by Paula Daly
Out of nowhere, Tess feels faint, light-headed, as if she’s stood up too quickly.
‘What?’ she says weakly.
‘Morecambe,’ replies Tom. ‘Didn’t you grow up there?’ and Tess nods. ‘Well, it’ll certainly be useful if you know your way around the place.’ Tom waits for Tess to say something more, but when she doesn’t speak, continues on. ‘Well, basically, what I can gather is that there was no money for Carrie Kamara’s defence. Her husband, Pete, turned his back on her the second she was arrested for murdering his girlfriend, and she was left completely to her own devices. Her barrister feels she’s been let down by the criminal justice system – his words. He said there just weren’t the resources to go out and gather the necessary evidence to counter the prosecution’s claims. I’ve had a look at it and I think this could be another example of a wrongful conviction because evidence wasn’t made available to the defence.’
‘Was the husband investigated?’ asks Fran Adler.
‘His alibi checked out,’ replies Tom.
‘Potential pitfalls of the case?’ asks Clive.
At this, Tom shifts his weight to his other foot. ‘Carrie Kamara had no alibi,’ he says carefully, ‘and there was also DNA found at the scene.’
‘Her DNA?’ asks Tess, taken aback.
And Tom nods solemnly. ‘They found a blood smear on the internal handle of the victim’s front door. The prosecution claimed Carrie left it when exiting the house. But her barrister feels this is an anomaly. Carrie was not found to have any open wounds at the time of her arrest and he says the rest of the prosecution’s case was purely circumstantial, farcical even. But, as you would expect, the jury totally ignored all that. They convicted entirely on the strength of the DNA.’
‘I remember this case,’ Vanessa Waring says, looking at the ceiling as if casting her mind back. ‘Wasn’t the victim stabbed repeatedly?’
‘Yes,’ replies Tom. ‘Victim’s name was Ella Muir. Thirty years old.’
The room is silent as the panel absorbs Tom’s information.
‘I really think this one might be worth a shot,’ Tom adds after a moment, hopefully.
But still no one speaks.
Blood? Tess thinks. On the door handle? She’ll be surprised if they go for it.
‘OK,’ says Tom, ‘I know you’re probably thinking this is going to be difficult. Risky, even. But the fact of the matter is, in the nine years that Innocence UK has been investigating wrongful convictions, we haven’t looked at any cases involving female prisoners. And it’s been noted.’
Tess can feel her fellow professionals shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Tom’s right, of course. They should have taken on a woman’s case before. Way before now. In fact, it’s such an outrageous blunder that she’s about to voice her support because this needs rectifying immediately.
But then she remembers. She remembers Morecambe and the contents of her stomach roil.
She closes her eyes, thinks back. She feels as if a large wave is being swept over her head. She can hear Tom’s voice, faintly, as if she’s being pulled out to sea. ‘A show of hands please for Terry Carmichael and Operation Swallowtail …’ Tess can hear him say, and she lifts her hand, weakly. She is the only one who votes for Terry.
‘Next,’ Tom continues, ‘Ryan Green and the potential lab cross-contamination,’ and his voice is further away still.
Tess is vaguely aware of Avril raising her hand, and of Avril dropping it again quickly, embarrassed she’s made a mistake.
‘Lastly then,’ says Tom, his voice coming into sharp focus and Tess is now suddenly aware of everything: every sound, every person’s breath, the temperature of the air on her skin, ‘Carrie Kamara.’
Tess looks around the room and each person’s hand is raised. Including, inexplicably, her own.
So they spend the next hour talking strategy. The panel decides that Tess and Avril should first look at the CCTV footage from the night of the murder as well as rechecking the one recorded witness statement, as it was these two pieces of evidence which formed the bulk of the prosecution’s case, along with the DNA.
When they file out later, everyone on their way to lunch, Tess hangs back as she needs to speak to Tom privately.
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ he tells her with an air of resignation. He’s packing away his laptop.
Tess gathers up her things and approaches Tom’s side of the desk. ‘You think I’m going to try and persuade you not to take this case,’ she says. ‘You think …’ She pauses for greater emphasis. ‘… I’m going to tell you that the DNA is too much of a stumbling block.’
‘I think you don’t want Avril shadowing you,’ Tom replies bluntly. ‘And I know you’re going to spend the next five minutes trying to get me to change my mind. Well, let me save you the trouble, Tess. I won’t.’
‘But—’
He turns to face her. ‘We can’t get through our current workload as it is. You know how stretched we are. And the legacy fund’s been bolstered, which of course is fantastic, but there’s only one of you, Tess, and you can only do so much. With Avril, we can get through twice as many cases as we do right now. And the only way to train her to do that is to have her follow you around learning what it is that you actually do.’
‘No one trained me,’ Tess argues, but Tom doesn’t reply. Instead, he shrugs on his coat and gestures that he is leaving, discussion over.
They walk along the hallway together, side by side, making their way towards the lifts. Once inside, Tess turns to him. ‘Look,’ she says, in one last-ditch attempt to sway him, ‘Avril is very young. Very young and immature.’
‘She’s not immature, she’s gentle. She has a softness to her that could be valuable.’ Tom smiles. ‘She could be the yang to your yin, Tess.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing at all.’
Tess is put out. ‘OK, so she’s gentle,’ she says, ‘but this is a difficult job, Tom. I see stuff that isn’t for everyone. It can be upsetting. It can be scary. Are you completely sure about this?’
And Tom sighs. ‘All right,’ he says, ‘I concede, yes, Avril is very young … and that’s entirely the reason we’re getting away with paying her so little. But she’s not immature, Tess. She’s keen. So play nice, will you?’
Four Years Ago
CARRIE IS THE first to arrive on the day that will change everything. She’s always the first to arrive. She’s the type of person who would rather be an hour early than five minutes late. She waits in the hotel lobby in one of the low-slung leather chairs, and has to plant her feet firmly lest she slide off the thing and become a puddle of a woman on the tiled floor.
She checks her phone to determine if her friend is running late – she is running late, clearly, as it’s now seven minutes past – but not so late that an apologetic text is warranted.
Could Carrie have got the wrong date?
Wrong venue?
Wrong time?
Could her friend have got the wrong date? Wrong venue? Wrong time?
These are the things that run through Carrie’s head as a matter of course these days. She frets about the smallest of things. She read recently that women become more anxious as they get older (is forty-three older?) whereas men become more miserable. Not depressed kind of miserable, but more cantankerous, more everything’s-suddenly-a-problem kind of miserable.
Carrie lifts her head and spots her friend. Helen is hurrying across the car park, trying to stuff her keys into her handbag as she walks. The heel of her right shoe catches on the tarmac and momentarily Helen is sent off balance.
‘Hi-yaaa!’ Helen shouts as she enters the lobby, spotting Carrie. ‘Am I late? Have you been waiting ages? Sorry, I got caught up at work. I had my coat on and was halfway out the door and that sly bitch Marianne knew I was coming out to lunch, so what does she do? She starts rearranging the holiday rota so I have no choice but to stand there and make sure I get the weeks I want.’
> ‘You’re not late,’ replies Carrie just as Helen is leaning in for a hug.
‘Can’t believe it’s been a month already,’ Helen says.
It’s actually been two months since they’ve last done this but Carrie doesn’t correct her. Helen cancelled last month’s meet-up but Carrie didn’t mind. She rarely minds if people cancel. She would never admit to it of course, but it’s usually the outcome she’s hoping for. Carrie will commit to a lunch, or dinner, or a shopping trip, or a girls’ night out, something to give some shape to her life, something to make her feel as if she’s participating, something to tell her other friends about when she meets up with them, and then when the event itself is cancelled, and she doesn’t have to go through with it, she is hugely relieved.
Her friends speak of FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out – whereas Carrie thinks she’s more WINJI – Wish I’d Never Joined In.
‘How’s work?’ Helen asks.
‘Great,’ replies Carrie.
‘And Mia?’
Carrie drops her gaze. ‘She’s great too.’
They make their way into the restaurant and Carrie feels Helen pull her shoulders back and adjust her expression into that of not a mere dentist’s receptionist, but of someone altogether more successful and power-wielding. ‘Yes, we have booked,’ she says snippily to the young man in the waistcoat and polished shoes. ‘It’s in the name of Carter. And I hope you won’t be sticking us over by the piano. My friend hasn’t dined here before and I’m keen she has a good view of the bay.’
Carrie has dined here before. With Helen. Two months ago, in fact. And Carrie’s pretty sure that the young waiter served them on that occasion too, but she says nothing.
They are shown to a table with a good view of the bay and Helen tells the waiter that this will be suitable, before shooting Carrie a look, as if to say, If you don’t ask, you don’t get, and they remove their coats and sit. ‘Are you having wine?’ asks Helen. ‘I’m having wine. They’ve a strict no-drinking-on-duty policy at work but sod that. I never get out. I never treat myself.’
This is what this lunch is all about. Treating themselves. For the past however many years, women such as Carrie and Helen have put their children’s needs, their husbands’ needs, way above their own, and this is their attempt at reclaiming those little pieces of themselves that disappeared along the way. Carrie might even buy a new lipstick or a new scarf to mark such an occasion, as it’s these small things which all add up to make her feel as though she’s back in charge of her life.
Carrie has a number of acquaintances – she refers to them as ‘friends’, but they’re not really that. Most, like Helen, are the wives of Pete’s buddies and, over the years, it just became easier to fall in with these women – ‘the girlies’, Pete calls them – rather than to try and revive long-finished friendships from before she had Mia. There was no real reason for losing the friendships of her youth. Carrie was not the kind of sociopathic friend that everyone was keen to drop; it was more to do with the fact that she had Mia at twenty-five, which was younger – quite a bit younger – than her contemporaries, and so they’d tended to fall by the wayside as the demands of motherhood took over. When she was ready to jump back into the world of lunches out and girls’ weekends away, Carrie’s friends were burdened with young children of their own.
Carrie examines the menu. There are no surprises with regards to the main dishes: beer-battered cod, speciality sausages with herby mash, a vegetarian pasta dish that will be laden with too much double cream, butternut squash risotto. Carrie thinks she’ll probably opt for two starters and forgo a main course altogether.
She peers over her menu and turns her head to the left. Surveying the room, she sees the tables are filled with women just like her: all over forty, all with freshly coloured hair, all wearing outfits that for now will only be used for special occasions, but next year will be relegated to everyday use. Carrie hears snapshots of conversations. She hears them discuss which universities their eldest children are applying to; where, as a family, they have been to, or will be going to, on holiday this year; she hears how tired/stressed/busy/underappreciated they are; she hears discussions about books, decorating, self-tanning, weight loss, the John Lewis sale.
Helen signals to the waiter. He wends his way between the tables, taking out his notepad ready to transcribe their requests, but before he’s managed to utter, Are you ready to order? Helen has issued him with instructions to bring two large glasses of Pinot Grigio.
‘So, what’s your news?’ Helen asks, removing her mobile phone and placing it next to her napkin. She scrolls through the screen, saying, ‘Don’t mind me, I know this is rude, but I just need to check Finn’s school hasn’t been on again.’
‘Nothing much to report,’ replies Carrie.
She knows Helen is not really listening. Something on her phone has caught her attention and she is tapping out a response. Carrie’s eyes slide to the left again. A woman on the next table is loudly reminding her dining companions that her family has been touched by cancer not once, but twice, and is handing out sponsorship forms. She’s running a 10K. The forms are pink and the women search their handbags for pens and ten-pound notes with lacklustre enthusiasm.
Helen finishes typing and raises her head, aware, suddenly, that she took an unauthorized leave of absence there for a minute, and now she’s not really sure where she was in the conversation. ‘So, what’s your news?’ she asks again brightly.
‘Nothing much to report,’ repeats Carrie.
Their drinks arrive. ‘Rob’s being a dick,’ says Helen.
Rob is frequently being a dick according to Helen. It’s the usual stuff that crops up in the long-term marrieds: the unfair division of labour, domestic duties landing more in Helen’s lap than his. Helen would like Rob to help out more around the house, whereas Rob would rather forgo the housework and have more sex. Helen thinks his mother speaks down to her. Rob thinks Helen spends too much time on the phone to her sister. Helen is frustrated by his lack of career drive. Rob thinks she should be happy with what they have and stop comparing him to her friends’ husbands (who are not in as good physical shape as he is). Rob would like to spice things up in the bedroom. Helen is more tired than she’s ever been in her entire life.
None of this is new. And Carrie quite happily listens to Helen complain about Rob, as Helen is often amusing as she re-enacts their latest run-in, and Carrie can see how Helen benefits from getting it off her chest.
When Helen has finished – when she’s come to the conclusion that yes, Rob is substandard, yes, she wishes he were different, but she’s stuck with him, and really, he’s not that bad, all things considered – she drains the rest of her drink. And for an extended moment she lets her eyes rest on almost everything in the room except for Carrie. When she does finally turn her attention back to Carrie, Helen has an almost crazed look in her eye. ‘So, what’s Pete up to these days?’ she asks.
‘Pete?’ Carrie responds.
‘Yeah.’
And Carrie frowns. Because here’s the thing: they don’t discuss Pete. Not ever.
‘Why do you ask about Pete?’ Carrie enquires carefully.
Helen is arranging her napkin on her lap and is going to great pains to smooth out the creases. ‘I just wondered if he was OK,’ she says.
‘He’s OK.’
‘Good. That’s good then.’
‘Helen,’ Carrie asks levelly, ‘what is going on?’
Helen swallows. She signals to the waiter for another glass of wine. She picks up her phone and puts it down again. And when, finally, she can’t put it off any longer, she meets Carrie’s gaze, and says in an urgent whisper, ‘He’s seeing someone.’
Carrie studies her friend. Her acquaintance. Whatever. She studies her and she’s not sure what to say. Then she looks out of the window. The sea is teal green, the sky an unremarkable grey. The clouds are so thick and heavy that they appear as one bulbous entity.
Carrie clears her throat
. ‘This is something Pete does from time to time, Helen.’
‘I know.’
‘So then you also know that this isn’t something I tend to…’ Carrie pauses, searching for the right words. ‘You understand this isn’t necessarily something that would force us apart … as a couple, I mean. It wouldn’t mean the end for us.’
‘I understand that,’ replies Helen softly.
‘So … I’m sorry, Helen, but I’m struggling to see why you would think I needed to know this.’
‘Because this time it’s different. At least I think it is. I don’t know, you tell me. He’s started seeing Ella Muir.’
‘Ella Muir? As in the girl from the barbeque?’
Helen nods. ‘Yeah. The drunk one. You remember? Young. Pretty.’
Pete has never done this with someone she knows. Someone their friends know.
‘Have I done the right thing by telling you?’ Helen asks.
Now
CLIVE IS AT the bar ordering drinks. Tess watches him as he glances over his shoulder before speaking to the barmaid. He’s up to something. Tess knows that look. Tom has disappeared to the loos which means she is alone with Avril for the first time, who is asking question after question about Tess’s job description and nattering on enthusiastically about someone named William. Avril hasn’t referred to him as her boyfriend but Tess can’t think who else he could be and so she nods and smiles as Avril paints a picture of domestic harmony and romantic fulfilment.
‘What’s your cheapest lager?’ Tess can hear Clive saying to the barmaid in the background. The barmaid gestures to a pump at the far end of the bar and Clive looks over his shoulder once more, furtively checking Tom is not in earshot, before saying, ‘Do me a favour, will you, love? Put a pint of that cheap stuff in a Peroni glass … and finish it off with a Peroni top.’ The barmaid agrees to this and is smiling conspiratorially at Clive, charmed, Tess supposes, by Clive’s impishness, his roguish good looks, rather than his tight-fistedness. ‘A pint of John Smith’s Smooth as well, love,’ Clive adds, ‘and two glasses of white wine … small ’uns.’
