by Vicary, Tim
For a while, as they enjoyed the food, he told her: how the joiners in his farm development had put up a ceiling with the wrong insulation, and the drains to the septic tank didn’t have enough fall and would have to be relaid. ‘And then, to top it all, the planner is saying we may not get a certificate because the window frames aren’t traditional enough. I ask you! It was a barn before, for heaven’s sake! With a tradition of no glass and fresh air!’
‘So what will you do?’
‘I’ll get around it somehow. Sweet talk him if I can, go and see his boss if I can’t. There’s always a way, if you’re patient. That’s one thing I learned long ago. Don’t lose your rag or you’re lost. They hold it against you for years. Especially in Yorkshire.’
‘Why? Were planners different in Cambridge?’
‘A bit, yes. Less pig-headed and stubborn.’
‘More civilized in the south, then?’
‘You could say that.’ Michael smiled. ‘Present company excepted, of course.’
She studied him quizzically over her wineglass. ‘One thing you never told me, Michael. Why did you move up here?’
‘To York, you mean?’
‘Yes. I mean, you weren’t born here, were you?’
‘No. I was born in a place called Six Mile Bottom, if you must know. A village just outside Cambridge. You can imagine the ribbing we used to get. Kids finding the name in the phone book and ringing up from all over, just for a laugh. “Hi, there. We’re a company in Kansas, and we sell giant toilet seats. We thought you guys might be interested.”’
Sarah laughed. ‘Sounds grim.’
‘It was. We became quite thick skinned. There’s another joke there, if you’re looking for it.’
‘So why York?’
‘To get away from Kate, I suppose. I’d done a postgraduate course here, as you know, and I liked the place then. So when our marriage went pear shaped, I thought, why not?’ He shrugged. ‘I needed a fresh start. You can understand that, can’t you?’
‘Of course.’ Sarah ran her finger round the rim of her wine glass. ‘But most of your youth was in Cambridge, then?’
‘In and around, yes.’
‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘I’ve always wondered. What’s it like, being a student in a place like that? I mean, I’ve seen Emily there, but what was it like for you?’
He grimaced. ‘A bit different, I should think. For a start, there weren’t many girls, not like today. Your Emily would have had to have been very brilliant, or very lucky, to get in then. The girls’ colleges were Newnham, New Hall, or Girton. All the rest were male. And so of course for us lads ... well, the hunt was on.’
‘What, for girls, you mean?’
‘Yes. There weren’t many around. So ...’ he smiled wryly. ‘If you’d been there, you’d have had the time of your life.’
‘I had that in another way,’ Sarah said ruefully, thinking of her late teens spent wheeling baby Simon round the slums of Seacroft in Leeds, from social worker to supermarket, doctor to dentist, playgroup to infant school, and all the time desperately taking evening classes to catch up with her GCSEs. ‘So how about you? Did you have a lot of girlfriends, before you met Kate? If you were anything like my son, that was the main focus of your life. Far more important than studies.’
‘There were a few girls, yes. But as I told you, they were thin on the ground. And I was quite shy, you know. Pretty naive. The girls used to run rings round me.’
‘So when did you meet Kate?’
‘Oh, that was later. After I’d left York, and I had my first job in Lincoln. I used to go back to Cambridge sometimes. I met her there.’
‘So, when you were a postgrad here in York, did you have a girlfriend, then?’
‘I had one or two. But they didn’t last.’ Michael looked at her warily. ‘Why all these questions suddenly?’
‘I’m just curious, that’s all.’ Sarah paused, then brought out her bombshell. ‘This Brenda Stokes - the girl Jason Barnes was supposed to have murdered - she wasn’t one of your girlfriends, was she?’
This question, as she had expected, hit him hard. Michael’s face paled slightly, his body tensed. His voice changed from the relaxed, bantering tone of a few moments ago.
‘Why on earth do you ask that?’
She smiled, affecting not to notice his change of mood. ‘Oh, nothing. It was only that you seemed so concerned about the appeal when we talked about it before. And the day her body was dug up, when we saw it on the TV news in the restaurant. You told me you’d met her, remember? I thought perhaps she meant something to you, that’s all.’
Sarah’s senses were fully awake, as they were during cross-examination in court. Michael looked away from her for a moment, before answering.
‘I ... I met her a few times, like I said. And yes, I did fancy her, as it happens. But she wasn’t interested in me. So that’s as far as it went.’
Sarah affected gentle feminine concern. ‘It must have been dreadful for you when she was killed. What was she like?’
‘Oh, very pretty, very vivacious.’ Michael relaxed slightly, responding to the gentle, feminine concern in Sarah’s tone. ‘Promiscuous, too, as a matter of fact. Into sex, drugs and rock and roll. Not my type at all, really.’
‘You were fairly straight, were you?’
‘Yes. Even wore a tie to tutorials, at first.’
‘So how come the attraction to Brenda?’
‘Oh, well, opposites attract, they say. She was that sort of girl, wasn’t she? She had all sorts of men flocking round her, she was used to it. Including that lowlife Jason.’
‘Jason Barnes? You knew him, too, did you?’
‘I met him once or twice, yes. Unfortunately.’
‘Why unfortunately?’
‘Well, he was a slob, wasn’t he? A thug. And he killed her, too, for heaven’s sake. Or at least that’s what everyone thought. The police, the court, everyone. Until you won his appeal for him and let him out. It’s all very well for you, Sarah. You didn’t know what he was like.’
‘I have met him, Michael. He was my client, after all.’
‘Yes, well, he won’t have changed, I’ll bet, not even after 18 years.’
‘He’s not the most charming character, certainly,’ Sarah conceded. ‘Full of bitterness and anger. But then, if he was wrongly convicted, who can blame him?’
‘If he was.’ Michael had regained his composure now. He looked at her coolly. ‘Did you really prove his innocence, Sarah, or just get him off on a technicality?’
You know the answer to this, Michael, Sarah thought. You’ve got all the details of his appeal in your file. ‘The judges decided his conviction was unsafe,’ she said. ‘Technically, that’s the same as not guilty. It means the evidence was too flawed to sustain a guilty verdict.’
‘But it doesn’t prove he didn’t do it?’
‘No. As with all not guilty verdicts, it means the prosecution are unable to prove that he did.’
‘So it’s like the Scottish verdict of not proven, is it?’
‘You could look at it like that if you want to. But that’s not how Jason looks at it, of course. He thinks he’s not guilty - he’s always maintained that, apparently. And as far as I know, even though Brenda’s body has been recovered, there’s still no move from the police to prosecute him again. Which they could, if they’d found significant new evidence.’
‘I hope they do,’ Michael said bitterly. ‘I’m sorry, Sarah, but I still think he did it. And if he could do that sort of thing once, he could do it again. Now he’s out, no woman he meets is safe.’
‘Well, let’s hope you’re wrong.’ Sarah looked at him carefully, wondering whether to mention the file she’d found in his study. She decided against it, for the present anyway. She seemed to have strayed onto sensitive ground. ‘Let’s talk about something different, shall we? I dropped in at an estate agent’s this morning before court. There’s a flat for sale in one of those warehouse developments by the river.
Quite pricey, but I might be able to afford it. I’ve got the brochure, for you to give me an expert opinion.’
49. Intruder
THE HOUSE in Crockey Hill remained empty. The SOCO teams had finished their work and returned the keys to the office in Stonegate, but the landlord seemed in no hurry to find a new tenant. Scraps of black and white chequered police tape fluttered from bushes it had snagged when the SOCOS ripped it down. The wind tore its ends into ragged shreds, so that only fragments of the words ‘Police Crime Scene. Keep out. Authorized Personnel only’ could be read. But anyway there was no one to read it. Every day or so a police car stopped by to check the locks and see no windows were broken. Apart from that it was deserted.
The grass, uncut since last autumn, sprouted molehills and snowdrops in odd corners. Rabbits crept cautiously through the hedge at dusk, noses twitching, eyes and ears alert for the danger of dogs, cats or humans. Finding none, they ventured further, nibbling down the grass, stripping the flowerbeds of anything edible. It seemed a new paradise, fortunately discovered at the end of winter. More rabbits appeared. Then the stoat came. He ripped out the throat of a young doe. Her fur, blood and bones defaced the lawn.
It was the house’s second murder. The killer slunk satisfied away.
The rabbits were more cautious after that. They stayed alert, close to their escape routes. Thumped the ground and fled at the least hint of danger. So the fox, sniffing round the doors, marking his territory like a dog, seldom saw them. He heard the rustle of a vole in the grass, the squeak of rats in the dustbins which they’d long stripped bare. The rats climbed through the toilet window which the cat had once used, but the fox didn’t follow, as a man might have done. The rats began to explore and colonize.
The cars at the end of the track swished by, fifty yards from the house. One or two each minute, in the mornings as people drove to work, or returned in the evening. Fewer at night. Even before midnight the road could be silent for five minutes at a time. Even longer, after twelve. Hedgehogs crossed, stopping halfway to scratch. Owls cruised soundlessly between trees, watching for the sudden scurry of a vole on the tarmac. A car droned in the distance, humming gradually nearer. The wildlife tensed, waiting. The car approached, rushed into view and was gone. A pulse of music in a cone of light, hurrying away through a hole in the dark. The silence slowly returned.
The rabbits heard the man long before he was near. There was the bark, first of all, of the dog in the farmhouse. It barked twice, short and sharp, then the farmer swore and it stopped. But even at that distance, a third of a mile, the rabbits heard. Ears pricked, they rose on hind legs, and waited. Sure enough, there was more. The crack of a twig, the rustle of leaves. Distant at first, but approaching. When the man was a hundred yards away they began to move. When he was fifty yards from the house they were all gone. Passing the man on either side, unseen. Scampering away to their warrens at the edge of the wood. While he, emerging from that same wood, filled the night air with his human stench, the rasp of his breath, the squelch of his shoes, the rustle of his clothes. Even before he briefly flashed his torch, he shone bright as a lighthouse to their senses.
The rats heard him too, as he clambered clumsily across the fence. They heard him curse as he snagged his jacket on the wire. And they scurried quickly to their nests in the kitchen cupboards and under the beds, to wait in safety until he was gone.
Never thinking for a second that he would climb through the toilet window just like them. Never expecting him to flash a torch on their hiding places, open doors, expose their precious babies to the horror of his boots, his stick, his foul swearing. Never expecting to end up fleeing for their lives, out of the window, across the lawn, back into the woods from whence they came.
Leaving the man in the house alone.
50. Warning
‘FLATTERER. I’LL see you tonight then. Bye.’
Sarah clicked off her phone and crossed the foyer of the court, still smiling from a conversation with Michael. The meal the other night had gone well; he had taken it as a challenge to cook even better for her next time. This new relationship, it seemed to her, was improving by the day. She felt lucky: somehow, at her age, she had managed to find a lover who was good in bed, interesting to talk to, and kind and generous in the way he treated her. He had spent the weekend looking at flats with her, but they found none she liked - perhaps, she realised, because she was enjoying her stay in Michael’s house too much. It was the perfect arrangement - alone on the hilltop, with beautiful views over the valley, and her lover in the windmill next door. She could invite him in when she needed company, be alone when she didn’t. And each evening together, it seemed to her, was a little better.
He still had strange moods which worried her. He’d been so cool and dismissive towards her questions about Brenda Stokes that she hadn’t dared bring up the subject of the file in his study. Perhaps he’d loved the girl, Sarah thought; if so, that would make his attitude and the morbid file of yellowing newspaper cuttings more easily understandable. What mattered at the moment was the warmth of the attention he was lavishing on her. There was a spring in her step, a sparkle in her mind. This affair is like a bubble in time, she thought. If I’m lucky, it will expand to encompass my whole future - our future together. But I must enjoy it while it lasts.
It could burst at any moment.
At the door, she bumped into a man. A tall, loose-limbed man, in a faded double-breasted suit. He put out a hand to restrain her.
‘Hello, Sarah.’
‘What? Oh, hi - Terry! I didn’t see you.’
‘No. You look busy.’
‘So - so. An easy case today for once.’
She stepped past him through the door into the sunshine, on the wide stone veranda overlooking the grassy circle called the Eye of York. To her right and straight ahead was the eighteenth century women’s prison, now the Castle Museum; to her left the Norman castle, Clifford’s Tower, on its circular grassy mound. Terry followed her out.
‘Lucky for some.’
‘Yes.’ She brushed a wisp of dark hair from her eye, looking up at him. He looked well, she thought. Fit, but quite tense. A little tired. ‘You busy?’
‘No peace for the wicked. Or at least, I hope there isn’t. Still running a murder hunt. Among six other things.’
‘Not that murder at Crockey Hill? Haven’t you got anyone for that?’
‘Not yet, no.’ Terry smiled ruefully. ‘So ... we’re still looking.’
‘Oh. Well, good luck.’
‘Thanks.’ His eyes studied her carefully, seeing the trace of a smile linger on her lips. It wasn’t a smile for him, he felt sure. ‘You look well.’
‘Thanks. So do you.’
‘I heard you split up with ...’ At the vital moment he couldn’t recall the name of the wretched man. ‘... your husband?’
‘He left me, yes. I’m getting a divorce.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. What’s done is done. My life’s started a new chapter, that’s all.’ She lifted her chin in that brave, unconscious movement of assertion that he remembered so well. It set off a symphony of memories inside him - the defiant mother who’d defended her son against all the world; who’d insisted, when he doubted himself, that he had to do better. She was the only woman, since Mary, who he’d ever seriously tried to seduce, and he’d almost succeeded. The only one he could never fully get out of his head, however seldom he saw her.
And now she was getting divorced.
‘So ... you’re all alone in that house, then?’
‘I’ve sold it, Terry. I’ve moved out.’
‘Oh, I see. So where ...?’
‘I’m staying with a friend. Michael Parker. You met him, I think. He’s renting me a house. Out in the country, on the Wolds.’ Her hazel eyes met his coolly. Don’t ask, Terry, please, was the message. If you do I’ll bite your head off.
‘I see. Was that who you were phoning?’ And smiling for, Terry thought bitterly.
The news hurt, like a knife in the ribs. A light punch at first, spreading pain thereafter.
‘As it happens, yes.’ She raised an eyebrow at his impertinence. ‘What about you?’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. Your girls. They must be growing up.’
‘Yes, they are.’ Terry drew a deep breath, answering randomly, scarcely hearing what he said. ‘Jessica’s in her second term at Fulford now, loving it so far. Esther’s jealous of course, but she’s growing all the time. She’s got a guinea pig, and a rabbit as well ...’
‘That’s nice.’
‘It’s a lot of trouble. You’ve no idea ...’ He stopped, gazing at her sadly. He didn’t want to stand here talking about rabbits and guinea pigs. She probably didn’t want to hear about them either. She’d never been a very domesticated woman, as far as he could make out. She hadn’t even been a particularly good mother, from what he’d witnessed of the tempestuous arguments with her son and teenage daughter a couple of years ago.
Not a good mother, at least, until the chips were down. Then she’d been superb.
But then, a woman who could defend her son in court wouldn’t necessarily be any good as a stepmother helping a nine-year-old care for a rabbit and guinea pig, Terry told himself sternly. Even if there was the remotest opportunity for that. Which, clearly, there wasn’t.
But there was something, all the same, that she ought to know.
‘How about a coffee?’ he said, recovering himself. ‘If you’ve got time, that is. In your busy professional life.’
Sarah smiled at him fondly, comparing him to Michael in her mind. He came out of the comparison quite well, she thought - robust, manly, straightforward, with a few rough edges that appealed to her. She couldn’t imagine him fussing about having a shower before they made love. But then, there was no need to fantasise about making love to Terry, or anyone else. She had a lover already. One she was going home to tonight.
‘All right. I suppose I could spare a few minutes.’
Sitting at a table in Starbucks, Terry reverted to the point that was worrying him.
