The Kindest Thing

Chapter Twenty-two

Don Petty, the shrink for my defence, is a tall gangly fellow, close to my age, I guess, with a bald head, beaky nose and an insignificant chin, giving him the cast of a tortoise. He speaks in a precise Edinburgh accent and never smiles (now, I have to appear suitably glum and contrite but surely he could afford to crack a grin now and then).

Mr Latimer establishes his manifold qualifications and his extensive experience. He has been selected as our expert witness because he measures up to Dolores Cabril and then some. Though not, I fear, in the personality stakes.

Now Mr Latimer winds him up and sets him off, asking him about his assessment of me.

‘Our mental health operates in similar ways to our physical health,’ Don Petty begins. ‘And the two are closely intertwined. The balance of health can be compromised by sudden attacks to the system such as bereavement, redundancy, the end of a relationship. These are the equivalent of the broken leg or the heart-attack. But mental health is also undermined where there are ongoing long-term factors – say, an unhappy marriage, a stressful job, a lack of self-esteem. In addition, there are the factors we inherit. Just as some cancers or allergic complaints run in families, so do mental health diseases.’

‘And h-how does this relate to Deborah’s situation?’ Mr Latimer asks, with a flourish of his arm in my direction.

‘Inheritance first. Deborah’s parents both suffered from depression.’

I am surprised to consider my mother in this light. But it makes perfect sense. Her cold reserve, her distraction, her continuing failure to engage with me, with the world, her disaffection: these could all be symptoms of depression. Had she ever sought help herself? Gone to the doctor about her nerves, exhausted by the heavy cloak of misery she carted about? Should I have seen this? Understood it, done something about it? Always too lost in my own disappointment with her, I’d not had the objectivity to do so. How different things might have been. Perhaps I could have forgiven her, absolved myself. But the past is done. The tide went out, leaving us marooned on opposite sides of the same island. Cast away.

‘Her father was also an alcoholic,’ Don Petty carries on. ‘This alone predisposes Deborah to depression. On top of that, the death of her father at a formative age would have been a huge shock to the system. The loss of a parent in childhood remains the single most influential factor in the development of mental illness.’

Adam and Sophie are teenagers: when does childhood end? Will Neil’s death add to the risk for them? Does the cruel snare of depression lie in wait for Sophie? And Adam, who has been amazing in these past months, functioning better than I could ever have hoped: as time passes, will Neil’s death magnify his problems?

‘The loss of her mother and Neil’s diagnosis were two other significant attacks on Deborah’s mental health,’ says Don Petty.

‘But her mother died many years ago,’ Mr Latimer points out – best to get that cleared up before Miss Webber gets her claws out.

‘True,’ says Mr Petty. ‘However, Deborah’s relationship with her mother was a troubled one. Difficulties within it were neither addressed nor resolved and this can arrest the grieving process and store up problems that later emerge at stressful times.’

‘It was then, after her mother died, that Deborah sought medical help for her illness?’ Mr Latimer asks.

‘That’s correct. And her GP was concerned enough to treat her for clinical depression by prescribing anti-depressants. So we have a prior incident of serious mental illness. Now, more recently, the constant strain of caring for her terminally ill partner while also coping with her son’s mental illness, and dealing with her own insomnia and panic attacks, caused Deborah to become seriously ill.’

‘Ill enough to lose the ability to distinguish between right and wrong?’

‘Yes,’ confirms Don Petty. It’s a bald reply and I expect him to elaborate but he just stares impassively at Mr Latimer.

‘The insomnia,’ Mr Latimer asks, ‘how would that affect Deborah’s state of mind?’

‘Insomnia has a direct adverse impact on the amount of stress we experience, and how we cope with that stress. It also makes it hard for people to concentrate, to think rationally. In more severe cases insomnia can lead to delusions and other severe mental states. We now know insomnia can increase the risk of depression and contribute to recurrent depression.’

‘And the panic attacks?’

‘These episodes are extremely frightening for anybody: palpitations of the heart, inability to breathe, feelings of terror, of losing control. They are disturbing, debilitating and would have increased her sense of being out of control.’

Mr Latimer nods thoughtfully, ‘So, given her history of depression and insomnia and the other stresses in the family, when Neil repeatedly asked Deborah to help him die, her mental state meant that she was not able to make a sound judgement?’

‘Not in the end. Though she did refuse him twice, which indicates that it was the mounting pressure and the deterioration of her own mental health that destroyed her ability to make a reasoned decision.’

‘And her actions afterwards,’ asks Mr Latimer, ‘her attempts to conceal the facts of the situation?’

‘Deborah would be the first to admit that she was horrified, sickened by the reality of Neil’s death. The nightmare had come true for her. Grief-stricken and depressed, she did all she could to minimize the damage to her family. She knew that she had done wrong and was desperate to protect her children.’

‘Was Deborah Shelley mad when she helped Neil die?’

‘Mad isn’t a word I would use but the balance of her mind was disturbed to such an extent that she could not be held responsible for her actions.’

Cross-examining, Miss Webber picks away at him like some starving crow. She starts by trying to get Don Petty to admit that my actions before, during and after Neil’s death would equally well fit the profile of a sane woman who simply believed in her husband’s right to die, and who, however reluctantly, went along with it.

He’s having none of it. ‘In such cases,’ he expounds, ‘the person responsible makes no attempt to hide the matter but freely discloses their involvement to the family and to the authorities. They are morally secure and prepared to risk prison for their convictions.’

She comes at him from another angle. ‘Deborah Shelley agreed to her husband’s request on Friday, the third of April, is that your understanding?’

‘Yes.’

‘And on the fifteenth of June she went though with it: administering a massive dose of morphine and then smothering Neil Draper with a plastic bag?’

Again and again the plastic bag is raised, flagged up and waved in the jury’s faces. An obscene image. Each time, I see Neil’s face darkening, feel that sickening panic, the terror in my bowels, in my heart.

‘Ten weeks separate those dates,’ she presses on, ‘during which time Ms Shelley continued to care for her children, run a household, attend meetings with her clients. Are you seriously suggesting that Deborah Shelley was mentally incompetent for ten weeks and yet no one noticed?’ Miss Webber’s voice rises with incredulity.

‘That’s not what I said,’ he barks, and flushes, angry. It is not a pleasant sight. I feel embarrassed. How will the jury take it?

‘Was the balance of Ms Shelley’s mind disturbed when she agreed to assist her husband?’

‘I believe so. From her account, it is my opinion that Deborah was under great pressure and agreed to placate her husband. Had she felt stronger she would not have agreed. She hoped it would never come to pass.’

‘And when she set off to research methods of killing someone, scouring the Internet for deadly information, when she plotted to hoard drugs and lied to their GP, was that to placate Neil? Was the balance of her mind disturbed then?’

‘She was confused-’

‘I certainly am,’ Miss Webber says swiftly, and some people laugh. ‘Please, Mr Petty, answer the question.’

‘It is often the case,’ he sounds petulant, his Scottish accent suddenly echoes with peevish grievance, ‘that a person can be suffering mental disturbance yet appear to function quite well. I believe she went along with it, still hoping it would never happen,’ he says stiffly.

‘So she was sane, then?’ Don Petty frowns at that and Miss Webber adds, ‘She was mentally responsible during those weeks?’

‘No. Mental health fluctuates as does physical health. It is a spectrum, not a fixed state.’

‘Exactly,’ pipes Briony Webber, ‘quite fluid – certainly in this case. Seems to come and go to suit the occasion.’

‘Miss Webber,’ the judge growls.

‘Withdrawn.’

I catch a look between Mr Latimer and Ms Gleason. Dismay. My cheeks burn. Oh, God. This is the battle of the shrinks and Don Petty is supposed to be my champion. I want to stand up and yell at him, grab hold of him and slap him into shape.

‘And was Ms Shelley mentally responsible when she performed the fatal act?’ Performed: there’s a pornographic slur in the way she articulates the word. I am beginning to tremble. I stare at Don Petty, willing him to fight for me. To show them how it was – or, rather, how we want it to appear.

‘No, she was no longer mentally responsible.’

‘When did the change occur?’ Miss Webber demands. ‘That morning, the week before?’

‘It is my opinion that the weeks leading up to that day saw an increasing deterioration in Deborah’s mental health. The evening before June the fifteenth was the tipping point, when Neil named the day. The balance of her mind was so disturbed that she could no longer be held responsible for her behaviour.’

‘Really?’ she says drily. ‘And after the murder of her husband did not Ms Shelley perform perfectly well, fooling family, friends, medical staff, even the police until her lies were exposed?’ Now she makes me an actor, all mask and makeup, mouthing my lines by rote. ‘I put to you an alternative view – that Ms Shelley is a clever and calculating woman who knows her only chance of evading a prison sentence is to spin this tissue of lies and fancies. Asking this jury to believe that on April the third she lost all reason and said yes to Neil Draper, that ten weeks later on June the fifteenth, again all sense deserted her as she helped him die. Yet she was able to recover amazingly quickly, hiding the evidence, trotting out a story, covering up the murder of her husband.’

‘Is there a question for the witness?’ Mr Latimer complains, the tail on his scrappy wig shivering furiously.

‘Do you have children, Mr Petty?’ asks Miss Webber.

‘Sorry?’

‘Is this relevant?’ Mr Latimer demands.

The judge nods for Miss Webber to continue.

‘You have any children?’

‘Yes, two.’

‘Keep you awake at night?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Broken sleep affects most parents, would you say?’

‘It’s not my area of-’ He’s beginning to fudge.

She cuts him off. ‘Oh, come on, we all know what it’s like. New parents barely get any sleep but they don’t become unbalanced, they don’t lose the capacity to distinguish right from wrong. Yet you claim that Ms Shelley’s insomnia left her so sleep deprived it made her sick?’

‘It’s a contributing factor.’

‘So you say.’ Her retort drips sarcasm. ‘Another factor was the strain of the problems with Adam Shelley: his mental problems, his drug abuse.’

‘That’s right.’ His words are clipped, defensive now, mealy-mouthed.

‘And Adam had been a voluntary hospital patient on occasion in 2008? And had received counselling?’

‘Yes.’

‘But since then he had been settled at home?’

I see Mr Latimer close his eyes slowly: he knows this is heading nowhere good.

‘That’s right.’

‘There had not been any serious incident with Adam in the year leading up to his father’s death? Is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, it would appear that the situation with Adam had improved significantly, that Ms Shelley might have taken consolation from the fact that things were so much better, that there was much less pressure in that quarter. In effect a respite? Would you agree?’

I close my own eyes for a moment, shake my head a little. She is demolishing my defence, peck by peck. I hear Don Petty clear his throat. ‘It may appear like that but the reality of living with a child with these sort of issues creates long-term stress.’

She ignores him. She has made her point and moves on. ‘We have already heard that Ms Shelley did not see her own doctor in 2009 or ask for any help. That is your understanding?’

‘She used the MNDA helpline.’

‘Though she did not call them to discuss Neil’s request or ask for help in those final ten weeks? Is that right?’

He pauses but there’s no way out. ‘It is.’

I can see Jane, her face set, wary. She too must feel that any sympathy in the room has melted away. I do not dare survey the jury. Briony Webber walks to the benches.

‘And we have heard that only once in her life did Deborah Shelley ever seek professional help for depression, in…’ she makes a show of checking her notes ‘… 1993. Sixteen years previously. No sign of depression for sixteen years.’ She weighs each word, heavy with import. ‘Do you agree?’

‘It’s possible to have the illness but not seek help.’

‘And you believe that’s true of Deborah Shelley?’ The subtext is ‘poor misguided fool’.

‘I do.’

‘So we have a woman who you claim lost all reason on June the fifteenth and acted while the balance of her mind was disturbed. What about when she researched those very methods, scouring the Internet for websites about suicide? When she went over with her husband how she would conduct herself after his death?’ Her voice gains volume, filling the court, the catalogue of my misdeeds bouncing back from the high ceilings, the far corners. ‘When she planned with him what she would say if any suspicions were aroused? Was the balance of her mind disturbed on each of those occasions?’

I chance a glance towards the jury. Alice, resplendent with a black hairband and strange blue pinafore dress, bows her head, studying her hands. Discomfited or disillusioned.

‘In my opinion the preparatory acts made by Deborah Shelley were on a par with the act itself – they were carried out under enormous emotional pressure and in the desperate hope that they would be superfluous at the end of the day.’

‘And after the deed was done?’

‘I have already said-’ Don Petty complains.

‘I would like you to repeat your assertion, for the sake of the jury, because quite frankly it beggars belief.’

‘Badgering the witness!’ Mr Latimer shouts. He has gone very pale and his lips are taut with displeasure.

‘Your Honour,’ says Miss Webber, ‘this speaks to the very core of the defence. I must be able to test the witness rigorously.’

‘Proceed with caution,’ the judge tells her.

She swivels back to Don Petty. ‘And afterwards a remarkable recovery, wouldn’t you say? As soon as she despatches her husband, Ms Shelley sets to work. How was her state of mind when she cleared away the drug containers and the plastic bag, when she told the ambulance man that her husband’s death was expected, when she told her daughter that she had found him dead in his bed, when she accepted condolences and placed the death notice in the paper, when she played the innocent as the police asked for the truth? All very logical acts if you are trying to get away with murder, would you agree?’

‘She was trying to save her family,’ Don Petty says. ‘To salvage something. She was in denial.’

‘I don’t think she’s the only one.’ There’s a gasp at Miss Webber’s insolence. ‘No further questions.’ She swoops back to her seat.

I am gutted. She has laid me out and torn me open. Carrion. The trembling is worse. I am trembling inside, an ague, cold and bone deep.

Once Don Petty has gone there is a pause in the proceedings. The judge consults with the lawyers. He decides that it would be better to hear the closing speeches in the morning. Court is adjourned for the day.

Sophie stands up, making to leave and bends down for her coat. Our eyes lock. She doesn’t look away. She doesn’t glare or narrow her eyes. She just looks raw and shattered. Then the moment is gone.