Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby)

by Vicary, Tim

  Now she had only herself.

  She crossed the square, a slender figure in a black coat, quite alone. Her back was straight, her face pale and determined. Her heels clicked briskly up the stone steps into the offices of Ian Carr, the divorce lawyer Lucy had recommended. He came to reception to meet her, holding out his hand in greeting. ‘Mrs Newby, isn’t it? Come upstairs, please. I have fresh coffee in my office, or herbal tea if you prefer. Your husband and his lawyer are due here in an hour. We should be ready for them by then, I hope.’

  He was a pleasant young man, with the right touch of sympathy in his smile. He’ll go far, Sarah thought, admiring the effortless, efficient way he put her at ease in his office - an office considerably more luxurious than her own. I should have gone into civil law, she thought. No, I haven’t the style.

  ‘Your main interest, I believe, is to keep your house,’ he began, handing her coffee. ‘Sadly, as I told you on the phone, our options here are limited. If your daughter - Emily, isn’t it? - had been a year younger, that would have helped, but now she is over 18 and legally an adult she is no longer dependent on you to house her. If your husband were to agree to let you stay on we could come to an arrangement, but I regret to say ...’

  ‘He won’t.’ Sarah thought sadly of Emily’s desire for a room of her own, of her love for the house by the river. Term would be over soon - she would be home, Sarah supposed, for Christmas. ‘So what are my options?’

  ‘Either to sell the house, or buy your husband out. Under Section 15 of the Trust of Land and Application of Properties Act, you should get the house valued. Fifty per cent of it is yours, fifty percent is your husband’s. So either you pay him 50% of the valuation or you sell the house and divide the equity. How are you paying your mortgage?’

  ‘We each pay half,’ said Sarah, thinking of the huge tax bill she’d have to meet next April. ‘What if I increase my payments to cover the full amount now - can’t I stay in the house then?’

  ‘Not unless your husband agrees, I’m afraid. You’d be denying him his share of the equity. But house prices have been rising, so he might be persuaded to wait, in the hope of more later. He has somewhere to live, I take it?’

  ‘Oh yes, he has somewhere to live,’ she said grimly, thinking of the photograph she had found last week, in his files on their computer. A young woman with long brown hair - rather thin, Sarah thought, for her taste, and with slightly buck teeth - but smiling ecstatically, and clutching her three young children to a long, full-length skirt. She looked happy, but when Sarah had enlarged the photo and focussed closer on the young woman’s eyes, she saw something - what was it? - insecurity, anxiety, greed? Something desperate anyway, yearning behind the smile. Or was that just her own jealousy, defacing what she saw to justify her own furious rage? Her hands had shaken so that she could hardly grip the mouse.

  There had been other photos, and several had shown a small semi-detached house - perfectly adequate, but a step down from what Bob had grown accustomed to. She doubted he would stick it for long.

  So it proved in the meeting an hour later. They sat in a conference room, either side of a gleaming mahogany table. Bob, to her surprise, looked different. He’d had a recent haircut and instead of his usual rumpled suit was wearing a new powder blue jumper and leather jacket - clearly intended to make him look younger. She detected a faint scent of aftershave, too. Only the bags under his eyes made him look old. He responded badly to the suggestions about delaying the sale.

  ‘No, of course I need it now - Sonya’s house is rented, it’s up for renewal in March, and it’s much too small anyway. The real point we need to settle is the size of each share.’

  He glanced at his lawyer, a small, round man, who began apologetically. ‘Mr Newby claims 65% of the equity, on the grounds of the history of the investment. When the couple originally bought the house he paid the entire deposit himself, and all the interest on the mortgage for the first three years when his wife’s earnings were low.’

  Sarah’s lawyer laughed. ‘That won’t wash, Mr Snerl, you know it won’t. Even if Mrs Newby had been staying at home looking after the children ...’

  ‘Looking after the children!’ Bob broke in bitterly. ‘As if!’

  ‘... and paid no money at all, she would still be entitled to 50% of the equity. She was contributing an equal share by looking after the family.’

  ‘But she wasn’t!’ Bob said. ‘She was pursuing her education - at my expense!’

  ‘That’s irrelevant in the eyes of the law ...’

  ‘I cared for my children, Bob. Don’t you dare say I didn’t.’ Sarah’s eye met her husband’s for the first time. There was something in her gaze, and the cool incisive tone of her voice, that dried the indignation on his tongue. They measured each other, and for a moment the lawyers were not there. Sarah wondered afterwards if they had continued talking, and she’d heard nothing. How did you come to this, Bob, her eyes asked, after twenty years of marriage? All based on trust, and the promise that it would continue for ever. Did you change all that with your clothes and hairstyle?

  But he was a different man - at least one she had not seen before. There was a bitter wariness in his eyes, and a trembling determination not to back down, however strong his sense of guilt. He looked fragile, she thought; younger not just because of the clothes, but because of his desperate need to deny the truth, and believe he was in the right. Would she want this man back? Not really, no. Not without love. And there was no love left, in the eyes that met hers. None left at all.

  She turned back to the lawyers. ‘What do we need to do?’

  ‘Well, Mrs Newby,’ her own lawyer said. ‘The sensible thing is to come to an agreement. Get the house valued, put it on the market, and agree an equitable division of assets. That way there’s least pain and expense to you both. Otherwise, if we go to court - well, you’re a lawyer, you know where the money will go.’

  ‘Yes, very well.’ The discussion continued for a while, the lawyers explaining the procedure and setting up a timetable. Then, it seemed, they were done. Her memory of the Town Hall returned. There should be a crowd of people, friends and family outside - doing what? Her mother maybe, saying I told you so, you should have listened to me in the first place. Her father looking sad and pathetic. Her children ...

  Outside on the steps Bob said: ‘Shall we go for a coffee?’

  She stared at him, incredulous. ‘What? After that?’

  ‘It won’t hurt. There’s a Starbucks round the corner.’

  And somehow, the loneliness awaiting her seemed so final that any delay seemed a straw worth clutching at. ‘OK. Why not?’

  In Starbucks there was a brief embarrassment as the cashier asked if they were together. ‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll pay for myself.’ They sat opposite each other in the window.

  ‘So, how are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, fine.’ The leather jacket was new; it still creaked. She preferred the powder blue jumper. It was the sort of thing she might have bought him for Christmas; but his Christmas had come early this year.

  ‘Really?’ She sipped her cappuccino. ‘You’re looking a bit tired.’ It was true. The lines on his face had deepened and there was a greyish tinge to his skin. To her surprise he took out a cigarette and lit it.

  ‘You haven’t started that?’

  ‘Just a few,’ he said defensively. ‘It’s up to me.’

  ‘Oh, sure. You’re a grown man. Do what you like.’ She shook her head in disbelief. Has it really come to this? ‘How are the children?’

  ‘At the school, you mean?’

  ‘No. In your new home.’

  ‘Oh, John, Linda and Samantha? They’re great. Really nice kids. Easy to talk to. Of course, it’s a little hard for them, having a new man in the house ...’

  ‘Their own father left?’

  ‘Yes. And there was another guy for a while, but ...’

  ‘So you’re third in line, are you?’ Sarah raised a pitying eyebrow. �
�They’re probably wondering how long you’ll last.’

  The shaft went home. ‘Look, Sarah, I didn’t come here to quarrel ...’

  ‘Who’s quarrelling? I just asked ...’

  ‘Yes, well it’s my business, not yours. They need a new house, really. This one’s only rented, as I told you, and it’s ... in a poor state.’

  ‘Oh. So I should sell quickly, you mean? Before March - that would suit you, would it? And Sonya.’

  ‘If you did, there’s be less pain for everyone. We could both make a new start.’

  ‘Really.’ Rage seethed inside her, but she held it down. ‘I hear you phoned Emily.’

  He nodded. ‘She took it hard, I’m afraid. Understandable, of course. But I think, by the end, she saw my point of view.’

  ‘Which is what, exactly?’

  ‘You know, Sarah. What I told you before. We had twenty good years, but we’ve grown apart. We’re different people now than we were before.’

  He’s right about that, Sarah thought bitterly. It’s not just the clothes and the cigarette - something’s changed in his mind. It must have been there before, growing like a cancer in the darkness behind his skull - but now it’s burst into bloom and sent its spores through his whole brain. This isn’t the man I married. It isn’t even someone I want to be married to any more.

  I loved him once. We shared half of our lives together. And this is how it ends. Not with a whimper, with scorn. Without finishing her coffee, she got to her feet.

  ‘Goodbye, Bob.’ She held out her hand, then changed her mind and took it back. ‘I’ll let you know about the house as soon as I can.’

  She walked out of the café alone.

  She took the train back to York and strode into the first estate agent’s she saw. Yes, he could value the house next day, he said. On reflection she arranged for a second to come the day after. That’s what Michael would have done, she realised. Some of Saturday’s conversation came back to her - tales of wildly different estimates from estate agents, builders, and plumbers. It was the sort of decision she’d once left to Bob; now she’d have to manage these things on her own.

  Entering the house she looked round, and thought how untidy it was. The washing up wasn’t done, the bin in the kitchen was full, there was a pile of clothes waiting to be ironed. There were lines of fluff on the treads of the stair carpet, a litter of make-up and moisturisers by the bathroom basin, a smear of lipstick on the mirror, and limescale on the shower screen. Well, she’d never been much good at housework. She normally had cleaners in to take care of it, but there’d been a problem at the agency - her regular cleaners had left, two others had been ill. So she’d told them not to worry, she could manage on her own for a while. After all there was only her.

  But clearly she couldn’t manage as well as she thought. Not at present, anyway. Drearily, she put on an apron and set to work. She didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of the valuers. After all, a good impression might make the difference of a few thousand pounds. Yes, she thought, but not for me - half of that goes to Bob, the bastard. She jabbed viciously at the stair carpet with the vacuum cleaner. Why isn’t he here to clean his own house, if he wants to profit from it? That’s men all over. File for divorce, swan around in new clothes, turn your ex-wife into a cleaning lady.

  They’re all the same, she thought, scrubbing energetically at lipstick on the bathroom mirror. She remembered how it had got there. She’d slipped on the bathroom floor while hurrying with her make-up because Michael was due in ten minutes. So excited she’d been, and why? Because a man was calling for her! I should know better.

  That had been a good day, though, for much of the time. She’d enjoyed the drive, the visit to the farm development, the lunch, the new found friendship. But then there’d been that scary incident on the roof of the windmill, and awkward silences on the drive home. So he isn’t perfect either. Maybe he thinks the same about me. When they got home she’d asked Michael in for a coffee - meaning just that, coffee, no more - but he’d declined. Looking round critically at her house now, she was glad he hadn’t come in.

  She’d gone to bed gloomy, her mood not enhanced by a phone call from Emily who’d just spoken to her father. Predictably, he’d put the blame on Sarah, and poor Emily, listening, had felt her loyalties torn.

  ‘Couldn’t you have tried harder, Mum?’ she’d asked, and Sarah, for once in her life, had been stumped for an answer. It had been the pain in her daughter’s voice, more than the injustice of the question, that had hurt the most. So Sarah had agreed to go down to Cambridge to see her next weekend, before the end of the university term. Her chance, it felt like, to make amends - for a break-up she hadn’t wanted in the first place.

  She’d wept when that phone call had ended, and felt like praying and cursing both at once. Losing a husband is bad enough, she thought, but if he turns Emily away from me as well, then ... that will be just too cruel.

  She finished cleaning the house and looked around. It was a family home, she realised - that’s what she’d told the estate agents. Four bedrooms, spacious living room and kitchen, nice views across fields to the river, secluded rear garden where children could safely play. Only there were no children, not any more. No family either - Simon rarely visited, didn’t like the country, Emily was starting her new life, and now Bob was gone as well. It’s not the right house for me, she thought, not any more. Maybe I really will be better off starting again.

  She’d talked over some of this with Michael, when he’d phoned, earlier this week. To her relief the odd, unpredictable silences of Saturday had gone. He’d been cheerful, chatty even, and interested in all her problems. He’d invited her out on a date that Thursday - another meal, at a different restaurant he knew. She’d been unreasonably pleased - relieved to have something to look forward to. But then, on the very evening of the date, when she’d come home early to change, he’d rung to cancel.

  ‘I’m really sorry, but there’s been a crisis at the farm development. I’m still there now - I’ll be here all evening, I expect. I do apologise, but it’s got to be sorted. Maybe at the weekend?’

  ‘I’m going down to Cambridge to see Emily,’ she’d said stiffly. ‘It doesn’t matter. You do what you have to. I understand.’

  ‘Yes, well, all right then. I’ll be in touch.’

  But something in his tone made her wonder if she’d have a long wait.

  30. Body in the Hall

  THE CALL came at ten in the morning. Jane Carter picked it up. Her face changed as she listened. She put the phone down and turned to Terry. ‘Possible suicide in Crockey Hill, sir. Shall we go?’

  The house, when they came to it, was isolated. About fifty yards down a rough track on the edge of a small hamlet. It was a two storey double fronted detached house, with a small lawned garden and fields beyond that. Behind the house and to the right were woods, the trees standing bare over their dank fallen leaves. There was a circular gravel area in front of the house, on which were parked a Tesco delivery van, two marked police cars, an ambulance, and a muddy green Rover. The paramedics and the uniformed officers were clustered round the front door. When Terry and Jane went inside, they saw why.

  They entered a hall with doors leading into two front rooms on either side. There was a narrow window beside the door, in front of the staircase, which was on the left. The hall continued past the staircase to the back of the house and the kitchen. The floor was paved with old red Yorkshire stone tiles, cracked in places and worn in the centre by many years of passing feet. Halfway along the corridor was a wooden dining chair lying on its side. On the tiles beside the chair, with her feet towards the kitchen, lay the naked body of a woman.

  Terry stared at it, the shock, as always, draining the blood from his face and making him fight down the urge to vomit. There was no dignity in a death like this. She was a plump woman, he noticed, with brown pubic hair and a varicose vein in her left leg. Her face was dark purple and there was something tied around her neck. The
re was a puddle of what looked like urine around her legs, and the stink of faeces. As he stared, a cat scurried down the stairs and ran past the body into the kitchen.

  ‘What happened here?’ he asked.

  ‘Suicide, looks like, sir,’ one of the young constables said. ‘Delivery man rang the bell and when he got no answer he peered through the window and saw a leg hanging in the air, a foot above the floor.’ He indicated the driver of the Tesco van, who was sitting on a garden bench with his head in his hands, talking to a paramedic. ‘The door was locked, so he called us and we got in through a loo window at the back. The paramedics cut her down, but there was nothing they could do.’

  ‘Dead for several hours, I’d reckon,’ the second paramedic said. ‘The doctor will confirm that, but her limbs were already stiff.’

  ‘You’ve sent for the doctor, have you?’ Terry asked the young constable. However obvious it was, only a doctor could officially confirm death.

  ‘Yes, sir, he’s on his way.’

  ‘Good. Well, we’d better have a look.’ He glanced at Jane, noticing the pallor of her face and a grim determination around her jaw. ‘Come on. Let’s see the worst.’

  The woman’s face was, indeed, very bad. The tongue and eyes protruded, the face was suffused with dark purple blood. Round her neck, so tight that it bit into the skin, was what looked like a patterned silk scarf. The end was frayed, as though it had been cut, and when Terry looked up he saw the other end dangling above their heads. It was fastened by a knot to the banisters halfway up the stairs. The chair lay on its side beneath the dangling scarf.