Damaged Goods

by Helen Black

  They listened intently as Lilly relayed the morning’s events, Jez shaking his head in disbelief, Sheba nodding hers in encouragement to continue the story.

  Jez fixed Jack with a pointed look. ‘You’ll charge him this time.’ It sounded like an imperative, not an enquiry.

  Jack bristled at the unfairness of the statement. It hadn’t, of course, been his fault that Max had walked last time, but Jez didn’t know that.

  ‘He’s still in hospital at the moment. Jackie Chan here gave him quite a whack, but as soon as he’s fit he’ll be taken to the station and he’s under police guard till then,’ said Jack.

  Jez nodded stiffly as if Jack’s answer were just about good enough. ‘And what about Grace’s murder? Surely this points to him as the most likely suspect?’

  The others answered as one. ‘No.’

  ‘He was in custody at the time,’ said Jack.

  ‘He didn’t know Grace had spilled the beans,’ said Miriam.

  ‘He doesn’t fit the profile,’ said Sheba.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Jez, his arms open in surrender.

  ‘I think it was the other man involved,’ said Lilly.

  ‘I thought we’d decided that wasn’t likely,’ said Sheba.

  ‘But not impossible,’ said Lilly. ‘You said so yourself, and my only alternative is Kelsey and I’m not yet ready to give up on her.’

  They all nodded, even Jack.

  ‘But we’re no nearer to finding out his identity than before,’ said Sheba. ‘All we know is that Grace seemed to know this man and, given her line of business, I suspect she knew more than one or two.’

  Lilly smiled so broadly she felt her cheek smart. ‘I know his name.’

  Everyone turned to Lilly open-mouthed.

  ‘Max said his name was Barrows.’

  Barrows was silently drowning as the man from MI5 spoke. Hermione had always loathed the security services but conceded they were a necessary part of political life. They were supposed to protect the national interest, but since the days of Thatcher they had been used by each successive prime minister to protect the government from those who would harm it, not just by sarin gas or mortar attack, but also by rumour and scandal.

  The man was thin and pale, his hair the colour of dirt, his features instantly forgettable. No wonder Hermione referred to them as spooks.

  ‘What was the man’s name again?’ asked Hermione.

  ‘Max Hardy, madam.’

  Hermione shook her head and turned to her husband. ‘It doesn’t ring a bell with me. Could he be one of your patients, darling?’

  Barrows was unsure what to do and it was a feeling he couldn’t stomach. He dare not lie in case they’d already checked the clinic’s records.

  ‘I don’t recall the name,’ he said, ‘but I’ve seen so many people over the years one doesn’t remember them all.’

  The spook nodded as if this were a perfectly reasonable answer.

  Hermione poured some tea. She seemed a picture of calm but the lid of the china teapot rattled, alerting Barrows that she was anxious. He assumed the other man had seen it too. They were trained for that sort of thing.

  ‘What exactly has this person done?’ he asked.

  The spook set down his cup without the merest chink as it touched the saucer.

  ‘He attempted to kill the solicitor for Kelsey Brand. Apparently it’s not the first time.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ said Hermione, ‘simply awful. Perhaps he’s one of these vigilante types.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the spook, and helped himself to a biscuit. ‘But that still doesn’t explain why the last call received by his mobile phone was from your husband.’

  There was an uncomfortable silence punctuated only by the slight clicking sound of the spook’s jaw as he chewed.

  ‘Darling,’ said Hermione, her voice shrill, ‘didn’t you have your mobile stolen last week?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Barrows.

  ‘There we are, then,’ she sang.

  The spook finished his biscuit. As he swallowed Barrows watched his Adam’s apple move conspicuously.

  ‘There we are, then,’ he repeated, and got to his feet. ‘Of course we’ll go through Mr Hardy’s phone records for the past year or so. If we need anything more we’ll be in touch.’

  Hermione showed him to the door, but Barrows couldn’t even get to his feet. When she came back she no longer looked nervous, her face was grey and stony.

  ‘Hermione,’ Barrows stammered, but she held up her hand to stop him.

  ‘I thought I made it very plain that if you did anything to embarrass me, then this’, she opened her arms, encompassing their home, their marriage, their life, ‘would be over.’

  He nodded and pulled himself to his feet. Though his legs felt leaden he forced himself to walk out of the room and out of the house. Hermione didn’t even watch him go.

  ‘The problem is,’ said Jez, sloshing wine into five glasses, ‘it’s a pretty common name.’

  ‘Did it come up in the case papers?’ asked Miriam.

  Lilly sighed. ‘Maybe, but there are thousands of documents, it would take us forever to find it if it’s there.’

  Jez took a gulp of his wine and shook his head. ‘Uh uh.’ He reached into the slim black attaché case by Sheba’s feet and pulled out a pristine ring-binder. Every sheet was hole-punched and aligned precisely, the edges littered with multicoloured tabs.

  ‘My sister cross-references everything, and I’d be shocked if she hadn’t a list of names mentioned in alphabetical order.’

  Lilly was awe-struck.

  ‘I have issues, okay,’ said Sheba, and passed Lilly a long list of names.

  Lilly ran her finger down the line. ‘Bagshot, Bajari, Ball … Here it is, Barrows, page 199.’

  Sheba flicked to the page and passed the file to Lilly. It was a psychiatric report, not on Kelsey but on Grace during her time in care. Lilly checked the author.

  ‘He worked in The Bushes years ago when it was a home for disturbed children,’ said Lilly.

  ‘Now it’s a home for children with disturbed parents,’ said Miriam.

  ‘It was back then, but no one had the balls to say it,’ said Jack.

  ‘Let’s not get sidetracked,’ said Jez. ‘Let’s get back to the shrink.’

  ‘What’s his first name?’ asked Sheba.

  ‘William,’ said Lilly.

  Sheba threw her arms up and her head back. ‘I met him once at a conference, he was jittery and smelled of sick. He used to be quite big in behavioural stuff in the early Eighties, but there was a whiff of scandal and he went into private practice.’

  ‘What sort of scandal?’ asked Lilly.

  Sheba raised her eyebrows. ‘They say he got too close to the children in his care, if you get my drift.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ asked Lilly.

  Sheba shrugged. ‘As I said, he went into private practice.’

  ‘The bastard swept it under the carpet,’ said Miriam.

  ‘I wonder where he is now?’ asked Lilly.

  ‘Living a life of misery, I hope,’ said Jez.

  Sheba gave a hollow laugh. ‘Sadly, men like that always bounce back. He’s married to that politician with the cardboard hair.’

  Lilly jumped to her feet, sending two glasses of chardonnay onto the floor. ‘Sorry,’ she called to the waitress as she hopped to the door, aware that Jack was only feet behind her.

  Jack stood at the door to the clinic with a skeleton key. Lilly had always imagined a single pick-like implement with mythical powers and was disappointed to see a myriad of keys, from small to huge, but all unimpressively key-like, hooked onto a silver ring.

  ‘This could take hours,’ said Lilly.

  Jack sifted through the keys and isolated a small brass one. ‘Not if you know what to look for,’ he said, and opened the door.

  Lilly raised her eyebrows at him.

  ‘Misspent youth,’ he explained, and they made their way through the re
ception area.

  ‘Strictly speaking, this is none of your business,’ said Jack.

  ‘The hell it’s not,’ said Lilly.

  ‘I mean it’s police business,’ he said.

  She took hold of his hand. ‘Lucky I brought one along.’

  From outside the clinic had seemed empty, but they could hear sounds from the room that seemed most likely to be Barrows’ office. Jack put his finger to his lips and they crept to the door, then there was an almighty bang as Jack kicked it open.

  ‘That’s twice you’ve done that today,’ said Lilly, pleased to find them both full of surprises. Not only was she the sort of woman who could kick some serious ass, the man she fancied beat down doors when the need arose. Who said the South made you soft?

  Inside the office Barrows was nowhere to be seen, but his wife, Hermione, was behind his desk emptying a bottle of fluid into a bin full of videotapes.

  Hermione looks up at the door. ‘That was unnecessary.’

  ‘Where is William Barrows?’ asks Valentine.

  ‘Such melodrama.’

  Hermione’s glare is cold, and so is her tone. She knows that everything is at stake. Her career, her marriage, her life.

  She turns to the man. ‘And who, may I ask, are you?’

  ‘You know who I am,’ says the solicitor angrily. ‘And you know why I’m here.’

  Hermione ignores the solicitor and smiles at the man.

  He flashes his badge. ‘Sergeant Jack McNally.’

  This time the solicitor shouts, ‘Where is William Barrows?’

  ‘He’s away,’ says Hermione.

  ‘Where?’

  Hermione shrugs and looks at the videos that are sizzling and smoking in the bin. The acid has worked well and the tapes are all but melted, filling the air with heavy chemicals.

  McNally puts out his hand. ‘I’ll take that, Mrs Barrows.’

  She holds the bottle against her chest and hopes nothing leaks onto her beautiful cashmere sweater. ‘Under what authority?’

  ‘It’s evidence that a crime has been committed,’ he says.

  ‘What crime?’ asks Hermione.

  Valentine becomes furious and snatches the bottle. She waves it in Hermione’s face.

  ‘Do you know what those tapes are? They’re films of your husband having sex with little girls. He paid someone to find them for him, mostly from care homes, girls without families, girls without anyone to watch out for them, then he raped them.’

  Valentine’s voice cracks, no longer an angry shout but a strangled cry. ‘And, not satisfied with that, he had someone get it all on film so he could enjoy what he’d done again and again and again.’

  She stops to catch her breath, and McNally puts his hand on her shoulder. Hermione might almost find them sweet were she not so contemptuous.

  ‘Must you really behave like a fishwife?’ she asks.

  ‘I think you need to come with me, Mrs Barrows,’ McNally says.

  ‘I think we should call your superior,’ says Hermione, and punches the number into the telephone on William’s desk.

  ‘Yes.’ The familiar voice of Bradbury comes over the squawk box.

  ‘It’s Mrs Barrows again,’ Hermione purrs. ‘I have one of your subordinates here, an Officer McNally. Please confirm to him what we were discussing earlier.’

  ‘Jack, is that you?’ asks Bradbury.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Barrows didn’t kill Grace,’ says Bradbury.

  ‘Of course he did,’ Valentine shouts.

  ‘Who the hell is that?’ asks Bradbury.

  ‘Never mind,’ says Jack. ‘How can you be sure?’

  Bradbury sighs. ‘Mr and Mrs Barrows were at a charity dinner for the NSPCC on the night Grace Brand was killed. Also present were the Chancellor and his wife, and the editor of a national newspaper. I believe Judge Blechard-Smith sat at their table.’

  Valentine and McNally are shocked into silence. Hermione stifles a laugh. She is pleased to have taken control of the situation, but crowing is so unseemly.

  ‘What about the tapes?’ says McNally, but the edge has gone from his voice. ‘She’s destroyed the lot.’

  ‘That’s being dealt with at a higher level,’ says Bradbury.

  McNally guides Valentine away. She still hasn’t spoken.

  Bye bye, silly girl.

  Lilly was still aghast when she got home. Jack had tried to impress upon her the futility of a confrontation about the tapes. Hermione Barrows was government, and his experience in Northern Ireland had taught him that what the government wants it usually gets. Justice, morality and the like came a very poor second to the ‘bigger picture’, whatever that might be at any given time.

  ‘But you came here to escape all that bullshit,’ she’d pointed out.

  He gave a half-smile and dropped her back at Parkgate to collect her car.

  ‘You okay to drive?’ he’d asked.

  Lilly had imagined how she must look, wounds at her throat and cheek, her foot swollen to twice its size.

  ‘I’ll keep her below ninety.’

  Outside the cottage David was helping Sam unload something from the boot of his car. He did a double take when he saw Lilly’s cheek.

  ‘What on earth happened this time?’

  Lilly evaded the question. ‘Thanks for bringing him home from school.’

  David looked at the ground. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I’m collecting a few bits and taking him back to mine.’

  Sam was also studiously avoiding her eyes and kicked at a stone that was lodged between two flagstones.

  ‘Sam?’ said Lilly.

  ‘It’s just for a few nights, Mum, while you’re so busy and everything.’

  She looked from David to Sam and back again, but neither could tear their eyes from their feet.

  ‘What does Cara think about this new arrangement?’ asked Lilly.

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ said David.

  ‘So she doesn’t know,’ said Lilly.

  This time David did look up, and when he spoke his words cut through her. ‘Sam’s unhappy.’

  They got in the car and drove away. Lilly stayed on the drive long after they’d gone, and long after she could make out the car in the distance, unable to get David’s words out of her head. A bite was circling in the wind and it made Lilly shiver. Her cheek stung and she was tired, so very, very tired, but still she didn’t go inside. She wondered if Grace had felt like this when the girls were taken into care. Did she stand on the walkway outside number 58, afraid to go back inside to the place she could no longer call home?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Saturday, 26 September

  A navy blue sports holder containing Sam’s football kit sat in the passenger seat next to Lilly. They had bought it together during the Easter holidays. It was the make preferred by the England team and Sam was determined to track one down. By the sixth shop Lilly was peckish and losing patience. Weren’t these bags much of a muchness? Somewhere to sling your dirty boots and shin pads? Sam had looked at her with such a toxic mixture of disgust and pity that she had felt compelled to continue the dogged search. By three thirty, delirious with hunger, she harangued a young assistant with livid acne to call every shop in the same chain within a fifty-mile radius and had managed to secure the last one in a shopping centre in Watford.

  Sam had paraded that bag like Donald Trump with his latest wife, savouring each ooh and ahh like fine champagne. Lilly had to admit that for the amount of kudos that bag had inspired it had been worth each painful minute in its pursuit.

  Lilly was surprised that Sam had forgotten it. Maybe it was a good sign. Maybe Sam hadn’t been thinking straight when he’d asked to stay with his dad. Or maybe Sam didn’t want it any more and was planning to shed his former life with his mum.

  Whatever the truth, Sam would need it for this morning’s match so Lilly drove to school.

  How many times had Lilly prayed for silence during the morning school run, trying to navigate the
country lanes and Sam’s conversations, which twisted and turned irrationally.

  ‘Let’s listen to music,’ she’d beg, but Sam would chatter over it, grinding Lilly’s brain to pulp. She had never done mornings well.

  ‘What’s the capital of Mexico?’

  ‘Do frogs’ legs really taste like chicken?’

  ‘What’s the distance between the earth and the moon?’

  ‘Is it better to be clever or kind?’

  This morning there was nothing. Lilly could hear the engine, the tyres on the dirt tracks, the squeak of the cup holder when she took a bend. She had never felt so bereft.

  She trudged towards the changing rooms, the bag slung over her shoulder, wondering whether she should just leave it on the bench and let it speak for itself or give it to him personally. She didn’t want him to think she wasn’t speaking to him but she didn’t want him to think she was hounding him either.

  ‘Now there’s a glum face.’

  Penny smiled. Her lips shone with a hint of pink that made her face quite lovely.

  ‘I’m sorry about the other day,’ said Lilly.

  ‘Don’t be. You were right in a way, I’m not cut out to care full-time for a damaged child, however much I might want to.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to put you off.’

  ‘You didn’t. We’re going to provide respite care for a severely disabled child. Apparently his parents are just about holding up but are desperate for the occasional break.’

  ‘That’s fantastic,’ said Lilly, and meant it.

  ‘So what’s going on with you? I saw Sam coming in with his dad earlier.’

  Lilly held up the kitbag by way of explanation. ‘He doesn’t want to be with me any more.’

  Penny let out a tinkle of laughter and hugged Lilly. ‘Don’t take it to heart. My parents separated when I was six and I spent my life doing the dance of the seven households. For most people the grass is always greener and kids are no different. A week of Dad’s classical music and his girlfriend’s mung bean curry and he’ll be begging to come home.’

  Lilly didn’t feel as confident.

  ‘Trust me,’ said Penny, and hugged her again.

  Lilly’s mobile beeped to tell her she had a text.