Apple Tree Yard (30 page)

‘I didn’t know he was going to kill him. I had no idea.’

‘That doesn’t explain why you went to him, not me.’

And it comes to me now that the truth is even worse than the lie I cannot tell. I have been saying to myself that I didn’t tell Guy about Craddock because I was having an affair, but now I know that I wouldn’t have told Guy anyway. I wouldn’t have told him because I was ashamed and I wouldn’t have told him because too much was at stake, our home, our happiness, our children. Worst of all – and here is the real truth of it – I knew that my affection for Guy might not survive an unsympathetic reaction. If he had said, for instance, ‘Why did you go up to his office?’ I would never have forgiven him. It would have finished us, not immediately, but two, three, four years afterwards. It would have corroded us beyond repair.

I have to say something, so I give my husband a partial reason for not confiding in him, a true one, but one that is no more than a small percentage of the truth. ‘I didn’t want it…’ I can think of no other word, ‘…tainting you.’

‘
Tainting
?’ He turns, his voice incredulous.

‘I know, I just,’ I have half-turned to face him. I lift my hands helplessly and drop them in my lap. ‘I just wanted to keep it away from you, that’s all, away from our home, away from the children…’ He gives a scornful huff, only partly convinced.

‘I want you to go away, abroad, until the trial’s over. I’m going to say the same to Carrie at the weekend, she can ask Adam, it’ll be better coming from her. I thought maybe even a holiday, maybe…’

‘I’m not leaving the country.’

‘Well maybe for them at least, if they’ll agree to go. Maybe Sath and Carrie would take Adam away, but it would be better if it was all four of you, I just want you all away from it, is that so difficult to understand?’

He looks at me. His voice is more gentle. ‘Even if it means it’s more likely you’ll be convicted?’

I look back and my voice is gentle too. ‘I won’t be convicted. I’m innocent.’ 

16

And so it begins; it begins on a Monday morning, and as I sit in the back of the van that takes me from Holloway Prison to the Old Bailey, as it chunters and bumps, stops and sways, through the London rush hour, what I feel, mostly, is an acute awareness of the ordinariness of everything – to everyone around me, I mean. For the people dealing with me, it is just the beginning of another working week.

Two guards from Holloway have come along for the ride but there are no other prisoners going to the Central Criminal Court that morning so I have the bench along one side to myself. The interior of the van smells of disinfectant, that pungent brand used in public lavatories, with a thick-sweet layer of vanilla on top, a scent so strong it makes me nauseous. The driver of the van brakes sharply at every red light or junction and guns the engine when we move off. I begin to sweat – travelling sideways isn’t helping. Around halfway through our journey, one of the guards on the bench opposite me notices my effortful breathing and, without speaking, uses her foot to push a plastic bucket across the floor of the van towards me. I turn my head away.

The high windows in the van admit little light but as we drive through the streets of London I glimpse patches of sky through the one-way glass. A little drizzle runs down a windowpane. Outside this van, office workers will be striding and weaving; some with genuine haste, others hurrying from habit. Someone will step in a puddle, and curse. Someone else will pause to buy a coffee, clutching their styrofoam cup as they stride off, and yet another person, or the same person, will step out into the road, to be woken by the angry yet indifferent blare of a taxi horn. The irritations of a Monday morning commute have never seemed more seductive to me. Will any of those people even glance at this van as it passes in the street, wonder who it might contain?

Eventually, the van drives down a ramp. We descend into gloom, halt. I am cuffed where I sit, on the bench, before I am allowed to rise and clamber down the steps lowered from the back of the van, one guard ahead of me and another behind. As my eyes adjust, I see we have parked in a cavernous holding bay, on a metal turning circle. I am taken into the bowels of the building.

Whatever grandeur the Central Criminal Court of the Old Bailey may possess does not descend to the area where prisoners are kept. There is a checking-in desk, similar to the one in police stations, where I am given an orange plastic bib with a number on it. I am to wear the orange plastic bib at all times except when I go up to court, so whichever guard is on duty can see at a glance which court I am to be served up to. As I pull it over my head, I reflect that I haven’t worn something like this since primary school. The guard behind the desk is an older black man with white hair and thick glasses sitting on the very end of his nose. He chats to me as he writes on his clipboard, his manner warm and welcoming. He is used to dealing with people in distress. ‘We will do your search in a minute, darlin’…’ he says. I smile at being called darlin’. He will call me darlin’ every day for the next three weeks. ‘Now, a lot of people manage to hide their tobacco even during the search but I have to tell you if there is any smoking I will smell it straight away and it is strictly forbidden down here, OK?’

‘I don’t smoke,’ I say.

‘Good,’ he replies, with an approving smile over his glasses, like a head teacher. He gives me a mock-stern look. ‘It is
very
bad for you.’

‘Are you here all the time?’ I ask. What I mean is, will you be looking after me? Can I rely on you?

He shakes his head. ‘All the time, I’m here, from seven in the morning till eight o’clock at night. I get here before you all start arriving and I’m here until the last one goes.’

When the formalities of my admission are completed, I am led down a low-ceilinged corridor. It is painted a creamy-yellow colour, like weak custard, the texture of rough brick visible beneath the emulsion. A sign says,
This is a RED designated area
, with the word RED in a red circle. Another sign says,
You are now in the detention of Serco…
I don’t have time to read it all as we pass but note the phrase at the end:
All criminal acts will be reported to the police
. This strikes me as faintly comic but the twist of amusement I feel is tinged with hysteria. ‘It’s hot down here,’ I say to the woman walking me down the corridor. I can feel my breath start to quicken. No natural light, the narrow walls, low ceiling, how do they work here, day in day out?

The woman is a wide-hipped white woman in her fifties, she walks with a slow sway, her breathing harsh. Emphysema, I think. ‘You should be here when it’s really hot,’ she says, breathing out through her mouth. She stops at the open door to a cell. ‘We have defendants wandering around with no clothes on. Don’t want to go into court looking all sweaty, do you?’ Unlike the man at the desk, this guard does not feel sorry for us, I surmise.

As I step into the cell, my heart constricts. It is a tiny, airless, windowless box. The walls are painted yellow and the floor blue in an attempt at cheeriness, but it is bare but for the concrete bench-seat at the end with wooden slats on top. I am underground, with no natural light or ventilation, wearing a plastic bib, in an area that will become stiflingly hot.

The door slams shut behind me. I sit on the wooden bench with my toes turned in towards each other, hands planted on knees, breathing in through my nostrils and out through my mouth, trying to stay calm.

*

My trial barrister, Robert, comes to see me later. I have been waiting less than an hour but it feels like days.
I must get a grip,
I tell myself over and over.
I will be sitting here day after day, every lunch break, every morning and afternoon, every time there is a delay. This is so much worse than the prison. I have to be able to do it. I can’t do it.

I can’t do it.

It is the same non-empathetic woman guard who comes to get me. She leads me to a consultation room identical to the cell I have just left. It has a table screwed firmly to a metal frame and metal chairs which are part of the same frame. This, I guess, is to prevent prisoners from lifting up their chairs and either smashing them against the walls or breaking them over their barrister’s head.

Robert is already wearing his gown and wig. As he sits down uncomfortably on the bolted metal seat, the gown slips from one shoulder. It remains there for the rest of our discussion and I have to resist a maternal desire to reach out a hand and hitch it up. Later, I notice that when he is on his feet in court, he allows his cloak to slip down his shoulder quite frequently. I come to regard it as an affectation on his part, a semi-conscious attempt to make himself appear rumpled in an endearing, avuncular kind of way.
Don’t underestimate Robert
, Jaspreet has said to me.
He may seem a little disorganised but it’s a ploy. He’s a very sharp operator
.

He has a huge file, which he dumps on the table between us. ‘Slight bit of bad news this morning,’ he begins, and I look at him. ‘They are arranging wheelchair access for the father.’ He goes on to explain that George Craddock’s father will be attending the trial throughout, accompanied by his police Family Liaison Officer – up to four of the victim’s close family are allowed in court. The only one coming for ‘our victim’, as Robert calls him, is his father, who is in the early stages of multiple sclerosis. Robert goes on to say that he doesn’t believe the man is wheelchair-bound the whole time but thinks the FLO has dropped hints that having him sitting in a wheelchair in the corner of the court throughout the trial, in the full view of the jury, will strengthen the chances of a conviction. ‘On the other hand,’ he says, ‘it’s the sort of thing you can bring up at appeal, elements of the trial you feel might have been prejudicial. There’s always a silver lining to every problem.’ I like Robert a great deal, on the basis of my brief acquaintance with him, so am a little taken aback at the cynicism of this discussion but I find myself nodding too.
We haven’t even started yet, and I’m beginning to think like them
. There is another thought that comes to me, although I try and squash it as soon as it arises: we haven’t even started, and he’s mentioned grounds for appeal.

He starts taking me through the likely timetable for the day, the swearing in of the jury, the prosecution’s opening statement. He doesn’t believe there will be any pauses for legal arguments on the first day but they will crop up soon enough, and for those the jury will be sent outside and everything will slow right down and he hopes I understand why all that will be necessary. During this conversation, I am as calm and logical as I have ever been but my claustrophobia does not abate. Get me out of here, I want to say to him,
please
.

After our consultation is over, Robert stands and excuses himself. He has to rush off to his room, check his paperwork is in order, breathe a bit I expect. He shakes my hand before he goes, placing his other hand reassuringly over mine and looking into my eyes. He has heavy white eyebrows over a gaze of a surprisingly pale blue. I feel a little weepy and have to give him a bright, confident grin by way of disguise. He leaves; the guard comes; I am returned to my cell.

*

And then, after another wait that seems to stretch for days, comes the moment when my cell door is opened and it is not the same guard as before but two dock officers who stand before me, a woman and a man, both in smart white shirts. They smile at me. The woman says, ‘All right then, up we go!’ And I wonder what would happen if I became hysterical, refused to leave my cell. What if I fell on the floor, foaming at the mouth and screaming? The man’s smile is purposeful and joyless. He looks at me as if he is assessing – swiftly and unemotionally – whether or not I am going to give them any trouble. We return briefly to the reception desk where I remove my plastic bib. It is put back in a cubbyhole with the right number on it behind the desk, like the old-fashioned cubbyholes where hotels keep keys.

The dock officers fall into place, one in front of me, one behind, and we take a few steps back down the narrow, custard-coloured corridor. They stop at a door just opposite my cell and open it to reveal a short flight of concrete stairs. It is only as we reach the top of the stairs and the officer in front opens another door that I realise, with a jolt of shock, we are about to enter the court. I had imagined some sort of transition walk, endless corridors to progress along, a chance to compose myself, but no, the court and dock awaiting me are right above my cell, just up a short flight of concrete steps.

As I step through the door, I see the courtroom, a high-ceilinged, wood-panelled room, brightly lit and full of people. Robert and his junior are already in place – both turn and acknowledge me with a nod. The junior is a young woman called Claire whom I have heard about but not met. She has a broad smile and a lot of freckles. The defence teams are clustered, talking in hushed tones. There are two lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service sitting on the row of benches behind the barristers and on the row behind them, DI Cleveland. The atmosphere is that of a small railway station, full of chat and bustle and anticipation, aglow with a harsh, yellow light. The officers and I enter directly into the dock, which is surrounded by high panels of toughened glass and has a long row of pull-down seats with green cloth covers.

Later, there are many things I observe about the geography of the cells and the courtroom. I never quite get over how close to the court the cells are – on several occasions during my trial, the cries of other prisoners downstairs are clearly audible in Court Number Eight. The door the judge will enter from and exit through is on the same side as our door, across the court, and I work out that the judges’ chambers – I imagine plush carpets, large oak desks, monogrammed silver ice buckets – are directly above our cells, the world of wigs directly above the humid underworld to which I now belong. While the judges lunch together at a large oval table, I think, served by clerks of the court (all those men), I am eating my aeroplane meal in a concrete box directly beneath them.