The Sleep of the Dead

by Tom Bradby

  ‘What are you working on now?’ she asked.

  Professor Malcolm was staring into the television. She waited a long time. ‘Robert Pascoe will be released tomorrow,’ he said.

  Julia felt the shock in her spine and in the base of her stomach.

  He turned to her. ‘You’ll remember he appealed before so there has not been much publicity this time but, of course, that will change when he is released.’

  Julia found that she was staring at her hands. ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘So I’m told.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They have proved that his confession was altered and embellished to make it more convincing. The other evidence was circumstantial.’

  ‘Does that mean … So he has been let off on a technicality?’

  ‘No. It means he is probably innocent – and certainly of committing the crime in the way that is commonly supposed.’

  Julia thought of the day she had missed games and slunk down to the town to stand in the back of the court-house, watching Pascoe’s shaven head as he stared resolutely at the floor.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

  Julia tried to think of something to say. She saw that he was frowning deeply, his forehead furrowed. He appeared to be wrestling with himself.

  ‘I feel,’ he said, ‘like a priest who’s waited a long time for someone to come to confession, to God.’

  ‘I don’t view you as God.’

  ‘No, that’s not what I meant.’

  He had not taken his eyes from her face and Julia could feel her heart beating. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I interviewed you because you were the person who found Sarah’s body. We … formed … a bond. Then, eight years later you turn up in my tutorial at Sussex University, an eager young student. Is that a coincidence? I ask myself why you of all people, with so many choices of course and university and tutor, should find your way to my door. Once or twice I thought we might broach the subject of our first meeting, but we never quite do so. We become friends, sure, but never do we talk about this.’

  The unusual sentence structure was a rare indication of his East European origins. That his mother was Polish was one of the few personal facts she knew about him.

  ‘I am honoured,’ he went on, ‘to be invited to your graduation from Sandhurst, to the day you emulate your father – go better than him – and receive the Sword of Honour, but still this is never mentioned. You come here sometimes. Just call up and come over. We talk about your work. We talk about the army. We talk about your father sometimes and the legend you feel the need to live up to. But we never talk about the case in West Welham and the interview I conducted on the day after you had found Sarah’s body.’ He shook his head. ‘And yet all the time I feel that is why you have stayed close to me.’

  Julia was looking at the blank television again. She was uncomfortable and wanted to stand up, but didn’t. Conversations with Professor Malcolm so often developed an immediate, savage and unstoppable momentum, no matter what the subject matter. ‘How come,’ she said, ‘the police have told you they think Pascoe will be released?’

  ‘They need help. They know they will be under pressure to reopen the case. They will claim they believe they convicted the right man and that there is no need for a new investigation, but in the meantime they are, of course, panicking and want me to review the evidence to see if there are any grounds for reopening the case. I think it is called “covering your arse”.’ He looked at her, his face softening as he took in her unease. ‘I haven’t said yes, yet. They only called me last night.’

  ‘But you will. You said yourself, you cannot say no.’ Julia sat back and watched the steam rise from the untouched tea on the glass-topped table beside his chair. The room seemed to have darkened since they came in, but he had made no move to turn on any lights. ‘Why do you say Pascoe is not guilty in the way commonly supposed?’

  ‘It was the way the investigation went. I cannot say who was innocent and guilty, only that the methodology that produced Pascoe as a culprit was wrong.’

  ‘How?’

  Julia recognized the tightness in her voice. She found herself imagining Robert Pascoe walking casually back into the village as if nothing had transpired, and was confused that she did not understand clearly what her own reaction to this would be.

  What would everyone else think? They would be angry. And frightened. Wouldn’t they?

  Professor Malcolm looked at her. ‘I said to the police that, whichever way you looked at it, this crime had to be about the woman, not the child. No paedophile is going to tackle a healthy young woman in broad daylight to get at a child – too many easier targets. They don’t need the fear of adult involvement interfering with their thrills.’

  Julia swallowed, wishing he could sometimes be less direct in his language. His eyelids had sunk and his eyes were hooded, like a hawk’s. It was how he looked when he was concentrating. She recalled how intimidating so many had found it.

  ‘This was about anger. With the woman. I said either someone who knew her, most likely, or if not, then a local, or a stranger – but one way or another it was about the control of this young woman.’

  He sighed again. ‘The evidence was right there. And I said, I said, “It’s not about the child,” but, you know, the media policemen didn’t want to see that. It was a big case, they were out to make their careers and the press were portraying it as the act of a dangerous predatory paedophile because, of course, the story ran better that way. A man who murdered the mother to get at the daughter. That was enough to keep everyone watching, listening and reading in terrified, uncomfortable awe. It was a drama. When would he strike next? Where would he go? Was any child safe? Would the police stop him? As I said, a diseased criminal mind was still out there.’

  There was bitterness in Professor Malcolm’s voice. Julia considered the way in which it had been a drama for the nation. Had she feared when and where the killer would strike next? She could not remember being frightened for herself.

  ‘The careerists said we were ambling, Barnaby and I, we were slow, we didn’t know what we were doing. The in-fighting dragged on. Then, eventually, there was a coup. Barnaby was pushed aside and I went with him. The media policemen took their time, but they got to the end they wanted. One of the detectives unearthed allegations by a jilted former girlfriend, who said that Corporal Robert Pascoe, who lived with his mother next to the pub, had abused her young daughter, and after that the investigation never looked back. Pascoe came back slightly injured from the war, his life saved by your father, and the media policemen pounced. Out came the confession. Better late than never, the investigation a big success at last, promotions all round.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound like you made a mistake. They just didn’t listen.’

  He didn’t respond. She hadn’t meant to imply he’d made a mistake. She’d never known him admit to being wrong about anything.

  ‘If it was a crime of passion,’ she asked, moving on quickly, ‘I mean, if that was the original direction of the investigation … if you thought it was anger at the woman and, therefore, perhaps a crime of passion, what would one be looking for in the murderer?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘But the little girl?’ Julia asked, before he had a chance to answer. ‘I mean, to kill out of passion … If Sarah had been making a man jealous, it’s not so hard to understand her death, but the man, whoever he was, must have gone further. He must have murdered a little girl.’

  Professor Malcolm looked at her searchingly and she found it impossible to hold his gaze, dropping her head again. ‘But it’s still about control,’ he said quietly. ‘We’re talking here about someone who has a tendency to bury his feelings deep within himself, who distances himself from his actions and his feelings, who disowns them, blaming others, seeing himself as a victim, perhaps. You are understanding, almost accepting, the murder as a natural result of adult passions. It is the murder of the little girl you are setting apart
and considering an aberration, but in fact they come from that same sudden catastrophic loss of control, that aggressive, frustrated desire to dominate. The anger stimulated knows no boundaries.’

  Julia looked up at him. His eyes were still upon her. He stood up and walked to the windows, sliding them open a fraction, letting in a blast of cold air. He had his back to her, his eyes to the sea.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it’s very therapeutic watching the elemental forces of nature.’

  She stood up too, and followed his gaze down to the waves crashing on the shore and wondered at the sudden change of direction. With Malcolm, there was usually a reason. An old man crossed in front of them, walking his dog on the path, but her eyes strayed to the foreground and she noticed again how a garden that had once been overgrown – a reflection of a man with more important things on his mind – was now immaculate. ‘Your garden’s neat,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. You see, I have relaxed a little. A great retreat from the world.’ They stepped out into it and advanced to the centre of the lawn. ‘I need a bigger one, really, but I’m too old to think about moving.’

  She was standing just behind him, her heart still thumping. He turned. ‘So what happened?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Something has happened. Something bad. Something to make you think long and hard …’

  ‘No …’

  ‘It’s all right, Julia.’ He looked at her. ‘It’s what you came here for.’

  Julia stared out to sea. She tried to think clearly, but it was hard here – she felt like a compass that had strayed too close to an electrical force and has lost its bearings. ‘The agent I ran in China was lost,’ she said. ‘We lost him. He was executed.’

  He waited.

  ‘I felt … feel that, considering the risks he was taking, he deserved a hundred per cent professionalism. A clean sheet. Complete focus. But I believe I may have brought psychological baggage to the equation. At any rate, I threatened a subordinate. With a gun.’

  ‘That can’t be very good for your career.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you came home, which is a sanctuary and refuge, but also a prison.’

  She frowned. ‘No …’

  ‘Drawn home and then drawn here.’

  Julia shook her head.

  ‘You cannot be comfortable in the present, in a place where you do not trust the past. Imagine.’ He stopped. His voice was gentle. ‘Imagine,’ he went on, holding up his hand, ‘that a person is like a building. The older you get, the taller it gets. Doubt about the past, suspicion, uncertainty, a lack of confidence in who you are and where you came from, a level of uncertainty about the veracity and trustworthiness of positive memories … Imagine that is like a worm that eats through concrete. If you leave it long enough, it’ll eat through the foundations and then the whole building topples.’

  ‘A laboured analogy,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I …’ She stopped. He waited. ‘I don’t …’

  ‘Finish your sentences?’

  She didn’t smile. ‘I didn’t find it surprising.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing about that year. Even as I walked down that path and saw Sarah’s body lying there, I was conscious of not being surprised.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Then with Alice. I knew … I watched the appeals for help on the television and I saw from the attic the search of the common and people coming and going and gathered in groups talking quietly, and I knew that they were never going to find her. I knew she was dead. It was complete certainty.’

  He waited.

  ‘And then the investigation. I didn’t know what to think of that, but I knew they would never find who did it. Then the war, my father goes with all the others. Alan has given up hope, so he goes – everyone does. And then the news that Dad had been killed and …’

  ‘You weren’t surprised by that?’

  ‘No, of course I was, but at the same time I was conscious that I had been dreading and … somehow expecting it. Each night I’d gone to bed clutching the photograph album with his picture in it. I would pray then go through an elaborate ritual of superstition, and on the night he died, well, I couldn’t find the album and … I think someone stole it. I think they moved it because they thought that was funny.’

  She drew breath. He did not interrupt her.

  ‘I was surprised, but I knew it was coming. Absolute certainty.’

  The man who had crossed in front of the house with his dog came back in the opposite direction. They both looked disconsolate and old, the dog ambling on a lead behind its master.

  ‘If it is the fact that the events were not surprising that is disturbing,’ he said, ‘it is because it makes you doubt all your memories. You cannot say for sure any more what was real and what not, what you should value and attach importance to and what was a mirage. It is … confusing. You have lost your past, and everyone needs a version of the past they can rely on.’

  He turned to look at her. ‘You have maintained our relationship because you think I can explain you to yourself. But I can’t. Not really. Only you can do that.’

  Julia didn’t respond.

  He put his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Most of the memories have receded … faded with age, but lately … I don’t know …’

  ‘Some images come back vividly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which ones … is there a theme?’

  ‘In my dreams … yes.’

  ‘Only in your dreams?’

  ‘Mostly.’

  ‘What do you see?’

  ‘My father … most commonly, I’m in my room, lying in front of the dolls’ house that he made me and he comes in and says, “Hello, champ.” ’ She smiled. ‘I mean, who on earth would ever say that to a girl? He’s got back from work and he’s wearing his uniform still, and it’s the summer, so he just has a khaki woollen shirt on and fatigues.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘No … well, then he comes to lie alongside me and … he asks me what I’m doing, so I tell him … and that’s it.’

  ‘A happy memory, then.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘A moment of easy intimacy.’

  ‘Yes … yes, definitely. Then, recently, I mean in the last few weeks particularly, we are walking in the wood, but … again, it’s just me and him. We used to do that a lot together. Then, sometimes, we meet up with Alice and … sometimes Sarah and then I’m hiding …’

  ‘Hiding?’

  ‘Yes. We used to play games in the wood and I liked to play hide and seek. So, in my dreams, I’m hiding, watching the clearing, waiting for him, but I fear something has happened and he’s not going to come and then I discover I’m trapped so that I can’t move and it gets worse and worse and I feel more trapped and I wake up covered in sweat, suddenly awake and sitting bolt upright, as if …’

  Julia let her voice trail off, not sure how to finish.

  ‘As if what?’

  ‘As if he is dying out there somewhere and I can’t help him. I want to, but I can’t. I’m trapped, I can’t move and that’s what is making me sweat. And there’s another image that has always recurred. I went out … a few years after his death, I went out to the Falklands and saw the hill where he died and we looked at where he’d been sheltering, roughly, and where the machine-gun nest had been and ever since then I’ve been able to see him breaking cover and charging out to help Pascoe so vividly that it’s as if I’d been there. I can see the furious courage in his face and the determination and it’s almost as if these two images are tied together. Do you see? It’s as if that is going on and I’m trapped under this bush, watching the clearing, knowing what is happening to him, unable to do anything about it. The two scenes are totally dislocated in terms of geography, but they’re not in my mind. Do you see? But it’s also more than that, it’s as though it is in some way my fault that I’m trapped. It’s because of m
y inadequacies or doubts or …’

  ‘Suspicions.’

  She frowned. ‘No. No, it’s not that.’

  He nodded.

  ‘It’s just that I feel it is somehow my fault that my father …’ Julia stopped.

  ‘A sense of loss does not always fade with the passage of time. In certain circumstances it can even grow.’

  ‘What do you mean, in certain circumstances?’

  Professor Malcolm shrugged, staring out towards the sea. ‘I’m going to work on this case. On this review. Partly because if I don’t someone else will. Perhaps you should help me.’

  She looked up to see if he was serious. ‘You must be out of your mind.’

  ‘The professional Captain Julia Havilland has the resourcefulness and ability to work through this if the personal Julia Havilland does not stand in her way.’ He came closer and placed his hand lightly on the top of her head, as if blessing her. ‘Let me get you another cup of tea.’

  Moving next to her, he leant down and closed his right hand around her own. It was only then that she realized she had been tugging at her jeans. ‘Do you remember?’ he said. ‘That was what you did in the interview room.’

  Julia went for a long walk on the Downs. She was no longer hungry or bothered about lunch. It was only after she had left him that she came to feel Professor Malcolm had been carefully manipulating the conversation all along and that he had probably set out to enlist her help in the review.

  Why did he want it?

  On the way home, she took a detour via Cranbrooke, intending to do some shopping. She parked at the top of the high street, half blocking the road, put her hazard lights on and dashed into Boots, which was situated in one of the old buildings. She bought what she needed, hurried by the horn of a lorry that was stuck behind her, then got back into the car and drove on down the high street, which widened as it descended, the pavements getting broader on both sides. She passed the Cross Keys pub on the right, a tall grey stone building that looked less forbidding in the sunshine.

  On the corner, Julia saw a group of girls wearing a modern version of the uniform she had been forced to put up with less than ten years ago. She indicated, then filtered off left and parked on the pavement, underneath a sign that said ‘Rubin Gallery’ in big, gold letters.