Cath Staincliffe - Blink of an Eye

But I look at him today, lying there and chewing on this plastic dinosaur he has, and I don’t feel safe with him. The witch is whispering in my ear. I’m not to be trusted. He’s so small and vulnerable. A moment’s madness and his skull could break, crushed like an eggshell.

‘Pick him up,’ Mum says.

What if I just snap, lose control? The possibility jolts through me. I shake my head. ‘I don’t feel so good.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Headache,’ I say. My hands itch. ‘I might go and lie down.’

She sighs. ‘Can’t you just make an effort?’

It is an effort, this is an effort, everything’s a fucking effort. Standing and blinking, breathing and keeping my thoughts hidden.

Ollie bashes himself in the eye with a fist and starts to whimper. Mum scoops him up. ‘Take some paracetamol,’ she says to me, then she shushes him.

I do as she says, swallowing the tablets with water as I look out of the kitchen window.

There’s a sudden movement in the corner of the garden, shaking a bush there, and my skin tightens. All the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my bowels turn to water. It’s the corpse coming to find me, climbing out of the grave. The shock hurts my chest. I squeeze my eyes shut tight and look again. A squirrel darts across to the back gate.

I hold on to the sink, trembling.

Mum’s getting Ollie’s lunch out. ‘You want to feed him?’ she asks.

‘No. I’m going to bed.’

I don’t look at her, I don’t need to. I can imagine she’s exasperated with me again. Her lips’ll be pressed tight together. She might even roll her eyes. But I can’t explain it to her. If I said it out loud – I might hurt him, Mum, there’s these awful pictures in my head, the things I could do – it would just make it all more real. I just want it to stop. I just want some peace.

Carmel

Almost three months after the accident and five weeks after Naomi had first appeared in the magistrates’ court, we returned there for the committal hearing. She was withdrawn for much of the time, barely responding to the scene around her, or even to us when we asked her something. Her nails were bitten down to the quick.

At one point she stood up suddenly and said she was going outside. She looked panicky and her face was ashen. I got up too and she grabbed my arms.

‘We need to stay inside the building,’ Don said apologetically, ‘in case they call us.’

Naomi was making a sort of rocking motion, like someone preparing to bolt.

‘I feel dizzy,’ she said.

‘It’s warm in here.’ I tried to downplay her reaction. ‘Let’s go to the ladies’.’ I was thinking she could wash her face, put cold water on the back of her neck and cool off.

She continued to rock, looking to left and right.

Phil stood up. ‘Come on.’ He put his arm around her. ‘Stretch your legs.’ He edged her along and they walked off down the corridor.

Don shot me a sympathetic look and said, ‘It’s a stressful situation.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll get her some water.’

By the time Phil had walked her round the building, she was calmer again. Back to being quiet and distanced. She drank some water.

When she was finally called in, she gripped the sides of the dock so hard her knuckles were white. She confirmed her name and address and date of birth and the magistrate asked Don if he consented to the case being heard at Crown Court. That was about it.

Afterwards Don had a quick meeting with us. He had a file which he patted as he spoke. ‘Now that we’ve got the full case papers, my job will be to see how we challenge their case. That means questioning everything. Can they prove Naomi was driving? Can they demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that her driving was dangerous? Can they present evidence that shows that her driving was the sole cause of the cyclist’s death? And on all those points we look for gaps, for absence of evidence, for weak areas. We introduce uncertainty, we query everything. Given what you’ve told me about the state of the vehicle, there will be very limited forensic evidence.’ He put his hand on the papers. ‘And there is no CCTV coverage included in here. The road traffic investigation unit estimate the car was doing forty-six miles an hour.’ In a thirty-mile-an-hour zone. ‘We will get our own experts in to consider that. Speeding of itself is neither dangerous nor careless. No evidence has been recovered indicating any mechanical fault.’

Now that he had the complete case file, his investigators would be visiting the scene of the crash, measuring distance and angle, studying the road traffic unit’s report and assessing every little bit of factual evidence before making their own interpretations. They’d comb through the witness statements for errors or gaps and set out to find anything additional that might contradict or undermine what was in the file.

I had felt helpless for weeks, swept along by the current of events and failing in my attempts to revive Naomi’s memory, but now that Don had talked in concrete terms about what defending her would mean, I saw some small chance for me to contribute. Why didn’t anyone stop her driving? I thought.

‘I can talk to people,’ I said.

‘You don’t need to bother,’ Don said.

‘No, I will – I already have, anyway. Hoping to help with her amnesia. Anyone who says anything remotely helpful, anything that’s not in there,’ I pointed to the file, ‘I’ll pass on to you. I can’t just sit here and…’ I shut up: too emotional. Don’s cheeks grew rosy at my little outburst.

Phil was bothered by my keenness to get involved. ‘Shouldn’t we leave it to Don?’

‘Look, I’ve no objection,’ Don said. ‘I know you’re a reliable person, you’re used to dealing with people, but I will say now that I can cover this – it’s part of my role.’

‘I have to do something,’ I said again. ‘What about Alex – are we allowed to talk to him?’

‘If he’s willing. The law says there is no property in a witness; neither side owns them, and their evidence can be considered, even used, by both.’

Naomi watched us debating, then said, ‘You don’t have to do it, Mum.’

‘I want to – maybe I need to.’

‘What do you expect to find?’

‘Some things don’t add up: why did you drive in that state? Why didn’t anyone stop you?’

The next person from the barbecue that I rang up heard me out then said, ‘Sorry, no.’

‘If it’s a question of time…’

‘It’s not that. I, erm, I don’t want to get involved.’

‘But you wouldn’t be, not real-’

‘I think what she did was appalling. I don’t want anything to do with it.’ And he hung up.

Somehow Suzanne got to hear about my efforts, and when I called round she took me to task. ‘Why are you still hassling everyone, Mum? What does it matter? The facts are staring us all in the face. What are you wasting everybody’s time for? Is it some sort of distraction?’

‘I’m trying to make sense of it,’ I said.

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ she said sharply. ‘That is the whole point. Naomi has a solicitor; it’s up to him to go and talk to people or whatever, isn’t it?’

‘And he’s doing that,’ I said.

‘Well leave it to him,’ she said. ‘It’s embarrassing.’

‘What?’ She’d really got my goat. ‘Embarrassing? A child’s dead,’ I stood up, ‘your sister is at risk of going to prison and you’re worried about being embarrassed?’

‘Don’t shout,’ she said. ‘There’s no point to what you’re doing. You’re like some neurotic crusader, except there’s no crusade, is there?’