by Tom Bradby
She looked at her watch. It was five o’clock. She wanted to go home, but it wasn’t practical and her head hurt.
Lying down again, she wondered what her mother would think. Would Caroline think she’d let Michael fuck her? Just like that?
Julia recalled the last part of the conversation downstairs. Then she found herself thinking of the class tutorial with Professor Malcolm at Sussex University where they had discussed the phenomenon of men who entered into relationships with women so as to get at their children.
Had it really been Sarah who had wanted Alice turned into a little adult?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MAC TURNED INTO Michael Haydoch’s drive, drove slowly up under the big beech trees, then stopped and glanced at his watch. It was eight o’clock in the morning. He had come because there was still no sign of Wilkes in London and he had been hoping to catch Haydoch before he went to work.
He stared at the house. Everything seemed quiet until his gaze was distracted by someone drawing a curtain in an upstairs window. It took a moment for him to realize it was Julia. Then he got out of the car, under a cedar tree. He felt like being sick. He straightened. ‘You fucking prat,’ he told himself. ‘You stupid prat.’
He got back into the car and, after a moment’s hesitation, looked over his shoulder and reversed up the drive.
Julia had found sleep again, but not peace. This time, she was trapped under the bush, looking into the clearing, watching.
She saw her father and Alice emerge from the path by the wizened tree stump and then stop. He stooped. Mitchell placed his hand on her head and then put it to her cheek. It was a … fatherly gesture.
Julia almost leapt out of bed, breathing fast.
The figure had looked like her father from a distance, but it had not been him, his face a blank, save for the familiar hair.
She looked around. Her clothes, including her jacket, had been dried and folded on the chair beside her.
She dressed, then emerged hesitantly, but found the house was empty. Michael had gone, without leaving a note, so she crept out of the house and began walking back over the hill, breaking into a run as she tried to recall an image of her father’s face, finding herself unable to do so.
By the time she reached the ridge, her head was pounding like a tractor engine as the effects of the hangover filtered through. She stopped and thought she might throw up.
It was disgusting.
The dreams were disgusting. How could her mind have become so twisted?
The weather was grey and overcast and a thick bank of black cloud still hung over the valley. She could see a light on in Professor Malcolm’s window at the far end of the top floor of the Rose and Crown.
She heard the honk of a horn from somewhere in the distance and it began to drizzle, the rain drifting into her face. Despite the rain last night, the ground was firm underfoot. The wind had dropped and the temperature risen.
When she got home, Julia ran upstairs and pulled her notebook from her bag, picking up the pencil from the desk.
‘Suspicion knows no boundaries,’ she wrote. ‘It has no shame, it knows no restraint, or pity. It is more fundamental than desire, more powerful than love, and guilt and shame are its progeny, settling on the psyche like the dawn mist after a cold night.’
Julia leant back, sighing and breathing more easily.
She wanted to take out a photograph of her father and offer some form of apology, but could not bring herself to do so. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, instead, to him, perhaps even to herself.
How could a man with so much life and humour have left such darkness? It was like a vacuum. It was a vacuum.
Julia imagined a bath would make her feel better. First, she got three paracetamol from the cupboard and drank five glasses of water, then climbed in, lay back and placed a cool flannel on her forehead.
Julia lay in the bath for a long time. Then, after drying herself and dressing, she walked downstairs to the sitting room. She searched in the drawer for the video-tape she had shown to Professor Malcolm and put it into the machine, before looking out of the window to check that her mother was not about to reappear.
She hesitated, torn between fear and guilt, then picked up the remote control and immediately began to rewind to the beginning of the sequence by the de la Rues’ swimming-pool.
Julia slowed the tape to a normal speed and watched.
Alice was on Mitchell Havilland’s shoulders. He swung her round and threw her off, but she climbed on him again, scrambling up, before standing and jumping with a shriek of delight.
She swam after him, climbed up, jumped.
Julia was in the pool, swimming on her own.
Her father was holding Alice above his head, laughing. Then he half dropped her and she clung to his face, her legs wrapped around his neck. He was still laughing. He looked like he was enjoying himself. He made no attempt to move away from the little girl. Alice dropped further. She had her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.
The camera panned. Both Alan Ford and her own mother were now in the shot. Julia stopped the tape and went closer to the television. She rewound slowly. It was only a couple of frames, but when she froze it again she was more sure of what she had seen. Both her mother and Alan Ford had been caught unawares, looking at the activity in front of them. And on each face was a look of implacable hostility.
Julia took out the tape and threw it hard against the wall beneath the window. She stood, walked quickly to the big picture of her father on the side and smashed it with her fist. The frame flew back into the radiator. She was on her knees, bent double. Her body convulsed as she groaned with fury.
The doorbell rang.
Julia stood up, caught her foot on a wire from the lamp and fell flat on the floor. ‘Shit,’ she said, pulling herself up again. She scrabbled around the floor, picking up the frame, trying to put the bits of glass in the front of it, looking at his creased smile now, feeling the same onset of guilt and remorse, before leaving the photograph face down at the bottom of the radiator.
She stood, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, trying to gather herself.
Her finger was bleeding, so she put it into her mouth, before walking slowly to the front door.
It was Professor Malcolm. ‘Are you all right, Julia?’
‘What?’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘You look terrible.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Your finger’s bleeding.’
‘Is it?’ She looked at it. ‘Oh yes. Just cut myself.’
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
He looked down at his feet, then up at her again. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m late. Can you give me a lift to headquarters? Weston wants me to see the Commissioner, Breckenridge.’
Mac had got halfway back to London before he had changed his mind and returned to Cranbrooke. Adrian Rouse’s office number and address had been easy to acquire and he parked next to the building.
He walked past the brass plaque at the entrance and up the stairs, stopping to adjust the Browning inside his coat. He turned round, so that he was shielded from anyone coming out of the office above and cocked the weapon, before replacing it.
The woman at Reception had hair that looked as if it housed a menagerie, but Rouse’s office door was open. As Mac explained who he was, Rouse came through and beckoned him in, his face unwelcoming. He was dressed in a tweed jacket that was too small and emphasized his portliness.
‘What is it with you people?’ Rouse retreated behind his desk, but did not sit down. He was agitated. ‘I only got rid of Rigby a few minutes ago. Don’t you talk to each other?’ Then he looked at Mac, as if recalling suddenly that he was not a faceless official, but a friend of Julia’s. ‘What do you want, Mac?’
Mac hesitated. Where was Rigby now?
‘You said the matter had been closed,’ Rouse said, ‘so I don’t see what’s changed.
No one is going to believe Pascoe, so what does it matter where he is?’
‘Well, yes, I agree.’
‘It’s all bullshit.’
Mac hesitated. ‘Yes.’
Rouse seemed to relax a bit. ‘I mean, if you accepted that his version of events was a fantastic lie before, why does it matter now where he is or what he’s got to say? No one will pay any attention to it – he’s still seen as the Welham murderer. Certainly in the press.’ He had his hands in his pockets. He was avoiding Mac’s eye.
‘I suppose,’ Mac said, ‘that if people began to accept he might be innocent, that might change.’
Rouse looked at him. ‘They won’t. Why should they?’
‘He’s been freed by a court of law.’
‘It’s a technicality. Everyone knows it.’ Rouse turned to the window. It had started to drizzle outside and passing cars had their headlights on.
‘For people looking at it,’ Mac said. ‘If it wasn’t Pascoe, then it was someone else.’
‘Of course. Of bloody course.’ Rouse sighed, pacing to one side of the room, before turning. ‘I’ve had enough of this. I can’t stand any more of it. That woman … God, it was fifteen years ago and look where we all still are. She was bloody evil. She was wicked …’
‘And that’s why she died.’
Rouse looked at him, his face distorted by fear and aggression. ‘You people said you would deal with Pascoe, but you haven’t, have you? You couldn’t organize a fucking piss-up in a brewery.’
‘I can’t speak for my superiors,’ Mac said quietly, ‘but I suppose it is the high-profile nature of Havilland’s death that makes them nervous.’
Rouse turned, agitated again. ‘I don’t see what the problem is. No one will believe Pascoe, so all you have is one deranged lunatic making fantastic allegations.’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t see why Rigby’s suddenly got so bloody nervous.’
‘Perhaps it’s to do with Wilkes.’
Rouse frowned. ‘Wilkes,’ he said, with contempt. ‘Rigby just told me you couldn’t find him either.’ He sighed. He walked to the bookshelves on the other side of the room, then faced Mac again. ‘Wilkes is fine.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘I’m sure Wilkes is fine.’
‘Perhaps it’s just the deaths of Danes and Claverton.’
‘For Christ’s sake.’ Rouse stepped forward. ‘They never changed their evidence. It’s …’ He moved back again and leant against the bookshelves. ‘A tragedy, of course.’
Mac had been watching Rouse as he talked and was finding it hard to believe that this man had ever fought in a war. With his round figure, balding head and short grey sideburns, he appeared, in this fusty, quiet office, the antithesis of a man of action.
‘You people said you would deal with everything.’ He looked at Mac. ‘You said you would deal with it.’
Mac felt the tension in his neck and back.
The receptionist put her head around the door. ‘There’s a Major Rigby on the phone for you.’
‘I’d better be going,’ Mac said.
‘Hang on a second …’
Rouse picked up the telephone, but Mac did not wait to hear what he had to say. He took the stairs in three leaps, ran around the corner and into the car-park, fumbling for his keys, then got into the car, pulling his Browning from his jacket pocket and reaching across to try and start the car with his left hand.
The traffic was bad as Julia and Professor Malcolm wound past the cathedral and along the river. County Police Headquarters was situated on the far side, over a bridge, in a dull sixties building surrounded by a pretty, landscaped garden.
They were taken straight up to Breckenridge’s office. He nodded at Professor Malcolm and shook Julia’s hand. Weston, who was in the chair next to Breckenridge’s desk, leaning on his elbow, did not get up.
Breckenridge was a bull of a man, with the face of a boxer and the body of a wrestler. The neatness of his dark hair betrayed his vanity, but there were deep lines on his brow. The office was small and, on his desk, there was a small silver photograph frame, a large ink blotter and a telephone. It was neat, like Alan Ford’s, as though it had just been tidied.
‘This is a ludicrous idea,’ Breckenridge said, leaning forward and placing his elbows on the desk. He was interrupted by his secretary, who asked if they wanted tea. They all declined.
‘No. It’s not,’ Professor Malcolm said. Julia could see these two had sparred before and sensed an affection absent in his relationship with Weston.
Breckenridge sat back in his chair. ‘Can you imagine how the media is going to react to this? You want to start digging up gardens. It’s the bloody West case all over again!’
‘Well, perhaps. Depends how it’s handled.’
‘Like hell it does.’ Breckenridge waved his pen at Professor Malcolm. ‘Come on, then, let’s hear it – and it had better be good.’
Professor Malcolm spread out the map of the common and the village on Breckenridge’s desk. He was standing to the side so as not to block Julia’s view. She had not even noticed he had been carrying it.
He was very rude about the police sometimes, but she felt he belonged here – more than he had ever seemed to at the university.
Professor Malcolm pointed at the cross already marked on the map. ‘Sarah’s body is here.’ He took a pen from his pocket and drew a circle around it. ‘This is the area we’ve searched.’
He looked up. Breckenridge and Weston were waiting.
‘Where is Alice’s body?’ Professor Malcolm straightened. ‘I’ll tell you where it is. It’s close to where she was killed because, as we’ve discussed before, no one is going to risk moving it in that kind of environment.’
They waited. ‘And?’ Breckenridge asked.
‘Look.’ He moved away from the desk. ‘Someone meets Sarah?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then there are two possibilities. One, he has come to kill her straight away. Two, there is an argument and then he kills her, but either way, I don’t think the little girl runs away until the knife goes in.’ He looked from Breckenridge to Weston and back again, waiting for a response.
‘Professor,’ Breckenridge said, ‘do you think we could bear in mind that we’re not in a tutorial now?’
Julia was trying to suppress the image of a man who looked, from a distance, like her father, pushing the knife into Sarah, Alice standing, watching.
‘My point is this. Time. Time. I don’t think that Alice had much of a head start. A hundred yards, at most. Everything that happened, happened swiftly.’ He turned back to the map. ‘We’ve searched on the common and we have to conclude now that he did not bury her there, not least because he did not have the means to do it. He didn’t bury Sarah, so why bother about Alice?’
Julia had been watching Professor Malcolm’s face closely. They had discussed this before and, in terms of evidence, he was offering nothing new, but she sensed again that somehow, intellectually or in evidential terms, he had moved ahead of her.
‘He kidnapped her,’ Breckenridge said. ‘He kidnapped the little girl and took her away.’
‘No.’
‘You seem to rule things out with such certainty, without having a better explanation.’
Professor Malcolm pointed at the map. ‘When you think about it, these three homes aren’t very far away, are they? The Fords’, the Havillands’, the de la Rues’. So, it comes down to this. Where does a frightened little girl run when she sees her mother being murdered?’
Breckenridge shook his head.
‘She runs home.’ Professor Malcolm slammed his finger down on the table. ‘Home. Or in that direction. This terrified little girl ran towards the place that would be safe. Home. She runs to receive help … from who? From her father … from someone she trusts. She is running, putting every last inch of strength into running away … perhaps from someone she knows, possibly someone she knows well …’
Professor Malcolm was being careful not t
o look at Julia, but the effect was the same. She shut her eyes.
‘The little girl has panic in her eyes. She knows if she can reach the people she trusts, then she will be safe …’
Julia wanted to shout at him to stop, biting her lip to control herself.
‘But she never reaches them. The killer stops her, but he does not move her body … somehow he finds a place to bury her close to where she was killed.’
Julia breathed out and opened her eyes. She realized that both Breckenridge and Weston were staring at her.
Breckenridge agreed to the search in principle but insisted he needed a day or two to work out how to handle it and didn’t rule out the possibility that he would need a clearer evidential explanation for why it had come to the point where this was inevitable.
Julia wasn’t certain he had made up his mind.
Professor Malcolm did not answer him on the question of evidence. Julia felt that it was something the two men had tacitly recognized was best discussed without her.
They emerged into the corridor and Julia found herself following Professor Malcolm down to a small glass cubicle at the far end. Beyond it was an open-plan office with a huge map of the county on the wall.
Julia’s head throbbed with the pain of rampaging emotions.
The cubicle had a desk and a phone and, behind an uncomfortable-looking red plastic chair, there was a large cork board with a collection of newspaper cuttings pinned to it. The top one said, ‘Police Bungle: Monster Goes Free’, and, like all the others, reflected the public perception that the police had been incompetent, if not corrupt, in their handling of the original case.
‘Julia, this is DC Baker.’
Julia looked at a short woman with poor skin and greasy hair pulled back off her forehead. She shook her hand, trying to calm her nerves. ‘We spoke on the phone,’ Baker explained. She was wearing a cream blouse and blue jeans. She had a quiet, easy manner and was now bending over a pad on her desk. ‘I’m sorry for the delay,’ she said. ‘The bank records should be ready to collect today – I’ll give them a call in a minute and we can go down together.’ Baker looked at her. ‘You asked for the Ford bank records.’
