Our ethel, p.24
Our Ethel, page 24
‘Frank,’ said Linda, ‘you’ve abstained. Do you want to say anything before we do a count? We’ve all got to agree one way or the other at the end of the day.’
‘I don’t think I can do this,’ he said. ‘I think she’s guilty, but just suppose we get it wrong?’
Ray Cooper had never liked the look of Frank; the Town Hall crawled with his sort. He seemed to have some brass, but he was a weed to be ground underfoot and he thought too much.
‘Have some guts, ’ Ray said. ‘Be a man. Just say what you think is right.’
‘Well, I will, then, seein’ as you ask,’ continued Frank.
He looked over the table at Ted’s weather-beaten face and shock of white hair and his ‘Innocent’ label balanced on the biscuit-tin lid. He admired the man’s quiet belief in himself, his need to say so little, his certainty.
‘The judge said we should say guilty only if there’s no reasonable possibility it was an accident. His words exactly, and there is. The possibility of an accident, I mean. And if we say she’s innocent and she’s not, then we let a killer go free to have another baby, and she might do the same again. But if we say she’s guilty, and we’re wrong, which I reckon is worse, then it’s two lives wasted and it should only be one. There’s nothing more wrong than that, is there? And to cap it all, I’m not sure her father didn’t kill the poor little scrap. He didn’t stand a chance, one way or another.’
Far too difficult for me, thought Ray. He’d had a quiet word with Jack yesterday evening, and they had agreed that Ethel was guilty. The baby was dead, no room for doubt there, and it was no great loss if its mother went the same way as well. Plus, but he’d not told Jack this, he’d been dealt his own life sentence looking after his spastic daughter Joyce, so why shouldn’t Ethel Slater get one too?
‘She’s signed a bleedin’ confession, for God’s sake,’ Jack said. ‘What more do you need? She’s just a slapper; she eyes up young Sathersthwaite next door for a way out, lands him, and kills the kid to get her own back when he wants nowt to do with her anymore. They’re both scum. He’s told her to sling her ’ook, so she plans to drop it with no-one else there, chuck it at the wall, then stuff it in a shoebox. End of. But the old hag next door sticks her oar in. Then her lad gets wind of it and sends her a teddy bear to rub it in ’cos he’s an evil bastard too, and she loses it. Does the job proper this time. All makes sense to me.’
‘Stop!’ interrupted Linda. ‘We’ll count these verdicts first.’
She pushed her own verdict and Jack’s back into the middle of the table, gathered all the rest into a little heap face down, shuffled them around as if they were so many dominoes, then turned them over slowly one by one. The pile of guilties beat the pile of innocents.
‘That’s Frank’s don’t-know-yet,’ she said, and slid his envelope back over to him. ‘Six of us say guilty, and five of us say innocent.’
‘Well, I suppose I’d best speak up for her to kick off,’ said Reg. ‘Don’t anyone go believin’ that Inspector Harrison for a minute. She never said what he’s written down. She couldn’t. They were his words, you can see that a mile off. Her brief was dead right. She’s far too dim to use his big fancy words.’
‘But she signed it, though,’ said Jack. ‘Maybe she didn’t use them words exactly, but he’s read it out to her, and she’s agreed, it’s a fair cop, that’s what happened, as near as damn it, and owned up.’
‘You haven’t spent a night in clink, have you, Jack?’ asked Reg. ‘Like I have. I got banged up in Millgarth nick after takin’ a good kickin’ in The Black Bull in Horsforth. They kept me sat on an ’ard chair in a dark, freezin’ room all night with a busted nose till the mornin’. I’d come round and sobered up, but I just had to get out o’ there. I’d not broken any law, but I’d ’ave signed me own death warrant if they’d put it in front of me. They’re bastards, the police. They just want the likes of Ethel Slater and me banged up and signed off. Harrison’s sure in his own mind that she killed the baby, don’t get me wrong, but he couldn’t give a shit really, as long as he gets a confession. She’s never read a word of what he’s scribbled down. Or listened to him readin’ it out.’
Reg is wrong about one thing at least, thought Jack. He knew just what to expect from the plods. They were all dodgy in his book. He’d had no problem buying a few of them off with the odd pack of cigarettes when they came nosing round his warehouse stacked with stolen army surplus.
‘And another thing,’ said Jack, ‘I reckon Mrs Sathersthwaite is feedin’ us a right cock-an’-bull story as well. She can’t know it was Ethel Slater thumpin’ on the wall, and not the baby’s head landin’. There’s no way she could tell; she was half asleep. Finds the baby on the floor, in a bad way. I’ll buy that, but comes round. Come on, course it’s in a bad way, Jesus Christ. It’s just been chucked at a wall. And Slater tries to sell us all this bullshit about havin’ a baby standin’ up! My missus was flat out in bed. I mean, pull the other one.’
‘I had my first standin’ up,’ said Nancy. ‘It was our Edward. He was a couple of weeks early, and we weren’t expectin’ him yet. Tom was out on site, an’ there was nobody else at home when me waters went. I tried lyin’ down like you do, but it was much easier standin’ and leanin’ agen the kitchen sink. Me labour pain eased like that, and it all went fine. I mean, it was a long time ago now. It was even easier the next time, I can tell you. I knew what to expect then. We ’ad five kids all told, and I lose count of how many grandkids since. If only she’d trusted the old dear next door sooner, we wouldn’t all be ’ere now. And I don’t know what this teddy-bear nonsense is all about, Jack. Of course her aunty in Rochdale has made it and posted it. I’d ’ave done just the same. She’s no more killed her baby than any of us in this room. It’s barmy. She just doesn’t ’ave it in her. It’s as simple as that.
‘Anyway, that’s what I think, I’ve said me piece now,’ said Nancy. She pushed the biscuit tin back in Frank’s direction and added a drop more tea to her cup.
‘I had a mare foal standin’ up once,’ Ted said. ‘It was a good few years back now, me own fault really.’
‘What?’ said George. ‘Come again.’
Ted hadn’t given much away about himself, but George knew that he farmed a few hundred acres north of Leeds for a living and reared pigs. He liked to talk about the wettest spring and the driest summer he’d ever known, but this was the first time George had heard Ted say anything that might make a difference.
‘She foaled onto t’stockyard floor. She were crowning in the barn on her side when I left her. I walked down to muck out her stable, and by t’time I got back she’d climbed onto her legs somehow and tottered out into t’yard. Yer can ’ave no end of trouble with ’orses. They can push out a foal within fifteen minutes start to finish. I really shouldn’t ’ave left her. A mare can get very jittery birthin’ of a foal and up and down on their ’ind legs, up and down, restless like. Cows are a lot easier, I allus say. I can’t be callin’ out a veterinary every time I ’ave a mare in foal. Anyway, it’s cracked its ’ead in the drop onto the slabs and was dead within an hour. This young lass in court’s done just the same. She’s nowt but a kid herself. It’s dropped head-first onto floorboards as ’ard as stockyard slabs, and it’s a wonder it’s ended up with nowt worse than a bruise. Farmin’s all I know about, nowt else, but I reckon she’s pupped on ’er ’ind legs. That’s the long and the short of it, if you ask me.’
‘Blimey,’ said George. ‘You’re a dark ’orse yourself. If you’re right, that explains the bruise on ’is scalp then?’
‘And the mess on the bedroom floor,’ added Ted. ‘Cord an’ afterbirth ’as to come away too. It could ’ave delivered straight after, ’specially if she’s pupped standin’ up or crouched on all fours.’
‘The splash of blood on the wall an’ all?’ George asked.
‘I reckon.’
‘Alright then, I’ll give you that, Ted,’ George continued. ‘You don’t say much, do you? But I suppose that’s farmers for you, stuck in a field by yourself all day. It’s not ’cos you’ve nowt to say, though. Seems to me you know what you’re talking about. It doesn’t explain the second bruise, though, does it, old boy?’
‘It doesn’t need to,’ interrupted Linda. ‘Maybe there’s only one bruise, not one on top of another. The doctors can’t agree on that. Two together just doesn’t make much sense to me at all. Just suppose she’d thrown her teddy bear twice, what’s the chances of the wall hittin’ his head in the same place? And Dr Samuels thinks there was only one bruise, just that it was ripening, like a pear.’
‘Those two doctors ’aven’t got a clue,’ said Ray. ‘They’re talkin’ out of their arses if you ask me. If they can’t agree, we’ve no chance.’
‘Ray, that’s just it, and we are asking you,’ said Linda. ‘If they can’t agree, Ethel should get the benefit of the doubt. That’s Frank’s point. You didn’t look at the photos of the post-mortem, did you?’
‘Too true, no, I did not,’ said Ray. ‘They’re disgustin’. If doctors who get paid a bomb to look at these things can’t do their jobs right an’ won’t agree, then we’re sunk. They must be weird, anyway, to do a job like that. She’s cracked this baby on the ’ead, and who cares if it’s once or twice? She’s guilty whichever way you want to look at it.’
‘Well, I did ’ave a good look at ’em,’ Linda continued. ‘That bruise was a pattern of all shades of different colours, all mixed up together. And Dr Samuels said it could be one bruise changing, sort of ripening. A pear doesn’t ripen all at the same time, she said, you get yellow bits and brown bits and hard bits and soft bits all together. But it’s all one pear, that’s what she’s saying. I’ve really thought about this, and it stacks up for me. I think if we can all agree that it might, just might, be one bruise, and then we listen to Ted, we can’t say she’s guilty. Admit it to yourself, Ray, Dr Samuels could be right.’
‘It’s very stuffy in ’ere,’ said Pearl. ‘Can we have a break, please, Ray?’
‘Yes, we’re allowed,’ said Linda. ‘But we’re not allowed to talk about all this outside this room.’
Ray snapped out of his daydream, tapped on his cigarette packet on the table, and raised a finger to Jack.
*
Ray and Jack skirted the door to the canteen and descended the polished marble staircase of the Assize Court, its enormous stained-glass dome suspending the massive chandelier and supported by stone arches, and reeking of old Victorian wealth. They sat together on the top step leading down from the portico to the cascading fountain in the town hall square. Ray took off his trilby, held a cigarette out to Jack, and struck a match for them both.
‘There was plenty of brass around when they built this place,’ Jack said. ‘Statues, all these blokes watchin’ what you’re doin’. They give me the creeps. Put me in a ware’ouse any day.’
‘I don’t notice ’em anymore,’ Ray returned. ‘Place is full of toffs. I work upstairs next door.’
‘Ray, listen,’ said Jack. They both looked out across the people going about their lives in the square. ‘I know we agreed last night that we couldn’t hack it if she was found not guilty. Or at least you couldn’t. But I’m a simple bloke, Ray, and to be honest I couldn’t give a shit one way or the other. I can’t say this in front of the old maids back inside, but I’m going to miss a big order if I’m not back at work to take a call later on. And no way we’re goin’ to shift missus lah-di-dah smarty pants Linda if we stick to our guns. Seems to me it’s swingin’ towards not guilty, and I’d go along wi’ that just to get shut now. I’ve ’ad a gut full. What you reckon?’
‘She did it, for fuck’s sake,’ said Ray.
‘Maybe,’ Jack said. ‘So what? It’s only a baby. I don’t know what all the fuss is about.’
Ray took a couple of deep drags on his cigarette and ground the stub onto the step below.
‘You know Joyce, my daughter, Jack?’
‘No, can’t say I do, but I’d ’eard she’s a spastic. Why?’
Ray’s eyelids snapped shut.
‘She was starved of oxygen at birth, they reckon.’
‘Shit, I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t know.’
‘Cord tight round her neck.’
‘Well, that’s midwives not doin’ their jobs for you.’
Ray picked his trilby off the step between them and brushed some imaginary specks of dust off the crown.
‘She’s my Joyce, Jack.’
He straightened out the hairs in the peacock feather in his hat.
‘She was born at home, like Ethel Slater’s baby. No midwife.’
‘Fuck me! You couldn’t get to unwrap it quick enough?’
‘I was in the Blue Moon.’
‘Christ!’ Jack blurted. ‘So it was your fault?’
Nobody had ever said it to his face before.
He looked up at the water tumbling down the fountain but was too choked to speak.
‘But you blame Ethel Slater? Is that it?’
That hurt.
Ray turned to face Jack.
‘Fuck you,’ he said.
Quietly.
Jack was right.
On both counts.
‘C’mon, Ray,’ Jack said. ‘Let’s get back upstairs. Get job done. Yes?’
*
Nancy had cleared the crockery from the table by the time Ray and Jack returned to their chairs, and she was stacking the saucers in a pile and balancing the cups neatly on top of one another on the trolley. She was about to wheel it all back along the corridor to the clerk, with a polite request for another brew in an hour or so if he would be so kind, when Enid held the door open for her and whispered in her ear.
‘What do you think, Nance?’
‘Nay, lass.’ Nancy kept her voice down. ‘She’s not done owt bad. You’ve just got to look at ’er. She’s such a sad, cock-eyed, crooked little thing, she wouldn’t say boo to a goose. She just wanted a baby to love and take care of, same as you an’ me. She’s never meant no ’arm to anybody in ’er life.’
‘Ladies,’ interrupted Linda from the far end of the table, ‘can you two share it with the rest of us, please?’
‘You say for me, will you, Nance?’ Enid said as she took her seat.
‘No, go on, Enid, you say it,’ said Linda. ‘We need your say too, please.’
‘Well, all I know is that there was a girl a few doors down our street ’ad a baby that she found dead in ’er cot. A lovely girl, I allus thought. Her ’usband was away in North Africa or somewhere, but he’d been back on leave. There was folk as said it weren’t his baby, but she told me it was, and I’d no reason to doubt ’er word. Anyway, there was them that thought she’d smothered it, an’ t’poor lass could never come to terms with ’er loss, and at finish she put ’er ’ead in the gas oven. That’s all I think, really.’
‘Cruel.’
The room was stunned into silence by that one short word.
It was Ray who had spoken.
He was looking across the table to the two little stacks of envelopes.
Well, if timid Enid can pipe up, thought Pearl, then what’s to stop me?
‘Can I change me mind, please, Linda?’ Pearl asked. ‘I’ve listened to all this, and I’m not so sure anymore. I ’ad her down for wantin’ rid of her baby when she turned down the mothers’ ’ome and then took herself off to Rochdale, but she must ’ave been too far gone by then. I think I might ’ave ’ad it all wrong now. Ted and Linda ’ave made a lot of sense to me with the bruise.’
‘An’ her shoutin’ out from the dock says a lot to me an’ all,’ Henry added. ‘What with the bobby lyin’ and her blurtin’ out she never went to Rochdale to get an abortion at her aunty’s. She meant “never” when she shouted it. Either she’s tellin’ the truth, or she’s a bloody good liar.’
‘But, ladies and gents, there’s one big thing we’re missin’,’ Albert said without looking up from the table. He’d been drawing circles round tiny matchstick men on one of Linda’s envelopes. He took the last piece of toffee from the tin and laid the pencil back out on the lid.
‘I did ’ave a good look at them photos, madam,’ he said to Linda. ‘An’ there’s a crack in the skull under a thumpin’ big bruise over a clot on the brain. We’ve not explained them all lined up, ’ave we? She’s clouted it. Wriggle out of that with one of your fancy theories.’
‘No fancy theory,’ said Ted. ‘We can talk around all this till the cows come ’ome. She’s overlaid it, plain and simple. First thing I thought of when she said she found it dead in ’er bed with some blood on it. Sows do it all the time if you don’t keep sucklin’ piglets away from ’er in a sow stall. She can roll over onto ’er piglets soon as look at ’em. I’ve found ’em dead with flat ’eads and blood on their snouts many a time. Poor girl’s given birth standin’ up then fallen asleep exhausted on top of the little bugger, and there’s nowt more to it. It stands to reason. She’s guilty of nowt more than lovin’ and trustin’.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Linda. ‘Anyone else want a say?’
‘Not me,’ Ray said. ‘I said at the outset. I’ve heard more than enough. Let’s get job done. We need a final vote.’
Thirty-Two
Ethel’s warder turned his wrist to look at the time and sighed, then leant back against the wall of the cell and bit his nails. He’d chosen to sit opposite the doorway onto the stairwell back up to the dock, and told Ethel to lie out on the bench along the sidewall and face him. That way, he’d have a couple of seconds to react if she tried to make for the door.
