Sour Grapes

by Natasha Cooper

  ‘I imagine so,’ said Tom.

  Willow recognised the signs of a serious bout of stroppiness and thought she would probably do best to leave him to sort himself out. He rarely sulked for long and she loathed the idea of having the kind of relationship in which her part was to cajole the tough, much-burdened breadwinner into smiles and relaxation with her pretty tricks and charm. Even the silent words made her swing between nausea and deep amusement. The thought of a woman like herself indulging in pretty tricks was too ludicrous to contemplate for long.

  Later, dressed in comfortable easy-fitting jeans and a loose shirt, Willow went into the kitchen to fetch a glass of cold white wine from the fridge and chat to Mrs Rusham. She apologised for not having been able to warn Willow of Tom’s return and then gave her the afternoon’s telephone messages, including the one from Emma. Willow thanked her and took the wine to her writing room, where she sat down at her reproachful desk and telephoned Emma.

  There was no answer and so Willow turned on her word processor to begin to type up a report of Susie Peatsea’s amazing revelation. After about ten minutes, just as she was completing the physical description of Susie, Willow heard Tom’s footsteps in the corridor outside the room.

  ‘I’m in here,’ she called as peaceably as though they had not had their silent quarrel. ‘Come on in.’

  He came in and stood behind her chair, putting his big hands on her shoulders and stroking them. Willow had had to force herself not to file the document the moment she realised he was there and had left it on the screen for him to read.

  ‘What’s up?’ he said mildly enough after a pause. ‘That’s not the book, is it?’

  ‘No,’ she said, working hard to sound neither angry nor defensive, just ordinary. ‘It’s a report of a meeting I had this afternoon with a woman who may know something about a false-confession case that Emma Gnatche wants to use for her thesis. She was in a panic about it and I volunteered to help.’

  Willow found herself wanting to apologise to Tom for doing something she knew he would dislike, but she controlled the impulse since his dislike struck her as both exaggerated and unreasonable. She could not bear the idea that anyone she loved as much as she loved Tom might consider her position in their relationship to be subordinate to his, and so she had to make it clear that he had no right to all apology. She did what she had to do in her life, as did he. They were, or they ought to have been, equals and he had no right to set limits on what she was allowed to do. She waited for him to begin the truce negotiations.

  ‘I’m not quite sure what to say,’ he produced eventually.

  ‘Then it’s probably wisest not to say anything,’ she suggested. ‘I do regret that I wasn’t here when you got back. I’ve missed you so much that it seems a pity to have missed this afternoon, too.’

  ‘Well, that’s something.’

  ‘Tom, please don’t,’ said Willow, swinging round on her chair and taking his hands in hers. She looked up into his face and was glad to see that he was prepared to look back at her by then. ‘You haven’t been like this for ages. Just because I’ve been doing a minor bit of a small, unthreatening investigation for Emma, you’ve jumped to all sorts of conclusions, and you’re acting as though I’m defying you on some life-and-death matter.’

  ‘It could be precisely that,’ he said reasonably. ‘I don’t mean about defying. It’s not a question of defiance. But you know perfectly well that some of your previous forays into detection have been appallingly dangerous. You’ve taken quite unwarrantable risks with your own safety—and Lucinda’s.’

  ‘Just as you risk yourself every day,’ she said mildly enough, while something in her mind was shrieking: The rules have to be the same for both of us. I know Lucinda was nearly killed in hospital just after she was born. I regret that bitterly, but are you going to throw it at me whenever I take a step outside the house? You cannot control me. You must let me take whatever risks I consider necessary. Today there was not the slightest danger to Lucinda of any kind. She was entirely safe here with Mrs Rusham, whom both of us trust absolutely.

  ‘The investigation I’m doing isn’t remotely dangerous. It’s about a case of dangerous driving. There’s a man in prison for it. Emma’s sure he was not even in the car when it crashed and yet he’s taking the punishment for it. And she wants to know why. This afternoon, I talked to a woman I thought was only peripherally involved, but it turns out that she was in the car when it crashed and that the driver was a friend of hers, not the man doing time.’

  ‘I see,’ said Tom, stepping back and sitting on a stool. ‘Will, I know I make you angry by wishing that you wouldn’t do these things, but you must see why I don’t want you to.’

  ‘Yes, I do. But I would really like it if you could…not allow me my own life because it’s not yours to allow, but say that you understand why I can’t be subject to your orders.’

  ‘I do,’ he said, looking unhappy. ‘And they’re no orders. Look, I wish that you wouldn’t treat my natural urge to protect you as something between a psychosis and a mortal insult.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she said, saddened by his sadness, ‘but I need my freedom. It panics me when I feel as though you’re trying to confine me.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m trying to do,’ he said, standing up. ‘Lulu’s in bed. What would you feel about switching off that thing for the moment, bringing your drink down and telling me all about this case of Emma’s? It sounds interesting.’

  She checked his brown eyes for sincerity, patronage and anger, and thought she saw only affection and an urge to mend their quarrel. Grateful for those, sharing both, she still wished that his feelings for her could torment him less.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Hang on a tick while I file this and I’ll come down with you.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Unaware of Willow’s dramatic discovery, Emma was back at Andrew Lutterworth’s prison in search of more clues to his motives for lying to the police, to her, to everyone involved. He was brought into the interview room by an officer she did not know, looking as controlled and sure of himself as ever.

  As soon as the officer had left them alone, Andrew held out both hands, saying, ‘How wonderful of you to come back so soon! I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you invented more questions to put to me. You’d better strap me into that thing quickly so that we can get shot of them and start talking about things that matter.’

  Less convinced by his enthusiasm than she might once have been, Emma stayed on her side of the grey table and merely asked him how he was. He let his hands drop without showing any embarrassment and pulled out the chair on his side of the table.

  ‘I’m well enough.’ He sat down. ‘But I’m not sure that you are. What’s happened, Emma? You seem unhappy. Has someone been unkind to you? Surely not.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, smiling. Whatever his motives might be for trying to make her like him, or hers for wanting to respond, he was being polite, and she had no reason to reject that just because of something Jag had said.

  ‘I don’t believe you. You’re all edgy, and you look as though someone’s hurt you.’

  ‘No. I’m fine. If you can see anything, it’s probably rage. I’ve been having a bit of a barney with my boyfriend actually,’ she said, hoping he would leave it at that. ‘I’m sorry it shows.’

  ‘You’d better tell me all about it.’ Andrew rolled up his sleeve and extended his arm so that she could fit the blood-pressure cuff around it. ‘I’m sure I can help, give you a clue about the male point of view perhaps.’

  ‘No, thank you very much,’ said Emma tartly before she could stop herself. She smoothed the Velcro fastenings together. ‘Sorry. I just feel as though I’ve had a bit too much of the male point of view recently. No, what I need from you is something to help me sort out the muddle I made over your first polygraph test. I can’t think what went wrong, but, as I said in my message, I got a wildly erratic reading. The machines may be on the blink or something. I�
��m sorry; it must be a real pain for you.’

  ‘Quite the reverse. I’m overjoyed the machines went on the blink. I told you, being able to talk to someone like you, who shares my language and my outlook is…oh, like I imagine food must be when one’s starving.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Emma, wishing that he could be a bit more ordinary. ‘Before we start, may I just establish a ground rule or two?’

  ‘I thought we’d already done all that. I know you can’t get me out of here. Don’t worry about it. I trust you implicitly and will do just as you tell me for the good of your thesis—and my peace of mind.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Emma, a little surprised.

  ‘And perhaps,’ he said with an almost impish smile, ‘your test will give me a better chance of getting a decent job when I get out of here.’

  ‘I’m not sure…’

  ‘I think it will, Emma. I know that I’ll probably never get rid of the criminal record, but, if I can show potential employers that you’ve tested me and found me honest, I’m sure it’ll help.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Emma. ‘Mr Lutterworth—’

  ‘Andrew, please. Help me keep the illusion of having a friend in this friendless place for a little while longer.’

  ‘Andrew, then. I don’t want to torment you: I just want to get all this clear. And—’

  ‘Emma, my child, you couldn’t possibly torment me. You must know that by now.’

  ‘Mr Lutterworth, please. This is both serious and important. What I have to ask you now is whether you’d be prepared to answer questions about the death of your son.’

  The colour drained out of his face and the enthusiasm from his eyes. They looked like stones, hard and absolutely without light. His voice was quite as harsh as he said, ‘How dare you?’

  Emma looked away. Fiddling with her cassette recorder, she forced herself to say, ‘Because I have to ask about it to establish the reasons for some of the responses I recorded in the last test. I couldn’t bear the thought of taking advantage of you, and so I wanted to get your permission before I started. I didn’t want to catch you unawares. That would have been unfair.’ She looked at him again and detested the fury she saw in his face. For the first time since he had grabbed her wrist she saw the potential for violence in him and it frightened her. ‘Please let me explain. I’m not trying to pry into your grief—God forbid!—simply to make sense of what looked like nonsense in the last test.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how any explanation might make me less angry about this gross intrusion into my privacy. I am sh—surprised… No, in fact I am shocked that a woman like you, a woman in whom I had confided and whom I had trusted and liked so much…’ His voice wavered and then stiffened again as he went on: ‘That a woman like you should be so crass, so intrusive, really is shocking. So cruel, too. How could you?’

  He was pulling open the blood-pressure cuff as he spoke, tearing the minute hooks of the Velcro tape out of each other with a horrible ripping sound.

  ‘I do not think that we have anything more to say to each other, Ms Gnatche. Please do not approach me again in person or on paper. I have no wish to see you again ever.’ He stood up, glaring at her, and then turned to signal to the officer who was patrolling the corridor outside the interview rooms. Emma was left feeling a fool and an insensitively cruel fool, which was worse.

  ‘I’ll be back to escort you out,’ said the officer to Emma as he led Lutterworth out of the interview room.

  Emma packed away her kit and decided that she ought to ask to see the wing governor before she left. It turned out that he was busy, but he sent a message to say that, if she would telephone between 5.30 and 6 that evening, he would be able to speak to her for a few minutes and would do his best to help. The assistant who brought the news added that the governor had asked her to remind Emma that he could not put any pressure on any of the prisoners to help her with her research or to take polygraph tests.

  ‘No, I know that,’ said Emma, grateful for the woman’s sympathetic expression as she delivered the message. ‘Will you thank him very much, assure him that I am not going to ask him to lean on anyone and say that I’ll ring as near half past five as I can?’

  ‘Yes, of course. It’s been nice to see you again. Did you know that Robert Whixall has got his parole? He’s ever so grateful to you for doing that test and he’s sure it had an effect on his board.’

  ‘Whixall?’ said Emma, thinking back and remembering a chillingly controlling young man who had been sentenced to five years for date rape.

  ‘He was talking about writing to thank you, and he was quite upset when the governor wouldn’t give him your address.’ She smiled cosily. ‘Naturally.’

  ‘I’m grateful for that,’ said Emma, uncomfortably aware of how vulnerable she had been making herself.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I must go, but I expect we’ll meet again.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Emma, knowing that she had probably blown any chance of finding out the truth about Andrew Lutterworth. ‘Thank you for all your help.’

  She was left to collect her keys and umbrella from security and walk out of the prison. Pausing for a moment to look back at it, she thought about the men who were locked up in the hundreds of cells it contained.

  With several of the other postgraduate students she had been taken on a full tour of one of the biggest old Victorian prisons soon after she had arrived at St Albans. She had been shocked to see the smallness of the cells in which two or occasionally three men were locked up together for hours each day, men who had been complete strangers to each other until they were sent there, and might easily loathe each other.

  It had appalled her, too, to discover that it was possible for a man on remand, who might well be acquitted when he eventually came to court, to be bullied, raped or beaten up by other inmates while he was in the care of the state. It would be indefensible, she thought, even if he had committed some serious crime; if he was innocent, it would be unspeakable. She had been distressed to learn that although everyone knew such things happened, no one in authority seemed worried enough to find a way to stop it.

  Turning her back on the prison, with the friendly sounds of traffic and the voices of free men, women and children in her ears, she lugged her equipment over to the telephone box to call a minicab. Only when she was putting her Phonecard in the slot did it occur to her that, since she had to go via London to get back to St Albans, she might as well take advantage of that and try to see Lutterworth’s secretary while she was there.

  Within a few moments she was through to the House of Commons switchboard and asking for Annie Frome.

  ‘James Shrewsbury’s office,’ said a pleasant voice a second or two later.

  ‘Is that Annie Frome?’

  ‘Yes. How may I help you?’

  ‘This may sound a bit cheeky,’ said Emma, reverting to her old drawly, carelessly snobbish accent in spite of her dislike of the sound of it, ‘but my name’s Emma Gnatche, and I’m ringing because I wanted to ask you something about your last job.’

  ‘About Hill, Snow, Parkes?’ The voice sounded surprised and faintly worried.

  ‘Yes. And about your boss there. But, look, you don’t know anything about me. As I say, my name is Emma Gnatche, and I’m doing a postgraduate degree that entails research into cases like this. Would you be prepared to talk to me?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure if—’

  ‘It would be such a help,’ said Emma, hoping to talk her into being cooperative. ‘I could give you references from my professor and so on. Of course. Look, I know from my own days working for a backbencher that you must be fantastically busy, but could you spare me a few minutes after work today? We could have a drink or something and I could tell you what I’m after. Then you could decide whether you wanted to talk or not.’ She laughed. ‘I’m perfectly safe, you know. But if you decided you didn’t want to say anything, then obviously that would be that.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’d be all righ
t to meet,’ said Annie. ‘As it happens, I’m not going out this evening. Look, it’s quarter past two now. I can’t really knock off much before half past five. But I could see you then. Where shall we meet?’

  ‘Wherever you like. It’s a lovely day. Why don’t we just find a bench in St James’s and start getting our legs brown. Then I can buy you a drink or some food or something. Whatever you want.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Annie. ‘D’you know the bench directly opposite the Horse Guards, you know in the middle, backing on to the park?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s meet at that one, then. It’s the most unmistakable and we can always go somewhere else if it’s too crowded.’

  ‘Great. I’ll be there from five thirty and wait for you if you’re held up. Thank you.’

  Emma worked out that she would have time to take all her equipment to the station before meeting Annie, which would make everything easier. She packed it all into a left-luggage locker and then took the tube along to St James’s Park.

  She was early at the appointed bench and sat there, watching the people emerging from their Whitehall offices. Several of them looked so like Anthony that she found herself poised on the edge of the bench, ready to get up and go if one of them accosted her. None of them did.

  Noticing how hard her heart was banging against her ribs, she asked herself whether it was possible that at some level she could still feel afraid of him. It seemed absurd. As she often told herself, she was no longer in his power and in any case it had been years since he had done anything to terrorise her.

  Suddenly memories of his brutality flooded into her mind. A painful spasm seized her muscles. Her jaw clamped shut. She could not have moved or spoken.

  When she had got herself back under control, licking her lips to relax her jaw, she tried to be academically interested in why she might have felt brave enough to give up her defences against the worst memories. For once she felt not the slightest temptation to dismiss the things he had done to her as normal schoolboyish teasing or a younger sister. They might have started as that, but they had turned into something much crueller.