No Further Questions

by Gillian McAllister

  Thanks for the apology, though. I do actually – strangely – appreciate it, she wrote.

  Strangely. Strangely. Because she no longer cares, he guesses, is the context.

  He is a lawyer, after all. He can do linguistic semantics.

  They may have a verdict tomorrow. He will distract himself with that. It seems like a slam dunk for the prosecution, to be honest. Nevertheless, the decision will be monumental. The jury must always consider it seriously, no matter how strong the prosecution’s case.

  ‘Anyway,’ he says to Rumpole. ‘She doesn’t want me back, old lad. But at least I realize. How I’ve been.’

  Rumpole regards him seriously, then goes back to sleep.

  Christopher pads upstairs, later. He doesn’t sleep well the day before the case closes for deliberations. That feeling of goosebumps settles over him again, just as he is about to fall asleep, and keeps him up for several hours.

  TUESDAY

  * * *

  63

  Martha

  I wake in Becky’s house on the last day of the trial and I know, somehow, that this will resolve itself today.

  Not the verdict. Not the suffering. But something. As if one layer is being resolved, slowly, like a preliminary fine coat of paint upon a wall, barely transforming the surface at first.

  Perhaps it is just that the trial will be over, and we will all move on.

  I lay in Becky’s bed, looking idly across the corridor at the nursery for most of the night, saying goodbye to Layla. I’ve hardly slept. Instead, I’ve relived my most favourite memories of her. The one where she was placed on my chest, skin to skin. Part me and part her, bound for ever. The first time she made eye contact and it was as though Cupid had struck me, there and then, right in the heart. Her first smile, a small upturning of her mouth that spread and spread until – my God – there it was. A true, genuine smile, baby to mum, for what felt like the first time. I had put all this effort in – food, winding, nappy changing – and here was something back. It should have felt like almost nothing in return, a token gesture, but actually it felt like the whole world, delivered to me by Layla, in that smile.

  The guilt crept in alongside the memories, but I tried my best to nudge it away. Yes, when I first held her I was preoccupied with the pain in my groin. When she smiled at me I was sleep deprived, wishing she would nap for longer. But those things didn’t matter. Perhaps she never knew.

  I brush my hair using Becky’s brush, which I quickly fill with my own hair, and then borrow her blusher, like I’ve done a thousand times before, just to make myself look alive again. When I am ready, I linger at the door to the nursery, my hand on the wooden frame, and say goodbye to her.

  Goodbye, and that I am sorry.

  I arrive at the court and Scott holds my hand tightly but releases it when we see Xander arriving in the foyer. My natural instinct is to go to him, my nephew. To ask how school is going, how often he sees his mum.

  They like to interview children early on in the morning, the website guidance says. I have not been permitted to see him, either. He, a witness for the defence, and me, for the prosecution.

  He’s grown taller now he is ten. His legs have grown before his body, like a grasshopper’s. His hair is longer, falling in front of his eyes. I am struck that, suddenly, this child in front of me, this little boy I held, bewildered, on Becky’s behalf, ten years ago, is almost a teenager and soon will be an adult. Adolescence. It sort of suits him; he has always had an insouciant air, as if he has been waiting for it, was ready for it.

  He’s ushered upstairs, away from us, but as he is, the worker assigned to look after him glances over her shoulder and looks at me, just once.

  The morning’s proceedings take a while to get going. The judge is fussing over something, back in his chambers, and the barristers talking quietly. It is the final day of the trial, and the end is in sight.

  Ellen passes Harriet a note, which she reads, and smiles, two long and ageing dimples appearing each side of her mouth. I almost reach across to intervene, to stop these playmates who are supposed to be behaving seriously, but I don’t.

  And then. And then. The judge arrives, and an usher is directed to turn on a monitor. It springs to life, and the courtroom hushes, as if a curtain had gone up on a stage at a matinee.

  And there he is. At the centre of it. The final defence witness. My nephew, sitting on a tiny chair, a child’s chair, in a tiny pale-blue room. He looks just like Xander, but also not. The same massive blue eyes, from Marc, the same thick hair, from Becky, but the way he is sitting is slouched. Legs spread wider than before. He runs a hand through his hair, and the effect is complete. His hands are no longer fat and childlike; they have been replaced by a kind of adult leanness.

  ‘The barristers will ask you questions, now,’ a male voice, off-camera – offstage – says to him.

  ‘Thanks,’ Xander says.

  I’m surprised to find his voice is deeper, too. I think of Xander in all of his guises. Newborn Xander with that whorl of dark hair that Becky carefully washed with Johnson’s shampoo. Toddler Xander, carefully collecting leaves from the garden and handing them to me. Xander in reception at primary school, wanting only to kick a ball against the wall of the house for hours at a time. Xander of late: a computer gamer, a boy who wanted a dog. And now here looms another: teenage Xander. All of the other Xanders, the various incarnations of my nephew, are gone for ever, consigned to family history and photo albums.

  ‘Hi, Xander,’ Harriet says, standing up slowly. She looks at the wall-mounted television. As she reaches to sip her water I see that her hand is shaking, the surface of her drink trembling as though in an earthquake.

  What are they going to ask him? Layla died at eight or nine. He arrived just before twelve. He didn’t see anything. All he will be able to do is verify that Becky wasn’t abusive, which we all know. And yet I can feel the tension in my shoulders, my clenched jaw. I look across at Becky watching her son on the monitor, and wonder what she’s thinking, her face impassive.

  ‘Hi,’ he says back, simply.

  He was always polite to a fault. Becky hadn’t drummed it into him – she didn’t care about that stuff – but he always, always asked about my day, right from when he was five, in that curiously adult way of his. Perhaps it came from Marc, I don’t know.

  I look across at Becky. She has closed her eyes.

  ‘Can you tell us a little bit about your mum?’ Harriet says gently to him.

  ‘Yep,’ he says, then a childlike pause as he realizes he’s supposed to be doing so. ‘She’s … I see her every weekend at Granny and Grandad’s for four hours.’

  ‘And how is she? What sort of mother is she?’

  ‘A good one. She is kind,’ he says softly, running a hand through his hair.

  ‘And did your mum … has your mum ever been violent towards you, Xander?’

  ‘No, never.’ He looks confused.

  I wonder what he knows about what’s going on, how he finds living with his father, seeing his mother with my mum and dad watching. There is a stab of sympathy right in my heart. For him, of course, but also for her.

  ‘Does she ever shout?’

  ‘Yeah, sometimes.’

  ‘What does she shout about?’

  ‘When I play on the Xbox when she’s said I can’t,’ he says, with perfect comedic timing.

  But nobody laughs. If anything, the hush gets more pronounced, the silence crowding into the courtroom with us. Somewhere, an air-conditioning unit creaks. A member of the jury shifts in their seat. Otherwise, there is only silence.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Lots of things,’ Xander says, the ghost of a baffled ten-year-old’s smile crossing his features. ‘She doesn’t like it when I don’t tell her if I’m going out to play with Barnaby. And if I don’t tell her where I am.’

  ‘Okay, I see,’ Harriet says gently. She looks tired this morning, her eyes squinty.

  I would be tired, too. I
am tired, too. But today, it will be over.

  ‘Tell me about the incident with your shoulder.’

  ‘I walked into the road and Mum yanked me back. Because there was a car.’

  ‘I see. And then, when you went to A&E and the nurse was strapping your arm, what did you tell her?’

  ‘I said it was something else, but it was a lie. Dad was there and he gets angry about traffic, and other things, too. He says I need to pay more attention.’

  ‘And so it was definitely a lie and not something else?’

  ‘She pulled me too hard out of the way of a car,’ he says, with a strange adult finality. ‘I’m sorry I lied.’

  ‘And when the social worker interviewed you, did you tell her the truth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Mum didn’t tell you what to say?’

  ‘No. And my mum hasn’t told me what to say now, either.’

  ‘And what about when Mum forgot to pick you up from school?’

  Genuine puzzlement crosses Xander’s features. ‘She just forgot.’

  ‘How did you feel?’

  ‘I didn’t feel anything. I was annoyed she was a bit late, I guess.’

  ‘Right. So, last October, on the night Layla died. You came home on that night at just before midnight?’

  ‘Think so, yeah. We watched The Shining. I didn’t like it. So I came back.’ He shrugs. Simple as that.

  ‘And how was your Mum when you came home?’

  ‘Fine. She was fine. She was normal.’

  ‘What did you two do?’

  ‘I went straight to bed, and straight to sleep. Within ten minutes.’

  I almost smile. His fantastic sleep skills: alive and well.

  ‘Did you look in on Layla?’

  ‘No. The door was closed.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Harriet says.

  Ellen stands up. I can see a cream blouse underneath her robes. It looks softer than her usual attire.

  I am staring at Xander as something seems to swirl and dip around me, like I am at the waltzers again with Becky on the Pier.

  ‘So you remember nothing of the night Layla died?’

  ‘No. I woke up when the sirens came.’

  I close my eyes. The sirens. But something … something is nagging me. It feels vital that I reach it before the lawyers do; before he does.

  ‘So you went to sleep immediately? Did you notice anything unusual when you came in? How did your mum seem?’

  ‘I went straight to sleep.’

  ‘Do you remember the time?’

  ‘I didn’t notice anything.’

  I frown. Something is off in his tone. It is not defensive, exactly, but it is strange. It is the same tone he uses when asked if he has done his homework. When he hasn’t.

  I stare at my nephew on the television screen and wonder what I am thinking.

  ‘You didn’t hear anything at all? Do you know what your mum was doing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You didn’t hear anything at all?’

  ‘No.’

  Xander2000: Last saved: 27/10.

  But how could that be?

  The day my baby died.

  The day my baby was found dead.

  He said he went to bed, after he got home just before midnight on the twenty-sixth.

  ‘Just to confirm: you were asleep the entire night? Sorry to labour the point, Xander, but you are the only witness as to what your mum was doing in the hours surrounding Layla’s death. Can you tell us whether Layla was awake? Did you hear her crying?’

  ‘Well, maybe I stayed up a bit,’ Xander says. The needling of the questioning has got to him.

  ‘Well, for how long?’ Ellen says.

  ‘A few hours,’ he says evasively.

  ‘A few hours? And so did you hear anything?’

  ‘No, I said I didn’t.’ He folds his arms and stares directly at the camera.

  Xander2000: Last saved: 27/10.

  ‘Were you awake all night?’

  The judge addresses Ellen, stopping the monitor, and Xander’s face freezes on the screen. ‘Where is this line of questioning going, Miss Hendry?’

  I look across at Becky. Her face is still expressionless, but there is something screwed around her eyes. She is steadfastly not looking at me. Looking instead at the monitor. Looking terrified.

  ‘I think it’s important to establish if Xander heard anything at all. He’s admitted he was awake.’

  ‘He has said he was awake, and that he didn’t hear anything, already,’ the judge says.

  ‘Fine, Your Honour,’ Ellen says, looking exasperated.

  The video screen flickers back to life.

  ‘Xander. You heard nothing that night, then—’

  ‘Miss Hendry …’ the judge says.

  Ellen continues anyway. ‘You are under oath, Xander …’

  ‘Less bullying, please,’ the judge says crisply. ‘I am warning you now.’

  ‘Yes,’ Xander whispers.

  ‘So …’

  The judge observes them, not speaking. His eyes are watchful. One more bad question and he’ll halt it.

  ‘Xander. What did you hear?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Under oath, nothing at all?’

  ‘Yes, okay, yes,’ Xander says suddenly, tears making his voice sound watery and thin. ‘Yes. I did hear something,’ Xander says.

  Becky’s head drops to her chest.

  ‘Xander, what did you hear?’

  Becky’s face is ablaze. Her cheeks, her neck, her forehead. All red.

  My own head pounds as I look at her. Oh God. What does he know?

  ‘Xander, it’s okay. It’s fine,’ Ellen says gently, her voice as soft as a whisper.

  But it’s not safe, it’s not fine, I want to tell him. She is softening him up, and soon, she will sting him, like a poisonous insect.

  ‘Okay,’ Xander says, his voice shuddery.

  She backtracks. ‘So, you were awake from when until when?’

  ‘I was awake a lot. I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep,’ he says. ‘She was quiet when I got in,’ he whispers. ‘Then she started crying again.’

  Ellen looks flabbergasted. ‘Really? When did she begin crying again?’

  ‘Later.’

  ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘I was … I was …’ the words seem to die as they tumble out of his mouth, each getting weaker until they make no sound at all.

  Becky’s hands are on the plate glass of the dock again. She’s staring at him. Her face is no longer red: it’s white.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep. Because of the crying.’

  ‘At what time did she start crying?’

  ‘When I got into bed.’

  Layla is supposed to have died between eight and half past nine. The entire case centres around that medical, scientific fact. The time of death. This doesn’t make any sense.

  The courtroom is completely silent.

  ‘And then, she kept crying. For hours. So I went down to … to see her. To help her.’

  ‘To help her?’

  ‘I wanted to stop the crying and sleep. Mum had been so tired and angry. And she was in bed with the wine.’

  Becky blinks in shock.

  ‘I wanted to …’ Xander continues. ‘I wanted to stop her crying.’

  I realize at the exact moment Xander says it.

  He leans forward in the little blue chair and puts his face into his pink hands. ‘I think it was me.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘It was an accident – I was trying to help. I didn’t realize until … after.’

  There is complete silence in the courtroom. My ears shiver with it. I stare at Xander in shock.

  The experts … they must’ve got the time wrong. But how could they? They did the nomogram test. They were so sure. How could it be wrong?

  My baby. Layla. She was smothered. They were right, and they were wrong, all at once.

  Xander is shaking in his chair. Somewhere, a sw
itch is pressed, and the monitor is turned off.

  The courtroom seems to hum around us. I look across at Becky. Her mouth is open, just slightly, her jaw slack. She brings a hand to her chin and stares at the blank monitor. Her eyes are wet.

  ‘No further questions,’ Ellen says faintly, to nobody.

  64

  Xander

  1.30 a.m., Friday 27 October

  He could hear the crying from his room right above Layla’s. He wished he could switch it off, mute it, but he couldn’t, and Mum was always talking about it, always looking at the baby. The baby that was always, always crying.

  Mum had been weird lately. Like when Dad had left and they’d both been cross and short with him for months. That had got better, but now it had got worse again. It was his fault, he thought. Dad was always telling him off. Sudden shouts and door slams and fists thumped on tables, all because of Xander. He was bad. He was a bad boy.

  No, he should be positive, like they’d learnt about in school just before the half term holidays. Maybe they’d do sports again at the weekend, he and Mum. He wanted to learn to play tennis, after watching this documentary about Andy Murray. Maybe she could help him? But she wouldn’t; he knew why. They’d had a rubbish dinner the previous night. Beans on toast. He hated the way they made the bread soggy, had tried to tell her, but she hadn’t listened.

  He looked at the ceiling in his bedroom. He shouldn’t be awake, but he couldn’t sleep. He’d got back late, and he kept thinking about The Shining. It was horrible. Why would anybody watch that for fun?

  He rolled on to his side and put a hand over his ear to block out the crying. He’d been playing the Xbox since midnight, but he’d be banned from it tomorrow if Mum caught him up much longer. If he could sleep, the morning would come sooner, and he would get to play.

  The crying sounded like something else now. A squawking, like a bird. His hand over his ear didn’t quieten the sound.

  He got up to look out of his window, the highest window in the whole house. He could see his school right there across the road from his house. It looked like it was asleep. The art room had the blind drawn down but the window next to it didn’t. He could see the rows of red chairs where he sat during the day and looked out at his house when he was supposed to be concentrating properly. He was rubbish at painting but he was better than Barnaby so he did both of theirs, usually, then got told off for taking ages, which he and Barnaby laughed at. ‘You’re welcome,’ Xander would say to him, and feel so completely adult.