The Darkness Around Her
Page 35
Someone grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
Dan shrugged it off, his anger boiling over. There were shouts from the public gallery, women screaming. Someone was banging on the glass dock.
He was pulled back again. ‘Leave it, Dan. Don’t make it bad for yourself.’ The smell of cigarettes and the huskiness to her voice told him that it was Murdoch.
He turned to her.
‘You did well, Dan. The police will be there soon. You did well.’
Dan looked down at Sean Martin, who had his face turned towards the floor, sobs escaping.
It was over.
Dan sagged onto the bench seat just in front of the dock. He put his head in his hands and sucked deep breaths in.
He looked back. Peter was smiling.
‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘You got him. Thank you.’
Sixty-eight
Dan and Jayne were silent as they looked out of his car windscreen at the view ahead.
They were parked opposite the cemetery. It was two weeks after Pat’s body had been discovered. The mourners were rolling into the car park, mostly high-end cars as the local legal community turned out in full for Pat Molloy.
‘I’m not very good at funerals,’ Dan said.
‘Is anyone?’
‘I’m supposed to be the strong one, the man who never shows emotion, but when I see Pat’s casket, I imagine him inside, gone. How can that be so? Before the cancer, he had so much life, so much colour, and that’s it. Just a shell in a box.’
‘Do they know yet which one of them killed him?’
‘We know it wasn’t Sean because he’s got an alibi, so it must have been Trudy. Pat’s car was clocked on a speed camera heading towards the station where it was dumped. She must have driven it to the railway station, left it, and walked back to the cottage. It’s probably an hour’s walk from the station along the towpath, and of course it’s quiet and dark, so it kept her out of sight.’
‘And the other bodies they found?’
‘That investigation will drag on for a while yet, but Murdoch knows what she’s doing.’
‘Does it bother you that Trudy’s got a lawyer?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You were close to Pat and now someone is going to try to clear Trudy and Sean, pull all the tricks you tried to pull to keep them out of prison. Does it feel different when you see this side of it?’
‘A little, but that’s the system. I’ll keep away from the trial, except for the parts where I’m needed to give evidence. My own way of coping.’
‘What drove them, do you think?’
‘Each other. As simple as that. They were a volatile mix. Sean started it, I’m sure of that, but he’ll have tested her willingness first. Most women would have told him no, but Trudy? She craved the excitement, and once they’d killed one person and got away with it, they realised it was such a high. That’s what they were doing, chasing that high, like addicts.’
‘Peter tried to do the right thing, break them up to stop the killings.’
‘But, like addicts, they were trapped too. They couldn’t leave each other, because they knew each other’s secrets. It wasn’t love. It was mistrust. Staying together kept the secrets together. Let’s not make Peter out to be the hero though. He killed Lizzie. He deserves to be in prison too.’ He looked at Jayne. ‘One thing does hurt me though, above all.’
‘Bill?’
‘Of course, Bill. I feel responsible in some way, and I’m angry that they’ll always be remembered while Bill will just be another of their victims. They’ll have their infamy, but Bill will just be a footnote.’
Jayne clenched her jaw. ‘I prefer to think of Trudy and Sean hating every day they’re kept apart, locked up and always waiting for an attack. I’ve spent time locked up, remember, and it’s the boredom that gets to you, and the lack of status. There’ll be some old lag wanting the notoriety of slashing them or killing them. Let them suffer every single day, waiting for that, because I saw what they did. I saw Bill die.’
Dan nodded. ‘Yeah, I think you’re right.’ He leaned forward to wipe away the steam made by their coffees, from the inside of the windscreen.
‘I’ve relived every second of it since that day, over and over, always wondering if I could have saved him.’ Jayne stared straight ahead as she said it.
‘You can’t change what was done, and you tried to do what was right. Me too. Bill was a good man.’ He looked over at Jayne. ‘How are you, though? You saw stuff you shouldn’t have seen.’
‘The shock hasn’t hit me yet. It will, and I’ll have to deal with it when it comes.’
‘Just don’t do it alone.’ When Jayne looked surprised, he said, ‘We need each other.’
She nodded. ‘We do.’ He was about to speak again but she put her finger to his lips. ‘Don’t say it. Answer me this instead. I’m not imagining it, am I? It’s not just me thinking of you because of what you did for me as my lawyer? There’s something here, right?’
He kissed her hand. ‘More than you know.’ He sighed. ‘But, it’s complicated.’
‘I know. It doesn’t make it any easier though. Just be gentle with me if you meet someone else.’
‘That’s the part I’m not very good at, meeting someone else.’
‘You might do better once I’m gone.’
‘You’re definitely leaving then?’
‘What is there for me in Highford? It’s different for you, because you’ve got an office and a proper business, even a father. But what have I got?’
‘It doesn’t feel like I’ve got much. I’m my own boss, I suppose, but I don’t know what else I could do. I’ve done criminal law for so long and it’s what I’ve always wanted. Police stations and courtrooms, they’re my theatre.’ He turned to her. ‘You don’t have to go.’
Jayne sighed. ‘What else can I do?’
He closed his eyes for a moment. He wanted to say that he needed her to stay, but he knew it would be unfair. She had her own life to carve out.
‘Work for me,’ he blurted out.
She laughed. ‘I’d love to, but I can’t get by on serving court papers, you know that.’
‘Be my investigator full time. I need a clerk. I can’t do it all on my own, and you’d be good at it. You’ve got the eye for a fight. And if I’m going to make a go of it on my own, I need someone with me I can trust.’
‘And that’s a former client who drinks too much, sleeps around, and lives in an apartment surrounded by drug users?’
‘You’ll bring a certain earthy quality.’
Jayne gave him a playful punch on the arm but turned to stare out of the window as she thought about it. ‘It’ll mean staying around here though.’
‘Is it that bad?’
‘It’s not the town. It’s me. I need to strike out on my own, and Highford is holding me back.’
‘We’d make a good team.’
‘I know, but I’ve made up my mind. I’m sorry, I’m leaving Highford.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow, perhaps. Why not? I don’t have much stuff to pack.’
Dan looked out of his window as he choked up. ‘I’ll miss you.’
Jayne smiled, and as he turned towards her, he saw that her eyes were filled with tears. ‘Yeah, me too.’
Their discussion was broken by the arrival of the hearse. Eileen and her children in the car behind it.
Dan let out a long breath. He gripped Jayne’s hand. ‘For today, let’s remember Pat.’
She wiped her eyes, nodded and stepped out of the car.
Her arm was hooked into his as they crossed the road, until they were lost in the crowd at the cemetery gates.
Acknowledgements
The Darkness Around Her is my eleventh crime novel but that doesn’t mean the process gets any easier. As always, there are late nights and long days, and those around me suffer through the long hours of solitude. For their patience, I am grateful to my wife and children.
Although it is a solitary pursuit in some respects, in many others it is a team effort, and I am grateful for the advice and assistance of my editor Katherine Armstrong, and of course Keshini and Lindsey at Hera Books. My fabulous agent, Sonia Land from Sheil Land Associates, deserves a special mention, whose advice and support now and through the years has been invaluable.
Last, but not least, I thank you all for reading this book, and hopefully my others. Without readers, writing would be pointless, and you make it all worthwhile.
About the Author
Neil White was born and brought up around West Yorkshire. He left school at sixteen but returned to education in his twenties, when he studied for a law degree. He started writing in 1994, and is now a criminal lawyer by day, crime fiction writer by night. He lives in the north of England with his wife and three children.
Also by Neil White
Fallen Idols
Lost Souls
Last Rites
Dead Silent
Cold Kill
Beyond Evil
Next to Die
The Death Collector
The Domino Killer
Lost in Nashville
From the Shadows
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Zaffre Publishing
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by
Hera Books
28b Cricketfield Road
London, E5 8NS
United Kingdom
Copyright © Neil White, 2018
The moral right of Neil White to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781912973040
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.