The Kindest Thing

by Cath Staincliffe

  ‘That’s not what I said,’ he barks, and flushes, angry. It is not a pleasant sight. I feel embarrassed. How will the jury take it?

  ‘Was the balance of Ms Shelley’s mind disturbed when she agreed to assist her husband?’

  ‘I believe so. From her account, it is my opinion that Deborah was under great pressure and agreed to placate her husband. Had she felt stronger she would not have agreed. She hoped it would never come to pass.’

  ‘And when she set off to research methods of killing someone, scouring the Internet for deadly information, when she plotted to hoard drugs and lied to their GP, was that to placate Neil? Was the balance of her mind disturbed then?’

  ‘She was confused—’

  ‘I certainly am,’ Miss Webber says swiftly, and some people laugh. ‘Please, Mr Petty, answer the question.’

  ‘It is often the case,’ he sounds petulant, his Scottish accent suddenly echoes with peevish grievance, ‘that a person can be suffering mental disturbance yet appear to function quite well. I believe she went along with it, still hoping it would never happen,’ he says stiffly.

  ‘So she was sane, then?’ Don Petty frowns at that and Miss Webber adds, ‘She was mentally responsible during those weeks?’

  ‘No. Mental health fluctuates as does physical health. It is a spectrum, not a fixed state.’

  ‘Exactly,’ pipes Briony Webber, ‘quite fluid – certainly in this case. Seems to come and go to suit the occasion.’

  ‘Miss Webber,’ the judge growls.

  ‘Withdrawn.’

  I catch a look between Mr Latimer and Ms Gleason. Dismay. My cheeks burn. Oh, God. This is the battle of the shrinks and Don Petty is supposed to be my champion. I want to stand up and yell at him, grab hold of him and slap him into shape.

  ‘And was Ms Shelley mentally responsible when she performed the fatal act?’ Performed: there’s a pornographic slur in the way she articulates the word. I am beginning to tremble. I stare at Don Petty, willing him to fight for me. To show them how it was – or, rather, how we want it to appear.

  ‘No, she was no longer mentally responsible.’

  ‘When did the change occur?’ Miss Webber demands. ‘That morning, the week before?’

  ‘It is my opinion that the weeks leading up to that day saw an increasing deterioration in Deborah’s mental health. The evening before June the fifteenth was the tipping point, when Neil named the day. The balance of her mind was so disturbed that she could no longer be held responsible for her behaviour.’

  ‘Really?’ she says drily. ‘And after the murder of her husband did not Ms Shelley perform perfectly well, fooling family, friends, medical staff, even the police until her lies were exposed?’ Now she makes me an actor, all mask and makeup, mouthing my lines by rote. ‘I put to you an alternative view – that Ms Shelley is a clever and calculating woman who knows her only chance of evading a prison sentence is to spin this tissue of lies and fancies. Asking this jury to believe that on April the third she lost all reason and said yes to Neil Draper, that ten weeks later on June the fifteenth, again all sense deserted her as she helped him die. Yet she was able to recover amazingly quickly, hiding the evidence, trotting out a story, covering up the murder of her husband.’

  ‘Is there a question for the witness?’ Mr Latimer complains, the tail on his scrappy wig shivering furiously.

  ‘Do you have children, Mr Petty?’ asks Miss Webber.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Is this relevant?’ Mr Latimer demands.

  The judge nods for Miss Webber to continue.

  ‘You have any children?’

  ‘Yes, two.’

  ‘Keep you awake at night?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Broken sleep affects most parents, would you say?’

  ‘It’s not my area of—’ He’s beginning to fudge.

  She cuts him off. ‘Oh, come on, we all know what it’s like. New parents barely get any sleep but they don’t become unbalanced, they don’t lose the capacity to distinguish right from wrong. Yet you claim that Ms Shelley’s insomnia left her so sleep deprived it made her sick?’

  ‘It’s a contributing factor.’

  ‘So you say.’ Her retort drips sarcasm. ‘Another factor was the strain of the problems with Adam Shelley: his mental problems, his drug abuse.’

  ‘That’s right.’ His words are clipped, defensive now, mealy-mouthed.

  ‘And Adam had been a voluntary hospital patient on occasion in 2008? And had received counselling?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But since then he had been settled at home?’

  I see Mr Latimer close his eyes slowly: he knows this is heading nowhere good.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘There had not been any serious incident with Adam in the year leading up to his father’s death? Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, it would appear that the situation with Adam had improved significantly, that Ms Shelley might have taken consolation from the fact that things were so much better, that there was much less pressure in that quarter. In effect a respite? Would you agree?’

  I close my own eyes for a moment, shake my head a little. She is demolishing my defence, peck by peck. I hear Don Petty clear his throat. ‘It may appear like that but the reality of living with a child with these sort of issues creates long-term stress.’

  She ignores him. She has made her point and moves on. ‘We have already heard that Ms Shelley did not see her own doctor in 2009 or ask for any help. That is your understanding?’

  ‘She used the MNDA helpline.’

  ‘Though she did not call them to discuss Neil’s request or ask for help in those final ten weeks? Is that right?’

  He pauses but there’s no way out. ‘It is.’

  I can see Jane, her face set, wary. She too must feel that any sympathy in the room has melted away. I do not dare survey the jury. Briony Webber walks to the benches.

  ‘And we have heard that only once in her life did Deborah Shelley ever seek professional help for depression, in . . .’ she makes a show of checking her notes ‘. . . 1993. Sixteen years previously. No sign of depression for sixteen years.’ She weighs each word, heavy with import. ‘Do you agree?’

  ‘It’s possible to have the illness but not seek help.’

  ‘And you believe that’s true of Deborah Shelley?’ The subtext is ‘poor misguided fool’.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘So we have a woman who you claim lost all reason on June the fifteenth and acted while the balance of her mind was disturbed. What about when she researched those very methods, scouring the Internet for websites about suicide? When she went over with her husband how she would conduct herself after his death?’ Her voice gains volume, filling the court, the catalogue of my misdeeds bouncing back from the high ceilings, the far corners. ‘When she planned with him what she would say if any suspicions were aroused? Was the balance of her mind disturbed on each of those occasions?’

  I chance a glance towards the jury. Alice, resplendent with a black hairband and strange blue pinafore dress, bows her head, studying her hands. Discomfited or disillusioned.

  ‘In my opinion the preparatory acts made by Deborah Shelley were on a par with the act itself – they were carried out under enormous emotional pressure and in the desperate hope that they would be superfluous at the end of the day.’

  ‘And after the deed was done?’

  ‘I have already said—’ Don Petty complains.

  ‘I would like you to repeat your assertion, for the sake of the jury, because quite frankly it beggars belief.’

  ‘Badgering the witness!’ Mr Latimer shouts. He has gone very pale and his lips are taut with displeasure.

  ‘Your Honour,’ says Miss Webber, ‘this speaks to the very core of the defence. I must be able to test the witness rigorously.’

  ‘Proceed with caution,’ the judge tells her.

  She swivels back to Don Petty. ‘And afterward
s a remarkable recovery, wouldn’t you say? As soon as she despatches her husband, Ms Shelley sets to work. How was her state of mind when she cleared away the drug containers and the plastic bag, when she told the ambulance man that her husband’s death was expected, when she told her daughter that she had found him dead in his bed, when she accepted condolences and placed the death notice in the paper, when she played the innocent as the police asked for the truth? All very logical acts if you are trying to get away with murder, would you agree?’

  ‘She was trying to save her family,’ Don Petty says. ‘To salvage something. She was in denial.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s the only one.’ There’s a gasp at Miss Webber’s insolence. ‘No further questions.’ She swoops back to her seat.

  I am gutted. She has laid me out and torn me open. Carrion. The trembling is worse. I am trembling inside, an ague, cold and bone deep.

  Once Don Petty has gone there is a pause in the proceedings. The judge consults with the lawyers. He decides that it would be better to hear the closing speeches in the morning. Court is adjourned for the day.

  Sophie stands up, making to leave and bends down for her coat. Our eyes lock. She doesn’t look away. She doesn’t glare or narrow her eyes. She just looks raw and shattered. Then the moment is gone.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The wind is fierce tonight. You could mistake it for a jet engine. It sweeps the clouds across the dark sky. It shakes the limbs of the lime tree and snatches at doors and windows. Anything unanchored is hurled up and down the avenues.

  They say the prison houses are haunted, ghosts of women who’ve died there, and the orphans before them. I am not afraid of ghosts. I am afraid of just about everything else. All day long my stomach is cramped with dread. I am afraid of the jury, of the power they hold, of remembering Neil’s dying seizure. I am afraid of losing Sophie for good. I am afraid of being summoned to the office to hear that Adam has joined his father and grandfather. I am afraid of staying here: of going mad, of locking myself in and copying the other lost souls, with a lighter to my bedding or a knife to the long blue vein that pulses through my forearm. Of diving down into the cold, dark embrace of the river Styx, feeling the silt and the water fill my lungs.

  I must have slept because I wake at six, my head feeling fuzzy and my skin chilled, covered with goose-bumps. I get ready quietly; the other women still have an hour before roll call. I cannot face any breakfast but drink a little milk. Even that turns to curds in my mouth. The prison officer takes me over to the gatehouse. I am strip-searched again.

  It is only just light as the van arrives at Minshull Street. Ms Gleason comes in to see me in the court cell. She has coffee in one of those enormous polystyrene beakers, which she leaves with the guard. Enough caffeine to strip half your stomach lining.

  When she asks me how I am, I shake my head. She places her hand on my shoulder. The touch is such a comfort.

  That’s something I crave: physical intimacy. Not the sex, though if Neil were raised from the dead I wouldn’t think twice. No, it’s the everyday contact, the hugs and pats, kisses and strokes, the handshakes. They shrank when Neil died and disappeared almost completely when they locked me up.

  In the closing rounds, Briony Webber gets to go first.

  ‘Members of the jury, British law does not permit us to assist in the taking of life, no matter what the individual circumstances. So-called mercy killing is illegal under our law. It is murder. That is why Deborah Shelley lied so brazenly: to her children, to the ambulance crew, to the police, to Neil’s GP. She lied before the murder and after. She is lying to you now. Don’t be fooled. She knew that what she was doing was wrong. She knew it was murder. Ask yourselves this . . .’ She pauses and I swallow. My view wavers, the light dims, the jurors on their benches swim closer, then retreat.

  ‘Why did Ms Shelley change her story? She changed it because she got caught. Because the police evidence, the forensic evidence, demonstrated beyond any doubt that Neil Draper died an unnatural death. Since that point everything Deborah Shelley has said has been with one end in mind – that she get away scot free. That she get away with murder.’

  She swings around and her black robe billows out, then she strides over to her table and examines her papers. But not for long.

  ‘My learned friend is arguing that Ms Shelley lost use of her reason under pressure of the strain of her husband’s illness and conceded to his wishes. I ask you to consider this: there were ten weeks between her agreeing to his request and carrying it out. Ten weeks during which time she competently set about preparing for the event, gathering information, stock-piling morphine, practising her lies. You have heard Ms Shelley’s account of the terrible events of June the fifteenth. But consider this: Neil Draper was still alive when Deborah Shelley pulled a plastic bag over his head and held it tight, hell bent on finishing what she had started. If she really was as distressed and ill as the defence claims, wouldn’t you expect her at that point, with her husband unconscious, when she tells us she was panicking, to collapse in defeat? To cry for help? No. Not only did she hold the bag over Neil’s head while he fought to breathe but she then hid everything – the bag, the evidence of the drugs – and set about creating a sham, a charade for the whole world.’

  Mute and mutinous, I listen to her singing my sins, feel the breath stutter in and out of my windpipe, the beat of blood in my ears.

  ‘Deborah Shelley is an intelligent woman, a university graduate, a businesswoman. She knew how to seek help, she was articulate, financially secure, she knew the law, she knew . . .’ Miss Webber turns and stares at me, nodding, calling me a liar. I will not bow my head. ‘. . . yet she chose to go along with her husband’s wishes. Her intentions may have been honourable but her actions were not. What she did may have been out of loyalty but her motive was sadly mistaken. She murdered her husband. Neil Draper’s mother wants justice for her son. Neil Draper’s daughter, who has spoken so bravely here in court, needs to know that you will recognize her courage and heed the truth.

  ‘The victim is not here. He cannot speak and tell us what transpired. If he were I have no doubt that he would tell you he begged his wife to help end his life. No one disputes that. What is in dispute is whether Deborah Shelley knew what she was doing. Do not be fooled by her lies. She has shown she can be fluent in her explanations, but no matter how smoothly she tells it, her account is a fabric of falsehoods and deceit. I believe there can be only one verdict returned on the basis of the evidence you have heard. And that is guilty, guilty of murder.’

  Miss Webber returns slowly to her seat and the room is still.

  Mr Latimer takes a sip of water and gets to his feet. When he speaks his voice is soft, just audible and he sounds regretful.

  ‘When Neil Draper asked his wife to help him die, she refused. He asked her again months afterwards and a second time she said no. But in April last year, when he asked her a third time, Deborah had become seriously ill. Her life was unravelling. The depression that had numbed her in the months after her mother’s death returned with a vengeance. She had no faith in anti-depressants. She didn’t believe anyone could help. Deborah was unable to sleep, her son Adam was a constant worry, known to be suffering from cannabis-induced psychosis. Deborah herself was having paralysing panic attacks. She could no longer hold everything together. The child of two depressives, one of whom took his own life while she was still small, Deborah had fought hard to cope. It’s what women do, as mothers, wives, workers. They soldier on, they cope with crises, and they clear up the messes.’

  It’s a lovely, generous speech, and the jury are captivated.

  ‘But Deborah could no longer manage. Her savage attack on her neighbour is testament to how disturbed she was becoming. W-w-weakened and terrified of what lay ahead, Deborah was unable to resist her husband any more. You have heard her say that she thought it might not happen even as she hoarded the drugs, that it might not happen even as she planned what to say if anyone gr
ew suspicious, that it might not happen even as she poured Neil his last glass of wine. Her grasp on reality was loosening. Like a child who will hide behind his hands and imagine he can’t be seen.’ He dips his head for emphasis; the scrappy wool gives a little shiver, like a stiffened, shrunken lamb’s tail.

  ‘When Deborah gave Neil those doses of morphine, when she then suffocated him, it was because she was literally out of her mind. She could no longer tell right from wrong. She loved him and wanted to help him but she knew that by helping him she would be committing murder. The fear of what would happen added to her mental collapse.’

  I hold myself tight, bound up, hands grasping each other, mouth rigid, frightened of flying apart, of unravelling before them.

  ‘Deborah Shelley was sick. She could no longer be held responsible for her actions. She acted while she was unfit to judge. Now you must judge her. The burden of proof is on the prosecution, which means that they must prove to you beyond all reasonable doubt that Deborah Shelley murdered her husband, fully aware of what she was doing. Ask yourselves: are you one hundred per cent certain that this was the case? One hundred per cent,’ he says again. ‘When she lay beside her husband on that early summer day, when she told him she loved him, was she fully aware of what she was doing? In the midst of the horrendous pressure she had been under, was she still completely responsible for her actions? If you have any doubts you must find Deborah not guilty of murder. Deborah Shelley was not flouting the law, she is not an advocate of mercy killing. She is a woman who, in the height of her sickness, got swept along by her dying husband’s pleas. She did wrong and has admitted it. All we ask now is that you bring your intelligence, your common sense and your humanity to consider the evidence. And find Deborah Shelley innocent of the charge of murder.’

  The judge has the last word. He must interpret the law to the jury.

  ‘This has been a very sad case: a terminal illness, a life cut short, children left fatherless. But now you have one task ahead. That task is simple yet arduous. On the evidence you have heard, and only on that, you must judge whether Deborah Shelley was mentally responsible for her actions, whether or not the balance of her mind was disturbed on the fifteenth of June 2009 when she helped her husband die. If you find the evidence shows that she was of sound mind, then the verdict must be guilty of murder. If, however, you believe the balance of her mind was disturbed to such an extent that it diminished her responsibility then you must find the defendant not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.