The Mother (17 page)

Quigg continues the afternoon session where she left off, with Tyson Manley returning to Sweetie's on the day she was released from the hospital, reiterates that he was dressed in the brown top and jogging bottoms and trainers we've already heard about in evidence from Kwame and Nadine, and seen on the CCTV footage of the killer walking down the high street in the direction of Sweetie's home.

The first thing he did when he arrived was ring one of his friends to get him some new clothes. Then he took off every
thing he was wearing, including his trainers, put it all into the washing machine, started it up, and ran himself a bath. Sweetie knew exactly what this meant; he was getting rid of forensic evidence. It wasn't the first time she'd seen him do this and she knew better than to ask questions. While she was rinsing shampoo out of his hair in the bath, he told her he'd arrived at hers at four o'clock. Again she knew exactly what this meant; she was to be his alibi for whatever had gone down.

One of his friends brought around the new purchases and took the wet clothing from the washing machine away with him when he left. She refuses to name names, says she's already in enough problems, doesn't need any more, and Quigg doesn't push, just moves the conversation on. Again I remind myself that she is an expert at this, that there must be a reason for her not exploring this.

Her first confirmation that it was Ryan came hours later. Because Tyson was hungry and she didn't feel up to cooking, they had phoned out for a pizza delivery. Tyson was tucking into it and she was sitting on the floor, at his feet, her back leaned against the sofa, rolling a spliff, when the murder was mentioned on the news and Ryan was named. She smoked that spliff and went to bed. Nothing was said by either of them about the killing. Tyson left her home the next morning about eight thirty, and a couple of hours later the police were at her door and she was transported to the station to make her statement.

I have a vision of her being interviewed at the station, beaten and broken, giving the statement she'd been primed to give. The police must have noticed her injuries. Did anyone ask what had happened to her? Did they care? Has anyone truly ever cared about this girl other than my son?

Quigg pushes on with her questioning. She is trying to establish how realistic Sweetie was to be afraid. Quigg wants to know why she did not come clean afterward, once Manley had been remanded in custody and it was impossible for him to harm her, even if he wanted to. Sweetie tells the courtroom that although he was in prison, his friends weren't, that even though Tyson couldn't physically get at her himself, if he wanted to, he just needed to ask his crew.

Quigg asks, “Is that something that happened to you?”

“What?”

“Friends of the defendant doing something to you on his behalf while he was in prison? Can you give the court an example of a circumstance when that happened?”

“Yeah, I can.”

“Would you please?”

“One of his friends gave me a VO to go see him . . .”

“A visiting order?”

“Yeah.”

“To go and see the defendant in prison?”

“Yeah. I went and he told me he knew Ryan's funeral was gonna be the next week. He must'a found out from his boys, or maybe he heard it on the news, I dunno. Anyway, there wasn't a connection between him and Ryan then. Like he'd got remanded, but there wasn't nothing to link Tyson to Ryan. All the phone records and that, the police never had them yet, so they never knew me and Ryan had been calling each other. Tyson thought if I went to the funeral, the police might be there undercover and if they saw me there, I would be the link, so he told me not to go. I was still thinking about it. I was thinking I could like go and wear a veil or something
and no one would even know it was me, but in the end his crew took care of it.”

“How exactly did they take care of it?”

“They came to my yard the night before, three of them, and they went through my wardrobe, took every piece'a clothing I had, stuck them in black bags, every last garment, even the clothes I was wearing, knickers, bra, shoes, the lot. All they left was a dressing gown and a pair of socks, so that was the end of it. Like even if I wannid, I couldn't go, 'cause they made sure I never had nothing to wear.”

Quigg finishes her questions just after three and the judge suggests we have a short recess before St. Clare begins asking the further questions he has prepared. When we return to the courtroom and St. Clare stands to proceed, the atmosphere inside the courtroom is palpably frosty. From beside me, Lorna whispers, “I don't know if I can watch this.” I take hold of her hand.

St. Clare puts his hands into the pockets of his trousers. He's trying to create the impression this is not a fight, just a friendly discussion between himself and his hostile witness. The expression on her face is bare hatred.

“Miss Nelson . . .”

“Yeah?”

“The story you have told today is a rather grim one . . .”

“It ain't no story.”

“Of gangsters who have threatened you, commandeered your phone, taken your clothing, forced you to lie under oath.”

“And I never said nothing 'bout no ‘
gangsters.
'”

“However, while it is all very tragic to listen to, it's rather
more difficult to establish how much of what you have told us is true and how much of it has simply been made up.”

Sweetie continues glaring.

“The one thing that has been clearly established, is the extent to which you are prepared to lie in order to get what you want.”

“I'm not no liar.”

“Shall we have a look at the facts? You have, by your own admission, lied to Ryan Williams.”

“I
never
lied to Ryan!”

“In fact, you did, by not telling him of your . . .
attachment
, shall we say, to Mr. Manley.”

“Yeah, but I told you the reason for that.”

“You've also lied to the defendant, Mr. Manley, about the nature of your relationship with Ryan Williams . . .”

“To protect Ryan. I said what I needed to say to protect him . . .”

“Despite the evidence you have given here today regarding Mr. Manley, had he given permission, you would have willfully put his name on your daughter's birth certificate, knowing full well there was every chance he was not the father of your child at all.”

Sweetie does not answer, just glares at St. Clare.

“Even the evidence you have given this court hinges upon us believing you lied when you made your original statement to the police.”

“What I said was what I was told to say.”

“The fact is you have told a lot of lies to a lot of people at a lot of different times. Would you agree with that statement?”

She's fuming, Sweetie. St. Clare has successfully backed her up into a corner. She would go for it, I think, if we were
anywhere other than this courtroom, go for him, but in this space, she is powerless. She is furious because she is going to have to call herself a liar. I am willing her to calm down because St. Clare is not angry in the slightest. He is systematic and relentless. Anger will not be to her advantage. St. Clare addresses the judge.

“My Lord, if it pleases the court, Miss Nelson may be reminded that she is obliged to answer the questions put to her.”

The judge says, “Miss Nelson, you are under oath. Please answer the question.”

St. Clare says, “Would you agree that you have told a lot of lies?”

“Only when I had to.”

“I would like you to answer directly, Miss Nelson, yes or no; have you or have you not told a lot of lies?”

A pause, then she says, “Okay. Whatever; yeah, I have.”

“Despite the fact you have told us you were scared of Mr. Manley, you voluntarily visited him in prison, did you not?”

“Yeah.”

“You have told us a story which, if it were true, would make him the last person on the planet you'd wish to visit, yet visit is what you did, and more, during that visit, begged him to allow you to put his name on your child's birth certificate.”

“I wannid that protection for her . . .”

“Considering the circumstances, can you honestly say you expected Mr. Manley to agree?”

“'S the only thing I ever asked him for . . .”

“But did you actually
expect
him to give his consent?”

“Yeah, I did. I did expect that.”

“So you were surprised when he refused?”

“No, I weren't surprised.”

“You weren't? Then how did you feel?”

“How d'you think I felt?”

“I really couldn't say. Frustrated? Disappointed? Let down?”

“No, what I felt weren't some little ‘letdown.'”

St. Clare's voice is louder. “Then how
did
you feel?”

“After everything I did for him, the shit I went through . . .”

“After all that, he still said no. How did that make you feel?”

“It was just to spite me, no other reason, just spite . . .”

The words are fired from St. Clare's mouth like bullets. “And how did you feel about that, Miss Nelson? How did it make you feel?”

“You wanna know how I felt? You really wanna know? I tell you how I felt. I wannid to kill him!”

I close my eyes. The courtroom is silent. She has given him the very ammunition he was after to bolster their defense, handed it to them on a plate. St. Clare is deliberately slow, allows everyone sufficient time to absorb her words, for them to properly sink in.

“But you couldn't kill him, could you? Instead, you had to settle for the next best thing, coming to court and lying that the statement you made on the day following the murder of Ryan Williams was not true?”

Sweetie doesn't answer. I wish she would but she doesn't. Instead she glares at St. Clare as if she would like to kill him too.

“My Lord, I have no further questions for this witness,” he says.

The judge thanks Sweetie for the evidence she has given. She nods her head in acknowledgment. Her back is rigid, but as she picks up her bag and steps out of the box, the bravado that has sustained her evaporates. Her shoulders
become rounded, her movements jerky with nerves, and she keeps her head down as she leaves. It feels like she is exiting one world and entering another, headed back into her real life, where there are no security guards or protection, where, as she said, they know to find her, and the rules of this courtroom no longer apply. I feel sick with fear for her, for that baby, as I watch her go. I failed to keep my son safe, and it feels this moment as though I have failed her as well.

I look over at Tyson Manley. He looks like someone making an unsuccessful effort to not gloat, a person whose delight is impossible to contain. And why should he contain it? He killed my son and he's never going to have to pay. One opportunity, that's all we had, one chance to nail him, just the one trial. If he gets away with this, if he is found not guilty, he walks away from the charge of Ryan's murder forever. From the expression on his face, he's mentally choosing the shoes in which he'll do that walk.

St. Clare goes over to the glass wall and there is a brief whispered discussion between him and his client. Then St. Clare advises the judge that he will be calling Tyson Manley to the stand tomorrow morning as his final witness. I can feel my heart accelerating. Not only is he going to get off, but he's going to have the opportunity to stand in front of us and make a mockery of Ryan's death and this process. I don't think I can face it, don't think I will be able to sit here and listen to his smug denials. As the judge dismisses the jury, Lorna whispers to Nipa across me that we'd like to speak to Quigg. It is a moment before I am able to stand. In the end we are the last people to leave the public gallery, and try as I might, I cannot stop myself from crying as we make our way to the main foyer of the Old Bailey.

QUIGG IS UNABLE TO MEET
with us in person. Kwame stands with Nipa, and Lorna sits beside me on a bench, an arm around my shoulders as she asks Henry Taylor-Myles what exactly Sweetie's evidence means for this trial. He has a gentle, intelligent voice, and he speaks more quietly than usual in this public space, telling us Sweetie's evidence has done more harm than good.

I say, “What if she wasn't mugged? What if it was Tyson who beat Sweetie up and put her in the hospital?”

“If it was Mr. Manley,” he says, “and she had said that on the stand, the case would've been thrown out. We would have had to have a retrial. You can't charge someone with murder then, halfway through the case, begin accusing them of other offenses. It's very difficult to simply submit new information once the trial has started. If Miss Nelson had said Mr. Manley was responsible for her injuries, it would have been highly prejudicial. It would not have helped at all.”

But I think maybe it would have helped. At this point, maybe the case being thrown out would have been to our
advantage, the opportunity to go away and reassemble with all the information we now know. I can't understand this process, don't understand the concern, the fairness and consideration at every stage of these proceedings for those who have exercised no fairness or consideration in their dealings with others, the notion that to be clear about this defendant's actions the day before my son was killed would be “highly prejudicial”? What does that even mean? That the evidence might lead the jury to convict this person who deserves conviction?

I say, “So that's why Quigg let the mugging go?”

Henry says, “Yes. The moment Miss Nelson brought it up, we knew we were already treading a very fine line.”

“What he did to Sweetie should strengthen our case, not go against it,” Lorna says.

Henry answers, “Theoretically, I agree with you, but that's not how the process works. If we had known her evidence in advance, if we had wanted to admit it, we would have called the nurse or doctor who treated her to provide details of her injuries. We would have been able to substantiate them. As it stands, we would only have her word for it, and St. Clare has done an effective job establishing she is capable of lying when it suits her.” He looks at me. “I'm sorry. I know this is not what you want to hear.”

“He's gonna get off, isn't he?” I ask.

“I think much will depend on how Mr. Manley performs on the stand tomorrow,” Henry says. “It's difficult to call. Let's wait and see.”

“I'm surprised St. Clare even wants him on the stand,” Lorna says.

“Well, I happen to know he doesn't,” Henry answers. “But
it's not his decision as to whether Mr. Manley takes the stand or not. Barristers give advice and take instruction. The decision to take the stand is Mr. Manley's.”

“Why would he
choose
to do that?” Lorna asks.

Kwame responds, “He's showing off. He thinks the case is in the bag and he's showing off.”

“Showing off?” Lorna asks.

“Sadly that may be true,” Henry says. “The reason these boys end up here in the first place, often the reason they end up going down, it's all about ‘show.'”

We leave when Henry does, gather in the passage outside the entrance to the public galleries, and Lorna talks to Nipa about Sweetie. Nipa promises to look into her circumstances and let us know what is being done. I wait beside Kwame while Lorna presses her to look into it this very evening. Nipa assures us she will. Then we depart, Nipa and I to her car, and Lorna and Kwame to the tube station for their journeys home by public transport. The drive is quick and quiet, my head filled with the court day. After Nipa leaves, I loiter outside my home, note there have been a few more bunches of flowers left, adding to the growing shrine on the street beside my garden wall, another teddy, more cards containing messages of remembrance. I take my time looking through these wishes and condolences, needing something to lift me, which they do while simultaneously cutting me down. I leave them where they are and go inside.

I am relieved Lloydie is not in. As usual, he has cooked dinner and the pots are still warm on top of the stove, but I cannot eat. My stomach is a knotted mass of tension, my thoughts so wild, swinging between Lloydie's allotment,
Sweetie's evidence, trying not to think about Tyson Manley and tomorrow, sitting there listening to him deny everything, reducing the truth to the performance that best serves himself and St. Clare and their case. Instead of food I pour a vodka and take it upstairs, run a bath. After undressing and putting on my dressing gown, I go back down and replenish my glass. In the bathroom when I turn off the water and shed my robe, I catch sight of someone in the misted mirror glass, and I start, thinking someone else is in the room before swiping my arm across the moisture, clearing a rippled strip to expose a skinny woman whose rib cage is sharply defined, risen above the hollows in the spaces between, borderline skeletal and virtually bald, and I look away from my refection, offended by it. It is impossible to reconcile her with the image of myself I have in my mind. No wonder Lloydie is no longer interested. How could he be when I can hardly bear to look at myself? I get into the bath, lie back, close my eyes, and think about Sweetie.

There are so many things I supported Ryan with; all that wasted GCSE revision, being organized about his homework, ensuring he had the correct books and kit and equipment, replacing his Oyster card after he lost it, working out how to get him and his friends to ice-skating, without an adult, by public transport, checking out the links to get them there and safely back, the entire route, the timings, no small detail overlooked or issue left to chance; months spent practicing tying his shoelaces, the painstaking process of teaching him to tell the time. Sweetie is seventeen years old, a mother already, has at best been neglected as a child, badly beaten—maybe worse—living in fear in the place she should feel safest, and as far as I can see it has been with zero support, not
in Bangladesh or Cape Town but here in the developed world that is the UK, no interest and little kindness from anyone, except that small amount for so short a time given by my son. How does this girl restore her life? Is it possible for that process to happen alongside her being a full-time single mum? I have no idea where you begin in the hope of breaking such a cycle, how to go about effecting change so that in another seventeen years her baby isn't hanging around the wrong boys, being passed around like a serf, taking drugs, maybe pregnant herself. There's so much stacked against her and all of it so vast. If she wanted her daughter to have a different, a better life, where would she begin?

I am disoriented as I sit up with a splash, surprised to discover I fell asleep in the bath, that I must have been asleep for a while, because the water has gone cool. It was a sound that woke me and I listen for it, hear it coming from downstairs, short bursts of frantic tapping, like someone rapping on glass. I get up and out of the bathtub, wrap a towel around myself. I go into the bedroom, look out the window, see no one on the doorstep. I hear the sound again. It's definitely someone knocking. By the time I get downstairs to the front door it has stopped. I shout, “Who is it?”

The tapping begins again but it's coming from the side door that leads directly into the kitchen. I go into the kitchen, look through the window. It's her, Sweetie.

As I open the door she rushes in, closes it fast behind her, looks through the window as though checking for other people, quickly closes the blinds then turns around to face me. The fear on her face escalates the fear I feel as well. She is everything I have avoided, this girl, everything from which I sought to protect my son, from the parts of the city I have
consciously held at arm's length, that volatile place where things are not only bleak but relentless, where anarchy reigns and violence is king.

“I got nowhere to go,” she says. “The hospital's discharged us. I said I had to go home and get the baby's clothes, but they've been there already, the door's all kicked off, the place's been trashed. They're gonna kill me.”

I think about the guy who was with Ms. Manley this morning in court, who did not return after lunch, how ominous it seemed then.

She says, “I can't go back. I shouldn't have come here, but I got nowhere else to go.”

“Sweetie, you need to go to the police . . .”

“I ain't going to no police station! What they gonna do? Stick me in some hostel? I know girls who've done that, gone to the police and been put in some hostel. They'll send other girls to the police who'll get put into those same hostels too, and when they find you, you won't even know it. Next thing you're sitting there thinking you're safe and the door's being kicked in!”

“Sweetie, they're the only people who can help you . . .”

“Then there's no one that can help! Oh God . . . What am I gonna do? I gotta get away . . .”

“Calm down—”

“I gave evidence against Tyson! I'm not gonna be the fucking message they send to other people to keep their mouths shut. I gotta leave the country . . .”

“Do you have a passport? Money? Go to what country? How're you gonna live?”

“You're not hearing me! They know where I live!”

“I'm not telling you to go back. I'm saying we need to calm
down . . . think this through. There's always an answer. We just need to find it.”

She's wearing the clothes she had on earlier in court, Lorna's cardigan buttoned almost to the top. I have no idea whether she has any money or if she's actually eaten today. “Look, sit down. Let me think about this. You're hungry, aren't you? Let me make you something to eat.”

As I dish her up a plate of food and microwave it I ask, “The baby's still at the hospital?”

“Yeah, but I gotta pick her up tonight. They need the bed.”

“How is she?” I ask, maybe my grandchild, born into this reality so grim.

“Tiny,” she says, “like a dolly of me.”

I put the plate down in front of her, some cutlery. “Eat. Let me get dressed. I'll be back in a minute.”

She is hungry, dives in. I'm about to leave the kitchen, but I pause, turn around, and ask, “You will be here, won't you, when I come back down?”

Her mouth is full. She nods.

“Good. I won't be long.”

I pull on my clothes like a madwoman. Gently, I close the bedroom door, phone Lorna, am relieved when she picks up straightaway.

I whisper, “Sweetie's here, downstairs. The hospital's chucking them both out and her flat's been ransacked. She's got nowhere to go.”

“Damn! I knew it. God! I should have made Nipa sort it out there and then. You'll have to take her to the police station . . .”

“She won't go to the police. Apparently she can be tracked down if she goes to them.”

“Are you serious?”

“That's what she says.”

“The hospital's asking her to leave today? Right now?”

“She says they want the bed.”

“What? Where's the bloody social worker? The hospital must have one. Have they not spoken to her?”

“I don't know. She didn't say. She seems to have some trust issues.”

“Nipa was supposed to sort this out.”

“She obviously hasn't.”

I walk over to the window, stand to the side, look out into my garden, onto the street, watch a man walking along the pavement, just some regular guy going about his business, berate myself for the paranoia, step back.

Lorna says, “Call her a cab. Give her my address . . .”

“No.”

“They can stay in Leah's room . . .”

“I said no.”

“Do you have a better plan?”

“Lorna, we don't know anything about her. All this stuff she's mixed up in, these people, you've got no idea what you might be bringing into your home.”

“So what's your advice? Just leave her to sort her problems out herself? Put her out and close the door?”

“I think we should call Nipa.”

“If you think she'll agree, you can speak to her about it. If you go behind her back to Nipa, she won't trust us either. Marce, she has a baby . . .”

“I know.”

“That could be Ryan's—”

“I know
,
I
know
that!”

“She needs help.”

I don't answer because I know Sweetie won't want me to ring Nipa and she obviously has nowhere to go. And because of that baby.

“She's already freaking me out. She's scared she's being followed. There could be people waiting for her at the hospital, they might follow her from there to yours.”

“You're right, don't send her back to the hospital on her own. If you think it's safe, just put her in a cab to mine. I'll ring Kwame, ask him to go with her to get the baby. I think that's a better plan.”

“Kwame?”

“Yes,
Kwame
.”

A million missed signs collide; the eye contact between them, a chemistry I wasn't focused on, a meeting of minds. I love her and I trust him. “Okay.”

“Write it down for her, the address, in case she forgets it.”

“I will.”

“Send her to me. I'll be damned if this girl's gonna slip through any more cracks.”

At the bottom of the stairs, I pause and press the handle of the front door to check it is properly closed. I put my eye to the spyhole and look through it to outside. The whole thing is ridiculous. I am being ridiculous. Outside looks like outside, like it does all the time. I feel a movement brush past the backs of my legs and nearly jump out of my skin before I realize it is Sheba, and she's hungry, just woken up and ready to be fed. She makes it clear, taking a few steps toward the kitchen, her bowl, stopping and waiting to be followed. I hesitate at the living room door and she carries on
padding toward the kitchen. I go into the living room, check the windows are locked while looking outside, checking the street. The street looks like the street. I draw the curtains, then head for the kitchen.