The Cradle in the Grave Read online

  Table of Contents

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Part I

  Chapter 1 - Wednesday 7 October 2009

  Chapter 2 - 7/10/09

  Chapter 3 - Wednesday 7 October 2009

  From Nothing But Love by Helen Yardley with Gainer Mundy

  Chapter 4 - 8/10/09

  Chapter 5 - Thursday 8 October 2009

  Chapter 6 - 8/10/09

  Angus Hines - Transcript of Interview 1, 16 February 2009

  The Doctor Who Lied: The Story of a Modern-day Witch-hunt

  Chapter 7 - Thursday 8 October 2009

  Chapter 8 - 8/10/09

  Part II

  Chapter 9 - Friday 9 October 2009

  Chapter 10 - 9/10/09

  Chapter 11 - Friday 9 October 2009

  Daily Telegraph, - Saturday 10 October 2009

  Chapter 12 - 10/10/09

  Chapter 13 - Saturday 10 October 2009

  From Nothing But Love by Helen Yardley with Gainer Mundy

  Chapter 14 - 10/10/09

  Part III

  Chapter 15 - Monday 12 October 2009

  Chapter 16 - 12/10/09

  Chapter 17 - Monday 12 October 2009

  Chapter 18 - 12/10/09

  Chapter 19 - Monday 12 October 2009

  Chapter 20 - 12/10/09

  Chapter 21 - Monday 12 October 2009

  Chapter 22 - 12/10/09

  Chapter 23 - Monday 12 October 2009

  The Times, Tuesday 29 June 2010

  A Room Swept White: A Family’s Tragedy

  Acknowledgements

  Teaser chapter

  Praise for Sophie Hannah

  The Cradle in the Grave

  “The title really sells it. It’s creepy stuff, which Sophie’s things often are, quite necessarily.”

  —Tana French, author of In the Woods and Faithful Place

  “A perplexing thriller with intrigue and infanticide . . . It’s a given that nothing will be as it seems in the latest psychological thriller from Sophie Hannah, who marries complex plots with crisp, conversational prose.”

  —Marie Claire (UK)

  “As Hannah sees it things are rarely clear-cut and it is this moral ambivalence that makes her fiction so provocative.”

  —Daily Express (UK)

  “She writes beautifully, the narrative races along with the reader breathlessly trying to catch up and the subject matter is fascinating. This is her fifth psychological suspense thriller and, like the others, it’s destined for bestsellerdom.”

  —Carla McKay, Daily Mail (UK)

  “Hannah takes domestic scenarios, adds disquieting touches, and turns up the suspense until you’re checking under the bed for murders.... It’s this real-life research that helps make it so convincing—and so unsettling.”

  —The Independent

  “Hannah is a master of intense psychological thrillers . . . Full of twists and turns, and terrifying, too.”

  —Heat

  “Sophie Hannah has quickly established herself as a doyenne of the ‘home horror’ school of psychological tension, taking domestic situations and wringing from them dark, gothic thrills.... Combining probability theory, poetry, and murder, this is a densely plotted suspenser with a coded puzzle that would grace a Golden Age mystery.”

  —Financial Times (UK)

  “Sophie Hannah has been rightly praised for intricate and accomplished psychological thrillers which dissect the dark side of human relationships, and her fifth novel . . . covers obsession, manipulation, meltdown, and all points in between.”

  —The Guardian (London)

  “Enthrallingly complex . . . A multistranded narrative that grips.”

  —The Sunday Times (London)

  “Intriguing, unnerving, and engrossing . . . Hannah has timing down to an art. What she has created in Cradle in the Grave is more than a murder mystery. It is the most adept of psychological thrillers, in which—as with Hannah’s other novels—the psychosis lying just below the surface of the human personality is exposed.... A remarkable novel, and an adventure to read . . . Undoubtedly a first-class whodunit that will keep you reading long into the night.”

  —The Scotsman

  The Truth-Teller’s Lie

  “Meticulously plotted . . . so dark and shocking.”

  —The Associated Press

  “Hannah takes pains to throw her readers off balance—and succeeds brilliantly.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “Sophie Hannah will leave you bleary eyed after nights of suspenseful page turning.”

  —Murder, Mystery & Mayhem.com

  “Hannah, who understands psychological mayhem as well as Ruth Rendell and maybe even Sigmund Freud, is best read with a crisis counselor on speed-dial. The tight plotting and excruciatingly precise clues make for a superlatively uneasy read.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  The Dead Lie Down

  “A master of intricate plotting, Hannah seamlessly melds the police procedural with a gothic-inspired whodunit.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Hannah deals brilliantly with the issues of artistic accomplishment and success, unrequited emotion, revenge, and retribution. This stunning psychological thriller from the author of the equally outstanding The Wrong Mother has the complexities of love at its core.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “A complex, unnerving study of relationships, with none more stressful than that of Sgt. Zailer and DC Waterhouse. Her exemplary skills put Hannah right up there with Ruth Rendell.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “This utterly gripping thriller should establish Hannah as one of the great unmissables of this genre—intelligent, classy, and with a wonderfully gothic imagination.”

  —The Times (London)

  “Beautifully written and precision-engineered to unsettle.”

  —The Guardian (London)

  “A master class in plotting that adds twist after twist in a hectic finale.”

  —The Sunday Times (London)

  The Wrong Mother

  “Shockingly (and refreshingly) blunt riffs about the violent emotions of motherhood and the familial yearnings of men, along with chilling and darkly funny revelations about lust and loyalty, make this novel one of the season’s most absorbing reads.”

  —O, The Oprah Magazine

  “Paced like a ticking time bomb with flawlessly distinct characterization, this is a fiercely fresh and un-put-downable read.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Sophie Hannah just gets better and better. Her plots are brilliantly cunning and entirely unpredictable. The writing is brilliant and brings us uncomfortably close to the dark, ambivalent impulses experienced by the parents of difficult, demanding children.”

  —The Guardian (London)

  “Sophie Hannah’s ingenious, almost surreal mysteries are so intricately constructed that it’s impossible to guess how they will end.”

  —The Daily Telegraph (London)

  “The Wrong Mother is Hannah’s most accomplished novel yet. As the revelations tumble forth, the tension is screwed ever tighter until the final shocking outcome. Exemplary.”

  —Daily Express (London)

  Little Face

  “Dark psychological suspense . . . The power this novel packs derives from narrators that play fast and loose with what they know. . . . The solution is a stunner.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “Sophie Hannah . . . delves successfully into moral quandaries: What does motherhood mean? What should a mother do when she thinks her child is in danger—especially if her own famil
y doesn’t agree?.... It’s Alice’s choices and their consequences that make Little Face so compelling.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Few authors play with reality and perception as skillfully as Hannah does. . . . Riveting reading.”

  —Mystery Scene

  “Echoes of Gaslight and Rebecca . . . a tautly claustrophobic spiral of a story delivered with self-belief.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “The author is a poet by trade and she brings a wealth of psychological and literary subtlety to bear in this impressive novel. Smart and disarmingly unnerving.”

  —Daily Mail (London)

  “A chilling thriller. I was left thinking about the book for days, and that’s usually a good thing.”

  —The Guardian (London)

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sophie Hannah is the author of the international bestsellers Little Face, The Wrong Mother, and The Dead Lie Down. In 2004 she won the Daphne Du Maurier Prize for suspense fiction, and she is also an award-winning poet. She lives in Cambridge, England, with her husband and two children.

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  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published in Great Britain as A Room Swept White by

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd 2010

  First published in Penguin Books 2011

  Copyright © Sophie Hannah, 2010

  All rights reserved

  “Anchorage” by Fiona Sampson from Common Prayer (© 2007)

  is reproduced by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product

  of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Hannah, Sophie, 1971 –

  [Room swept white]

  The cradle in the grave / Sophie Hannah.

  p. cm.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-54373-3

  1. Women television producers and directors—Fiction. 2. Sudden infant death

  syndrome—Fiction. 3. Mothers—Crimes against—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6058.A5928R66 2011

  823’.914—dc22 2011014075

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  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.

  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.)

  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 crib 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.

  Journalist and writer Gaynor Mundy, 43, who collaborated with Mrs Yardley on her 2007 memoir Nothing But Love, said: ‘Everyone who knew Helen knew she was innocent. She was a kind, gentle, sweet person who could never harm anyone.’

  TV producer and journalist Laurie Nattrass played a major role in the campaign to free Mrs Yardley. Last night he said: ‘I can’t put into words the sadness and anger I feel. Helen might have died yesterday, but her life was taken from her 13 years ago, when she was found guilty of crimes she didn’t commit, the murders of her two beloved sons. Dissatisfied with the torture it had already inflicted, the state then robbed Helen of her future by kidnapping – and there’s no other word for it – her only surviving child.’

  Nattrass, 45, Creative Director of Binary Star, a Soho-based media company, has won many awards for his documentaries about miscarriages of justice. He said, ‘For the past seven years, 90 per cent of my time has been spent campaigning for women like Helen, trying to find out what went so dreadfully wrong in so many cases.’

  Mr Nattrass first met Mrs Yardley when he visited her in Geddham Hall women’s prison in Cambridgeshire in 2002. Together they set up the pressure group JIPAC (Justice for Innocent Parents and Carers), formerly JIM. Mr Nattrass said: ‘Originally we called it “Justice for Innocent Mothers”, but it soon became clear that fathers and babysitters were being wrongly charged and convicted too. Helen and I wanted to help anyone whose life had been ruined in this way. Something needed to be done. It was unacceptable that innocent people were being blamed whenever there wa
s an unexplained child death. Helen was as passionate about this as I am. She worked relentlessly to help other victims of injustice, both from prison and once she got out. Sarah Jaggard and Ray Hines, among others, have Helen to thank for their freedom. Her good work will live on.’

  In July 2005, Wolverhampton hairdresser Sarah Jaggard, 30, was found not guilty of the manslaughter of Beatrice Furniss, the daughter of a friend, who died aged six months while in Mrs Jaggard’s care. Mr Nattrass said: ‘Sarah’s acquittal was the indicator I’d been waiting for that the public were starting to see reason. No longer were they willing to let vindictive police and lawyers and corrupt doctors lead them on a witch-hunt.’

  Yesterday, Mrs Jaggard said: ‘I can’t believe Helen’s dead. I will never forget what she did for me, how she fought for me and stuck by me. Even in prison, not knowing if and when she’d get out, she took the time to write letters supporting me to anyone who would listen. My heart aches for Paul and the family.’