A Question of Guilt Read online

  ‘We met the next day at about twelve o’clock. I turned up on time, and the bar was empty, apart from a woman sat in the corner. She was drinking bitter lemon, which was all I ever saw her drink. I went up to her and said, “Are you waiting for anybody and is your name Eileen?” She had told me her name on the phone. She never gave me another name at any time, but she is the woman you pointed out to me at the police station, Eileen Cartwright. She said, yes she was Eileen, and I got a drink of whisky and sat next to her.

  ‘She took a fifty pound note from her purse and gave it to me as a retainer. She said, “I would like you to follow a chap who is a solicitor with an office in Fleet Street.” She gave me a description, and either then, or later in the conversation told me his name, Michael Bernard, and where he worked. She also told me that he drove a grey BMW. She said he was a dear friend of hers and that he was in trouble, but would not tell me what. I wasn’t particularly interested. She told me she wanted him watched from the time he left work at about five-thirty until he got home, on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of the following week. It was a Monday when we met, and I was to report to her the following Monday. She would phone me to arrange it.

  ‘I think the first week I did the three runs on my own. I spoke to Eileen on the phone and she asked me to repeat it. I think the next week I took my brother-in-law with me because it was so boring. Mr Bernard didn’t do anything much, sometimes stopped for a drink or went into another office, but he was generally home by seven-thirty. I used my car, which is an “S” registration Escort, white, a bit rusty.

  ‘The following week, I met Eileen in the same place as before, and she asked me to do another week’s work in my own time. She didn’t even seem too interested in the result. I can’t be exactly clear about the next point, but during the meeting after that, Eileen told me someone was trying to drive Mr Bernard mad, that someone being his wife, and if it didn’t stop he was going to have a nervous breakdown. She asked me if I could do anything about it, suggesting the wife could be harmed. I said I would think, and see if I knew anyone who could help.

  ‘The next time I met Eileen was as a result of a phone call from her. This time we met in a car-park in Hackney, in her car. It was a new car and I sat in it with her. This was many weeks after the first meeting, months even, and she had been getting me to follow Bernard at least once a week. A nice little earner, but I still couldn’t pay my bills. I gamble a bit, sometimes. The subject of harming Bernard’s wife hadn’t come up again after I had told her that I did not know anyone who would help her, and she had said it didn’t matter. I got the impression that she had been thinking about that all the time, and so had I. I was always waiting for her to say something more. On this occasion she told me she wanted to discuss what was going to happen next. I did not know fully what she meant, but because of what she said at that earlier meeting I was prepared for it somehow.

  ‘I asked Eileen for her name and address, and what exactly do you want done. She knew that I had thought about it. I’d thought about how much I could ask. We were in trouble at home.

  ‘She replied, “Let me start at the beginning.” Then she told me her address, which is 51, St George’s Street, above a shop she said. We had a long conversation. She told me that she wanted Mrs Sylvia Bernard killed. She said I would have seen this woman when I had followed Mr Bernard home, and that she had a metallic green Golf car. I had always suspected that Eileen had wanted more than the woman just beaten up and this confirmed it. I said, “It will cost you a lot of money.” I think she said five thousand, and I said, “Double that.” She said it seemed an awful lot and she could not give it me all at once. She could give me five thousand pounds in a few weeks, the rest afterwards, probably two or three months. I agreed. She just said she wanted the woman killed, and kept saying she was a very bad woman. In the end she said she would leave it for now, but in a few weeks she would phone me to say she had the money and I was to go to her house in Islington and collect it. She would expect the job done by the end of November, because Mr Bernard always went away abroad for Christmas, and after that it would be too late. I said I would go to her house either on the day she telephoned me or the day after. All that was in September. She still had me follow Mr B, sometimes both of them. [Pause. An irritating knock on the door. Junior prosecutor in search of advice. Come back later if it isn’t urgent … You’re sure it isn’t urgent, not for today? See you later, ten minutes, OK?] I drove from my house in Hackington East to several streets away from hers the day she rang me, which was on 29 October, the day before my wife’s birthday. I parked my Ford Escort where I showed you, and I rang Eileen from the telephone box, which I also showed you. She had given me the number. It was about eight-thirty. I said, “This is Mr Jaskowski, will you let me in? I will be about five minutes.” I walked from the car to her house, which is where I showed you. Her car was outside her house, and a door at the side was open. I went upstairs to her part of the building where you go straight into a living-room on the left of the front door. She had told me previously she would be there.

  ‘The lights in the room were off, apart from a small lamp, which did not give very much light at all. The rest of the light was from a street light outside. As I walked into the living-room, there was a large cabinet to my left piled with material. The room was full of furniture, all of it old as far as I could see, and there were curtains and bits and pieces of things on all the chairs, not much space to sit down. In front of me was a big armchair with one leg broken. Too much put on it. A coffee table in the middle of the room was clear, and there was a fireplace which looked as if it had been used, because of the ash in it, but I could not say how long since it had been used. The room was not warm, and, as I said, it was dark. I also recollect a number of silver items which shone in the light from the street lamp. The whole atmosphere was very strange and she had two pairs of gloves on the coffee table in the middle of the room. Eileen said to me to put on one of the pairs of gloves, because she did not want my fingerprints in the room. She apologised for the mess, said it was stuff from her shops. I put on a pair of brown, thin leather gloves, and she did the same. They were new, and they fitted me, which I thought was odd. I sat down on the settee, which is one of those chaise longue things and she offered me a drink. The whole atmosphere was very strange and I said I would like a whisky, but she brought me some gin instead, I don’t know why, I don’t like it.

  ‘She pointed towards the sideboard, and I saw a big envelope on top of the material. She said, “I have the money all there. I have been up all night cleaning it with methylated spirits to get rid of any fingerprints, but we should discuss some details before I give it to you. I don’t want you to write anything down.” I noticed she had a notebook, which she looked at. Then she asked me some questions. First, could I trust the person who was doing the work to keep quiet? I said yes, and that I might do it myself. I think she knew that. She said she was able to keep quiet, herself, I mean, but if she were ever double-crossed, someone would pay. It was a warning to me. Then she said that if the work was not done inside three weeks, she would want her money back. She asked me if I had anything which would connect me to her, and that if I had, like my note of her phone number, I should destroy it: she would do the same. She then repeated that if the job was not done before Mr Bernard went on holiday she would expect her money back.

  ‘Then she gave me the envelope. The money had a very strong smell, which worried me when I came to change it and put some in the Building Society. The other five thousand pounds, she said would be paid later, in March of this year. March the twentieth, to be exact, when I was to meet her in the same car-park we had used before. If either of us could not make it, we were to return one week after at the same time. I was not to telephone her. She warned me again about destroying her telephone number, so I tore it up in front of her. She then left the room, telling me to leave after she had gone and close the side door behind me. Holding the envelope, I went, and drove home to my wife.
/>   ‘I cannot tell you how happy I was as I went home, because I knew I had the money in my hands to pay off my debts. At that stage, I never intended to harm Mrs Bernard. That might sound a strange thing to say now, but that is exactly how I felt at the time. When I got home I hid the money in an old fridge, all of it except some, and told my wife that one of my mates had paid something he owed me. I brought six hundred pounds into the house and over the next few days paid all the rent, insurance, arrears to the HP companies for the things we have in the house. I put some of it in the Building Society, and the girl asked me what I had done with it to make it smell like paint. I told her I was a painter, and she joked, told me not to keep it in a tin. I was worried by that.

  ‘After a week, I had spent not all of the money but most of it. I was terrified Eileen would get her revenge on me if I did not carry out the job. As time went on, I could not think of anything else. I had told her all about my family, and I was afraid for them too. Don’t ask me why I did not think about that earlier, but I didn’t. By 10 November, I was going out of my mind, drinking far more than usual, which is a lot.

  ‘I decided to make some attempt to make it look as if I had tried to kill Mrs Bernard. I was working late turn at the hospital, that is two in the afternoon until ten at night. I telephoned Mr Bernard’s office from a phone box and made an appointment to see him at nine-thirty on a Wednesday morning in case he decided to go into work late that day. On the Tuesday after work, I went out drinking, bought some whisky for my car. I slept in the car for a few hours in the hospital car-park, got up about half past seven. With me, I had a saw which I had wrapped in gift paper and a bunch of flowers from outside a station, Highbury I think. I still didn’t believe I was going to do anything to Mrs Bernard, but I drank some of my whisky before I drove from Hackney to Islington. The traffic was very heavy; I thought I was never going to get there, but I did. I put the car in one of those streets which doesn’t need parking permits. Something in my mind was telling me not to go, but it seemed like I was too far to stop, so I sat in the car for a long time, wondering how I could get out of this situation. Drinking all the time, nerves and guilt I suppose. I then decided to go and at least make an attempt to do it, though as I have said before, I still didn’t intend to kill her.’ Helen felt her mouth begin to dry, and cradled her empty coffee cup closer.

  ‘When I got out of the car, I had the gift-wrapped saw and the flowers in my hand. I forgot to say I had been one night, more than one night, looked closely round the house where she lived and I knew what it was like. I walked around for a bit first before I actually went into the street, put an empty bottle into a waste-paper basket. When I got to their house, I stood outside and looked up at it for a few minutes. I saw Mrs Bernard at a window upstairs, talking on the phone, and then I thought, I’ve got to do something now. Didn’t mean hurt her badly, just something to make it look as if I’d tried. I couldn’t just stand there. She looked nice at the window. At this stage, I didn’t know what I was going to do.

  ‘The front door was slightly open; she opened it wider. I asked her, “Can you sign for this parcel, please?” She said, “It’s a bit soon for Christmas, isn’t it?”, but she went back inside for a pencil, then came back with a pen in her hand. I don’t know what it was, but she looked at me as if I was dirt, just like dirt when she first opened the door. I thought, “If she smiles at me nicely, I’ll have to just go away,” but she didn’t smile. When she came back with the pen, she didn’t smile either, and when she held out her hands for the parcels, she sort of jumped. It was as if she suddenly knew that I hadn’t come about those. I grabbed hold of her, and she started struggling and screaming, and I panicked and we both fell onto the floor inside the door. I tried to calm her down, shouted at her I hadn’t come to kill her, but she kept on screaming and fighting. She ripped all the buttons off my shirt and I think I tore her blouse. I kept saying, “Don’t worry,” but she wouldn’t stop. Then I hit her; I hit her with the claw-hammer I had in my coat pocket. I had the hammer and a knife in my coat pocket, so she would see them and think I had come there to kill her. Then she would have reported someone had been there to kill her, and Eileen would know that I had tried even if I had not done the job. Even after I hit her, she struggled. She didn’t scream, just made noises, still grabbed me, even after I hit at her hands.

  ‘I lost my head and I can’t remember how many times I hit her with the hammer. I stood up, then knelt down, and thought she was still alive, still moving a bit, so I panicked again, and stabbed her in the throat with the knife. I don’t know how often. Then I picked up the parcels which had been dropped and ran out the door. Took the knife and hammer with me, and my coat off outside. Ran back to my car.

  ‘In the boot I had some overalls which I use for working, changed into them and took all the clothes I had on to a launderette in Upper Street. It wasn’t busy so nobody noticed me in there. I went to my brother’s and told him I had been out all night after a row with my wife. We often have rows, and my brother wasn’t surprised and let me stay with him all morning until we went for a drink at lunchtime and I went back to work.

  ‘I burnt my coat and my overalls in the hospital incinerator. Also the knife. I put the saw and the hammer in there as well. I finally put the shirt in there because it was ripped, and I borrowed one from one of my mates who has left now.

  ‘I am deeply sorry for what I have done, and I find it hard to say how I feel. I never intended to kill her, but that doesn’t make that much difference now. I wish she had smiled at me, and then I would have just frightened her. I might have told her what Eileen wanted done to her. I don’t know why I did it, except I was frightened. I thought that Eileen would kill me, or my wife. If she could get me to kill someone else, why shouldn’t she get someone to kill me, or one of my children? I have not been so good to my children but I love them. I have brought such misery to them and many people, and I am prepared to face up to my punishment. I have told you everything: I will help you get Eileen now. She is a bad woman and I am still afraid of her. Without her, I would never have got involved. It is not easy to explain. I have never done anything as violent as this before in my life. Having the money was nice, very nice. She knew how much I wanted it, and she waited for me like I waited for her. I could have made something with the money.

  ‘I owe you an explanation of why I have told you so many lies since you arrested me last week. Couldn’t say it at first. Every time I think of what I’ve done, I feel like being sick. Sometimes I am sick. That’s why I lied. I will give evidence against Eileen. She is the one I saw in here last week. There is no one like her, no one as strong as that. She made me feel like a little boy with her. She will get away, find someone else as weak as I turned out to be, and do it again. She has done this to me, and she will do it again.’

  Automatically, Helen checked the subscription.

  ‘I have read this statement, and I have been told that I can correct, alter, or add anything I wish. This statement is true. I have made it of my own free will.’

  Written in the defendant’s backhanded, not illiterate scrawl. No alterations or additions, making it difficult for him to claim after such a lengthy autograph that the admissions were penned under threat of violence or withdrawal of bail. This one would have known in any event that liberty was no more than an academic issue. This one had an articulate hand and voice, may even have enjoyed the attention.

  Rapt attention, to everything he spoke or wrote. Stanislaus had lied for three days before falling on the neck of the investigating officer in an agony of tearful remorse, and the story which unfolded would have had them all ears with all its incredible feasibility. Helen suddenly saw a different slant to wise David’s warning that this case, this hideous document of confession, was too close for comfort. Not nearly as easy in this to distance herself from the average man defined as a criminal by his actions, one outside the normal buffer zone which separated him from lawyers, captors and judges as well as his average victim
s. An unusual perspective, one rank amateur persuading another to kill a solid middle-class citizen not three streets from her own door: the kind of victim she might have been if some nasty trick of fate kept her married and idle with a richer solicitor than the ones she knew now. It was not so much the eccentricity which stunned her, but the nuances, the little fingers of fate which had so assisted the plan. If only Mrs Bernard had smiled at Jaskowski, avoiding the activation of all that fear, he might not have struck her after all – might have accepted instead a pat on the head, retired like the whipping boy he was into the more familiar realms of failure. Did she know? Did she pay for the risk? Helen could not begin to tell.

  She turned to the interview of Eileen Cartwright. Hours of futile questions, delivered by Detective Superintendent Bailey, interviewer par excellence, questions to a mask of a face with few replies, none of them helpful or incriminating. Helen’s eyes were held by a passage towards the end of the notes, a kind of finale.

  ‘Madam, I have questioned you for several hours. Although you concede a great fondness for her husband, you deny any knowledge of the deceased, or of Mr Jaskowski. I do not believe you. Let me give you the details of what happened to Mrs Bernard. She died of thirty injuries, inflicted with hammer and knife … Her clothes were torn, her fingers broken in warding off the blows. She fought back, with all her strength. Can you imagine those few minutes, Mrs Cartwright? Can you imagine what she must have felt?

  ‘Answer: No Reply. (Note: Interviewee did not speak. But smiled. Asked for cigarette.)’