Apple Tree Yard

by Louise Doughty

  *

  Ms Bonnard does what she can. She attempts to deal with Dr Sanderson in the same way she dealt with the other prosecution witnesses: she goes on the attack. She asks him for his track record in giving evidence and establishes that he is almost always on the prosecution side. She quotes a report he wrote for the Home Office entitled: ‘Criminal Defences and Malingering’. She gets him to describe how malingering is a technical term for the way in which criminals try to avoid responsibility for their crimes by pretending to be psychologically disturbed and how some of them can research their disorders quite carefully.

  ‘You often think people are malingering, don’t you?’ she asks him.

  He looks at her coldly, the bulldog man, unrattled, and says, ‘I think they are malingering when there is no evidence they are suffering from a serious psychiatric disorder and are merely pretending they do in order to get off.’ He looks over at the jury after he says this in a way that suggests he would roll his eyes at them if he thought he could get away with it.

  Ms Bonnard then pulls out the final weapon in her arsenal. She asks Dr Sanderson to comment on a case in which he gave evidence for the prosecution of a woman who had stabbed her stepfather after years of sexual abuse. ‘Your evidence, as I understand it, was that this woman was not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?’

  ‘That is correct,’ he replies. ‘In my opinion, she was not.’

  ‘You are sceptical as to whether post-traumatic stress disorder actually exists,’ states Ms Bonnard, looking down as she always does when she lobs in one of her killer statements.

  Dr Sanderson does not budge one inch. ‘It is not my job to be sceptical or otherwise. It is my job to make a diagnostic assessment according to the law.’

  Now I know why Ms Bonnard played for time after reading Dr Sanderson’s psychological assessment of you. It is devastating for your case. Dr Sanderson combines his cynicism with just enough moderation to avoid appearing harsh. I think he is a hateful person, without one shred of human empathy, the sort of person who, a few years ago, would have said that sexual abuse itself didn’t exist except in the mind of the victim – but I have to concede that he means every word he says. He loves his job and is good at it. He is perfectly sincere.

  *

  When Robert comes to see me at the end of the day, I can tell he is unhappy. ‘Although our defence doesn’t rely on Mr Costley’s innocence, obviously we would like him to be found not guilty because then you are automatically not guilty too.’

  ‘How do you think Ms Bonnard did against the psychologist?’ I ask, although I know the answer.

  Robert frowns. His gown is still hanging off one shoulder – his wig is minutely askew; he looks tired. ‘Let’s just say, she’s handling things a little differently from how I would handle them.’ He sniffs derisively. ‘I normally have a slightly better working relationship with the other defence team in multiple-defendant cases. It’s in our interests to work together, after all.’

  We both sit in silence for a minute or two, alone together in the small consulting room. Tomorrow, it will be my turn.

  *

  The prosecution case against me is straightforward. They rubbish their own victim. They present George Craddock as a monster. They do not attempt to discredit or diminish the story of his assault against me, in the way a defence would have done were it Craddock in the dock: they do the opposite. The worse they make him look, the more motive it gives me. They have evidence from the police computer expert about the pornographic websites Craddock visited. The ex-wife is unavailable – they have been unable to track her down in America – so they bring in her sister to give evidence about the Craddock marriage and the allegations made of domestic abuse. I didn’t know you could bring bad character evidence against a dead victim but apparently you can. You can do anything in this trial, I am beginning to think, because this is an upside-down trial. It is like the large mirror in the café where you and I met Kevin. It is through the looking-glass. Everything that should count for me is against me.

  Kevin himself is the next prosecution witness against me, and gives convincing evidence about how I was measured and articulate during our discussion but how he still sensed, beneath my controlled exterior, a great deal of distress about what had happened to me. Kevin is a good witness, as likeable in court as I found him in the café, a sympathetic man whose job it is to help women: he couldn’t be worse for me. Upside-down, wrong way round: during Kevin’s evidence, I come the closest I come during the whole trial to wanting to put my hands over my eyes and scream.

  Kevin’s speculation about the nature of the relationship between you and me is not something that is raised by Mrs Price. It has been ruled inadmissible. There are only two people who are allowed to be asked about the nature of our relationship: you, and me.

  The taxi driver who drove me home after that night – he is a prosecution witness too. They traced him from the receipt he gave me, which they found amongst my papers when they searched my house. He comes over well, too, strong London accent, a little bumbling but heartfelt, a nice man.

  ‘What did you observe between the defendant and the victim in this case?’ Mrs Price asks him. By defendant she means me. By victim, she means Craddock.

  Robert gets to his feet – it is the first time in the trial he has raised an objection and several people on the jury look at him, surprised. ‘My Lord, this witness is being asked to give his opinion…’

  My Lord raises his hand to interrupt Robert mid-sentence, then pauses for a moment’s reflection, then says, ‘I think this witness is being asked what he observed. Mrs Price, you will ensure that your questions do not stray from that, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course, My Lord.’

  ‘Then you may proceed.’

  Robert sits. It is his first interjection, and he has been slapped down. I think how anything that makes him look weak must surely make our whole case look weak.

  ‘Well, like I said to my wife that night, I was a bit concerned,’ the taxi driver continues, carefully, a little self-importantly, glancing from counsel to the jury and back again. ‘It was my last job that night, I live out in west London myself so was quite pleased to get it and thought I’d knock off a bit early and get myself home and my wife was waiting up and I said, I think this woman I took home was in a bad way, in the corner of the cab like. Dunno what was going on but she didn’t look good.’

  *

  The upside-down evidence is eventually concluded – and here is where the case against me falters. Without proof of the nature of our relationship, the suggestion that I urged you to kill Craddock sounds implausible. Other than making it clear that what he did to me was very bad, there is little the prosecution can do. I wonder if they know this, in their heart of hearts. I wonder if Mrs Price is thinking, oh well, as long as we get him, that’s good enough. We will do our best to get her but it’s not looking very good. I wonder, not for the first time, about her degree of emotional investment in what is going on here. How much do these people care?

  *

  It is Friday afternoon. The jury are still settling back in their seats, still doing the small shuffling motion most of us do as we sit down, when junior counsel for the prosecution rises. Mrs Price stays in her seat for this bit. Clearly, the junior barristers have to be given something to do. ‘My Lord, we have some submissions…’ The young man of the Murray Mints reads out a paramedic’s statement – the paramedic himself has not been called as a witness as he is in hospital having his appendix out. But his statement will suffice and the judge is directed to it. ‘This is in My Lord’s bundle page two one three…’ My Lord’s bundle: it sounds like a baby wrapped in a blanket. There is a pause while My Lord flicks through his bundle. I don’t really understand the relevance of the absent paramedic’s evidence but later Robert explains to me that it concerns the amount of clearing up that was done after Craddock was killed. This is important because your defence is going to be diminished responsibility. The
more thorough you were in your clear-up, the more organised, then the more responsible – or sane – you appear to be. The detail that follows still seems excessive to me. The prosecution has already demonstrated that you knew what you were doing. But we still get to hear about how both paramedics placed surgical gloves over their boots before entering the property. Normally, they would wait for protective suits and boots to arrive in order to preserve the evidence – the 999 call had stated a dead body, after all – but because of the length of time they were taking to arrive, the decision was taken to enter the property anyway in case resuscitation was required for any persons who may be on the property. This seems to me yet another example of where information is given in order to protect someone from criticism later, rather than because it has any relevance to our case. Mr Murray Mint continues to stand in for the paramedic, ‘When I entered the property, I proceeded immediately into the kitchen, where I found an unknown male lying on his back with his head towards the fridge freezer. I noticed a large pool of blood beneath the head…’ We are back to the beginning again: the body. Again and again, the body is what we circle around – not the man, the body. The body is always there, like a corpse in a horror movie that appears wherever the main character looks; the bedroom, the kitchen, the sitting room, in their office at work, sitting in their car. This body does not follow us in that way – it is a real body, it stays in one place – but all the same, none of us can get away from it. The callow boy is still reading out the paramedic’s statement, about the scene-of-crime officers arriving, then, eventually, the police doctor, ‘…and at eighteen hundred hours, life was pronounced extinct.’

  Extinct. Gone for good. Not just absent, not just away for a bit – extinct, never to return.

  The word extinct is still hanging in the air when junior counsel says, ‘And just one more submission, My Lord,’ and drops a small depth charge into the already murky waters of what the jury know about you. ‘In 2005, Mark Costley pleaded guilty to the charge of common assault.’

  The jury members look surprised, and a little baffled. They feel this is relevant information and, of course, want more detail. They have not been privy to the legal arguments over the admission of bad character evidence, during which it emerged that you were found guilty of assault after getting into a fight with a man outside a pub. The man had insulted your wife, apparently. The jury is not allowed to hear the details of the case because Ms Bonnard has argued that it might prejudice the jury.

  I am still watching the jury’s reaction to this information as Mrs Price stands. I only just catch her saying quietly, ‘My Lord, that concludes the case for the Crown.’

  The prosecution has wrapped up so quietly and undramatically that I look around the court to see if anyone else is as surprised as I am. I can’t help feeling there should have been some grand conclusion but that will come later, in the closing statements. That is when I can expect the flourishes, if indeed there will be any.

  The jury all look a little surprised as well. The judge turns to them and says that, as it is nearly 3 p.m. on a Friday, he sees no reason to ask the defence to open at this point. He reminds them that they are to discuss the case with no one over the weekend. They are free to go until 10.15 on Monday morning. The prosecution case against us has taken two weeks. As it turns out, the defence will be a lot quicker.

  One by one, the jury members get down from the jury box and file out in front of us. We all watch them go, off to their normal lives.

  There is a collective exhalation in the court. The prosecution and defence barristers turn to each other. The woman from the CPS closes her file with a sigh. The judge turns to Robert and asks if he will be making a submission and Robert says yes, he will have it on the judge’s desk by midnight.

  Robert turns to me and says, ‘I’ll be down in a few minutes, OK?’

  I rise from my seat with a sense of anticlimax. I don’t know what I expected from the conclusion of the prosecution case but it was something more than this. Perhaps it is because I expected the paramedic’s statement to lead somewhere and it didn’t. Perhaps it is because I have not yet taken the stand. Is it arrogance or desperation on my part that makes me eager to do so?

  *

  When Robert comes down to the cell, he has the air of a man who is a little demob happy, perhaps because it is a Friday afternoon. He has brought his junior with him, Claire, and they cram together on the tiny table in the consulting room while I sit opposite and Robert tells me that that evening he will have a submission with the judge that the case against me should be dismissed. The only effective prosecution witness the Crown has brought against me was Kevin, he says, but although his testimony may have offered the jury a motive for my involvement, it was far from proven – and what, of course, was key to that, although Robert does not say it openly, was that he was not allowed to speculate about the nature of my relationship with you. Despite everything I have learned about you recently, I want to say to you: You were right, keeping quiet about us, that is what is keeping me safe.

  As Robert and Claire get up to leave, I look at them. I want to delay them, although they are eager to go. When they are gone, there will be nothing for me to do except sit and wait in my cell until I am returned to prison. They, and all the other professionals in that courtroom get to have a weekend away from this, to return to the outside world, normal life, weather, the News at Ten, a restaurant they think overpriced or a bottle of wine not as good as it should be. These things and much else besides await Robert and Claire and all the other professionals involved in our case but not me, or you – or Craddock’s father.

  My question is genuine, all the same. ‘How is it looking for Mark?’

  At this, they pause, exchange glances. Claire opens her mouth to answer but Robert cuts across her. ‘Well, all I can say is, if I was his barrister, I would not be advising a defence of diminished responsibility. You saw yourself, Ms Bonnard couldn’t shake Dr Sanderson. She’d better have a damn good psychologist on her side, that’s all I can say. She must have something up her sleeve. Costley’s held down a responsible job for years, has a family, no serious psychiatric history. I was surprised that was what they were going for, under the circumstances. Of course, we are all obliged to take instruction from our client and I’ve not been privy to their conversations, so…’ he presses his lips together, tips his head a little.

  I ask them the question I asked Jas in the pizza parlour. ‘Why didn’t he go for self-defence?’

  Again, Robert and Claire exchange the briefest of glances. Then Claire says gently, ‘The forensic evidence would have made that defence quite difficult.’

  *

  I don’t know how to feel, after they have gone. Perhaps, on Monday, because of Robert’s submission, the case against me will be dismissed and I will be free to go. It all seems so sudden. I haven’t even taken the stand. No evidence has been presented in my defence but then the evidence against me seems so tenuous too. It is half-time. The managers are in with their teams, giving them a pep talk, reviewing the game so far and telling them what needs to happen in the second half. For me, it’s looking quite good; for you, quite bad. I’m worried for you, of course I am. But the tantalising and terrifying thought that on Monday I could be going home is what fills my head, like a cloud, like a migraine headache. I can’t think any other thought. I should have remembered Jas’s story, at that point, the story he told about the experiment on the chimpanzee. If I had remembered that, my love, I would not have managed that bleak, small, foolish smile when Robert and Claire shook my hand as they left the consultation room on that Friday afternoon.

  21

  On Monday, the second half of the trial begins. All weekend, I have allowed myself to hope.

  The Monday morning journey feels like an ordinary commute by now. I don’t feel sick in the van any more. I chat to the prison officers who accompany me. When we arrive, the elderly Caribbean guard at the Old Bailey greets me with a smile and when I say, ‘How was your w
eekend, Thomas?’ he replies, ‘Beautiful!’

  Up in court, the public gallery has opened and Susannah is there, and as I take my seat I give her a hopeful thumbs-up. She returns it with a wan smile. Robert comes over from his table and says, ‘Now, don’t get your hopes up.’ But even so, it is only later, when we are all in position but before the jury is allowed in, at the point where the judge says, ‘I am not minded to allow…’ that I realise I have been lying to myself for the whole of the prosecution case. For that whole two weeks, I have been saying, they have no case against me. And all weekend I have been saying to myself, of course the judge will dismiss the case, not because motions to dismiss are often successful – they rarely are – but because you know they should, they will. How does the mind divide so neatly? I’ve never understood it: there is too much about human psychology that is grey or ambiguous. How do people operate on two levels, going about their normal lives while the rest of it is falling apart? You don’t need to be an adulterer to know about that. You only need to be someone who still has to go to work in the morning when their child is sick or in trouble – and that must be true of a huge proportion of the human race. ‘How are you?’ the receptionist at the Beaufort asked me brightly, the day after my son had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. ‘Fine!’ I chirruped in reply.

  When the case against you is dismissed, or when you’re found not guilty, you don’t even go back down to the cells for them to do some paperwork. They just let you out, straight away. There’s a door in the dock that opens into the body of the court and you just walk through it and out into the corridor and down the stairs and right out on to the street.