by Vicary, Tim
He hadn’t expected that either. It was not a word Sarah used often. And Simon, he knew, was very important to her indeed.
‘I’ve been thinking too,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t feel proud of what I did. I wish I’d never met the old sod.’
‘But you did. And once you know a thing like that, you can’t un-know it.’
‘True. Especially when a girl’s dead.’ He sighed, staring out of the window where the sunset lit the tops of the trees, and the birds were letting rip with a tumultuous evening chorus. ‘I suppose that’s why I did it, really. Because of Jasmine’s family. Suffering as we might have done if Emily had died.’
‘Yes,’ Sarah murmured. ‘And if it had been Emily, I’d kill anyone who covered things up. That’s all she has left now, Mrs Hurst - the right to know what happened.’
‘So what are you going to do?’ Bob looked at the plastic bag.
‘Talk to you about it, first. If this thing isn’t going to tear us apart, we’ve got to decide together. All right so far?’
‘So far, so good. Yes.’
‘Don’t mock me, Bob, this is deadly serious. Now, there are three possibilities.’
Here comes the lecture, Bob thought. It’s how her mind works.
‘One, I take them to Lucy. She’s Simon’s lawyer, she can decide. But wouldn’t I just be passing the buck to her, tempting her to conceal it as I was tempted myself?’
‘Maybe. What’s number two?’
‘Two, I put them back where they were, and say nothing. Then the police either find the things for themselves or they don’t. That way, if I’ve wiped my fingerprints off the ring, they don’t know I’ve ever seen them.’
‘And the third?’
‘The one that scares me to death. I ring up the police and hand these things over myself.’
‘I see.’ Bob scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘And which do you think is right?’
‘That’s what I hoped you’d tell me. What would you do?’
‘Well ...’ he hesitated. ‘You’ve tried getting rid of them yourself, and failed. And if you give them to Lucy, I can see you’re just passing the buck. Like you are with me.’
‘You’re my husband! Bob!’
‘Yeah, okay, it’s different. But if he really did these things, Sarah, then haven’t we got a duty to tell the police? I mean, Jasmine’s dead - and there may be more girls. Kids like Emily.’
‘You don’t really believe he’s like that, Bob. Do you?’
‘We’re not talking about what I believe,’ he said desperately. ‘We’re talking about what to do with the evidence.’
‘True.’ She got up and strode distractedly round the room. ‘Look, Bob, I can’t hand this stuff over, I simply can’t. Any more than I could throw it away this afternoon.’
‘So you’re going to put it back. That’s all that’s left, isn’t it?’
Sarah ran a hand through her hair. ‘Well, I can’t just turn him in. He’s my son. On the other hand I’m not hiding or destroying anything, I’m just putting it back where the police can find it if they do their job properly. That’s all.’
‘And if it goes wrong, and they find out?’ Bob asked. ‘I can see the headlines now. York Barrister Hides Evidence To Save Killer Son. Is that what you want?’
‘It’s a risk I’ll have to run, that’s all. There are risks with all of this.’
‘So if that’s your decision, what do you want from me?’ Bob asked slowly. ‘After all, you’ve told me now.’
‘I want your love and support, Bob.’ Then she realized what was implied in his last words. ‘And your promise to say nothing. You couldn’t - you won’t ring them yourself?’
‘You said you wouldn’t burden Lucy with this knowledge. But you’ve burdened me.’
The comment terrified Sarah, like a cold hand round her heart. She had come here for support, and now this. She stared at him bleakly.
‘If you tell them, Bob, we really are finished. This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do and it’s tearing me apart. I’m risking my whole career for this, everything I’ve worked for since I was a kid. But he’s my son, Bob! I need your support.’
Before he could answer, the doorbell rang and Emily came clattering down the stairs. They heard voices in the hall and then Emily came in with Larry, beaming happily. Emily looked pretty and flushed with excitement. Larry, in jeans, a black leather jacket and bootlace tie, had clearly made some attempt to improve his appearance. Sarah forced a smile.
‘Hello, you two. Where are you going?’
‘Out. To a meal at a place Larry knows.’
‘In Larry’s car?’ Sarah looked dubiously out at a small rusty hatchback in the drive.
‘Don’t worry, Mrs Newby, I don’t drink and drive,’ Larry said. ‘And she won’t be back late either - I do know she’s got exams this week.’
‘But not tomorrow, so I’ve got all day to revise,’ Emily said. She kissed Sarah on the cheek. ‘Don’t look so worried, Mum, I’m all right.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you are. And you can trust Larry, I hope.’ She glanced anxiously at Bob. ‘Actually, I’m going out for a while, too. So I’ll follow you down the road to check your driving, young man!’ She went out into the porch for her leathers and helmet.
‘Oh Mum!’ Emily protested at this humiliation. Then a more serious thought struck her. ‘You are coming back tonight, aren’t you?’
‘Just like you, young lady, yes.’ She met Bob’s eyes. ‘I’ll stay so long as we all trust each other. Okay?’
Emily looked puzzled, not sure what her mother was talking about. ‘If we have to trust each other why are you going to follow Larry down the road?’
‘It was a joke,’ Sarah said. ‘I won’t.’ She smiled at them all - a tense, rather frightening smile - and stepped out into the night, alone.
Chapter Twenty-One
IT WAS dark by the time she got to Bramham Street. The sound of the motorbike echoed loudly from the terraced houses on either side. Sarah hadn’t noticed it before; perhaps guilt focused her attention on it now. When she cut the engine it was quiet - the sound of television through windows, curtains drawn, no one on the street. She glanced around but there was no one watching from a window that she could see.
Anyway I have a right to be here, she told herself. It’s my house, I have a key. I’ll come whenever I choose. But for all her brave words she felt like a burglar.
She wheeled the bike through the alleyway into Simon’s back yard. It was dark, but the streetlights lit different angles of the passage, so that Sarah walked through a kaleidoscope of shadows. She settled the bike on its stand, stripped off her gauntlets and helmet, and fumbled in the pannier for the plastic bag. Then she pushed open the door of the shed and stepped inside.
As she did so something seized her arm and she stumbled forwards on her face. To her amazement she was on her hands and knees on the shed floor. She tried to get up but something hit her on the rump and she fell forwards again, face down. Her right hand slipped inside the bag and got tangled up in the balaclava hood. She gasped, struggled to her knees, looked behind her, and saw -
a man blocking the doorway.
She could only see him dimly in the orange glow of the streetlight but he was a large, well built man with thick arms and massive shoulders. She almost fell over a broken chair, recovered, and staggered to her feet. The intruder grabbed her arm, and slammed her against the wall. She pushed the balaclava hood into his face, blinding him for a second, her nails clawing at his cheeks. But a huge hand closed over hers, dragging the hood away from the side of his head and flinging it to the floor.
‘Right then, what’s this?’
The big, cruel face grinned into hers from a few inches away. As her eyes adapted to the faint orange light from the street the features became clearer and the confidence in the man’s face leaked away. They stared at each other, bewildered.
‘Fancy knickers Newby!’
‘Gary Harker! Get off
me!’ She tried to free herself but as she wriggled his grip tightened slightly. He must be twice her weight, with the strength of a gorilla. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘What am I doing?’ He still held her but less cruelly, more as though he had forgotten what his huge hands were gripping than anything else. ‘Minding me own business, until you turned up. What you poking your nose in here for?’
He looked more annoyed than vicious, so far as she could tell in the gloom. But it was not a situation she intended to prolong. Was this how things had begun with Sharon? She had to get out of here, quickly.
‘Let me go, you great oaf!’
‘Let you go?’ The hands still held her, a jeering smile twitching his lips. ‘Why should I? Looking for me were you, miss fancy knickers? Dressed up in all this kinky gear, too!’ His right hand squeezed her breast, then slid down her waist to her hips. ‘Fancied me all along, I’ll bet. Well, now.’
A snake of fear slithered up her spine. She felt sure that if she struggled again she would provoke him more. She listened intently, hoping for some voice from the yard outside, but there was only the TV laughter far away, fainter than the soft hiss of his breath.
Very quietly she said: ‘Gary, I know exactly who you are. You’re not wearing a hood now. So if you touch me you’ll have to kill me. Otherwise I’ll see that you get sent down for rape with the longest sentence that’s ever been passed. You’ll be an old man before you come out again, your prick will dry up and shrivel off. Is that what you want? Twenty years inside?’
His hand moved thoughtfully across her buttock. ‘Twenty years inside you, you mean?’
Dear God in heaven, she thought, what have I done coming in here all alone? She panicked, wriggling like an eel to slip from his grasp, but that was a mistake; his grip tightened and he slammed her against the wall, knocking the breath out of her. His breath was on her face, his huge hands pinning her arms to her sides, immobile like a vice.
‘For God’s sake, Gary, you’re mad, I’m too old for you!’
She watched his face in the dim orange light as his mind lumbered to a decision. Her pulse was racing, she wanted to sprint away like a gazelle but she couldn’t move. This is how I die, she thought, in a squalid scuffle in a shed. Then, to her surprise, his grip slackened.
‘Old cow. Go on then, get out of it. I’m not that desperate, ta very much.’
Warily, she slipped past him, and stepped outside. An enormous urge to run surged through her but she took just three steps before turning round to face him. Three yards of pitch black shadows and orange glow between them. ‘Right. Now do you mind telling me what you’re doing here, in the first place?’
‘What’s it to you? You don’t belong here.’
‘I do, you know. This is my son’s house. I own it, in a way.’ It was amazing, she thought, how hard and insistent her voice could still sound, when her whole body was trembling like a jelly inside. Perhaps that’s part of being old.
‘Who - Simon? Your son? You’re crackers.’
‘No, I’m not. So you see that gives me every right to be here, unlike you. What exactly are you doing in my son’s shed, Gary? Thieving? You won’t find much there.’
‘That’s what you think, fancy knickers. Shows how much you know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your son - he’s been nicked, hasn’t he? For murder, I heard.’
Sarah’s brain began racing along a new track. What did this mean?
‘It’s a mistake. The police do make mistakes, Gary, you ought to know that.’
‘Oh right.’ She could hear the mocking grin in his voice. ‘So what did happen then?’
‘I don’t know, yet. My son isn’t a murderer, Gary. If you’ve met him you’d know that.’
‘Not a thief either, I suppose?’
‘No, of course not. Look, you haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here?’
As the silence lengthened she thought perhaps he knows about the ring, the balaclava. Could he have been looking for them - or something else?
His answer came as a joke, of all things. ‘Cruising, o’ course. Waiting for tarts. They drop in from time to time, tha knows. All done up in kinky leather!’
He smirked, delighted with himself. Then he stepped towards her out of the shed. She backed away nervously. ‘That your bike, is it?’
‘It is.’
‘Fuck me.’ He swung his leg astride the saddle, and turned the handlebars this way and that. ‘Not bad. Fancy a ride?’ He patted the pillion seat.
Sarah took a deep breath, and felt in her pocket for the key to the house. ‘I’m going indoors now, Gary. If you don’t get off that bike straight away and piss off out of here, I’ll call the police and then we’ll have you for TWOC as well as breaking and entering and stealing whatever you’ve taken from that shed. Otherwise I’ll forget the whole thing. You choose.’
‘Right then, I will an’ all. Bitch.’ Her last challenge had been a mistake. Before she could move he swung his leg off the bike and with one long stride across the yard grabbed her arm and yanked her towards him. The other hand smacked her hard across the face. It was like being hit by a wall. The blow filled her mind, there was nothing else, only the massive jolt, the pain, the sense that her jaw had been realigned by a concrete block. When there was room for other thoughts she realized she was sprawled face down across the saddle of the bike, one huge hand tugging her leather trousers down to her knees.
She screamed, a brief bubbling sound which was choked off by his other hand which clamped over her mouth and nose.
‘Shut it, slag! I’ve always wanted to do this.’ He was spreading her legs behind her, she realized, trying to get one either side of the back wheel but hampered by the trousers around her ankles. She tried to bite his hand but it was too big and all-enveloping, squeezing her nose so that tears ran from her eyes and she thought I’ll die, he’ll suffocate me!
Then she fell sideways and there was a clatter and bang and a vast, immoveable weight on her right thigh. There were men shouting, doors slamming. White light blazed in her eyes.
‘Are you all right, love? Christ, she’s under the bike!’
If the words had a meaning it didn’t register with Sarah. There was swearing, a shout of ‘Get in there and shut it!’ Then what sounded like a radio crackling ‘Ambulance needed, 23 Bramham Street, urgent please.’
The weight lifted from her thigh and a man’s voice spoke from the darkness. Calm, reassuring, not Gary’s. ‘It’s all right, love, it’s off now. Harry, get a blanket. You just lie still. Sarah? It’s Terry Bateson.’
‘Look, I wasn’t raped, all right? Ooooh, my tongue!’
‘I know you say that, but the officers say you were unconscious when they found you. So it’s best to take samples to be sure. You might not know what happened.’
‘I know.’ Sarah’s mouth felt as though it was about to fall apart like a rotten, bloated potato. ‘It’s my mouth that hurts, not ...’ She gestured to the other end of the couch, where the female doctor was preparing her swab. And my pride, she thought. What a fool I look now, with my legs in the air and my neck in a brace while that police woman notes down what I say.
‘You’re lucky with your jaw. The X-rays show nothing broken, no teeth lost. The analgesics should kick in soon and you won’t feel it any more. Just shift this way, please. There, that’s it. Mmmm. No tears, no bleeding. Just these scrapes on your leg where you fell. You say he didn’t penetrate you?’
‘No!’
‘Vaginally or anally?’
‘No! Can I sit up now?’
‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry, I do have to ask these things.’
Sarah swung her legs over the side of the couch. ‘My mouth hurts and my leg aches but he didn’t rape me, all right? I was lucky, the cabblly came in time.’
‘Yes. The what, love?’ The doctor looked up from her notes and smiled, cool and distant and professional. Checking my mind isn’t deranged now, Sarah thought
in despair.
‘Cav - al - ry,’ she said, as clearly and distinctly as she could through her throbbing, bloated mouth. ‘The cavalry came in time. Joke.’
‘Oh. Yes, I see.’ The doctor smiled again, and squatted in front of her, looking directly into her eyes as though she were a child. ‘Well, do you feel up to talking to the police now? Or would you rather they came back in the morning?’
‘Talk now,’ Sarah said. ‘Get it over with.’
‘All right, if you’re sure. But if you feel bad just tell them to stop.’ The doctor stood up and spoke directly to the detective, Tracy Litherland. ‘No more than half an hour, maximum, all right? She’s had a nasty shock and she needs to sleep. I suggest you just get the basic facts now and leave the rest until tomorrow.’
The basic facts, Sarah thought as she got carefully to her feet. Where do we start?
‘Right, Harker, what’s your story this time?’ Terry noticed, with grim satisfaction, how stiffly Gary had manouevred himself into the chair, as though his ribs were hurting. The arrest had not been conducted with excessive gentleness. But his manner was surly, defiant.
‘I dunno what you mean.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Terry derisively. ‘We caught you in the act, old son. Four police officers saw you trying to rape this woman, Mrs Sarah Newby. You had her trousers down and your hand around her throat, for Christ’s sake!’
‘Not round her throat. It were her mouth.’
‘Is that supposed to make a difference?’
‘Yeah. Big difference.’ Gary leered. ‘She were kissing it.’
‘You liar!’ Terry rose from his chair without thinking, but Harry caught his arm, glancing pointedly at the two tapes running smoothly in the machine. Terry recovered himself, sat down.
‘You were attempting to rape her. I saw you.’
A cunning leer came over Gary’s face as he took in Terry’s reaction. ‘Got the hots for her yourself, have you, copper? Well you’re too bloody late, that’s what. What you saw was just sex, no more and no less. She wanted it like that.’