by Tom Bradby
As she crossed the main road on her way home to pick up her car, Julia saw a small crowd and at least one reporter facing a camera. She hurried across the junction and down Woodpecker Lane, where she saw Alan bending over the flower-beds by the front of the house. He saw her and straightened up.
She thought of the search and felt guilty again at the digging into the past that she had just been engaged upon.
‘Julia. What are you up to?’
This question was somehow unexpected. ‘Not much. Are you not going to the base today?’
She saw the uneasy, hurt look in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
He turned his head, looking in the direction of the common, though his house blocked any view of it. His jaw was thrust forward in a gesture of thoughtfulness. ‘Impossible to be here,’ he said. ‘Impossible not to be.’
He turned back to her, but did not meet her eyes. He had a trowel in his hand and was looking down. It was a feminine stance. It was how her mother stood, favouring the good leg over the one injured in a childhood riding accent, and Julia wondered if this was what happened when you became close to someone: their mannerisms became yours and vice versa.
‘Probably not my business to say,’ he said, ‘but your mother and I … we feel you may be being …’ He met her eyes. He was embarrassed, she thought. He was doing her mother’s bidding. ‘I don’t want to patronize you. Neither of us do, but we feel you may be being misled.’
‘By whom?’
‘By … outside forces.’
‘UFOs?’
There was the shadow of a smile at the corners of his mouth. ‘No.’
‘You mean Professor Malcolm?’
He looked away again. ‘Well, whoever. The point is …’
First Michael Haydoch, now Alan. Julia was annoyed by the attempts to dissuade her. ‘It’s a formality, Alan. It has to be done, this review. He’s been good to me and I’m just …’
‘He’s been good to you.’
It was a few seconds before Julia realized that he was drawing her attention to all that he – and by extension her mother – had done. This was a test of loyalties. She found herself resenting it, and thus him, but she could see the wariness in his eyes. This was a terribly difficult time for him, she could see that.
‘I’m really sorry, Alan.’ Her tone was apologetic. ‘I wouldn’t want in any way to—’
‘The point is,’ he was looking at her square on now, his eyes conciliatory, almost pleading, ‘we can’t go back. You must see that. We can’t go back to the era of suspicion. It was too painful. You must see that.’
‘I’m sorry, Alan.’ She had heard the panic in his voice. ‘I’m sorry, but it is only a formality. It’s just going over the evidence as a formality.’
‘I’ll give you an example,’ he said, raising his finger. ‘Mr Ford …’ it was an effective imitation of Professor Malcolm’s East European burr ‘… when you say the girl’s godfather, Adrian Rouse, was affectionate, in what way exactly? Was he physically affectionate? Did you ever sense that he liked to be alone with her?’
Julia reddened. ‘I understand,’ she said.
‘Perhaps we should go for a walk,’ he went on. ‘Not today.’ He gestured at the common. ‘When the circus has gone.’
Julia nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That would be nice.’
As she walked round the corner, Julia thought of how her mother had changed. Her father’s death had made her independent, confident and, in some ways, assertive. Alan was less domineering than Mitchell and more pliable.
Mitchell Havilland would never have done her dirty work.
Julia parked in the cobbled mews off the top of the high street in Cranbrooke and knocked on the door. An old, vamped-up Mini was parked outside.
Simon Crick was a good-looking man, with closely cropped dark hair and a round face. He wore a white T-shirt, black trousers and black shoes, and smelt of aftershave and soap, as if he had only just got up. Before he had opened his mouth, she knew that he was uneasy about her presence and that he was going to lie to her.
It was a skill she had developed over the last three years: the ability to tell when a man was about to lie to you. She had never been conscious before that it was a skill, nor had she imagined it would be of any use to her outside the narrow, stress-filled confines of her work. But it was plain. She saw it clearly. This man was hiding something.
The order of living in the house here was reversed. Downstairs there was a large, open-plan room with a bed in the corner and a kitchen at one end. The floor was wooden, the furniture modern, the windows shielded by blinds not curtains. Crick led her up a spiral stone staircase to the photographic studio above. It was a light room, mirroring the one downstairs exactly, except that the area occupied by the kitchen was a walk-in storage cupboard. There were many custom-built drawers.
There were several lights up in the middle of the floor and a white screen had been pulled down over the red-brick wall at the far end. His camera was in the centre of the room, on top of a sturdy black tripod, and there was a tall wooden stool, which he now sat on, placing his right foot on one of the bars and leaning on his knee. There was a sofa by the window, in front of the blinds, and he motioned for her to sit, but she shook her head.
‘Did the police talk to you after the murders back in 1982?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I’m not sure I understand,’ he said. ‘Are you with the police?’
‘No. We’re conducting an independent review.’
He waited, then looked at his watch. ‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘As I told you, I have to go to lunch.’
‘I’d like, if possible, to see some pictures of Sarah.’
‘She’s been dead fifteen years. I haven’t kept them.’
Julia turned and wandered slowly into the alcove. There were many drawers, listed by letter – one letter for each drawer except X, Y and Z, which shared the last. To her right, there were four shelves and she stared at the equipment stacked upon them.
‘What sort of work do you do?’
‘Different kinds. Portraiture, mostly. Advertising.’
Julia was still looking at the equipment on the shelves. Some of it was familiar. It was what the surveillance specialists in 14 Intelligence Company used. ‘Long lens for your stills camera. Small video camera, complete with lipstick buttonhole lens. That’s not for advertising work or portraiture, is it?’
‘There’s a small detective agency here. Very occasionally I do some work for them. Mostly errant husbands.’
‘Must pay well?’
‘It does.’ He sighed. ‘It’s mucky, but it pays the rent.’
‘Did anyone ever employ you in connection with Sarah?’
‘No.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I’m getting late. If there is something specific …’
Julia nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’ She looked at him. On the phone, Julia had assumed Simon Crick had probably slept with Sarah but, seeing him in the flesh, she thought he was gay. Yet if their relationship had only been professional, she could not comprehend the source of his wariness.
‘Just one question. About Alice.’ She watched his face closely, but there was no reaction to the little girl’s name. ‘In the six months before her death,’ Julia went on, ‘Alice was … What’s the best way of putting this?’ Julia took a pace towards him. ‘Sarah was dressing her daughter like a little princess. That’s what brought me out here. I mean, if she was being formally modelled and photographed, then perhaps there is a connection. The little girl was being made to look … sexy. Did you notice that?’
‘I wasn’t concentrating that hard.’
Julia stared at him. He turned to look out of the window, across the roof-tops to the abbey in the distance. ‘I took pictures of the little girl,’ he said, ‘mostly for children’s clothing companies. I took sample pictures at Sarah’s request first, then there were a couple of jobs. One was for a clothing company I was doing anyway. They needed young m
odels. I suggested Alice. The other was for a toy company. That was a job Sarah found and she persuaded them to use me as the photographer. The child turned up, Sarah minded her. Quite honestly, I didn’t notice her much.’
‘There was nothing that struck you as odd about it?’
Simon Crick thought about this. Genuinely thought about it, Julia believed. ‘No,’ he said.
Julia drove out of the mews a few minutes later and waited just around the corner on the high street, keeping an eye on the rear-view mirror. The preponderance of grey stone often made the town and its quaint shops feel gloomy, but it was lifted today by the sunshine. As she waited, a group of boys from Cranbrooke School walked past, their sports jackets slung over their shoulders.
Cranbrooke was built around the boys’ school at its centre. The abbey had come first, then the school, then the town. The girls’ school, which she’d attended, had arrived later, further up the hill.
The boys went into the newsagent next to her.
Julia saw Simon Crick’s Mini turn out. He roared past, without seeing her, his eyes focused on the road ahead, and she watched him disappear down the hill and turn right opposite Woolworth’s into Staunton Street.
She got out and walked back to the mews. She reached the door, took the car keys out of her pocket, opened up the Leather-man tool on her key-ring and looked at the lock. It was a basic Yale. She glanced briefly back down the street, then opened one of the attachments, stuck it into the lock and pulled the door handle towards her. It took her less than five seconds. She waited for the tell-tale beep of an alarm, opening the scissors on the Leather-man, ready to cut the wires, but if there was an alarm, he had failed to set it.
Julia walked briskly up the stairs and into the cupboard. She flicked on the light-switch to her right. The light was dazzling.
The drawer for F was full. Each set of slide negatives was marked with a name, written on a white sticker. They seemed to be in alphabetical order, but Julia could not find one for Ford. Then she saw that there were aberrations in his filing system and that some of the photographs were not in alphabetical order. She estimated there must have been two or three hundred sets of negatives in this drawer and she flicked through all of them. Some didn’t have white stickers on, so she had to take them out and hold them up to the light. They were mostly portraits.
There was nothing in F.
There was nothing in S either.
Julia walked to the stairs and listened. There was no sign of anyone, so she came back, her footsteps noisy on the floorboards.
She tried A for Alice, but there was nothing there either, and this file took the longest because it had the lowest density of white stickers.
Julia stepped back once more and looked around the cupboard. There was something in this room with which Simon Crick was not comfortable.
She noticed a tall, free-standing wooden filing cabinet in the corner with a door and a lock. Julia took out her Leather-man again to open it. The solid wooden door swung back to reveal more drawers, again listed alphabetically, though this time with more than one letter to each level.
Julia opened the drawer for F and G, which was full of white folders. She picked up the top one and saw immediately that this was what Simon Crick had to hide.
This was his dirty work.
All of these were surveillance pictures. Here, a couple sitting in a restaurant, photographed through the window.
Each file had a name written in pencil or Biro on the outside.
As Julia found the file marked ‘Ford’ she felt the hairs rising on the back of her neck. She hesitated, then forced herself to pull out the contents.
She placed the photographs on the table and stared at them.
It was her father fucking the woman up against a tree, her legs wrapped around him.
Julia pushed the photographs away and they spilled on to the floor. She put her head in her hands, placing her thumbs in the corner of her eyes and pressing and pressing until the pain was intense.
She lifted her head and breathed in deeply, before stooping to pick the photographs up. She placed them back on the table.
It was not her father at all, but Adrian Rouse with more hair. For a moment, she looked at her shaking hands.
She breathed in deeply, straightening, before bending over again to look at them.
In the top picture, Rouse and Sarah were talking. It was a wide view and Julia could see clearly the wizened tree stump behind them in the centre of the common. In the next shot, Adrian was closer to her. He wore a green outdoor jacket, she was in just a sweater, a skirt and some wellington boots.
Then he was kissing her, Sarah leaning back against the tree stump. Then intercourse. He was fully clothed, but somehow he had removed her skirt. She still wore a jumper and the boots, but her hips and legs were bare and wrapped around his middle.
There was a closer shot. The muscles on her thighs were tensed as she gripped him, her skin white and smooth.
There was a photograph of her face, which looked even more beautiful when distorted by pleasure. There was a shot of his face, too, which was twisted with aggression.
In the next image, Sarah’s arms were above her head, her face covered by her jumper as Adrian lifted it off, his mouth over her nipple and breast, her back arching towards him. Now his trousers were around his ankles. Sarah was naked but for her boots and she was kneeling in front of him, her long dark hair hanging down, her body startlingly white in the sunshine, but lean and beautiful, her breasts full as she leant forward. Adrian’s head was tipped back, his eyes closed.
In the last photograph, Adrian still had his jacket on, but he had taken off his trousers and boots and was lying on his back. Sarah was completely naked now and she was straddling him, sitting up straight, with her head bent back so that Julia could see clearly both the pleasure in her face and the tension in the muscles of her thighs.
Julia breathed in hard.
She heard a car outside. She slipped the photographs back into the folder, pushed the drawer shut and closed the door of the cupboard.
She moved into the main room.
The car door slammed.
She walked to the back and looked at the window. There was a drop of ten feet or so into someone’s garden, but there was a window lock and no key evident. She took out the Leather-man once more, but small locks could be buggers.
The doorbell rang.
She turned back. At least it wasn’t him.
Julia stood still.
The doorbell sounded once more.
Eventually she heard the car door being shut again and the sound of whoever it was driving off.
She went down the stairs quickly, shoved the file inside her jacket, holding it under her armpit, looked out of the window and slipped into the mews, heart pounding.
Mac had assumed that he would be first in, but when he reached his desk they were already gathered in Rigby’s office. He could see Sanderson and Rigby and a taller man he assumed must be Sir Robert Quemoy, but they made no move towards him so he took Julia’s file from his top drawer and began to check through it.
Five minutes later, Rigby opened his door. ‘Mac,’ he said.
He picked up the file and walked down to the end, closing the door behind him. Rigby sat behind the desk, Sir Robert Quemoy in a chair next to him, Sanderson leaning against the wall with his back to the window.
‘Take a seat, Mac. This is Sir Robert Quemoy, Permanent Sec at the MoD.’
Mac shook his hand firmly. Sir Robert wore a blue suit and loafers and was a strikingly good-looking man, with a broad smile that revealed a set of teeth with a large gap in the middle, a sun-tan and long, curly brown hair. He looked young to be occupying such a position. No more than forty, Mac thought.
Sanderson was staring at him, his legs crossed languidly, his narrow weasel face set in its permanent scowl.
Rigby cleared his throat. ‘Given the potential sensitivities of this case, Sir Robert has been anxious to be kept up to
speed.’
‘Yes, sir, but as I explained on Saturday night, I’m afraid I’ve not quite finished.’
‘I thought we said the case had to be finished by today.’
‘Yes, sir, but as I’ve indicated I need a few more days to complete my work thoroughly. I have not yet spoken to the girl.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘I believe she is ill, sir.’
‘Ill in the head, or physically ill?’
‘Physically ill, sir. I can give Sir Robert an account of my progress to date.’
Sir Robert leant forward. ‘Captain Macintosh.’ He looked at his colleagues. ‘There is just one thing before we get into that. We’ve received a report that somebody has been impersonating Major Rigby.’ Mac looked at him. ‘That wouldn’t be you, would it?’
‘With respect, sir, why would I want to impersonate Major Rigby?’
No one smiled.
‘A woman called Sandra Claverton called for you this morning, Mac,’ Rigby said. ‘Do you have any idea what she might want?’
Mac looked from Sir Robert to Rigby and back again, before glancing down at the number he’d written on the buff-coloured file in his hand. He could feel the tension in his back. ‘Since we’re on to the subject,’ he said, ‘I do have some questions. I’d like to know what has happened to file 66743/B, which Major Rigby signed out and never returned.’
