No Escape

by Hilary Norman

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  On the first day of September, a Sunday afternoon, while her father was off somewhere with friends, and her aunt was taking care of her and her brother, Kylie Bolsover was looking for a spanner in the garage with which she hoped to be able to fix one of the wheels on her skateboard, when she found something that she did not understand.

  At least, she understood what it was.

  A rock, wrapped in a large rag stained with oil and something else; something that was not oil, but was almost, not quite, blackish.

  She tried, for a few moments, to unwrap the rock completely, but some of the rag, where it was dirtiest, was stiff, reminded her of what her daddy’s shirts had felt like when her mother had sprayed starch on them when she was ironing, and those stained bits were stuck to the rock.

  What Kylie did not understand was how the rock and rag were making her feel.

  Sick. Scared.

  She went to find her aunt.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Clare took the call.

  ‘Is Michael Novak there, please?’

  An unfamiliar female voice, apprehensive, even secretive. Clare knew, with a rush of intuition, who it was. ‘Mrs Patston?’

  Silence.

  Mistake.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Clare said, trying to sound calm. ‘Mike’s—’

  ‘It is Mrs Patston,’ the woman said.

  ‘I don’t know why I thought it might be,’ Clare said. Friendly, easy, don’t scare her off. ‘Mike’s just out getting our lunch, but he’ll be back any second. If you don’t mind holding on—’

  ‘All right.’

  In the background, Clare heard a child’s voice, calling. ‘Mummy,’ clear enough, then something else she couldn’t catch.

  ‘Is that your little girl?’ Still easily, wanting to hold her.

  ‘Yes. How long will he be?’

  Novak strolled through the front door of the office with a brown paper bag in one hand and a Standard in the other.

  ‘Joanne Patston for you, Mike,’ Clare said, clearly enough for the woman at the other end to hear.

  ‘Great.’ He dumped the bag and paper on her desk and took the phone.

  ‘Mrs Patston, I’m glad to hear from you.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘We’ve got him.’

  DC Pete Jackson’s voice rang with triumph as he came into the almost empty incident room, then stopped as he saw Shipley on the phone.

  She ended her call. ‘What?’

  ‘Doctor Patel just called,’ Jackson said. ‘She couldn’t hold.’ The ginger-haired DC’s cheeks were almost as ruddy with excitement as his hair. ‘Fax’ll be through shortly.’

  ‘Come on, Pete,’ Shipley said. ‘Don’t make a meal of it.’

  ‘All there. The blood’s Lynne’s and the rag’s got a good print, stupid bastard.’

  ‘Okay,’ Shipley said.

  ‘Is that it?’ Jackson was put out by her lack of enthusiasm.

  ‘No.’ Shipley frowned into her open desk drawer. ‘It’s great news.’

  ‘But?’

  She looked back up at him. ‘In his own garage?’

  The DC shrugged. ‘Like I said, stupid bastard.’

  ‘No one’s that stupid, Pete.’ Shipley paused. ‘We’re not that stupid, for fuck’s sake. That garage was searched.’

  ‘I know.’ Jackson’s pleasure was already fizzling out. ‘It was the first thing Mrs Wakefield said.’

  Except her attitude had been accusing, not sceptical. ‘I thought your people had searched the place.’ Understandable. Smoking gun right under their noses and missed. Head-rolling stuff, if it was true.

  DCI Kirby – when Shipley went to see him – felt it was true, though he far preferred an alternative scenario in which Bolsover had kept the rock and rag hidden elsewhere until after the police search.

  ‘But he could have just chucked them,’ Shipley said. ‘Stuck them in a wheelie somewhere miles away or buried them, or burned the rag and washed the rock and thrown it on someone’s rockery.’

  ‘Or hidden it where we’d finished looking.’ Kirby was steady. ‘People do strange and foolish things, Helen, as we know.’ He paused. ‘Especially panicky men who’ve smashed their wives’ heads in and hardly know where to hide themselves let alone their murder weapon.’

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ Shipley said. ‘It reeks a bit to me.’

  ‘You’re getting paranoid,’ Kirby said. ‘We’ve known from the start it was Bolsover, and now we’ve got the rope to hang him with.’

  Thankfully not literally, Shipley thought, with a slightly sick feeling. Though Trevor Kirby was, of course, right. The rock and rag were precisely what they had been seeking. The perfect way to tie up ends, present to the CPS, ensure a charge of murder, suspect behind bars, trial and, almost certainly, conviction.

  That was not to say that anyone was filled with jubilation.

  ‘Whichever way we tart it up,’ Kirby said, later, in his office, after John Bolsover had been picked up again, charged and removed to Belmarsh, ‘this is still going to haunt us. A six-year-old doing our job.’

  ‘But are we quite sure we’re doing it now?’ Shipley tried again.

  ‘I’m quite sure I don’t believe your theory about someone else planting the bloody evidence,’ Kirby said, almost savagely. ‘I mean, for Christ’s sake, who? And why?’

  The names Allbeury and Novak sprang straight into her mind, but she’d raised them before, had been told to forget them – especially the solicitor’s, who’d done nothing but co-operate as fully as he could.

  She kept quiet now.

  ‘Quite,’ Kirby said coldly.

  ‘So.’ Shipley felt tired. ‘Done and dusted, sir.’

  ‘By a child,’ the DCI said.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘Everyone’s been so kind,’ Lizzie said to Christopher after dinner on the evening of the first Friday in September.

  The children were all in bed, it was Gilly’s weekend off, and husband and wife were drinking coffee in the drawing room at Marlow, a beautiful, comfortable room decorated in dove-grey with the warmth of terracotta on the walls surrounding the stone fireplace and tall, cluttered bookshelves. With the exception of the handsome nineteenth-century landscape over the mantle – which had been bought along with the house because Christopher had felt its removal would have diminished the atmosphere of the room – all the paintings were contemporary French works, mostly hailing from the south, seeming to spill soft sunlight and the colours of Provence and the Côte d’Azur into the air on even the darkest winter days.

  ‘Andrew says Vicuna really are fine about moving the publication schedules around to help me out.’

  ‘I should hope so,’ Christopher said.

  ‘But he’s not convinced that the TV people are quite as laid-back as they’re appearing to be.’

  ‘Arden was understanding.’

  ‘Very.’ Lizzie shrugged. ‘If anyone’s actually angry, they haven’t let on to me or even Andrew. But I did run out on them—’

  ‘As any decent parent would have,’ Christopher pointed out.

  ‘No one’s said otherwise. But it’s clearly not going to be all that straightforward getting the Roadshow restarted, at least not before winter.’

  ‘Do you mind very much?’

  ‘Not a bit,’ Lizzie said. ‘More coffee?’

  It was true that she didn’t mind. God having kept His side of their pact (Edward was looking forward to getting back to school and showing off his war wounds, which had enabled Sophie to get over her guilt, and Jack had shown no ill-effects), Lizzie was more or less keeping her side too.

  She was not, of course, quite certain how she would react the next time Christopher lost control, so, as often happened, one pact had led to another, with slightly moderated terms on her side. If Christopher could manage to temper his needs a bit, she really would do her best to focus on her gratitude for his many highly admirable qualities.


  If.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  ‘This is Robin Allbeury.’

  It was ten-thirty the following Monday, and Allbeury, sitting facing the river in the study at the eastern end of his apartment, had been awaiting the call.

  ‘This is Joanne Patston.’

  Tentative, as Novak had led him to expect.

  Allbeury had two studies at home, one right next to his bedroom to wander in and out of at night or first thing, and this, a more imposing room decorated in a strong violet-blue with black-upholstered and walnut furniture, a fine collection of antique law books and a custom-built black granite desk.

  ‘Mrs Patston, I’ve been expecting your call,’ he said warmly.

  ‘Mr Novak says you’d like to meet me.’

  ‘Only if that’s what you want, Mrs Patston,’ Allbeury said. ‘You’re in charge.’

  A brief silence.

  ‘I can’t come far.’

  ‘That shouldn’t present a problem.’

  ‘I’m usually home most of the time, you see, apart from shopping and the usual things,’ she went on nervously. ‘And my husband sometimes comes back when I’m not expecting him, so . . .’

  ‘I understand, Mrs Patston.’

  ‘On the other hand, if we meet too near home, someone might see us – people always seem to notice Irina, but she will have to come along.’

  ‘I think I can make this a little easier.’ Allbeury had anticipated this problem. ‘Once we’ve made an arrangement, Mrs Patston, I believe I could arrange for your husband to be detained on business for a few hours on whichever day you choose.’

  ‘Oh.’ Joanne Patston was clearly impressed, though a further problem instantly presented itself to her. ‘We’d have to choose somewhere ordinary, because Irina sometimes tells her grandmother about her day.’

  ‘Are there any places you often take Irina to?’ He already knew the answers, Novak having logged all the Patstons’ regular haunts, but this was all part of wanting Joanne to feel in control and also, more significantly, not scaring her off.

  ‘The library,’ Joanne said. ‘In Hall Lane. South Chingford Library, it’s called.’

  ‘All right,’ Allbeury said.

  ‘It’s near Sainsbury’s,’ Joanne added. ‘Not that that helps much, but—’

  ‘I’ll find it, Mrs Patston, don’t worry about that.’

  ‘We often go there, you see. It has quite a good children’s section.’

  ‘So Irina could be happily occupied,’ the solicitor said. ‘Good idea.’

  ‘Next Monday,’ Joanne said, quite abruptly, as if she needed to get it said, make the arrangement swiftly, before she changed her mind. ‘Would that be possible, Mr Allbeury, do you think? Only Tony’s always quite busy on Mondays.’

  ‘I’m not sure, Mrs Patston.’ Allbeury glanced at his diary. ‘I’ll have to check a few arrangements of my own, but I think there should be no problem.’

  ‘What did you mean by “detained”?’ Joanne asked suddenly. ‘No one’s going to hurt Tony, are they?’

  ‘I meant detained on business, Mrs Patston. Nothing more.’

  ‘And you’re sure he won’t be angry when he does get home?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Allbeury said. ‘We’ll see to it that whatever keeps your husband occupied on the day of our meeting is very agreeable to him.’ He paused. ‘All right with you so far, Mrs Patston?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Allbeury.’

  ‘Let’s just hope we can find a way to help you,’ he said.

  Chapter Thirty

  Helen Shipley hated going to court at the best of times. Even when she knew, verdict notwithstanding, without a shadow of doubt, that right was on the side of the police, that the man or woman on trial deserved what was coming to them, her stomach still churned and goose flesh crawled down her back when she saw them in the dock.

  ‘For a copper,’ Graham Shipley, her father and full-time critic, had once told her, ‘you’re a bit of a shirker when it comes to seeing justice done.’

  ‘She’s sorry for them,’ Patricia, her mother, had said, jeering rather than defending her.

  Shipley was not on the whole, she thought, sorry for them. Yet there was a streak of something in her – humanity, she hoped – that did at least give her pause to ask those two perpetually vexing and, to her still frightening, questions: Why? How?

  John Bolsover’s first appearance at Hendon Magistrates Court was, from her strictly personal point-of-view, worse than most. She wasn’t testifying, knew Bolsover would be refused bail as a matter of course, given the charge, and, observing him in the dock, she found him just as thoroughly unpleasant a character as she had from the outset, but . . .

  That was the problem.

  That still-lingering, in her mind, if no one else’s: But.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  With Christopher’s birthday falling this year on a Saturday and being his forty-fifth, Lizzie had determined to make it a special occasion. The day was to be for the whole family, with Angela and William coming for lunch and sport – weather permitting – in the garden at Holland Park.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll be booting you out before the evening,’ Lizzie had told her mother when she’d first issued the invitation. ‘Though you really won’t mind when you hear where we’re going.’

  ‘Opera,’ Angela had said, instantly, for she loathed ballet and classical concerts of all kinds, but opera most of all. ‘What does Christopher want to see, or is it hear? I’m never sure.’

  ‘He doesn’t know about it,’ Lizzie had said.

  ‘Surprise. How lovely.’ Her mother had paused. ‘And no, I don’t mind a bit.’

  Lizzie had kept the whole evening secret, inviting only four of Christopher’s favourite people – Guy Wade, his brother, a cellist, and his violinist wife, Moira, and Anna Mellor and her cardiologist husband Peter Szell – and reserving a box at Covent Garden for Ariadne auf Naxos followed by dinner at Le Gavroche. Not Lizzie’s idea of the best possible London evening, but very much Christopher’s.

  ‘That’ll stretch the kitty a bit,’ Angela had said when she’d heard. ‘But still, Christopher’s worth it, if anyone is.’

  Lizzie remembered Edward screaming, Sophie crying, Jack’s stricken face. Their father taking care of them all, mending Edward, bringing them all home.

  ‘Yes, he is,’ she said.

  And meant it.

  All the celebrations were a great success, Christopher in fine, convivial form right through from breakfast to the very end of the evening back in Holland Park with their guests for nightcaps in the living room, while the children and Gilly slept at the far end of the flat.

  ‘Remind me to order minicabs for you,’ Lizzie said, watching Christopher pouring the second round of drinks from the very old and special Calvados that Peter and Anna had brought for him. They’d left their cars outside the flat at the start of the evening, and Lizzie vaguely remembered both Anna and Moira saying – back in the Champagne Bar before the first act – that they’d be designated drivers, but by the interval they’d already weakened, and then the wine list at Gavroche had smashed any remaining resolve to smithereens.

  ‘Unless you’d like to stay,’ Christopher added.

  ‘Only one spare room,’ Lizzie reminded him.

  ‘I’ve two patients to call in on tomorrow afternoon,’ Peter said. ‘Think I’ll need the morning at home for sobering up purposes.’

  ‘And Moira’s got rehearsals,’ Guy said. ‘Haven’t you, darling?’

  Moira was already starting to nod, which Lizzie saw as the right moment to phone the local cab company, and half an hour later – a little after two-fifteen – she and Christopher were standing on the doorstep, his arm around her, waving them all off.

  He closed the door, took his arm away.

  ‘I can hardly tell you, Lizzie, how much this evening – this whole day – has meant to me.’ His eyes were a little pink from weariness and too muc
h alcohol, but there could be no doubting the love in them. ‘It’s been very, very special, and I’m extremely grateful to you.’

  ‘It’s been my pleasure,’ she said quietly.

  ‘You look tired.’

  ‘I am,’ she agreed, ‘but in a good way, you know?’

  ‘Very much so,’ he said.

  Lizzie looked towards the living room. ‘Think I’ll leave the glasses for morning, go straight to bed.’

  ‘I’ll take care of the glasses,’ Christopher said. ‘And I’ll check on the children, then have one more quiet drink before I turn in.’ He smiled. ‘I’m off duty for the next thirty-six hours.’

  ‘Happy Birthday again, Christopher,’ Lizzie said.

  And went sleepily to bed.

  The squeak of the door hinges lifted her from deep sleep to something lighter; the creak of a floorboard near the bed brought her closer still to consciousness.

  His weight on the bed itself woke her.

  The smell, the heat of him.

  ‘What—?’

  The hand on her mouth cut off any more, and then the weight of his body on hers, his free hand on her, finding her breasts, grabbing at them, pinching her nipples, his knee seeking the space between her thighs.

  ‘Let’s fuck, star,’ he said, raised his right hand and slapped her. ‘Fuck-a-star time.’

  She began to struggle, to try to kick, to push him off, but he hit her again, and it was hopeless, and even as she felt him begin, iron hard, to ram into her, part of Lizzie’s mind was already shutting down, her thoughts and feelings concentrating on the children, asleep in their rooms just along the corridor. And there was no real need for his hand over her mouth to stop her screaming, because through every second of the nightmare she was icily aware that there could only be one thing worse than what was happening to her, and that would be for any of them to know, let alone see, what their father was capable of doing to their mother.

  But, oh, God, her mind was screaming now, as he went on pounding into her, and she was dry inside, and he was ramming, and she knew he was hurting her, really hurting her badly.