do I remember that name? And then it comes to me. I’ve seen it on the medical report from the hospital in Ellie’s case. ‘Nine Elms and Southwark St Martin’s. They’re part of the same trust,’ I say.
Alex looks up at me and blinks. ‘Yes.’
‘So that means that you have a staff lanyard... a key fob? You can get onto any of the wards?’
Alex lifts his arm and wipes his eyes on his shirt sleeve, before turning to me in disbelief. He leaps up from his seat and faces me. ‘No, Sarah. No. You’re barking up the wrong tree, I swear. Do you seriously think I’d hurt my own son?’
‘Well, you hurt mine.’
Alex shakes his head. ‘No. No. I sedated him. That’s different. I... I never intended to hurt him. I admit that I... I’m messed up. I know that, and I’m sorry. Truly, I am. I sincerely regret what I have put you through, you and Ben. You’re right. I’m sick. I know that I have a problem. I know that I have some kind of need for... for attention. For drama... to be needed. In an emergency situation, I... I come alive. It’s... it’s addictive...’ He tails off as he watches my face. ‘I’ll get help. I promise, I’ll get help. I was going to, anyway. I knew that there was something wrong with me... But that does not mean I’d try to kill my own son, for Christ’s sake. I love him! I love him more than anything in this world! My parents and I, we’re all sick with worry that we could lose him back to her... to Liss, that she could walk free from all of this and then hurt him again. My mother doesn’t sleep. For her, it’s like losing George all over again. She has nightmares about it.’ He crouches down, suddenly, and grabs hold of my hands. ‘Sarah, I really, truly admire you and I have no doubt whatsoever that you are an excellent lawyer. But you’ve got this all wrong. It’s Liss... Ellie... she’s crazy. She’s the one who needs help. She was right there next to him when it happened. She was there, not me.’ He gasps as tears threaten to engulf him again.