Page 99 of Maybe Tomorrow

Pauline’s senses numbed. She remained seated, her face blank of emotion, her eyes staring straight ahead. Her life had just ended.

Geoff and Judith Patterson remained still for a long few seconds while the verdict sank in. Judith began to cry. She lowered her head and let the tears fall. She felt Geoff’s arm around her shoulders squeeze her tight and pull her towards him. He kissed the top of her head.

‘It’s over, Judith,’ he whispered to her. ‘It’s over. It’s over.’

She nodded and absorbed his words. It was over. The attention and the pain of uncertainty was over, but the grief was still raw, the pain of never seeing her beautiful daughter again was as sharp as ever. Anthony Winstanley being found guilty changed nothing.

Anthony watched as the man in the grey suit stood up and told the world he was guilty of killing Alice Patterson. How was that possible? This man didn’t know him. None of the jury knew him.

‘What? No!’ he shouted. ‘No! I didn’t do it. I didn’t. How can you say that? I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘Anthony, please, calm down. We can talk about this later,’ Jennifer said quietly, trying to get him to sit down.

‘No. I didn’t see her that night. I wasn’t anywhere near her. I didn’t kill her. I swear. I didn’t. Mum, help me!’ he screamed.

The two police officers grabbed Anthony by the arms and pulled him back, but he was enraged. He kicked and he screamed. The judge ordered him to be taken away from the court. His cries could be heard from the custody suite below.

‘Pauline, we have to go,’ Leo said.

She turned to him. ‘Huh?’ Her eyes had glazed over.

‘We have to go, Pauline. Everyone’s leaving.’

‘OK. Where do we fetch Anthony from?’

Leo frowned. ‘No. Pauline, he was found guilty.’

‘Yes, but he’s not.’

‘I know he isn’t, but they say he is. We can appeal though, I’m sure of it.’

‘But I want to take him home. Now.’

Leo clasped his hands around hers. ‘You can’t, Pauline. Not now. I’m sorry.’

Pauline opened her mouth to speak, but a torrent of tears came out. She fell into Leo and cried loudly into his shoulder. It was a long time before she felt well enough to leave the comfort of his embrace. When she did, she looked at him with blurred vision.

‘Will you stay with me?’

‘Of course I will.’

‘Forever?’

‘Forever.’

ChapterForty-One

HMP Blackmoor, a Category A prison on the outskirts of Bradford in West Yorkshire was a giant monolith of a building. Built in 1886, its ornate turrets stood either side of the imposing roller gate which opened to accept the secure vehicle transporting Anthony Winstanley. During the uncomfortable journey, the reality had dawned on him. He was on his way to a prison to spend the rest of his life locked up in a prison cell, living among murderers and rapists and terrorists and serial killers, and everyone believed he was one of them.

He closed his eyes tightly and remembered everything that had happened in the court room in Sheffield. As soon as the foreperson of the jury told the court he was guilty, the heavy silence was broken. He heard cheers and jeers from the public gallery, and he distinctly heard his mother cry and scream out. He wanted to go home. He wanted his mum and Leo to collect him from the witness box, take him from the court, that horrible building, and back home to his comics and his bedroom. He didn’t want to be here.

He asked to see his mum, but he was ignored. From the court room, he was taken to a holding cell. He had no idea how long he was going to be there for. Nobody said anything to him. He shouldn’t be here. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t killed Alice Patterson. She was his friend. He liked her. He wasn’t anywhere near the woods on the night of the storm. He was on the coast, looking out at the waves crashing onto the shore, getting sprayed as they broke. He’d loved it. The wind was wild and whipped around him. He’d had to hold on tight to the iron railings so he wouldn’t get swept out to sea. Sometimes, he closed his eyes just before a wave hit and he listened as the water charged at the sea wall. It sounded as if the world was being torn apart. He half-expected to look up into the black sky and see it break open. Looking back, he wished it had. If he’d known he was going to be found guilty of a crime he didn’t commit, he would have taken his hands off the railings and allowed the sea to take him, to pick him up, throw him into the depths of the violent breakers and drag him far and away.

He closed his eyes tightly shut again and a tear rolled down his cheek. If that had happened, he wouldn’t see his mum or Leo ever again, and they were important to him. He remembered his mum screaming in the court room again, that guttural, heart-wrenching sound. He had never heard a noise like it before. He knew it would have been a similar sound she would have made if the police knocked on the door to tell her he had been washed out to sea during the storm. He couldn’t do that to his mum. He may no longer be able to see her every day, but he knew she would come to visit him, and she would still be in his life.

At Blackmoor Prison, he was taken to a reception area where a bored-looking man talked him through the initial procedures of the prison. He didn’t take any of it in. He knew the words, but they made no sense. He was told he would be taken to a first-night centre that would help him to adjust to the prison environment. He was handed basic bedding which had a funny smell to it and a change of clothing which he didn’t like the look of, along with a pamphlet telling him all about the rules and regulations of Blackmoor Prison.

He was led along a corridor by a prison officer who told him what he could expect to happen over the next few days.