Life Sentence

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Ma’am, I’ve found her.’ Yes! ‘The witness, ma’am. The one that was in Hythe. I’ve found the house and everything. Ms Downs. Only it seems she’s a Mrs Adams these days. A bit old to change her name, like.’

  The young, God bless them. What on earth would Tom think of her feelings for Mark? That they were nigh-on obscene, probably. ‘Does everything include a new address and phone number?’

  ‘Everything. She’d left all her details with a neighbour. Do you want me to call her, like?’

  She asked, ‘What did I say, Tom?’ Would she sound stern or merely as if she was trying not to laugh indulgently?

  ‘To leave everything to you, like. But seeing as how you’re busy—’

  ‘I’ve just stopped being busy. I’m just about to leave the A299 and pick up the M2 back towards Maidstone.’

  ‘In that case I should stay on the M2, ma’am, if you want to talk to her yourself. Seems she’s up in the Midlands, like. Kenilworth. You know, like the book.’

  She was astounded that Tom should have heard of the novel, let alone relate to it. But she’d talk to him about Scott on another occasion. ‘Perhaps you’d better give me her phone number. It’s a long way to go just on the off chance.’ She wrote it down and read it back. It was something she’d always been meticulous about, ever since a senior officer in one of her teams had arrested a man with the same name as the one they wanted living in Moreton Street, not Moreton Avenue. ‘Meanwhile, could you get me a traffic report on the motorways? I might as well take the route with fewest hold-ups.’

  Waiting for his return call, she was so anxious to tap in the numbers he’d given her she fluffed a couple. Instead of cursing, she laughed at herself. She’d often done it when she was an active detective, not a pen-pusher – got so worked up and absorbed in the chase that her hands sweated and her fingers trembled. But at last she got the digits in the right order and pressed the call button.

  She was rewarded not only by a ringing tone but, before she could even cross her fingers, by a man’s voice giving his number. Yes, it was the same as the one Tom had dictated. The male half of what she presumed was the new Adams duo.

  ‘Could I speak to Mrs Adams?’

  ‘Who is it, please?’

  Caution, but not a negative: a good sign. She gave her details and explained what it was in connection with. When he didn’t reply immediately, she held her breath, just as if she were a child waiting to see which way the Christmas turkey wishbone would break.

  ‘She’ll be back in about ten minutes,’ he conceded, without apparent enthusiasm. ‘But she told your colleagues all she knew, which wasn’t, I suppose, all that much and to be honest, they weren’t terribly interested.’

  ‘I know they weren’t. But I suspect they might have been mistaken. I can’t tell, however, till I talk to your wife.’

  ‘What did you say your name was? Your rank, rather?’

  She repeated what she’d said before, to be rewarded by a low whistle, not loud enough to hurt the ears.

  ‘They are bringing out the big guns, aren’t they?’

  ‘I like to keep my hand in,’ she said evenly. ‘Now, will she be in for the rest of the day? Because, if it isn’t inconvenient, I really should like to talk to her. Face to face,’ she added firmly.

  Nigel and Sheila Adams, in their detached modern house, exemplified the very middle of middle England. The Guardian lay on the coffee table next to the catalogue of the latest Royal Academy exhibition. In the kitchen was a range of Fair Trade coffees and teas, while there were his and hers Audis parked side by side on the wide drive. They’d welcomed her politely when she arrived at about five-thirty and ensured she was given tea and homemade biscuits and pointed to the loo. He withdrew into a far corner of the room with the crossword, as if making the point that he was not there to interfere but would leap to his wife’s protection if necessary.

  Fran found it rather touching. She could imagine – and to her chagrin she blushed – Mark doing exactly the same.

  ‘You’re reopening the Elise case?’ Sheila Adams prompted her.

  ‘Yes. As I told your husband, there are very good reasons.’ She paused. The two exchanged a swift and tender smile before he returned to his paper and a thesaurus.

  ‘Which are?’ Sheila asked coolly.

  ‘The medics want permission to let her die.’

  ‘The best thing they could do, surely.’ After a moment, she added, ‘But it would mean that you people would be looking for a murderer, rather than letting the hunt for a rapist go tepid, if not cold.’

  ‘Exactly. Which is why they’ve asked me to cast a fresh pair of eyes over the evidence. Yours struck me as interesting.’

  ‘Your colleagues clearly thought I’d lost it in a cloud of middle-aged confusion,’ Sheila Adams smiled. ‘But even oldies keep their eyesight. Some of it.’

  ‘And what did you see? Exactly?’

  ‘What I said in my statement.’ There was a hint of challenge, as if she suspected Fran of not doing her homework.

  ‘Your statement will have been filtered by whoever wrote it down, adding as he went his own interpretation, not to mention grammatical slips and spelling errors. What I’d like is you to tell it all over again in your own words.’

  Mrs Adams flung out her hands in a gesture of exasperated surrender. ‘I was proceeding in an easterly direction – no? OK. I was driving from Hastings to Hythe, on the A259. Do you know the road? For an A road it’s a disgrace, all bends and adverse cambers and straight stretches which are a positive invitation to put your foot down but end in blind right-angle bends. A horror of a road.’

  Fran nodded in agreement and encouragement.

  ‘If you get stuck behind a lorry, you resign yourself to staying behind it forever. It’s so bad that occasionally I used to go via Tenterden and Ashford, but that road’s not a lot better and it’s a lot further round. One particular evening, soon after the clocks went forward, so it was already dark when I left school—’

  ‘You were a teacher?’

  ‘The Head of a failing school, jetted in to sort it out. I didn’t. It involved long hell-filled hours and an infinite desire to get home as quickly as I could. So when I saw this brand new Lotus in front of me, my heart leapt.’

  ‘Brand new?’

  ‘Well, it had those double letter prefixes to the registration number, and it was showroom clean.’

  ‘Brand new indeed. Sorry.’

  ‘No problem. Now, where was I? You’ve induced a senior moment, Chief Superintendent. Yes, I thought it would rocket along, and I could use its tail and brake lights to guide me. But it was far worse than any lorry. Crawl? It was more of a stagger. All over the road, not dipping lights until too late, breaking sharply. A nightmare. Some drunken lout chatting into his mobile, I thought. And then, just before the Brenzett island, she pulled over and parked. Yes, it was a woman. Not on the phone. She looked scared stiff. As terrified as I would if asked to ride a bucking bronco.’

  ‘Age?’ Fran hoped she sounded cool; she didn’t feel it.

  ‘Late fifties. Blonde hair. And naked fear all over her face. The funny thing is, I’d always secretly fancied a car like that – you know, testosterone on wheels. This one wasn’t red, though, which is what I’d have had, but a nice cheerful yellow. A yellow Lotus: imagine that.’ She sighed with imagined pleasure.

  Over in his corner, her husband snorted quietly. ‘Imagine getting in and out with your back.’

  ‘And yours!’ Sheila retorted.

  ‘I suppose you wouldn’t remember which model?’ But Fran knew the answer before she heard it.

  ‘Yes. An Elise.’

  She hadn’t punched the air or offered anyone a high five, but Fran must have given away her delight. So much so that she found a bottle of sherry waved before her nose and the offer of supper hanging in the air.

  ‘Go on,’ Sheila urged. ‘You’ve got a long drive back. You shouldn’t risk it on an empty stomach. And we’ve got plenty. I a
lways cater for an army. And then Nigel drifts along and cooks a bit more, only better. So long as you like curry, that is? But we’re both trying to lose weight so there won’t be a sweet, just fruit.’

  Fran couldn’t imagine anything better, and said so. ‘But there’s a protocol about fraternising with witnesses in a possible murder case and I can’t do what I wouldn’t tolerate in one of my team, can I?’

  ‘As a Head I used to do things I wouldn’t let a junior teacher do, but I suppose that wasn’t a matter of life and death. I do understand. When the case is over, perhaps.’

  ‘Yes, please – I’d really like that.’ Fran meant it: apart from instantly liking the pair of them, it was good to network, and Sheila was just the sort of woman she’d like to involve on working parties to reduce teenage crime. She said so. ‘Unless you’re officially retired?’

  ‘Work’s fine so long as it doesn’t get in the way of pleasure,’ Sheila declared. ‘All my life I’ve been beholden to other people. My parents, my teachers, at university. And just when you think you’re in charge in the classroom, you realise you’re at the very bottom of the pile. I suppose it wasn’t so bad when I started, but as government got more and more interventionist – and there are good reasons why they had to, I suppose—’

  ‘Best practice,’ Fran nodded.

  ‘Quite. Assuming, of course, that best practice is something the government knows about. Like this latest idea of taking the teachers out of the classroom – which is where they want to be, for God’s sake – and letting them mark and prepare while someone else teaches! I daresay it’s the same in the police: which is why I find it strange that someone of your rank should be talking to a lowly witness. You should be behind a big desk pushing bits of paper for the Home Secretary.’

  Fran smiled her appreciation of the irony. It was tempting to share all her problems: this was a woman with whom she could have shared life stories over a glass of wine. But the motorway called. As she gathered herself together, she asked, ‘What pleasure are you pursuing? I’d hate to interrupt anything vital with a murder trial.’

  ‘Any pleasure I fancy.’ She shot a sideways glance at her husband that spoke of love and companionship and fun. ‘When you’re young, Fran – it is OK to call you that? – when you’re young, falling in love is as common as breathing. You do it all the time, as often as you can. When you’re – let’s call it mature! – it’s not like that. You feel it’s such a rare, precious experience, you mustn’t waste a moment.’ Fran nodded: she’d had much the same sentiments. ‘So far we’ve watched whales – yes, we watched Wales, too, at the Millennium Stadium! – and swum with dolphins and played tennis as the sun rose over Madeira and flown down the Grand Canyon and drunk champagne at private views and promenaded at the Albert Hall. And that’s just this year, since we got married. Nigel works from home – he’s an accountant, though you wouldn’t think it to look at him, would you? And I do exam marking in a vain effort to maintain A Level standards. But we just want to be together.’

  ‘Children? Parents?’ Fran prompted.

  ‘Children, his and hers, are blessedly in Australia and America respectively, so they don’t pester and his will provide us with accommodation during the next Ashes tour. Parents. There’s the rub. His were in Plymouth, mine in Liverpool. It was OK while there were two of each, if you see what I mean.’

  Fran nodded. ‘They sort of hold each other up, don’t they?’ She put her fingertips together, the palms still apart.

  ‘Yes, just like a house of cards!’

  Even the same image!

  ‘But when Dad died, and Mum-in-Law got Alzheimer’s things got tricky. So we took the bull by the horns and moved them into homes. No, not where they were – what would be the point of that? Here in the Midlands.’

  ‘All together?’ Fran risked.

  ‘If only. No, they have quite different needs. Mum’s pretty spry, considering, and she likes to potter in the retirement home’s garden. Father-in-Law likes to think he’s still looking after Mother-in-Law, but he’s losing his sight, so they’re in a home with far more care. But we can visit both easily. Problem solved.’ She dusted off her hands with finality.

  ‘You never thought of looking after them yourselves?’ Fran hoped she didn’t sound shocked.

  Sheila gave her a look that reduced her to the ranks. ‘For a start, which ones? Nigel down in Devon, me up there? And when would Nigel and I have got together? Weekends of passion at a motel on the M5, parents’ health permitting? And, our lives apart, we wanted the best care for them. Which would not have been administered by a pair of star-crossed middle-aged lovers with backs too bad to lift anything heavier than a gin glass. Fran, being a dutiful child involves getting the best, not being the most self-indulgent.’

  ‘But what if they want just you? My parents – they live in Devon too, as it happens – don’t want to give up their home and their independence: they just want me!’ Fran stopped short, aware she was giving away far more then she wanted.

  ‘Mum always used to tell me, “I want doesn’t get.” That applies to anyone, whatever their age.’ Before Fran’s eyes Sheila metamorphosed into a headmistress, every inch of her. Whether it was her schooldays’ conditioning, or a painful awareness that she had no right to be arguing or, worst of all, a deep fear that Sheila could be right, she dropped her eyes and said nothing. It was either that or explode.

  A glance at her watch and a sniff at the kitchen told her it was time to bow herself briskly out. As they all shook hands, wishing out loud that they’d met in other circumstances, Fran applied herself to the problem of getting home.

  Bone-tired, she nevertheless managed to prise herself out of bed and get into the car park at work for eight-fourteen prompt. Mark was already there, working in his car, just as if he were waiting for her. He’d said nothing about seeing her before their trip on Friday. Indeed, he’d implied that he might have problems with it, but nothing, he’d assured her, that was insuperable. Did this mean he’d come in early to break it to her that the weekend was off? She could feel her lip wobbling. What on earth was wrong with her? She waited till she’d assembled her most competent face.

  But no matter how bright her smile, something must have betrayed her. His eyes narrowed as he studied her face. ‘Another summons to Devon?’ She couldn’t work out which voice he used – his senior officer or friend concerned to the point of anger.

  ‘Other end of the country. OK, I exaggerate. Warwickshire. A witness in the Elise case.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, woman, when I asked you to take that on, I didn’t want you haring round the countryside even more that you were doing already. Couldn’t you have sent one of your team?’

  ‘I wanted the pleasure of unearthing a vital piece of evidence myself,’ she said coldly. But her lip trembled again.

  He hooked an arm round her shoulders. ‘A cup of tea in my room before you even think about breakfast,’ he said.

  Lest this public kindness reduce her to more unwonted and inexplicable lapses into emotion, she asked in her crispest voice, ‘How come you’re back today? I thought you were supposed to be incarcerated until late tomorrow.’

  ‘We had a mass rebellion. All terribly polite, of course. We said that if they wanted crime to be fought, we should go back to fight it and let the civil servants write the report.’

  ‘That’s risky – leaving it in that sort of hands.’

  ‘We thought about that too – come on, Fran, between us we’ve spent hundreds of years outwitting people most of whom were a great deal more cunning that your average ex-public school civil servant. They’re going to write the report. We’re going to edit it. And then get them to rewrite it, in line with our modifications. How’s about that?’

  ‘As devious and nasty as I should have expected of you. Well done.’ They’d reached the door. As they swiped their security cards, she turned to him. ‘If I’m due for a bollocking, it couldn’t be after some breakfast, could it?’

  He
stepped back, letting the door close in front of them. ‘Bollocking? Who said anything about a bollocking? I just didn’t want you sitting in the canteen with tears dripping into your porridge! Though the Scots do say it should be salt, not sugar, don’t they?’ His words might have sounded bracing but his tone wasn’t. It was kind to the point of tender. ‘So tell me about this witness.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘You’ll never guess who I saw when I was out in Maidstone this morning. Oh, I’d been researching something in the Springfield reference library. No, nothing important. At least nothing relevant to this conversation.

  ‘Anyway, I saw none other than the great detective. I’d been using the reference library, some books I couldn’t get hold of in the university library. Then I slipped into the big Sainsbury’s for a few things. And who should be at the cheese counter but Detective Chief Superintendent Frances Harman. All tarted up, too – I hardly recognised her. And she tarts up well, I tell you. The good policewoman was so transformed I hardly recognised her: hair fashionably and indeed boyishly short, coloured by someone who really knows how to do it, and nicely made-up too. Entirely luscious. I asked her, “Are you off for an interview somewhere?” “Indeed I am, Dr Pitt. Only as you can imagine, it’s I who will be doing the interviewing.” And she turns on her heel and off she goes. I think I’d better wait a bit before I ask her out, don’t you? Till she forgets I’ve caught her on the skive. But I shan’t give up – goodness me no. If I can get hold of a couple of tickets for the Brodsky Quartet – believe me, they’re like gold dust – I shall certainly invite her. As luck would have it – and believe me, it was entirely coincidental – we fetched up in the same check-out queue. The one for hand baskets only: in her case, cheese and a coffee maker, a couple of mugs, coffee and milk. Some basketful. Some idiot woman had contrived to ignore the sign and unloaded enough to feed a family for a fortnight. For some reason the checkout girl was in tears. Anyway, we naturally fell into conversation again. It seems she’s off to Devon this weekend. She says she’s going to see her housebound parents, but I’d like to know what woman makes that sort of effort for her Aged Ps. Takes time off work to make it, too. Though she explained, rather hurriedly, in case I think the entire Kent Constabulary takes time off for beauty therapy, that she’s taken time off in lieu. T-O-I-L Toil, they call it, just as we do, because of the effort involved in getting it. If you’re the boss, I should imagine taking it is a damned sight easier. Or would it make it ten times harder? She strikes me as the sort of woman who’d ask – demand! – more of herself than of anyone else. Driven. I wonder what by. Who by. Whatever it is, she’s a single and a no doubt single-minded woman: you don’t get where she is without a great deal of effort and a great deal of treading on other people’s toes. I can see I shall have to think hard about this. But I’ll still give a Brodsky concert a try. Now, I simply must fly. Unlike Frances, I’ve got work to do. I’ll see you soon. And Elise, for God’s sake make some effort. Please, please make some effort.’