In the Blood

by Ruth Mancini

  Will glances at me. I nod and pick up my phone. I open the email from genesandarchives.com and flash it at Will. Will takes it and reads it out. ‘My Lord, it’s from a genealogy website, called genesandarchives.com. It says, “Dear Ms Kellerman. I have pleasure in enclosing the attached certificate of death as requested. Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to get in touch.”’

  ‘Let me see that,’ says the judge. The usher takes my phone and hands it up to him.

  ‘But, My Lord,’ Carmel protests. ‘It’s electronic! It’s not signed!’

  Judge Collins looks at her over his glasses. ‘Everything’s electronic these days, Ms Oliver. It’s the way of the future, and the right one, in my opinion. The days of costly delays to the court process while we wait for trees to be cut down and bundles of paper to arrive in the post are, hopefully, soon to be a thing of the past.’ He peers at the email for a moment and then looks up at Will. ‘Do you want to make a hearsay application, Mr Gaskin?’

  ‘Yes please, My Lord,’ says Will.

  ‘Then I’ll grant that too,’ says the judge. ‘I will allow cross-examination on the content of the document. Clearly, the jury will be warned that the truth of its content cannot be verified – unless, of course, it comes from the mouth of the witness.’

  I’m barely able to suppress a smile as I leap up and move quickly over to the dock. Ellie leans forward. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ she asks.

  ‘You’ll see in a minute. Trust me?’ I beg.

  Ellie nods. ‘OK.’

  ‘Do you have your client’s full instructions?’ the judge asks.

  I look at Will and nod my head.

  ‘Yes, My Lord,’ Will agrees.

  ‘Then I suggest that we proceed with the cross-examination of the witness,’ Judge Collins says. ‘May the jury be brought in?’

  *

  Eleanor Barrington-Brown is angry. Her face is pinched and her lips tight as she enters the courtroom. I can see, instantly, that she is on the defensive when she steps back into the witness box, unhappy, no doubt, at having been kept waiting so long while events unfolded in the courtroom without her, lessening the emotional impact of her evidence. She takes a sip of water and sucks in her cheeks before scanning the courtroom with her eyes, which alight briefly on me. I meet her gaze and attempt to keep mine neutral as I feel her assessing my hair, my clothes, my lack of make-up, no doubt wondering what her son could have seen in someone like me. I am unfazed by her scrutiny, however; I have far more important things on my mind. I am now seated back in the bench behind Will and am so nervous for him that I feel sick. I know that his carefully prepared cross-examination – his handwritten notes, all the red scribble on the edges of Eleanor’s prosecution statement – is now redundant. He is about to wing this, and my heart is in my mouth.

  Will rises to his feet and says, ‘Lady Barrington-Brown.’

  She eyes him suspiciously, her jaw tight. ‘Yes.’

  ‘James is your only son, is that right?’

  She nods. ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘But you had another son, did you not?’

  Eleanor’s eyes widen and her mouth gapes. She turns to Carmel, and says, indignantly, ‘Are you going to let him ask me that?’

  Carmel nods, silently.

  Eleanor turns to look at Judge Collins, incredulity etched into her forehead.

  ‘Lady Barrington-Brown,’ says Judge Collins. ‘Any question that is improper, prosecuting counsel will intervene, or I will, and I do not, and therefore I should like you please to answer the question.’

  Eleanor turns back to face Will. ‘Yes,’ she scowls. ‘I had another son.’

  Will asks, ‘And what happened to your other son?’

  Eleanor narrows her eyes and looks from Carmel to the judge and back again, her mouth open. When neither responds, she purses her lips and glares at Will. ‘He died,’ she says, in a clipped voice. ‘He died when he was just five years old. Is that what you wanted to know?’

  ‘Well, it’s part of what I want to know,’ Will agrees, amiably. ‘But it’s not all of it.’

  Eleanor’s mouth snaps shut and sets in a hard line.

  ‘So, how did he die?’ asks Will.

  Eleanor glares at the judge again. ‘Are you seriously going to just sit there and let him talk to me like this?’ she says, her voice rising in pitch, her eyes flashing.

  ‘Answer the question,’ orders Judge Collins, tightly, his eyes flashing back. I note that he doesn’t say ‘please’ this time.

  ‘He drowned!’ Eleanor spits. ‘He drowned, OK?’

  I glance over at the jury. They look as baffled as Eleanor is by this line of questioning, but they, like everyone else in the courtroom, are listening intently.

  ‘How did he drown?’ Will asks.

  Eleanor’s eyes burn into Will’s. ‘He was... disabled,’ she tells him. ‘Severely so. He couldn’t walk or talk. He had epilepsy. There was an accident. James was pushing him in his wheelchair and he fell into the water.’

  ‘Which water?’

  ‘The lake. There’s a lake on the estate where we live.’

  ‘And how did it happen?’

  ‘James took him out of his wheelchair...’

  ‘But James was only five. They were twins, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So how did he manage to take him out of his chair?’

  ‘The au pair helped him.’

  ‘The au pair. OK. And what happened next?’

  ‘George fell into the water. We believe he may have had a seizure.’

  ‘But you’re not sure?’

  ‘No. I wasn’t there.’

  ‘And what was the coroner’s ruling? Epilepsy or drowning?’

  Eleanor hesitates. ‘Drowning,’ she says, decisively.

  ‘Death by drowning?’

  ‘Yes,’ she agrees.

  ‘No other cause?’

  Eleanor hesitates a moment, her eyes fixed firmly on Will’s. ‘No,’ she says, finally.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Will nods slowly and pauses. The courtroom sits in silence while he picks up a water jug from the desk and fills his paper cup, then takes a sip. Eleanor watches him, scowling. Carmel is leaning back in her seat with her head up, her eyes heavenward, while Judge Collins cocks his head to one side and screws up his face, a look of pure concentration cast across his features.

  Will picks up my iPad and walks out from behind the advocates’ bench towards Eleanor. ‘Why was George given the surname “Kent” on his death certificate?’ he asks her, as he gets closer. ‘Is it because you wanted to hide him away? Forget about him? Pretend he never existed?’

  Carmel leaps up. ‘Objection!’

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Eleanor hisses, indignantly. Her eyes, however, look frightened, as she tries to peer at the screen of the iPad that’s sitting in Will’s hands.

  Judge Collins holds up his hands. ‘Mr Gaskin, could you please rephrase the question.’

  ‘Yes, My Lord,’ says Will. He turns to Eleanor. ‘Why was George’s surname “Kent” on the death certificate?’

  ‘Because we... because we wanted James to forget about him. We didn’t want him to find out that he had had a... a brother.’

  ‘You lied to James about George?’

  ‘After some time had passed, we told him that... we told him that he was an only child.’

  ‘So, you lied to him.’

  ‘He was responsible for his brother’s death! We were trying to protect him!’

  ‘But he was five,’ Will observes. ‘How could he have been responsible for anything, at the age of five?’

  Eleanor frowns back at him, as if she doesn’t understand the question.

  ‘You are a doctor, are you not?’ asks Will.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So did you sign George’s death certificate yourself?’

  Eleanor’s nostrils flare. ‘Of course I didn’t!�
�� she snorts.

  ‘Then who did?’

  ‘It was a Dr Michael Phillips. A family friend.’

  ‘But I asked you what the coroner had said and you told me. Are you saying, now, that the matter wasn’t in fact referred to the coroner?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you’re meant to do when you encounter an accidental death?’

  ‘It wasn’t an accident,’ Eleanor says, quickly.

  ‘I thought you just said it was.’

  ‘He had a seizure,’ she says. ‘It was a pre-existing condition.’

  ‘But you just said that—’

  ‘I know what I said!’

  ‘You said that George drowned. I asked you if the cause of death was “death by drowning”. I asked you if you were sure, and you said “yes”.’

  I quickly scan back over my notes. Will is correct. This is exactly what was said.

  Eleanor explodes. ‘This is outrageous!’ she splutters. ‘How dare you question me in this manner?’

  ‘Well, that’s my job,’ says Will.

  ‘Then do it properly!’ she roars.

  ‘All right,’ says Will. He pushes his glasses back on his nose with one finger, lifts up the iPad and peers at it. Eleanor’s eyes move from him to the iPad and flicker with fear.

  ‘“Cause of death: Hypernatraemia,”’ reads Will. ‘“Accidental ingestion of salt by child with mental retardation.” You’re a doctor. Can you explain to the court, please: what does that mean?’

  Eleanor licks her lips. ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s the cause of death cited on a copy of George’s death certificate that has come into my possession. It’s only a copy, of course, and I can’t say with certainty that it’s a true copy of the original. But it is signed by a Dr Michael Phillips. And your friend Dr Michael Phillips says that George died of hypernatraemia. A lethal overdose of salt. Accidental, of course. Your good friend Dr Michael Phillips does not, for one minute, suggest otherwise.’

  Eleanor’s face freezes. Her eyes scan the courtroom and seek out the three reporters sitting at the front of the bench to my left. She has that same look on her face that I’d seen on Jay’s face so many times: she’s searching, desperately, for her next lie.

  ‘What this death certificate seems to suggest,’ Will elaborates, ‘is that your son, owing to his intellectual difficulties, accidentally picked up and ate something containing a highly concentrated form of salt.’

  He pauses again for a moment and cocks his head to one side.

  When Eleanor doesn’t respond, he walks back to the bench in front of me, puts down the iPad and scratches his head. ‘I’m puzzled,’ he says. ‘I’m wondering why you’ve told the court that George drowned? Well... that he had a fit, and then drowned,’ he corrects himself.

  Eleanor continues to stare blankly at him for a moment and then, suddenly, her mouth drops open. ‘I... I had forgotten all about that!’ She gazes at Will in bewilderment, as though he has done something amazing. She claps her hand to her forehead. ‘I must have... I must have buried the memory, or confused it with a different one. I... that’s correct. Yes.’ The tone of her voice has changed completely. ‘It’s all coming back to me, now,’ she says. ‘He did eat some... some...’

  ‘Some what?’

  ‘Baking soda,’ Eleanor says. ‘I think it was baking soda.’

  I immediately lean forward and thump Will on the back as hard as I can.

  He turns round to look at me. I hold up my hand. I scribble ‘How?’ on a piece of paper and hand it to him.

  Will looks at it and reads out, ‘How? How did he eat the baking soda?’

  Eleanor looks confused for a moment. ‘He got hold of the tub,’ she says.

  I tap Will on the back again. ‘Where was the tub?’ I scribble. I hand the piece of paper to him. He reads out my question.

  ‘In the kitchen,’ she says.

  ‘Where in the kitchen?’

  ‘On the worktop.’

  I already have the next question ready. I tap Will on the back and hand it to him.

  ‘How did he get the lid off?’

  Eleanor frowns. ‘What do you mean, how did he get the lid off? He unscrewed it. Pulled it off. Whatever you do with a tub of baking soda.’ Her tone is less friendly, now.

  I tap Will again. ‘How?’ I mouth at him.

  Will says, ‘How?’

  Eleanor’s face suddenly turns red. ‘Are you going to let her keep doing that?’ she screeches at Will.

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Feeding you questions!’

  ‘Yes,’ says Will.

  Eleanor looks at the judge, her mouth open, the rest of her face screwed up into a dubious sneer.

  ‘Lady Barrington-Brown, Ms Kellerman is Mr Gaskin’s instructing solicitor. She’s there to assist him. Now, answer the question,’ says the judge.

  ‘With his hands. How else?’

  ‘How exactly?’ asks Will, who has now worked out where we are going with this.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How did he get the baking powder out of the tub?’

  Eleanor shakes her head in a sudden rapid, gesture, one that would make your ears ring. ‘With a spoon,’ she sneers. ‘What do you think?’

  I’m used to writing quickly. You have to keep up, both in court and in police interviews, but when I hand Will the next sheet of paper, I’ve written so fast that I am worried that he might not be able to read it.

  Will peers at the paper. He turns round and points to a word.

  ‘What does that say?’ he mouths to me.

  I mouth back, ‘“Neurological”.’

  Will continues to look at the piece of paper and then stands up straight. ‘Your son had a severe neurological disorder,’ he says. ‘Isn’t that right? He couldn’t walk or talk. And yet he was able to get up out of his wheelchair, take the tub of baking powder from the worktop, prise off the lid with his fingers, pick up a spoon and spoon a sufficient quantity into his mouth to kill him.’

  He turns back round to me, his hand out ready. I duly hand him the last piece of paper.

  ‘His fine motor skills must have been pretty good,’ says Will.

  Eleanor stares at him for a moment before she erupts. ‘How dare you? How do you know what he was or wasn’t capable of?’

  ‘Not to mention the fact,’ adds Will, ‘that this court has heard from a toxicologist, an expert, during the course of these proceedings, and he told us that...’

  Will stops and flicks through his papers. I beat him to it. I rip the appropriate page out of my notebook and tap Will on the back. ‘Ah, here we are.’ Will takes the piece of notepaper from me. ‘“Young children do not spontaneously and voluntarily ingest sufficient quantities of salt to cause significant hypernatraemia”,’ he reads. ‘“Significant levels such as these are more usually associated with child abuse.”’

  Will steps back, picks up a pen and gives a single tap on the table top.

  Eleanor glares at him, open-mouthed.

  Will asks, ‘Lady Barrington-Brown, did you kill George? Your eldest son?’

  Eleanor continues to glare at Will for a moment and then turns her head towards me. Her eyes flash with hatred and her lip curls. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ she snarls at me. ‘You think you’re something special? You think just because you were clever enough to go to law school, that you would ever be good enough for someone like my son? You – with James? Don’t make me laugh! Do you realise who we are? We’re royalty. Royalty! James can trace his ancestry back to King Charles the second. And you, what are you? You’re nothing. You’re common. You sit there, scribbling on your cheap paper, in your cheap suit with your cheap haircut—’

  ‘Did you kill George?’ Will persists.

  ‘You were nothing to him. Nothing!’ Eleanor continues to snarl at me, ignoring Will’s question. ‘You are nothing! James used you, that’s all! Just like he used that piece of cheap trash behind you.’ H
er finger points at Ellie. ‘Whore!’ she hisses at her.

  ‘Lady Barrington-Brown—’ Judge Collins begins.

  ‘Slut! Harlot! Gold-digger! Do you think you can become a member of the aristocracy by batting your fake eyelashes at my son? Do you think that’s all it takes?’

  ‘Lady Barrington-Brown... I’m going to ask you one more time,’ says Will. ‘Did you kill your son, George?’

  ‘Lady Barrington-Brown, will you please answer the question,’ says the judge.

  ‘I did what I had to do!’ she rasps, turning to Will, small globules of saliva escaping from the corners of her mouth. ‘He wasn’t fit to inherit. Our bloodline is strong – it goes back centuries. One has to preserve one’s heritage! But I don’t expect someone like you to understand that.’

  Will says, ‘Did you, on the nineteenth of July last year, at Cedar Court in Camberwell, inject your grandson with a near fatal dose of saline?’

  Eleanor leans forward in the witness box, her hands gripping the rail in front of her, a loose strand of hair falling across her cheek. Her jaw is clenched so tightly that the tendons on her neck are visible. ‘My grandson?’ she spits. ‘That child is not my grandson. He’s just the bastard of a filthy whore!’

  Will continues, ‘Did you on the twenty-fifth of July last year use your son’s Nine Elms and St Martin’s Foundation Trust lanyard and door swipe key to enter Peregrine Ward at Southwark St Martin’s Hospital, and did you detach Finn Stephens’ dialysis line with the intention that he bleed to death?’

  Eleanor turns to Ellie again. ‘Did you seriously think I was going to let someone like you infiltrate a family like mine? Did you really think I was going to stand by and watch while that half-breed of yours came along and took everything? You, a piece of trash from a council estate, mixing up your family’s blood with mine... it’s like cows mating with horses. It’s disgusting!’ she spits.

  Will comments, ‘You sound more like a member of the Third Reich than a member of the aristocracy. I thought we’d evolved beyond that.’

  ‘Then, how little you understand, Mr Gaskin,’ she shoots back at him. ‘How little you understand about the historical significance of the class system, about the importance of rank and title. How little you understand about the sickness and disease that’s spreading across this land, about the plague of low-lifes that are infesting this country.’ She points at Ellie again. ‘It’s whores like her – uneducated, filthy, low-life scum, like her, that are bringing this country to its knees. And you, you stand there, defending it – defending the scum that’s eating away at the very foundation of civilisation, eating at the core of the civilised way of life!’ Eleanor’s rant is so venomous and so unexpected that I’m too overwhelmed by it to see or hear anything much else besides the torrent of abuse that has descended on us. I vaguely hear Judge Collins saying, ‘Silence in court,’ and then, ‘That’s enough! Get her out of here.’ In my peripheral vision, I’m aware of the usher picking up the phone.