‘Are we all sitting comfortably?’ asked Annie. When the reply was silence, she said, ‘Then I’ll begin.’
Jessica Bowen gave her a stern glance for the frivolous Children’s Hour opening.
‘Mrs. Westlake,’ said Annie, ‘was Marnie Sedgwick your daughter?’
Clearly, whatever Charlotte Westlake had been expecting, it wasn’t this. She seemed like an animal desperate to escape its cage, squirming in her chair, turning pale, looking towards her solicitor one moment then back to her questioner the next. ‘Wha...? How do...?’ Gerry wondered how on earth she thought that they wouldn’t discover this information. More burying her head in the sand? Naive or stupid?
‘Simple enough question,’ said Annie, ignoring the reaction. ‘Can you please give me an answer?’
Charlotte took a deep breath and struggled to regain her equilibrium. Her lawyer gave her the nod to continue. ‘Technically, I suppose, yes, she is,’ she said.
‘Technically?’
‘I’m her birth mother, but as you clearly know already, I gave her up for adoption. Her true parents are the ones who brought her up.’
‘The Sedgwicks?’
‘I wasn’t aware of who adopted her. It’s not standard practice to give the birth mother such information.’
‘Did you have any hand whatsoever in her upbringing?’
‘None.’
‘How old was she when she was adopted?’
‘A baby. I never... I mean, straight away. As soon as possible. I never even held her.’
‘Who was the father?’
‘That’s irrelevant.’
‘Not to us it isn’t,’ said Annie. Then she turned over a page. ‘Very well, we’ll leave that for the moment.’ She paused and went on in a weary tone. ‘Why didn’t you save us a lot of trouble and tell us this information right from the start?’
‘I don’t know. It didn’t seem relevant somehow. It was a long time ago. Nineteen years.’
‘Didn’t seem relevant?’ Annie repeated. ‘That’s one of the lamest excuses for lying to us that I’ve ever come across. Don’t you agree, DC Masterson?’
‘It’s pretty lame,’ said Gerry.
‘She came back into your life,’ Annie said, ‘and not long afterwards, she was raped. And you didn’t think any of this was relevant?’
‘But there’s no connection. It’s just coincidence. I still don’t think any of this is relevant.’
‘Try again,’ Annie said. ‘Irrelevant, coincidence — these aren’t excuses we recognise. And this time, give us the real reason why you didn’t tell us.’
‘I’ve already told you. Besides, I didn’t want to get involved. I knew you’d make too much of it.’
‘Better. A little bit,’ said Annie. ‘But you are involved, like it or not. And this lie, or omission, makes you even more so. See, when people lie to us about one thing, we assume they might be lying about other things, too.’
‘Why are you doing this to me?’ said Charlotte, clasping her hands on the table. ‘You’re just being nasty. You must know that I couldn’t have raped poor Marnie.’
‘Nobody’s suggesting you did.’
‘Then why persecute me? Why don’t you leave me alone? Any mistakes I’ve made I’ve had to live with. You’ve no right to sit in judgement on me.’
‘There’s no easy way of putting this,’ said Annie, ‘but things have taken another turn. I assume you know about Marnie’s death?’
‘Her... what?’
‘Her death,’ Annie repeated. ‘I’m sorry. I thought you might have known.’
‘How could I have known? Who was there to tell me?’
This had been a difficult part of their approach to plan. Either Charlotte knew what had happened to Marnie, or she didn’t, and there was no easy way of finding out. In the end, they decided it was best to confront her with the truth. Gerry watched closely and believed that Charlotte’s reaction was genuine, that she hadn’t known.
‘It’s very important you tell us the truth about this,’ Annie said. ‘Did you know that Marnie was dead?’
‘No.’ Charlotte shook her head. ‘I’m not even sure I believe you. You’re trying to trick me. Tell me that’s what you’re doing.’
Gerry saw the misery etched in her features and knew she was telling the truth.
‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of such bad news,’ Annie said.
‘What happened? How... I mean...?’
Annie went on. ‘She took her own life just under a month ago, on 17 May. A few days before Connor Clive Blaydon was murdered.’
‘A month,’ Charlotte repeated. ‘All that time. And I never knew. Where? Why? How?’
‘Near home. In Dorset. As for why, who knows? I assume it was because she couldn’t come to terms with what happened to her and she felt shamed, damaged, broken. Or that she found out she was pregnant.’
‘Oh, my God,’ said Charlotte. ‘Things come full circle.’
‘What does that mean?’
Charlotte started to cry and reached for a tissue from the box on the table and wiped her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t believe she’s dead.’
‘Take a minute,’ Annie said. ‘Can I get you anything?’
Charlotte held her hand up and gulped down some water. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute. Let’s just get this over with.’
‘It might take a while,’ said Annie. ‘We can take a short break if you need to. But if you’re OK to carry on, we will.’ She glanced at Jessica Bowen, who nodded.
‘I’m OK,’ said Charlotte. ‘I want this all over with and I never want to see you again.’
‘That all depends very much on your telling us the truth. You lied to us about your connection with Marnie Sedgwick, and that’s why you’re here. How did she find you in the first place?’
‘The usual way. She applied for her birth certificate when she turned eighteen then tracked me down through one of those online hereditary sites.’
‘When was this?’
‘January. Just after Christmas.’
‘Why did she wait so long?’
‘She told me later that she wasn’t sure she could go through with it. She’d been very happy with the Sedgwicks, and she didn’t want them to feel they’d been inadequate or somehow let her down. It’s not unusual for children seeking their birth parents to feel apprehensive, to hesitate.’
‘And she came to see you this January?’
‘Yes.’
‘At the office?’
‘No. She got my home address first.’
‘How did the meeting go?’
Charlotte shifted in her chair. ‘Awkward, as I’m sure you can imagine. But I think she understood finally, how the adoption was best for her, not only me. How I couldn’t possibly have been a fit mother. I think she understood.’
‘Was she angry?’
‘No. She said she had been, at first, but it passed. She was just curious. She didn’t want me to take her in or even develop any kind of maternal relationship. As far as Marnie was concerned, the Sedgwicks were her parents. She just wanted to see me in the flesh, so to speak, and for me to know that she existed.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Later, she came to me at the office. She wanted work. There was no special pleading or anything, she wasn’t after any favours. She wasn’t even asking for special treatment. She knew what I did and thought she could fit in somewhere. Simple as that. She already had a waitressing job at Pizza Express in York, but she wasn’t getting paid very much, and she said she wanted to save to go back to university.’
‘But she’d already dropped out of Nottingham.’
‘Because she didn’t have enough money, and she thought she was wasting her time studying History. She wanted to take on a practical subject like Management Studies or Hospitality.’