Tuesday and Wednesday are uneventful, in that the evidence we hear is broadly consistent with the all too familiar statements I’ve pored over with Ellie and Will for the past six months. We hear from a host of professionals: social workers, nurses, doctors and experts. We see colour exhibits of Finn’s burns and bruises and we see him hooked up to life support equipment in the PICU at St Martin’s. I watch the faces of the jurors – seven women and five men – as the jury bundles are opened and the evidence of Finn’s suffering is sifted through. I try to imagine how they must feel, especially those who are parents. I know that behind their dispassionate faces, Carmel has made sure that emotions are running high.
At each stage, Will does the best he can to raise as many questions as he can in the minds of the jury, but, if I’m honest with myself, little ground has been gained. The toxicologist is especially intransigent, dodging Will’s question as to whether it’s at all possible that the sodium levels in Finn’s body could be accounted for by a badly made up oral rehydration solution, given to him in hospital after he’d already become ill, and steadfastly refusing to concede that anything that Finn might have swallowed accidentally could have caused a sodium level this high. Will’s cross-examination closes awkwardly, with a resounding declaration from the expert that ‘Young children do not spontaneously and voluntarily ingest sufficient quantities of salt to cause significant hypernatraemia. Significant levels such as these are more usually associated with child abuse.’
On Thursday, Ben wakes me at five o’clock and I climb out of bed with a heavy heart, my final late-night online trawl through the archives of the Esher News and Mail having failed to provide me with any reference to George Barrington-Brown, either living or dead. I’d spotted several more mentions of his parents and the Grove Park estate through the late seventies and early eighties, and there were even one or two photos of the family, including Jay, but never George. Any hopes I’d had of finding a skeleton in the Barrington-Brown closet have been dashed. Will’s ‘challenge all’ strategy is the only one we’ve got.
I give Ben his breakfast and then sit at the kitchen table, sipping my tea and checking my emails while Ben sits in his chair opposite me, his finger-food breakfast of bread, egg and chunks of melon spread out in front of him. He swipes up a piece of bread with his fist, pushes as much as he can into his mouth, and plonks the rest down again on the table, his plastic plate having been pushed to one side.
I hear a clunk as my mail drops through the door, and I go out into the hallway to fetch it. It’s now been four working days since I ordered the copy death certificate for George and it should have arrived by now. But there’s nothing on the mat except for a bank statement and a postcard that is actually an advert from an estate agency. I bend down and pick up Ben’s sippy cup from the floor for the tenth time this morning, before sitting back at the table and logging on to genesandarchives.com. I look for a phone number, but there is only a contact form, which I half-heartedly complete and submit; I’m never sure if those website forms are going to reach an actual person. But it doesn’t matter much, anyway, I tell myself. Even if the death certificate had arrived in time, it would only have confirmed the cause of death, not the circumstances behind it. If Eleanor had, indeed, paid the au pair to push little George into the lake, we’d still be unable to prove a thing.
Once we’re both dressed, I drop Ben at school and then take the Tube to court. For once, Ellie is there early and Will ushers us into an alcove, where we run through her instructions again. At five to ten the tannoy sounds and all parties in the case of Stephens are called into the courtroom. The usher unlocks the door to the dock and Ellie steps inside and sits down.
As Eleanor Barrington-Brown enters the courtroom, there’s a respectful silence. All eyes are on her as she crosses the room. She exudes wealth and style; she’s wearing a white cashmere cape over a pair of black trousers. Her hair has been highlighted and is pulled up onto the top of her head in a French twist, almost identical to the one Ellie was wearing on Monday. She’s older, of course, but they are similar in height and stature. Watching her from a distance, I can now see how easily Mary’s description of Eleanor might have been misinterpreted by the police. She steps into the witness box and turns, elegantly, lowering her head slightly as the usher appears behind her and whispers into her ear. She is then handed a copy of the Bible and is sworn in.
Carmel asks her to identify herself for the court and as she answers the first few questions I’m surprised to detect a hint of nervousness in her voice. As Carmel takes her through her evidence, however, her confidence increases and her answers become more lengthy and profound. She smiles, modestly, as she tells the court of her charitable adoption of Ellie into the family, once she had got over the initial shock of hearing that her son had impregnated a teenage girl that he had only just met. She makes no mention of Ellie’s occupation, although she openly admits to having had reservations about the couple’s intention to keep and raise the baby between them, whilst living in separate homes. This was not, however, because she had any ill feeling toward Ellie – quite the contrary, she says. She felt sorry for her and wanted to help her. But she could see that Ellie was far too immature and insecure to be a mother.
Eleanor shakes her head sadly as she tells the court that she had known from the outset that Ellie was not ready to have a baby. She had suspected that she was never going to cope, and had mentally prepared herself to be on standby, ready to pick up the slack. She had been unprepared, however, for Ellie’s insistence that she was a perfectly adequate parent and had been completely frustrated in her efforts to try and help.
‘So what was Ellis like as a mother?’ Carmel asks.
‘Unpredictable. Impatient. And – worst of all – incorrigible,’ says Eleanor. ‘She thought she knew best and wouldn’t be told.’
‘Can you give me an example?’
‘She would leave Finn lying on the bed, when he was just a few weeks old. I told her that he could roll off and hurt himself, but she wouldn’t listen. We had several arguments about that. On another occasion, on my husband’s birthday, I noticed that Finn was having trouble breathing. I told her that he needed to see a doctor, and she told me to mind my own business. She took Finn and stormed off out of the house in anger.’
‘What else did she do – or not do – that concerned you?’ Carmel asks.
‘She shouted at him. She lost her temper with him, more than once, in my presence. She didn’t seem to understand that he was just a baby, that all babies cry.’
‘Well, they usually cry for a reason, don’t they?’ Carmel says. ‘How in tune was Ellis with Finn, do you think?’
‘She wasn’t at all in tune with him,’ Eleanor says. ‘She acted as though he was just crying to annoy her. Most of the time, she seemed more interested in her mobile phone than she did in him.’
I can hear movement to my left. I turn round to see Ellie, standing up in the dock, leaning forward and passing a slip of paper down to the usher. I hold out my hand and the usher passes it to me. I open it. It says, in large capital letters, THIS IS BULLSHIT. NONE OF THIS IS TRUE!
I turn round and make an ‘it’s OK’ gesture with my hand. Ellie mouths, ‘What the fuck?’ but she sits back down again.
When I turn back again, Eleanor is being asked about the bruises on Finn’s body.
‘Of course, if I’d seen them, if I’d known, I would have reported her to the police,’ she says, ruefully. ‘I did feel that she was handling him too roughly. When I tried to suggest that she needed to be more careful with him, she became angry and defensive. That was one of the last times I saw him, before he was admitted to hospital in April; after that argument, she pretty much stopped bringing him round.’
Eleanor’s evidence in chief lasts for over an hour. Her shock and horror at Ellie’s subsequent ill-treatment of Finn knows no bounds. She looks straight at the jury, dry-eyed and stoic, as she describes the pain she’d felt on finding out that her grandson had been poisoned. But she is unable to hide her distress when she tells them how hard it had been to sit next to his bed in the intensive care ward while ‘the poor little mite’ battled, a second time, for his life. She sinks down into her seat with her hands over her face, and her shoulders begin to heave. Carmel steps back and waits in a satisfied silence while Eleanor is offered a tissue and a glass of water by the usher. Judge Collins sits there for a moment, too, looking uncomfortable and muttering, ‘Take your time, Lady Barrington-Brown.’ But when there is still no sign of her sobs subsiding, he gives her fifteen minutes to compose herself. She is released under instruction not to talk to anyone about the case and the jurors are told to take a break.
Will looks at me and winces. This is the atmosphere in which his cross-examination of her is about to begin. I glance across at the jurors as they file solemnly out of the courtroom; while their faces remain expressionless, they can’t fail to have been moved by everything they’ve just heard.
I pull my phone out of my pencil case as Eleanor Barrington-Brown is led out of the courtroom by the usher. I can see that I have missed a call from the school. When Judge Collins rises, I rise too.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ I say to Will and indicate the same to Ellie, who remains seated in the dock. I pick up my bag and leave the room, running straight into an alcove opposite and quickly dialling the school office number, without listening to the message that’s been left.
The receptionist answers.
‘Oh hello, Ms Kellerman. There’s nothing to worry about. Ben’s fine. But you didn’t fill out the consent form for the school trip this afternoon. We just want to know if he can go?’
I breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Of course. I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘I’ll send you an email right away.’
I end the call and swipe my phone screen to the right. The email inbox icon tells me that I have twenty-five new emails. I know this is not the case; my stupid phone seems to keep marking ‘read’ emails as ‘unread’. I open up the inbox and am about to click on the ‘Compose’ icon when a thought suddenly occurs to me. I go into my settings and into my junk folder, and heave a sigh of annoyance with myself as I see that, sitting there, marked as spam, is a two-day-old email from mail@genesandarchives.com. George’s death certificate.
I open up the email and click on the attachment, but, frustratingly, it won’t open. I put my phone down on the table in front of me and pull my iPad out of my bag. I open my email folder and scroll down to ‘Junk’, find the email and click on the attachment. This time it works and the death certificate appears.
My eyes scan quickly past the name, date and place of death (Grove House, Esher, Surrey) to the ‘Cause of Death’ section. But when I read what’s written there, in large spidery handwriting, I am completely knocked for six.
I stand there in the alcove for a moment, my heart racing. I then pull myself together and run across the hallway and back into Court One.
‘Careful,’ smiles the usher, as I collide with her in the doorway. ‘You’ve got another five minutes yet. No need to run.’
Ellie looks up from the dock in bewilderment as I dash past her and slide into the advocates’ bench next to Will. He looks up from his papers, his red pen poised above his draft cross-examination of Eleanor Barrington-Brown. He pushes his glasses back onto his nose and looks at me, absently. I can tell his mind is still on the task ahead.
I take a deep breath and put my hand against my chest.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asks, when he notices my face.
Carmel glances over at us. The usher has returned to the courtroom with a fresh jug of water and is also looking in my direction. I can hear rattling and chattering from up above as the public gallery fills up again. There are three reporters sitting directly to my left.
I push my iPad across the desk towards Will and put my mouth to his ear. ‘It’s George Kent’s death certificate,’ I whisper. ‘Look at the cause of death.’
I watch Will’s face as he first checks out George’s name, and date and place of death. Then I see his eyes slide across the page and his mouth fall open. Carmel is still watching us from across the bench. She puts her head to one side and sucks on her bottom lip.
Will turns to face me. His eyes widen behind his glasses and seek out mine. We sit there, speechless, just looking at each other for a moment. I pull my lips together to stop a smile spreading across my mouth.
‘Right. OK,’ Will mutters, finally. He looks from Carmel to the usher and back again and then stands up. ‘I need to—’ he begins, but before he can say any more we hear a familiar tap on the door and the usher says, ‘All rise.’
Judge Collins strides over to his seat and nods to the usher. ‘Can the jury be brought in?’
‘No!’ says Will, abruptly.
The judge narrows his eyes and asks, ‘Mr Gaskin? Do you have something to say?’
‘I do apologise, My Lord,’ says Will, ‘but a matter of some importance has arisen. May I address you before the jury returns?’
Judge Collins peers at him for a moment. Carmel seizes the moment and rises to her feet.
‘My Lord,’ she says. ‘I haven’t been made aware of any issue by the defence.’
The judge looks from Will to Carmel and then back to Will again. ‘Mr Gaskin?’
Will clears his throat. ‘My Lord, that’s because I have only, in the past few moments, been made aware of it myself. A document has come to my attention, one which sheds a rather different light on the defence case and the way we may wish to present it. With your permission, and of course, after having made my learned friend aware, there are some matters of a rather unexpected nature that I may wish to put to the witness, Lady Barrington-Brown.’
Carmel frowns and shakes her head.
Judge Collins says, ‘Well, what is it, then? What is this change of direction?’
‘I wish to make a non-defendant bad character application. The defendant believes that Lady Barrington-Brown is lying and is, in fact, the perpetrator of these crimes against her grandson.’
There is an audible gasp from the public gallery. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the reporters, their eyes wide with suppressed shock and delight.
Carmel leaps to her feet. ‘I oppose the application!’ she shrieks. ‘This is preposterous! Lady Barrington-Brown is a witness, not a suspect in this case.’
‘So what is this document?’ asks the judge.
Carmel makes an exasperated face as I slide my iPad towards Will. He picks it up and moves over to where Carmel is sitting. He passes her the iPad.
‘It’s a copy death certificate, My Lord. It’s the death certificate of Lady Barrington-Brown’s first-born child.’
Carmel puts on her glasses and peers disdainfully at the death certificate. ‘How do we know that it’s genuine?’ she splutters, angrily. ‘It’s an electronic copy. It could have come from anywhere. And the surname’s “Kent”. How do we even know that this is her child?’
‘“Kent” is the maiden name of Lady Barrington-Brown,’ says Will. ‘She should be able to tell us if it’s her child.’ He adds, ‘She’s known professionally as Dr Kent.’
A shadow of recognition crosses Carmel’s face as she turns to look at Will, her mouth slightly open. I know that she has made the connection; she’s a clever woman, there’s no doubt about that. She looks back down at the iPad and studies it carefully before handing it back to Will.
‘My Lord, if this is Lady Barrington-Brown’s child, he would have been just five years old when she lost him,’ she says, anxiously. ‘She will be distraught. You can’t possibly allow the defence to pursue such an insensitive line of questioning.’
Will passes the iPad to the usher who hands it up to the judge. He considers it, gravely, for a moment, his eyes flickering across the screen and alighting on the cause of death. He narrows his eyes and draws his head back as he reads. He then looks up at Will and hands the iPad back to the usher without comment, other than to say, ‘Any further observations, Ms Oliver?’
‘The defence are required to put the Crown on notice before making a bad character application,’ Carmel says, but her voice lacks conviction.
Will rises to his feet. ‘As I said, My Lord, this document was only brought to my attention a matter of minutes ago, just before you came into the courtroom.’
Judge Collins makes a note on his pad and squints pensively at it for a moment before saying, ‘I will allow the application. Do you have any proof of origin in relation to the certificate, Mr Gaskin?’
Will glances at me. I nod and pick up my phone. I open the email from genesandarchives.com and flash it at Will. Will takes it and reads it out. ‘My Lord, it’s from a genealogy website, called genesandarchives.com. It says, “Dear Ms Kellerman. I have pleasure in enclosing the attached certificate of death as requested. Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to get in touch.”’
‘Let me see that,’ says the judge. The usher takes my phone and hands it up to him.
‘But, My Lord,’ Carmel protests. ‘It’s electronic! It’s not signed!’
Judge Collins looks at her over his glasses. ‘Everything’s electronic these days, Ms Oliver. It’s the way of the future, and the right one, in my opinion. The days of costly delays to the court process while we wait for trees to be cut down and bundles of paper to arrive in the post are, hopefully, soon to be a thing of the past.’ He peers at the email for a moment and then looks up at Will. ‘Do you want to make a hearsay application, Mr Gaskin?’
‘Yes please, My Lord,’ says Will.
‘Then I’ll grant that too,’ says the judge. ‘I will allow cross-examination on the content of the document. Clearly, the jury will be warned that the truth of its content cannot be verified – unless, of course, it comes from the mouth of the witness.’
I’m barely able to suppress a smile as I leap up and move quickly over to the dock. Ellie leans forward. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ she asks.
‘You’ll see in a minute. Trust me?’ I beg.
Ellie nods. ‘OK.’
‘Do you have your client’s full instructions?’ the judge asks.
I look at Will and nod my head.
‘Yes, My Lord,’ Will agrees.
‘Then I suggest that we proceed with the cross-examination of the witness,’ Judge Collins says. ‘May the jury be brought in?’
*
Eleanor Barrington-Brown is angry. Her face is pinched and her lips tight as she enters the courtroom. I can see, instantly, that she is on the defensive when she steps back into the witness box, unhappy, no doubt, at having been kept waiting so long while events unfolded in the courtroom without her, lessening the emotional impact of her evidence. She takes a sip of water and sucks in her cheeks before scanning the courtroom with her eyes, which alight briefly on me. I meet her gaze and attempt to keep mine neutral as I feel her assessing my hair, my clothes, my lack of make-up, no doubt wondering what her son could have seen in someone like me. I am unfazed by her scrutiny, however; I have far more important things on my mind. I am now seated back in the bench behind Will and am so nervous for him that I feel sick. I know that his carefully prepared cross-examination – his handwritten notes, all the red scribble on the edges of Eleanor’s prosecution statement – is now redundant. He is about to wing this, and my heart is in my mouth.
Will rises to his feet and says, ‘Lady Barrington-Brown.’
She eyes him suspiciously, her jaw tight. ‘Yes.’
‘James is your only son, is that right?’
She nods. ‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘But you had another son, did you not?’
Eleanor’s eyes widen and her mouth gapes. She turns to Carmel, and says, indignantly, ‘Are you going to let him ask me that?’
Carmel nods, silently.
Eleanor turns to look at Judge Collins, incredulity etched into her forehead.
‘Lady Barrington-Brown,’ says Judge Collins. ‘Any question that is improper, prosecuting counsel will intervene, or I will, and I do not, and therefore I should like you please to answer the question.’
Eleanor turns back to face Will. ‘Yes,’ she scowls. ‘I had another son.’
Will asks, ‘And what happened to your other son?’
Eleanor narrows her eyes and looks from Carmel to the judge and back again, her mouth open. When neither responds, she purses her lips and glares at Will. ‘He died,’ she says, in a clipped voice. ‘He died when he was just five years old. Is that what you wanted to know?’
‘Well, it’s part of what I want to know,’ Will agrees, amiably. ‘But it’s not all of it.’
Eleanor’s mouth snaps shut and sets in a hard line.
‘So, how did he die?’ asks Will.
Eleanor glares at the judge again. ‘Are you seriously going to just sit there and let him talk to me like this?’ she says, her voice rising in pitch, her eyes flashing.
‘Answer the question,’ orders Judge Collins, tightly, his eyes flashing back. I note that he doesn’t say ‘please’ this time.
‘He drowned!’ Eleanor spits. ‘He drowned, OK?’
I glance over at the jury. They look as baffled as Eleanor is by this line of questioning, but they, like everyone else in the courtroom, are listening intently.
‘How did he drown?’ Will asks.
Eleanor’s eyes burn into Will’s. ‘He was... disabled,’ she tells him. ‘Severely so. He couldn’t walk or talk. He had epilepsy. There was an accident. James was pushing him in his wheelchair and he fell into the water.’
‘Which water?’
‘The lake. There’s a lake on the estate where we live.’
‘And how did it happen?’
‘James took him out of his wheelchair...’
‘But James was only five. They were twins, weren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘So how did he manage to take him out of his chair?’
‘The au pair helped him.’
‘The au pair. OK. And what happened next?’
‘George fell into the water. We believe he may have had a seizure.’
‘But you’re not sure?’
‘No. I wasn’t there.’
‘And what was the coroner’s ruling? Epilepsy or drowning?’
Eleanor hesitates. ‘Drowning,’ she says, decisively.
‘Death by drowning?’
‘Yes,’ she agrees.
‘No other cause?’
Eleanor hesitates a moment, her eyes fixed firmly on Will’s. ‘No,’ she says, finally.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
Will nods slowly and pauses. The courtroom sits in silence while he picks up a water jug from the desk and fills his paper cup, then takes a sip. Eleanor watches him, scowling. Carmel is leaning back in her seat with her head up, her eyes heavenward, while Judge Collins cocks his head to one side and screws up his face, a look of pure concentration cast across his features.
Will picks up my iPad and walks out from behind the advocates’ bench towards Eleanor. ‘Why was George given the surname “Kent” on his death certificate?’ he asks her, as he gets closer. ‘Is it because you wanted to hide him away? Forget about him? Pretend he never existed?’
Carmel leaps up. ‘Objection!’
‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Eleanor hisses, indignantly. Her eyes, however, look frightened, as she tries to peer at the screen of the iPad that’s sitting in Will’s hands.
Judge Collins holds up his hands. ‘Mr Gaskin, could you please rephrase the question.’
‘Yes, My Lord,’ says Will. He turns to Eleanor. ‘Why was George’s surname “Kent” on the death certificate?’
‘Because we... because we wanted James to forget about him. We didn’t want him to find out that he had had a... a brother.’
‘You lied to James about George?’
‘After some time had passed, we told him that... we told him that he was an only child.’
‘So, you lied to him.’
‘He was responsible for his brother’s death! We were trying to protect him!’
‘But he was five,’ Will observes. ‘How could he have been responsible for anything, at the age of five?’
Eleanor frowns back at him, as if she doesn’t understand the question.
‘You are a doctor, are you not?’ asks Will.
‘Yes.’
‘So did you sign George’s death certificate yourself?’
Eleanor’s nostrils flare. ‘Of course I didn’t!’ she snorts.
‘Then who did?’
‘It was a Dr Michael Phillips. A family friend.’
‘But I asked you what the coroner had said and you told me. Are you saying, now, that the matter wasn’t in fact referred to the coroner?’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘Isn’t that what you’re meant to do when you encounter an accidental death?’
‘It wasn’t an accident,’ Eleanor says, quickly.
‘I thought you just said it was.’
‘He had a seizure,’ she says. ‘It was a pre-existing condition.’
‘But you just said that—’
‘I know what I said!’
‘You said that George drowned. I asked you if the cause of death was “death by drowning”. I asked you if you were sure, and you said “yes”.’
I quickly scan back over my notes. Will is correct. This is exactly what was said.
Eleanor explodes. ‘This is outrageous!’ she splutters. ‘How dare you question me in this manner?’
‘Well, that’s my job,’ says Will.
‘Then do it properly!’ she roars.
‘All right,’ says Will. He pushes his glasses back on his nose with one finger, lifts up the iPad and peers at it. Eleanor’s eyes move from him to the iPad and flicker with fear.
‘“Cause of death: Hypernatraemia,”’ reads Will. ‘“Accidental ingestion of salt by child with mental retardation.” You’re a doctor. Can you explain to the court, please: what does that mean?’
Eleanor licks her lips. ‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘It’s the cause of death cited on a copy of George’s death certificate that has come into my possession. It’s only a copy, of course, and I can’t say with certainty that it’s a true copy of the original. But it is signed by a Dr Michael Phillips. And your friend Dr Michael Phillips says that George died of hypernatraemia. A lethal overdose of salt. Accidental, of course. Your good friend Dr Michael Phillips does not, for one minute, suggest otherwise.’
Eleanor’s face freezes. Her eyes scan the courtroom and seek out the three reporters sitting at the front of the bench to my left. She has that same look on her face that I’d seen on Jay’s face so many times: she’s searching, desperately, for her next lie.
‘What this death certificate seems to suggest,’ Will elaborates, ‘is that your son, owing to his intellectual difficulties, accidentally picked up and ate something containing a highly concentrated form of salt.’
He pauses again for a moment and cocks his head to one side.
When Eleanor doesn’t respond, he walks back to the bench in front of me, puts down the iPad and scratches his head. ‘I’m puzzled,’ he says. ‘I’m wondering why you’ve told the court that George drowned? Well... that he had a fit, and then drowned,’ he corrects himself.
Eleanor continues to stare blankly at him for a moment and then, suddenly, her mouth drops open. ‘I... I had forgotten all about that!’ She gazes at Will in bewilderment, as though he has done something amazing. She claps her hand to her forehead. ‘I must have... I must have buried the memory, or confused it with a different one. I... that’s correct. Yes.’ The tone of her voice has changed completely. ‘It’s all coming back to me, now,’ she says. ‘He did eat some... some...’
‘Some what?’
‘Baking soda,’ Eleanor says. ‘I think it was baking soda.’
I immediately lean forward and thump Will on the back as hard as I can.
He turns round to look at me. I hold up my hand. I scribble ‘How?’ on a piece of paper and hand it to him.
Will looks at it and reads out, ‘How? How did he eat the baking soda?’
Eleanor looks confused for a moment. ‘He got hold of the tub,’ she says.
I tap Will on the back again. ‘Where was the tub?’ I scribble. I hand the piece of paper to him. He reads out my question.
‘In the kitchen,’ she says.
‘Where in the kitchen?’
‘On the worktop.’
I already have the next question ready. I tap Will on the back and hand it to him.
‘How did he get the lid off?’
Eleanor frowns. ‘What do you mean, how did he get the lid off? He unscrewed it. Pulled it off. Whatever you do with a tub of baking soda.’ Her tone is less friendly, now.
I tap Will again. ‘How?’ I mouth at him.
Will says, ‘How?’
Eleanor’s face suddenly turns red. ‘Are you going to let her keep doing that?’ she screeches at Will.
‘Doing what?’
‘Feeding you questions!’
‘Yes,’ says Will.
Eleanor looks at the judge, her mouth open, the rest of her face screwed up into a dubious sneer.
‘Lady Barrington-Brown, Ms Kellerman is Mr Gaskin’s instructing solicitor. She’s there to assist him. Now, answer the question,’ says the judge.
‘With his hands. How else?’
‘How exactly?’ asks Will, who has now worked out where we are going with this.
‘What?’
‘How did he get the baking powder out of the tub?’
Eleanor shakes her head in a sudden rapid, gesture, one that would make your ears ring. ‘With a spoon,’ she sneers. ‘What do you think?’
I’m used to writing quickly. You have to keep up, both in court and in police interviews, but when I hand Will the next sheet of paper, I’ve written so fast that I am worried that he might not be able to read it.
Will peers at the paper. He turns round and points to a word.
‘What does that say?’ he mouths to me.
I mouth back, ‘“Neurological”.’
Will continues to look at the piece of paper and then stands up straight. ‘Your son had a severe neurological disorder,’ he says. ‘Isn’t that right? He couldn’t walk or talk. And yet he was able to get up out of his wheelchair, take the tub of baking powder from the worktop, prise off the lid with his fingers, pick up a spoon and spoon a sufficient quantity into his mouth to kill him.’
He turns back round to me, his hand out ready. I duly hand him the last piece of paper.
‘His fine motor skills must have been pretty good,’ says Will.
Eleanor stares at him for a moment before she erupts. ‘How dare you? How do you know what he was or wasn’t capable of?’
‘Not to mention the fact,’ adds Will, ‘that this court has heard from a toxicologist, an expert, during the course of these proceedings, and he told us that...’
Will stops and flicks through his papers. I beat him to it. I rip the appropriate page out of my notebook and tap Will on the back. ‘Ah, here we are.’ Will takes the piece of notepaper from me. ‘“Young children do not spontaneously and voluntarily ingest sufficient quantities of salt to cause significant hypernatraemia”,’ he reads. ‘“Significant levels such as these are more usually associated with child abuse.”’
Will steps back, picks up a pen and gives a single tap on the table top.
Eleanor glares at him, open-mouthed.
Will asks, ‘Lady Barrington-Brown, did you kill George? Your eldest son?’
Eleanor continues to glare at Will for a moment and then turns her head towards me. Her eyes flash with hatred and her lip curls. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ she snarls at me. ‘You think you’re something special? You think just because you were clever enough to go to law school, that you would ever be good enough for someone like my son? You – with James? Don’t make me laugh! Do you realise who we are? We’re royalty. Royalty! James can trace his ancestry back to King Charles the second. And you, what are you? You’re nothing. You’re common. You sit there, scribbling on your cheap paper, in your cheap suit with your cheap haircut—’
‘Did you kill George?’ Will persists.
‘You were nothing to him. Nothing!’ Eleanor continues to snarl at me, ignoring Will’s question. ‘You are nothing! James used you, that’s all! Just like he used that piece of cheap trash behind you.’ Her finger points at Ellie. ‘Whore!’ she hisses at her.
‘Lady Barrington-Brown—’ Judge Collins begins.
‘Slut! Harlot! Gold-digger! Do you think you can become a member of the aristocracy by batting your fake eyelashes at my son? Do you think that’s all it takes?’
‘Lady Barrington-Brown... I’m going to ask you one more time,’ says Will. ‘Did you kill your son, George?’
‘Lady Barrington-Brown, will you please answer the question,’ says the judge.
‘I did what I had to do!’ she rasps, turning to Will, small globules of saliva escaping from the corners of her mouth. ‘He wasn’t fit to inherit. Our bloodline is strong – it goes back centuries. One has to preserve one’s heritage! But I don’t expect someone like you to understand that.’
Will says, ‘Did you, on the nineteenth of July last year, at Cedar Court in Camberwell, inject your grandson with a near fatal dose of saline?’
Eleanor leans forward in the witness box, her hands gripping the rail in front of her, a loose strand of hair falling across her cheek. Her jaw is clenched so tightly that the tendons on her neck are visible. ‘My grandson?’ she spits. ‘That child is not my grandson. He’s just the bastard of a filthy whore!’
Will continues, ‘Did you on the twenty-fifth of July last year use your son’s Nine Elms and St Martin’s Foundation Trust lanyard and door swipe key to enter Peregrine Ward at Southwark St Martin’s Hospital, and did you detach Finn Stephens’ dialysis line with the intention that he bleed to death?’
Eleanor turns to Ellie again. ‘Did you seriously think I was going to let someone like you infiltrate a family like mine? Did you really think I was going to stand by and watch while that half-breed of yours came along and took everything? You, a piece of trash from a council estate, mixing up your family’s blood with mine... it’s like cows mating with horses. It’s disgusting!’ she spits.
Will comments, ‘You sound more like a member of the Third Reich than a member of the aristocracy. I thought we’d evolved beyond that.’
‘Then, how little you understand, Mr Gaskin,’ she shoots back at him. ‘How little you understand about the historical significance of the class system, about the importance of rank and title. How little you understand about the sickness and disease that’s spreading across this land, about the plague of low-lifes that are infesting this country.’ She points at Ellie again. ‘It’s whores like her – uneducated, filthy, low-life scum, like her, that are bringing this country to its knees. And you, you stand there, defending it – defending the scum that’s eating away at the very foundation of civilisation, eating at the core of the civilised way of life!’ Eleanor’s rant is so venomous and so unexpected that I’m too overwhelmed by it to see or hear anything much else besides the torrent of abuse that has descended on us. I vaguely hear Judge Collins saying, ‘Silence in court,’ and then, ‘That’s enough! Get her out of here.’ In my peripheral vision, I’m aware of the usher picking up the phone.
Eleanor turns to the jury and then sweeps her gaze around the courtroom. ‘Look at you, you... bunch of commoners, you dare to sit there judging me? Who are you to judge me? You’re not fit to lick my boots!’ Her voice rises to a scream.
The courtroom doors burst open and two security guards run in. They stride over to the witness box and grab hold of Eleanor’s arms. She flaps them violently and slaps the face of one of the guards. ‘Get your filthy hands off me, you low-life scum. Do you realise who I am?’
With that, she is dragged out of the door, screaming a torrent of abuse at the security men.
A stunned silence descends over the courtroom. We can still hear Eleanor outside in the grand hallway, her rants and screams echoing round the marble walls and up into the domes above. We continue to sit in silence as her voice becomes more and more muffled, as more security staff arrive and she is dragged away. After a moment, Judge Collins regains his composure and announces that if anyone wishes to leave the courtroom, now is the moment to do so. Nobody moves a muscle.
A second later, the door to the courtroom opens and a member of court staff announces to the judge that the police are on their way. Carmel confers with Will for a moment and then speaks to the judge and I hear the staff member being given instructions that a local police escort and Social Services will need to be contacted as a matter of urgency to go to the Barrington-Browns’ house in Richmond and ensure that Finn is safe.
Judge Collins clears his throat and takes off his spectacles. He turns to Carmel and says, ‘Your position, Ms Oliver?’
Carmel stands. ‘I offer no evidence, My Lord.’
‘Good. Well, in that case, members of the jury, it falls to me to make a formal direction to you.’ He explains to the members of the jury that, since the Crown no longer wish to proceed with the case against Ellie, they must find her not guilty. The foreman is asked to stand and the court clerk reads out the charges.
To each one, the foreman says, ‘We find the defendant not guilty.’
Judge Collins thanks the jury and dismisses them. He then thanks Will and Carmel for their assistance and gives me a nod. The usher unlocks the door and lets Ellie out of the dock. Within moments, the courtroom is surreally empty, all except for Will, Ellie and me.
I don’t know if Ellie feels anything like the way that I do, but my heart is still thumping gently against my chest and my legs feel as though they are lead weights, glued to my seat.
‘Are you OK?’ Will asks both of us.
I look at Ellie, and shake my head in disbelief.
Ellie shakes hers back at me. ‘Crazy bitch,’ she says.
I suddenly remember something. I glance up at the clock on the wall. It’s five to one. Am I too late?
I stand up on my jelly legs and grab my phone. ‘Excuse me a minute,’ I tell Will and Ellie and run out of the courtroom. I can see a big commotion halfway down the staircase as Eleanor, surrounded by court staff, security staff and police, is put into handcuffs. I dial the number for the school and move through the double doors into the corridor, where it’s quieter.
The receptionist answers. ‘Oh, hello, Ms Kellerman. I’m glad you called. We never got your email. I’ve been trying to call you.’
‘Am I too late?’ I say, quickly. ‘Is it too late for Ben to go to Farmer Fred’s?’
‘No, you should just make it. They’re just getting on the bus. But you’ll have to send it in the next two minutes.’
‘I’m sending it now!’ I end the call, go into my emails, tap out a quick note of consent and press the send button.
When I step back through the doors, Ellie is out in the hallway, on the phone. As she spots me, she says, ‘I’ve got to go’ and ends the call.
She says, ‘I need to know Finn’s OK. Who can we ask?’
I touch her arm. ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine. The police will be there by now.’
Will walks out of the courtroom.
‘Can we find Carmel?’ I ask him. ‘Find out if Finn’s safe?’
‘Of course. I’ll go and speak to her now.’
I phone Anna and give her the news and then walk down the corridor and sit with Ellie on the concourse outside the advocates’ room. Before long, Will comes back out and reassures Ellie that Finn’s just fine, but that he’s being taken to Kingston Hospital to be checked over.
As I watch the relief flood Ellie’s face, a film of tears appearing over her eyes, I know for sure that my instincts about her had been right all along: she loves her little boy. Her brusqueness, her defensiveness, were simply threads in the cloak she’d wrapped around herself as protection from the system, the system that was meant to take care of her, that was meant to give her the same opportunities, the same chance to have as fulfilling a life as the next person, whatever her background, wherever she was from.
She pulls her sleeves down over her hands and wipes at her eyes. ‘Can I see him?’ she asks.
‘Anna will make some calls,’ I tell her. ‘She says you can go down to her office now, if you like, and she’ll see what she can do.’
She leaps up out of her seat. ‘And will I get him back?’
I stand up. ‘I would think so. Possibly not immediately, but Anna said she’d get straight on to Social Services and get things rolling.’
‘So that’s it?’ she says. ‘It’s really over?’
‘It’s over.’ I smile.
‘I don’t know what to say.’ She turns and looks from Will to me and back again. ‘“Thank you” doesn’t really cut it, does it? You probably saved my little boy’s life – and you got mine back for me, too.’
She hugs both Will and me and then heads off down the stairs.
We watch her go.
‘So, do you fancy some lunch and a lime and soda at the pub?’ Will asks me. ‘I’ve got a strangely empty diary this afternoon.’
‘Me too. Sounds great,’ I agree.
We go back to the advocates’ room where Will de-robes and we fetch our bags and coats, before walking out onto the chilly street and heading down Ludgate Hill to the Cheshire Cheese. Our table by the fire is empty and after glancing through the menu, I take a seat, slip off my shoes and warm my frozen toes while Will orders the food and gets the drinks. When I lean back against the old oak-panelled wall behind me and close my eyes, I can still see the orange flames dancing against the backs of my eyelids. As the warmth of the fire spreads up my body and onto my face, I think back to the heat of that August day – the day I got the call from Anna, the call that had first brought Ellie into my life, followed closely by Alex. Little had I known at the time that it was a call that would rock my world.
‘I’d offer you a penny for those thoughts of yours,’ says Will, sitting down beside me. ‘But I suspect they’re worth way more than that.’
I smile and open my eyes. ‘I was just thinking what a crazy few months this has been. And what a day, today. No wonder Jay was so messed up, with a mother like that.’
‘Hmm.’ Will sits down and takes a sip of his drink. ‘What I don’t get is why she waited until George was five before she killed him. Why not do it sooner, as soon as she realised he was disabled?’
I sit up. ‘Maybe it took a few years for her to realise quite how disabled he was; that he’d never be in a position to inherit the title, or – more importantly – to pass it on. It wasn’t immediately obvious to us – Ben’s dad and me.’
‘Wasn’t it?’
I shake my head. ‘Ben was nine months old before we really knew there was anything wrong with him, and even then... well, the doctors couldn’t tell us what his prognosis was, what the future would bring. We kind of jumped on that, gave it a positive spin. They’d said he was “delayed” but a delay implies that you’ll get there in the end, doesn’t it? You could say we were in denial, but having that hope was what made each day bearable. It’s what got us through the first few months, the first few years, even. When we were on our own, in our own little bubble, we could tell ourselves the story that Ben would catch up, that everything would be OK.’
‘But...’
‘But, out there in the real world, we were confronted with other children of the same age; friends’ children, children from our antenatal group, the kid who lived across the road who was born in the same month, who’d go toddling past our window, then running, then riding a scooter, while Ben still couldn’t stand or crawl. There was always another child around, one who was doing all the normal things that Ben wasn’t, who was developing at a rapid rate and clearly leaving him way behind. Every time that kid went running past our window, our hopes were dashed a little more. Slowly, over time, the bubble burst and we were forced to confront the truth.’
‘That must have been extremely painful.’
I nod. ‘It was excruciating.’
‘But you seem to have come to terms with it, now? The way you talk...’
‘Yes. Over time, it became unavoidable. Ben’s father bailed out, but for me there was never any other choice but to deal with it.’
Will’s eyes seek out mine. ‘I wish I’d been there for you,’ he says.
I smile. ‘You didn’t know me then. Well, actually, you did. But not like...’
‘Like this?’
‘Yeah. Like this.’
‘Well, I wish I had.’
I look back into his eyes. ‘Me too,’ I say.
‘So, can I meet him?’
‘Ben?’
‘Yeah. Of course Ben.’
‘You really want to?’
His eyes sparkle. ‘Yeah, I really want to.’
I pull my phone across the table towards me. ‘Well, I have to pick him up at five thirty today. You could come to Farmer Fred’s with me if you like?’
‘Farmer Fred’s?’
‘He’s gone on a school trip this afternoon.’
Will nods slowly. ‘Great. I’d love to come.’
‘OK.’ I take a sip of my drink and peer at him over the top.
‘OK.’ He nods back, and grins.
My phone rings.
‘It’s Anna.’ I jump up and head out of the bar, pulling open the door and stepping out onto the pavement. I walk up the alley a little towards Gunpowder Square and stand on the other side of the empty mews underneath the overhang of the building opposite, facing back towards the black wood façade and antique lead windows of the pub in front of me.
‘I thought you’d want to know, I’ve spoken to my contact at the local authority,’ says Anna.
‘And?’
‘Finn’s absolutely fine. Ellie’s gone to the hospital. They’ve allowed her to see him, although any contact will be supervised for the time being and Finn will have to be placed into foster care until we can get the matter into court and make our application to have the interim care order revoked. Ultimately, though, I can’t see the local authority opposing it.’
‘That’s great.’
‘So, your instincts about Ellie were right,’ she says.
‘Hmm. But I was wrong about so much. I was wrong about Alex.’
‘Well, you’re not the only one. He seemed so nice.’
‘I think he’s probably a good person, deep down,’ I say. ‘He’s as much a victim of his mother as Ellie was. But he did some good things as well as some bad things. He taught Ben to walk and to use a computer. That’s opened up so much for Ben.’
‘Well, exactly,’ Anna agrees. ‘There’s always another side to the story.’
The door to the pub opens and Will pops his head out. ‘Food’s here,’ he says with a smile.
I give him a thumbs up, say goodbye to Anna and walk back down the alleyway. As I go, my eye is drawn towards the chalkboard that’s propped up on the pavement in front of me. Hot Food Served All Day. Lasagne. Fish and Chips, it says. Something makes me walk round to see what’s written on the reverse. I smile to myself as I read, scrawled across the blackboard in big pink letters, See the other side.
I open the door to the pub, where Will is waiting for me beside the fire.
We hope you enjoyed this book.
Ruth Mancini’s next book is coming in summer 2019
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