by Gill Mather
“Nothing passes you by does it. I’ll tell you. It’s the least we can do.”
“I should say.”
“Do you remember a man called Sam Dearing?”
“Not especially.”
“He’s dead now. He was Gordon Dearing’s younger brother. He was a drug addict living in the Hertfordshire town where you worked, and at one time he was suspected of having gone to a house and, apart from rifling it for any money or valuables, to have raped the daughter of the house while he was there. It was the early nineteen-eighties and use of DNA evidence was in its infancy. But it was a couple of weeks before the girl admitted to having been raped, therefore it was too late to collect any evidence.
“Sam Dearing was actually known to the family, a well-to-do family, though not very well known to the girl. Nonetheless, under pressure from her family, she positively identified him as the rapist.
“Sam was actually a homosexual, therefore his having raped a girl would have been extremely unlikely. He was in fact having a relationship with the son of the family, which the family had only just discovered. They weren’t happy about that and they were determined that the thefts and the rape should be pinned on Sam. The police at the time also frowned on homosexuals and they agreed.
“You didn't. By all accounts you took every measure you could have done to help establish Sam’s alibi, to track down the real culprit and also to gather such DNA evidence as there was from the scene.
“If the prosecution against Sam had gone ahead, he would have gone to prison. He would have had a terrible time there, he would probably have got more into drugs, he would have lost any hope of a career. Do you remember Sam Dearing now?”
“I'd forgotten all about it. But yes, I remember now.”
“Gordon never forgot what you did for his brother. That’s why he wanted to give you Little Avail. We were against it, afraid it would stir up some sort of trouble which indeed it did. But he was insistent. We persuaded him not to tell you the real reason but to make up the story about your mother.”
“I see.”
“We felt it was something that couldn't be traced back. Because it wasn't true. Whereas Gordon’s activities in the eighties were….confidential. We didn't want anyone looking into what he might have been doing then. That’s it really. He very much wanted you to have the cottage to repay what you’d done. He hoped you’d enjoy owning it and using it. I hope so too.”
“One’s past does come back to haunt one, one way or another,” said Roz thoughtfully. “I don't actually remember hearing about an older brother at all during the Sam Dearing investigation.”
“Let’s say he was keeping a low profile at the time.”
“I dare say.”
Roz refused a pudding. They ordered coffee.
“You know our position is still incredibly vulnerable,” she said. “I’ve signed this NDA, but we’ve no guarantee you won't still pursue some course against me or Guy or his children. Or my….er….friend.”
“The NDA contained our undertaking.”
“Yes well, it wasn't very specific in its terms. And I’ve no confidence whatever that I’d ever be able to enforce it. And certainly I can't see how any third parties would be able to.”
“You’ll just have to trust Her Majesty’s Government agencies then won't you.”
“Great. Very reassuring.”
“Things are coming on regarding the new accessway. The Agreement does explicitly cover all of that. Once it’s in, the electricity can go in too. Have you been to look?”
“Yes once. We want to go and spend time there in the summer.”
It seemed very odd to be sitting here having this civilised lunch with a man who just a few weeks before had been at her home, threatening to ruin her life, and the lives of Guy and his children. She wondered if he had much of a private life of his own and, if so, how he’d feel if someone turned the screws on his own family. She soon had an answer to the first of these points at least.
“I’ll have to be pushing off soon. My wife and I are taking our children and their children on a holiday to Brittany for a couple of weeks and we fly this evening.”
She wanted to ask him how he slept at nights, but instead enquired whether he had any more information about Little Avail.
“Not much. It’s said that it was built at the time for the erring son of the Lord of the Manor who got a local girl into the family way so that she could live there with the children they produced, while the son married a rich girl of the family’s choice. They didn't want to give it to him outright so they leased it to him thinking that the Lease would sort of fizzle out after the children grew up and the girl died. But it didn't and he passed it down. I couldn't tell you if Gordon was the descendant of a legitimate son or one of the bastards.”
Roz was surprised to hear the word used, but of course that’s how it would have been viewed in those times.
“Well, thanks. You’d better get off to your holiday preparations.”
They walked outside together.
“Look,” he said in the car park, turning to face her. “I don't feel massively proud of what I had to do to you. If you ever do need any help, I hope you’ll call on me. I’ll be retiring completely from the solicitors practice soon. So ring this number.” He handed her a card. It bore only a telephone number, nothing else.
“Try to use a land line.”
Epilogue
GUY AND ROZ, Andrea and Leo and Boris and Poison walked up from the beach to their cars. They’d only been paddling and looking at crabs. They might try the real thing tomorrow but the North Sea was as ever fearfully, icily cold even though the ambient temperature was roughly twenty five degrees and there was almost no wind.
They had decided on a pub dinner tonight. The deep mysteries of the antique cooking range could wait. They were not however going to The Three Parrots. On hearing what the menu had to offer, the others opted instead for a table at one of the nicer pubs in Goosefeering.
They had an hour or so to kill. They therefore jumped in the cars and drove the short distance to the farm lane, off which their own new drive forked, and thence to have a wash and brush up, possibly use the new shower and have a change of clothes at Little Avail.