Cath Staincliffe - The Kindest Thing

‘I couldn’t.’ I shook my head.

‘I might have been able-’

‘It was part of the deal. With Neil.’

She took that in, her face shorn of artifice or the usual glimmer of mischief. ‘Would you have told me eventually?’

If they hadn’t found me out? Would I? I’d said nothing in the days between Neil’s death and my arrest even though Jane came whenever she could, day or night. With food and wine and the comfort of her presence. ‘I don’t know.’

I think she was hurt. I would have been. We’d never had secrets. But it will not come between us, I trust in this. We have come too far to lose each other now. I’ve known her longer than I knew Neil – just. I know her well enough to see beyond the public persona, the humour, the upbeat take on everything, the endless energy. Over the years we have revealed ourselves to each other, peeled back those social layers, the poses and façades, sharing the bad times, the languors and doldrums, the storms and shipwrecks that punctuate our lives.

‘Well, thank God you didn’t – I might have been done for aiding and abetting,’ she said ruefully. I grinned. With the quip she forgave me. I wish she would stop smoking. I won’t grow old with Neil but I would like to share whatever’s still to come with Jane.

Once I have Neil’s jacket, I wear it every evening. It’s big on me, I have to roll the cuffs back, but it smells of him; it feels like him.

The only thing I sketch is the lime tree. Again and again, charting its journey from high summer into autumn and on. The glow of its large soft leaves from bright green to sherbet yellow. The little ball-shaped fruits dancing in the winds. The same fruits that Sophie used to collect and paint red as miniature cherries for her teddy bear. In the winter months the tree is often shrouded in mist in the morning, its stark trunk black, branches reaching up and out. On grey days it is wreathed in fog, which settles along the avenues muffling what we can see and adding a spookier quality to the noises of the prison.

The days are strictly regimented. Set times for meals, for work, for breaks and association. The roll is called at the beginning and end of the day and also at random times. We all have to stop what we are doing while the officers count us and relay back the numbers to Security. Everyone in the prison has a ‘job’, from working in the laundry or the gardens to piecework in the textile factory or helping in the office. As soon as I opened my mouth and demonstrated I was well educated and literate, they suggested I work in education. Many of the women can’t read or write more than their name and those of their children, and there is a constant demand for people to tutor those wishing to learn.

I thought the work might be like the miserable sessions we had trying to teach Adam to read, the leaden silences, his restlessness, one foot kicking against the chair, but the women are not sullen or resistant. They’re greedy to learn and when they do make progress I share their sense of pride. Our sessions are short, twenty minutes at a time; little and often is the best way. As the weeks go by, I get to know them: we exchange titbits of information, the small victories and defeats of prison life and the life outside that they yearn for – the excitement of visits and parole hearings, the bad news about children with problems and illnesses, or husbands getting into trouble.

When the court resumes the pathologist takes the witness stand. He is a gingery man with a beard and a Canadian drawl. I guess it’s Canadian because his initial qualifications are from Toronto. In answer to Miss Webber’s questions he tells us he has been a practising pathologist for twenty-three years, that he has conducted thousands of post-mortems and that he performed a post-mortem on Neil Draper on 23 June 2009.

‘Please summarize your findings for the court.’

‘The deceased was in an advanced stage of motor neurone disease and muscle wastage was apparent in the limbs. The external appearance of the body was otherwise unremarkable save for petechial haemorrhaging, which was visible in both eyes.’

Miss Webber asks him to describe this for the jury.

‘This presents as broken capillaries on the whites of the eyes.’

‘Comparable to broken veins?’

‘Smaller, but the same principle.’

‘Please continue,’ she says.

‘Internal examination revealed trauma to the alveoli of the lungs and the presence of fluid in the lungs. The stomach contents contained alcohol and I ordered a toxicology report.’

‘Am I correct in saying that the report establishes what, if any, drugs or poisons are present?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘And the results?’

As the pathologist begins to talk of negligible amounts of Zoloft but morphine present in so many parts per million, Dolly blinks and a look of boredom steals over her face. In the row behind her the Cook folds his arms and tilts his head, eager to give the impression of someone taking it all in, but I suspect the pose is a disguise for being completely at a loss.

Thankfully, the pathologist then simplifies the dizzying numbers by telling the court that this level of morphine would invariably result in death. So our calculations weren’t that far out.

‘A fatal dose?’

‘Yes.’

‘In a healthy person of the same age as Mr Draper what effect would this have?’

‘Metabolisms do vary a great deal but in most people such an amount taken with the alcohol would be likely to precipitate depression of the central nervous system.’

Callow Youth frowns: he doesn’t like the long words, or maybe he just doesn’t like being here. Me neither.

‘How would that manifest itself?’

‘Tiredness, dizziness, loss of motor faculties, then a slide into unconsciousness.’

‘Were you able to establish cause of death?’

‘Brain failure.’

‘Due to the drug and alcohol?’

‘No, the evidence, the state of the lungs, the petechial haemorrhages, suggests that the deceased was suffocated, which deprived the brain of oxygen.’

‘Would the drug and alcohol have contributed to the death?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you summarize for us the most likely scenario based on the physical evidence you observed?’

Someone over on the benches to the right is scribbling. Ms Gleason has told me that’s where the press sit. Something spicy for tomorrow’s readers.

The pathologist clears his throat. Dolly sits forward and rolls back her shoulders. Behind her the row of jurors shuffles about too. In the back row of the jury, the two oldest women, who are neatly turned out – blow-dried hair, colour co-ordinated scarves and cardigans, looking for all the world as if they have strayed in from doing a bit of shopping in St Ann’s Square and will head off for a cuppa at Marks & Spencer’s any minute – exchange a glance. They are probably Veronica’s age, maybe a bit younger. The upper age limit for jurors is seventy. I dub them Hilda and Flo, old-fashioned names that may be coming round again.

‘My conclusion would be that the deceased imbibed a mixture of morphine and alcohol and that he then suffocated.’

The room is quiet. Miss Webber leaves it hanging there for a few beats while everyone absorbs the hard facts. ‘Were you able to ascertain how he suffocated?’

‘No. We swept the nasal passages and examined the trachea but there was nothing conclusive.’

‘Could it have been a pillow?’

‘Yes.’

‘Or a plastic bag?’

‘Yes.’

The detail drills through me. What must it be doing to Adam?

We will not contest this evidence because I am admitting to all of this. Yes, I fed him the morphine and the booze. And, yes, when he still wasn’t dead, I smothered him.