by Giles Ekins
‘You mean I’m not a sycophant like your other creatures’, she answered bitterly. She could see that whatever she said, Vickers was not going to be swayed.
‘Sycophant or team player, whatever gets the job done,’ he told her, ’I don’t care what colour the cat, as long as he catches the mouse.’
‘I’m a bloody good mouser, you know that.’
‘Yes, but you’re not my mouser. Therein lies the difference, if you are not on my team, there’s no place for you here.’
‘’Bastard’ she hissed, louder than she intended.
Vickers laughed, ‘I like you Grace, I really do, you’re feisty and you fight for your corner, but Garside is the only corner you’ve got to fight for. Besides, it could be a chance for promotion. Andy Claybourne will be retiring in a couple of years, Trevor Luithen is unlikely to return, he has advanced prostate cancer, and West Garside will need a superintendent. It could be you, Grace, I advise you to take it, Seize the opportunity.’
‘You give me little choice, do you?’
‘He shook her head, ‘No, as I say, it’s there or nowhere.’
However, the delighted reaction of her team, the applause she received when she made her way to her office after it had been announced that she was staying in West Garside, went a long way to easing her disappointment and anger.
She realised that she actually liked West Garside, very much liked the people she was working with and once the disappointment of not returning to Sheffield CID had dissipated, she knew she had little option but to make the best of the opportunity and become the biggest fish in the small pond that was West Garside CID.
She decided to sell her house in Sheffield, even though it was full of memories of Gary and their time together, but she argued her case in another imagined conversation.
‘Go for it, girl, this house is only bricks and mortar, you take your memories with you, they reside within you and can never be erased. This house is shackling you to the past, look to the future. It’s time to move on. So, hitch up your wagon and head out west. Or at least West Garside.’
Grace spent time de-cluttering, sending bags and bags of clothes she had not worn since the millennium to a St Luke’s, local hospice charity. The Heart Foundation came to take away unwanted furniture. The kitchen cupboards were emptied of two sandwich toasters, a rice cooker, ice cream maker, a fancy Italian coffee machine that she bought Gary for Christmas and was used twice and a device that supposed to chop, slice, dice, grind and shred but which took so long to set up it was quicker to do the tasks by hand. These items also went St Luke’s. charity.shop.
She decorated, cleaned and polished, got rid of more unnecessary ornaments and pictures that had little or no sentimental value, bought a new long-pile cream carpet for the lounge to replace the old one which looked tired and worn. She hired a skip and was surprised how quickly it filled with extraneous ‘stuff’ she had little further use for. It felt liberating and deeply satisfying, as if de-cluttering her life as well as the house.
Next, she tackled the long-neglected garden but found the task beyond her. It was overgrown and out of hand, so she employed a retired gardener called Jack who liked to earn extra money to supplement his pension.
He was eternally cheerful, hard-working, called Grace ‘my old love’ and within weeks had transformed her garden from an overgrown jungle to a neat tidy and colourful garden. Grace thought him worth every penny and gave him £100 as a bonus, which he was reluctant to take, ‘no, my old love, you’ve paid me for the job, and that’s fine by me.’ but Grace insisted, and reluctantly, Jack accepted.
Whilst all this was going on, Grace was looking at properties in West Garside, and finally decided on a 3-storey town house on the site of an old, demolished cutlery works being developed on Redemption Island . It had an integral garage and utility on the ground floor, the first floor was a combined living, dining and kitchen area with a large terrace to the rear overlooking a communal garden. The second floor comprised two bedrooms with adjoining bathroom and a master bedroom with en-suite shower. Then there was a large roof terrace, large enough to hold a barbecue with a dozen guests.
Grace thought it ideal and went ahead with the purchase. When she took occupation, she soon realised that none of her furniture fitted stylistically or size wise, so the Heart Foundation received another donation. She visited Bo-Concept, the Danish furniture designers and furnished her home in a style highly complementary to the new, clean, Nordic feel to her home.
And as she had no garden, the lawnmower, spade, fork, hoe, rake, shears and other gardening equipment she gave to Jack, to do with as he pleased, sell or use himself.
She moved in and the Sheffield house went on the market. The house was free of mortgage, Gary’s life insurance policies covered that and more besides, enough to buy the Alfa Romeo Guilia Quadrifoglio, the car that Gary had always coveted, and which Grace had bought in his memory.
The first night she was home, she sat on the roof terrace with a glass of Chardonnay in her hand, feeling at home and content for the first time in many months.
‘You done well, girl,’ Gary told her, as she kissed his photograph taking pride of place on the sleek new beechwood sideboard.
Sixty
On the day David Jarrett was convicted, Grace took the team out to celebrate, even though it felt like a hollow victory, but the team had worked hard and deserved the credit due them.
With no convenient pub near to Concordia Court, Grace took them to the ‘Mulberry’, the coppers pub near to the old HQ at Endeavour House.
‘Thank you, everybody,’ Grace said as she lifted her glass of Chardonnay in toast, ‘I know it has been a trying and upsetting case, with so many tragic deaths but you all performed exceptionally well, and I am proud to have led you as a team. Thank you, good job.’
Terry, Fred, Brian and Danny all had a pint, Emma had a pink gin and tonic (what else) whilst Jessica, who did not drink, had a soda water.
‘Good job on you, Boss,’ said Fred, ‘reckon you done well to bring this motley crew together and get a result. 32 years for the little bastard, I’ll drink to that,’
Terry added his congratulations and bought the next round. Brian bought the third and Emma bought the fourth. Holding her pink gin tightly in both hands, she said nervously, ‘I’ve got something to tell you guys. Been meaning to before but never got round to it. You see, I’m…gay.’ But she did not get the reaction she expected, especially when Fred Burbage, not known for subtlety and sensitivity, said kindly, ‘Known that for ages, love,’ and patted her on the arm.
‘You’ve known all along, but never said anything?’ Emma said, incredulously.
‘Listen, love’, Fred said, ‘What you do and who you do it with is nobody’s business but yours. If carpet munching is your thing, that’s fine by me.’
‘Oh, thanks Fred. I think.’
Grace nodded in approval. ‘Well said Fred, perhaps there is a sensitive soul in there after all,’ she said with a smile. Even Terry was surprised at Fred’s reaction and comments, and even more surprised that he had known Emma’s secret and never mentioned it.
‘Fred, how did you know,’ asked a puzzled Emma, ‘I’ve never told a soul?’ looking at Terry, imploring him not to contradict her lie.
‘Saw you didn’t I, in Peak Barley. I’d been out fishing out your way, at Beagle Flask reservoir with my mate Jack Parsons and on the way back we stopped to have a drink at the ‘Green Man’. You and your pal... that little green haired pixie you live with…’
Alice, she’s called Alice.’
‘You and Alice, you were sat in the corner, couldn’t keep your faces off each, other. Let alone your hands, so I backed out and told Jack that I’d just remembered it was a lousy pub with crap beer and so we went on to the ‘Duke of Wellington’ instead and had a couple of jars there.’
‘And you never said a word.’
‘Not my business, love, as I said.’
‘Thank you, Fred, Emma said, pla
nting a kiss on his cheek. ‘A true gentleman.’
‘Been called many things in, my life but never one of them. Almost an insult is that. Right then, same again all round is it, pints for you lads, wine for you. Boss, pink piss water for Emma and soda…soda? for Jess there. And then I think a curry is in order, don’t you? The ‘Kashmir’ on Clarkhouse Road is good, I can recommend that.’
‘Sounds good.’
And so it was.
But those insidious worms of doubt and disquiet still wriggled.
And never went away.
Part Two
Two Rapes, A Confession And A Secret Revealed
Sixty-One
Chloe Macbeth opened her Dell laptop and after a few minutes thought, began to type using two and occasionally, three fingers of both hands. She had decided her pen name, her ‘nom-de-plume’ was to be ‘Annoying Mouse’ which she thought was quite clever.
She typed ‘FROM BEYONF THE GRAVE’ by ‘Annoying Mouse’ and then corrected the spelling of BEYONF to BEYOND and then typed:
Charlotte’s Story.
This is a true story. Almost.
The events depicted took place mainly in the Yorkshire town of West Garside over a period of years.
Only the names, locations and actual events have been changed to protect the guilty.
Charlotte McBain, known as Charlie by everybody except her mother, thought that the ‘disclaimer’ was quite funny as she wrote it.
Like most other plans in my life, Charlie wrote, ‘this one swiftly went tits up.
So? Was it a hoax? Or did I always know that it would go way beyond that?
I have to ask, when did things start to go wrong in my life?
Was it the day I was raped?
Or did it go back further than that?
So, where do we begin?
Well, here is as good a place as any.
Sixty-Two
The rain was spattering down as Charlie made her way up Elm Avenue. She was twelve years old, shivering in her thin brown mac as the sharp chilling wind swept across from the Pennines to the west. The sky was a dull, sullen grey, brooding and bitter as black clouds began to roll across, the rain suddenly heavy, soaking through her coat, turning her blonde hair into a sodden mess plastered about her face.
She quickened her pace, head down, and clutching her useless coat tightly about her, turned into Fenstall Road and sprinted the last few yards to the house of her best friend ever, Josie Jowett.
Charlie knocked on the front door, tried the handle but it was locked so she ran down to the side kitchen door, which, as usual, was unlocked.
‘Josie’ she called, as she took off her sodden coat and hung it on the back of a chair to dry, unmindful of the water which dripped onto the white ceramic tiles. She then took off her shoes and socks, wiping her feet on a blue chequered tea towel.
‘Josie? she called again as she roughly dried her hair on another tea towel before tossing both wet cloths down by the washing machine in the adjacent utility room,
Mrs Jowett?’ Charlie called, the house ominously quiet, all she could hear was the ticking of the large red glass Carlsson kitchen clock. She had always liked the Jowett’s kitchen, for one thing it was clean, smelled clean, of lemon disinfectant and air freshener, of laundry soap and fresh oranges sitting in a glass bowl on the worktop.
The kitchen was large, at least twice, if not three times bigger than the kitchen of the council flat in the Upper Storrs estate, where she lived with her widowed mother. There were Shaker style cream base and wall units with integrated Bosch oven, micro-wave, warming tray and dishwasher. The worktop was snow white marble with a 5-ring induction hob set into it, with a cooker hood integrated into a wall unit overhead.
Standing on the worktop were a chrome toaster, KitchenAid mixer, kettle and Emma Bridgewater pottery tea, coffee and sugar caddies. They even had different sized cups for tea and coffee, in Charlie’s home there a dozen or so mugs, some chipped, of various sizes and designs used for both tea and coffee. And her mother’s vodka if the few glasses they possessed had not been washed A white Samsun television sat in one corner of the worktop.
There was a cream Aga and a tall red Smeg fridge/freezer and a double white ceramic Belfast sink, which unlike the one at her home, was never full of dirty plates and dishes.
A beechwood kitchen table stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by four wooden chairs with rounded chairbacks, one chair to each side of the table. A bowl of flowers stood in the middle of the table. There were never fresh flowers in a bowl in her home, except that once there had been a bunch of lilies’ that her Aunt Sarah brought when Charlie’s father died four years ago from lung cancer.
At twelve years old, Charlie, more than anything in her short life. wanted a kitchen like this one.
A kitchen with a view of a garden rather than the kitchen window of the flat opposite
Charlie took another look around the kitchen, almost as if she expected Joyce Jowett, Josie’s mother, to suddenly appear from under the sink.
‘Josie?’ she called again as she walked from the kitchen and out into the hall, ‘It’s me, Charlie, are you there?
Then she could hear muffled voices from upstairs, from Josie’s bedroom. She did not knock on Josie’s closed bedroom door, she never did, and walked straight in.
Josie Jowett, almost three months older than Charlie, lay naked on her bed. Her sixteen-year old brother Damien was also naked, his erection, his ‘thing’ as Charlie thought of it, jutted out before him. The first erection she had ever seen. They were too engrossed in what they were doing to notice Charlie as she stood in the doorway, open mouthed with shock.
‘Josie, what are you doing?’ Charlie said loudly, shocked to the core. She knew nothing about sex or the birds and bees, but she knew enough to know that what she was seeing was not right.
‘Shit’, shouted Damien as he jerked back off the bed, ‘I thought it was my fucking mother for a minute. What you doing, Charlie, creeping up on us like that?’
‘I did shout. I shouted when I came in’
‘Near gave me a heart attack’, Damien snapped.
‘What are you doing, Josie?’ Charlie asked timorously, ‘it’s not right, doing that. With Damien, it’s not right.’
Josie said nothing, but looked to Damien to respond, to justify their actions.
‘It’s all right, you see, Charlie, ‘cos it’s brother and sister, that makes it OK,’ he said, not entirely convincingly.
‘Still doesn’t seem right, even if you are brother and sister.’
‘It’s in the Bible, you look it up.’ Damien responded, ‘honest, in the Bible it says it’s OK between brother and sister,’
Charlie didn’t know much about the Bible, there wasn’t one at home, religion wasn’t taught in school and she had never been to church or Sunday school, but even so, she instinctively knew it was wrong.
‘Where does it say? In the Bible. Show me.’
‘It’s in Dotingromany or Levitations, one of those, look it up.’
Charlie may only have been twelve years old, but she knew enough to know that Damien was as full of shit as a farmyard cess pit.
‘Charlie, I don’t mind,’ Josie said, ‘really, and Damien is my big brother and if he says it’s all right and it’s in the Bible, it must be, I mean he knows lots of things we don’t.’
‘See Charlie, Josie don’t mind, sez it’s OK.’
Charlie remained unconvinced but was uncertain what to do. Josie was her best friend ever, they had been friends since they were in junior school and now went to the same local comprehensive school. They were inseparable.
And Charlie always felt in awe of Josie and her family. They lived in this big posh house, had lots of money, drove nice cars, went on holiday to places that Charlie could only dream of, France, Spain, the Caribbean, Goa or Disneyland in Florida.
Josie’s room had built-in wardrobes which ran the length of one wall, full of nice expensive clothes. Whereas t
he clothes that Charlie wore, mostly bought from charity shops, were cheap and shabby – and looked it. Charlie, at most had seven outfits, come winter or summer, one thin mackintosh, three pairs of shoes and a pair of wellingtons.
Josie had the most recent model of mobile phone, had an Apple lap-top and an iPad. She had a double bed with pale blue sheets and a blue flowered duvet with matching pillows, there was a television top of one of the two chests of drawers. There was a dressing table and chair and Josie only had to share the bathroom with Damien, since Josie’s parents’ bedroom a bedroom which was larger than the entire flat that Charlie lived in, had an en-suite bathroom.
Charlie had never invited Josie to her home, she was too ashamed of it. It was never very clean, it often smelled of stale or rotting food, or cat poo from the litter tray. The furniture was old and battered, and Charlie would have mortified to the depths of her soul if ever Josie saw how she lived.
So, her friendship with Josie was the only thing of value that she had, the one thing that was dear to her heart and to lose that friendship would be the end of her world. If she said the wrong thing to her or said something to Josie’s parents, she knew the friendship could finish in a heartbeat. Josie was spoiled and always wanted her own way, Charlie was fine with that, always happy to acquiesce, it was a small price to pay.
Reluctantly she nodded, ‘If you’re OK with it, Josie, I guess it must be all right.’
Josie leapt up from the bed and gave Charlie a hug. ‘Whoa, you’re all wet, you’re soaking. And cold. You’d best take your clothes off before you catch your death.’
‘Yeah,’ said Damien, ‘take your clothes off and join us, we’re having fun, aren’t we, sis?’
‘Yes’, said Josie, a fixed smile welded to her face, and tugged at Charlie’s dress, Reluctantly, Charlie pulled it over her head and stood in her knickers and vest, but refused to take those off, even though they were damp from the rain. Josie took a hold of Charlie’s hand and pulled her onto the bed.
