Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby)

by Vicary, Tim

  ‘Yes.’ She shivered, realising she had just acted unprofessionally. ‘Michael, don’t go talking to anyone about this, will you? I shouldn’t have told you that, about Jason. He’s my client.’

  ‘My lips are sealed.’ He smiled, then drew his fingers across his mouth, as though closing his lips with a zip fastener. A grim, determined face stared at her. Then he laughed, and stood up. ‘How about coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ She finished her meringue while he busied himself grinding beans. ‘What about your work, anyway?’

  ‘It’s going well, I think.’ He set the cafetiere on the hob, and took some white bone china cups and saucers from a cupboard. ‘Cream, sugar?’

  ‘No thanks. Just black.’

  ‘Okay. I went out to the farm development yesterday. It’s coming on well. They’ve got most of the wiring finished. That’s what holds things up. That and the plumbing. You can’t do the floorboards or tiles or plastering until that’s done. It’s going to look good.’ He got up to pour the coffee. ‘But what about this house of yours? If you sell it, what sort of place do you have in mind?’

  ‘I was thinking about somewhere in town,’ she said, taking a cup of coffee gratefully. ‘One of these modern flats, maybe. It’s what they’re built for, isn’t it? Now that I’m a single person, all of a sudden. And then I could walk everywhere. I wouldn’t need the bike or a car. I wouldn’t have to wear leathers and boots all the time. It’s a nuisance, always having to change.’

  ‘Pity, from my point of view. I thought you looked great. Turning up like a Bond girl and then slipping into something feminine and soft.’

  ‘You liked that, did you?’ She sipped her coffee, looking at him through the steam from the cup.

  ‘Of course.’ He considered her, returning her look. ‘You’re a beautiful woman.’

  ‘Thank you, kind sir.’ She crossed her legs, sitting back in her chair. ‘Anyway, that’s my idea. Start a new life, get rid of all the baggage - house, garden, all the history and hassle that goes with it. If I’m going to be single, I may as well learn to accept it. Live in a flat.’

  ‘Hm.’ He rested his chin on his hand, studying her thoughtfully. ‘Sounds attractive. You wouldn’t want anywhere too small though, would you?’

  ‘Why not? There’s only me.’

  ‘Yes but, with all due respect, Sarah, you’ve got kids, you’re almost a grandmother now. You’ll need space for your furniture. And your zimmer frame.’

  ‘Stop it!’ she laughed. ‘Not quite yet.’

  ‘And somewhere for visitors to sleep.’

  ‘Simon lives in town. I’ll need a room for Emily, though. I promised her that.’

  ‘Yes, and?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘People like - well, me. I might want to visit you. If I was invited, that is.’

  ‘Yes, well, that remains to be seen. Anyway, I haven’t found a place yet.’

  ‘Better start looking. We could go round the agents together in the morning if you like. What sort of price range are you thinking?’

  ‘Half of what I get for my own house, I suppose. Give or take. But Michael, I can’t go house hunting tomorrow; I’ve got this trial hanging over my head. And stacks of files to go through before Monday. I shouldn’t even be here now.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you are.’ He looked hurt. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I didn’t mean to be rude. It was a lovely meal.’

  ‘Apart from the soufflé.’

  ‘Forget about the soufflé, Michael. It was funny.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll try.’ He closed his eyes, then reopened them. ‘There. I’m over it now. Almost.’ He smiled, and their eyes met. This is the Michael I like, Sarah thought, Funny, charming, ironic. Not that other one I saw in the window. She smiled back.

  He took a small digital camera from the kitchen worktop. ‘I took some photos of the barn development yesterday. And there are all my skiing exploits on here too, for what they’re worth. Would you like to see them?’

  She hesitated. If I want to leave, this is the moment to go, she thought. Before it’s too late. But then, where’s the harm? It’s a long ride home, in the dark. And he’s gone to all this trouble, he’d be hurt. Anyway it was fine last time, in the hotel. And what is there at home, after all? Just two days’ solid work. Loneliness. And regrets.

  ‘Yes, all right,’ she said. ‘I’d love to see them. Why not?’

  ‘Great.’ He got up. ‘Let’s go up to my study, shall we? I can show you them there on the computer.’

  43. Garden of Remembrance

  THE CITY crematorium was a modern, single storey building set in pleasant landscaped gardens near the archbishop’s place in Bishopthorpe. Terry and Jane arrived early, and sat in their car watching people arrive for the funeral of Alison Grey. Attending this funeral was a lot more, in Terry’s book, than just good public relations. It could give him vital leads to the investigation; if, that is, Jane was wrong and it wasn’t Peter Barton. To everyone’s irritation, there was still no sign of the twisted young pervert. What if he had murdered Alison - would he strike again? Terry had woken several times this week from nightmares in which Peter Barton was prodding the dead body of a naked woman hanging from a staircase, causing it to swing to and fro. Mostly the corpse had been faceless, but once - most recently - he had woken in a muck sweat, shuddering at the vision of his dead wife Mary’s face throttled by the scarf.

  Will Churchill’s right about one thing, Terry told himself grimly. I have to solve this soon, if only to regain peace of mind.

  A small crowd began to gather outside the solid oak doors at the entrance to the building. They wore dark coats, gloves and scarves, their collars turned up against the cold January wind. A taxi pulled up and a white-haired old lady got out, together with two elderly men, their faces wrinkled and seamed like old parchment.

  ‘That’s her mother, is it?’ Jane asked, watching sympathetically as they hobbled towards the door. ‘Doesn’t look too well, poor old dear. Which one’s her Dad?’

  ‘He’s not here,’ Terry answered. ‘Died two years ago. Those must be uncles or cousins of some sort.’

  They stayed in the car watching as more cars arrived and the group gradually increased. There were several older people of the mother’s generation, but there was a fair sprinkling of young people too, from late twenties to early forties. Several of these were black or Asian, and the white people were tanned, as if they had been living abroad. They tended to shiver more than the rest, and paced about restlessly, waiting for the doors to open.

  A shiny black limousine rolled smoothly into the drive, coming to a silent stop just in front of the entrance. Four burly pallbearers in black coats got out and smoothly lifted the coffin onto a trolley. Terry and Jane got out of their car, and followed the mourners into a room with wooden panels and deep soft carpets. The chairs were arranged in a semi-circle facing the front, where the coffin waited on a trolley before some curtains. Terry and Jane took their seats unobtrusively in at the back. Organ music played softly. As a priest walked to the front, Jane held her order of service in front of her mouth and whispered: ‘See anyone likely?’

  ‘Not so far,’ Terry murmured. There was always a possibility that the killer would turn up to the funeral to see his victim safely cremated, silently gloating over his achievement. Or if he’d been her lover, he might even be grieving. But no one stood out from the crowd.

  Still, all of them must have known her. There was a rich source of human information here, if they could manage to mine it discreetly.

  ‘You take the younger ones,’ Terry muttered. ‘When the service is over, see if you can find out how well they knew her, what she was like, and so on. They’re probably teachers, a lot of them, like her.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can. What about you?’

  ‘I’m going to talk to that woman over there. That’s her editor - I recognise her face from a book catalogue in Alison’s house.’ He indicated a woman tw
o rows ahead to their right - a good-looking middle-aged lady, with red hair greying slightly around the temples. She wore a thick brown coat and sensible fur-lined high boots against the cold. Jane had watched her arrival earlier from their car. Most of the younger mourners spoke to her, and several - especially those who appeared to come from abroad - had quite long, animated conversations, much more than a simple exchange of condolences. She seemed a warm, friendly sort of person; even now, as the service was beginning, one or two of the younger mourners threw glances her way, as if seeking reassurance or sympathy.

  Terry wondered if the Catholic priest, Father Roberts, would lead the service, but it was a church of England vicar who stood before them. He led the assembled congregation quietly and confidently through the service, but when the time came to address them about Alison Grey, it was clear that he had not known her well. He referred constantly to a sheaf of notes in his hand, and despite his best efforts the encomium was somewhat perfunctory. He told the congregation things most of them, no doubt, already knew: how Alison had been born in Leicester, the only daughter of Helen and Andrew Grey; gone to school there where she displayed a particular talent for foreign languages which she’d studied at York university; trained as a teacher in Oxford before going abroad to teach English as a foreign language; how she had travelled the world and made friends in many countries, before returning to England to write teaching books for Oxford University Press. She had been a talented person, he said, but someone who used her talent for the benefit of others. Many people had benefited from knowing her; both her pupils, to whom she had taught English; and her colleagues, with whom she had shared her skill in teaching. She had been a decent, honest, hard-working woman who, if her life had not been so cruelly cut short, would have had many happy years of life still ahead of her.

  It was all true, no doubt, and particularly comforting to her elderly mother, who sat listening with bowed head and tears trickling unregarded down her face. But it was only part of the truth. All this man knew was the surface, the public persona, not the core. What was she really like, Terry wondered. That’s what we need to know. What about the cancer that was devouring her body? And the secret that she dared not tell Father Roberts? Why did she want to leave the Church of England?

  What was it that had made someone kill her?

  When he had exhausted his knowledge, the vicar turned to the coffin, and launched into the final prayers of committal. Then he invited the congregation to stand and sing the final hymn. As they ploughed their way grimly through the verses, the final, banal horror took place in front of their eyes. The vicar pressed a button, an electric motor hummed, and the coffin moved slowly forward on hidden rollers. As it did so, the curtains on either side began to move towards it. It was all timed perfectly. The curtains appeared certain to brush against the coffin before it had gone behind them, perhaps knocking off a wreath; but they missed it by millimetres. A triumph of funeral engineering.

  As the congregation sang on, Terry wondered what happened next behind the curtain. Did the coffin continue to roll smoothly on by itself, into the sudden, fiery furnace? Or was that part done by hand? By men in boiler suits, pushing the coffin bodily through a fireproof door? There would be a system for sure; one practised a dozen times a day. While the congregation walked slowly out into the garden of remembrance, the coffin and its contents were being reduced to ashes. Ashes which would have to be cleared out, poured into an urn, and labelled, before the next one came through.

  They had buried Mary’s ashes in the garden here, behind this building, in a small plot they had paid for. He had come three times, with Jessica and Esther, to leave flowers above it. But then they had stopped coming; it caused too much distress, he decided, served no purpose. It was a grave smaller than one they had dug for a hamster.

  After the final prayers, Terry and Jane followed the other mourners out into the garden of remembrance. They stood around, talking in subdued voices, uncertain what to do next. One of the elderly uncles reminded them that a buffet had been ordered at a hotel on the Tadcaster road, to which all were invited. Alison’s mother stared bleakly at the gardens, where the ashes of her daughter would rest; somewhere among the hundreds of miniature headstones among the neatly tended rose gardens. One of the soberly dressed crematorium staff appeared to offer her condolences, and discreetly usher them all back towards the car park.

  At the hotel, people helped themselves to sausage rolls and sandwiches and stood around making conversation. Someone had had the foresight to put up a pin board with photographs of Alison on it - as a baby, a schoolchild, a student, and in various countries of the world. Jane joined a group of teachers who were studying it curiously, while Terry approached the woman he had identified as her editor.

  ‘Jennifer Barlow?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Terry Bateson. We spoke on the phone.’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember. You’re looking for Alison’s murderer.’

  ‘That’s right. So the more we know about her the better. Has anything more come to mind, since we spoke?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Perhaps.’ She manoeuvred her way across the room to a corner by a window. ‘I’m sorry, it’s all been such a rush and a shock; it might be best if you remind me of what I told you before. Then I can fill in the gaps, if there are any.’

  She was an attractive woman, Terry thought; a strong character with presence. No wonder these young teachers cluster round her; several were watching now as they talked. She had several large rings on her fingers and bracelets on her wrists, which jangled as she moved her arm. She had a lively active face out of which her large grey eyes scrutinized him intently.

  ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘Well, when we spoke on the phone, you told me you met Alison in Oxford on a postgraduate teacher training course. You became friends and taught together for a couple of years in Japan, is that right? But then you went into publishing while Alison carried on teaching English as a foreign language in various countries around the world, so you lost touch for a bit.’

  ‘That’s right, yes. We tried to meet when she came home, and we’d write, you know. But those were the days before e-mail, and she worked in some pretty remote places - even Mongolia for a couple of years - so yes, we lost touch.’

  ‘And then you met her at a conference, I believe?’

  ‘Yes, an IATEFL conference - that’s the International Association for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language - in Bournemouth, about four years ago. It was great. She gave a presentation about some teaching materials she had written, and as it happened they were just the sort of thing we were looking for at the time. So I asked her to write some more, which she did. She came to Oxford, people were impressed, and it all led to First Class.’

  ‘That’s the book she was working on?’

  ‘Yes. Or series of books, actually. Quite apart from the tragedy of her death, it’s going to be a major headache finding someone to take over. She had a real talent, poor girl.’

  ‘So the books were doing well?’

  ‘Very well. The launch was a terrific success, and the second book’s doing even better. It was a great breakthrough for her - a life-changing experience, really. I would imagine she’d already made enough in royalties to set her up for life.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Terry said. ‘Enough to buy a house, would you say?’

  ‘Oh, heavens, yes. Quite a good one, too.’

  ‘But she was living as a tenant in a small cottage. Not particularly luxurious. Just her and a cat.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s Alison for you. She didn’t really care about money. After all those years of living abroad in rented flats and houses, she probably saw that as normal. I talked to her about buying a house once, and she said she’d get around to it when she’d finished the next book. That was what she was focussed on.’

  ‘What about her private life? Friends and so on?’

  Jennifer Barlow shrugged. ‘She was a friendly person. Look ar
ound you - half of these people are teachers she’s worked with or helped in some way. Some of them have travelled long distances to get here.’

  ‘Any of them boyfriends?’

  ‘I doubt it. They all look a bit young to me,’ Jennifer surveyed the room thoughtfully. ‘But the truth is, I wouldn’t know. She had a couple of boyfriends in Oxford, I remember, but neither of them lasted.’

  ‘Why not? Do you remember?’

  Jennifer shrugged. ‘Usual reasons, not compatible, I suppose. I think she was getting over some undergraduate affair at the time. No one she met in Oxford quite matched up.’

  ‘Undergraduate affair?’

  ‘Yes. She was a student here in York, I think, before she came to Oxford. But that was before I met her.’

  ‘I see. You don’t happen to remember his name, do you, this boyfriend of hers?’

  ‘No, sorry, she never told me.’

  ‘What about later, when she went abroad? There must have been other men, from time to time?’

  ‘I think there was a man in Indonesia - a doctor I think - but he was married and it all ended badly. There were probably one or two others, but she didn’t tell me about them all.’

  ‘She wasn’t bisexual, by any chance?’

  ‘Oh no. When she did talk about that sort of thing, it was always men. She could be quite forthright, on occasion - one or two things she came out with quite shocked me.’

  ‘But not in connection with any man in particular?’

  ‘As I say, there was this doctor - the Indonesian.’ She smiled faintly. ‘He was quite adventurous, it seems. The whole Kama Sutra. Taught Alison a lot.’

  ‘Do you have a name for him?’

  ‘Again, I never met him.’ Jennifer sighed, shaking her head. ‘I might have it in an old letter of hers somewhere. If I find it I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Thank you, that would help.’ Terry studied her thoughtfully, wondering how to phrase his next question. ‘I’m sorry to ask you this, but ... these sex games with this doctor; did they include bondage, sado-masochism, anything like that?’