A Room Swept White Read online

  a room swept

  white

  Also by Sophie Hannah

  Little Face

  Hurting Distance

  The Point of Rescue

  The Other Half Lives

  SOPHIE

  HANNAH

  a room swept

  white

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  Published in Canada by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2010

  First published in Great Britain by Hodder & Stoughton, an Hachette UK company,

  338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH, 2010

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  Copyright © Sophie Hannah, 2010

  ‘Anchorage’ by Fiona Sampson from Common Prayer (© 2007) is reproduced

  by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.

  ‘The Microbe’ by Hilaire Belloc from More Beasts for Worse Children (© Hilaire Belloc 1912) is reproduced by permission of PFD (www.pfd.co.uk ) on behalf of The Estate of Hilaire Belloc.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  ISBN: 978-0-14-317733-3

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  For Anne Grey, who introduced me to, among many other

  invaluable pieces of wisdom, the motto ‘Take nothing

  personally, even if it’s got your name on it’. This dedication

  is the exception to that generally sound rule.

  a cognizant original v5 release november 03 2010

  Ray Hines

  Transcript of Interview 1, 12 February 2009

  (First part of interview – five or so minutes – not taped.

  RH only allowed me to start recording once I stopped

  asking about the specifics of her case. I turned the

  conversation to HY thinking she would talk more freely.)

  RH:

  I met Helen Yardley once, that’s all. What do you want me to say about her? I thought you wanted to talk about me.

  LN:

  I do, very much. You don’t seem to, though.

  (Pause)

  LN:

  I don’t want you to say anything in particular about Helen. I’m not trying to—

  RH:

  I met her once. A few days before her appeal. Everyone wanted her to get out. Not only the women. All the staff too. None of them believed she was guilty. That was down to you.

  LN:

  I was only a small part of the effort. There were—

  RH:

  You were the public face and the loudest voice. I was told you’d get me out. By my lawyers, by nearly everyone I met inside. And you did. Thanks to you, and because of the timing, I had it relatively easy, in Durham and in Geddham Hall, give or take a few minor run-ins with idiots.

  LN:

  The timing?

  RH:

  Public opinion was turning by the time I was convicted. Your hard work was having an effect. If my case had come to court a year later than it did, I’d have been acquitted.

  LN:

  Like Sarah, you mean?

  (Pause)

  RH:

  I wasn’t thinking of Sarah Jaggard, no.

  LN:

  She stood trial in 2005. A year after you. She was acquitted.

  RH:

  I wasn’t thinking of her. I was thinking of myself, in the hypothetical situation of my trial taking place a year later.

  (Pause)

  LN:

  What? Why are you smiling?

  RH:

  The group identity is important to you. As it is to Helen Yardley.

  LN:

  Go on.

  RH:

  Us. The women you campaigned for. You say ‘Helen’ and ‘Sarah’ as if they’re my friends. I know nothing about either of them. And what little I do know tells me we have nothing in common, apart from the obvious. Helen Yardley’s husband stood by her throughout, never once doubted her innocence. That’s one thing we don’t have in common.

  LN:

  Have you had any contact with Angus since getting out?

  (Long pause)

  LN:

  It must be difficult for you to talk about. Shall we go back to Helen and Sarah? They don’t know you any better than you know them, and yet, from speaking to both of them, I can tell you that they feel a strong affinity with you. Because of what you call ‘the obvious’.

  (Pause)

  LN:

  Ray, you’re unique. Your tragedy is something that only happened to you. I know that. I’m not trying to chip away at your right to be an individual. I hope you understand that. I’m simply saying that—

  RH:

  Sarah Jaggard was acquitted. She was accused of killing one child, not her own. There’s even less common ground between me and her than there is between me and Helen Yardley.

  (Pause)

  LN:

  Ray, you know, I’d understand completely if you said you’d had moments when you hated both Helen and Sarah. They would understand it.

  RH:

  Why would I hate two women I don’t know?

  LN:

  Sarah was acquitted. All right, she had to endure a trial, but she got a ‘not guilty’ verdict. That’s the verdict you should have got. Meanwhile you were stuck inside, wondering if you’d ever get out. If you resented her – even if you wished in your darkest moments that her verdict had gone the other way – it’d be only natural. And Helen – you said it yourself, everyone knew she wasn’t guilty. Her appeal was coming up just as you landed at Geddham Hall. When you heard she was going home, and you knew you weren’t, you might well have hated her, wanted her appeal to fail. No one would blame you.

  RH:

  I’m glad you’re recording this. I’d like to say
very clearly, for the official record, that I felt none of these feelings you’re attributing to me.

  LN:

  I’m not—

  RH:

  I didn’t resent Sarah Jaggard’s acquittal. I didn’t want Helen Yardley’s appeal to fail. Not for a fraction of a second did I want either of those things. Let’s be absolutely clear on that. I would never wish for anybody to be convicted of a crime they hadn’t committed. I would never want anyone to lose their appeal if they hadn’t done what they’d been convicted of doing.

  (Pause)

  RH:

  I knew the appeal had gone her way when I heard cheers coming from everywhere at once. All the girls had been glued to the TVs, waiting. The screws too.

  LN:

  Not you?

  RH:

  I didn’t need to watch it. I knew Helen Yardley would be going home. Was it her that put the idea in your head that I was jealous of her?

  LN:

  No. Helen’s only ever spoken of you in the most positive—

  RH:

  I didn’t meet her by accident, the one time I met her. She came to find me. She wanted to speak to me before her appeal, in case she didn’t come back to Geddham. She said what you’ve just said, that it would be natural for me to envy and resent her if she walked free, and she wouldn’t blame me for doing so, but she wanted me to know that my time would come: I’d appeal too, and I’d win. I’d get out. She mentioned your name. Said you’d helped her and you were equally determined to help me. I didn’t doubt her on that. No one could doubt your commitment, no one who’s heard of you – and who hasn’t, by now?

  (Pause)

  LN:

  So perhaps Helen is your friend, after all.

  RH:

  If a friend is someone who wishes you well, then I suppose she is. She’s part of JIPAC, she campaigned for my release. I don’t understand it, really. She was out, free. Why didn’t she just get on with the rest of her life?

  LN:

  Is that what you would have done?

  RH:

  It’s what I’m trying to do. There’s nothing left of my old life, but I’d like to try and start a new one.

  LN:

  Of course Helen wants to get on with her life. But, having been the victim of a terrible injustice, and knowing you were in the same boat, you and many others . . . Dorne Llewellyn is still in prison.

  RH:

  Look, I don’t want to talk about anyone else, all right? I don’t want to be part of your gang of miscarriage-of-justice victims. I’m alone, which isn’t that bad once you get used to it, and if I ever choose not to be alone, I want it to be my choice. I don’t want to think about other women. It’s better for me if I don’t. You’ve got your cause – don’t try to make it mine.

  (Pause)

  RH:

  I don’t want to rain on your parade, but justice and injustice? They don’t exist.

  (Pause)

  RH:

  Well, they don’t, do they? They patently don’t.

  LN:

  I believe very strongly that both do exist. I try to prevent one and bring about the other. I’ve made it my life’s work.

  RH:

  Justice is a nice idea and nothing more. We invented it – human beings – because we’d like it to exist, but the fact is that it doesn’t. Look . . . For the benefit of the Dictaphone, I’m holding a coaster in mid-air. What will happen if I let go of it?

  LN:

  It’ll fall to the floor.

  (Sound of coaster dropping on rug)

  RH:

  Because of gravity. We believe gravity exists; we’re right about that. I could pick up that coaster, and that one, and that one, and let go of them, and they’d all fall to the ground. But what if only one fell and the rest floated at eye-level, or scooted up to the ceiling? What if you saw that happen now? Would you still believe in gravity, if it only sometimes made things fall down?

  LN:

  I see what you’re trying to say, but—

  RH:

  Occasionally, good things happen to good people. And bad things happen to bad people. But it’s chance – pure random coincidence. As it is when it happens the other way round – bad things to good people.

  LN:

  But that’s what I call injustice – when the system treats good people as if they were bad.

  RH:

  Justice doesn’t exist any more than Santa Claus does.

  LN:

  Ray, we have a whole legal system devoted to . . .

  RH:

  . . . seeing that justice is done. I know. And when I was a child, I sat on the knee of a man in a red and white suit with a long white beard, and he gave me a present. But it was a fantasy. A fantasy that makes people feel better. Except it doesn’t – it makes them feel worse when the illusion is shattered. That’s why I try to think of myself as someone who’s had appallingly bad luck, not as the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Why should I torment myself by believing there’s this amazing force for good at work in the world, but that it failed me, or ignored me? No thanks. And people? They don’t commit unjust acts in the service of an opposing evil force. They blunder along to the best of their abilities, doing their best – which, mostly, is not good enough – or in some cases not even doing their best, and their behaviour has repercussions for other people, and . . . The point I’m trying to make is, life is chaotic and indiscriminate. Things just happen, and not for any reason.

  (Pause)

  RH:

  You’d be better off ditching justice and concentrating on truth instead.

  LN:

  You believe in truth?

  RH:

  Absolutely. The truth always exists, even while people are believing the lie. The truth is that I didn’t murder my babies. I loved them, more than you can possibly imagine, and never harmed either of them in any way.

  LN:

  I know that, Ray. And now everyone else does too.

  RH:

  The truth is that Helen and Paul Yardley are people who will pour all their time and energy into helping strangers, and maybe Sarah Jaggard and her husband – I can’t remember his name . . .

  LN:

  Glen.

  RH:

  Maybe they’re that sort too. But I’m not. And it doesn’t matter, because you’ve got them to help you make your programme. You don’t need me around to mess it up by saying what I inconveniently think.

  LN:

  You won’t mess anything up. The opposite. Your story’s—

  RH:

  My story will muddy your waters. I’m a drug addict who either lied in court or lied before I got to court – take your pick. Your average middle-England viewer’s going to feel all buoyed up with self-righteous indignation after hearing about Helen Yardley – the respectable, happily married childminder, adored by her charges and their parents, by everyone who knew her – and then you’ll move on to me and lose your advantage. A lot of people still think I did it.

  LN:

  Which is why it’s all the more important for you to be part of the programme and tell the truth: that you didn’t lie, in court or out of it. That you were traumatised and your memory let you down, as people’s memories tend to when they’re under a massive emotional strain. Tell the truth in this context, Ray – in the context of my film – and people will believe you. I promise you, they will.

  RH:

  I can’t do this. I can’t get sucked in. Turn that thing off.

  LN:

  But Ray . . .

  RH:

  Turn it off.

  www.telegraph.co.uk , Wednesday 7 October 2009, 0922 GMT report by Rahila Yunis

  Wrongly Convicted Mother Found Dead at Home

  Helen Yardley, the Culver Valley childminder wrongly convicted of murdering her two baby sons, was found dead on Monday at her home in Spilling. Mrs Yardley, 38, was found by her husband Paul, a roofer aged 40, when he returned from work early in the evening. The death is being treated as
‘suspicious’. Superintendent Roger Barrow of Culver Valley Police said: ‘Our inquiries are ongoing, and the investigation is still at an early stage, but Mrs Yardley’s family and the public can be assured that we are putting every possible resource into this. Helen and Paul Yardley have already endured intolerable anguish. It is vital that we handle this tragedy discreetly and efficiently.’

  Mrs Yardley was convicted in November 1996 of the murders of her sons Morgan, in 1992, and Rowan, in 1995. The boys died aged 14 weeks and 16 weeks. Mrs Yardley was found guilty by a majority verdict of 11 to one and given two life sentences. In June 1996, while at home on bail awaiting trial, Mrs Yardley gave birth to a daughter, Paige, who was placed with a foster family and subsequently adopted. Interviewed in October 1997 on the day that he heard the family court’s decision, Paul Yardley said: ‘To say that Helen and I are devastated is an understatement. Having lost two babies to cot death, we have now lost our precious daughter to a system that persecutes grieving families by stealing their children. Who are these monsters that decide to tear up the lives of innocent, law-abiding people? They don’t care about us, or about the truth.’

  In 2004, the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which reviews possible miscarriages of justice, referred Mrs Yardley’s case to the appeal court after campaigners raised doubts about the integrity of Dr Judith Duffy, one of the expert witnesses at the trial. In February 2005, Mrs Yardley was released after three judges in the court of appeal quashed her convictions. She had always maintained her innocence. Her husband had stood by her throughout her ordeal, working ‘20 hours a day, every day’, according to a source close to the family, to clear his wife’s name. He was helped by relatives, friends, and many parents whose children Mrs Yardley had looked after.