Guilty

by Jane Bidder

  ‘Actually, I agreed.’

  ‘Rather you than me. The poor man is almost unhinged apparently.’

  ‘Poor man?’ This was too much. ‘If he hadn’t grabbed the wheel, Simon wouldn’t have crashed.’

  ‘That theory was dismissed in court, I believe.’ Rosemarie’s voice cut through any possibility of a reunion. ‘But it was proved that your husband picked up his mobile which in turn caused Joanna’s death. No wonder Hugh is at the end of his tether. Goodbye, Claire. I think it’s best if we don’t speak again for a while.’

  The conversation still rang round Claire’s head as she waited for Hugh. If it had been Rosemarie in her situation, she would have rallied round. Even Alex hadn’t been in touch for ages. And now, out of pity and obligation, she had agreed to meet a man whom, according to her old friend, was verging on the edge of insanity. Claire’s fingers closed around her mobile in her pocket. If he tried to hurt her, she’d call the police.

  ‘Claire.’

  She’d been so lost in her thoughts, leaning against the wall like that, that she’d failed to notice him looming up.

  ‘Thanks for coming.’ If it wasn’t for his distinctive deep voice, she might not have recognised him. He’d shrunk since The Accident and his large frame was now half the width it used to be as well as hunched slightly. His face looked gaunt and his eyes empty. ‘I appreciate it. There’s a tea room I know here, across the green. Shall we go there?’

  She nodded, not sure what to say. The waitress seemed to know Hugh and led them both to a table by the window. Outside, yellow leaves blew across the green and a woman was struggling to do up her coat in the wind that had set in. ‘Joanna and I used to come here every Friday,’ he said, passing her a menu. ‘She used to like looking out of the window just like you are doing now.’

  Claire swallowed. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He inclined his head. ‘You might be wondering why I’ve asked you here.’

  Again she was unable to speak.

  ‘Joanna and I had a very passionate relationship.’ He stopped as the waitress arrived to take their latte orders and then continued when she had gone. ‘But we also had our ups and our downs.’

  Gratefully, she found her voice. ‘That’s quite normal in a marriage.’

  Hugh’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Is it? My first marriage was extremely calm; almost boring, one might say.’

  Maybe that’s why it broke up, she wanted to say.

  ‘That night,’ Hugh continued, looking out at the cathedral which loomed up at them despite its distance on the other side of the green, ‘we had had a disagreement.’

  Claire held her breath. Was Hugh going to admit that he had indeed grabbed the steering wheel? If so, maybe Simon could appeal! Maybe …

  ‘And that’s why I feel so guilty now.’

  Yes! Yes!

  ‘Is that why you grabbed the steering wheel?’

  Instantly his face turned thunderous. ‘I did no such thing. In court, I swore on the Bible. Do you think I would lie?’

  The table next to them turned round at his raised voice. It was like being with a completely different man from a few minutes ago. ‘No. No. Of course I don’t,’ said Claire, forcing her voice to sound soothing. She needed to get the truth out of him; if she wasn’t careful, he might just walk out. ‘I just don’t understand why you feel guilty.’

  His eyes hardened. ‘It’s because we never made up after the argument. Don’t you see? And now it’s too late.’

  ‘Would it help you to tell me what the disagreement was about?’ she asked gently.

  Hugh looked as though he was going to say something but then stopped. ‘I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair.’

  She nodded, biting back the disappointment. The ‘disagreement’ might have been new evidence to show that Hugh’s mind could have been disturbed that night.

  ‘I also asked you here for two more reasons.’ His hand reached out and brushed her arm as though they were old friends. ‘I gather that you have had to move house.’

  She nodded tightly. ‘Bricks were thrown through our windows. We weren’t safe.’

  ‘It wasn’t me. I wanted you to know that.’

  ‘Then who was it?’ She heard her voice turning harsh.

  Hugh shrugged. ‘Someone in the village? Joanna was very popular, you know.’ His eyes grew dreamy. ‘Always laughing with that distinctive tinkle of hers. She was brilliant with Poppy, you know. When my daughter wanted to move down here after yet another row with her mother, Joanna didn’t hesitate in welcoming her.’

  Claire swallowed another mouthful of latte. It seemed all she could do in the circumstances apart from nodding inanely. ‘What I really wanted to know,’ added Hugh, ‘was whether you and your son are all right.’

  She hadn’t expected this. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I believe you no longer have any income coming in.’

  ‘That was true but now I have found a job; teaching art at a local school.’

  ‘Good for you. But where are you living?’

  ‘In rented rooms. Not far from here.’

  ‘You don’t want to tell me where.’

  She hesitated. ‘Please don’t take this the wrong way but we are having to keep it quiet. The bricks, you know …’

  Her voice tailed off with embarrassment. ‘Please.’ His hand touched hers again. ‘I’m not offended. I do understand. But there is something else I need to talk to you about.’

  She’d wondered what the second reason was. ‘Your son. Ben. He is at school with my daughter Poppy.’

  ‘Yes.’ Had he forgotten how they had talked about that on the evening of The Accident?

  ‘Did you know that they are seeing each other?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s giving her guitar lessons apparently, in the park after school.’

  So that explained what he was doing! And to think she was worried that he was hanging out with a bad crowd.

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘No.’ His voice rose again to the thunder of before and again, the table looked round in alarm. ‘It’s not. I am not having my daughter seeing the stepson of a murderer. Do you hear?’

  Someone at the table scraped their chair back as though to leave. The young waitress was already scurrying across the floor towards them. Claire stood up, her cheeks burning. ‘I’m leaving now, Hugh, but I am going to say one thing first. My husband Simon is the kindest, most generous, loyal man I know. He made a mistake. A terrible mistake. And now he is paying for it. But if you ever try to hurt or harass my son or me again, I will report you to the police. Do you hear?’

  She was still shaking when she got back to Mrs Johnson’s house. No one was in and for a minute she almost wished that her landlady would bustle out of the kitchen, proffering coffee and homemade Victoria sponge to divert her from the sight of Hugh, shouting at her across the table of the tea shop, that vein standing out on his forehead.

  Then she saw the note.

  Gone for walk on the front with Slasher.

  It was in Ben’s handwriting. The front! Sea air was just what she needed right now to blow the morning out of her head. Going back out of the door again, she headed down towards the esplanade. When Simon had been at home, they had often said they would spend more time at the coast but somehow they never had.

  As she marched purposefully past the shops with their clotted cream adverts and the ice cream parlours which were getting ready to close for the winter, she wished they had. There was truly something magical about living by the sea with the sound of the seagulls screeching with laughter overhead. Now it was October – in fact, nearly November – dogs were allowed back on the beach again and she could see, in the distance, a tall boy throwing a red ball for a black–and-white dog. Ben and Slasher! Behind them an older woman was trying to keep up. Mrs Johnson! Claire felt a sense of being left out and walked even faster down the concrete slope to the beach by the lifeboat station.

  ‘Isn’t this fun!’ Her landlady’
s eyes gleamed with excitement. ‘I’d forgotten how wonderful it is to walk a dog on the beach. Pity he won’t respond to his new name – Sher is so much friendlier isn’t it? – But there you are.’

  ‘Look, Mum! He’s a brilliant catch. A real natural!’

  Claire watched as her son sent the ball high in the air while Slasher, his eyes never leaving it for a moment, raced along the stones to catch it in his mouth.

  ‘Won’t that hurt his teeth?’

  Mrs Johnson shook her head excitedly. ‘Not if it’s soft rubber like that one. I hope you don’t mind but I bought it as a little present for them.’

  Claire’s eyes stung either from the salt or her words. ‘You’re very kind.’

  Mrs Johnson took her arm. ‘No dear. It’s you who are kind to share your lives with a lonely old woman.’

  Claire watched Ben throw the ball again. For the first time that she could remember since The Accident, he seemed happy and if his guitar sessions with Poppy helped, that was all the better. There was no way she was going to tell him not to see Poppy again. Hugh had no right to say that.

  The routine of going to work was definitely helping, Claire realised. How she loved teaching! ‘Mrs Mills, Mrs Mills,’ called out one of her children from Class 4. ‘Can you show me how to make lime green again?’

  It made her feel useful and also gave her a thrill when she spotted potential talent in a small child. Jasper, who worked steadily and quietly in the corner, had an astonishing gift for sketching outlines which went far beyond his years.

  To her surprise, Claire found she enjoyed the company of the other staff. They usually brought sandwiches to the staff room at lunchtime and after a few awkward questions about her marital status, she managed to convey the idea that she was amicably separated from her husband. So when she mentioned without thinking that she was visiting him in a week’s time, and someone said, ‘You’re still on good terms then?’ She had been able to nod before deftly changing the subject.

  The invitations to join their various social events had petered out now she had refused them so many times. Ironically, Simon was hurt because she ‘didn’t visit enough’.

  ‘Ben’s made friends with some boys from a local band. I don’t want to leave him too long.’

  ‘But you’re still coming next week?’

  ‘Yes. Charlie’s having him.’

  There was a pause. ‘I see. So he knows about me being Inside.’

  ‘I had to tell him.’ She felt her skin getting hot. ‘He heard through Ben and wanted to know if there was anything he could do.’

  ‘Very nice of him.’

  This was ridiculous! Simon had had goodness knows how many girlfriends whereas she’d just had the one long marriage. There was no reason for him to be jealous.

  ‘He’s only trying to help out. I’m going to drop Ben off on the way.’

  ‘So you’ll see him then.’

  ‘Only for a few minutes.’

  There was the sound of someone shouting in the background. ‘I’ve got to go.’ Simon sounded fed-up. ‘Someone’s set the fire alarm off again and we’ve got an emergency roll-call. I’ll try and ring you tomorrow.’

  The phone went dead, leaving her standing there and looking at the receiver. His tone implied that setting the fire alarm off was not a one-off occurrence. And the roll-call bit made him sound as though he was in the army.

  Me! Me! Me! He hadn’t once asked how work was going or how she was managing in two rooms. As for Hugh, she’d tell him about that when she visited.

  Your stepdad’s a murderer!

  Ben stared at the note in his locker before tearing it into pieces. It wasn’t the first. Ever since the beginning of term, there had been the looks and not just from the other pupils but from the staff too.

  ‘Another note?’ Poppy was at his side.

  He nodded.

  ‘You did right to rip it up.’ She started to walk with him towards the canteen just as she had done every day since returning to school. ‘It’s not fair.’

  If it hadn’t been for her support, Ben didn’t know how he would have managed and clearly it surprised some of the others. ‘Isn’t your girlfriend the daughter of that woman your stepdad killed?’ someone had asked.

  Ben steeled himself. ‘She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my friend. She wasn’t the daughter. She was the stepdaughter. And my stepfather didn’t kill her stepmother. It was an accident.’

  Since then it had got a bit easier although he still hated it here. He couldn’t wait for school to finish so he could get back to Mrs Johnson’s and fool around with Slasher before seeing Dan and some of the others. They didn’t ask questions. They just wanted him to play in the band and hang out on the beach and other stuff. Ben still felt a bit worried about the ‘other stuff’. He had told Mum he would stay at Dad’s for the weekend when she visited Simon.

  Ben only hoped no one would find out.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  ‘ʼSnot good, man.’ Spencer was sitting on the edge of his narrow bed and its thin regulation blanket, shaking his head which he’d shaved last week with a Bic razor from Canteen. It made him look older and harder.

  ‘ʼSnot good, man,’ he repeated. ‘That Rory’s bad news. You should have heard him out. Know what I mean?’

  Rory didn’t seem like the kind of name you’d automatically associate with a child molester. But he’d learned in this place that personal attributes like names or ages, or even the way someone looked, didn’t always fit the crime. There was a rosy-cheeked man in G block who looked for all the world like an average next-door neighbour. Turned out he’d been found guilty of arson. A child had died as a result.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ he kept telling anyone who would listen. It was hard to know if he was telling the truth.

  Meanwhile, Rory was due to be released next year after twenty years. Frankly, Simon had always thought that ‘Life’ should mean ‘Life’. Now he felt even more sure of it as he sat on the edge of his own bed, while Spencer went on telling him why he should have let the ‘geezer’ talk to him at Listeners. ‘He’s going to really take it out on you. Believe me, man.’

  ‘But I couldn’t just sit there while he told me …’ Simon’s voice faltered. ‘Told me what he had done.’

  ‘Get real, man.’ Spencer was thumping his own thighs in frustration. ‘This is a prison you’re in, not the Hilton. Most geezers are here ʼcos they did what they’re accused of, even if they say they didn’t. ‘’Sides, you killed someone didn’t you? Rory didn’t murder that kid, he …’

  ‘Stop it!’ shrieked Joanna. ‘I don’t want to hear.’

  ‘Leave it, Spencer,’ said Simon sharply, putting on an Eagles CD. One of the few pleasures he had since getting here was the arrival of a music system which Claire had sent in. Each of their personal items was counted during regular cell checks to make sure they didn’t have more than the rules permitted. Spencer had a small tinny radio that crackled with Radio 1. They had agreed to take it in turns.

  ‘Shit, man. You’re not playing that stuff again, are you?’

  ‘It’s my turn,’ said Simon rather petulantly.

  ‘Well don’t be long or you’ll be late for fart.’

  Simon looked up from the cover of Hotel California. He had bought it during the seventies with a girlfriend whose name he could no longer remember, although strangely he could remember the record shop in Oxford Street very clearly. ‘Fart?’ he repeated.

  Spencer grinned, displaying those perfect white teeth. ‘It’s what the boys call ‘art’. That woman what runs it, she’s hot, isn’t she?’

  It was at times like this when Simon wondered what made him hang around with a boy whose morals and background were so violently different from his own. ‘Don’t be disrespectful.’

  Respect, Simon had learned was a big word in prison. Men would kill if they felt they weren’t getting the respect that they or their loved ones deserved. He was beginning to understand why.

  ‘Disres
pectful?’ Spencer’s teeth broke into an even bigger grin. ‘Wow, man. Got it bad, haven’t you? No hanky-panky with the staff or could get into big trouble. One of the officers went off with a geezer from A hut when he got out. Living together now, they are, with a kid of their own. ’Course she don’t work for the prison no more. Wouldn’t be allowed, I don’t think.’

  He had no intention of ‘going off’ with Caroline-Jane. She’d just struck a bit of a nerve, that’s all; mainly because of her similarity to Claire.

  ‘Have a good time at fart!’ called out Spencer as he left. He could hear the boy chuckling at a joke which was already beginning to wear thin.

  ‘Better to laugh,’ tinkled Joanna, ‘ than sink into abject depression. To be honest, Simon, I’ve been a bit worried about you. I mean I know you’re responsible for my situation but you’re a good man at heart and I don’t really want you going under. You need to chill out a bit. The art’s a great idea if you ask me. Whoops! Have you seen who’s walking towards you? ’

  Simon’s heart began to thud as Rory strode towards him. It was a cold morning but his huge arms, and their flabby bingo wings, were bare. ‘You weren’t there last night,’ he said, coming up close.

  Simon stepped backwards. ‘You didn’t book an appointment.’

  ‘I need to talk, you know.’ His small black beady eyes glistened. ‘You can’t turn me away just ʼcos of what I’ve done.’ He stepped even closer. ‘When’s the next time you’re there?’

  ‘I don’t know. I need to ask the others.’

  There was only one other Listener and he’d been in hospital having his gall stones removed but Rory wasn’t to know that. With luck he’d be back soon and then Simon could explain the situation.

  ‘Well, you’d better sort it or I’ll go to the IMB.’

  The IMB, Simon had learned, was the Independent Monitoring Board. It was a government body, made up of local volunteers to check that everything was being done as it should be in prison. If, for instance, the heating system was playing up again and wasn’t fixed within the statutory time allowed, someone might ask for a visit by someone on the IMB. More often, however, they were asked to intervene if a prisoner’s paperwork was delayed – which meant they couldn’t get a day’s leave when they were entitled to. Spencer had already warned him not to call them in too often or you got a bad reputation, man.