Burn Out (Dr. Anne Vernon Book 1)

by Alan Scholefield

  BURN OUT

  Alan Scholefield

  © Alan Scholefield 1994

  Alan Scholefield has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1994 by Headline Book Publishing.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

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  This ae night, this ae night,

  Every night and alle,

  Fire and sleet and candle-lighte,

  And Christ receive thy saule.

  A Lyke Wake Dirge

  My thanks for his help go to Dr Robin Ilbert, Senior Medical Officer, Winchester Prison. Any mistakes are my own.

  Chapter One

  He was alone when he first saw her.

  He was standing on a stretch of grass below the castle ruins, with the river on his right and the tennis courts to his left.

  Was he certain, they had asked?

  Yes.

  And how had he got there?

  He couldn’t remember. Walked, he supposed. His car was parked in the square so he must have walked.

  How? Down Castle Street and along the river?

  Probably.

  He hadn’t followed her from the square, had he?

  No.

  He was sure about that?

  Well . . . pretty sure . . .

  They asked because earlier he said he’d been confused, wasn’t that correct?

  Yes.

  If he was confused then he might have, mightn’t he?

  What?

  Followed her from the square.

  Maybe. But he didn’t think so. Anyway what bloody difference did it make?

  They’d decide about that. Okay?

  Okay.

  So why had he gone there in the first place then? Because of the tennis courts?

  He supposed so.

  He supposed a lot, didn’t he?

  He said he supposed because he couldn’t remember. Didn’t they get it? He couldn’t bloody well remember!

  Right . . . okay . . . no need to get excited. To get back to the tennis courts . . . there were often girls on the courts weren’t there?

  Of course. And men too. And children.

  Was that why?

  Why what?

  Did he go because there were children?

  Why would they say that?

  Couldn’t he guess?

  Jesus . . . they didn’t mean . . . Listen, he’d never touch a child. Never!

  Why had he said that about the children then?

  Because . . . well, because children often played on tennis courts. He had when he was a kid . . . He hadn’t meant anything by it.

  Well, why say it then?

  It’s just that they’d said about him being confused . . . and going there because women played—

  Not women. They hadn’t said women. Girls. That’s what they’d said. When you’re seventeen you’re a girl not a woman. Okay?

  Yeah. Okay.

  Well, if he hadn’t gone there looking for girls what had he gone there for? Was he going to play?

  No.

  Not really dressed for it, was he?

  No.

  Okay then . . . Listen . . . They wanted him to think before he answered. Take his time. He had lots of time. Days. Weeks. He wasn’t going anywhere. Now: was he sure that’s where he’d first seen her? Near the castle?

  *

  He had first visited the castle when he was a child. He had gone with his mother and had scratched his name on a broken Norman arch. He remembered that because she had been cross with him and she hadn’t often been cross. He couldn’t remember if they had been going to the tennis club or coming away from it but he was sure it was his idea to visit the castle, his mother would never have volunteered to climb the steep path that wound up through the shrubbery to what had once been the outer bailey.

  Although it had a real name most people didn’t know it. As far as they were concerned it had always stood on the South Downs in West Sussex and had always been known simply as ‘the castle’.

  It was not difficult to see why it had been built on its hill above the river: it guarded the ford and was easy to defend against enemy bowmen.

  The town which had grown beneath it had originally been called King’s Toun, then Kingston, but there were so many of those that in the nineteenth century it had been changed again to Kingstown. By that time the castle was a romantic ruin, much of its stone carted off by speculative builders.

  But Kingstown honoured it. There was Castle Street and the Castle Hotel, a Castle Motors, several Castle View bed-and-breakfast places, the Castle Tea Rooms, a Castle Museum, a Castle Brewery, and a Castle Tandoori takeaway.

  Once there had been a Castle Tennis Club, but that no longer existed.

  Kingstown owed much of its prosperity to the castle. It was built on a southwestern slope – some said on the site of an old Roman fort – and tourists flocked to it in summer to picnic on the soft grass beneath its ruined walls. On clear blue days they could see the sea shimmering in the distance.

  All the streets of the town seemed to start at the castle and flow down to the river. Some were narrow and cobbled, some wide and lined with Georgian houses. It was said that Kingstown had more Georgian houses than Chichester, its neighbour to the east, or Winchester, its neighbour to the west.

  It was listed in the Domesday Book, and Daniel Defoe had once said of it that it was a ‘pleasant and prosperous place’. A description that served today.

  From the castle walls you could see a jumble of red tiled roofs, the cathedral, three churches, a functioning cinema, the law courts and the library. The prison was tucked away behind its screen of trees as though the town considered it something to be ashamed of.

  There were also other things to be seen beneath the walls: empty sherry bottles and beer cans; used syringes and condoms; crushed styrofoam cups and empty cigarette packs.

  Few of these would have been there when he was a child climbing up to the old battlements with his mother.

  *

  Keleti, they had said, that’s a foreign name.

  Hungarian.

  He didn’t sound foreign.

  He’d been brought to England as a baby. Gone to school here.

  Did he speak Hungarian?

  A few words.

  Why didn’t he say something, a couple of words, so they could hear.

  He’d rather not.

  Rather not didn’t come into it.

  Okay, Buda Pest. That was a couple.

  Highly
amusing. He’d need a sense of humour where he was going.

  But—

  Hang on. Lots of time for buts. What they wanted to ask him was if he’d ever used stuff.

  What sort of stuff?

  Well, for a start, how about smack?

  No.

  No?

  Absolutely not.

  Acid?

  No.

  Speed?

  Once or twice.

  Coke?

  Sure. But they knew how it was at parties.

  No they didn’t know how it was at parties. Maybe they went to different parties.

  It was a social thing, that was all.

  Like smoking. Did he want a fag?

  He didn’t smoke.

  He just did drugs, was that it?

  No, no. A few times. That was all.

  Had he ever been picked up for drugs?

  No.

  Had he ever heard of the Holmes computer?

  No.

  They used the Holmes computer. If he farted in a dark room in China the computer would know. So . . . they would ask him again . . . had he ever been nicked for drugs? Had he been a naughty boy?

  Well . . . there had been one occasion.

  One?

  Maybe two.

  Or three?

  No, two. Possession.

  What?

  Grass. He’d got off with police warnings.

  That was better, wasn’t it? Much better to tell the truth. But they’d ask the computer anyway, just to check.

  Pause.

  Right then . . . Janos, was it?

  Jason. His father had changed the name.

  Kind of an anagram.

  He supposed so.

  There he went again. Supposed. Never mind. Did he want a rest?

  No. He was okay.

  Tea? Coffee?

  Nothing.

  That wasn’t very bright. He’d learn to think differently. Where he was going you took everything you were offered whether you wanted it or not. (Pause) Jason . . . kind of a tv name . . . Okay Jason, why didn’t they start from the beginning again. He’d parked his car in the square . . . seen the girl and followed—

  Bullshit! He’d never said that!

  The truth will make you free. Had he heard that expression? No? Religious. But not free of the nick of course. Didn’t mean that. Free inside himself more like. He’d feel better afterwards.

  But for Christ’s sake it was the bloody truth!

  No, it wasn’t, they said. He was lying, they said. He was a bloody rapist who chose his victims with care. Young girls, maybe even kids. Certainly the seventeen-year-old girl he’d picked up on the tennis court.

  Tell us, they said, how did a really big bastard like Jason get it in? With a shoe horn?

  *

  They asked that question before they knew who he was, before they could guess what he might do.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Annie! Annie!’

  The sound of her name brought her jerking upright out of sleep.

  ‘Wake up! It’s six o’clock!’

  She looked at the clock on her bedside table.

  ‘No it isn’t. It’s five o’clock!’

  ‘Oh.’ Her father’s voice was not contrite, only irritated. ‘My bloody clock must be wrong.’

  He didn’t apologise, but then he never apologised. She heard him stumping off to his own part of the house. She lay back against the pillows, listening. She tried to relax but with her father up and about she knew she wouldn’t be able to.

  Bang! A door slammed.

  Whoosh! The lavatory.

  Then voices. Probably the BBC Overseas Service. The news at 0500.

  Oh, God.

  She had not slept much. Half the night she had lain stiffly in bed worrying. Was she making a terrible mistake? But what was the alternative?

  Crash! Crash!

  Father making his early morning tea.

  That was part of his African legacy. She had got over hers years ago, but she remembered the childhood ritual as though it was yesterday. Every morning she would be wakened by Watch, her father’s clerk, confidant, cook, friend, and guardian. Just remembering how Watch fussed over her father made her smile.

  For years – most of her childhood in fact – and as far back as she could recall, it had been Watch she had seen first thing every morning; she could hardly remember her mother being in Africa at all. She would open her eyes and there, hazy on the other side of the mosquito net, would be Watch’s prim black face, his hand holding her cup of early morning tea; a brick-red liquid that tasted of metal polish.

  ‘Half an hour blekfas,’ Watch would invariably say and she would take the tea and wait for him to leave, then pour it from the window or through an opening in the tent, depending on where they were.

  Then breakfast, a proper breakfast of bacon, eggs, fried bread, sausages if they had them, lamb’s fry, perhaps even a chop, with Watch hovering over her making sure she ate up.

  When she read Kipling’s Jungle Book she realised that Bagheera and Baloo, who had with loving grumpiness seen to Mowgli’s upbringing, had been reincarnated into her father and Watch.

  And after breakfast they would load the truck and get going before the sun grew hot; Watch driving, her father sitting in front with him, Anne occupying the rear.

  Another day, another small town. And Henry Vernon in black gown and grey periwig would vigorously prosecute the unlawful in the name of Her Majesty across the water.

  She became aware of a different sound, a faint breathing near her face. She opened one eye. A small figure dressed in Mickey Mouse pyjamas stood by her bedside.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Hilly said.

  ‘Just for a little while.’

  The autumn morning was cold and Anne moved further over in the bed. ‘You have the warm place.’

  Her five-year-old daughter backed up against her breasts and stomach.

  ‘Better?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’

  ‘Grandpa woke me.’

  ‘He woke me too. I’d be surprised if he hasn’t woken most of Kingstown.’

  ‘I don’t like Kingstown.’

  ‘You will. You’re just not used to it yet.’

  ‘Clive doesn’t like Kingstown either.’

  ‘Did he say that?’

  ‘When he took me to the zoo. He says it’s too far from London.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry about that, but it doesn’t change anything.’

  ‘I like Clive. I like his Mercedes.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘He loves you.’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘I don’t like school.’

  ‘You said you did.’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’

  ‘It’s because it’s new and you’re new.’

  ‘Why can’t we live in London like we used to?’

  ‘Because there’s Grandpa now . . . I explained all this to you. It’s not just the two of us any more.’

  ‘I liked it when it was the two of us.’

  ‘So did I, darling, but things change. Anyway, you love Grandpa, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘He loves you.’

  ‘He bangs things.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Did he bang things in Africa?’

  ‘All the time.’

  ‘When is he going back to Africa?’

  ‘He’s living with us, sweetie. He’s part of the family now.’

  ‘Oh.’ Hilly did not sound convinced.

  ‘You’ll get used to him being here. And you’ll get used to Kingstown and you’ll get used to your new school. It’s got a lovely playground. Better than the one in London. You’ll see, in a couple of weeks you won’t even remember London.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t want you to go to prison.’

  ‘So that’s what this is all about. I have to, darling. I’ve explained it over and ov
er. Here . . . come closer. Now listen, you have to be a big girl. You’ll have Grandpa.’

  ‘But who’ll take me to school?’

  ‘I’ll take you this morning. But Grandpa will fetch you.’

  ‘And tomorrow?’

  ‘Grandpa will do both. He’ll be looking after you and you’ll be looking after him. So – no more tears . . . I’ve got to get up now but you can stay while I get dressed.’

  ‘Can I choose?’

  ‘I’ve already chosen.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My dark green trousers. Yellow blouse. That biscuit-coloured pullover. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  She showered and towelled herself, viewing her body in the partially steamed-up mirror. She was long-legged with squarish shoulders. Her waist had almost returned to what it was before having Hilly and she was pleased with that, all things considered. She gave her bottom a cursory glance. Physiologically, she knew why women’s bottoms were larger and softer and rounder than men’s but that didn’t help. But she comforted herself with the fact that Clive seemed to like it.

  Her right shoulder and arm always looked to be slightly more muscular than her left, which irritated her. But there wasn’t much she could do about that either.

  She wore her dark hair short and her faded-blue eyes were widely spaced. Her skin was pale and as a child she had had to wear hats in the African sun. But if she was careful she could tan to the colour of a golden biscuit.

  When she and Hilly came downstairs the noise was louder.

  ‘My God, what’s happening?’ she said.

  The kitchen looked as though it had been vandalised.

  ‘Breakfast is happening,’ her father said.

  The table had not so much been laid as loaded with feeding implements. Henry was waiting at the stove, a fish slice in his hand.

  Even in Africa where the people among whom he had worked wore tribal scars, wrapped themselves in blankets, smoked pipes two feet long, and looked out from under conical hats of basketwork – even among those people, Henry Vernon had been thought to dress eccentrically.

  He was wearing a collarless white shirt, not the kind affected by pop stars, but the kind worn by men who have lost the collars, and knee-length khaki trousers, once known as Bombay bloomers, which left his powerful knotted calves bare. On his feet he wore, without socks, a pair of patent leather dancing pumps now covered in dust and ancient African cowdung. Around his waist was Anne’s short and frilly apron.