A Room Swept White by Sophie Hannah Page B
Authors: Sophie Hannah
allowed to come with me in the police car, which was a great comfort to me. He sat on one side of me, DS Proust sat on the other, and DC Shearer drove us to Spilling police station. I sobbed as I was forcibly taken away from my beloved house where I’d been so happy – first with Paul, then with Paul and Morgan, then again when Rowan came along. So many beautiful memories! How could they do this to me after what I’d suffered already? For a moment, I was consumed with hatred for everything and everyone. I had no use for a world that could inflict such terrible suffering. Then I felt an arm round my shoulder and DS Proust said, ‘Helen, listen to me. I know you didn’t kill Morgan or Rowan. Things are looking bleak for you now, but the truth will come out. If I can see the truth, others will too. Any fool can see you were a good, loving mother.’
DC Shearer muttered something sarcastic under her breath, from which I gathered that she disapproved of what DS Proust had said. Maybe she thought I was guilty, or that DS Proust had breached some sort of protocol by saying what he said to me, but I didn’t care. Paul was smiling. He finally recognised Giles Proust for the ally that he was. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It means everything to us to have your support. Doesn’t it, Helen?’
I nodded. DC Shearer made another snide remark under her breath. DS Proust could have left it at that, having made his point, but instead he said, ‘If this goes as far as a trial, which Ivery much doubt it will, then I’ll be called as a witness. By the time I step down from the box, the jury will be as convinced as I am that you’re innocent.’
‘What the hell are you doing?’ DC Shearer snapped. Paul and I shrank down in our seats, taken aback by her harsh tone, but Giles Proust remained unfazed.
‘I’m doing the right thing,’ he said. ‘Somebody has to.’
I became aware that I had stopped crying. A wave of what can only be described as utmost peace washed over me, and I stopped worrying obsessively about what would happen to me. It was like magic: I was no longer afraid. Whether Giles Proust was right or wrong about my chances of standing trial or what a hypothetical jury would think, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that as I looked out of the window of the police car and watched the post-boxes and trees and shops whizzing by, I loved the world I had hated only a few moments earlier. I felt part of something good and whole and light, something that Paul and Giles Proust and Morgan and Rowan were also part of. It’s very hard to explain the feeling in words because it was so much stronger than words.
I didn’t know, as we drove to the police station that day, how bad things were going to get for me and Paul, how much more agonising suffering lay in store for us. But as fate went on to rain down blow after blow upon us, even when my spirits were at their very lowest and there seemed no hope of any respite, that peaceful sensation that came over me in the police car on the day of my arrest never left me, even though there were times when I had to struggle to find it inside myself. It’s the same positive energy that has spurred me on in the work I have done on behalf of other women in similar situations to mine, and that has been the driving force behind mycontribution to JIPAC. DS Proust taught me a valuable lesson that day: that you can always, and easily, give somebody the gift of hope and faith, even in the midst of despair.
12 September 1996
The contact centre was a horrible, soulless place, an ugly grey one-storey prefab that looked lost and forlorn in a vast, mostly empty car park. I hated it on sight. There weren’t enough windows, and those there were seemed too small. I said to Paul, ‘It looks like a building that’s keeping lots of unpleasant secrets.’ He knew exactly what I meant. I shuddered and said, ‘I can’t do it. I just can’t. I can’t go in there.’ He told me I had to, because
DC Shearer muttered something sarcastic under her breath, from which I gathered that she disapproved of what DS Proust had said. Maybe she thought I was guilty, or that DS Proust had breached some sort of protocol by saying what he said to me, but I didn’t care. Paul was smiling. He finally recognised Giles Proust for the ally that he was. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It means everything to us to have your support. Doesn’t it, Helen?’
I nodded. DC Shearer made another snide remark under her breath. DS Proust could have left it at that, having made his point, but instead he said, ‘If this goes as far as a trial, which Ivery much doubt it will, then I’ll be called as a witness. By the time I step down from the box, the jury will be as convinced as I am that you’re innocent.’
‘What the hell are you doing?’ DC Shearer snapped. Paul and I shrank down in our seats, taken aback by her harsh tone, but Giles Proust remained unfazed.
‘I’m doing the right thing,’ he said. ‘Somebody has to.’
I became aware that I had stopped crying. A wave of what can only be described as utmost peace washed over me, and I stopped worrying obsessively about what would happen to me. It was like magic: I was no longer afraid. Whether Giles Proust was right or wrong about my chances of standing trial or what a hypothetical jury would think, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that as I looked out of the window of the police car and watched the post-boxes and trees and shops whizzing by, I loved the world I had hated only a few moments earlier. I felt part of something good and whole and light, something that Paul and Giles Proust and Morgan and Rowan were also part of. It’s very hard to explain the feeling in words because it was so much stronger than words.
I didn’t know, as we drove to the police station that day, how bad things were going to get for me and Paul, how much more agonising suffering lay in store for us. But as fate went on to rain down blow after blow upon us, even when my spirits were at their very lowest and there seemed no hope of any respite, that peaceful sensation that came over me in the police car on the day of my arrest never left me, even though there were times when I had to struggle to find it inside myself. It’s the same positive energy that has spurred me on in the work I have done on behalf of other women in similar situations to mine, and that has been the driving force behind mycontribution to JIPAC. DS Proust taught me a valuable lesson that day: that you can always, and easily, give somebody the gift of hope and faith, even in the midst of despair.
12 September 1996
The contact centre was a horrible, soulless place, an ugly grey one-storey prefab that looked lost and forlorn in a vast, mostly empty car park. I hated it on sight. There weren’t enough windows, and those there were seemed too small. I said to Paul, ‘It looks like a building that’s keeping lots of unpleasant secrets.’ He knew exactly what I meant. I shuddered and said, ‘I can’t do it. I just can’t. I can’t go in there.’ He told me I had to, because