The Dead Ex(100)

He spoke as if I had control over Mum, who had – no surprises there – been denied bail.

Does my mother really know what honesty is any more?

There’s something else too that’s really scaring me as I sit up in the public gallery once again with the baby floundering around inside me. If Mum killed Tanya, then maybe she has it in her to have attacked Vicki Goudman on the prison staircase all those years ago.

‘Not guilty,’ rings Mum’s voice defiantly through the air.

The trial begins. The accusations and questions come thick and fast. We find out that Patrick had been contacted by Vicki’s solicitor. When they had found out about Mum’s release, they had traced her. They couldn’t prove anything, but once the trial started he had decided to keep an eye on her. He followed us to the pub.

Mum’s barrister argues (convincingly, I think) that Patrick overheard the ‘confession’ when she was drunk, so that piece of evidence could not be relied on.

Mum denies it all. But the police found a prison key chain under her bed in our flat which had on it not only Mum’s fingerprints but also traces of Tanya’s blood.

‘I put it to you that the murder was premeditated,’ declares the prosecution. ‘You hid the chain in the ripped lining of your handbag. We found Tanya Goudman’s DNA in there too.’

The very handbag that I had bought her – the one that she had been so proud of.

‘I carried a knife and chain in case I got attacked,’ snaps Mum. ‘Prison makes you like that. You’re always on the lookout.’

It’s the same on the estate, I want to say. Loads of people have illicit weapons as protection in the way that posh people have rape alarms.

But it’s clear from the jury’s faces that they don’t believe her.

Yet it’s the next question which really freaks me out.

‘Was anyone with you when you went to Tanya’s house?’

My ears begin to sing with the pressure. What if Mum says more than she means to?

‘Course not.’ There’s a toss of the head. ‘I wasn’t exactly going to bring my bleeding probation officer, was I?’

One of the jury members sniggers.

‘Murder is no laughing matter,’ thunders the judge. ‘Any more and I’ll declare you in contempt of court.’

But I’m trembling at the lie. ‘If I tell them the truth, you’ll be charged as a conspirator,’ Mum had argued during one of my visits to prison. ‘If you’re sentenced, your kid will be adopted at eighteen months. Do you really want that?’

So I’d agreed. Now, though, part of me feels I should stand up in court and share the blame – even though it would mean losing my child. That’s if I decide to keep it. There are days when I am convinced it would be better off with someone else.

I start to get up. Prepare myself to call out the truth. Then I remember Mr Walters. The young offenders’ institution. The foster parents. So I sit down again. My hands clenched by my side.

The jury is out now.

‘Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty of murder?’

Blood pounds in my ears.

‘Guilty.’

Mum gives a little cry.

I yearn to run over and hug her, just as I’d done when I was small and things went wrong.

Yet I also want to scream at her. If she hadn’t broken the law right at the beginning with our games, we could have had a normal life together as mother and daughter.

And now we are right back to where we were when Mum had first been arrested. With one important difference.

I am no longer a child.

But before long, I will be responsible for another.





61



Vicki

16 September 2018


One minute, a life sentence is stretching out before me. The next, comes the phone call from my solicitor, which I took in the governor’s office, to say that Zelda has been arrested for the murder of Tanya and for attacking Patrick. Thank God my old friend was all right.

Even when Zelda was found guilty, they couldn’t release me immediately. Technically, I was a convicted murderer. These things take time. An application has been made for my conviction to be quashed. Eventually, I might even seek compensation, according to my solicitor. But I’m not going to. It’s not always easy to decide who is guilty and who is not. When I was in charge, I knew there were probably a handful of inmates who were there for crimes they had not committed.

In the meantime a bail hearing was set and held in my absence. At last I am allowed out! The officer hands me a plastic bag containing the possessions I came into prison with. As luck would have it, they had ‘found’ the Welsh love spoon which my father had given my mother. I take out the spoon now and trace its heart-shaped handle with my finger as my mother might have done herself. It calms me, as does the scan picture of baby Patrick, which reminds me that, once, he really did exist.

I walk through the prison gate, gulping in the fresh air, and head for the taxi rank. The local drivers know a good market when they see one.

A tall figure walks towards me. It’s raining, so it’s hard to make out the face. My heart gives a little thud inside. But it’s not who I thought. It’s my solicitor. I try to hide my disappointment.

‘How kind of you to meet me,’ I say. ‘I was going to get a cab.’