Guilty One

by Lisa Ballantyne

  ‘I don’t want to be protected. I just want to go home.’

  Again, Daniel felt a prickle of understanding for the boy. It came to him like a nettle sting: heat and itch, lurching him into memory. He remembered arriving at Minnie’s for the first time, and the social worker telling him that, for his own good, he should be kept away from his mother.

  ‘What I can do is work to get you home after your trial. How about that? You ready to work with me on it? I need your help. I can’t do it on my own.’

  Sebastian sniffed and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. When he looked up, his eyelashes were wet and separated.

  ‘Mum’s late,’ said Sebastian. ‘She’ll be in bed. My dad flew out last night. It’s better if I’m there. That’s why you need to get me out.’

  ‘What’ll be better if you’re there?’ Daniel asked. Although he was sure he knew what Sebastian was going to say, he wondered if he was projecting on to the boy.

  ‘Do you like your father?’ said Sebastian, as if he hadn’t heard Daniel’s question.

  ‘I don’t have a father.’

  ‘Everybody has a father, silly. Don’t you know that?’

  Daniel smiled at the boy. ‘Well, I never knew him. That’s what I meant. He left before I was born.’

  ‘Was he nice to your mum?’

  Daniel returned Sebastian’s gaze. He knew what the boy was trying to say. He had watched the boy’s parents and had witnessed Kenneth’s aggression towards the boy’s mother. Daniel blinked to remember his own mother thrown across a room so hard that she broke the arm of the armchair on to which she fell. He remembered standing between her and the man who wanted to hurt her again. He remembered his leg trembling and the smell of urine.

  ‘Listen, we need to get down to work. Now that we’re back working together, is there anything you’ve remembered that you need to tell me?’

  Sebastian looked at Daniel and shook his head.

  ‘We’re on our own now. I’m your lawyer and you’re my client. You can tell me anything. I won’t judge you. I have to act in your best interests. Is there anything about the Sunday you were playing with Ben that you want to tell me? If you do, now is the time. We don’t like surprises later on.’

  ‘I’ve told you everything, absolutely everything.’

  ‘Good, well I’m going to try my best to get you out of here.’

  There was a magnetic sound of metal smacking cleanly together, as the electronic door unlocked. Charlotte came into the room in a flurry of apologies and tinkling bangles. She twisted Sebastian’s face towards her gently and kissed him on the side of his forehead.

  ‘I’m so sorry, traffic was a nightmare!’ she exclaimed, loosening her lilac silk scarf and slipping off her jacket. ‘And then those bloody dogs at security. They terrify me. It seemed like an age before I was through.’

  ‘Mum doesn’t like dogs,’ said Sebastian.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Daniel. ‘I just wanted to run through with Sebastian what’s going to happen now.’

  ‘Great, fire away,’ said Charlotte with a strange, fraught enthusiasm. She was wearing a polo neck and kept pulling the sleeves over her hands.

  ‘Well, we have a lot of work to do over the next few months to prepare you for trial and there are a number of other people that you’ll need to meet and talk to … We’re going to make an appointment for a psychologist to come and see you, and then in a week or so you can meet again with the barrister who will present your story in court. Does that make sense?’

  ‘I think so. But what will the psychologist do?’

  ‘You’ve not to worry about that. It’s just to see how you might cope with the trial. He’s our witness, remember, so you’ve not to worry, OK?

  ‘What I wanted to try and explain to you today was the prosecution’s case against you – that is the arguments that they will put forward to try to prove that you killed Ben. We have only recently received these documents, and I’m working on building your defence, based on what the prosecution have against you … If you don’t understand anything, let me know.’

  ‘It’s crystal clear,’ said Sebastian.

  Daniel paused as he watched the boy. As a child he had come close to being in Sebastian’s position – but he had never owned Sebastian’s confidence.

  ‘The main evidence against you is that although you say you were only playing with Ben, and that he did fall and hurt himself while he was with you, your clothes and shoes have Ben’s blood on them.’

  ‘It’s not a big problem,’ said Sebastian, his eyes bright and alert suddenly.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Well, because you can say the blood and stuff got on to me because he got himself hurt …’

  There was a pause. Sebastian met Daniel’s eyes, then nodded once.

  ‘We’ll be arguing that Ben fell and hurt himself, and we have your mum as an alibi from 3 p.m. onwards, which throws into question the witness’s assertion that he saw you fighting with Ben again later in the day. But the Crown will argue that the blood and DNA on your clothes is evidence that you murdered him.’

  Daniel glanced at Charlotte. The ring finger on each of her hands was trembling. Her attention seemed to drift, so that Daniel wondered if she had heard.

  ‘I didn’t hurt Ben like that; I was just playing with him …’

  ‘I know, but someone did hurt him, you know – hurt him very badly – someone murdered him.’

  ‘Murder’s not that bad.’

  In the silence of the room, Daniel could hear Charlotte swallow.

  ‘We all die, you know,’ said Sebastian, smiling faintly.

  ‘Are you telling me you know how Ben died? You can tell me now, if you want.’ Daniel winced in expectation of what the boy would say.

  Sebastian tilted his head to one side and smiled again.

  Daniel raised his eyebrows to prompt him. After a few moments, the small boy shook his head.

  *

  On his legal pad Daniel wrote down for Sebastian the sequence of events that would follow: from the first formal conference with the barrister to the preparation for trial.

  ‘After the committal hearing, there will be a period of waiting for the trial. I want you to know that you and your parents can still see me or talk to me during that period if you have any questions.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Sebastian. ‘But … when will the trial be?’

  ‘Not for a few months yet, Seb. We have a lot of work to do before then, but I promise we will take you to see the court before your trial.’

  ‘Noooooo,’ Sebastian whined, slapping a hand on the desk. ‘I want to go sooner. I don’t want to stay here.’

  Charlotte sat up and took a breath, as if someone had thrown a cup of water in her face. ‘There, darling, there,’ she said, her fingers fluttering to Sebastian’s hair.

  Sebastian’s eyes shone as if he might cry.

  ‘Look, Seb, I’ve got an idea,’ said Daniel. ‘How about I run and get us some sandwiches. How does that sound?’

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Charlotte, on her feet. Daniel noticed a purple bruise on her wrist as she reached for her bag. ‘I really need some air anyway. I’ll be right back.’

  When the heavy door clunked shut, Sebastian rose to his feet and began to walk around the room. The boy was thin, with delicate wrists and elbows that protruded. Daniel thought that apart from anything else he was too small to be capable of Ben’s brutal murder.

  ‘Seb, did anyone speak to you that day in the park, apart from the man who called on you both to stop fighting?’ The chairs were fixed, so Daniel had to stand up so that he could face Sebastian. The boy stood just taller than Daniel’s waist. Ben Stokes had been three years younger than Sebastian, but only two inches shorter.

  Sebastian shrugged. He shook his head, not looking at Daniel. He was leaning against the wall, examining his nails and then turning forefinger on thumb as if miming a nursery rhyme: ‘Incy Wincy Spider’.

  ‘Were you aware of anyone acti
ng strangely in the park – did you see anyone watching you play?’

  Again Sebastian shrugged.

  ‘Do you know why she’s wearing that jumper?’ said Sebastian. He held his hands up to his face, thumbs and forefingers touching, and looked at Daniel through the rectangle of his fingers.

  ‘What, do you mean your mum?’

  ‘Yes, when she wears that jumper it means that she has strangle marks on her neck.’ Sebastian was still looking at Daniel through his fingers.

  ‘Strangle marks?’

  Sebastian put both hands to his throat and squeezed until his face started to turn red.

  ‘Stop it, Seb,’ said Daniel. He reached out and pulled gently at the child’s elbow.

  Sebastian fell against the wall, laughing.

  ‘Were you scared?’ he asked, smiling so broadly that Daniel could see one of the child’s missing teeth.

  ‘I don’t want you to hurt yourself,’ said Daniel.

  ‘I was just trying to show you,’ said Sebastian. He returned to sit at the table. He seemed tired, reflective. ‘Sometimes if he gets annoyed he squeezes her throat. You can get dead that way too, you know? If you squeeze too hard.’

  ‘Are you talking about your mum and your dad?’

  There was the sound of the door unlocking. Sebastian leaned over the table, one hand held up to cover his mouth, and whispered: ‘If you pull down the neck of her jumper you’ll see the marks.’

  Charlotte came in with the sandwiches and Daniel found himself watching her more closely as she unpacked the bag of food and drinks. He looked at Sebastian, who was choosing a sandwich. Better when I’m there, he remembered the boy saying. Daniel felt another sudden flush of empathy for the child. He remembered his own mother with a man’s hands around her throat. He remembered how desperate he had felt as a child, separated from her, unable to protect her. It had driven him to terrible things.

  12

  Early dawn and Daniel was in the chicken shed.

  The first ground frost of autumn, and his fingers were stiff with the cold. The day opened lazily to him as he inhaled the smell of the shed, chill with frost but warmed by feather and straw. Minnie was asleep. He had heard her snoring above the sound of her alarm as he made his way downstairs. In the living room, a drink had spilled on the piano top. It had dried to a white stain, like a large blister on the wood.

  Now he was outside as she lay unconscious, carefully going about his chores. He felt strange: bereft, alone, cruel – like a falcon he had seen on his way to school one day, on a post, intent, dismembering a field mouse.

  He didn’t know where his mother was. It felt as if she had been stolen.

  Daniel picked up a warm brown egg. He was about to place it in the cardboard tray which she had left out for him, as always, on the kitchen bunker. He felt it hard inside his palm. His palmsensed the vulnerability of the egg. His palm knew the shell-skin and the liquid yolk it contained, the suspended promise of chick.

  Without meaning to, almost so that his palm could feel the sharp nip of broken shell and the cloying run of albumen, Daniel squeezed the egg and crushed it. The yolk ran through his fingers like blood.

  He felt a flush of heat suddenly: nape of his neck and small of his back. He picked up one egg after another and squeezed. His fingertips dripped clear drops of this small violence into the straw.

  As if in protest, the hens ran from him, squawking displeasure. Daniel kicked at one hen but it flew in his face, a mad red flutter. Daniel lunged at the hen, his fingers still slick with the eggs. He pinned it to the ground and smiled as he felt its wing snap under his weight. He sat up on his knees. The bird clucked and stumbled, in a circle, trailing its broken wing. Its beak opened and shut, without voice.

  Daniel waited for a moment, breathing hard. The shriek of the chickens behind him made the hairs stand up on his arms. Slowly, methodically, as if he was folding socks, Daniel tried to tear one wing from the chicken. Its open beak and frantic tongue appalled him and so he broke its neck. He leaned on the chicken and pulled its head away from its body.

  The chicken was still, blood in its bead eye.

  Daniel tripped as he left the run. He fell on his elbows and the chicken blood on his hands touched his face. He got up and walked into the house with the blood on his cheek and the feathers of the bird he had killed still clinging to his trainers and fingers.

  She was awake and filling the kettle when he entered. She was standing with her back to him, her dirty dressing gown hanging to her calves. She had the radio on and was humming to a pop song. He first thought to start up the stairs to the bathroom but found himself rooted to the spot. He wanted her to turn and see him, soiled with his violence.

  ‘What on earth?’ she said, with a smile on her face, when she turned.

  Maybe it was the feather that clung to his trainer or the bright yellow of the yolk that was now smeared on his cheek with the chicken’s blood. Minnie’s lips tightened and she pushed past him out into the yard. He watched her from the back door as she stood with one hand over her mouth at the entrance to the shed.

  She came back in the house and he watched her face for rage, horror, disappointment. She wouldn’t look at him. She thumped up the stairs and appeared moments later in her grey skirt and her man’s boots and the old sweatshirt that she wore when she was cleaning. He stood right at the bottom of the stairs, the egg and blood drying on his hands, making the skin tight and dry. He stood in her path, expecting punishment, wanting punishment.

  She stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked at him for the first time.

  ‘Clean yourself up,’ was all she said.

  She pushed past him again and out into the yard.

  From the bathroom window, he watched her collecting the broken shells and soiled straw. He scrubbed his hands and face then stood watching her work. He took the feather from his trainer and stood looking out of the window, holding it between finger and thumb. He let the feather fall, dizzy but trusting, into the wind, as he saw her making her way back to the house. She carried the dead chicken by its feet. The neck of the chicken swung loose with every step she took.

  He stayed upstairs, under the bedcovers, then in the cupboard as she worked downstairs. His stomach began to rumble as the heat and energy of the morning left him. He felt cold and pulled his cuffs over his hands. He stepped out of the cupboard and stood looking at himself in the mirror he had cracked only a week before.

  Evil little bastard, he remembered again. He looked at his face, the fragments of it mismatched. He felt his heart beat harder. He stood at the top of the stairs and then sat down there, listening to the sounds she was making in the kitchen. Blitz made his way upstairs and stood panting, looking at him. Daniel reached up to stroke the dog’s velvet ears. Blitz allowed it for a moment, then turned and made his way back downstairs. Daniel edged forward, on to the middle step, then to the bottom where he stood holding onto the post of the banister. It was ten minutes before he mustered the courage to stand at the door of the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t even want to look at you,’ she said, still with her back turned to him.

  ‘Are you angry?’

  ‘No, Danny,’ she said, turning round to face him. She stood with tight lips and her chest puffed out. ‘But I feel very sad. Very sad indeed.’

  Her eyes were a fierce, intense blue and watery and too wide. Her face seemed to loom before him, even though she was standing on the other side of the kitchen. Daniel sighed and hung his head.

  She pulled out a chair for him.

  ‘Sit there. I have a job for you.’

  He sat where she asked. She brought a large chopping board with the dead chicken on it and placed it before him.

  ‘Here’s what you do,’ she said, holding the chicken roughly and ripping the feathers from it. She tore and tore again and soon there was a bare patch of skin, pimpled and white.

  ‘This murdered bird is our dinner,’ she said. ‘We need it plucked before we can gut it and roast it.�
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  Minnie stood over him and watched as he took a grasp of the soft feathers, the red of them giving to grey at the root as he pulled them into his fist.

  ‘Rip,’ she said, ‘rip hard.’

  Daniel pulled too hard and the skin came away with the feathers, leaving a scalded mark on the flesh.

  ‘Like this,’ she said, pushing his hand away and tearing off a clutch of feathers again, leaving the soft white, pimpled skin beneath. ‘Can you do that?’

  Daniel was embarrassed to feel his throat tighten and his eyes moisten. He nodded and opened his mouth to speak to her.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ he said, in a whisper.

  ‘She didn’t want to die, but you crippled her and then killed her. Do it, do it right now.’

  She had her back to him and as she spoke she slammed a glass on to the wooden work surface. Daniel heard the chink, klink of her ice cubes and the weak peeing sound of the Jif lemon, which she added when she didn’t have money or mind for real lemons. The sobering heaviness of the gin bottle being uncapped caused Daniel to shiver and he did as she asked. More gently this time, he gripped the feathers of the bird and ripped. The sudden baldness of the bird was startling.

  When the bird was plucked, Daniel sat with feathers sticking to his fingers and the pimpled chicken before him. He wanted to leave, to run outside and across the Dandy and twirl the swings away from the little children. He wanted to return to the wardrobe, to feel its close, dark embrace. The smell of the plucked dead chicken made him feel sick.

  Minnie took the bird and cut it from between its thighs. It was a rough, hard slit and Daniel could feel the strength that she put into it. She reached inside and Daniel watched her thick, red hand disappear.

  ‘You have to reach up inside, as far as you can until you can feel the solid lump – the gizzard. Get a firm grip on that and pull, gently and slowly. Everything should come out together, mind. Here! You try, I don’t want to do it for you.’