by Abi Silver
‘It’s nice that Miss Thompson came,’ Pete said to Tracy.
‘I would’ve been cross if she hadn’t.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh come on. I’ve worked in that school ten years, all right, off and on. But I’ve worked hard.’
‘Fair enough. Have you told her you’re leaving yet?’
‘No.’
‘She’ll be devastated to lose you.’
‘Maybe. They prefer young teachers these days. No other responsibilities, they don’t answer back and they’re cheaper. She’ll make a fuss though. Make me feel I’ve betrayed her; I know what she’s like. You should’ve heard what she said behind the music teacher’s back when she left.’
‘When are you going to tell her?’
‘You could tell her for me, drop it into the conversation. I mean, she won’t make a scene here in front of everyone.’
‘I can’t believe you.’ Pete spoke through clenched teeth. ‘This is your mother’s funeral, Trace. Not here.’
Tracy’s eyes welled up.
‘OK then. I’ll speak to her on Monday. But you’ll probably hear the screams from home.’
‘I’ll go and talk to her anyway, say how touched you are that she came, butter her up a bit, OK?’
Joe entered the church through the side door, and any rumour that he might have been spending the last five minutes sharing a last few words with his mother was dispelled by him tucking his cigarettes back in his pocket. He headed for the table to pour himself a cup of tea.
‘Maybe we should’ve had a bottle of whisky?’ he muttered to Tracy, who smiled obligingly. ‘Not sure tea is strong enough. Did you see Brian came? What on earth was that all about?’
‘I think it was nice he came. I would’ve liked him to stay,’ she replied.
‘What, so he can gloat again? At least he had the sense to make himself scarce.’
‘Ooh dear,’ Pete grinned. ‘What’s this Brian guy done then?’
Tracy glared at Joe to warn him to choose his words carefully. ‘He’s Mum’s lawyer, the one I mentioned. He gave us a bit of a hard time when he read us the will,’ she said.
Joe grinned now, revelling in his sudden understanding that Pete may have been kept in the dark about aspects of Barbara’s will and the value of her estate. He was pleased he wasn’t the only one to keep secrets. ‘Where’s Janice?’ he asked before spotting her across the church, waving her ring finger at Miles. ‘What’s she doing with Miles? I told her not to speak to him.’
‘He probably collared her, and he is our father. And he’s come a long way.’
‘I’m going to find out what she’s telling him.’
Tracy laid her hand on Joe’s sleeve. ‘I think that’s pretty obvious as she’s waving her ring around. Listen, there are a lot of people here, including journalists. Go easy, OK?’
‘Don’t tell me what to do, Trace. I don’t want him here and I told her not to talk to him.’
‘Oops, I’ll make myself scarce,’ Pete quipped. ‘I’ll go talk to Miss Thompson. Excuse me, brother,’ and he left Tracy and Joe together.
Tracy stood with her back to Constance and pulled her brother into a close embrace.
‘Janice told me you were late home the night Mum died,’ she whispered, clutching his arm. Joe stiffened. ‘Don’t go off on one, Joe. Standing behind me is the lawyer for the man they think killed Mum.’
‘What’s she doing here?’
‘I imagine she’s waiting for an opportunity for one of us to make a fool of him or herself and it’s not going to be me. So, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll go and shake hands with our father and make your peace. And you’ll thank your lucky stars that you’ve got Janice in your corner. OK?’
Joe released himself from her grip, scowled at Constance and headed hesitantly over towards his father. Tracy turned towards Constance and pretended to notice her for the first time. She smiled, not only to appear friendly but also because Constance’s presence had helped her appreciate that, in her relationship with her brother at the very least, she may now hold all the cards.
* * *
‘Hello, Mrs Jones. I’m Dr Bridges, Jane Bridges from St Marks. This is Dr Wolf.’ Jane strode towards Tracy with her hand outstretched.
‘Gosh. How nice of you both to come.’
‘Not at all. We wanted to say how sorry we are. Dr Mahmood is here too, the head of our team.’
Jane gestured over towards Hani, who, having removed his glasses, was preoccupied examining the main window of the church closely.
‘Dr Wolf. You operated on Mum. And we heard it was all successful. I do appreciate what you did for her, even though it’s all ended up in this awful mess.’
‘That’s very kind. Yes, what a terrible thing to happen.’
‘Was she happy, at least, once it was all over?’
‘Yes. I think she’d been nervous beforehand. She was very relieved and looking forward to returning home.’
‘Can I ask, would she have felt anything, with what happened?’
‘No. It would have been instantaneous.’
Tracy choked back her tears, nodded sadly and then made her way over to join her brother with Miles.
‘I feel a bit of a fraud, accepting credit for a wonderful operation,’ David muttered to Jane.
‘Don’t say that. It comforted her. It was the right thing to say.’
‘Can we grab Hani and leave now?’
‘Sure. He’s more interested in the architecture than talking to anyone anyway.’
‘Let’s go then,’ David said. ‘It’s cold in here and I feel like God is judging us from every angle.’
40
It was the night before Ahmad’s trial was due to start, and he lay on his bed gazing up at the ceiling. He couldn’t sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw Aisha’s face staring at him accusingly. He had failed her, and in the worst way possible. He had brought her thousands of miles to a new life and now their family faced disgrace and disaster.
He sat up in the semi-darkness and began to leaf through the newspaper the prison officer had left in his cell. Most of it was depressing news; another London stabbing (a boy of fifteen), a cyclist under a lorry (a thirty-six-year-old mother of three), more homeless on the streets, London on the highest level of security alert, the impossibility of buying a first home, the uncertainty of post-Brexit Britain. And then he saw it. ‘Syrian cleaner on trial; is this the face of a callous murderer?’
He had skipped over it deliberately first time around, as Constance had entreated him to do. Now, alone and distracted, he indulged himself by devouring the article, lashing himself with each word. At first, he was so preoccupied by his reading that he failed to notice the cold stealing up on him; it was licking his calves before he realised it was back. Of course, he possessed the tools to defeat it, to fight back. He simply had to focus on the face of the ones he loved and slow his breathing down but, on this occasion, Aisha’s face did not appear warm and welcoming; it was instead harsh and judgemental.
And now he discovered something interesting about his own psyche. If he immersed himself totally in the newspaper, the cold would leap upwards unchecked. And those words he was reading – ‘plunge’, ‘catastrophic’, ‘calculating’, ‘ingrate’, ‘loner’, ‘defenceless’ – each one invigorated his attacker, fuelling its spread through his body, freezing his organs in its wake.
By the time he had the wisdom to fling the newspaper to the floor and fight back, the biting frostiness had gripped him by the throat, threatening to shut down his airways and relaxation was the antithesis of his instinct, which was to battle hard. He collapsed on his bed, his body convulsing.
Through a fog of pounding in his head, Ahmad heard the noise of bolts being drawn back and heavy footsteps. The prison guard entered the cell and flooded it with lig
ht. Within seconds he had rung the emergency bell and had wrapped his arms around the stricken man, bringing him to a sitting position.
‘So cold,’ Ahmad mumbled.
‘You don’t feel cold,’ the guard replied. ‘You’re sweating like a pig.’ He took Ahmad’s pulse. ‘You need to slow down, mate.’
He grabbed the newspaper off the floor, drew the four corners of one sheet together and held it up against Ahmad’s lips.
‘I want you to breathe really slowly into this. Watch it inflate. Nice and slow.’
Ahmad’s heart was racing but his breathing was shallow, almost non-existent.
‘Come on. You’re not trying,’ the guard roared. ‘I want to see the bag inflate. Here. You feel cold? I’ve put the blanket around you. Now breathe.’
Ahmad tried really hard. The contact from the guard seemed to fend off the choking hold on his windpipe and, for the first time since the guard had entered, he filled his lungs with air.
‘Good. Now do it again.’
Ahmad breathed a second time and then a third, his heart finally starting to reduce its breakneck speed. The guard took a step away from Ahmad and watched his back heave up and down.
When Ahmad felt warm again and his breathing had returned to normal, he murmured ‘so tired’ before closing his eyes, lying down on the narrow bed and finally going off to sleep.
The guard stood outside Ahmad’s cell with the senior prison warder.
‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know. I just checked on him. He was lying on the bed, shaking all over. He said he felt cold but he was boiling hot. Should we call a doctor? He wasn’t good.’
The senior warder drew back the shutter and viewed Ahmad. He was now lying peacefully on his side, his body rising and falling rhythmically. Then he thought about the poor woman they said he had murdered, with the splintered head, and how his own mother would be seventy-one next month.
‘He’ll be all right now,’ he replied. ‘And he needs the sleep so he can be bright tomorrow morning. No point getting someone in to prod him around. I don’t think anyone else needs to know about this. We wouldn’t want them accusing us of not looking after the star of the show, would we?’
The guard shrugged in capitulation, but every hour through the night he checked on Ahmad until he went off duty and, on two occasions, he crept into the room. The first time he had the excuse of removing the newspaper, the second he entered blatantly, just to ensure that Ahmad was still alive.
41
Constance and Judith sat together once more at Constance’s work, keen to finalise their trial preparation for the following day. Constance had already commented extensively on Judith’s opening statement and Judith was poring over the changes.
‘Why have you put a question mark next to the whole of the first page?’ Judith asked indignantly.
Constance gulped. She knew this was coming.
‘We have no evidence it was suicide,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it a risk to assert that right at the start?’
‘We have no evidence it was murder, but that hasn’t stopped the entire British public believing it was.’
‘I’m just trying to explain why I put the question mark. At the funeral, you seemed pretty sure it was murder.’
‘Well, I was hoping we would find out something definitive by keeping our eyes and ears open. Instead, we got morsels and scraps, insufficient to lay the blame at anyone else’s door.’
Judith circled the question mark Constance had drawn and then lay her papers down on the table.
‘Bear with me for now. If we major on an accidental death, then what hurdles do we have?’
‘I suppose we don’t have a reason for her to be in the staff room. I mean, if it was an accident, why on earth was she there in the first place?’
‘Yes. She hadn’t confided in anyone that she felt cooped up, wanted fresh air, that kind of thing?’
‘Tracy didn’t say when we met. Although I had to tread carefully with her, so I stuck to the key questions. We can ask her in the box. Ask about Barbara’s love of nature; she painted lots of flowers. Maybe she wanted to look at some?’
‘At night time? We could suggest she was restless, fed up with being in hospital, went in for one day, ended up staying three. But that would be pure supposition.’
‘And it was hard for her to walk.’
‘Yes. It will be difficult to get the jury to swallow her choosing to stroll down the corridor for pleasure. But you’re right, too, that the suicide track is risky. First there was no note, although they don’t always leave them. We know about the pain in her hands, well done for getting that from Tracy and, of course, we heard from Miles Hennessy that she wasn’t happy he was getting remarried, although I suppose he might have been mistaken. Men of that age can sometimes overvalue their worth, I think.’
‘We only have his word for it.’
‘Any areas we can usefully probe further?’
‘The will.’
‘Yes, I have that. And Tracy’s reference to its complications. I’m not sure how much leeway the judge will give me, that’s all. It sounds as if she may have left Tracy something, given she’s giving up her job and taking her own legal advice. But, again, if we are majoring on an accident or a suicide then that’s all immaterial.’
‘Can we try to hint that it might have been Joseph? They were estranged and he was cross about something at the funeral.’
‘Dawson interviewed him and didn’t get anywhere, did he? And I can’t see his fiancée, who is happily flashing her ring around, withdrawing her cast-iron alibi. I know they’ve tried CCTV to track his car that evening, but it was all inconclusive. We could put him in the box and see if he cracks, but I doubt it. Casting him as the villain won’t have any legs unless we do. And we have nothing on him, apart from a love of fast cars and bad taste in music, which is unlikely to be sufficient to convict him of anything, sadly. And it cuts across our ‘accident/suicide’ theme, which may be our best hope of an acquittal.’
‘She might have written something in her diaries.’
‘What diaries?’
‘Tracy said she used to keep diaries, but she couldn’t find them in the flat.’
‘Hmm. That doesn’t really help us either, does it? I mean, a murderer might take them to hide any clues to his identity but if it was suicide there would be no need.’
‘They might show she was depressed?’
‘Yes. But we don’t have them, do we? And only Tracy’s word that they ever existed.’
‘Maybe we should stick with the accident theme then?’
‘Let’s see how things go. If I do well with the forensic man we may be onto a winner. I’m going to push him hard. You remember what we planned?’
‘Sure. I remember.’
‘OK, problem areas?’
‘The rings.’
‘Yes. I will leave to your imagination what Dawson’s response was to my enquiry about his officers’ integrity. We have to run with the denial for the time being. And the video of Ahmad’s little episode. Ugh! Amazing, isn’t it? There’s no film in the camera at the hospital, but there’s plenty at Acton Central station, retrievable at the flick of a switch. Do you think they keep the crown jewels there in an underground bunker or something?’
Constance managed a smile. ‘Dr Atkins’ report is largely helpful.’ She was trying to be optimistic.
‘I agree, on the face of it. But my opponent could do a lot with that in cross-examination. And PTSD, it makes Ahmad sound like Rambo, which isn’t the image we want to portray.’
‘Rambo?’
‘Oh. It’s another of my ancient references. Don’t even bother to Google it.’
‘Should we not call Dr Atkins then?’
‘We don’t have a choice. We have no other explanation of Ahmad’s behaviour. Without Atkins
, the jury will think he’s mad and probably dangerous. What about the distinguished Dr Wolf, what’s his Achilles’ heel?’
‘I don’t know why you dislike him so much.’
‘Have you got all day? And what was he doing at the funeral? And the other two doctors?’
‘Maybe they were told to go. I wish I could’ve heard more of what they were saying. I had to back off because Tracy kept staring at me. I heard her thanking Dr Wolf for the operation and he seemed embarrassed.’
‘Understandable, I suppose. Pity they didn’t stay for longer so we could find out some more.’
Judith returned to her papers.
‘Do we know if Ahmad’s OK?’ she asked after a few minutes.
‘I called earlier and they told me he was sleeping.’
‘Good. A sign of a clear conscience, I think. I’ll be heading off myself soon too.’
PART THREE
42
Judith had bought a new suit for Ahmad’s trial. It had set her back almost £400 but she was not prepared to wear the old ones any more. Not only was she slimmer now, but she associated them with her previous life and with Martin, her deceased husband. She had bought two shirts also and had surprised herself by asking Greg which he preferred her to wear on the first day.
Constance noticed that Judith was exceptionally smart but said nothing. She, herself, had bought one new white shirt for the occasion, although she felt the guilt of its price tag weighing heavily upon her when she collected Ahmad’s aged suit from his house the previous night. Then, quick-thinking as ever, she made a short diversion. She had a friend, who was a sharp dresser and of very similar build to Ahmad, and he owed her a favour; she had written him a glowing reference for his accountancy job two years ago and her senior partner had agreed to sign it. She told Ahmad that his own suit had been eaten by moths during its time in the wardrobe, and glowed when she saw his transformation. But no clothes could cover the deep rings around his eyes.
