Slipknot

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘We did not need to restrain him. The road was quiet. He was a bit travel sick. The journey took thirty-five minutes. My colleague sat in the back with him. Callum stayed quiet and seemed to accept where he was going and what would happen to him. He did not seem distressed. On arrival at Stoke Heath we handed him over to Prison Officer Walton Pembroke and then we left. We did not see Callum again and he did not, at any time, express an intention to take his own life. He seemed,’ his eyes drifted across the front seats – empty except for the one, lonely woman. His eyes focused directly on her. ‘He seemed a nice lad.’

  Shelley Hughes lifted her eyes. They were brimming with tears. She gave a confused nod in the general direction of Andrew Witherspoon. Martha knew she was savouring these sweet words about her boy.

  Witherspoon’s eyes met Martha’s. ‘Did Callum suffer any injuries while he was with you – perhaps a jolt in the van?’

  Witherspoon knew exactly what he was being asked. ‘No, Ma’am.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Maybe now was a good time for a break.

  It was also a good opportunity to have a private word with Shelley Hughes.

  The gap between her teeth seemed more pronounced – or perhaps it was that her face had lost weight. Her complexion looked grey.

  ‘I call the prison officers next and then the pathologist, Shelley.’

  Shelley Hughes nodded and Martha wished she had someone with her. Anyone – husband, brother, sister, mother. Did she have any idea of the type of evidence Mark Sullivan would give?

  ‘It can be quite hard, Mrs Hughes.’

  Shelley opened her lips. They moved but she said nothing.

  ‘I’ll keep his evidence to a minimum.’

  This time Shelley Hughes managed a mumbled ‘yes.’

  Jericho bustled in with two cups of tea and handed them out.

  Shelley drank hers quickly.

  ‘Did Callum have any special friends?’

  ‘Uum.’

  ‘Did friends never call round for him, ring him up? Did he have a mobile phone?’

  ‘Yes. Pay as you go. He used it for games most of the time.’

  ‘It might be an idea if you checked it, Shelley. There must have been a few friends somewhere.’

  Shelley’s face twisted. ‘Maybe there were but it was like leprosy having DreadNought against you. You caught it. And then you were part of it. Anyone who befriended Callum was running the risk of being in the same boat as him. Understand?’

  Martha nodded.

  Shelley put her mug down. ‘Shall we get on?’ She managed a smile. ‘It’s not going to get any easier, is it?’

  Martha watched the prison officer give evidence and thought what a tough man he was. Sure of himself, confident in his job. There was nothing new in his statement and he too denied having to use any restraint on Callum – apart from having to manhandle him back into his cell.

  And that, Martha decided, would not account for the boy’s injuries.

  ‘Did you keep a suicide watch on him?’

  The prison officer shrugged. ‘We looked through the spyhole a couple of times. Then he seemed asleep. We decided a close, suicide watch was unnecessary.’

  ‘Is there a possibility that he could have been feigning sleep?’

  Pembroke shrugged again. ‘It’s possible,’ he admitted. ‘But how would we know unless we actually entered the cell, which would disturb him?’

  Martha nodded and Pembroke sat down, next to Stevie Matthews who was patently finding her first inquest daunting. She looked terrified.

  Mark Sullivan looked smaller than when she had last seen him. But surely it is not possible for a man to shrink in less than a week? He looked dehydrated, wrinkled.

  He took the stand with an odd reluctance, swearing the oath with the same unwillingness. She watched him curiously. Something was troubling him.

  As usual he began with the dry facts, time and place of post-mortem, formal identification by the boy’s mother. Place of death. Then he listed the boy’s injuries. ‘I noted the mark of a ligament around the boy’s neck, some petechial haemorrhaging on the eyelids. I also noted bruising around the right orbit and cheek, blood in the left nostril – possibly sustained at around the time of death. A large bruise on the shin – almost certainly sustained a few hours before death.’ Martha encouraged Sullivan to enlarge with a nod. At the same time she saw Shelley Hughes lean forward, take a pad from her handbag and start writing. She was taking notes.

  ‘I was of the opinion that the bruising on the shin was sustained a few hours before death because there was extensive bruising and tissue leakage around the area. I deduced that if time of death had been some time between twelve midnight when the prison officers saw him alive and six-thirty when he was discovered by his cell mate that the shin injury had probably been sustained shortly after he was confined to his cell.’

  Shelley Hughes was scribbling rapidly.

  ‘When my colleague, Doctor Fontaine, examined Callum’s body his core temperature was 31 degrees with an ambient temperature of 22. I would therefore put his time of death as being very shortly after midnight. Callum was a very slim young man and cooling is accelerated in the thin. However I would stress that this is a rough guide only.’

  Martha nodded her approval.

  ‘In addition to the above injuries I noted some bruising on the front and side aspect of the chest which had probably been sustained an hour or two before he died.’

  So this was the reason for Mark Sullivan’s reluctance to testify, Martha thought. Two injuries severe enough to have marked the boy’s body which happened at some time between him arriving at Stoke Heath and hanging himself.

  She took a swift glance at Shelley Hughes and knew that the boy’s mother realised fully the significance of what she was hearing.

  Sullivan’s evidence posed two questions for her. What relevance did these other injuries have to the boy’s cause of death and so her verdict and two, should she adjourn the inquest pending police enquiry into the two separate injuries? She took a swift glance at Callum’s mother and knew she would fight every inch of the way. She was a fighting tigress for her young. Not his life now but simply justice.

  She tried to pre-empt Shelley’s response.

  ‘Doctor Sullivan, do you believe these injuries had any bearing on the boy’s final cause of death?’

  ‘No.’

  But another swift glance at Callum’s mother confirmed what she had already thought.

  Mark Sullivan went on to give the findings of the post-mortem. ‘My findings during post-mortem were consistent with hanging from a low point of suspension,’ he said, ‘such as the side rail of the upper bunk as shown to me by the prison officers at Stoke Heath. In my experience death is almost instantaneous. There was nothing to suggest a felony had taken place. Neither was there any suggestion that Callum Hughes had been coerced into taking his own life. It appeared that shortly after the prison officers had checked him he had been overcome with emotion and decided to take his own life.’

  Shelley Hughes was wearing a stubborn look. The grief and numbness were wearing off to be replaced by a slow and vengeful anger which Martha sensed.

  ‘We’ll take a break now,’ she said.

  With his usual skill Jericho had organised coffee and sandwiches for her. Martha handed the plate to Shelley who took one and started eating.

  ‘In my opinion,’ Martha said cautiously, ‘there isn’t any doubt that Callum killed himself,’ she said

  ‘But why,’ Shelley demanded. ‘Everyone says that Callum didn’t say anything about killing himself.’

  ‘Come on,’ Martha said gently. ‘You know he said he might as well be dead.’

  Shelley touched her arm. ‘But he didn’t say he would, did he? Why? That’s the question. And how did he get those bruises on his leg and the rest of him? That hasn’t been explained, has it? Maybe that’s why he killed himself, because the psycho they put him in with duffed him over, didn’t he? He
went for him. And my Call thought he couldn’t go along with that for a couple of years. Maybe he spoke to the prison officers, asked them if he could be moved or something. Ask them if he did. And then even if he’d have survived the years in prison what future would he have had? People would have ganged up against him, wouldn’t they? He’d have been infamous. Everyone would have known him as the psycho what knifed a school friend.’

  It was undeniable.

  ‘That’s why he did it and I want you to ask the right people the right questions.’

  ‘Shelley,’ Martha said softly. ‘I can close the inquest now if you like. Death by suicide. We can say there were extenuating factors if you like. Then you can go ahead and have the funeral.’

  ‘No. It’s my last chance to do right by my boy. I’m not taking the easy way out. When he went to school that morning he didn’t have any bruises on him. Now then – if DreadNought had gone for him that day Call would have been up in front of the courts on a charge of self defence.’

  Martha frowned. ‘The bruises happened after he was taken into custody.’

  ‘And how exact a science is it?’

  Martha knew the answer. Forensics is rarely an exact science at all.

  She eyed Shelley. I see, she thought. A woman on a mission.

  ‘I want to do what’s best for you – and Callum,’ she said calmly. ‘If you want we can adjourn the inquest pending police enquiry.’

  Slowly Shelley nodded. ‘That’s what I want,’ she said, ‘after we’ve heard Mr Farthing speak.’

  Martha nodded.

  ‘I want those injuries explained satisfactorily.’

  Martha couldn’t argue. Faced with Shelley Hughes’s determined fury she felt powerless.

  ‘I want everything to come out. Every little stone picked up and turned over. If he asked the prison officers to move him and they didn’t so he hanged himself I want them implicated. And if my boy was assaulted by his cell mate I want charges to be pressed.’ Shelley gave a smile. ‘I want justice for my son.’

  Martha caught up with Alex Randall as he was re-entering the court. ‘You’re going to have to question Tyrone Smith again, Alex. Mrs Hughes wants a full enquiry into how Callum got those bruises.’

  He nodded.

  ‘She won’t let things settle. I’m going to have to adjourn the inquest after his teacher’s given his speech. She’s also got it into her head that Callum asked the prison officers to move him from cell 101, away from Tyrone Smith.’

  Again he nodded.

  ‘And I suppose the Gough family are outside, waiting to hiss and boo her?’

  ‘We can take her out of the back door if you like.’

  ‘I think that would be a good idea.’

  They smiled at each other.

  Adam Farthing made a good impression on the court. His voice was soft and well toned. He had a command he had lacked when he had spoken to Martha and she caught a glimpse of an inspired and competent teacher.

  ‘I’m here today,’ he started diffidently, ‘because I knew Callum Hughes very well. He was a pupil of mine for a number of years, since he was eight years old, in fact. I taught him history which was his favourite subject. Like most historians he had a favourite period, the First World War.’ He shot a glance at Martha. ‘Callum was not religious, as far as I know, but I would like to read out a tiny piece from a poem by his favourite war poet – Wilfred Owen – himself a Shropshire lad, who also died terribly, tragically young.

  Move him into the sun –

  Gently its touch awoke him once,

  At home, whispering of fields half sown.

  Always it woke him, even in France,

  Until this morning and this snow.

  If anything will wake him now

  The kind old sun will know.

  He closed his book.

  ‘Callum would have liked it,’ he said, ‘and I can’t think Wilfred Owen would have minded my borrowing his words.’

  With that he left the stand with dignity and walked back to his seat while Shelley Hughes watched with rapt attention, as though the history teacher was delivering a divine sermon.

  Martha too felt the strange, peaceful reluctance to move which had always washed over her when her father had taken her on a Sunday evening to listen to the sermon at the Methodist church.

  CHAPTER TEN

  On the Friday Roger Gough died.

  Martha got the call late in the evening from a hesitant doctor at the hospital and listened, stunned.

  The doctor was defensive. ‘It was always a serious injury,’ he started. ‘When he was admitted we realised it would be touch and go.’

  ‘What did he actually die of?’

  ‘Complications. Infection. He had a pneumothorax then finally a pulmonary embolus. We anticoagulated but it was no good.’

  She let the doctor continue. ‘He got a massive infection,’ he said, ‘which caused major organ failure. We used every known antibiotic but pneumonia set in. The wound had punctured his lung and we had real trouble drawing the pneumothorax and his condition deteriorated. He didn’t have a chance. He wasn’t fit for surgery. We did all we could but in the end we lost him.’

  She thanked him for the information and replaced the receiver.

  So now she had another set of grieving relatives to deal with. But the Goughs were not like Shelley Hughes. They were angry and aggressive.

  And she could well understand their fury. They had watched their son die gradually, in front of their eyes – watched the doctors struggle to save his life and witnessed the defeat.

  The post-mortem on Roger Gough was held early on the Saturday morning and she’d asked Mark Sullivan to ring her with his findings. She’d decided not to attend. She simply couldn’t face watching another thirteen-year-old be subjected to a pathologist’s knife.

  The findings were as expected.

  ‘The chest wound was deep,’ he said. ‘Very close to the heart. It had touched the inferior vena cava but not punctured it. They’d have made much of this had the other lad lived. Incidentally Roger Gough had a degree of cardiomegaly. I suspect his heart was enlarged due to obesity. He certainly wasn’t a sporty boy. The cause of death was major organ failure due to a pulmonary embolus due to stasis due to the original chest wound. There was one other surprising finding,’ he said. ‘Gough was what – thirteen years old? He had atherosclerosis. He was a porky fellow with quite a deposit of fat around his heart. He was in really poor physical condition. Worrying in such a young lad.’

  ‘But there’s no doubt about it, Mark? He died as a direct result of the assault.’

  ‘‘Fraid so,’ he said. ‘No doubt about it. As I said, if the other boy had lived no clever lawyer could have got him off.’

  So she would have no option but to return a verdict of homicide.

  The weekend papers led with the story of the second boy’s death, the front pages holding school pictures of both of them: Roger Gough smiling confidently into the camera, Callum looking nervous, his mouth twisted and his eyes fearful as though someone stood behind the photographer. Had the captions not labelled them, Killer and Victim, you would have sworn the story would have unfolded the other way round. Callum looked a victim. Both must have done their mothers proud in their school blazers and ties and crisp white shirts.

  Nowhere was Gough referred to as a bully or Callum as a victim. It was all the other way round with the newspapers directing their readers’ sympathy. Callum was portrayed as a cold-blooded killer and Gough as a popular member of the form. So Callum Hughes’s name was further vilified. But what drew Martha’s attention was the quote by Katie Ashbourne, described as Gough’s girlfriend. ‘Callum was sort of jealous of Roger. ‘Cause Roger was good at sport and quite clever and that and had loads of mates but Call – well – he was sort of on his own. All the time on his own. He weren’t a good mixer.’ (This sparked off another flurry of headlines about Callum Hughes being a ‘loner’ with all that that implied.)

  ‘I knew one
day they’d have a big fall out but I never thought it would be like that. I never thought Call would knife him.’

  (The girlfriend who never thought tragedy would happen).

  ‘I saw what happened. Call had such a look on his face. Sort of mad-like. I’ve had to have counselling since ’cos I kept having nightmares about it.’

  Another ‘friend’ was quoted as saying that Callum was a loner, a Chelsea Arnold, but, and this caused Martha to sit up, Ms Arnold was described as a friend to both boys.

  Martha leaned back in her chair and put the paper back down on the table. What was the girl talking about? Good at sport when Mark Sullivan had found fatty deposits round the boy’s heart. She picked up the paper again and peered at the school picture of Gough, studied his lardy face.

  Was she the only one who could spot the flaw in the girl’s story?

  So young Katie Ashbourne, Gough’s girlfriend, was a liar.

  How sad when she had been Callum Hughes’s secret fantasy.

  Martha leaned back, thinking. Then she sat forward.

  She was sitting in Martin’s study. And not for the first time it hit her how dark and old-fashioned it was. It was a nice room, south facing with french windows which led out into the garden – onto a large patio with tubs of roses, old English pink, scarlet floribunda, patio roses and her pride and joy: a huge flowerpot containing the yellow tea rose, Peace. Beyond the patio the lawn was peppered with fruit trees: apple, cherry and a damson. From a girl she had always wanted an orchard. Martha turned away from the window and looked back into the room, at the marble fireplace, the heavy, dark wallpaper, the thick curtains. She picked up a photograph of Martin, laughing, holding the twins. While the rest of the house had been decorated at regular intervals she had not touched this room since Martin’s death. She had planned to, with Evelyn, but when Evelyn had died, she had, once again, lost heart. And so it had remained, in a way, her husband’s shrine. But now she felt an overwhelming need to move on, to redecorate the room and move her study back into it.