A Question of Guilt Read online

  ‘… I noted the following: ten horizontal stab wounds of different lengths on the front of the neck. These wounds were one-half to one-and-a-half inches long, and appeared to go both backwards and forwards, indicating motions with a knife upwards and downwards, indiscriminately. The deepest cut had severed the left carotid artery. The left ear was split, there was one large, and several smaller cuts to the index fingers of both hands, considerable bruising to the knuckles, a semicircular tear, three inches in length, one-and-a-half inches above and behind the right ear. This extended down to the bone which was protruding, and was fractured. There were large splits in the left temporal region, with an underlying depression to the skull. There was extensive fracturing of the skull with numerous small pieces of bone dislodged, blackening around both eyes, bruising to the outer end of the left eye, where the outer rim of the eye socket was fractured. …’

  Very dead indeed. Ach, poor lady. Stanislaus bowed his head in a moment of shameful pity. Poor, poor lady: rich lady, not vermin, like Ed had said. Just a body. If only it had smiled, or shooed him away like a farmer’s wife with her hens, if only he had gone. Or stopped at the first blow. So much blood on the floor, more than he had ever seen.

  He rose like a wooden puppet when the minders stood with him, everything glowing bright and blurred: the judge’s wig a halo, his spectacles patches of light, his voice disembodied and carrying from afar, unimportant like the room itself and the cell to follow. Until he saw Ed, the bright head of him directly below his hands; touching distance without handcuffs. Then Stanislaus began to tremble, his mouth working silent words; not here boy, please not here, please, don’t be such a fool, go home … The warders gave each other a fractional, experienced glance and braced themselves slightly as they noticed the signs of distress: don’t bunk, or slump, Jaskowski.

  Standing upright, it was they who were tall, attentive and respectful, gazing at his Lordship’s sounding of formalised words as if their lives depended on it while the prisoner hung between them, his eyes fixed below, mouth twitching, large body bent in misery with the end of the best day-dream which had led him into this room for a jovial judge to say a mistake had been made and Mrs Bernard had recovered; day-dreams he had known were false, but which guarded him from this foul reality and the sickening vision of all that blood seen through the eyes of his son. Dear God, what was the boy doing, was he mad? Why did he want to listen to this? Ed, son, why are you watching, risking this, testing me? Get out of here … get out, get out … Father stumbling away, pulled and pushed down gently, casting a desperate glance in Ed’s direction, unable to see although he hesitated as long as he could. ‘Come on Stan, good lad,’ a polite, determined pull from the elder warder who spoke softly. ‘Come on, my lovely. All over now. Down you go.’ There was no wave, no smile of recognition, no effort of the head to show itself. He thought his heart would break, and his strangled voice would howl out grief and rage. Not for himself; for the boy who had not looked at him, the one he loved, his first born who would not take the chance of a last wave.

  Until his father was out of sight, Ed was as still in his seat as the seat itself until the judge rose. No Maria. No Peter, or George, no elder statesmen, and no women. Simply Ed, unnaturally still, full of casual purpose, noticed in the end by more of those present than his father even in the subdued emotion which swept the emptying court. Helen felt sick with pity, a wrenching nausea of regret the way she always felt when she watched the sentence to long despair. ‘Poor bloody bastard,’ she told Bailey, averting eyes to avoid him seeing furious tears. ‘Poor man. Daft bastard.’

  ‘Just behind you, about seven feet away, there hovers that poor man’s son,’ said Geoffrey evenly. ‘The only one of the whole clan to arrive.’ Helen turned and saw the boy fastening his cheap anorak, his eyes locked on hers in a long and innocent stare which somehow lacked the guileless gaze of youth. Involuntarily, she smiled. The smile was not returned. Silly, she thought as she turned away, why the hell should he smile at me?

  ‘Hope that lad doesn’t want to see his father,’ said Bailey uneasily, pity ill at ease with duty.

  ‘Would it help if he did? He has to sign that statement. According to my orders, Mrs Cartwright can’t be arrested without it. Might seeing his son make him more amenable?’ Even pity gave way to practical duty. Bailey hesitated. ‘No. It wouldn’t help. Don’t ask me why, but it wouldn’t. Stanislaus clams up when he’s mentioned. But if he wants a quick word with Father before the next prison visit, I shan’t be able to refuse unless I’ve primed the gaoler. Damn. He’s asking counsel.’

  ‘Why do you think so? I know he’s distressed; he seemed fine, then looked awful, but will it make any difference if he sees his son?’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled briefly. ‘The psychic detective says yes. Excuse me, but I’m not going to give it the benefit of doubt. I’ll tell the gaoler to refuse.’ With those words he moved, and disappeared beyond the baize door to the underground cells. Out of the corner of one pale eye, Ed watched him go while his ears took in the useless sympathy of his father’s representatives, and having seen, he did not trouble them with his request.

  Helen regrouped the papers listlessly, still full of the sick, sad feel, alone at the bench while Carey, prosecution counsel, talked to the judge’s clerk and his junior talked to the defence junior in the general kind of club talk which preceded and followed almost any trial, even one as brief and predetermined as this. Tying the tape around one volume of statements, thinking ahead to the rest of the day in a cloud of depression, she was suddenly aware of two hands on the bench before her, young, male hands which were broad and powerful. Raising her head, the eyes still reflecting the tears she would never shed in the interests of sense, she found again the gaze of Ed Jaskowski.

  ‘I just wanted to ask,’ he said politely, ‘when will Mrs Cartwright be arrested?’

  Startled, she replied with the same grave politeness, sorrow for him uppermost, sandwiched with surprise, underlined with dislike of the translucent skin and shining helmet of hair. The boy was so unlike his parent.

  ‘That depends on your father, to some extent,’ she said carefully, still tying the bundle. ‘But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was later today, or tomorrow. Maybe a few days. I can’t say with any certainty, except that it will happen. Doesn’t sound very helpful; I’m sorry.’

  ‘Thank you. As long as we know.’

  Embarrassment lowered her eyes. In the second it took for her to control her face and look up again to his, there was no need for anything more than relief. Ed was swifter of foot than his father, faster out of court than a sprinter.

  ‘Damn the man.’

  They were grouped in the bar, scene of post-mortems. Crown prosecutors, dewigged barristers called to the bar in search of refreshment, a bad pun, often made but resisted in this gloomy company.

  ‘Damn the man.’ John Carey, QC, took a sip from a murky half-pint. ‘He said he’d sign a written witness statement. Now he won’t. Tomorrow, he says. Can’t arrest that woman without it, the Director says. Worried by the number of cocked up prosecutions there have been recently, no doubt. Doesn’t do to have another. My paymasters and yours, eh, Miss West? Can’t fall foul of my orders. But what did you do to him, Superintendent?’

  ‘Patted his shoulder. Patted his other shoulder. Let him cry a bit, as well he might. Asked him to sign the statement he’d been prepared to sign weeks ago, and he said, “I don’t think so, I am not liking this, you know?” I said, neither am I, and patted both his shoulders again, and asked again. Same result. Poor bastard. I didn’t persist.’

  ‘Superintendent; you should have persisted. What’s wrong with you? Losing your touch? You surely could have made him, guided the faint hand, so to speak. Eh, Miss West? Leant on him: I don’t mean oppression, of course, well you know what I mean. Leant on him. Come on a bit stronger. The firm hand of the law. All that.’

  ‘He was extremely distressed,’ said Helen defensively.

  ‘Who?
The Superintendent? Ho, ho.’ Carey laughed like an obscenely jolly comic at a funeral, deliberately obtuse. ‘He’s a policeman, my dear Miss West. Policemen don’t get upset. What a thought.’

  Helen could feel Bailey’s hackles rise, and wondered, not for the first time, how a man as talented on his feet as Carey undoubtedly was, could be so insensitive socially, and she prayed Bailey would keep the silence he was obviously going to break.

  ‘With respect,’ Bailey’s courtesy was almost insolent, ‘I’ve never harassed a prisoner, and I’m not starting now. Not even a murderer. The man was distraught, beside himself with misery. I wish they wouldn’t stuff the Category “A”s with tranquillisers, though God knows, he probably needed it, but it was more than that. You can’t lean on a man who’s just been put away for life and expect him to do anything but break. What am I supposed to do, with respect? Armlock for one hand, pen for the other, sign here? I haven’t got the bottle. Or the inclination. He was beyond persuasion. I was sorry for him.’

  Carey looked uncomfortable, unused to being crossed. ‘But he’s a killer, Superintendent.’

  ‘Yes. So he is. What does that have to do with it?’

  There was a silence. The junior barrister, scarcely junior in years to his leader, smiled uncertainly at Helen. Helen sneaked a glance at Bailey, and they all took another awkward, simultaneous sip of their drinks.

  ‘What do you think, Miss West?’, Carey rumbled, anxious to restore a disturbed status quo and re-establish his team of minions in their proper places.

  ‘I applaud Mr Bailey. Jaskowski, we hope, will sign and tell us he’s still willing to give evidence, and for now, it doesn’t matter if it isn’t today, although it would have been far preferable to arrest her at once. She seems to have decided against running away, and that was always the greatest fear. She’ll stick it out. No real harm done in letting Jaskowski recover for a time. The powers of justice have just sent him away for thirty-three years. Why should he feel cooperative, even if he deserves it? What did we expect?’

  ‘He says,’ Geoffrey added, ‘that he wants to know that his wife and family are safe. Not the eldest son; he’s somehow not worried about him since he saw him, just the other two boys and the baby daughter.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘With her mother, the daughter and wife, that is. The three sons are all with Peter, Jaskowski’s brother, and his wife. They’ll redistribute themselves in time. Maria doesn’t seem to care about keeping them together. The fight’s gone out of the woman, which isn’t entirely surprising. The flat’s been burgled: they’re like a crowd of vultures on the Hackington Estate. She doesn’t have many choices.’

  ‘Did you tell Stanislaus where they were?’

  ‘Yes,’ Geoffrey was scratching his brow, the irritation past. ‘He said, as he always says, I trust you Mr Bailey. You go and see for yourself they’re OK, and come and tell me, I believe you. I sign statement tomorrow. So ‘I’ll do as he asks. When I’ve finished this drink.’

  ‘Good man, Superintendent.’ Carey’s heartiness in the face of unpleasant tasks delegated to others itched at Helen’s scalp. She felt a familiar frustration at being so removed from the disturbing chores which were Bailey’s, all in the province of the policeman, not the inadequate lawyer. How ignorant they were in comparison, how easy their role, shifting paper like ciphers, carried on the back of misery.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he spoke in her direction, interpreting the look of concern with his usual unnerving accuracy and a faint smile. ‘It isn’t so bad. They don’t like me much, but they won’t be bad and if I tell Maria Jaskowski these days that her husband’s concerned about her, she’ll probably spit in my eye. She feels,’ he turned delicately to Carey, ‘that her husband has let her down. Failed to maintain standards.’

  ‘I can see her point.’

  Another, less awkward silence. One drink usually enough on such occasions; the conversation, stilted by their various preoccupations, drawn to a natural close.

  ‘Must be off,’ said Carey, not reluctant to end the gathering. ‘You’ll telephone Miss West with any news, I take it?’

  ‘My pleasure, sir.’

  Carey liked the roles being carefully re-established with one word of respect. A grin in Helen’s direction, and they all parted like children at the end of a lesson.

  ‘Ed, what did Dad look like? Did he look different?’

  ‘Shut up, I’m trying to sleep,’

  ‘No, tell me please.’

  ‘He looked fine. A bit in the dumps, but all right. What do you think he looked like? Same as normal. Now shut up. You can write him a letter.’

  ‘Will he be able to write back?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ed’s eyes closed.

  ‘Ed? I don’t like it here. I don’t think Uncle Peter likes me.’

  ‘Don’t be such a mug. He doesn’t like any of us. Who told you you were going to be liked? It’s a place to live, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ed? Dad, he didn’t really kill anyone, did he? He wouldn’t.’

  ‘Yes he did, idiot. But it wasn’t such a bad thing to do.’

  ‘Why, Ed? Why wasn’t it? Uncle Peter says it’s very bad. So does the priest, he says. Shall I tell you something? The kids at school, not the ones you stopped, other ones, they still kick me because of Dad, but sometimes the teachers stop them, when they see, not so much now. Perhaps they’ll stop now he’s gone to prison. You’re lucky not to have to go to school, Ed. No one hits you. Can I stop going to school, Ed?’

  ‘Oh, for Chrissakes shut up.’

  There was an obedient, restless silence from Peter’s bed.

  ‘Ed? Where were you tonight? You were very late.’

  ‘Mind your own business. I was busy. Now, for the last time, shut up, will you. Talk in the morning. I’m asleep. I’m not listening to you anymore, so shut it.’

  ‘Ed?’

  Silence. Deep, regular breathing. Ed could always sleep like a cat, stretch his limbs, find his threshold of comfort, and sleep through a storm. Deep in the darkness of his borrowed bed, Peter remembered he had forgotten his prayers, had even forgotten to ask Jesus to bless Dad, and save him from hell. He would go to hell himself. He would have liked to ask Mam and Grandma if he would go to hell, just for that. Perhaps he could get out of bed and say them now: he wouldn’t mind being cold, but Ed might be woken, and that would make Ed angry. As angry as Jesus and Uncle Peter, not a risk he could take. No one could say, no one would say, they were all like this, so angry, so frightened, while he was simply frightened. Why couldn’t he stay with Mam? He’d help her, except that she was angry too.

  Ed was snoring. Peter stuffed the sheet into his mouth. Bad enough to be a baby, more like little Stan, his brother, or Katy: forgiveness was not there for the asking should he act like one. Gulping into the detergent flavour of the sheet, head buried face down in pillow, Peter tried hard to think of one single good thing for the next day. A letter, a comic, a game, a race? From whom, with whom? Not little Stanislaus, snugly asleep with his favourite cousin next door, as complete as a pair of twins. Not Mam, or Uncle Peter, or Auntie Mary, who always complained about money. Perhaps Ed. At least there was Ed some of the time, but not much of the time.

  No good pretending he wasn’t crying, or trying to think he was winning, or that Ed would spend much time answering his questions when Ed had business of his own, just like everyone else. The sheet was up his nose, into his eyes, into his throat, muffling sounds of hopelessness. If I breathe, Ed, I’ll wake you; please wake up without asking, please. One small hand out of the bedclothes touched Ed’s shoulder in a single, tentative touch. Ed turned in his sleep, one massive heave towards the wall and the fingers shot back, electrocuted. He should have known by now, to keep his hands still, firmly held over his mouth, his eyes, and his ears, like the three monkeys.

  Helen West had walked from Old Bailey to the Angel, looking for the market to paint colours on black depression. Crowding into her mind, there were the sad portrai
ts; the man Jaskowski, the children, the wife, all those smaller and larger victims she would never meet apart from the unnerving boy. In the whole spectrum of things, there seemed no doubt who suffered most for the ambitions of Mrs Cartwright. Sylvia Bernard was dead: no chance for her to mend her life, but her husband was left with his, however diminished. Helen disliked the sound of Bernard, and half-way home she had been struck by the worst of many morbid reflections when she remembered that he had not even asked for the corpse. Normal families clamoured to bury their dead, but Bernard was content to leave his kith in refrigerated silence until told he could do otherwise and she could not respect him for that.

  Murder was on her mind, visions of twisted attitudes and remaindered lives, fatal if she were ever to function for the preparation of this trial, the next trial, or the others after that. Jaskowski first, then Bernard, then Cartwright: pity and anger flourishing under her skin like a boil, telling her, as if she needed reminding, that she was not immune after all. Then there was the guilt, much more than usual. For being free and healthy, guilty for feeling guilty, and guiltier in the knowledge of the waste of it as she stood by a shop, gazing in with a fixed stare until she laughed at her own intense reflection, saved by looking ridiculous.

  She should buy something, the best antidote to depression, something beautiful and complete in itself, designed to prove life exists to be preserved. Preferably a chunk of a thing with no practical purpose, but needing a good home. Suddenly purposeful, Helen retraced her steps, hazarded life in a sprint across the converging roads of the Angel junction, and entered the lane of Camden Passage.

  There, dawdling before pictures in one window, brass fire-irons in the next, she forgot Stanislaus Jaskowski for minutes at a time, drowned the over-hot courtroom of Old Bailey in the coolness of interiors glowing with extravagance. Friday stalls meant painted jugs and fifties’ brooches, gramophones, discarded scarves, Victorian dolls, Edwardian prams and slides for magic lantern shows. Pictureless frames and unframed prints, copper planters and wooden boxes, silver spoons and glinting china; piano stools in faded velvet, spring sun on dusty, rainbow colours. And one old chair-back without the chair, saved for embroidery which glowed dirty and undestroyed from a battered gilt framework. There it was, the object to cure the ill, no useful purpose whatever, crying out for rescue from its own disgrace. A large piece of embroidery, designed to decorate a chair for a rich table, hours of work to be hidden behind a back. The patriarch who carved his meat while leaning from it had perished now with the legs and seat of his possession, leaving only a gold-mounted picture, vulgar in its own time, mellowed by age. Helen was entranced.