The Dead Ex(87)

‘She’s preparing my case,’ I reply. ‘My trial starts tomorrow.’

‘Mine doesn’t seem to care. Reckon she thinks I’m guilty.’

Penny is already waiting in the legal visits room. She has a man with her. ‘This is Giles Romer,’ she says with a vibrant expression on her face. ‘He’s going to be your barrister.’

‘Your solicitor has told me about your attack, Vicki.’ He speaks as though he already knows me. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss.’

I look away. This isn’t something I can discuss with a stranger. It was hard enough talking to Penny.

‘We need to know more, Vicki,’ she says gently.

‘I’ve had enough.’

‘You’re not helping your case. Your baby might be the thing that throws your case into a whole new light.’

Patrick …

After losing my son I was almost mad with grief. One minute I’d been pregnant, a child fluttering inside me. Now there was nothing. How was I meant to go on? I’d hoped for comfort from my husband but David would barely speak to me. I knew he blamed me. So I found myself confiding in my old friend Patrick instead.

‘Sometimes,’ he told me in the privacy of my office, ‘it can help to give your baby a name. Think of him as a person.’

Your name, I thought instinctively. A good, solid, loyal name. And strangely, it did help. A psychologist might also explain my choice by suggesting that I still had feelings for Patrick. Either way, I kept my baby’s name to myself.

I’d been so busy grieving for my son that I’d scarcely given a second thought to my own injuries, which included a broken arm on top of the bruising to my head. I’d also been deeply distressed by the D and C, which was apparently necessary after a miscarriage, especially one which was so late. ‘We need to scrape your womb to make sure it’s clean,’ a nurse had told me. ‘Then you can be ready to start again.’

But the very thought of having another baby seemed disloyal to little Patrick. Besides, with David’s hostility towards me, it didn’t look as though there was any possibility of that. He still maintained he had told me to transfer to a ‘less dangerous prison’. In fact, David was so adamant that I almost believed him. Perhaps the blow on my head had affected my memory. I even forgot Valentine’s Day, although David, in an attempt perhaps to make up for his behaviour, gave me a beautiful pair of crystal drop earrings. But his kindness was short-lived and he went back to being snappy with me.

Perhaps it wasn’t surprising. I wasn’t myself: constantly anxious and jumping at every noise. Post-traumatic stress, said the doctor, prescribing tranquillizers. I was even rude to poor Jackie and Frances, who came to visit with chocolates and flowers. ‘I’m sure that one day you’ll get over it,’ said Frances awkwardly.

‘How do you know?’ I’d retorted. ‘Neither of you are mothers. You don’t know what it’s like to be pregnant and then lose it.’ The hurt on their faces was all too clear.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, turning my head away as hot, silent tears dripped onto my pillow. Jackie had squeezed my hand in comfort. It was more than I deserved.

Then came the first seizure. The last thing I could remember was an argument with David in the Kingston house and then waking up on the sitting-room carpet, feeling as though I’d had a deep sleep. Yet, at the same time, I was weirdly disorientated. When I pulled myself up, using a chair, I fell over again.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ he had snapped. ‘Get a grip on yourself, Vicki.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘There’s no need to go nuts just because I said I was going away again.’

‘Where? When?’ I rubbed my arms and legs as I spoke. The muscles felt really achy. Only later did I find out this can be part of the ‘condition’.

‘I think I need to see the doctor.’

‘A psychiatrist, more like.’

How could he be so cruel?

The doctor sent me off for an MRI scan, which revealed I’d had a seizure. ‘This can happen after a head injury. With any luck it’s a one-off, but we’ll keep an eye on it. Let’s see you again in a month’s time.’

But before the appointment came up, I had another; this time in the prison staff room. Patrick had driven me straight to the hospital. ‘You need to test her for epilepsy,’ he’d told the duty doctor.

‘What?’ I demanded.

‘I’ve seen it before,’ he said quietly.

Only later did I discover that my experience was quite usual. After an accident, it can take weeks or sometimes months before an epileptic attack actually happens. Diagnosis can take even longer. Mine was finally confirmed after a series of tests including EEG (electro encephalogram), which measures the brain’s electrical activity, sleep deprivation, and an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan to find out if there is a lesion or other abnormality in the brain tissue, which could be responsible for the seizures. Alcohol is also, I was told, a fairly common trigger. Then there were further scans. By the time the results came through, I’d had two more ‘turns’. To my deep embarrassment, one had taken place during a staff risk assessment concerning a new prisoner who’d been self-harming.

But if it wasn’t for the witnesses, I could swear that nothing had happened.