Good Me Bad Me(62)

I can feel tears building up, I can see him. Daniel. Asking for his mummy. Tiny he was, on the bed.

‘It’s clear the witness is upset, perhaps you would benefit from a break at this point?’ the judge asks.

‘I want it to be over.’

‘I’m sure you do, but are you able to continue?’ he asks, dipping his head and looking over his glasses at me.

I reply, yes, because I owe it to Daniel, and to the others.

‘Please tell the court how long your mother held the pillow to Daniel’s face for.’

‘A long time. Long enough to kill him.’

‘Objection, your honour, the witness is not a medical expert therefore cannot be permitted to make a judgement on how long it might take for an individual to die.’

‘Sustained, would the jury please dismiss the witness’s last comment.’

‘Can you tell the court about the last time you saw Daniel on the Thursday night. Where was he and what was he doing?’ Skinny asks.

‘Lying on the bed, not moving. Mum had gone down to the living room. I tried to call to him through the peephole but he didn’t respond, he never moved again, that’s how I knew he was dead.’

‘And the very next day you went to the police and reported your mother.’

‘Yes, Daniel was too much. I wanted it to stop, I wanted it all to be over.’

I hear somebody exhale to my left. You. Trying to unnerve me maybe, another piece on the chessboard moved. A bishop or king.

Skinny goes on, questions me about how you controlled me, made me afraid. The torch you held to my face while whispering threats; the sleep deprivation; the psychological torment through the games you played; the physical attacks. The night-time episodes too. Members of the jury flinch and blink as they hear the extent of it. I knew Skinny would do this, he told me it was to illustrate to the court, to show that you are indeed sane, able to sustain these methods over years, all the while holding down a respectable job. When I tell the court about where you made me put the bodies, the cellar, all twelve of the jurors this time shift. Disturbing. Disturbed.

I know I’m doing okay because we’re heading towards the last few questions and I haven’t tripped up yet. Your voice is silent now. I’m hanging on.

Skinny faces the jury and says, ‘Let us not forget that the witness you see on the stand is a child who was groomed and sexualized from a very young age, in a household where one child, a son, had already been placed in care.’

HE WAS TAKEN.

He wanted to be.

DON’T EVER SAY THAT AGAIN, ANNIE. EVER.

‘Objection, your honour, where is this heading?’

‘Yes, I agree, could the prosecution please remain on the matter in hand.’

‘Could the witness please remind the court how old she is?’ Skinny asks.

‘Fifteen.’

‘Fifteen, ladies and gentlemen. And could you please tell the court how old you were when your mother began sexually abusing you?’

‘Objection, your honour.’

‘Sustained, this has no relevance to the case.’

I was five. It was the evening of my fifth birthday party.

‘No further questions, your honour.’

‘In that case, witness dismissed.’

June tells Mike and Saskia I was ‘grand’, did really well. They both look relieved and agree to have me back here tomorrow at nine. When we drive out I close my eyes again, open them a few streets later. We eat lunch when we get home, afterwards I tell them I’m going to lie down, they nod. Sleep as long as you need, we’ll wake you if you haven’t come down for dinner, Mike says. When I checked my phone in the car there was a message from Morgan, she’d bunked off school for the day, could she come and see me in the evening. I replied telling her she could come over earlier, that I’d call her and let her know when. I call her as soon as I get into my room, knowing Mike and Saskia are at the front of the house. I tell her to hurry. She arrives on the balcony in minutes, breathless, makes a joke about being as unfit as her nana. We lie top to tail on my bed, she wriggles non-stop, her feet in my face. I tickle them, threaten to bite off her toes if she doesn’t stop. She laughs, says, like to see you try.

I wouldn’t, I reply in my head, sitting up.

‘How come you’re off school as well?’ she asks.

‘I had to go to court, answer some questions about my mum.’

‘Why? Thought you hadn’t seen her for years.’

Another lie told. The exhaustion of trying to remember who knows what.

‘They wanted to ask me what she was like when I was little.’

‘What was she like?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘How come no one knew what she was doing?’

‘She was clever. Spectacular.’

‘In what way?’

‘People liked her, trusted her. She knew how to fool them.’

‘You remember all that from when you were little?’

‘Yeah, I suppose so, and from reading about it in the news.’

‘When your dad died, you must have felt pretty lonely without any brothers or sisters.’

I nod, it’s true. I was lonely when Luke left. I’m glad I won’t be questioned about him in court, the jury would wonder why he found a way to escape sooner and I didn’t. All the fights he got into, the stealing. He did anything he could to be taken away, punished in a place kinder than home. Anything but tell the truth about you, the shame he felt, what you did to him for years.