And So It Begins

by Rachel Abbott

  ‘You mean Mia?’

  Cleo narrowed her eyes and looked at Stephanie. ‘You remember that, do you?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

  There was an expression on Cleo’s face that Stephanie couldn’t read, but before she had a chance to ask any more questions, Cleo swung her legs to the floor and sat forward.

  ‘Enough,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘I just need Lulu here with me where she belongs, then I want us to be left alone.’

  Fresh tears started to fall silently down her cheeks.

  Stephanie felt a slight shiver down her spine at the words ‘where she belongs’ and wondered how Cleo would take it if Evie Clarke was granted bail.

  She stood up to leave, knowing that she needed to unpick this conversation. She wasn’t going to get any more out of the distraught woman now, but there was something in Cleo’s words that Stephanie felt certain would provide a clue to what had really happened that night.

  24

  Harriet arrived early at the police station. She knew Evie was being discharged from hospital and that the police would bring her straight here. She wanted time alone with her before the formal interview so she could understand exactly what had happened, and why.

  The sound of heavy footsteps broke through her thoughts and she turned to see the broad figure of DI Angus Brodie marching towards her down the corridor.

  ‘Harriet,’ he said with a curt nod.

  She was probably one of the few women who hadn’t succumbed to his charms, and he knew it.

  ‘Angus,’ she responded.

  ‘Sergeant Stephanie King, who’s been attached to CID for this case, has gone with one of the uniforms to collect Miss Clarke from the hospital. At a guess, you’ll want some time alone with your client before the interview starts. She’s admitted to killing him, though, so it should be quite straightforward.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re assuming that. I saw what could be defence wounds on her arms, so with any luck you won’t charge her and I’ll have her out of here today.’

  Angus Brodie lifted his eyebrows and smiled. ‘I’m not going to discuss this with you now. We need to interview her and then we’ll inform the CPS of our recommendation. And before you ask, we’ll resist bail,’ he said, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets as he spoke – a defiant gesture if ever she saw one.

  ‘You’re not going to win that one. She has an eleven-month-old baby!’

  ‘Harriet, she killed him. She’s not denying it. She could go to prison for life, and that’s one hell of an incentive to try to influence witnesses or do a runner. Anyway, who’s to say she won’t go out and kill some other poor bugger? Do you want that responsibility?’

  Harriet tutted at his posturing. He was trying to wind her up, but she wasn’t going to let him. For now she had no intention of showing her hand. She needed to talk to Evie and then they would make a decision.

  ‘Let me take you to an interview room,’ Brodie said, holding out his arm to guide her. ‘But once the custody officer has signed her in, the clock’s ticking.’

  Harriet hated police interview rooms with their melamine-topped tables, uncomfortable chairs and featureless walls. There always seemed to be an underlying odour of fear-induced sweat, and with no opening windows it felt as if the accumulated breath of hundreds of criminals still lingered in the walls.

  Despite the surroundings, she loved her job. As soon as Evie arrived, everything other than the client and the case would become no more than a blurred background, but it was the waiting she couldn’t stand and she had now been sitting here for half an hour. She tapped her fingernails in a drumbeat on the table and was beginning to wonder what the hold-up was, but as soon as Evie walked into the room Harriet could see she wasn’t well.

  ‘Evie – come and sit down,’ she said, pulling out a chair. ‘Have they discharged you too soon? You’re terribly pale.’

  ‘I was sick when I got here. But I’m okay now.’

  ‘Are you sure? Can I get you some water?’

  ‘No thanks, I’ve just had some. I think it’s only now that the reality of what I’ve done has hit me. It was the handcuffs. Whenever I’ve seen criminals cuffed on the television I’ve always thought how degrading it must be, but nothing prepared me for the intensity of the shame.’

  Evie wasn’t the first person to feel like this, but Harriet was a little surprised at the strength of her reaction. She considered her client to be a self-possessed young woman, although based on her work at the shelter she suspected that beneath her smile there was a well-disguised degree of sensitivity. Several of the residents had commented that Evie was a good listener. She would sit with them for hours as they described the injuries – both physical and mental – they had suffered. Now it was Harriet’s turn to listen.

  ‘I need to understand in detail what happened last night, Evie. I know it will be painful for you, but you have to tell me everything. It’s only then that we can decide how best to go forward.’

  Evie raised her eyes. ‘You know what happened. I killed him. I still can’t believe I did it.’ She lifted her hands to her cheeks and stared at Harriet in horror. ‘I sliced into his neck with a boning knife, and then I lay in bed holding him close to me as he died.’

  Evie put her arms down on the desk and rested her head there, her shoulders shaking with sobs. ‘I’m sorry, Mark,’ she whispered. ‘You didn’t deserve this.’

  Harriet had trained herself to never show a reaction to anything her clients said, but the combination of the brutality of the death and the deep sense of intimacy in Mark’s final moments was hard to understand.

  ‘Evie, I’m sorry to push you when you are so upset, but I noticed last night that you had some wounds to your arms and chest,’ she said, getting back to practicalities. ‘Did Mark attack you first?’

  Evie sat up and nodded, but her bloodshot eyes had glazed over and Harriet guessed she was reliving the moment, wondering if she’d had any other choice.

  ‘Did you think he was going to kill you?’ she asked.

  Evie shook her head. ‘I don’t know what I thought. I was terrified. He’d never used a knife on me before and I had no idea how far he would go.’

  ‘You told me at the hospital that there was a pattern to his abuse – that it always happened before he went away.’

  ‘It was almost like he was claiming me as his own. He was scared of losing me, you see.’

  Harriet had never understood the mindset of an abuser, and Mark North was no exception. The complexities of his personality weren’t going to help much in the next twenty-four hours and all she cared about was getting the best outcome for her client. She needed to use her time with Evie wisely so she steered the conversation back to the events of the previous night.

  ‘Where did you get the knife?’ she asked. ‘Did Mark bring it into the bedroom with the sole intention of hurting you?’

  ‘No. I took it from the knife block in the kitchen. It was to open a present I’d bought for him, but once he had the knife in his hand the present was no longer the most important thing on his mind. I could see it in his eyes. That’s when he started to cut me.’

  Evie gently rubbed the dressings covering her arms and fell quiet again.

  Harriet needed to think. This was not as straightforward as she had hoped, but Evie was intelligent and would perform well in court, if it came to that. It was a good case for Harriet and, she hoped, for abused women in general.

  She could imagine Angus Brodie pacing up and down the hallway, getting increasingly frustrated at the delay. His team would be ready, prepared, their interview strategy in place, and as he had said, the clock was ticking. She had to decide what their defence was going to be, and for that, she needed Evie to give her more.

  ‘How did you get hold of the knife? Did you fight him for it?’

  Evie bowed her head, as if ashamed. Her voice was so low that Harriet struggled to catch what she was saying.

  ‘He put it down on the be
dside table.’

  ‘He’d stopped cutting you? He wasn’t threatening you any longer?’

  ‘He wanted to make love to me. The cutting, the blood, had turned him on and that’s when I lost it. As he lay on top of me it was as if I had no control over my own actions. I was terrified of what he might do to me next, and I could see myself picking up the knife – almost as if I was watching myself from above – and I couldn’t stop it. The pain of the cuts on my arms and chest wiped all conscious thought from my mind. I couldn’t go through any more.’

  Evie started to sob quietly, and Harriet’s heart sank. She had already suspected that Evie’s injuries weren’t defence wounds. They weren’t deep and none of them had required stitching. She was certain that Brodie wasn’t going to accept them either. These cuts were part of Mark North’s ritualistic game – which didn’t make it better, but did mean it wasn’t a clear-cut case of self-defence. If Evie had fought him for the knife – a fight which it was difficult to imagine her winning – she would probably have had to grab the blade.

  ‘I need you to listen carefully,’ Harriet said, ‘because this is critical to how we proceed. We have options, but it all comes down to what we can prove and what we can’t. You’re going to have to explain to the police what happened last night. You can say “No comment” but that’s not going to go down well with a jury when it goes to court and your interview transcript is read out. If we plead self-defence and the police believe we have the evidence to support that claim, the CPS are unlikely to take it further.’

  Evie narrowed her eyes as if she didn’t understand what Harriet was saying.

  ‘I know you believe you were defending yourself,’ Harriet continued, ‘but the CPS will assess whether the use of force was necessary at that point, and whether it was excessive. They could argue that you were no longer in danger as Mark had put the knife down. Because of that I suspect that if we plead self-defence we might lose. We won’t know for sure until all the forensic evidence is in, but I’m basing this on what you’ve told me.’

  Harriet wondered whether she was making the right decision, but if a plea of self-defence failed there was no way back.

  ‘I need you to think very carefully about this,’ she said. ‘It’s clear that Mark’s death wasn’t an accident and that means, I’m afraid, that you need to prepare yourself for the fact that the police are going to want to charge you with murder.’

  Harriet had asked for some water for Evie, who had taken the threat of the murder charge better than she had expected. Maybe she hadn’t fully absorbed the reality of the situation and needed time to take it in. But that was a luxury Harriet didn’t think they could afford.

  ‘There’s another option,’ she said, her voice fast, urgent. She needed Evie to understand how important this was. ‘We can plead loss of control. It’s not as clear-cut, but based on everything you’ve told me I think it might be our best bet. It’s a partial defence against a charge of murder, and if we can prove it, you will be guilty of voluntary manslaughter – which gives the judge far more scope in sentencing.’

  She was about to launch into a further explanation of her plan when Evie finally spoke.

  ‘I didn’t plan it, you know,’ she said. ‘That will count for something, won’t it?’

  Harriet could offer few words of comfort, but she did her best to reassure her client.

  ‘Of course, although the fact that you took the knife into the bedroom is undoubtedly going to be something we’ll need to deal with.’

  Evie frowned.

  ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘I could have lied and said Mark had brought it with him. They would have no way of proving otherwise. Isn’t my honesty a point in my favour?’

  ‘They may well have been able to prove it, so you did the right thing. They would have checked for Mark’s prints on the knife block, for example. They have all manner of forensic tools they can use, so it’s far better that you told the truth. If you were caught in a lie as big as that, there would be nothing we could do. The important thing is that you killed Mark because you had a genuine fear of serious violence. You’re going to have to hold it together when the police question you. The next few hours are going to be tough, and I know it seems harsh given everything you’ve been living with, but it’s important that you don’t suggest for one minute that you killed Mark as an act of revenge for all he had done to you. That would totally negate the loss of control defence. I’ll be there, and I’ll guide you, so you need to trust me.’

  Evie nodded, but Harriet couldn’t tell whether she had understood or not.

  ‘I’ll do everything possible to make sure you’re not held in custody,’ she said, ‘and I’ll suggest they release you on bail while they prepare their case. We might have a fight on our hands, but I’ll do my best. I also need to warn you that, if we’re successful, Social Services are unlikely to allow you to have sole care of your little girl during the period of your bail for fear that you might lose control again.’

  Evie gave a short laugh. ‘As if I’d hurt Lulu.’

  ‘I know, but I’m just telling you how it is.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Evie leaned forward across the table. ‘I don’t want bail.’

  Harriet stared at her, wondering if the shock of all that had happened had made her irrational. ‘What do you mean? If you don’t get bail, you’ll be locked up in a remand centre for weeks, months, until a trial date is set.’

  ‘I don’t want bail.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘Because of the impact on Lulu. I won’t be able to function – the stress of what I’ve done and what’s to come is bound to influence my behaviour, and you’ve already said I might not be given sole care of her. Lulu needs love and security. She’s better with Cleo.’

  For a moment Evie paused, as if uncertain, but when she spoke she once more seemed resolute.

  ‘It’s what I want.’

  ‘Do you trust Cleo?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘With my child? Absolutely.’ Evie paused. ‘With anything else, not at all.’

  25

  Stephanie watched the monitor which was linked to the interview room. Evie Clarke was sitting opposite the two detectives tasked with interrogating her and she looked pale, her eyes lowered slightly, as if to avoid meeting the gaze of anyone else in the room. Next to her was her lawyer, Harriet James, whom Stephanie had heard of but had never met. She carried herself with confidence and a sense of cool efficiency, her back straight and her head tilted slightly to one side, as if she was prepared to listen to what the detectives said but was ready to rebuff any inappropriate questions.

  The first detective, Nick Grieves, went through the formalities of introducing everyone for the purposes of the tape, and began his questioning. There was a stillness about Evie that was hard to correlate with the emotional woman of the night before, and Stephanie wondered at the thoughts and feelings that must have bombarded her overnight as she came to terms with what she had done.

  Stephanie was unable to look at Gus as they sat side by side in the viewing room watching the interview unfold, but she sensed the tension in his body. He would be totally focused on every word, every nuance, but she was finding it difficult to be in such a confined space with him, feeling the warmth of his body, his thigh so close to hers.

  She was glad not to be the one tasked with interviewing Evie, though – forcing her to reveal the gruesome details of all that had happened – but as she listened to the woman’s account of her life with Mark North she felt a deep sympathy for her. Her voice was low and even but she barely hesitated before giving her answers.

  ‘Tell me about the knife, Evie. How did it get to be in the bedroom?’ the detective asked.

  Harriet moved as if she was going to offer her advice, but Evie raised her hand slightly to signal her lawyer to say nothing. Harriet looked slightly taken aback, but remained silent.

  ‘I brought the knife into the bedroom.’

  ‘You’ve told us throughout
this interview that Mark North seemed to enjoy hurting you. What was your intention in bringing a knife into the bedroom, knowing that?’

  Evie’s eyes had glazed over, as if she was reliving every moment of that evening.

  ‘It was a stupid thing to do. I realise that now. I had bought Mark a present – a telescope – and he needed something to open it with. I went to get scissors, but the lights were out so I grabbed a knife from the block in the kitchen. I was so excited. Mark seemed different, and I thought the present had done the trick – broken the pattern, made this unlike any of the other nights before he went away. He’d never cut me before, you see, so I didn’t think about the risk until I saw the look in his eye when I gave him the knife.’ She spoke quietly, shaking her head as if in despair at her own actions.

  ‘Evie, did you – even for a second – think of the knife as a weapon?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Not at first. Not until I saw the way he was looking at me. Then I knew, of course. But it was too late.’

  Evie seemed to collapse a little in her chair, twisting her hair round her finger and tucking it behind her right ear.

  ‘I think we need a break,’ Harriet said, giving Nick the full force of her stern expression.

  Evie’s hand shot out to touch Harriet on her forearm.

  ‘No, it’s okay, Harriet. Let’s get it over with.’

  The detective paused for a moment as Evie took a sip of water. She closed her eyes briefly.

  ‘I didn’t mean a weapon for Mark,’ the detective said. ‘I meant a weapon for you.’

  Evie opened her eyes wide and stared at him, her brow furrowed. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Gus muttered under his breath, leaning towards the video screen, his forearms resting on his thighs. ‘I don’t believe her, Steph.’