by Sarah Ward
Okay. She pointed at the first two women. ‘Can I have a word with you both outside? I’m sorry to interrupt your exercise class, but it’s important.’
Both women went willingly. Given the forty minutes of spinning that they were about to endure, it wasn’t really surprising. She took them to the manager’s office, which he left as soon as she arrived.
‘As I said, Ups ’n’ Downs has come up in the course of an investigation, and I’m trying not only to get a sense of what the place was like, but also to see if any other crimes were committed of which we’re not currently aware.’
‘What other crimes?’ one of the women asked. She introduced herself as Karen. A tall, robust woman with solid muscles.
Connie shook her head. ‘I can’t tell you that. I need you to tell me about what you remember. First of all, I believe Ups ’n’ Downs had a reputation for allowing underage teenagers inside.’
Karen laughed. ‘I don’t think there was anyone over age. If you had valid ID, why would you go to a place like that?’
‘I’m not sure that’s right, you know.’ The second woman, Lizzie, looked doubtful. ‘I can remember older boys there too. And maybe girls. But certainly boys who were older than me.’
‘How old?’ asked Connie.
‘Late teens, I guess.’
‘Okay.’ Connie did some rapid thinking. ‘Karen, in the gym room just now, you told me that Ups ’n’ Downs was a “meat market”. Can you tell me a bit more about that?’
‘Well, it was a place you went to get picked up by boys. You know, a quick chat, have a snog and then tell all your mates about it the next day.’
‘Right. Just a snog?’
The women looked at each other. ‘We were young. Fifteen, sixteen. That’s all there was to it,’ said Lizzie.
Connie had to pick her words with care. ‘Did you ever hear anything about non-consensual relationships? I’m not talking about kissing either. Were there any rumours of incidents where something got out of hand?’
Karen was shaking her head. ‘I never heard of anything bad happening.’
‘I’m not so sure of that.’ The other woman picked at her gym trousers. ‘There was quite a predatory atmosphere in that place. Sometimes I’d keep my head down and hope that I didn’t catch anyone’s eye. Because once you did they’d be over to you like a shot.’
‘Predatory atmosphere. I can understand that. Do you have any specific details?’
Lizzie shook her head. ‘Nothing specific, but I’m glad that the licensing laws have got stricter. My daughter’s fourteen – she can’t get near a pub these days.’
‘Okay. I’m going to ask you outright. Do you think it’s possible that individual women could have been targeted for sexual assaults at that time?’
The women stared at her aghast. ‘Sexual assaults?’
‘Well, that’s what it is, isn’t it? If someone goes to a club with a specific intention of picking up a woman for sex, it’s targeted. It becomes sexual assault when it’s contrary to the wishes of the woman.’
Lizzie grimaced. ‘I never heard of anything, but, in that place, anything was possible.’
69
Joanne set the dinner in front of him and perched on the chair opposite. He looked at her in surprise. ‘Aren’t you eating anything?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m not really hungry.’
He put down his fork. ‘I can’t sit here eating while you watch. Did you have something earlier?’
‘A little bit, I suppose. I couldn’t really eat.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m worried about us.’
Palmer sighed and put the fork down again. ‘Let’s not have this conversation again. There’s nothing wrong. You know what I’m like in the middle of a case.’
He looked across the table at his wife of less than a year. She looked exactly the same as when they had met four years earlier. Long dark hair and almond-shaped brown eyes. But she looked like she’d lost weight. He reached across to hold her hand. ‘You’re not still worried about this baby business, are you? We haven’t been trying that long. You know what the doctor told you. We only need to come back if nothing happens after a year. It’s only been five months.’
‘Are you sure you want a baby?’
Oh God, he thought. ‘We’ve talked about this. I want you to be happy. I’ll do anything for your happiness.’
Her eyes were on his plate. ‘My period’s late.’
‘How late?’
‘A week.’
‘A week?’ He gaped at her. ‘You’ve waited a week to tell me this? Haven’t you wanted to do a pregnancy test in that time?’
Her eyes were blank. ‘Oh, I did a test the first day my period didn’t come.’
‘And?’
‘It was positive. I’m having a baby. We’re having one.’
Palmer felt a warmth suffuse him, and he stood up, walked around to his wife and put his arms around her.
70
‘How was I supposed to know?’ Kat’s professionalism was fighting with the familial sense of outrage.
‘Mum guessed straight away. I was absolutely awful the next day. You won’t remember. You always had your head in the clouds. But I was so angry that I threw my bowl of cornflakes across the kitchen. Mum didn’t go to work that day. She pulled me aside and asked me what was wrong. So I told her.’
Kat felt sick. So their mother had known. No wonder she had been so acquiescent about Lena’s subsequent decisions. It was she who knew the reasons behind them. ‘What about Dad? Did he know too?’
Lena finally stubbed out her cigarette. ‘It was he who gave me the Luger. He’d got it from an old patient. Mum was wonderful when I told her. I asked her not to tell either you or Dad.’
‘But you said he gave you the gun.’
‘That was after.’
‘After what?’
‘After we called the police.’
‘You reported the attack?’
‘We tried to but the pair who came around . . . They were these two huge red-faced uniformed men. They were so dismissive. Mum was outraged, and they wanted to take me away to the police station in the car. It was awful. I was crying, and Mum got angrier and angrier.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘I’m not. It was terrible. So I shouted that I wasn’t going with them, and they left the house. Just like that.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Mum drove me to the surgery and told Dad what happened. You remember what Dad was like.’
‘He would have been mortified.’
‘He went into his desk and gave me this gun. Wouldn’t show me how to use it or anything. I’m not sure he even knew himself. But, funnily enough, it did offer me some reassurance. I kept it upstairs afterwards. It’s why my door was always locked. Partly for safety but also because he told me not to show it to you.’
‘But why? Why keep it secret from me?’
Lena looked over at her with eyes shrouded with secrets. ‘We were trying to protect you. From the realities of what life was like out there. That man was an absolute bastard. He took from me what I valued most. My dignity. By trying to protect you, I know that I drove a wedge between us. I could never articulate what I was trying to say. So I just stopped trying. I just gave up, I suppose.’
Kat’s head spun with the hundreds of questions that were bubbling away. ‘But I can still help. It’s not too late.’
‘But it is too late, isn’t it? Me keeping silent didn’t stop what happened to you.’
Kat stared at her sister. ‘What happened to me? Lena! Nothing happened to me.’
71
Friday, 8 February 1991
Kat stumbled into the hall, anxious to get upstairs before she encountered either of her parents. The light was on in the living room, which meant that one of them was still up. Lena would be in her room as usual. She pulled off her scarf and used it to wipe the tears from her eyes and cheeks. The act of self-kindness rekindled the s
obs that she had managed to quell in the street outside the house. She quickly mounted the stairs and, turning the corner, ran past Lena’s room, colliding with her sister as she came out of the bathroom.
‘Sorry.’ Lena made to push past her. The careless act elicited another sob from Kat, and she ran up the remaining stairs to her bedroom and threw herself on the bed.
The bastard. She’d wasted four months flirting and doing an elaborate fan dance around Peter. She thought they were taking it easy. Gradually easing into each other. But he’d just been messing around, and tonight, there he was, in the pub with his arm around another girl. Thinner than her and blonde. Men were just so predictable.
She heard a noise behind her and twisted her head in surprise. Lena was in the doorway, half shadowed from the still-dark landing. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘What do you care?’ shouted Kat. ‘Leave me alone.’
Her sister didn’t move. Kat looked down at her purple patterned scarf crumpled into a ball in her hands. She used it to blow her nose noisily. ‘Men are bastards,’ said Kat.
Her sister came into the room. ‘What do you mean?’
‘They’re just shits, aren’t they? They take what they want and we’re left to pick up the pieces. I’m never going back to that pub again.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Oh, leave me alone, Lena. What do you care?’
Her sister stared down at her for a moment, and a shadow passed between them. Kat shivered. Someone walking over her grave perhaps. In an instant it was gone. Along with her sister.
72
‘What do you mean nothing happened to you?’
Kat could feel the fragile connection that she’d made with her sister begin to dissolve. Lena took a step backwards.
‘Your assault, from what you’ve told me, was absolutely horrific. But you seem to think something happened to me and nothing did. Okay, admittedly I’ve had my fair share of idiots, but nothing like you describe.’
‘You weren’t attacked? Here?’ Lena inclined her head towards the disused pub with its maelstrom of memories and its forbidding air.
‘No. That place was full of men on the prowl. I remember that. But nothing ever happened to me.’
He sister took another step back, away from the pale yellow light of the street lamp and back into the shadows. ‘Then it’s all been for nothing.’
73
Sadler had endured another night of bad dreams, this time walking through thick mud. He’d been trying to wade through the sticky viscous substance, but with every step he had sunk lower and lower into the ground. By the time he woke up, he had a sheen of sweat covering his body. In his dream he’d been waist-deep in the filthy mire.
Although a shower removed the physical traces of the night, his mind felt disjointed. As he walked into the communal office, he noticed that Palmer and Connie had only just got in themselves. Connie was yawning, without any attempt to put her hand over her mouth. Palmer had just taken off his jacket and was folding it up neatly to put in his desk drawer.
He gave them a nod and went over to his office and shut the door. He picked up the phone and dialled Llewellyn’s number. Margaret answered. ‘Is he in?’
‘Yes, but he’s asked not to be disturbed.’
‘It’s urgent.’
‘Hold on.’
‘He’s got a conference call in five minutes. It’ll last about half an hour. If you hold tight, I’ll call you when it’s over. You can see him for about five minutes then.’
‘That’s fine. I’ll wait.’
Sadler opened the door to his office and called over to Palmer and Connie. They came quickly. ‘Shut the door behind you.’
Connie complied with her foot.
‘I want us to go through the narrative of events as far as we’ve got with this investigation.’ Connie and Palmer looked at each other. ‘I know we’ve discussed this before but humour me. Let’s start with 2004. Philip Staley is killed by Lena Gray. We’ve established, as far as we can, that it is Staley.’
‘His medical records match the description of the body, in particular the excision of a melanoma in 1998,’ confirmed Palmer.
‘Plus he received a sum of money from his mother in August 2004 to buy a plane ticket to Australia. This money hasn’t been touched except for a small withdrawal.’ Connie was leaning forward in her seat.
‘Fine. So we’re proceeding on the assumption that it was Philip Staley in Lena Gray’s bed. What was he doing there?’
‘They must have been seeing each other,’ said Connie. ‘There’s nothing to suggest the sex wasn’t voluntary.’
‘Okay. Let’s move on. She pretends it’s her husband, Andrew Fisher. Any idea why she might do that?’
Palmer and Connie looked at each other. ‘It’s our biggest stumbling block, actually. We don’t know why she’d do that.’
‘Okay. Let’s leave that for the moment. Have you found a connection between Philip Staley and Andrew Fisher?’
‘We’ve found a possible connection,’ said Palmer. ‘I’d put money on the fact they knew each other from playing rugby. It’s all there. But we need to find some hard evidence, to go digging to establish that.’
‘Well keep on at it. Because, like you, I think there’s a rugby connection. Okay, so Andrew Fisher is told by his wife that she’s just murdered his friend. He then, voluntarily – let’s stick with that for the moment – agrees to hide out in Whitby, pretending to everyone, including his mother, that he’s dead.’
‘I think his mother knew he was alive,’ said Connie robustly.
‘I’m not so sure. But the question is why.’
‘Why what?’ Palmer rubbed his head. ‘Why did Lena kill Philip Staley, or why did she persuade or force her husband to hide out in Whitby?’
Sadler looked at them both. ‘The two are connected, aren’t they? Answer one and then the other.’
‘And what about Andrew Fisher’s subsequent killing?’ asked Connie. ‘If he’s perfectly happy in Whitby, for whatever reason, why did he come back to be killed?’
‘Come back to be killed,’ echoed Sadler. ‘That’s actually not a bad turn of phrase.’
‘Come on, boss. It doesn’t work like this. If you know something, you’re supposed to tell us. Not keep us hanging on like Hercule Poirot.’
‘The trouble is, Connie, that I don’t know anything. I’m as much in the dark as you are but I think there’s a reason for that. What do we know about Philip Staley?’
Palmer got in first. ‘That he was a rugger bugger, he overdid the sunbed use, and he didn’t ask for permission before he had sex with a woman he picked up for the night.’
Connie was looking at him in shock. ‘Permission? I think that’s putting it mildly. He raped Rebecca Hardy and then took a photograph of her. That puts it in the definition of aggravated rape these days.’
Palmer turned round to retort, but Sadler silenced him with a look. ‘There are two things you’ve just said that I want you to think about. The first is your mention of “these days”. We’re all pretty clued up on how we deal with reports of rape now. I want you to think about what Rebecca Hardy told you in the interview.’
‘She didn’t say anything bad about how she was treated here,’ pointed out Palmer. ‘She dropped the accusations because she was worried she wouldn’t be believed.’
‘I just want you to bear that in mind. The second thing that Connie said was that what happened to Rebecca constituted aggravated rape. What does that mean?’
‘It means’, Palmer’s tone was subdued, ‘that in addition to being raped, the victim is subject to additional trauma. Taking photographs is definitely on the list of serious aggravating features. I remember learning it for my sergeant exams.’
‘Can you remember what else was on this list?’
Palmer looked to Connie. ‘Not all of them from memory. Infecting the victim was one.’
The phone rang shrilly on the desk. Sadler picked it up. Llewellyn’s secre
tary came on the line. ‘The call finished early. He’s free now if you want to pop down.’
‘Thanks, I’m on my way.’ He looked across to his two colleagues. ‘Look at that list and tell me what comes to mind.’
‘Do you want me to look up some other rape cases from the time?’ asked Connie. ‘Lena Gray had a clean record before her arrest. There were no allegations made by her in relation to a prior assault.’
Sadler thought to his forthcoming meeting. ‘I think this might go further than you think, Connie. Stick to Philip Staley and see what you come up with.’
‘What’s this all about?’ asked Connie. ‘What’s going on?’
Sadler stood up. ‘That’s what I’m about to find out.’
74
Kat woke up and had no idea where she was. Not Providence Villa. The floral odour of the bedroom couldn’t have come from that musty house. And not Mark’s spare bedroom either. That had a flat, synthetic smell, probably emanating from the cheap carpet.
She hadn’t heard from him since their argument, and yet surely he must still be thinking of her. Poor Charlie must have been wondering where she’d got to. Perhaps this was his way of punishing her for walking out on him. Absolute silence.
Then she remembered Lena. After Kat had put right her sister’s assumptions about the events of twenty-five years ago, that she hadn’t been the victim of an attack, her sister had just turned away and walked off down the steps next to the canal bridge. Kat hadn’t run after her. Because Lena was still full of her secrets, and Kat was sick of trying to guess them.
Exhausted with despair and worry, she had rung Patricia and asked if she could come and stay the night. When she arrived, Patricia took one look at her and directed her towards the bathroom with the white modern fittings and deep pile towels, so different from the spartan furnishings of Providence Villa. After a long soak, she had gone straight to bed and had slept for eight hours. Not long for some, perhaps, but virtually unheard of for her.