Cries Unheard by Gitta Sereny Read Free Book Online

sandwiches for lunch and unending cups of coffee and tea and she looked pale and very tired.
    “It wasn’t that … simple,” she said.
    “I want to talk about the way it happened the way it was done … and and … you know, go over the record of it, for myself. How could it have happened? How did I become such a child?”
    Did she realize, I asked her, that such a book was bound to be controversial? That people were bound to think she did it for money?
    That both of us would be accused of insensitivity towards the two little victims’ families by bringing their dreadful tragedy back into the limelight and, almost inevitably, of sensationalism, because of some of the material the book would have to contain? Above all, did she understand that readers would not stand for any suggestion of possible mitigation for her crimes? And had she faced the reality that if she did collaborate in such a book, it would expose her to renewed onslaughts by the media if they found her?
    In the months to come her ability to ponder for long moments over questions she was asked would become very familiar. On such occasions she would sit very still, her hands slightly curled, almost in a meditative position, with a curious inward look on her face. I would never get tired of observing this effort at concentration, this visible seeking inside herself, not for a ‘proper’ answer, as one might suspect and I did at first that day but for something that was meaningful, both to herself and me.
    It was the question about Martin Brown’s and Brian Howe’s families she replied to first. She had hurt them so much, she said, she really didn’t want to hurt them more . and suddenly she was crying.
    “But… but… there are things they don’t know … it won’t change anything for them, I know, but still…”
    What sort of things? I asked.
    “Oh, I don’t know. Just things …” It was obvious that helping her to organize her thoughts and bringing out whatever it was she wanted to say would, as I always suspected, require the right environment, carefully structured conversations, and, above all, time.
    The continuous media interest, she said a little later, was one of the many reasons why she had come to her decision. She thought that once she had told me all her story, answered all my questions as honestly as she could, perhaps they would leave her alone.
    “After all,” she smiled a little crookedly, ‘once you get through with me, there won’t be much left for anybody to ask, will there? “
    I tried to disabuse her of this optimism. Newspapers, I told her, particularly the ones that had pursued her for so long, were a very different medium from a book, with a different readership, and reporters would always find questions to ask. And the money I myself would propose she receive if she decided to go ahead (hopefully to put in trust for her child), because I thought it was right as without her such a book could not be written, would be a real moral problem, not only for the media, but for the families of the dead boys and for many sensitive people.
    Discussing money would later always be difficult for her. Even though she wanted it quite desperately in order to change her family’s unsettled way of life, she was very aware of the possible moral objections, and when she spoke of money, her voice stiff as she repeated arguments which were not her own, she would, unusually, sound defensive, stubborn and not quite true.
    She and her partner, who has by now been her principal emotional support for eleven years, have had long periods of living a hand-to mouth existence. With Mary a notorious released prisoner on licence, hunted by the media, they have rarely been able to hold on to jobs for any length of time, and have frequently resorted to living on the state. Except for one period of several years when, living in the more prosperous South of England, both of them were in regular employment Mary’s partner has had long stretches of being