Keith, even more irritable than Cooper to be dragged from the arms of Morpheus far away in London, perked up a little to hear that Jack was under arrest for joy-riding and rape. ‘Good God,’ he said with cynical amusement, ‘I had no idea he was so active. I thought he preferred spectator sports.’
‘It’s not funny, Keith,’ said Sarah curtly. ‘He needs a solicitor. Can you come down to Bournemouth?’
‘When?’
‘Now, you oaf. They’re taking swabs off him at this very minute.’
‘Did he do it?’
‘What?’
‘The rape,’ said Keith patiently.
‘No, of course he didn’t,’ she spluttered angrily. ‘Jack’s not a rapist.’
‘Then there’s nothing to worry about. The swabs will prove he hasn’t been in contact with the victim.’
‘He says they think he’s part of a paedophile ring. They may charge him with conspiracy to rape even if they can’t charge him with the actual offence.’ She sighed. ‘At least I think that’s what he said. He’s very angry and it was all a bit garbled.’
‘What on earth’s he been up to?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Just get your arse down here, will you, and earn some of the fortune we’ve paid you over the years.’
‘I’m not much of a criminal lawyer, you know. You might do better to get hold of a specialist from down there. I could give you some names out of the book.’
‘He asked for you, Keith. He said he wants a solicitor he can trust, so – ’ her voice rose ‘ – for God’s sake will you stop arguing and get in your car. We’re wasting time. He’s at Freemont Road Police Station in Bournemouth.’
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ he promised. ‘In the meantime, tell him to keep quiet and refuse to answer any questions.’
Easier said than done, thought Sarah ruefully, as she and Ruth were given chairs to sit on while Cooper was taken into an interview room. When the door opened, they heard Jack in full spate. ‘Look, how many times do you have to be told? I was rescuing her from being raped, not bloody raping her myself. Jesus wept!’ His fist pounded on the table. ‘I will not talk to morons. Doesn’t anyone in this piss-pot have a measurable IQ?’ He gave a whoop of relief. ‘Hallelujah! Cooper! Where the hell have you been, you bastard?’ The door closed again.
Sarah leant her head against the wall with a sigh. ‘The trouble with Jack,’ she said to Ruth, ‘is he never does anything by halves.’
‘He wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for me,’ the girl said wretchedly, washing her hands over and over in her lap. She was so nervous she could barely keep her breathing under control.
Sarah glanced at her. ‘I think you should be rather proud of yourself. Because of you he obviously stopped someone else getting the treatment you were given. That’s good.’
‘Not if they think Jack was involved.’
‘Cooper will set them straight.’
‘Does that mean I won’t have to say anything? I don’t want to say anything.’ The words came out in a rush. ‘I’m so frightened,’ she said simply, tears welling tragically in the huge dark eyes. ‘I don’t want anyone to know’ – her voice shook – ‘I’m so ashamed.’
Sarah, who had had to use a very heavy hand in the shape of emotional blackmail to get her this far, balked at using any more. The girl was in a highly emotional state already, desperately seeking to justify her mother’s indifference because then she could justify her own indifference to the growing foetus inside her. But she couldn’t justify it, of course, and that made her guilt about wanting an abortion all the stronger. There was no logic to human psychology, thought Sarah sadly. She had said nothing about her visit to Cedar House, merely offered to drive Ruth over to Fontwell. ‘In fairness,’ she had said, ‘all your mother knows is that you’ve been expelled for going out to meet your boyfriend. I’m sure she’ll be sympathetic if you tell her the truth.’ Ruth shook her head. ‘She wouldn’t,’ she whispered, ‘she’d say I got what I deserved. She used to say it to Granny about her arthritis.’ Her face had pinched in pain. ‘I wish Granny hadn’t died. I did love her, you know, but she died thinking I didn’t.’ And what could Sarah say to that? She had never come across three people so intent on destroying each other, and themselves.
She put her arm now around the girl’s thin shoulders and hugged her tight. ‘Sergeant Cooper will sort it out,’ she said firmly, ‘and he won’t force you to say anything you don’t want to.’ She gave her throaty chuckle. ‘He’s far too nice and far too soft which is why he’s never made Inspector.’
But the law, like the mills of God, grinds slow but exceeding small, and Sarah knew that if any of them emerged unscathed at the end of their brush with it, it would be a miracle.
‘You realize, Dr Blakeney, we could charge you with being an accessory before the fact,’ said an irate Inspector. ‘You knew when you helped your husband get hold of Hughes’s address that he planned to do something illegal, didn’t you?’
‘I wouldn’t answer that,’ said Keith.
‘No, I did not,’ said Sarah stoutly. ‘And what’s illegal about preventing a brutal rape? Since when was rescuing somebody a chargeable offence?’
‘You’re in the wrong ballpark, Doctor. We’re talking attempted murder, GBH, abduction, driving without due care and attention, assault on a police officer. You name it, it’s down here. Your husband’s an extremely dangerous man and you sent him off after Hughes, knowing full well that he was liable to lose control of his temper if confronted. That’s a fair summary, isn’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t answer that,’ said Keith automatically.
‘Of course it isn’t,’ she snapped. ‘Hughes is the extremely dangerous man, not Jack. What would you have done if you knew a young girl was about to be brutally attacked by five zombies who are so degenerate and uneducated they’ll do anything their sadistic leader tells them to do?’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Don’t bother to answer. I know exactly what you’d have done. You’d have crept off with your tail between your legs to the nearest telephone to dial nine-nine-nine, and never mind the damage that was done to the child in the meantime.’
‘It’s an offence to withhold information from the police. Why did you not inform us about Miss Lascelles’s rape?’
‘I really do advise you not to answer that question,’ said Keith wearily.
‘Because we gave her our word we wouldn’t. Why on earth do you think Jack went out tonight if we could have told the police everything?’
Keith held up his hand to forestall the Inspector. ‘Any objections to switching off the tape while I confer with my client?’
The other man eyed him for a moment then consulted his watch. ‘Interview with Dr Blakeney suspended at 3.42 a.m.’ He spoke abruptly, then pressed the ‘stop’ button.
‘Thanks. Now, will you explain something to me, Sarah?’ Keith murmured plaintively. ‘Why did you drag me all the way down here if neither you nor Jack will listen to a word I say?’
‘Because I’m so bloody angry, that’s why. They should be grateful to Jack; instead they’re condemning him.’
‘The Inspector’s paid to make you angry. That’s how he gets his results, and you’re making this very easy for him.’
‘I object to that remark, Mr Smollett. I am paid, among other things, to try and get at the truth when a criminal offence has occurred.’
‘Then why don’t you stop bull-shitting,’ suggested Keith amiably, ‘and deal in straightforward fact? I can’t be the only one here who’s bored stiff with all these idiotic threats of criminal prosecution. Of course you can charge Mr Blakeney if you want to, but you’ll be a laughing-stock. How many people these days would have bothered to go in and do what he did with only a belt and a torch as protection?’ He smiled faintly. ‘We’re a non-involvement society these days, where heroism is confined to the television screens. There was a case the other day where a woman was sexually assaulted by two men in full
view of several taxi-drivers at a taxi rank, and not a single one of them lifted a finger to help her. Worse, they wheeled up their windows to block out her screams for help. Should I infer from your attitude towards Mr Blakeney that that is the sort of behaviour you approve of in our so-called civilized society?’
‘Vigilante behaviour is just as dangerous, Mr Smollett. For every case of non-involvement you cite, I can cite another where rough justice has been meted out on innocent people because a lynch mob decides arbitrarily who is or is not guilty. Should I infer from your attitude that you approve of the kangaroo-court approach to justice?’
Keith acknowledged the point with a nod. ‘Of course not,’ he said honestly, ‘and had Mr Blakeney taken a private army with him I’d be on your side. But you’re on very thin ice describing him as a lynch mob. He was one man, faced with an impossible decision – to act immediately to stop the rape or to abandon the girl to her fate while he drove off to summon assistance.’
‘He would never have been there at all had he and his wife not conspired together to withhold the information about Miss Lascelles. Nor for that matter would Hughes and his gang have been able to subject the young lady Mr Blakeney rescued to the terror she was put through, for the simple reason that they would all have been under lock and key charged with the rape of Miss Lascelles.’
‘But Miss Lascelles has told you categorically that she would have been too frightened to say anything to the police, assuming the Blakeneys had reported what she told them. She lives in terror of Hughes carrying out his threat to rape her again the minute he’s set free, and there’s no guarantee, even now, that she – or tonight’s victim – will find the courage to give the evidence in court that will convict him. Your best bet, quite frankly, is Jack Blakeney’s testimony. If he remains strong, which he will, Ruth will gain courage from his example, and if the other girl and her parents are made aware of just what they owe him, then she, too, may find the courage to speak out. By the same token, if you insist on pursuing these charges against Blakeney, then you can kiss goodbye to any co-operation from two terrified young women. Quite reasonably they will conclude that justice is on Hughes’s side and not on theirs.’
The Inspector shook his head. ‘What none of you seems able to grasp,’ he said irritably, ‘is that if we fail to charge Mr Blakeney we make the prosecution case against Hughes so much harder. His defence will have a field day in court pointing up the contrast between police leniency towards the admitted violence of a middle-class intellectual and police harshness towards the alleged violence of an unemployed navvy. Hughes was outside the van, remember, when the rape was taking place, and he’s sitting there now claiming he had no idea what was going on. The lad who was raping the girl when your client burst into that van is only fifteen, a juvenile, in other words, who can be sentenced to detention but not to custody in an adult prison. The oldest boy there, if we exclude Hughes, is eighteen and his age will be taken into account at his trial. At the moment, they’re all shell-shocked and fingering Hughes as the instigator and prime mover, but by the time they come to trial it will have become a bit of harmless fun that was the girl’s idea and which Hughes knew nothing about because he had wandered off for a walk along the beach. The worst of it is, Mr Blakeney will have to testify to that in court because he saw him doing it.’ He rubbed his tired eyes. ‘It’s a mess, frankly. God knows if we will ever succeed in bringing a conviction. Without clear evidence of intent I can see Hughes getting off scot-free. His MO is to manipulate youngsters into doing his dirty work while he stands aloof and collects the money, and once these boys realize how short their sentences are going to be because the law is relatively powerless against juveniles, they’ll stop grassing him up. I’m so confident of that, I’d lay my last cent on it.’
There was a long silence.
Sarah cleared her throat. ‘You’re forgetting the girls,’ she said. ‘Won’t their evidence carry weight?’
The Inspector’s smile was twisted. ‘If they’re not too frightened to testify, if they don’t collapse under cross-examination, if their stealing isn’t used by the defence to blacken their characters, if the speed with which they were prepared to spread their legs for Hughes doesn’t lose them the sympathy of the jury.’ He shrugged. ‘Justice is as fickle as fate, Dr Blakeney.’
‘Then release him now and be done with it,’ she said coldly. ‘I mean, let’s face it, it’s going to be a damn sight easier to fill your productivity quota by prosecuting Jack than by having to put the counselling effort into bringing thieving little tarts up to scratch. Perhaps you should ask yourself why none of these girls felt confident enough to come to the police in the first place?’ Her eyes narrowed angrily as she answered her own question. ‘Because they believed everything Hughes told them, namely that he would always be acquitted, and they would always be left to fend for themselves. He was right, too, though I’d never have guessed it if I hadn’t heard it from you.’
‘He’ll be charged and hopefully he’ll be held on remand, Dr Blakeney, but what happens at trial is out of my hands. We can do our best to prepare the ground. We cannot, unfortunately, predict the outcome.’ He sighed. ‘For the moment, I have decided to release your husband without charge. I shall be taking advice, however, which means we may decide to proceed against him at a later date. In the meantime, he will be required to remain at Mill House in Long Upton and, should he wish to travel anywhere, he must advise Detective Sergeant Cooper of his intentions. Is that clear?’
She nodded.
‘In addition, please note that if he ever involves himself again in similar activities to those he engaged in tonight, he will be charged immediately. Is that also clear?’
She nodded.
The Inspector’s tired face cracked into a smile. ‘Off the record, I rather agree with Mr Smollett here. Your husband’s a brave man, Doctor, but I’m sure you knew that already.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Sarah loyally, hoping that her expression was less sheepish than it felt. For as long as she’d known him Jack had always maintained the same thing. All men were cowards but it was only a few, like himself, who had the courage to admit it. She was beginning to wonder if there were other aspects of his character that she had misjudged so completely.
Father rang today to give me the inquest verdict on Gerald’s death. ‘They’ve opted for misadventure, thank God, but I had to pull every string in the book to get it. That damned Coroner was going to bring in suicide if he could.’ Poor Father! He could never have shown his face in the House again if his brother had killed himself. Heaven forbid! What stigma is still attached to suicide, particularly amongst the upper classes. Nothing is so bad as the ultimate weakness of taking one’s own life.
I am naturally delighted with the verdict, if somewhat piqued to have my brilliance overlooked. There is an extraordinary urge to confess, I find, if only to draw attention to what one has achieved . . . I won’t, of course.
Gerald was putty in my hands when it came to writing the codicil because I told him he’d go to prison for raping his niece if he didn’t. ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’ The only purpose of the codicil was to convince the idiot solicitor that Gerald had committed suicide when he discovered whose child Joanna really was. Once persuaded, he alerted Father to the fact that a document detailing Gerald’s incest existed, and they both performed to perfection. They made such a song-and-dance about pulling their various strings in order to suppress any hint that Gerald might have done away with himself that everyone, including the Coroner, was in no doubt that he had. It is all so very amusing. My only regret is that I had to involve Jane, but I am not unduly concerned about that. Even if she does have any suspicions, she won’t voice them. She can’t afford to, but in any case no one has questioned where Gerald acquired his barbiturates, or if they have I suspect Father has claimed them as his. He’s so drunk most of the time, he probably believes they were.
Father’s relief was short-lived. I told him I had a signed carbon cop
y of the codicil in my possession and he became apoplectic at the other end of the wire. He calls it blackmail. I call it self-preservation . . .
Sixteen
TWO FAXES were waiting on Cooper’s desk when he arrived at the station later that morning. The first was brief and to the point:
Fingerprints on Yale key, ref: TC/H/MG/320, identified as belonging to Sarah Penelope Blakeney. 22 point agreement. No other prints. Fingerprints on bottle, ref: TC/H/MG/321 agree in 10, 16 and 12 points respectively with prints located in Cedar House on desk (room 1), chair (room 1), and decanter (room 1). Full report to follow.
The second fax was longer and rather more interesting. After he had read it, Cooper went off in search of PC Jenkins. It was Jenkins, he recalled, who had done most of the tedious legwork around Fontwell in the days following Mrs Gillespie’s death.
‘I hear you’ve been busy,’ said Charlie Jones, dunking a ginger biscuit into a cup of thick white coffee.
Cooper sank into an armchair. ‘Hughes, you mean.’
‘I’m going down there in half an hour to have another bash at him. Do you want to come?’
‘No thanks. I’ve had more than enough of Dave Hughes and his fellow-lowlife to last me a lifetime. You wait till you see them, Charlie. Kids, for Christ’s sake. Fifteen-year-olds who look twenty-five and have a mental age of eight. It scares me, it really does. If society doesn’t do something to educate them and match a man’s brain to a man’s body, we haven’t a hope of survival. And the worst of it is, it’s not just us. I saw a ten-year-old boy on the telly the other day, wielding a machine gun in Somalia as part of some rebel army. I’ve seen children in Ireland throwing bricks at whichever side their bigoted families tell them to, adolescent Palestinian boys strutting their stuff in balaclavas, negro lads in South Africa necklacing each other because white policemen think it’s a great way to get rid of them, and Serbian boys encouraged to rape Muslim girls the way their fathers do. It’s complete and utter madness. We corrupt our children at our peril, but by God we’re doing a fine job of it.’
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