‘You need some rest, Julia. You’d better get home.’
He seemed about to say something else, but instead he gently pushed past her.
‘Bed time, Nicky,’ he called, leaving Julia in stunned silence to gather up her things.
When they were ready to go, he gave Nicky a hug, then turned to Julia. ‘Thank you. That was a superb curry. I’ll see you to the car.’
MONDAY
Three days later
- 119 -
Paul was still in bed when the phone rang. Today was Monday, the day when good things used to happen to him but now was like any other empty day. Bill Brownlow had said everything would be sorted out by the time he returned from Australia. At the back of his mind he wanted to believe this but so far nothing had been said and he needed it to be confirmed either verbally or in writing before he could relax.
It was more than forty-eight hours since he’d treated Julia so abominably, selfishly letting his own problems, his preoccupation about his future with the force blind him to her emotional needs - being impatient with her on-off decision to tell him something. He’d rehearsed his speech of apology should she phone, though this he knew was highly unlikely. In any case it should be the other way around.
He should be phoning her.
Time had passed, but the burden of frustration was still inside him. His work on the film had ended. There was nothing really to get up for, and he had a good mind to just let the phone ring.
But finally his innate sense of duty made him pick it up.
‘Paul. I think you’re off the hook.’
Bill Brownlow’s words hit him like a cricket ball at mid stumps. He hadn’t been near Chester House since his suspension. Apart from giving evidence at his enquiry, he’d had no contact with any of the staff except his two unofficial meetings with Kevin before he had left for Australia, and then Kevin’s unauthorised phone call about Smith’s bloodstained letter.
‘Are you still there, Paul?’
‘Yeah. I’m here, Sir.’ And in one movement he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. ‘Do you think you could just say that again, Sir?’
‘Unofficially, Paul, I’ve just received a call. Everything’s fine.’
* * *
When he set out an hour later in his newly polished Honda CRX, with a rug on the back seat to protect the upholstery, and a song in his heart that he didn’t know how to suppress, he had no idea how the rest of the day would turn out.
- 120 -
In courtroom number two in the Manchester Crown Court Julia bowed to the judge, gathered up her files and waited till everyone had left the courtroom before she shuffled carefully up the steps to the swing doors. With a final glance at the dock, where all day she’d seen only one face, she hobbled out into the corridor, where her seven months pregnant client was waiting to have a word. She was tired, but was unable to resist the woman’s eager smile.
‘I’ll never forget you, Mrs Grant. You won’t mind, will you, if I call my daughter Julia?’
She put her arms around the woman and hugged her. ‘Good luck for the future,’ she said, before turning and making her way along the concourse to the lifts.
Then something made her stop dead. Suddenly bombarded with a tumult of never-before-glimpsed scenes that hurtled across her vision as though she was looking at a giant TV screen on fast-forward with the sound on full blast, she turned back towards courtroom number two.
Dodging the outgoing crowds, her painful leg forgotten, she careered along the concourse. Outside the empty courtroom she stood for a moment, took a deep breath, then opened the door and walked in.
There was an eerie, fluttery sound as though a breeze had crept in behind her, brushing the hairs on her neck and moving the hem of her skirt.
She stared at the dock.
He was there, his mouth quivering, his eyes fixed on hers. He must have known she would come back, she thought, feeling the pull of his eyes.
Slowly she mouthed the words that had been hammering in her head all day.
Nicholas. It was me. You were right. I killed him. I see it all at last.
Lying in my bed. Eyes tight closed. Knowing. Waiting. Watching.
The door opens. I smell the stale tobacco and the chocolates. Hear his soft padding footsteps. I lie rigid. A cold sweat makes me shiver. I hear his panting. Hear him switch on the brass lamp. Close my eyes tighter.
He rips the blanket off the bed. His big hairy hand touches me, runs down my body, lifts my nightgown as he slides his grotesque body next to mine. Look at me, Julia, he says and thrusts a chocolate in my mouth. In the dim light I see the leer in his eyes. I see a swirl of jagged red shapes surging towards me. Hear a roaring and a rushing in my ears. Sit up with a jerk and spit the chocolate in his face.
He gasps. Wipes his face with his hand. Shoves me back down. Rips my nightgown off. Heaves his huge hulk on top of me but I wriggle clear and grab the lamp and smash it down on him. He leaps up. Holds me by my hair with one hand. Lashes out with the other, over and over again. I scream and scream, but nothing stops him and as usual Mrs Spencer doesn’t wake up. Blood runs down my face, my arms, my legs. He is like a maniac, landing blow after blow until I can’t see and can no longer feel anything but the pain.
You come rushing in. You switch on the ceiling light. Go, Nicholas! Go back to bed, I shout, or he will kill you too. But you fly at him with all your might. He lets go of my hair, drops me to the floor. His eyes are ablaze, like molten tar. He lands punch after punch at your head and your wiry little body. Blood pours from your nose.
I have to save you. I grab the shattered lamp. With all my strength I lift it up and once more smash it down on him. He stops beating you. Picks you up by one arm and hurls you across the room. Your head hits the wall. I think you are dead. Now free of you he turns to me. Lifts me off my feet with one hand. Grabs the broken lamp with his other hand. Swings the lamp back and aims it at my head and at that moment like a meteor your flick knife shoots across the room. The lamp crashes to the ground. One last gasp and his gross body crashes down and envelopes mine like a ton of solidifying cement. You drag him off me. Help to put my nightgown on. Pull the knife from his chest. Blood pours everywhere. I run to the phone. You try to stop me. I call 999. You take my hand. Come quickly, Julia, you say. I’ll look after you, you say as you drag me out the door and down the driveway. Faster, you say as the next-door lights flood the garden and the neighbours appear. Just keep running, you say. Never mind the lights and the sirens . . . I’ll look after you . . .
I know that you are making for the field where we often go to play on the way home from school, the one with the dense clumps of bushes and trees where we sometimes sit in the shade and day-dream. And where we sometimes come at night, creeping out at dead of night to see the stars and watch the full moon rise. Remember?
We have no shoes. We stumble over stones. Long grass cuts our legs and our already bleeding feet. I can’t go any faster but you hold my hand tighter and pull me along and at last we reach the field and the bushes and the trees. You take the flick-knife from your pocket and throw it deep into the shadows. We lie down. You take off your pyjama jacket and cover me with it and you hold me tight and keep me warm . . .
She paused, but only long enough to take a deep breath, for his vision was fading from the dock and there were still things she had to say to him.
We did it together, Nicholas. He would have killed us, but you saved my life and your own. It was my fault but you took all the blame. Why didn’t you tell them? It was all my fault.
'It was all my fault,’ she said again, then lifted her eyes to the ceiling where the criss-cross pattern of lights shone like a canopy of stars on a cloudless night.
She heard his voice:
Watch my eyes, Julia, and I’ll watch yours. And together we’ll see the stars float on the moon . . .
Quickly she looked back at the dock. She could no longer see him clearly. With both hands she reached out towards him
, trying to hang on to the final shreds of his image, fearful that this would be the last time he would ever visit her. For a moment it felt as though part of her body was being sucked out of her, as though someone had pulled out a plug and left her to drain away.
And then the dock was empty.
- 121 -
Julia saw him the moment she came through the smoky glass doors. He was standing outside the Bar San Giorgio directly opposite the Crown Court. She rested her leg for a few seconds, holding her hand to her forehead before she limped out of the covered area into the bright afternoon sunshine.
And only then did she see the dog. It was so like Duke that for a moment she thought she was still hallucinating. But all she could think of was telling Paul now.
She walked towards him, watching his face. He looked as though he wasn’t sure why he was there, or what he was going to say to her. But before he said anything he thrust the end of a shiny new leather lead into her hand.
‘Well, don’t look at me like that,’ he said at last. ‘I’m not going to take him for a walk.’
When she still didn’t answer he put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked. ‘Hasn’t anyone given you a present before?’
Still speechless she stroked the dog’s golden head, all the unspoken words receding like a morning mist at sunrise.
Another time, she thought. Another day.
THE END
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