Cath Staincliffe - The Kindest Thing

‘Did you love your husband, Deborah?’

He waits. My jaw is locked. My tongue stiff, pressed against my palate. My teeth imprinting scallops in the edges of my tongue. I force my teeth apart. ‘No comment.’ But I cannot hold myself together. I break down and Ms Gleason makes them agree to a break until I am less distressed. I’m crying for Neil because I miss him so. I’m noisy and messy and my nose is running and I don’t give a damn.

‘They seem interested in his medication,’ Ms Gleason tells me, once we are alone. ‘There may be something from the post-mortem that they’ve yet to disclose. Was Neil on regular medication?’

I want to say no comment. How much to tell her? Can I trust her?

‘He’d been on anti-depressants.’

‘He was depressed because of the illness?’

Stupid question. ‘Yes.’ I’d tried to keep my voice even.

‘Anything else?’

‘He’d become breathless, and had quite a lot of muscle pain. The GP had put him on liquid painkillers for that. Morphine.’

‘He was self-medicating?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where did you keep the medicines?’

‘His bedside.’

‘So they were accessible to him. Is it possible Neil self-administered an overdose?’

‘It’s possible,’ I say, my knees pressed tight together, toes curled, gripping the floor.

‘You didn’t give him anything that morning?’

‘No. Just some wine at lunchtime.’

There is a knock at the door and she goes to see who it is. A respite. Exhausted, I slump in my chair. She turns back into the room and says she will be away for a few minutes. Do I need anything?

A deus ex machina, ta. I shake my head.

She is back in ten minutes. She takes a moment to settle her file and gather her thoughts. ‘The police conducted a second post-mortem.’

I’m not sure how I’m supposed to react. Is this a good thing? She sees I’m confused, places her palms on her knees. She has large hands but slender wrists. In fact, she is scrawny, but for those mitts.

‘They wanted to confirm the findings of the first. In a case like this we can opt to have an independent post-mortem carried out – if we don’t trust their findings.’

What have they found? I don’t trust myself to ask. She carries on talking but I’m imagining Neil, his chest cracked open, his organs weighed and measured. Not twice but three times. Of course, he’s not there any more: his body is a shell.

‘Okay, we have partial disclosure of the postmortem reports. It’s as I thought. Potentially fatal levels of morphine as well as alcohol in the blood. Now, we can get our own medical expert to interpret the results – it may be, for example, that motor neurone disease affects the body’s ability to process the drugs. The levels may have built up over time – that’s a fairly clumsy example but you see what I’m getting at?’

I nod.

‘Right.’ She puts her hands on her waist, straightens up. ‘They want a second interview. It’s half past six now. They have to allow you eight hours’ rest plus a meal break so they can’t go on very long. And I advise you to maintain your right to remain silent.’

I let my eyes close, hoping to summon some energy from somewhere. She touches my hand. ‘I could do with another cuppa. You, same again?’

‘Thanks.’

Sophie would be doing her homework in front of Hollyoaks .

‘Will they let me go home tonight?’

‘I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.’

‘If I explain,’ I begin, my voice shaky, ‘give a proper statement…’

‘I wouldn’t recommend that. Any small variation in what you say could be catastrophic. We still don’t have full disclosure. You’d be putting yourself in a very vulnerable position.’

‘And I’m not already?’

She regards me for a moment. ‘This could be much worse. The caution’s there for a reason. Anything you say, that means anything, can be used against you. To give a statement now would be nothing short of reckless.’

I surrender to her argument.

‘Can you call my daughter, tell her I’m delayed, legal stuff to do with-’ I can’t finish.

‘I’ll be discreet.’

I know now. Something’s tilted. Like the sheen on two-tone fabric shifting, the other colour to the fore. They are going to keep me here.

We are in the same interview room. I have been no-commenting for maybe an hour. All of me is weary from the soles of my feet to my scalp. The detective has maintained his cheery disposition but his colleague, scratchy DC Mercer, has been asking the questions this time. He has a more brittle edge to him. A note of incredulity taints his queries.

‘And you have no idea how your husband could have administered such a high dose of morphine?’

‘No comment.’

‘You made no attempt to revive your husband. Why was that?’

‘No comment.’

But it is DS Bray who weighs in with the next evidentiary disclosure. See how I’m picking up the jargon. A bombshell to you and me. ‘The postmortem shows signs of petechial haemorrhaging – that is damage to the blood vessels in the eyes – and fluid in the lungs. This is consistent with suffocation.’

The air in the room hangs still. The camera whirrs in the silence. I feel the pulse jump in my throat. The Furies have found me, the daughters of the night. They know I have blood on my hands and they are coming. With snakes hissing through their hair and blood dripping from their eyes, the three of them will hound me to insanity.

The detective tilts his head to one side, his eyes soft, open, inviting my confidence. If I talk, he’s saying, if I just talk to him, then all will be well.

‘I did not harm my husband. I love him.’

Ms Gleason scrambles to shut me up. ‘Deborah! I’d like a word with my client in private, please.’

The detective agrees.

We leave the room and are taken into the adjoining one. She closes the door behind me. There’s an astringent taste in my mouth, chemical, the smell of pear-drops. When did I last eat? I can’t remember. Ketones, they call it, when the body is depleted and draws on fat reserves. I had it in my urine when I was giving birth to Adam. We’d bought glucose tablets to keep my reserves up but I couldn’t keep anything down.

Ms Gleason takes a full breath and sighs it out. She stretches her arms up, clasps her hands behind her neck and stretches. Then drops them. ‘We still haven’t full disclosure,’ she says, ‘but the drugs in his bloodstream and the petechial haemorrhaging are strong forensic evidence that this was not a natural death. Is there anything you want to revise from the account you gave me earlier today?’

‘No.’

‘Okay.’ She nods. ‘Then it’s imperative that you do not offer any comment in there. Now more than ever.’

‘Yes. Sorry.’

‘You feel all right to carry on?’

They want to interview me a third time. Magic number three – we all know that: sisters, princes, witches, curses, wishes, betrayals.

When we resume there’s a change in the atmosphere, a sparkle of new-found energy from the detectives. Perhaps they’ve snatched a meal, taken a turn in the fresh air. Had an ice-cream or freshly ground coffee.

Detective Sergeant Bray leans forward. ‘Deborah, we want you to tell us what happened in your own words.’

‘No comment.’

‘Did you give Neil morphine, with or without his knowledge?’

‘No comment.’

‘Did you do anything to deprive him of oxygen – for example, holding a pillow to his face?’

‘No comment.’

He pulls a face, rueful, and sits back, his fingers flat against the edge of the table. ‘Deborah Shelley, I am charging you that on the fifteenth of June 2009 you did murder your husband Neil Draper. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand the charge?’