Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) Page 11

‘That’s part of it,’ Sarah conceded. ‘But I’m lucky to have any work at all. Do you have any idea how many people get to the Bar and no further? About fifty per cent.’

  ‘Good Lord! So what do they do?’

  ‘Go into the City, become teachers, lecturers, backpackers, whatever. What about you? How did you get into property developing?’

  ‘Well, I got my degree, did a postgrad year in business management in York, and then joined a training scheme at Jolyons, a big construction company in East Anglia. As a sort of management trainee. I didn’t know anything about construction but I learnt on the job. Then, after five years, I began to see how to make money - you know, how to spot an opportunity, how to put a deal together, how to squeeze out your rivals. So I thought, I’m learning things here, maybe I can put them to my own advantage. There were a couple of ruined cottages in a village where we lived. I bought them for a song and did them up as commuter homes, and it worked. Then I bought a barn and converted that as well. I was on my way.’

  ‘You make it sound easy.’

  ‘It’s not, it’s a lot of hard work. But working for myself, there was more satisfaction. I paid off our mortgage, got in at the start of the property boom - it went well for a while. Until I lost a wife on the way. And the family home, which cost more.’ He grimaced, sipping his beer.

  ‘That was generous,’ said Sarah, thinking of Bob and her home by the river. ‘Couldn’t you have sold up and divided the equity?’

  ‘I could have insisted on that, yes. But Kate, she’s a teacher, she doesn’t have much money. And I had a couple of deals to keep me going. So I thought what the hell? Bite the bullet, move to York, and start again. Which I did.’

  Let’s hope Bob does the same, Sarah thought. Fat chance. I should have married a man like this instead. They talked quietly for the rest of the journey. The man showed her plans of his latest projects - a farmhouse and two barns near Scarborough, and a windmill near Pocklington which he was converting into a house. He gave her his card, with the name Town and Country Properties on it - and she gave him hers. And as they passed Doncaster and headed towards York, she described one or two of the more interesting cases she’d been involved in.

  They’d been talking for nearly two hours, and getting on well. Sarah wondered if the exchange of cards would lead to anything else - a phone call perhaps, a meal together. He seemed confident, pleasant, attractive. Emily would be proud of me, she thought. After all, now she was free ... But she’d been married so long, she had little idea of what to expect. Or how to deal with it, if anything happened.

  Then, near York, his mood changed. She’d been describing her successful defence of a robber, when he frowned.

  ‘Don’t you sometimes get sick of it, though? When you get some thug off just because the police can’t prove it, even though you’re almost certain he’s guilty? You must hate yourself then. I mean, what about that case in the Court of Appeal? Don’t you worry about that man - what’s his name? - James Barnes? What if he kills someone else?’

  ‘Jason Barnes. It’s a risk, I suppose,’ Sarah said, surprised at the intensity of the question. ‘But you have to put it out of your mind. After all, he can’t really do it again, can he? Not after he won his appeal. So far as the law is concerned, he never did it in the first place.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope the judges are right, that’s all’ he said, as they got up to lift down their bags. ‘So we can all sleep safely in our beds.’

  They parted outside the station, amicably enough. In the taxi on the way home, Sarah thought back on the conversation, curiously. Pleasant enough for most of the journey. Then there’d been that change of mood, this sudden waspishness at the end.

  16. Broken Glass

  DETECTIVE CHIEF Inspector Will Churchill was a very different man from his retired colleague, Detective Superintendent Robert Baxter. Churchill was young, in his mid thirties, suave, well dressed, and single. His bachelor status was a source of mystery to some, envy to others. Since his arrival in York he had become notorious for the string of nubile young women who seemed to accompany him on adventure holidays. Photographs of these girls, waterskiing, hang-gliding, or windsurfing, succeeded each other with bewildering rapidity on the wall of his office. Each looked attractive and daring, but none seemed to stay with him long. Perhaps it was his technique, the gossips whispered; he wasn’t man enough to satisfy them. Or perhaps it was his ambition; he was seeking perfection in women and couldn’t be satisfied with less, just as he aimed high in his career and would never be satisfied until he reached the top.

  If Baxter had once shared this ambition, it was almost the only thing the two men had in common. It grated with Will Churchill that this big, powerful athlete, a heavily built bruiser who had played prop forward for police rugby teams, had been Detective Superintendent, a rank above his own. To Churchill he looked like a bouncer rather than a detective. Baxter was a family man, a grandfather with a married son in the Royal Artillery. He spoke seldom, only when he had something to say. And when he did, he exuded bitterness and contempt. Jason Barnes’ successful appeal disgusted him. He had given his life to the police force, he said, and for what? He’d been betrayed. He held forth at length about this in the train on the way home. It wasn’t just the lawyer, Sarah Newby, who he despised - at least he and Churchill could agree about that - but almost everything, in his opinion, had got worse since he retired. Paperwork, political correctness, gender equality, health and safety, offender profiling - the list went on and on.

  ‘In my day, lad, we knew the villains, and they knew us,’ he said, staring reflectively out of the train window with a can of Boddingtons in his hand as the fields flashed past. ‘And no one got to the top unless he was fit, strong and had a good record of arrests. None of this bollocks about targets and sensitive management styles. And the streets were a lot safer, believe you me. Now it’s them that have rights, and our lot have none.’

  ‘Things have changed, sir, but some have got better,’ Churchill said quietly. ‘We’ve got a lot more technology, for a start. Better forensics.’

  ‘That’s what I said too, at your age.’ Baxter supped his drink gloomily. ‘But I don’t envy you lot, I tell you straight. You’ve a harder job than we did. Makes me mad, all that red tape.’

  His cross-examination by Sarah Newby had enraged him, and his fury when Jason won his appeal was so great that Churchill had feared he might commit an assault. One can of Boddingtons succeeded another, until his face glowed like a fire bomb.

  ‘That lad’s guilty as hell, always was, always will be,’ he repeated, in a voice that grew louder as the journey progressed. ‘Fancy bitch barrister, getting him off on a technicality - how would she like it, if it was one of her daughters, eh? If she’s not too dried up to have any, like she should be doing. And my reputation ruined - thirty years’ service, and in my obituary they’ll say I got the wrong man. Like fuck I did! Wait till he kills someone else - then they’ll see!’

  Will Churchill was glad to get him safely off the train and home without incident. But despite the swearing and out-dated prejudices, he felt sorry for the old man. It was a dreadful thing to happen to anyone, to see a case that should have been the pinnacle of his career turn into a millstone round his neck, a label for fools to point scorn at. Particularly when he’d been trashed by a pair of middle-aged women - Sarah Newby and her overweight solicitor sidekick, Lucy Parsons. Churchill knew what that felt like. He’d loathed the sight of them ever since they’d humiliated him in court last year. And now, by proxy, it had happened again. He himself had only been a trainee constable in Essex at the time of the original case, but he’d read about it when he came to York. It had been a big deal at the time. Another murderer locked up, more proof that the police got their man, and justice was served. Now all that was undone. Once again the York CID - his team - would be vilified in the press. Sarah Newby had triumphed, while he, DCI Will Churchill, sat in court and watched.

  He didn’t like it, and he
wanted to put things right.

  The one thing Sarah had not expected to find when she got home was Bob’s Volvo in the drive. Her hands shook as she paid off the taxi. What did this mean? Had he changed his mind after all? She’d been nervous enough about coming home to an empty house as it was, but this ...

  She walked up the drive, dragging her wheeled suitcase behind her. All the lights were on, including the outside light above the garage. The Volvo’s tailgate was raised, the back full of boxes and bin liners. As she came nearer, Bob came out of the front door, staggering under the weight of a large cardboard box. He stopped when he saw her.

  ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘It’s my wine. From the wine club,’ he said defensively. He was wearing an old pullover and corduroy trousers, she noted numbly. His hair was ragged and uncombed, his glasses pushed slightly sideways on his nose.

  ‘I thought I asked you to take all this on Wednesday.’ Her voice sounded pale, distant, detached from her body somehow. A body that was trembling with shock.

  ‘Yes, I know, I’m sorry Sarah, but we - I’ve been busy.’

  ‘We? You mean that woman’s here too?’ She left her suitcase and pushed past him into the house, nearly causing him to stagger and drop the wine. The hall was cluttered with more boxes.

  ‘No, of course not. I’m here on my own.’ He dumped the wine in the Volvo and returned to the hall. ‘I’d hoped to be gone before you came.’

  ‘It’s eight in the evening, Bob. You’ve had four days.’

  ‘As I said, I’ve been busy.’

  ‘And I haven’t, I suppose.’ They stood staring at each other in the hall, across a wasteland of his possessions. She shook her head slowly. This man whom she had loved. ‘How long will it take you to clear all this?’

  ‘Five, ten minutes, I suppose. I’m nearly done.’

  ‘Get on with it, then. I don’t want to see you.’

  She marched into the kitchen, put the kettle on, sat down at the table, put her head in her hands, got up, walked round in a circle, went back to the kitchen door. Bob was lifting a box full of books.

  ‘I just said take your clothes, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m taking all my things. Then you’ll be shot of me.’

  She stood there watching numbly as he took out the books, then more boxes and bags. The last one, she noted, had a photo album on top.

  ‘Stop! You’re not taking that!’ She snatched it out of the box as he lifted it. He put the box down.

  ‘I am, Sarah. That’s mine.’

  ‘It’s ours, you mean. Photos of all of us.’

  ‘Who do you think took them and put the albums together? Me, Emily and Simon. Not you.’

  She opened the album and saw photos of the children making sandcastles on the beach at Filey. Emily looked about five, Simon eight. ‘These are my children, Bob!’

  ‘They’re mine too - Emily is anyway. And I took that photo. You weren’t even there, on that holiday. You were at an Open University course!’

  ‘You’re not taking these photos!’ She put the album on the stairs behind her and snatched another from the box. ‘None of them, they’re mine! What are you going to do, share them with your fancy woman in Harrogate?’

  ‘No, Sarah, I’m taking them for me.’ He picked up another album and opened it at random. ‘See, look at this here. Photos of me and Emily. Emily with her friends. Emily and Simon in the park. Me teaching Emily to swim. Where are you in these photos?’

  ‘I must have taken it, mustn’t I?’ She pointed to the swimming photo. ‘You couldn’t have taken it, you’re in it!’

  ‘No, it was Simon probably - or some lifeguard I handed the camera. You were too busy, Sarah, most of the time. Nearly all the time in fact.’

  Sarah was so angry she nearly choked. ‘You come here, Bob - you come back here tonight when I told you to be gone by Wednesday - and not content with wrecking our marriage you ransack our house for every little memory of our family! You ...’ For once in her life words failed her.

  Bob turned the pages of the album, with a look of calm, invincible reasonableness. A look so maddening that, Sarah recalled, it had once driven her son Simon to try to kill him with a poker. He pulled out three photos and passed them to her.

  ‘There you are - there’s one of you. And two more. That’s all I can find. You keep them, Sarah - I’m taking the rest.’ He reached behind her, grabbed the album from the stairs, picked up the box and walked out of the door.

  She looked down at the photo. There was Emily, aged about eight, standing proudly in a pink ballet dress, holding her hand. Sarah vaguely remembered the occasion - a play the ballet class had put on. She’d been bored but felt duty bound to go. Her other hand in the photo, she noted with horror, held a book.

  Bob came back in. ‘That’s the lot. I won’t trouble you further. There’s just this.’ He held out an envelope.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A letter from my lawyers. I think it’s best if we handle this through them, don’t you? Less pain in the long run, no doubt.’

  ‘Less pain?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t think this doesn’t hurt me too. I haven’t had much sleep this week - or last week either, come to that. But I’m sure it’s the best in the long run. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.’

  ‘Oh, you bastard!’ Her body trembled, his image blurred in front of her eyes. ‘Get out of here now! Go on, go!’ Her hand closed round something and picked it up.

  Looking alarmed, Bob retreated, pulling the door to behind him. As he did so, Sarah hurled the potted plant in her hand. It smashed into the door, shattering one of the small glass panes near the top, and spraying the hall with soil, leaves and broken glass. She heard the Volvo start up outside, and opened the door in time to see it turn right onto the road.

  She slumped on the doorstep, head in her hands, defeated.

  Then she got up and walked into the wreckage of her home.

  17. New Recruit

  ON TUESDAY morning, just to improve Terry’s life further, his daughter Esther refused to go to school. Her throat was burning, her face flushed, she had a temperature. Terry drove Jessica to school while his nanny, Trude, made an appointment with the doctor. As a result he arrived late for work where his desk was already piling up with problems for the week. He was due in court on Friday to give evidence in a complicated drugs case. He’d arrested the villains six months ago - ancient history for a busy Detective Inspector - but he would need each detail fresh in his mind to avoid the traps set by a cunning defence barrister, who had probably read each sentence of his witness statement a dozen times. He’d meant to read the statement last night, but this business with Sarah Newby and now Esther had put it out of his mind. There’d been a spate of street robberies in the last few days, probably a visiting gang from Leeds or Hull, and Terry had organised a team of undercover officers to go out and deal with it. He briefed them now on what to do. While he was speaking to them a report came in about another woman being harassed by a flasher in Bishopthorpe.

  Terry sighed. It was an annoying problem that just wouldn’t seem to go away. With so much else going on, it was hard to find enough time to devote to it. Four weeks ago, a series of disturbing headlines had begun to appear in the York Press. The first had been relatively trivial - Knicker Theft in Naburn, Ghoul Ogles Keep-Fit Lady - but the incidents had been upsetting, Terry knew, for the women themselves. In the first, female underwear had been stolen from a washing line in a village just south of York; in the second, a housewife had been doing yoga in her front room when she’d seen a strange man watching her from the end of her garden. A young man, powerfully built, ogling her while he urinated against a tree. At least, that’s what she hoped he was doing. When she ran for the phone he hopped over the garden wall onto the cycletrack and disappeared.

  The cycletrack - that was the second thing that linked the two incidents. City of York Council prided itself on its environmentally friendly pro-cycling initiative
s, so the city and surrounding villages were criss-crossed by an elaborate web of cycletracks. This second incident - in the village of Bishopthorpe, where the Archbishop of York had his palace - occurred in a house that backed onto the same cycletrack that passed through Naburn two miles further south. It was a fine cycletrack: Terry Bateson, in training for the Great North Run, knew it well. It was laid out as a model of the solar system, on a scale of 575,872,239:1. It began with a model of the Sun near York, and then little informative plinths marked where each planet would be along the route. Mercury, Venus and Earth were a few hundred yards apart, then the distances gradually extended to Pluto, in the village of Riccall, ten kilometres away. Terry had taken his daughters there to show them. They had been entranced to learn that on their bikes they were travelling at something like 6 times the speed of light, making them younger at the end of the journey than when they began.

  We puzzled over that for hours, Terry remembered. But I’d hesitate to take them there now, with this pervert around. That’s what criminals do; limit other people’s freedom.

  The third incident came a week later - a jogger, a young woman, was accosted by a cyclist who tried to get into conversation with her. At first it seemed innocuous, then he started to ask what she wore under her tights, what colour her underwear was, did it get sweaty ... She escaped into the house of a friend, and called the police, but the young man was gone. Terry had arranged for a photofit to appear in the Press, under the headline Cycle Pest Strikes Again. The letters column of the paper had featured urgent calls for the police to protect women, and householders with gardens backing onto cycletracks complained that their property was being devalued.

  And now, here was another report. A woman called Sally McFee claimed to have come home from shopping in the afternoon to see a man climbing hurriedly over the fence at the end of her garden and pedalling away along the cycletrack. At first she’d wondered if she was imagining things, because of all the reports in the Evening Press, but then she’d found that the French windows, which she’d forgotten to lock, were wide open, and - more disturbing still - someone appeared to have been in her bedroom. Her underwear drawer was open, and the intruder seemed to have taken several pairs of knickers and an expensive necklace which she had worn to a party the previous night.