‘She doesn’t like Evie, that’s for sure. I get the distinct impression that she adored her brother and thought that no woman was good enough for him. It seems she didn’t think much of his wife either. We’re going to need to look at the evidence around that case again. The defence will for sure. I’d like to take responsibility for that. Is that okay with you, sir?’ she asked.
Gus looked around him. Nobody else was within earshot. ‘Steph, you may think that calling me sir is appropriate, but most people around here are perceptive enough to hear the sarcasm dripping from your tongue. Just call me Gus. People will accept that we know each other well enough for that, without knowing the full story.’
Stephanie was ashamed of herself. She didn’t want Gus to know he was getting to her.
‘Sorry. Gus it is. I promise to behave, and no more acts of insubordination.’
She looked away and shuffled some papers on her desk. She had almost convinced herself recently that, despite thoughts of him popping into her head at inconvenient times, Gus Brodie no longer mattered to her. That was all well and good when she never saw him, but acting as if he was just another senior officer right now was torture.
‘Now, about the death of Mia North,’ she said, her tone professional. ‘There’s something bugging me about it – but I’m not sure what it is. I was the first officer on the scene, you know.’
‘I know you were, Steph. I haven’t forgotten where we were when you told me about it.’
Stephanie couldn’t meet his eyes. She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
‘I’ll see you in the morning, Gus.’
She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard a sigh of irritation as she walked towards the stairs.
28
The minute the front door closed behind her, Harriet made for the kitchen and the fridge. She needed a glass of cold, crisp wine and was desperate to sit alone, in silence, in the garden so she could think.
Evie had answered all the questions the detectives had thrown at her. She had been calm throughout, only showing a moment of emotion at the memory of the life she had hoped for, but the police had needed more time. Evie was now in the cells, getting some badly needed rest while they waited for an extension to be granted.
Clutching her glass and a bottle of mineral water, Harriet opened the sliding door to the terrace. It had been a muggy day, but the air felt a bit fresher now. Sinking down onto a sun lounger she diluted the wine a little and leaned back, watching the condensation form on the outside of the glass.
Harriet’s main concern following the initial interrogation was that Evie didn’t have any evidence to support her claim that Mark had been hurting her, with the exception of the cuts on her arms and upper body on the night of his death. The police had made much of the fact that each time she had been injured she had told those who asked that her wounds were the result of an accident. How were they going to prove otherwise?
People were often too embarrassed to admit that they were being abused by a partner, so her secrecy meant nothing. Harriet had heard the same story so many times.
‘You don’t want to admit that you’ve made such a bad choice of partner – that your judgement is so flawed,’ one woman had told her. Another said, ‘It’s because people don’t understand why you let it happen – they think it’s easy to walk away. They don’t get it that you’re made to feel it’s all your fault, that he had to hit you, and every ounce of your self-confidence crumbles to nothing. Then he’ll do something especially nice and you begin to kid yourself it’s all going to be okay.’
The fact that one in four women from all walks of life suffered abuse at some time in their life – and an increasing number of men – was a thought never far from Harriet’s mind. She was annoyed with herself for not recognising the signs in Evie. It was her job to defend women like her but for a moment she questioned whether her fixation on attracting attention to women’s causes in general could be blinding her to the needs of the women closest to her.
She thought back to when she first met Evie. She had applied as a volunteer at the shelter and Harriet had agreed to meet her at a local café to explain how the charity operated. Evie had seemed to genuinely care about the plight of the people helped by the charity, and she didn’t display any of the classic signs of abuse. She was relaxed, talked about her friends quite openly and Harriet had assessed that she was neither scared of nor isolated from others. She had arrived in a taxi and offered to pay for the coffee, so it was unlikely that she was being controlled financially, and Harriet seemed to remember that Evie received a call from someone – she had assumed her partner – while they were chatting. She hadn’t seemed uncomfortable with him, and had asked him if she could call back later. She had even laughed at something he said. But then maybe it hadn’t been Mark.
None of it had added up to Evie being an abused woman. Even Evie’s call to cancel her shift at the shelter hadn’t alerted Harriet. She had known there was something wrong, but it could have been an argument with a friend or a tough day with Lulu. She had made no assumptions, mainly because her initial impression of Evie had given no indication that she and Mark had a troubled relationship.
Harriet had asked about it during the break in the interview.
‘It hadn’t started then,’ Evie said with a shrug. ‘It was the trips away that precipitated it. I’ve always believed it was tied in to the death of his wife. I told you that happened when he was away, didn’t I?’
The memory of that conversation struck a chord and Harriet jumped up from the sun lounger and dashed into the house for a notepad and pencil. Top of her list of actions was to look further into the death of Mark North’s wife. If Mark had been into causing pain, it was unlikely to be new. There had to be some evidence to prove that he had hurt Mia, even if he hadn’t been found to be responsible for her death. It was a starting point, but there was so much else to do.
She leaned back again and took a deep breath, trying to force from her mind the image of Evie lying on a hard bed in a police cell.
The thud of the cell door closing behind me resonates with the thumping of my heart. I shouldn’t be here. I should be at home with Lulu, bathing her, singing to her, waiting for her daddy to come and kiss her goodnight.
Instead, I’m in a room with shiny pale green walls and a bench with a dark blue plastic-covered mattress on it. There’s a toilet which is barely shielded from the spy hole in the door, and I don’t want to use it unless I have to. And that’s all there is. I’m told I’ll be fed, but I don’t want food. It would make me sick.
I walk over to the bed and resist the temptation to bend down and sniff the mattress to see if it’s been wiped down since the last occupant. The room smells of disinfectant, so I take that as a good sign and lower myself gingerly onto the surface, hearing a sigh of air escaping through the plastic.
As I stare at the opposite wall I suddenly feel as if I’m not alone. It’s as if all the previous occupants are in there with me, screaming in rage, crying in terror, or sitting numbly, wondering about the chain of events that brought them here – just like I am.
I see them pacing the floor, lying next to me on the bed, leaning their heads on folded arms against the wall in their despair. This cell will have seen the innocent as well as the guilty – the real criminals. But I suppose that’s how the police think of me now.
I’m a killer.
The thought of Mark and how he died makes me gasp. I have to think of something else to stop myself from going over everything in my head – every decision, every step along the way. Did I get it right? Was there another way?
I think about the women I met at the shelter and the stories they told me of the brutality they had suffered. I listened because I wanted to learn from them, but I discovered that there was very little I didn’t already know. The average abuser, it seems, is devoid of much in the way of imagination.
How many people will care that I’m here? Aminah, perhaps, but that’s it.
Lulu is too young to understand, and Cleo will be hoping it’s as horrific an experience as possible. Now Mark’s gone, there isn’t anyone else, nobody to wonder whether I am coping with the police interviews and the persistent analysis of each moment of the past twenty-four hours.
Harriet cares, as I knew she would. If anyone can help me, she can. Right now, it feels as if she’s the only person I have on my side. The interrogation today was hard in spite of her efforts because it forced me to question every action, but in other ways it was easy because I knew all the answers. I didn’t have to make anything up. There’s more to come tomorrow, and I need to rest so that I don’t crumble under the pressure.
I want to find a way to tell Mark that I’m sorry. But I don’t know if I am.
29
Harriet had barely slept, and when she had her dreams had been of the women she had defended in the past. She always attempted to file them away in her mind, trying not to dwell on the haunting images of their troubled eyes, but she doubted whether memories of Evie would ever fade completely. There was something different about her. Harriet’s clients usually fell into one of two camps – those who nurtured their anger at the atrocities they’d had to endure, and those so psychologically damaged they were unable to utter a word in their own defence. Evie’s responses and reactions didn’t fit either profile, and despite the tiredness pricking the back of her eyelids, Harriet was determined to be at the top of her game for this case. Evie deserved the best she had to give.
When she arrived back at the police station, she could see that Evie looked exhausted too, but it was hardly surprising. In spite of the dark circles under her eyes, she seemed calm and Harriet wondered if she had prepared her client enough for what was to come. Her fears were heightened when she saw the expression on the face of the lead detective in the interrogation, Nick Grieves. He looked excited, and that was not good news.
The questioning began all over again and Evie was handling herself well, her voice calm, but there was a sense of anticipation in the room, as if everyone was waiting for some critical moment to arrive.
Finally, when it seemed to Harriet that there wasn’t a single new question to ask, Detective Grieves asked Evie once again to describe how she killed Mark North.
‘Nothing has changed since you asked me this yesterday,’ she said. ‘When my fingers touched the handle of the knife, something in me snapped. I was in such agony that I don’t believe I was capable of rational thought, and it felt somehow that the pain was just beginning. I had never seen Mark in such a frenzy of excitement.’
‘Which hand did you pick up the knife with?’
Evie was starting to look frustrated at the repetition, and Harriet reached out to touch her arm gently. She took the hint and calmed down.
‘It was my right hand.’
‘And what happened then?’
‘I reached round his shoulders and cut him on the neck.’
Nick Grieves picked up a sheet of paper from the desk.
‘Cut him, you say? We have now had the post-mortem report and the initial forensic report. It was clear from the height of the blood spatter above the bed that an artery had been severed in Mark North’s neck. It has now been confirmed that he had only one cut to his body, and that was on the right side of his neck. That would appear to substantiate your statement that you picked up the knife in your right hand and, as Mark was lying on top of you, you wrapped your arm around him. Do you agree?’
Evie nodded. ‘Yes, exactly as I said.’
‘Your prints are on the knife, as are Mark North’s. This is as we would have expected. According to the report, the knife, although reasonably sharp, would have required a significant amount of pressure to be applied to produce such a deep wound.’ He paused, the significance of his comment hanging in the air. ‘This was more than an act of retribution for your minor cuts, wasn’t it? This was intended to inflict serious harm. The pathologist has confirmed that Mark North’s neck was slit from under his chin to just below his ear, severing both his carotid artery and his jugular vein.’
Harriet maintained a neutral expression and resisted the temptation to look at Evie. She knew what was going to happen next.
‘You do not deny that you inflicted this wound, do you, Evie?’
‘No.’
‘I am now terminating this interview and you will be returned to your cell temporarily.’
Evie turned her head towards Harriet, her eyes asking the question, ‘Is this it?’ Harriet had explained the procedure to her and gave a brief nod before Evie was escorted back to her cell.
It was now a matter of waiting, but Harriet knew it wouldn’t be long.
They have come for me. I’m being escorted back to the custody suite and they’re going to charge me. I knew this was going to happen – I’ve known all along, but it doesn’t make it any easier. My teeth are clamped rigid in my mouth as I tell myself over and over again that I had no choice.
Another detective enters the room. I think he’s the one who arrested me, but I can’t be sure. The room that night was filled with shadows and it’s only when he speaks and I hear his accent that I know for certain it’s him.
‘Evelyn Clarke,’ he says. ‘You are charged that on 17th August you did murder Mark North contrary to common law.’
That’s it. I thought I was prepared, but it takes all my willpower to stay upright and to stifle a gasp of distress.
30
Four months later
Cleo was determined to get to the Crown Court early. She wasn’t sure how long the thirty-mile drive would take, and she desperately wanted to watch the start of the proceedings, hear the charges read out, see the jury file in and witness the shame that Evie must surely be feeling. She was going to be called to give evidence and wouldn’t be allowed into the court until after she had been questioned. Nevertheless, she wanted to get the lie of the land so that when she was released from the witness box she would know how to gain access to the public gallery.
Aminah had offered to take care of Lulu whenever Cleo needed to be at court, and although things between the two women were strained, Cleo would have struggled to get through the last few months without her.
The door from the street that led to the public gallery seemed to be locked, and a security guard in a yellow hi-vis jacket was standing outside beyond a barrier that Cleo assumed was there to control any queues. Would that many people be interested in the trial?
‘Going into the gallery, are you, Miss?’ the security guard asked.
‘No – not yet. Hopefully later, but I have to give evidence first. Is this where I go when I want to watch the rest of the trial?’
‘It is, but hang on a minute, Miss,’ he said, holding his hand out to stop Cleo walking past. She looked to her left and saw why. Turning into a narrow drive leading to a shuttered entrance to the court building was a large white van with small reflective windows set high up, above Cleo’s eyeline. The van waited as the dark grey shutter slowly rose, revealing a steep, unlit slope that led down deep into the bowels of the earth.
For a moment, Cleo felt a shudder run through her at the thought of how it must feel to be in that van, driven from view into the black concrete passageways below the building and brought up into court to be publicly accused of murder. The thought made her slightly queasy. How shocking and degrading it must be – especially for those who were innocent.
‘Are you okay, Miss?’
Cleo couldn’t bring herself to speak. She tried to smile, shook her head and made her way to the entrance he had indicated, suddenly more aware than ever of the horror of what was about to happen to Evie.
I’ve had plenty of time to prepare myself for today – four months on remand, and I’m told I’m lucky it wasn’t longer. Four months in a prison full of women, many of them bewildered by how their lives ever came to this. Of course I’m not the only one in the prison who has killed her partner, but most of the others have already been given life sentences. Some of them had b
een abused for years before they took their revenge. But revenge is no defence in law, and sadly these women weren’t fortunate enough to have a lawyer like mine who understands how a person might crack and do something wild in the heat of the moment, and who cares about the outcome of this trial possibly even more than I do.
It’s the indignity that I have struggled with, and today has been the worst. The drive here in a prison van, being offloaded into the underbelly of the court, and finally being brought to sit in the dock, which is nothing like I expected or had seen on TV. It’s not open, as I thought it would be, and I am isolated from the rest of the court by plate glass, as if I am suffering from a contagious disease, or I’m a dangerous animal. Perhaps I am.
In front of me are the two legal teams – an obscene number of people on each side for what, to me at least, seems a simple case. They have their backs to me as we are all facing the judge, a sombre-looking man with thin lips that turn down at the corners as if he has forgotten how to smile. I can’t help wondering how he would look without his wig and his red gown. Ordinary, I suspect.
The jury are on my left in two rows. To the right is the public gallery and seats for the press. I’m not going to look there. I don’t want to know who has come to watch, but Harriet has warned me that it will be packed with journalists. I’m fairly sure that nobody will be here to support me, so those watching will either be hating me for what I did, or curious to see a killer in the flesh.
I feel that my dignity has been stripped, and during the months in prison I’ve had time to think about all that happened. There have even been times when I have questioned my decisions, wondering if there could have been another way. And sometimes the moments of grief for Mark have been difficult to bear.
But I must never think like that. It would make a mockery of everything I have had to live with and the pain I endured. I have to believe in myself, even if nobody else does.
And So It Begins Page 13