Unsafe Convictions (9 page)

Chapter Two

A thick tweed coat over her clean overall, short brown suede boots with tassels and cleated soles on her feet, and the furry brown hat from Debenham’s keeping her head and ears warm, Rene slithered more than once on icy patches as she made her way gingerly along Church Street at half past seven in the morning, every so often grabbing with woolly-gloved fingers at a doorknob for support. The wind was cutting, still threatening rather than strong enough for snow, but bitter all the same. Looking at the sky, where dawn was breaking over Bleak Moor to the east, she saw no prospect of sunshine to lift the chill from the day.

She
yawned, but from cold rather than tiredness. Early rising was the habit of her lifetime, part and parcel of the well-ordered existence she had fashioned too long ago to recollect. Keeping busy was another part of that life, and she had been quite overjoyed by the prospect of taking care of the policemen from North Wales, for she controlled her world, and the people in it, with domestic order, food, and ritualised routines designed to keep anarchy at arm’s length. She regarded domestic skills as instantly redeployable in innumerable settings, and since the dye and print mill on the corner by Trisha’s place closed ten years ago, where she had been in charge of quality control, Rene had successfully and profitably charred and cooked for most of the strangers who holidayed in the many village cottages now given over to tourism. In the process, she also made a whole new batch of friends, some of whom lived abroad, and she often thought the postman must be quite envious when he pushed postcards from Paris and crinkly airmail letters from Australia and America and even Hawaii through her letter-box.

As
she progressed along the street, the railings intruding on her peripheral vision like shafts of black light, she noted absent-mindedly which housewives were not scrubbing their doorsteps and polishing their letter-boxes properly, and shook her head. Pausing for breath, she watched the rooks clattering in the trees, making that dreadful noise of theirs even before first light was properly over the horizon. Whatever time of the year, that sound obliterated all other birdsong, and she could not imagine how the people who lived with it day in and day out could bear it. When she was a child, the local guns came every so often to cull the rooks before the nesting season, and would line up, spaniels and retrievers to heel, alongside the railings, which were blacker then, with gold paint on the finials. She remembered as if it were yesterday the sharp crack as the guns went off, the noise ricocheting off the church walls, then the sound of the rooks crashing like stones through the trees, snapping twigs as they went, and the thud as they landed on the graves below. Sometimes their wings were torn off during that plummeting to earth, and hung off branches like broken black fans, and always there was a shower of spiky black feathers settling to earth for a long time afterwards, and the smells of blood and gunsmoke draped in the air. Unconsciously chewing the inside of her cheek, because her new teeth had not yet made themselves at home in her mouth, her thoughts returned involuntarily to the newspaper she had read over breakfast and, for all the iciness of the day, her blood threatened to come to the boil once more.

On
her way home last night, she had called in at the newsagent’s and arranged to have that particular paper delivered for the rest of the week. While McKenna and the others were out seeing Barry Dugdale yesterday afternoon, she had read the newspapers left in an untidy pile on the dining-room table, wondering who this Gaynor Holbrook thought she was. This morning, reading the latest batch of lies, Rene could hardly believe her eyes, and she almost choked on her scrambled egg and toast. She had washed the dishes, put the parlour gas fire on low to keep the room warm, and checked the central heating thermostat, still mulling over the article. More than once, she had to make sure her eyes had not deceived her, but there it was, in black and white for all the world to see. She considered contacting Linda, but decided to bide her time, even though her mind seethed with the pictures Gaynor Holbrook evoked. Thinking sourly that if God had chiselled Smith’s features, he must have used a very blunt tool, she set off again, her mind’s eye filled with the photograph which accompanied the article. Smith’s face was brutally coarse, hard as a granite outcrop on Bleak Moor, his eyes stone cold, his lips thin, and she decided then that, like the rooks, he should be shot for the vermin he was.

The
backs of the Church Street houses had little sun even at the height of summer, and always smelled of damp earth. Had she not showered the alleyway cobbles and the garden path with salt last night, they would be like an ice rink. Compelled to glance at the camera above her head, she latched the back gate and walked crabwise to the back door, wondering if her bug-eyed image was being watched inside the house. Still wary of falling and perhaps being cut off from the excitement of life with a broken leg or hip, she grabbed the door handle. The kitchen should have been dark and empty, awaiting her attentions, but it was warm and brightly lit, smelling of breakfast. McKenna had eaten, and was washing his dishes, while Jack, the newspaper she had already read propped against the milk jug, was spooning cornflakes into his mouth, a little drop of milk trickling down his chin.

Wiping
away the milk with a napkin, he smiled at her. ‘I was expecting to see snow by now.’

‘
It’ll come,’ she muttered.

‘
How are you today?’ McKenna too had a smile for her. ‘Your shepherd’s pie was lovely, by the way.’

‘
Glad you liked it,’ Rene said. She took off her coat, and went to the hall, where she put the coat on a hook, then removed the hat, and fluffed out her hair. She would change her boots for house shoes later, when her feet and the house were warmer.

Tea
towel in hand, McKenna came to the kitchen door. ‘Is something wrong?’ Advancing into the hall, he added: ‘Please don’t think we’re trying to make you redundant. I’m programmed to clear up after myself, and Mr Tuttle’s just programmed to find food. We had breakfast early because I have to be in Manchester for nine.’

‘
Oh.’ She stared at the floor.

‘
So, if you were thinking…’ McKenna began, then saw tears shimmering in her eyes. ‘What is it, Rene? What’s wrong?’

‘
Have you seen the paper?’ she demanded, fists clenched. ‘
Have
you?’

He
leaned against the wall, running the tea towel through his hands. ‘Yes.’

‘
It’s not true! That woman’s writing horrible lies!’

‘
If she is, it’s only because Smith’s telling them.’

‘
What d’you mean?
If
? Nobody touched Trisha. I’d know. And Linda, well, she’d’ve killed anybody if they so much as tried to lay a finger on her.’ Rene paused, breathing noisily. ‘And she’d’ve done the same if anyone laid a hand on Trisha, too. She’s got a real fighting spirit, that one.’

‘
Unfortunately, we can never he sure whether or not a girl’s been interfered with,’ he said. ‘Even if they’re asked, they often hide the truth, out of shame, or guilt, or fear.’

‘
Trisha was pure as the driven snow when she married that monster,’ Rene insisted.

‘
How d’you know?’

‘
How d’you think?’ Rene said impatiently. ‘Off the doctors and nurses, of course. When she had the operation.’

McKenna
coaxed her back to the kitchen, and made her sit at the table. ‘Which operation d’you mean? We only know about one, and that was after she married.’

Sitting
opposite Jack, who was forking egg and bacon into his mouth while he listened, Rene turned her teacup round and round in the saucer. ‘I don’t like saying this in front of men. It doesn’t seem right.’

Not
to be coarse,’ Jack said gently, ‘but it won’t be anything we haven’t heard before. We develop hides like rhinos in this job.’

She
nodded. ‘My hubby used to say much the same.’ Picking up the cup, she held it to her lips, then put it back in the saucer after taking only a sip. ‘Trisha’s periods started when she was fifteen, and she had trouble right from the start. Dorothy worried herself sick about it. The poor kid got the most awful cramps and she’d bleed like a stuck pig for days on end. They lost count of the time she missed off school. On top of that, it was ever so embarrassing, because after the first few times they all knew why she was away.’

‘
And?’ McKenna asked.

‘
Well, she went back and forth to the doctors, but they weren’t much use. She was tired and run down all the time, and looked as pale as a little ghost.’ She picked up the cup again, and took another sip. ‘The doctors were all for putting her on the pill, but Dorothy wouldn’t hear of it, so they gave her vitamin pills and iron.’

‘
Did that help?’ Jack asked.

‘
She got a bit of colour back in her cheeks, but she was still laid up every month. Dorothy told me she was going to
make
the doctors do something, then things settled down of their own accord.’ Rene began to twist her wedding band round and round her finger. ‘But her troubles came back, about a year before she got married, and she had to have an operation. She had what they call a D&C. A scrape. She had fibroids in the womb. There was no end of improvement afterwards, although they did say she’d probably have to have it done again. And she did.’ She stopped turning her ring, and put her hands flat on the table. ‘The sister at the hospital told her she’d be a lot better if she was leading a normal life, and it wasn’t good for a young woman of twenty-five to be a virgin. Apparently, the nuns have a lot of problems because of that.’

‘
I see,’ McKenna said.

‘
So, the hospital could prove what that woman wrote is a lie, couldn’t they?’ Rene asked.

He
nodded. ‘Unfortunately, because Trisha’s dead, the matter can’t be pursued. I’m afraid people can say what they like about the dead, true or not.’

‘
What about Linda?’ she demanded. ‘She’s not dead, and that woman’s saying she was molested.’

‘
It’s libel,’ Jack commented, pushing aside his empty plate and reaching for the toast. ‘It’s defamatory to say a woman’s been raped or sexually abused when she hasn’t. It damages her reputation.’

‘
Does it really?’ Rene’s eyes gleamed in the kitchen light. ‘Can Linda go to a solicitor?’

‘
She can indeed.’ Jack nodded. ‘But we’re not supposed to comment or offer any advice, so do me a favour, and forget you heard it from me.’ After a moment’s thought, he added: ‘And, given the implications about the identity of this alleged abuser, Linda’s father should see a solicitor as well.’

Rene
began to stack used crockery, then stood up and made for the sink. ‘What would you like for your meal tonight?’ she asked. ‘I could get a nice cut of meat from the butcher, because it comes in fresh today. Do the ladies eat meat?’

‘
Ellen will eat anything,’ Jack said. ‘She’s like me.’

‘
The other lass doesn’t look as if she eats at all. She’s very smart, but I swear, if she stood side on against those railings, she’d disappear before your very eyes.’

Chapter Three

Like Rene, Craig Newton liked his life tidy. Reared on Haughton’s oldest council estate, he had seen too many other lives go out of control for want of a little forethought ever to risk the same. To that end, he surprised parents, teachers, neighbours, and peers by making decisions for the future long before the need arose, and by never deviating. Working with wheels was the first major plan, because he fell in love with them even before he fully understood their function, and he trained as a motor mechanic as soon as he left school.

At
twenty-two, he fell in love for the second time, at a friend’s wedding, when twenty-year-old Linda Jarvis smiled shyly at him from under the brim of a pretty hat, and a year later he walked down the aisle of All Saints church with his virginal bride. His wise moves on the chessboard of life matured him, although he never forgot that pride usually comes to grief. Their first son was born six years ago, and their second eighteen months later, exactly ten months after Craig’s promotion to chief mechanic.

This
morning, knowing it would be wrong to disrupt the boys’ routines, Craig called his boss to say he would be late, then made up lunch boxes, zipped the boys into their padded jackets, and put them in the car for the ten-minute drive to school. Linda would usually do all those things, but since the newspaper had been stuffed through the letter-box over an hour before, she had slumped at the kitchen table, surrounded by breakfast debris. She was still there when he returned.

Rolling
up the sleeves of his quilted plaid work shirt, he began clearing up. ‘As soon as I’ve done here,’ he said decisively, ‘I’m ringing our solicitor.’

‘
But he’s coming tomorrow,’ Linda pointed out. ‘When those coppers interview me.’

‘
I hope you’re not fretting about that,’ Craig said. ‘It stands to reason they might think Barry fitted up that bastard, for old times’ sake, if nothing else, but we know he didn’t. Mind you,’ he added, trying to persuade Linda’s pink rubber gloves on to his huge hands, ‘nobody round here’d lose any sleep if he had.’ Unyielding gloves put aside, he plunged his naked flesh into almost scalding dishwater, cringing as the heat bit. ‘What’s more important, Lin, is what that bastard’s saying about you and Trisha in the paper.’ He wrung out the dishcloth, as he might wring Smith’s neck, given the opportunity. ‘We’ll sue him,’ he added. ‘As well as that bloody paper.’

Behind
him, he heard the scrape of chair legs on the floor, then Linda’s arms crept around his waist, and she leaned her head against his back. ‘I’ll finish the dishes,’ she said. ‘You make another pot of tea.’

He
turned, soap suds up to his elbows, and kissed her forehead. ‘We’re not letting scum like him mess up our lives again. He’s done enough damage already.’

Sighing,
she moved away. ‘I’d better call Dad. Somebody’s bound to say something to him.’ She bit her lip. ‘God knows how he’ll feel.’

‘
He’ll be bloody seething, like us, but he knows there isn’t a word of truth in it.’

‘
We might know,’ she said impatiently, ‘but what about the rest of the town? How could he!’ Her face flushed with rage. ‘The shit! The sodding, bloody shit! Why did he have to say something so awful?’

‘
Because he’s a bloody shit, like you said, and he wants a good horse-whipping,’ Craig replied. ‘But we can’t give him what he deserves, so we’ll have to make sure he gets his come-uppance some other way.’ He picked up the tea towel. ‘When I’ve had a word with the solicitor, we’ll go to your dad’s.’

But
for once, decisions were taken out of his hands. He and Linda were chatting over mugs of fresh, strong tea when the telephone chirruped in the hall. Both leaped from their chairs, but long-legged Craig reached it first, Linda hanging on to his arm as he listened.

Like
Rene, like Linda and Craig, and so many others in the town or with an interest in the matter, Fred Jarvis had ordered Tuesday’s edition of Gaynor Holbrook’s newspaper. As he read the article beside the photograph of his erstwhile son-in-law, he thought what a pity it was that Trisha
had
never stuck a bread knife in the bastard’s guts. But then a sudden pain jabbed him in the chest, then in the shoulders, then in the back, then all the way down his left arm. Breath trapped in his chest, he began to gasp, doubled up with pain and fear. His right arm was like lead as he reached out for the telephone and knocked over his third cup of tea since waking, watching it topple almost in slow motion. The liquid was soaking into the carpet when at last he managed to pull the receiver from its hook, and slowly punch the number nine button three times.

He
was still alive when the ambulance arrived, still alive when the next-door neighbour, roused by the siren’s banshee wail, rushed into his house, and still alive when he was stretchered through the hospital doors. But Linda knew only what the panicky neighbour had gabbled into the telephone and, not knowing if her father were alive or dead, she sat mutely beside Craig as their car raced through Haughton’s busy streets, horn honking.