Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) (37 page)

So she stayed at home, preparing for a two-week fraud trial scheduled to start in the New Year. And she went shopping for a Christmas tree and presents for Emily and Simon.

Three days before Christmas, the estate agent phoned Sarah to ask if he could bring some prospective buyers round to view the house. ‘They’re very keen,’ he said. ‘It’s usually dead this time of year, but the husband’s starting a new job in York in January and they’re not part of a chain, so ...’

‘Yes, of course, bring them round,’ Sarah said. But it came like a splash of cold water. She stayed up until midnight the evening before, hoovering, dusting, polishing, and resenting every minute. What right did these people have to turn her into a skivvy, cleaning her home for their inspection? And yet she couldn’t leave it grubby, it had to be perfect.

They came on Saturday morning, a few hours before she was due to meet Emily at the station. They were a young couple, in their late twenties. The wife was pregnant, the husband carried a toddler in his arms. Their faces were smooth - to Sarah they looked scarcely older than her children. ‘Are you sure they can afford this?’ she whispered to the agent as they stood in the hall while the couple explored upstairs. ‘They
have
seen the asking price?’

‘Must have,’ the man shrugged. ‘He’s an insurance manager, I believe, quite a high-flier. She has her own business, too. Baby clothes.’

‘But they look like they’re just out of school.’ Sarah met the man’s eyes and realised that he, too, was in his twenties, and found the young couple’s affluence perfectly natural. The world doesn’t belong to me any more, she thought grimly. I struggled for years to afford a home like this, and now it’s going to be sold off to children. When the couple came downstairs she smiled at them brightly.

‘Would you like to see the garden?’

The young woman had already inspected the kitchen and spoken openly, in front of Sarah, about the need to replace the oven, hob, and units with something more ‘contemporary’, as she put it. Now Sarah led them across the patio to the garden at the back of the house. There was a large lawn surrounded by silver birch and weeping willow trees in what the brochure described as a ‘mature, well-tended shrubbery.’ It was a place, Sarah recalled, where she and Bob had been proud to entertain their friends. Now the toddler ran in circles while the young couple peered anxiously over the small rustic gate at the end.

‘There are cows out there,’ the young man said, almost accusingly.

‘Yes,’ Sarah agreed. ‘They’re quite sweet really, they’re no bother. You can walk through the field to that stile on the far side, do you see? That takes you onto the footpath beside the river. It goes all the way into York, I believe.’

Sarah was no country girl herself and had never walked that far, but it had seemed an attractive idea when they had bought the house, and she’d always felt proud simply to own the possibility. Perhaps it was a selling point now?

‘We see herons sometimes,’ she added temptingly. ‘I watch them from my bedroom window.’

The young woman turned away, her face frowning. ‘There’ve been stories,’ she said. ‘In the local paper.’

‘What sort of stories?’ Sarah asked, surprised.

‘Women getting mugged, assaulted, something like that. By some perv on a footpath like that. Wasn’t there a murder, too?’

‘Oh, that was to the south of the city,’ Sarah said lightly. ‘Nowhere near here.’

But the couple drove away soon afterwards. Sarah stood with the estate agent, gazing miserably after them. ‘Not much hope there, then.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ the man said. ‘I thought they seemed quite keen.’

‘What, with my kitchen dating from the stone age, and rapists on the riverbank? I don’t think so.’

‘Don’t take it to heart. Some people are like that,’ the agent insisted. ‘It could mean they like the house, funnily enough. They’re just talking it down so when they put in a lower offer you’ll feel pressured to accept.’

‘I hope they don’t,’ she said grimly. ‘The thought of those two living here gives me the creeps.’

‘You won’t see it.’ The young man smiled reassuringly, as if he’d met this resentment many times before. ‘You’ll be starting a new life, miles away.’

The new life, however - or at least a striking aspect of it - turned up on her doorstep on Christmas Day. Emily was home, happy and exhausted after her trips to London and Birmingham, and to Sarah’s delight her son Simon and his girlfriend Lorraine had also accepted her invitation. So the house had a family celebration after all. Sarah, never a great cook, enlisted Emily’s help in the kitchen, and the pair of them were working hard when the doorbell rang.

‘I’ll get it,’ Emily said, and a moment later Simon appeared in the kitchen with Lorraine clinging tightly to his arm. Sarah poured some sherry, and the girl sipped it nervously, Simon preferring beer. This was the first time Lorraine had been to this house, Sarah realised; she hoped it wouldn’t go wrong. A slim, dark-haired girl, she had seemed cheerful and friendly enough when Sarah met her before. But today she blushed and stammered when spoken to. Perhaps it’s the house, Sarah thought; too imposing and wealthy. If so, that’s ironic; it won’t be mine much longer.

The meal, however, was a success. The despised oven turned out a joint of roast pork with all the trimmings and crackling as crisp as any they could remember, and the young people attacked it hungrily. Emily was determined to be a good hostess, and for once Simon seemed ready to reciprocate. So many times we have quarrelled round this table, Sarah thought, looking at the flushed faces under the paper hats - please don’t let it happen today. But there was no sign of that. Emily and Simon talked happily, about her play and her band in Cambridge, nightclubs in Leeds they had visited, music and stars and old schoolfriends they knew. Soon Lorraine joined in, and by the time they sat back, red-faced and replete, with even the Christmas pud nearly gone, Sarah knew it had worked. She opened a small bottle of brandy she had bought for the occasion, and poured four glasses.

‘To us all,’ she said smiling. ‘And may next year be happier than this.’

‘To the future,’ Simon added. As he raised his glass he met Lorraine’s eye, and when they had drunk the toast he turned to face Sarah. ‘And now, Mum, Lorraine and I have an announcement to make.’

‘What?’ Sarah smiled, surprised. ‘You’re not getting married, are you?’

‘No, not that exactly.’ Simon flushed, and Sarah instantly wished her words unsaid. So often she’d done this - spoken quickly, let her tongue run away with her while her son struggled to find the right words. His brain was connected to his fists, not his mouth, she’d said once - that’s why he was always in trouble at school. Now here he was trying to say something important and what was she doing? Teasing him before he could start.

‘What is it then, Simon?’ she said as gently as she could.

‘It’s that - well, Mum, I’m 21 now and I’ve got a good job, so - me and Lorraine, we’re not kids, we can look after ourselves, you know.’

He reached for Lorraine’s hand, and she smiled at him encouragingly. The girl looked flushed, Sarah thought, and there was an attractive bloom of health to her skin. Youth, or - perhaps something else. A new suspicion entered Sarah’s mind.

‘... and so, we decided a few weeks ago, I mean we’ve got the spare bedroom, we never use it, and ... well, Lorraine’s pregnant. I mean, we’re starting a family.’

Simon’s eyes met his mother’s. He looked nervous, awkward, scared of her reaction. Sarah glanced from him to Lorraine, who stared back at her, proud, defiant, but anxious too.

So I was right, she thought. ‘How many weeks?’

‘Nearly eight, now,’ Lorraine said softly.

My God, Sarah thought, they’re just kids! This girl’s hardly left school - she’s younger than Emily, for Christ’s sake! But then her mind flashed back to the memory of herself, much younger than this, in a similar situation, only worse. She’d been 15 when she’d stood, proud and defiant in front of her own parents, with Kevin, Simon’s 17-year-old father, holding her hand beside her, just as Simon held Lorraine’s here now. She could still see every line of the shock and disapproval on her own mother’s face, after all these years - so deeply engraved had the memory become. And suddenly she realised what a formidable, frightening figure she must seem to this young girl. No wonder she had felt nervous about coming here.

Don’t make the same mistake, she told herself. But there was no need. Unbidden, a smile spread across her face like sunshine. She saw its reflection in the eyes of Simon and Lorraine. Relief, and pride too.

‘Simon, that’s tremendous!’ She got up, and went round the table to embrace them both. ‘Are you feeling well?’ she asked Lorraine.

‘A bit sick in the mornings, and I get tired.’

‘Of course. But the sickness will go.’ She looked at Emily, relieved to see her smiling too. ‘Well, this is a Christmas present and no mistake! Simon, you’ll really have to grow up now! Do you think you can manage to look after a child?’

‘Of course, Mum. You did, after all. We’re going to this evening course in, well, baby stuff. But if we get tired, we thought we’d just bring the baby to court and dump it on you.’

‘That will give the judges a heart attack.’

They were all standing now, at the end of the table. She looked up at her son, smiling. This was the baby she had borne so long ago, when she was just a child herself. Now here he was a tall young man, starting the same risky journey. She felt quite frail in front of him.

‘Almost forty years old, about to be divorced and become a grandmother,’ she thought. ‘What else has life got in store?’

41. Terry’s Christmas

C
HRISTMAS FOR Terry Bateson was bitter-sweet. He looked forward to spending time with his daughters - Jessica and Esther - how could he not? But somehow, since Mary’s death, the importance of such family events - birthdays, Christmas, Easter - made them as much a burden as a delight, for all three of them. The day needed to go well, Terry felt - the meal, the tree, the presents, the Queen’s broadcast - they had to go through these rituals, to prove they were a family. To show he was a good - or at least adequate - parent. There must be no quarrels, no tears - no sign, when his sister or his parents came to visit, that they weren’t coping.

And yet tears, inevitably, lay behind it all. There was the empty chair at table, the memory of the days when there were two adults in bed for the girls to bounce on in the morning with their stockings. A mother who could cook without a recipe book. Who bought her presents early instead of rushing round the shops at the last minute as Terry did. Who’d once been a girl herself.

His daughters tried hard but responsibility burdened them too. The only quarrel came when Jessica insisted that Esther eat up the burnt stuffing on her plate - Terry didn’t know whether to applaud her for taking her mother’s role, or check her for being too strict. They endured the visit to Terry’s sister in Leeds, but were glad to come home for New Year.

Jane Carter had no such concerns. She spent most of her Christmas thinking of murder. Alison Grey’s murder, to be precise. She volunteered for duty when older officers were at home with their families; and she used her time well. By the time Terry Bateson returned to work, she had rearranged much of the display in the incident room, and made progress on a number of vital details.

‘Firstly, the silk scarf,’ she told him, sitting calmly in front of her computer, which, like her, had been working overtime while others relaxed. ‘As we established, it’s a designer item, by Jacques Rocher. I’ve been into their catalogue and only 5,000 of that particular pattern were produced worldwide last year. So it’s a pretty exclusive item. Retails for anything between £35 and £55 - as much as you can make the punter cough up, it seems.’

‘For a scarf?’ Terry said incredulously. ‘A metre or so of posh fabric?’

Jane grinned. ‘It’s the cachet, sir, the label. Shows other ladies you’ve made it. Or so I’m led to believe.’

‘So what’s that got to do with Alison Grey?’ Terry mused. ‘Was she into fashion?’

‘Hardly, sir, to judge by the rest of her wardrobe. Sensible clothes, mostly - jeans, corduroys, fleeces, a couple of suits from Marks and Spencer, but that’s it. Sort of stuff my mum might wear, if she was a bit younger. Nothing fancy.’

‘Apart from the scarf, which killed her?’

‘Yes, exactly. And here’s the other thing. So far as Jacques Rocher knows - that’s the company, not the man himself - they’re only sold by a dozen or so stores throughout the country. Two in London, one in Leeds - none in York, though - Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge, Cheltenham, Bristol, Manchester. That’s it.’

‘So you’ve been checking, have you? Who bought one recently?’

‘Trying, sir. They’re not exactly co-operative, with the sales going on. But ...’ She shrugged. ‘It may lead to something. In time.’

‘Perhaps,’ Terry said doubtfully. ‘What else?’

‘Well, the other thing I’ve been working on is this car. The red Nissan Primera. It’s a long shot, because we can’t be sure if it was stolen or not. And all we’ve got so far is the sighting by the farmer and part of the number plate - XB. Which may be accurate or not. But anyway I’ve been chasing up the dealers and again ...’ She leaned back in her chair, stretching her hands behind her head and cracking her shoulder blades. ‘... it seems there were 1,206 Nissan Primeras issued with a number plate featuring the letters XB, of which precisely 375 were red. Not an impossible number, I suppose. Given time. I’ve got two DCs working on that at the moment.’

‘Good work,’ Terry said. ‘What about TWOCs?’

‘Well, exactly. So far I’ve come up with four stolen red Primeras. One in Leeds, one in London, one in Manchester, and one in ...’ she glanced at her notes ‘... the isle of Skye. Believe it or not.’

‘I think we can put that at the bottom of the list,’ Terry said. ‘Is that the lot?’

‘Not yet, sir, no. Most of them haven’t replied.’

‘Well, keep at it, sergeant. It’s a possibility we have to eliminate. But ...’ he grimaced. ‘You know what our DCI’s going to ask?’