A Room Swept White (29 page)

Sam exhaled slowly. ‘Shows how naïve I am. So much for innocent until proven guilty. Grace told me the social workers all
knew
Helen had killed her babies, and they had friends at the hospital who
knew
it with as much certainty, who had been there when Helen had taken both boys into hospital, when they’d stopped breathing on several occasions. A social worker even said to Grace that she’d spoken to lots of doctors, one being Judith Duffy, all of whom had told her that Helen Yardley was, and I quote, “the classic Munchausen’s by proxy mother”.’

‘Maybe she was,’ said Charlie. ‘Maybe she did murder them.’

‘That’s not fair, Charlie.’ Sam started to walk away from her. She was about to follow him when he turned round and came back. ‘Her convictions were overturned. There wasn’t even enough evidence for a retrial. It should never have gone to court the first time. Is there anything more insane than making a woman stand trial when there’s no solid evidence a crime’s been committed? Never mind whether Helen Yardley committed it – I’m talking about a high chance that there was no “it” in the first place. I’ve seen the file that went to the CPS. Do you know how many doctors disagreed with Judith Duffy and said it was entirely possible Morgan and Rowan Yardley died of natural causes?’

‘Sam, calm down.’

‘Seven! Seven doctors. Finally, after nine years, Helen clears her name, then some bastard murders her, and there I am, supposedly investigating her murder, trying to get some kind of justice for her, for the sake of her family and her memory, and what am I doing? I’m listening to Grace Brownlee tell me about some contact centre care supervisor who claimed to see Helen try to smother Paige right in front of her.’

‘Leah Gould,’ said Charlie.

Sam stared at her blankly. ‘How . . .?’

‘I’m reading
Nothing But Love
. Simon wanted me to, but he was too proud to ask. Luckily I can read his mind.’

‘I’m supposed to read it too.’ Sam looked guilty. ‘Proust wasn’t too proud to ask.’

‘Not your cup of tea?’

‘I try to avoid books that are going to make me want to top myself.’

‘I think you’d be surprised,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s full of brave, inspiring heroes: the Snowman, if you can believe it; Laurie
Nattrass; Paul, the loyal rock of a husband. And that lawyer, her solicitor – I can’t remember his name . . .’

‘Ned Vento?’

‘That’s the one. Interestingly, he had a female colleague, Gillian somebody, who seems to have worked just as hard on Helen’s behalf, but so far she hasn’t once been described in heroic terms. I get the impression Helen Yardley was a man’s woman.’

‘Doesn’t make her a murderer,’ said Sam.

‘I didn’t say it did. I’m only saying, she seemed to lap up any attention that came her way from valiant male rescuers.’
A classic Munchausen’s-by-proxy mother
. Wasn’t Munchausen’s all about getting attention?

Something else bothered Charlie about
Nothing But Love:
several times in the first third of the book, Helen Yardley had asserted that she hadn’t murdered her two babies; rather, they had died of cot death. Unless Charlie had misunderstood, and she didn’t think she had, cot death, or SIDS, meant an infant death for which no explanation could be found, so it was odd for Helen Yardley to say that was what her boys had died of, as if it were a firm medical diagnosis. It was as nonsensical as saying, ‘My babies died of I don’t know what they died of.’ Wouldn’t a mother who had lost two children to SIDS be more likely to search for a proper explanation, instead of presenting the absence of one as the solution rather than the mystery? Or was Charlie reading sinister undertones into
Nothing But Love
that weren’t there?

‘What shouldn’t you have mentioned to Simon?’ she asked Sam.

‘Any of this. I was angry about Social Services stitching up the Yardleys and I was letting off steam, but it’s got nothing
to do with Helen’s murder and I should have kept my mouth shut, especially about Leah Gould. Simon waved an
Observer
article in my face in which Gould was quoted as saying she’d made a mistake – hadn’t witnessed an attempted smothering, had overreacted, was deeply sorry if she’d contributed to a miscarriage of justice . . .’

‘Let me guess,’ said Charlie. ‘When you told Simon that Grace Brownlee was invoking Leah Gould’s eye-witness account as proof of Helen Yardley’s guilt, he decided that talking to her couldn’t wait any longer.’

‘If Proust finds out I covered for him, my life won’t be worth living,’ said Sam glumly. ‘What am I supposed to do? I told Simon no, unequivocally no, and he ignored me. “I want Leah Gould to look me in the eye and tell me what she saw,” he said. I should go to Proust . . .’

‘But you haven’t.’ Charlie smiled.

‘I ought to. We’re supposed to be investigating Helen Yardley’s murder, not something that might or might not have happened in a Social Services’ contact centre thirteen years ago. Simon’s more interested in finding out if Helen Yardley was guilty of murder than he is in finding out who shot her. If Proust gets even a whiff of that, and he will, because he always does . . .’

‘Sam, I’m not just sticking up for Simon because he’s Simon, but . . . since when do you disregard the life story of a murder victim? Helen Yardley had a pretty dramatic past, in which Leah Gould played a crucial role, by the sound of it. Someone
should
talk to her. So what if it was thirteen years ago? The more you can find out about Helen Yardley the better, surely? About what she did or didn’t do.’

‘Proust’s made it clear what our collective attitude has to be: that she’s as innocent and undeserving of what happened to her as any murder victim,’ said Sam, red in the face. ‘For once, I agree with him, but it’s not up to me, is it? It’s
never
up to me. Simon flies around like a whirlwind doing whatever the hell he wants and I can’t even pretend I’ve got a hope of controlling him. All I can do is sit back and watch events slip further and further from my grasp.’

‘There’s something Simon cares about more than he cares whether or not Helen Yardley was a murderer, and more than he cares who shot her dead,’ said Charlie, not sure she ought to be sharing this with Sam. ‘Proust.’

‘
Proust
?‘

‘He was at the contact centre that day too. Simon’s only interested in what Leah Gould saw because he wants to know what the Snowman saw – if he witnessed an attempted child murder and lied about it in his eagerness to protect a woman he’d already decided was innocent. Proust’s the one he’s going after.’ Charlie admitted to herself that she was scared of how far Simon might go. He was too obsessed to be rational. He’d been up most of last night, apoplectic with rage because Proust had tried again to invite them for dinner. He seemed convinced the Snowman was trying to torture him by forcing an invasive friendship on him, one he knew would be anathema to Simon. It had sounded far-fetched to Charlie, but her doubts, when she’d voiced them, had only inspired Simon to flesh out his paranoid fantasy even more: Proust had worked out a new genius way to humiliate him, rob him of his power. How can you fight back when all someone’s doing is saying, ‘Let’s have dinner’?

Easily, Charlie had told him, desperate for sleep – you say, ‘Sorry, I’d rather not have dinner with you. I don’t like you, I never will, and I don’t want to be your friend.’

Sam Kombothekra rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘This gets worse,’ he said. ‘If Simon’s going after the Snowman, I’m going after a new job.’

‘Where’s Waterhouse?’ was Proust’s first question. He was arranging envelopes in a tower on his desk.

‘He’s gone to Wolverhampton to interview Sarah Jaggard again,’ said Sam. One he’d prepared earlier, no doubt. Charlie tried not to smile. ‘You didn’t say you wanted to see Waterhouse, sir. You only mentioned Sergeant Zailer.’

‘I don’t want to see him. I want to know where he is. The two are different. I take it you’re up to speed on our case, Seargent Zailer? You know who Judith Duffy is?’ Proust flicked the envelope tower with his finger and thumb. It shifted but didn’t fall. ‘Formerly a respected child health expert, latterly a pariah, shortly to be struck off the medical register for misconduct – you know the basic facts?’

Charlie nodded.

‘Sergeant Kombothekra and I would be grateful if you’d talk to Dr Duffy for us. One pariah to another.’

Charlie felt as if she’d swallowed a metal ball. A faint groan came from Sam. Proust heard it, but went on as if he hadn’t. ‘Rachel Hines could well be our killer’s next target. She’s vanished into the ether, and there’s a chance Duffy knows where she is. The two of them met for lunch on Monday. I want to know why. Why would a bereaved mother have a nice cosy meal with the corrupt doctor whose fraudulent evidence put her behind bars?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Charlie. ‘I agree, it’s odd.’

‘Conveniently, Duffy and Mrs Hines are each other’s alibi for Helen Yardley’s murder,’ said Proust. ‘Duffy won’t talk to us, not willingly, and I was on the point of hauling her in unwillingly, but this strikes me as a better idea.’ Proust leaned forward, drumming his fingers on his desk as if he were playing a piano. ‘I think you could persuade her to talk to you, Sergeant. Establish a bond. If it works, she’ll say more to you than she would to us. You know what it feels like to have your ignominy splashed all over the papers; so does she. You’d know exactly how to approach her, wouldn’t you? You’re good with people.’

What are you good with
?

Pariah, ignominy – they were only words. They could have no power over Charlie unless she allowed them to. She didn’t have to think about the events of 2006 if she didn’t want to. Recently, she had been choosing not to, more and more.

‘You don’t have to do it, Charlie. We’ve no right to ask you to.’

‘By “we”, he means me,’ said Proust. ‘The disapproval of Sergeant Kombothekra rains down like an avalanche of tissue-paper, feather-light and easy to shake off.’

‘I knew nothing about this,’ said Sam, pink-faced. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me. You can’t treat people like this, sir.’

Charlie thought of all the things she’d read about Judith Duffy: she’d cared more about the children of strangers than her own, both of whom had been sub-contracted out to nannies and au pairs so that she could work day and night; she’d tried to fleece her ex-husband when they got divorced, even though she earned a packet herself . . .

Charlie hadn’t believed a word of it. She knew what trial-by-media did for a person’s reputation, having been through it herself.

‘I’ll do it,’ she said. The Snowman was right: she could persuade Judith Duffy to talk to her if she tried. She didn’t know why she wanted to, but she did. She definitely did.

13

Saturday 10 October 2009

My mobile phone buzzes as I emerge from the underground. One message. A lifelong believer in sod’s law, I expect it to be Julian Lance, Rachel Hines’ solicitor, calling to cancel the meeting I’ve just travelled halfway across London to get to, but it’s not. It’s Laurie. I can tell straight away, because at first all I hear is breathing. Not heavy, not threatening – just the sound of him trying to remember which button he pressed, what he wanted to say and to whom. Eventually, his recorded voice says, ‘I’ve got the latest version of my
British Journalism Review
article for you, the one on Duffy. Yeah.’ There’s a pause then, as if he’s waiting for a response. ‘Do you want to meet, or something? So I can give it to you?’ Another pause. ‘Fliss? Can you pick up the phone?’ The sound of air being expelled through gritted teeth. ‘Okay, then, I’ll email it to you.’

Can I
pick up the phone
? No, you numbskull, I can’t, not once it’s gone to voicemail. How can Laurie Nattrass, recipient of every honour and plaudit the world can bestow upon an investigative journalist, not understand this basic fact of twenty-first-century telecommunications? Does he imagine I’m staring at my mobile disdainfully while his voice blares out of it, wilfully ignoring him?

Is this his way of saying sorry for treating me so shoddily?
It has to be. There’s no point debating whether I ought to forgive him; I already have.

I listen to the message eight times before calling him back. To his voicemail prompt, I say, ‘I’d love to meet or something so that you can give it to me.’ Which might be the perfect casual-but-encouraging teaser, except I ruin it by giggling like a hyena. I panic and end the call, realising too late that if I’d only waited a few seconds, I’d have been given the option of re-recording the message. ‘Shit,’ I mutter, looking at my watch. I should have been at the Covent Garden Hotel five minutes ago. I pick up my pace, weaving in and out of the convoy of shoppers, glaring at the ones that have enormous bags fanning out from their sides like batwings, ready to smack me in the arm as I hurry past. It’s doing me good to be out, busy, surrounded by people. It makes me feel ordinary – too ordinary for anything bad or newsworthy to happen to me.

I expect Julian Lance to be wearing a suit, but the man I see walking towards me as I open the door of the Covent Garden Hotel is wearing jeans, tasselled loafers and a zip-collared sweater over an open-necked striped shirt. He’s got short white hair and a square, tanned face. He could be anything from fifty to a well-maintained sixty-five. ‘Fliss Benson? I recognised you,’ he says, smiling at my questioning look. ‘You had your I’m-about-to-speak-to-Ray-Hines’-lawyer face on. Everyone does, the first time.’

‘Thanks for seeing me on a Saturday.’ We shake hands.

‘Ray says you’re the one. I’d have met you in the middle of the night, missed Sunday lunch – whatever it took.’ Having made clear his commitment to his client, Lance proceeds to inspect me, his eyes taking a quick head-to-toe tour. For once,
I’m not worried about looking a state. I dressed this morning as if for court, as if I was the one on trial.

I allow Julian Lance to steer me towards a table with two free chairs at the back of the room. The third chair is occupied by a woman with dyed red hair with lots of clips in it, and red-framed glasses. She’s writing in a ring-bound notebook: big, loopy scrawl. I’m wondering whether I ought to suggest to Julian Lance that he and I sit elsewhere, somewhere more private, when the woman looks up and smiles at me. ‘Hello, Fliss,’ she says. ‘I’m Wendy, Wendy Whitehead.’