The Backs (2013) (22 page)

‘And what about Jackson?’ Goodhew murmured.

Eyes still shut, Marks’s head gave a tiny shake. ‘Not now, Gary.’

And he said nothing more until they arrived back in East Road, where he asked the driver to drop them at the front door of Park-side station. ‘No need to come inside, Gary. Leave it all until the morning.’

Never trust anyone more than you trust yourself.
Jane Osborne held this higher than any other personal belief. When her instincts shouted to her, she listened. Yes, she might be wrong, but at least it would be her own problem. If she let someone else take her down the wrong route, then her error was double.

All day she’d been feeling restless. Waiting for news from her mother. Or news of her mother? And, as time ticked on, the idea that news was being withheld grew and continued to multiply, until the room seemed to shrink.

She was in a B & B on Madingley Road, occupying a pleasant room in a pleasant house. She kept the TV permanently tuned into BBC1 and watched the local news updates, scanning the background of the footage taken from outside the house in Pound Hill and listening to reporters quoting the police. She tried to decode the subtext of every comment.

The police are not expected to make an announcement until tomorrow morning.
Didn’t that suggest there would be an announcement in the morning? Which meant they had information. Which meant she was being kept in the dark.

She phoned Parkside after that disclosure. They brushed her off. She asked for DC Goodhew but an incurious voice at the other end simply told her that he wasn’t there.

She phoned her brother, and his wife picked up. Roz, sister-in-law and complete stranger, offered to go and fetch Dan.

Jane, also sister-in-law and complete stranger, just asked her if there’d been any news. There hadn’t. She’d put down the phone and now she paced the room.

She opened the window. Nothing blew in. The air was dead quiet, dead calm.

Dead, dead, dead.

The photo above the bed showed cattle grazing on Newnham Common, and she knew she needed to get out in the fresh air. Needed to walk and think until someone found her and told her what the fuck was happening.

So, at a little after midnight, she left the B & B and started walking towards the city centre. She stuck to the right-hand-side footpath, away from the road but an equal distance from the fences too. She walked quickly and with purpose, not wanting to look vulnerable. But she didn’t feel vulnerable either. She headed in the general direction of home. Instincts seemed to draw her that way. She glanced up Pound Hill as she passed. The street was quiet, and a police car parked near the house was the only sign of anything happening.

She wondered if the police had anyone inside the house right now, or whether they were just waiting and watching nearby – and what they expected to see. But instinct told her to keep walking.

And the further she walked, the more determined she became, not prepared to slow down on anyone’s terms but her own.

Why are you so angry, Jane?

How many times had she been asked that question? And how many times had she rejected it, railed against the unreasonableness of it even being asked?

Now she’d asked it herself.

She lowered her head and walked on. She reached the next roundabout and deliberately took the less well-lit road. When had she ever come to harm from strangers? And if fate wanted to do that to her, well, bring it on. Her hands balled into fists and she felt her anger flash even brighter.

And she walked harder.

She imagined unleashing it all on anyone who tried touching her.

She turned down Queens Road, crossed to the other side and took the footpath that ran through the wide ribbon of grass separating the road itself and the Backs.

And she walked from one end to the other, through the trees, into the shadows and, where it was too dark to see the footpath, deliberately walking with one foot on the path and one on the grass. She listened for footsteps behind her and watched for movement ahead, but only ready to challenge anyone who dared intrude. Sweat had stuck her shirt to her back and her heart raced.

No one
had the right to make her feel this way.

She stopped at the corner of Silver Street and looked behind her.

No one had the right and, so long as they thought they did, then she’d stay angry. Fucking angry. That was her prerogative and now was not the time to let that feeling go.

As Goodhew crossed over Parker’s Piece he heard the sound of bells ringing half past three. The four lights of Reality Checkpoint glowed in yellow fuzzy-focus at the intersection between the two diagonal footpaths that crossed the green. Goodhew left the path at the lamppost and cut across the grass to Park Terrace, knowing that he was almost directly in line with his own flat.

He didn’t notice the figure sitting on the step by his front door until he was just about to cross the road. It was impossible to see who it was from there, but he recognized her as she stood up, and also realized that he hadn’t imagined it could be anyone else.

‘Jane? Why are you here?’

She descended two steps. ‘I want to talk to you.’

He was right up to her before the small glow of his entrance light enabled him to properly see her. She had that same look of suspicion as she’d had the first day he’d met her. Funny, since she’d now come to him.

‘How did you get my address?’

‘Internet electoral-register search. There are only seven Goodhews in Cambridge, and only one G.’

Goodhew looked at the front door, then back at Jane. ‘I can’t ask you in. And we can’t talk here.’

She frowned. ‘Why can’t you ask me in?’

‘You’re part of an active case.’ He corrected himself. ‘Even after it’s over, I couldn’t.’

‘Once it’s over, why would you, anyway?’

Goodhew had no doubt that Jane’s own experience in antagonizing other people with her questions far outdid his own. If she was looking to start a row with him, then any answer he now gave would be turned back on him. He paused, more to think rather than to avoid the question.

Jane mowed through the gap he created. ‘Once it’s over, I won’t be here.’

‘In Cambridge?’

‘No, here on your doorstep. Just because I turn up and speak to a bloke doesn’t mean . . .’

‘Jane, stop,’ Goodhew broke in. At least she stayed quiet long enough for him to draw a breath. ‘Police-station coffee machine or the University Arms Hotel?’

Without replying she descended to the bottom of the steps, then turned towards the hotel. They were seated in the late bar within a couple of minutes. Goodhew centred his glass of Pepsi on a beer mat and watched her. She’d ordered orange juice and lemonade, which arrived in a Stella Artois glass. She now cradled it in both hands and made no attempt to drink it.

‘Have you received any contact from the police since I last saw you?’

‘That WPC with the dark hair, she dropped me off at the B and B. She didn’t seem to know anything new.’

‘OK, you went to some lengths to find me, so how do you think I can help?’

‘Where did you go today?’ Answering a question with a question. He didn’t think she was being evasive, just single-mindedly pushing the conversation towards her own objective.

‘I was working on something.’

‘Connected with my mum?’

A giveaway hesitation, then: ‘Yes, actually it was.’

‘Did you speak to her?’

‘Look, DI Marks is arranging to speak to your family in the morning.’

‘Before he speaks to the press?’

‘I wouldn’t know anything about that.’

She stirred the ice with the tip of her little finger. ‘You didn’t speak to her, did you?’ She glanced at him quickly, as though expecting to catch him off guard.

He really had no desire to play games – even less to lie to her.

‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘we didn’t.’

‘And why was that?’

‘She wasn’t there after all. As far as we know, she isn’t actually in France. We thought she was there, but we were mistaken.’

She nodded, biting her bottom lip as though she wanted to stop herself from saying anything too quickly. Finally she spoke and there was an unmistakable catch in her voice. ‘So the body could be hers?’

Goodhew nodded slowly. ‘It’s a possibility.’

She mulled this over. ‘A strong one?’

He knew how he ought to respond but, like Lesley Bough when it came to it, he couldn’t pretend. He nodded again. ‘I think so.’

She put her glass on the table in front of her, and Goodhew let several minutes pass before he continued.

‘Jane, were you in contact with any of your family before Rebecca died?’

‘She thought he loved her.’

‘Becca thought Greg Jackson loved her?’

Jane nodded.

‘And what did you think?’

‘That he was the big finale in Mum and Dad’s crap marriage. Becca was Dad’s remaining daughter by then, so she must’ve known how he’d react. I wondered why Becca couldn’t find a bloke of her own.’

‘Did you ask her?’

‘She said she had – found a bloke of her own, I mean. Jackson was halfway between Becca and Mum in age, and Becca decided that Mum had just used him – like he couldn’t say no or something. She said Jackson and Mum’s relationship was about no-strings sex. People see things how it suits them, I guess. The whole thing’s fucking weird, but then . . .’ She stopped mid-sentence. ‘Maybe Becca was angry at Mum too, and just got her own back in a different way to me. Mum loves men, always has, and we grew up keeping her visitors secret from Dad. And we were pissed off with him because Dad was too obsessed with his “career” to notice.’ Jane changed her mind about her drink and took several swigs.

‘Jackson thinks you know something. He wants to talk to you.’

‘Really? Jackson can fuck himself. All Jackson cares about is himself. He says he wants to know who killed Becca, but he’s a liar. It’s not about Becca for him; it’s about the years of his life that have been “stolen”. Mum’s infatuation with him was the usual – fifty per cent sympathy, fifty per cent admiration. She still liked them talented but tormented. As far as I could work out, he’s always blamed everyone except himself for every disappointment he’s ever suffered.’ She put her glass back down and edged forward in her chair. ‘That’s me done with sharing, so your turn now. If it’s her, how did she die?’

‘I don’t . . .’

‘You
do
know.’ There was absolutely no question in her voice now. ‘Don’t take the piss. I know you know something.’

This time not telling the truth came easily. ‘No, I don’t,’ he said firmly. ‘But I do want to know why you didn’t come forward when Becca was killed.’

‘No way.’ Her eyes grew suddenly dark. ‘If you want me to talk,
you’ll
have to talk to
me
first.’

‘Look, Marks will speak to you in the morning.’ She stood up, and Goodhew stood too. ‘Jane, please sit down again. I think you can help us. And we will know more by tomorrow.’

‘I don’t care about hearing it tomorrow.’ She spoke slowly, enunciating each word. ‘I just want to know what you know
now.
’

‘No.’ He was firmer this time. ‘When did you speak to Becca last?’

She shook her head and it looked as though there would be no room for negotiation, yet he continued to press her.

‘Jane, what do you know about your sister’s death?’

She set her jaw, shook her head, then moved away from him.

‘Jane, why didn’t you contact us when she died?’

Then, just as he thought she might, she turned and hurried towards the door. He followed her to the entrance, then watched as she bolted off down Regent Street.

Stay angry.

Jane took off from the University Arms Hotel and was in Castle Street in about ten minutes. From the front, her brother’s house seemed to be in complete darkness. Jane soon discovered that the high rear gate was firmly bolted, but next door’s gate wasn’t even locked. She used their compost bin as a step to the top of the fence dividing the gardens, dropping from there on to Dan’s flower bed. After a moment she realized that the only light in his house was a dim glow in a back bedroom, which soaked through pink butterfly curtains. Reba’s room.

My niece.

The first-floor window next to Reba’s had frosted glass.

Jane cupped her hands round her eyes and peered through the outhouse windows. Once she was sure her father wasn’t sleeping inside, she clambered back the way she’d come, passing through next door’s rear garden and back out on to Castle Street.

She stared at the front of the property and contemplated banging on the front door or shouting at the windows until Dan answered. Instead she phoned him, and watched till the ringing caused a bedside light to illuminate.

‘Dan?’ She realized that she’d whispered, as though she was the one that needed to remain quiet. ‘Dan, it’s Jane.’

‘I know who it is.’ He sounded irritated, ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine, but I need to speak to Dad.’

‘God, Jane, you pick your moments.’

‘Is he here?’

‘No, I think he’s at his workshop. Are you sure you’re OK?’

‘I’m fine.’ She saw the curtain move then and the sash window slid open a few inches.

‘You said
“here”,’
Dan explained. He leant out by a few inches. ‘Why didn’t you just knock? You can come in, you know.’

‘Not now.’ She shook her head. ‘Mum wasn’t in France.’

He paused. ‘Where is she, then?’

‘No idea. I want to ask Dad.’

‘He would have already told me if he knew. Jane, why don’t you leave it alone? Forget about her.’

‘Dan, don’t you think that’ – she waved her hand in the direction of their childhood home – ‘might be her?’

‘She sent postcards. That’s not her.’

‘I still want to ask him.’

‘He’ll be here about ten. Why don’t you wait here, watch some TV, and meet Reba when she wakes up?’

‘Sorry, Dan, I can’t. Not yet.’

‘Suit yourself.’ He always said that, usually with a half shrug and an apologetic smile compressed by his lips.

She turned away, even though she wished she didn’t have to.