A Room Swept White (36 page)

‘So the non-natural deaths are a bigger proportion of the total number,’ said Charlie. That made sense.

‘I would say so, yes. Though, because I’m not a statistician, I’m not sure whether that’s the same thing or slightly different from saying that a reported cot death is more
likely
to be a homicide now than fifty years ago. Statistics might be helpful when you’re looking at populations, but they can be horribly distorting if you try to apply them to individual cases. I’m very precise when I talk about these things, which is why it’s frustrating when fools misrepresent me.’ Duffy sounded more resigned than angry. ‘You’ll have heard my famous quote: “so unlikely, it borders on impossible”?’

Charlie nodded.

‘It’s that more than anything else that’s going to seal my fate at the GMC,’ said Duffy. ‘How could I say something so inaccurate and prejudicial about the odds of two siblings being cot deaths, without having firm statistical evidence to back it up? Simple: I didn’t say it. I tried to explain what I’d meant, but Helen Yardley’s barrister wouldn’t let me speak. The exact question put to me was, “Is it possible that Morgan and Rowan were both victims of cot death?” It was
that
question to which I replied with the words I’m now universally hated for, but I wasn’t talking about the two-cot-deaths-in-one-household aspect of the situation. On that, I’d have said that for two babies from the same family to be SIDS deaths would be uncommon, but quite possible if there was a medical condition in the family – a genetic predisposition, a history of heart arrhythmias.’

Judith Duffy leaned forward in her chair. ‘When I said “so unlikely, it borders on impossible”, I meant
given what I’d seen through the microscope
– nothing to do with number of cot deaths per family. I’d studied both boys’ files in detail and found what I regarded as incontrovertible evidence of non-natural death in both cases – repeated attempts at smothering, salt poisoning, a bilateral skull fracture . . . Russell Meredew claims a baby can fracture its skull by falling off a sofa; I beg to differ. For Morgan and Rowan Yardley to have sustained the damage I saw and for it not to have been inflicted . . .’ She frowned and laughed simultaneously, as if trying to work it out all over again. ‘It’s as likely as someone with a bone poking out through the skin of their arm not having a broken arm – so unlikely that, yes, it borders on impossible.’

Automatically, Charlie wondered if there was any weird syndrome that might make an arm-bone protrude from the skin without being broken. Acute skin shrinkage? Hole-in-the-flesh disorder?

‘Being certain doesn’t necessarily make me right, of course,’ Duffy added. ‘Humility’s as important as compassion in my line of work. I made some bad mistakes: I originally said, in the case of Rowan Yardley, that blood results shouldn’t be relied upon. Then later, when I found out about Morgan, who also had unbelievably high blood salt, and when I looked at the whole symptom picture, I changed my mind. Taken in isolation, perhaps, high serum sodium could possibly be explained away, but . . . Also, I didn’t know, when I said it, quite how high Rowan’s blood salt levels were. Another mistake I made was to allow a coroner friend of mine to tell me Marcella Hines’ death had to have been natural causes, because he knew Angus Hines and the Hineses were “a lovely family”.’

Charlie noticed that Duffy seemed more at ease talking about the things she’d done wrong than about wrongs done to her.

‘When Nathaniel Hines turned up on my autopsy table four years later, I panicked. Had I relaxed my usual vigilance and taken Desmond . . . the coroner’s word for something when I shouldn’t have, and had another baby now been murdered as a result of my giving both Ray Hines and Desmond the benefit of the doubt? It was my worst fear, and I suppose that made me more likely to believe it was exactly what had happened. I went into over-protective, over-cautious mode, and as a result . . .’ She tailed off, staring past Charlie into space.

‘As a result?’ Charlie prompted gently.

‘I made a dreadful error in Ray’s case. She didn’t murder either of her children, but I told the court she did. My defensiveness was partly to blame.’ Duffy smiled. ‘I used to be very defensive. By the time Nathaniel Hines died, Laurie Nattrass’s media onslaught against me had been raging for some time. I was determined not to be cowed by him. To say Nathaniel Hines was a cot death when I had doubts would have felt like a defeat. I suppose I wanted to show the world that mothers can be a very real danger to babies, and it’s not just something I invented out of wickedness and because I enjoy ruining people’s lives. And I
did
have doubts – I was told on good authority that Ray had suffered from post-natal depression and nearly jumped off a window ledge. What if I’d said natural causes, and the Hineses had had another baby and it had ended up dead too?’

‘You and Ray had lunch together on Monday,’ said Charlie. Seeing Duffy’s surprise, she added, ‘That’s one of the reasons I’m here. The DI who’s SIO on Helen Yardley’s murder thinks it’s odd that the two of you would spend time together.’

‘It’s only odd if you look at the world in a limited and limiting way,’ said Duffy.

‘Yup, that would be our DI.’

‘Believe it or not, Ray and I are now good friends. I contacted her when she got out of prison, via her solicitor.’

‘Why?’ Charlie asked.

‘To apologise. To admit that I’d been less than objective in her case. She was the one who suggested meeting. She wanted to tell me the truth about what had killed her babies. She believed it was the DTP-Hib vaccine, in both cases. After listening to her for half an hour, I was inclined to think so too.’

‘But . . .’

‘Her lawyers didn’t bring it up at the trial because all their expert witnesses threatened to deny it, and, with no medical expert to say it was a possible cause of death, they’d have looked stupid. Ironically, if they’d come to me, I’d instantly have thought twice about Marcella and Nathaniel’s deaths being murder. At least I hope I would,’ Duffy amended. ‘I like to think I would have woken up at that point.’

‘But Ray’s lawyers didn’t go to you, because you were the bad guy, giving evidence for the other side.’

Duffy nodded. ‘Angus Hines’ mother has Lupus. There’s a history of cot death in his extended family. That suggests a hereditary auto-immune problem. Plus, a reliable witness saw both Marcella and Nathaniel have a seizure almost straight after they were vaccinated. Vaccine damage – fitting, in particular – would account for all the things I saw: brain swelling, bleeding in the brain . . .’

‘That ought to have come out in court. Even if they thought all the doctors would disagree with it.’

‘Oh, I’m sure Julian Lance was right about that – that’s Ray’s lawyer. Everyone admits in theory that a small percentage of babies will react badly to a vaccine and in some cases die – there’s even a body called the Vaccine Damage Payment Unit – but when it actually happens, in my experience, everyone closes ranks and says, “It wasn’t the vaccine – that’s perfectly safe, trialled and tested.” ’

Duffy smiles suddenly. ‘You know, the first time I met Ray after she was released, she thanked me for caring enough about her children not to bow to the pressure I was under – Laurie Nattrass’s pressure – and say they died naturally when it wasn’t what I believed. That’s what she
said, even though she ended up going to prison because of my testimony.’

‘Do you know where Ray’s staying at the moment?’ Charlie asked.

‘Not the address,’ said Duffy. She patted her knees. For a second, Charlie mistook it for an invitation to sit on her lap. Then Duffy said, ‘I feel as if I’ve been talking about myself for an awfully long time. I’d like to hear about you.’

‘I’ve told you about my fall from grace.’

‘I’m sorry you had to yell the details through my letterbox,’ said Duffy. ‘Do you want to talk about it?
Have
you ever talked about it? I don’t mean the bare bones of what happened, I mean the emotional impact—’

‘No,’ Charlie cut her off.

‘You should.’

‘Even if I don’t want to?’

‘Especially then.’ Duffy looked alarmed, as if a reluctance to discuss past traumas was a symptom of a fatal illness. ‘Keeping any kind of emotional damage locked inside you is a big mistake. Pain has to be expressed and really
felt
before it can dissolve.’ Duffy half rose from her chair and moved it closer to Charlie’s before sitting again. ‘It was two years before I could bring myself to talk about Sarah Jaggard’s trial,’ she said. ‘I had to be taken to court in an armoured van and escorted in through a back entrance. I knew then that there was no way she’d be convicted. By 2005, Laurie Nattrass had made me a household name, and not in a good way. My presence as an expert witness for the prosecution was enough to secure an acquittal for Jaggard. People screamed abuse at me in court, the jury stared at me as if they wanted me dead . . .’

A loud ringing sound interrupted her: the doorbell.

‘I’ll leave it. I’m not expecting anyone. I’d rather talk to you, and listen to you.’

Charlie hesitated. Could she tell this virtual stranger how she’d spent most of the past three years feeling? Should she? ‘No, get it,’ she said.

Duffy looked disappointed, but she didn’t argue. Once she’d gone, Charlie stood up and put on her jacket quickly, before she could change her mind. She grabbed her bag and made her way towards the kitchen. She heard Duffy in the hall, sounding polite but firm, saying, ‘No, thanks,’ and ‘Really, I’m sure. Thank you.’

Charlie stepped out into the hall at exactly the same moment as she heard the shot, saw the gun, and saw Duffy fall backwards, her head cracking on the uncarpeted stairs.

The man in the doorway turned and pointed his gun at Charlie. ‘Get on the floor! Don’t move!’

‘I can’t have seen it, can I? She was innocent all along.’ Leah Gould raised her voice to make herself heard above the noise in the café. She’d told Simon to meet her here – across the road from her office. Gould hadn’t worked for Social Services for seven years. She’d taken maternity leave, then, when her daughter went to school, she’d got a job as a receptionist for a timber company, where she still worked.

‘Only you know what you saw,’ said Simon.

‘But why would she have tried to smother her daughter if she didn’t kill her two boys? She wouldn’t, would she? Either she’s a killer or she’s not, and she wouldn’t have had her convictions cancelled or whatever if she was guilty.’

‘Why do you say that?’

Leah Gould took a bite of her cheese and onion toastie as she considered the question. Simon was starving. Soon as he was alone, he’d get himself something to eat. He hated eating in front of strangers.

‘It’s like Laurie Nattrass says: the courts’ll do anything to avoid saying they made a mistake. They only admit they’re wrong when they’re forced to, when it’s such a bad mistake that they can’t deny it.’

‘So because Helen Yardley won her appeal, she must have been innocent?’

Leah Gould nodded.

‘Before the appeal – what did you think then?’

‘Oh, I thought she’d done it. Definitely.’

‘How come?’

‘Because of what I saw her do.’ More chomping on the toastie.

‘What you
didn’t
see her do, you mean?’

‘Yeah. But I thought I did. It was only later I realised I couldn’t have.’

Simon’s hunger was making him more impatient than he would have been otherwise. ‘Do you know anything about any of the three judges that heard Helen’s appeal?’

Leah Gould looked at him as if he was crazy. ‘Why would I know about any judges?’

‘Do you even know their names?’

‘Why would I?’

‘Yet you trust them more than you trust your own eyes.’

Leah Gould blinked at him. ‘What do you mean?’

Simon would have liked to prise the toastie from her fingers and kick it across the room. ‘Helen Yardley’s convictions were overturned because they were deemed unsafe. It’s not the same
thing as saying she’s innocent. The appeal judges didn’t necessarily think she was innocent of murder, though they might have done. One might have done, or two, or all three – they could have had the same opinion or different opinions.’ This was useless. ‘I’m interested in what
you
believe, based on what you saw.’

‘I think she must have been giving her baby a cuddle, like she said.’

Something was missing here. Leah Gould had expressed no regret whatsoever. ‘The evidence you gave in court was a big part of the prosecution’s case,’ said Simon. ‘You claimed you saw Helen Yardley try to smother her daughter. You were asked if it could have been a cuddle – a mother in turmoil at being separated from her only surviving child, clinging on to that child – you said no.’

‘Because that was what I thought at the time.’

Was guilt an emotion that only intelligent people felt?

‘It wasn’t just me. There was a policeman there. He saw it too.’

‘Giles Proust?’

‘I can’t remember his name.’

‘His name was Giles Proust. He disagreed with you in court. He described what he witnessed that day as an ordinary cuddle.’

Leah Gould shook her head. ‘I was looking at him, not at Helen Yardley. He was watching her with Paige. That’s when I first knew something was wrong. I saw his eyes change, and he looked at me, like he couldn’t do anything and wanted me to stop it. That’s when I looked at Helen and the baby and . . . saw what I saw. And I did stop it.’

‘You stopped an attempted smothering? By taking Paige Yardley away from her mother?’

Leah Gould’s lips thinned in disapproval. ‘Are you winding me up? I’ve told you, I don’t think that
now
. I’m telling you what I thought
then.’

‘And you thought,
then
, that DS Proust saw what you saw?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then why did he say the opposite in court? Why say he saw only a cuddle?’

‘You’d have to ask him.’ No curiosity in her expression; not even a flicker of interest.

‘I suppose if you could be wrong about what you saw Helen Yardley do, you could equally be wrong about Giles Proust. Maybe you misinterpreted the look he gave you; maybe he was thinking about what he was going to have for his tea that night.’