Witness

WITNESS

Cath Staincliffe

Constable · London

For Annie, Maggie and Mairin

Thanks to Kerrie James and Anne Gaunt from Witness Service Greater Manchester who generously shared their knowledge, experience and time with me. As ever, any errors are all my own doing.

Contents

Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
PART ONE: Oh Danny Boy
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
PART TWO: I Heard it Through the Grapevine
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
PART THREE: Stand By Me
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
PART FOUR: I Can See Clearly Now
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
Discussion Points
Also by Cath Staincliffe
Copyright

PART ONE

Oh Danny Boy

CHAPTER ONE

Fiona

T
he blood didn’t disturb her. Fiona was no stranger to blood: as a midwife, it came with the territory.

The boy lay on his back, one leg buckled to the side, his arms outflung. Large hands. A boy on the cusp. Like her own son. Different features, this boy was Afro-Caribbean, but the same sort of age. Even as she had these thoughts she was kneeling, assessing him; ignoring the wild beating of her heart, channelling the roar of adrenalin to fire up memory and intellect and practical responses.

Checking his airways and finding breath there, stuttering but there all the same. Warm, moist breath, the faint tang of spearmint. And his eyes on her. Brown eyes, tawny, reflecting her silhouette and the blue sky beyond her. A rim of gold edged each iris. His eyes locked on hers as she tore off her cardigan, folded it and pressed it to his chest. There were dressings in her bag, over in the house, but there was no time to fetch it. The green T-shirt he wore was now black with blood. The same blood pooled in a slick beneath his shoulders, soaking into the grass, into the hard earth among the daisies and dandelions, the clover and the plantain. His eyes fixed on hers as she murmured words of comfort and prayed for the ambulance to hurry. His gaze was a kaleidoscope of emotion: surprise, then the skitter of fear and finally the bloom of love. Bringing tears burning in her own eyes.

‘It’s all right, love, the ambulance is on its way, you’re all right.’

His eyelids fluttered and a spasm shook his frame. She saw his eyes roll back and his mouth slacken. Felt the thready pulse at his neck race then falter and stop.

She bent over to give him mouth-to-mouth and glimpsed his young person’s travel pass. His photo and name: Danny Macateer. A kick of memory. Macateer. The first twins she’d seen born by vaginal delivery. Danny and a girl, a name with similar letters: Dana? Anya? Nadia? Nadine! Must still be living in the area.

Fiona held his nose; his skin was clammy now from shock. She placed her mouth over his and breathed out, soft, steady. She had never had to do this before. Not in twenty years of midwifery. His chest moved, she allowed it to settle then breathed again. She could smell the soap on his skin, see the fine down on his cheek, the shine in his close-cut, springy, black hair.

Sitting back on her heels she felt for his breastbone, placed the heel of her left hand on it, covered that with her right hand and laced her fingers together. The wound was somewhere on the left of his chest, close to his heart and his lung. Pumping his heart might increase the blood loss but without it there would be no chance for blood to reach his brain. She began to push, using her weight, counting the rhythm. Aware of the ground trembling, people running, approaching, a Babel of words:
shot … I saw the car … has anyone rung the ambulance … broad daylight.

‘Come on, Danny. Stay with me. Come on.’ Fiona gave him two more breaths. Resumed pushing. The muscles in her upper arms ached with the strain, she was sweaty with exertion, her hands now smeared red, the smell of copper in her throat.

She was still trying when she heard the howl of the ambulance getting louder and louder, then abruptly ceasing. The paramedic put his hand on her shoulder, told her to move away, that they could take it from here. And she nodded, unable to speak. Placed her hand against Danny’s cheek and saw his eyes unfocused, still. She bent to kiss him on the forehead. A mother’s kiss.

Fiona tried to stand but her legs were numb, useless. She struggled to her feet and felt the world tilt. Dizzy. She closed her eyes.

Across the grass came a crowd, to add to the clutch of onlookers. Perhaps two dozen people, mostly black. In hats and frocks, finery and natty suits. Fiona thought of a wedding party. Then she remembered it was Sunday. Churchgoers. And in the centre of the crowd, three women. Three generations. The youngest, the boy’s age. Exactly. Calling out, crying, praying aloud. Anguished. Fiona moved back, moved away and watched as the women – the mother and grandmother, the sister Nadine – fell beside him, demanding hope from the paramedics, deliverance from their God.

Fiona stood reeling under the high, blue sky, voices swooping and diving around her, while the boy was injected, defibrillated and put on oxygen. They loaded him into the ambulance.

When the police came they took her to sit in a car at the edge of the grass. She told them everything she could but the order kept getting mixed up and she left things out and had to correct herself and retell it until she had stitched together the sequence. All about doing the home visit and hearing the shot, seeing through the window the boy fall, and racing out of the house. The car that almost ran her over, as she hurtled across the road, the glimpse of the driver, a white man, at the wheel. Reaching Danny.

The area had been cordoned off. They asked for her shoes. Something about forensics. Her shoes were full of blood.

She had left everything at the new mother’s house when she heard the gunshot, saw Danny fall. Her medical kit, her bag. The police gave her some protective shoe covers in place of her shoes. Similar to the paper slippers patients wear for theatre. They hid the blood on her feet but were useless at protecting her soles from the gravel and glass scattered on the pavement on the walk back to the house. The police had offered to call someone, or find her a taxi home, but she needed to get her own car back, so she declined.

She knocked on the door for the second time that day. She found it hard to recall how much of the visit she’d covered: checking and weighing baby, examining the contents of its nappy and the cord. Examining mum (temp, BP, glucose in the urine) and checking how feeding was going. Leaving some time for any worries and problems to be raised. She couldn’t do anything now, in the state she was in. Hygiene was one of the most important routines to establish with parents. When the new mum opened the door Fiona apologized several times.

‘It’s all right,’ the other woman said. Her eyes kept creeping back to Fiona’s uniform, to her hands, where the blood had dried like rust in the creases of her skin. Carmel shook her head. ‘It’s terrible. Just a kid.’

Fiona nodded fiercely. She didn’t trust herself to speak. She held up her hands, looked a question, the woman nodded and Fiona went through to the kitchen. She washed her hands with cold water, then handwash, until the blood had gone and they were blotchy red and white. She collected her things together and asked Carmel if she would like another midwife to call as the visit had been cut short.

‘I’m fine.’

‘There will be someone here tomorrow,’ Fiona told her.

Fiona sat in her car. She felt immensely tired, her back ached, her stomach was hollow. She was desperately thirsty. Around the green space police tape shivered in the light breeze, glinting in the sun. The sound of her phone jolted her. She took it from her bag. Home. Owen wondering where she was. She was on a half-day, four-hour shift. Should have been back two hours ago. She couldn’t face talking to him now. There were two earlier missed calls. She groaned. Go home, she told herself.

She drove carefully, the pedals biting into her feet, fearful that she would drift off and lose concentration. Everything looked so ordinary, so normal. She had an irrational desire to wind down her window and shout to people: a boy’s been shot! See their faces change. Make them pause. Stupid, she muttered to herself.

She pulled into the drive and parked the car. Gathered up her bags and jacket and went in the side gate expecting the french windows would be open. The garden was empty.

Owen was in the living room, playing his games. Chisel-faced men in uniforms, men with guns, sweeping through abandoned houses. ‘You could have rung,’ he complained without turning round. ‘I needed that money.’

Rage reared in her. Owen turned, saw her face, took in her uniform, the blood, the overshoes. ‘Oh, God.’ His voice had softened.

‘They shot a boy,’ she began, sorrow replacing anger. Her fingers stiff, splayed bouncing on her lips. ‘Your age.’

He swallowed, uncertain how to respond.

‘In Hulme, on the field by the dual carriageway, near the bridge. I couldn’t save him.’ Tears spilt down her cheeks, blurring everything. ‘Sorry.’ She wiped at her eyes.

Owen was blushing, his face and his neck red. ‘You could give us a hug,’ she chided him. He looked at her uniform.

‘It’s dry,’ she said.

He lumbered to his feet, came closer. She wrapped her arms around him. Still a child really, though he was taller than her now, broad like his father. She was careful not to weep all over him. They were on their own together and she always tried to remember she was the grown-up, not to expect him to meet her emotional needs. She withdrew. ‘I need to shower. I didn’t get any cash. It’ll have to be tomorrow.’

He grunted. Went back to his game.

She undressed. Her tights were stuck to her knees with discs of blood. She peeled them off, put them in the bin. She soaped and scrubbed her hands and feet, then washed her hair in the shower. She sat down under the water, knees bent up, resting her head on them. She let the water drum upon her upper back, where her spine felt rigid, fused hard as stones. She tried to clear her mind but each time she closed her eyes, Danny swung into view: his eyes on her, that steady warmth, looking joyous almost, just before she lost him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered over and over. Sitting there until her back was numb from the jets and the room was dense with steam.

Feeling raw and slightly giddy, Fiona sat down to eat with Owen. It was a fine June evening and they ate on the patio. The air was full of drifting seeds, woolly clumps from the stand of poplars that ran along the edge of the meadows near the river. She and her ex, Jeff, had chosen the house because of its location. They were still close to the city, fifteen minutes in the car to town outside rush hour, but had the advantages of being on the edge of the housing development with uninterrupted views across the meadows to the Mersey. A small back garden and a rather characterless semi were a small price to pay for the pleasure of being close to the open land.

Fiona doled out lasagne and handed Owen his plate, took some salad. Her son was avoiding her eyes, skulking behind his long, black fringe. Eyes studiously downcast. She felt a flare of resentment; what was he so scared of? That she might weep again or shake or show some other embarrassing emotion? Precisely that, she thought. With all the intense selfishness of a teenager, Owen hated adult displays of feeling though his own moods were mercurial and dramatic.

She cut into the pasta, scooped a small forkful up. It smelt good, her mouth watered. Then she felt a rush of nausea. She set her fork back down. ‘He was one of my babies,’ she told him.

Owen gawped. ‘He was a teenager.’

‘Now he is,’ she told him. ‘A twin.’ She frowned, her eyes stung. Owen hastily looked away.

He cleared his throat. ‘It was on the news,’ he said. ‘He died.’

She’d known. He’d died there, in her shadow. The sky trapped in his eyes. Everything that came after: the breath she shared, the medical efforts, the oxygen and drugs, the mercy dash – irrelevant, surplus to requirements.

She felt her nose redden and the prickle of tears. Bit down hard on her inside cheek and watched as the swifts wove arcs in the sky.

Owen shovelled his food down, eating only with his fork, gulping his orange juice in between.

She cut a piece of cucumber in half. Ate that, a sliver of red onion, some lettuce. Took a sip of the Sauvignon, so cold it made her teeth ache. The meat in tomato sauce was congealing on her plate. Ask me about it, she demanded in her head. Ask me now. Just show a glimmer of interest. She wanted to talk about it, all the details, go over it. Tell him everything, not just the facts that the police wanted, but all the rest. How she felt. Ask me how I am. Ask me.

Owen pushed back his chair, the metal legs scraping, screeching on the flagstones. ‘Going out,’ he said.

Panic exploded in her chest. Stay, she wanted to say. Don’t go. Be careful! This – the soft air, the food, home, it’s a mirage. Gone in an instant. It’s not safe out there.

‘Back by ten,’ she told him, ‘school tomorrow.’

‘’Kay.’

She turned to watch him go: a clumsy bear of a boy. An impression strengthened by the ridiculous baggy black denims, the huge black T-shirt. At fifteen it was as if the light in him had gone out. Just a phase, everyone told her, and she hoped that was the case, and that it would not be long-lived.

She took more wine. Drank deep. Felt her edges smudge. Stayed there for a while watching the birds. Then forced herself up to go and walk Ziggy.

* * *

The dog ran ahead of her hoovering up smells, tail waving. Ziggy was a mongrel they’d rescued from the dogs’ home. Owen’s dog. Arranged when he was six in the wake of his dad leaving them. The dog was average, unremarkable. Tan-coloured, pointy ears and muzzle. An every-dog. The sort that could illustrate the alphabet letter D or a brand of dog food. Impossible to mistake for any pedigree breed. He was good-natured, biddable.

Owen was meant to walk him once a day, Fiona the other time. But in recent months Owen’s personality transplant meant he’d given up on the walking. It ranked alongside brushing his hair and clearing up his room. Boring, beneath him.

Fiona felt a stab of guilt. Then a wash of shame. Her son was alive. She should have clung to him despite his protestations. Rejoiced. He was a lovely boy beyond the practised disenchantment, the grunts and the sneers. He was caring and honest. As a younger child he’d been avidly interested in the world and its workings, genial, prone to giggles. Easy company. He would be again, surely.

She wondered about Danny and his mother. Had they squabbled and fallen out? Was he surly and sullen at home? What had his parting words been? Something mundane:
I don’t want tea
. Or edgy:
I heard you, I’ll do it later!
Or poignant:
Love you, Mum.
Fiona had a sudden urge to text Owen –
Luv u.
He’d not thank her for it, would probably not even acknowledge it. His phone was always off when she tried it, or out of credit when she asked why he’d not responded to her messages. Mysterious how he still seemed able to communicate with his mates on it.