by Rebecca Tope
Without really thinking, he pulled his crumpled notepad out of his pocket and flipped a few pages. Yes, the number was there and his mobile was in another pocket, fully charged. He phoned the number.
A woman answered. ‘Is Drew there?’ he asked.
‘I’ll fetch him,’ she chirped, with no discernible reluctance. There was even a generosity in her voice that warmed him.
‘Hello?’ came Drew’s voice.
‘Oh, hi. Cooper here. Look, I know it’s late and this is a lot to ask, but I was wondering, would you meet me for a jar somewhere?’
‘What? Where are you?’
‘Okehampton. But if we met in Honiton or somewhere it’s only be about forty-five minutes for both of us. We’d have time for a couple of pints. It’s just …’
Drew understood. He’d heard pain in all its many guises by this time. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Do you know a likely pub?’
Cooper named a small village on the A30 which boasted a single hostelry.
Drew arrived first, shortly before ten and for a few minutes he worried that the detective had had an accident, speeding along the dual carriageway around Exeter. Then a Cavalier swept into the tiny car park and the tall man climbed out.
Aware of limited time, by mutual consent they chose a corner table close to a large fireplace and examined each other’s faces. ‘We haven’t really got to know each other through this, have we?’ Drew began. ‘But I gather you’ve made quite an impression on Maggs.’
‘She’s quite a girl,’ Cooper nodded. ‘But that isn’t what I want to talk about.’
‘No. I wouldn’t be the right person.’
‘And I haven’t come to talk about Penn Strabinski or Roma Millan, either. Except as they relate to my job, which I suppose is seeing that justice is done.’
‘Right. Funny thing, justice.’
‘Is it true that Roma was dismissed for slapping a kid in her class? She really lost her job over that?’
‘So it seems. She wouldn’t defend herself, which actually made the whole thing more protracted, oddly enough. She suffered much more than she let on, I suspect. She lost an incredible amount; not just her job.’
Cooper nodded. ‘Respect, confidence, a sense of purpose, structure …’
‘Exactly. It sounds as if you’ve been thinking about it.’
‘She slapped a brazen little bastard, probably leaving only a faint mark on his cheek and a dent in his ego for two minutes and who might in the process have learnt that there’s a limit to what you can get away with. Thirty years ago it would have been completely unremarkable, even approved of. So why do I feel like a fascist for even thinking like this?’
‘I don’t know. Why do you?’
‘Because it affects me. I’m not allowed to slap vile little buggers who have no idea how to behave, either. And that Renton man can casually push his kid off a ladder and kill her and probably would have got away with it completely if he hadn’t been crazy enough to murder his girlfriend as well.’
‘No,’ Drew protested. ‘He wouldn’t have got away with it. Didn’t you see his face last week? He’s been in agony since it happened. He’s never going to escape the image of that child with her head flopping loose, and he doesn’t even want to. He went to look at her rotting body. He insisted on doing that when you tried to stop him. You don’t have to worry too much about justice. It has a way of taking care of itself.’
Den shook his head miserably. ‘You’re not helping,’ he sighed.
‘Explain the problem, then.’
‘My job,’ said Cooper again. ‘I don’t think I can do it any more. The police aren’t really about the things I thought we were about. We all do our best, but we get so easily distracted. We get all agitated about completely the wrong things. Half the laws in this country are ludicrous, to start with. What’s the point of killing ourselves trying to enforce them when nobody really believes in them? It makes us look like idiots or worse.’
‘Bloody hell,’ breathed Drew. ‘This does sound bad.’
‘It’s bad,’ confirmed Cooper and took a long swig of his pint.
‘So what would you do instead?’
The tall man looked at him with a frown. ‘Instead?’
‘Yes. You’re telling me you want to quit the police – so what would you do instead?’
‘I can’t quit the police. I mean … is that what I said?’
‘Isn’t it?’
Den finished the drink and stared numbly at the empty glass. ‘That feels scary,’ he admitted. ‘I never considered any other kind of work.’
‘There’s plenty out there. You’re single, fit, intelligent. The world’s at your feet.’
Den laughed bitterly. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Look. I did it. I was working as a nurse and suddenly realised I couldn’t hack it any more. A bit like you, really. It just wasn’t right, somehow. So I flipped through the Situations Vacant and found an ad for an assistant at an undertakers. I was only there a year before setting up on my own. You’ve got to follow your gut feeling, otherwise why be alive at all?’
‘Precisely,’ said Den through gritted teeth.
‘Well, I can’t tell you what to do. Either you’ve got the nerve or you haven’t. But in my experience there’s nothing more scary than forcing yourself to stick at a job you don’t believe in. It deforms you in the end and diminishes you.’
‘It was all right for you; you knew what you wanted to do, what was right for you.’
‘I didn’t know until I saw that job ad. I’d never have come up with it in a vacuum. It would never even have occurred to me.’
‘So I should read the job ads?’
‘It wouldn’t hurt. Have another pint?’
‘Thanks. Maybe I’ll get done for drunk driving and have it all settled for me.’
‘Too easy, mate. It doesn’t work like that.’
An hysterical Sheena Renton visited her husband early next morning and pleaded to be allowed to stay all day. The ward staff were forced to enlist a social worker and a doctor to deal with her. When they failed to calm or distract her, they asked if there was someone they could call, someone she’d be able to stay with until things were sorted out.
‘Justine,’ she whimpered. ‘I want to see Justine.’
Justine came without argument, curious to see what was happening and very much aware that she had more than a little in common with Sheena now. They were given a small dark side room and left alone. Each woman was shocked at the appearance of the other.
‘You look terrible!’ Sheena gasped, shaken into rationality for a moment.
‘So do you.’ Justine managed a ghastly smile. ‘Death does that to people – even the ones still left alive.’
‘He did kill Penn, didn’t he?’
‘And Georgia, I’m afraid, though probably by accident. I don’t think anyone will believe his claim that Penn did it.’
‘But why leave her in that ditch for so long? Pretending he didn’t have an idea where she was?’
‘Sheena, he wasn’t thinking straight. He’s really not well, is he? He hasn’t been right since his father died. You know – well, maybe you don’t – but when somebody dies, it brings back terribly strong memories of previous deaths. It must have been like that for Philip. When Georgia fell off the ladder in that same barn where his cows were killed and his father hanged himself, he must have completely flipped. He’d have done anything to avoid going through those same feelings again. I think he threatened Penn, told her it was all her fault, that he was going to tell you it was her that did it. And then somehow she made him see that that would mean you finding out about her and him. And he really didn’t want that. That’s the secret he was most desperate to keep, from start to finish. He doesn’t want your marriage to break up. That would be the final straw.’ She spoke quickly, breathlessly, pouring out the explanation as convincingly as she could.
Sheena sobbed, breaking down without warning, wrapping her arms around her head as she
had always done when upset.
‘Listen,’ Justine pressed on urgently. ‘I could be wrong, but I think I do understand. He promised Penn all kinds of wild things: running away together, even leaving the country. She’s been hankering to live permanently in Poland for years now. And with farming the way it is, there’d have been some attraction in the idea for him, too. But I doubt very much if he’d ever have gone. Or if he did it would be in his own good time, perhaps thinking he could persuade you to go as well. Personally, I’m convinced he’d never have found the nerve.’
‘No,’ sniffed Sheena. ‘He wouldn’t. It would mean selling the farm and he’d never have done that. It’s all he’s ever known.’
‘So when Penn managed to calm him down, she must have dreamt up the idea of making it look as if I’d gone off with Georgia on a camping trip – which meant I would have to be disposed of, and your mother-in-law told of a sudden change of plan. The thing that puzzles me is why she kept saying it was for my own good when she locked me up in that awful little shack.’
‘What?’ Sheena frowned bleary bewilderment.
‘Did you never hear what happened to me? Well, it doesn’t matter now. The point is, they needed to make it look as if I’d gone off with Georgia, but it got stupidly complicated when it came to the cars. I guess they decided to dump mine somewhere it would never be found, and he was too lazy or scared to make a decent job of it.’
‘Perhaps he intended to kill you, too and make it look as if an intruder had done it,’ Sheena suggested, almost casually. ‘And Penn wanted to save you, seeing you’re her cousin and her friend.’
A cold shiver ran through Justine at the way this new idea had been presented. As if Sheena knew even without thinking about it what Philip could be capable of.
It made all too much sense. ‘So she was doing the best she could for me in the circumstances. Funny, though. Even now I don’t feel a bit grateful to her.’
‘I hate her!’ Sheena exploded. ‘She’s taken everything from me.’
‘She’s paid the price,’ Justine murmured. ‘Don’t forget that.’
‘No.’ Sheena shook her head wildly. ‘By letting him kill her, she’s won. He’ll go to prison for years and years, if he ever recovers enough. You haven’t seen how he is. He’s got worse since yesterday. Like a zombie, just staring at nothing. It’s as if he’s not there any more.’ She sobbed again, louder than before.
‘You think Penn just lay there and let him kill her?’ Justine couldn’t let the story fizzle out now. She gripped Sheena’s arm and shook her. ‘Sheena! Stop it. It’ll help to talk about it and we both need to understand.’ She swallowed a surge of tears of her own, thinking of dead children and a lost cousin. ‘Maybe we need each other, too,’ she added.
Sheena turned a desolate face towards Justine. ‘To Philip it would be just like when they killed his pigs: a needle full of poison, quick and simple. It’s exactly the way he’d choose to kill somebody. He wouldn’t even have to think about it.’
A sudden noise outside the room reminded them that they would have to rejoin the real world before long. ‘The police will never understand why he did it, will they?’ Sheena went on. ‘Unless I tell them.’
‘I think there might be someone else who knows even more than we do,’ Justine realised slowly. ‘Someone they’ll have interviewed by now.’
Sheena showed no curiosity as to who this might be. Instead she was staring hopefully at the door and when it opened, she was out of her chair, straining to hear that she could go back to her husband’s side.
‘Yes,’ the woman nodded. ‘You can have a few minutes with him. But we’ll be moving him in a little while, to a specialist unit. I’m afraid the doctors can’t do anything for him here.’
Sheena elbowed the woman out of the way, forgetting Justine completely. A second woman in police uniform was hovering outside the room and stepped aside as Sheena pushed past.
‘Well,’ said Justine, ‘this looks like my marching orders. I hope I did what she wanted.’ She watched the receding figure with some resentment.
‘Don’t take it personally, luv,’ said the policewoman.
‘No. Right. Well, I’ll be off now.’ But she only took a couple of steps before turning back. ‘So they think Philip’s going to get better?’ she asked. ‘I mean, people don’t stay like that for long, do they?’
‘Probably not, Miss,’ came the reply. ‘If you ask me, he’s better off the way he is. His future isn’t exactly rosy, after all.’
‘You don’t think he’s pretending, do you?’
‘Who can say, Miss?’
* * *
Justine had borrowed her mother’s car, and now she sped home at a reckless pace. She put a tape in the player, turned up loud to keep her awake. Suddenly sleep seemed immensely attractive, an escape from the grief and confusion on every side.
It had been nearly two weeks now since she’d been separated from her anti-depressants and for several days she hadn’t given them a thought. Life had been so strange during the time, it was almost like being on some sort of hallucinogen. But since Thursday, when Roma had found little Georgia and the uncompromising reality of the situation had forced itself through to her, she’d felt as if she was finally coming alive, after five long years. Even the scenery seemed to gain a dimension – trees were aggressively vivid as she passed them; faces revealed emotions and thoughts that she had not previously noticed. Without her drugs it was as if a film of gauze had been torn away from her senses and she was seeing things as they actually were for a change.
How would this affect her pottery, she wondered. Would her bold stark designs be too much to take now? Would she prefer small intricate shapes and patterns instead? It was an intriguing and disturbing question.
But it was also an avoidance of much more urgent questions. And as she had already said to Sheena, there was only one person who seemed likely to have some of the answers.
Laurie was in the garden, a tall glass of fruit juice by his elbow, the dog at his feet. He wore a light open-necked shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. The informality was somehow endearing, as if he was making an effort to keep up with the world. His pale legs were sparsely sprinkled with grey hairs, his feet were in blue socks and leather sandals.
‘She’s told you all about last night, I suppose?’ Justine opened the conversation, having remained quietly at his feet, playing with the dog’s long ears for a moment.
‘It sounded like something out of Girl’s Annual,’ he commented. ‘You were lucky nobody got hurt.’
‘Philip Renton killed Penn, you know. There’s no doubt about that.’
Laurie said nothing, sinking his head on his chest and fixing his gaze on Lolly.
‘You knew she was having an affair with him, didn’t you? Did you also know she was there when Georgia died? Did she tell you before or after you went to Bournemouth with her? Did you know she was dreaming of running off to Poland with him?’
‘Justine!’ Her mother’s voice rang out, full of rage, the special school-mistress tone impossible to withstand.
The girl looked round quickly. ‘What?’ she muttered.
‘Leave him alone. How dare you?’ Roma was standing on the patio, a few feet away.
Justine took a deep breath. ‘I have every right to know. You seem to forget that Penn assaulted me. I think Laurie knows all about it, and why she did it.’
‘She was a very dear girl,’ Laurie mumbled, suddenly very old. ‘I can’t believe she’s dead. She never deserved that.’
Justine laughed bitterly. ‘When did deserving have anything to do with it? Did my Sarah deserve to die? Or poor little Georgia?’
‘Laurie didn’t know what Penn had done,’ Roma said, walking towards them. ‘Nobody did.’
Justine looked from one to the other. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. ‘Just more lies – there’s been nothing but lies since this began.’
Laurie moaned quietly. ‘I didn’t know, Justine. I admit that Penn
lied to me. I don’t think she meant any harm by it. But she told me that Sheena had killed the little girl.’ He raised his eyes slowly to meet Justine’s. ‘And I believed her at the time.’
Justine looked wildly at her mother. ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What does he mean?’
Roma took a step backwards, waving a hand as if to dissipate the question. ‘Don’t ask me,’ she protested. ‘What do I know about it?’
Laurie cleared his throat. ‘There are different kinds of truth,’ he murmured. ‘Different methods of killing someone. Different ways in which a person can be responsible.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Roma pleaded. ‘Don’t go all philosophical on me.’
Justine flopped down on the grass and covered her eyes with a pale forearm. ‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘I can’t do this now.’
‘Let it go,’ Laurie advised. ‘It’s the only way.’
Roma sucked in a hissing breath, but said nothing.
All three knew that however much they might wish it, the story hadn’t finished yet.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Karen followed Drew up to the bedroom when he came in that evening and went to change his clothes. The weather was warming up relentlessly, the air heavy and sultry.
‘I do feel strange,’ she said. ‘I can’t really pretend to be bereaved, when I hardly even knew Penn – but I suppose I am in a way. And it’s so much worse that she was murdered. It seems so terribly cruel.’
‘I know,’ he sympathised. ‘I feel much the same. She was so young, for one thing. Even if she hadn’t been related, we’d feel sad about that part of it.’
‘And it’s even more confusing because we don’t know whether she was good or bad, I mean she might have killed that little girl. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know for sure. And that’ll stain her memory for everybody. Even poor Aunt Helen isn’t totally convinced of her blamelessness and she still doesn’t know half the story.’