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.’
The sheer effrontery of the idea stunned both detectives. Harry Easby recovered first. His tone, to Terry’s irritation, contained a hint of amusement, as though he half admired the man for coming up with such a preposterous suggestion.
‘You’re saying, are you, that a respectable woman like that, a barrister, actually asked you to half strangle her and rip her trousers down across the back of a motorbike?’
‘Summat like that, yeah.’
‘For Christ’s sake!’ Terry was finding it hard to control himself. Perhaps the old days of policing were better after all, he thought. A man like this deserved to be kicked to a pulp on the floor of the cell. Then the only shit that came out of him would be the real thing.
‘What were you doing there anyway?’ Harry asked.
‘Looking for young Simon.’
‘Who? Simon Newby? Do you know him?’
‘Yeah, a bit. He lives there, doesn’t he?’
‘Not in his back yard,’ Harry smiled contemptuously. ‘He lives in the house, Gary, not the back yard where we found you.’
‘Yeah, well, I tried the door but he didn’t answer, so I thought he might be in his shed.’
‘Notice anything unusual about the front door, Gary, did you?’ Harry asked, mockingly.
Gary thought for a bit. Then light dawned. ‘Yeah, I did actually. There was a padlock on it. After you lot smashed the door, no doubt.’
‘That’s right, Gary. And can you think why we might do that? Any ideas?’
‘Cause you’re a lot of friggin hooligans, that’s why. Smashing up property for no reason.’
‘So you hadn’t heard that Simon Newby had been arrested, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Arrested? For what?’
‘For rape and murder, that’s what! Oh come on Gary, it was all over the Evening Press last week, and on the telly! Don’t tell me you didn’t know!’
‘All right. So what if I did?’
Gary was sweating, Terry saw. Harry was doing well, so far.
‘So what you’re saying is, you knocked on Simon Newby’s front door when you knew full well he was in Hull gaol. Is that it, Gary? Doesn’t make an awful lot of sense now, does it?’
Gary stared at them, bemused. Like a rabbit caught in headlights, Terry thought. Harry laughed: ‘Or are you saying you went there to meet his mother, for a bit of rough sex?’
God no! Don’t put words in his mouth, Terry thought. Gary seized on the excuse eagerly.
‘Yeah, right. That’s it. She’d asked to meet me there. When she didn’t answer the door I thought I’d wait in the back yard. I knew she’d put her bike there, didn’t I?’
‘I see. So you thought you’d wait in the shed, in the dark, so you could spring out and rape this woman when she arrived?’
‘I told you, I didn’t rape her. When she came in the yard she was hot for it.’
‘Hot for sex with you, you mean?’ said Harry incredulously.
‘Yeah. Some women are like that, you know.’
‘Oh yes.’ Harry paused. ‘Talk to her at all first, did you? Or just go straight at it?’
‘We talked for a few minutes, yeah,’ Gary said cautiously.
‘And then she asked you for sex?’
‘Yeah.’
Harry laughed. ‘So we just spoiled a nice private party?’ Beneath the derision in Harry’s tone there was still that faint hint of admiration, as though for a good spicy story shared between boys. Gary responded to it.
‘You could’ve joined in, if you’d asked. She’d like that. Four big coppers and me.’
Terry was consumed with loathing. This was the man he was sure had raped Sharon Gilbert, and probably murdered Maria Clayton too. Now he was denying what they’d seen with their own eyes. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t funny at all.
There was a knock at the door. A uniformed constable passed in a note. It read Interesting finds in the shed at Bramham Street. May be relevant to your interview.Mike Candor.
‘All right,’ Terry said. ‘Interview suspended at 11.35 p.m. We’ll resume in the morning.’
‘In that case,’ Gary said. ‘I want a lawyer.’
Sarah had hoped to be interviewed by Terry but Tracy Litherland ushered her into a room with Will Churchill. ‘Where’s… DI Bateson?’ she asked.
‘He’s interviewing your assailant,’ Churchill answered. ‘He knows a lot about him, as I’m sure you’ll understand. Whereas I have a particular interest in 23 Bramham Street.’
My son’s enemy, Sarah thought. And now this.
Tracy Litherland began. ‘Can you tell us exactly what happened tonight, from the moment you arrived at the house?’
Sarah told them, speaking slowly and carefully so that her bruised tongue and jaw did not slur the words. The doctor was right, the painkillers were beginning to do their stuff. But it was quite useful, having this temporary problem with speech. It meant that she could use a minimum of words without seeming evasive. But her mind was working slowly too and she knew there was something about being in that shed that she mustn’t tell them.
Churchill was persistent. ‘He didn’t try to rape you in the shed, then?’
‘No. He was surprised when he saw it was me, I think.’
‘I imagine the surprise was mutual.’ Churchill assessed her thoughtfully. As though I were more of a suspect than a victim, Sarah thought. But then in a way I am.
‘You didn’t expect to meet him there?’
‘No. Certainly not.’
‘Has he ever been there before, so far as you know?’
Sarah shook her head, to avoid using her jaw.
‘All right. So when you saw who it was, were you afraid, or did you feel reassured?’
It was a cruel question — almost a copy of one of her own questions to Sharon Gilbert during the trial, Sarah realized. Were you more or less afraid when you began to think the man in the hood was Gary? Perhaps this man was in court when I asked it and wants me to know how it feels. Well, it feels awful. She glanced at Tracy for female support.
‘I was frightened, of course. Any man who grabs me in a dark shed …’
‘But he let you go?’
‘Mm. But he grabbed me again outside. Then you lot came.’ However unwelcome these questions she was enormously grateful for the rescue. ‘Thanks.’
Churchill smiled. ‘Just doing our job, Mrs Newby. Protecting the public, you know.’
Sarah frowned, puzzled. ‘But why did you come just then?’
‘Ah well.’ He looked very smug now. ‘The old man across the road — the one who saw your son hit Jasmine Hurst? Well, he keeps an eye out — phones us several times a day. Told us how you stayed there last night, when you arrived, when you switched the light out, what time you came out in the morning …’
What time I went to the shed, Sarah thought — oh my God, did he see that bag?
‘… so when he told us Gary was there, and then you, I mobilised the troops and hared round pronto, to see what was going on. We hardly expected to find friend Gary demonstrating some of the finer details of the Gilbert case to his learned counsel, though, did we?’
Dear God, get me out of here, Sarah thought.
‘Sir!’ Tracy Litherland protested, shocked. But Churchill laughed, gripped by a manic desire to punish Sarah with mockery.
‘Still, it’s an ill wind that blows no one any good. It looks as though we’re going to have the pleasure of charging Mr Harker with sexually assaulting the barrister who got him off his rape charge, doesn’t it?’
Fuck you. Sarah glared at him without straining her jaw to answer. First you arrest Simon and now you bully me. She tried to think of a protest but for once no words came. Then suddenly she decided she was too tired to care. The doctor had been right, she realized, half an hour is quite enough. In a minute I’ll fall asleep in this chair.
She glanced despairingly at Tracy, who responded quickly.
‘Sir, the MO said just half an hour. I really think Mrs Newby’s had enough.’
Disappointed, Churchill pushed his chair back. ‘Yes, of course. Very well. We’ll take a full statement tomorrow when you’re feeling better.’ He got up and opened the door. ‘Your husband’s waiting outside.’
With a little sympathy and tender loving care, I hope, Sarah thought. Or has that gone out of fashion, too, these days?
‘So he didn’t actually …’
‘He didn’t actually rape me, no.’ Slumped in the passenger seat of the Volvo, Sarah studied Bob wearily. ‘Christ, is that all that matters to you?’
‘No, of course not.’ His left hand hovered in the air for a moment between them, as though to touch her, then landed instead on the gear stick as he changed down. ‘I’m just trying to understand, that’s all.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes. I mean, why was he there?’
‘I don’t know, Bob. He di … didn’t say.’ Her bruised jaw throbbed, and the precise articulation of some words hurt more than others.
Bob glanced at her thoughtfully. ‘God, I should have come with you, at least.’
‘Mmn.’
‘Though if you hadn’t gone into the wretched shed in the first place. If Simon hadn’t..’
‘It’s nothing to do with Simon, this …’
‘Isn’t it? Then why were you there? He’s at the root of this somehow. I know he is.’
‘It wasn’t Simon, Bob!’ Sarah screamed, then stopped, checked by the pain. More quietly, but with equal intensity, she continued. ‘It was Gary Harker. I defended the bastard, remember? Laugh at that if you like.’
‘For God’s sake, I’m not laughing, Sarah. Come on, let’s get you home. Tuck this round you.’ He stretched out his left arm to adjust the blanket which a policewoman had wrapped around Sarah’s shoulders. She shrugged it off irritably.
‘I’m not an invalid.’
‘You’re a victim, though. Let’s get you home to a warm bath and a whisky.’
‘That sounds more like it.’ Sarah gazed idly out of the window as the car swung over the river Ouse, with the lights of the Archbishop’s Palace on their left. So peaceful it looked, so far removed from the cramped violence of Simon’s back yard. Or was it? Down to her left, in the bushes by the footpath fifty yards south of the road, Jasmine’s body had lain all night, with a fox gnawing at her throat. Sarah groaned.
‘Not far now,’ Bob murmured encouragingly. ‘Did they give you any painkillers?’
‘An injection, I think. Bob?’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t tell Emily.’
‘What? She’ll have to know sometime.’
‘Yes, but not tonight. She’s got exams tomorrow, hasn’t she?’
‘Exams! True, but …’ Bob shook his head in silent wonder. ‘You never change, Sarah, do you? Super Student to the last.’
‘Bob, please. Why should she be hurt?’
‘She won’t be. I’ll keep it quiet.’
‘Thanks.’
He drove on for a while in silence, round the ring road to their country home. On the edge of the village he spoke again, as though the conversation hadn’t stopped.
‘The only one who should be hurt is that swine Harker. I hope they clamp his balls in a vice and tighten it every half hour.’
He pulled into their drive, and — a first for him — got out and opened the passenger door for her while she was still fumbling with the blanket. She thanked him with a faint, ironic smile. ‘I should be raped more often.’
‘Never again.’ He put his arm round her and she leaned against him gratefully. ‘Now, inside with you. Come on. What do you want first — a bath?’
‘Oh God, yes please.’ Only now as she walked through her own front door, did the trembling begin. Her knees started shaking and her legs felt like jelly. She collapsed into an armchair. ‘Go upstairs and run it for me, would you, Bob? A deep hot one with bath salts if you can find any. Then bring a whisky and some candles, too.’
‘Candles?’ At the foot of the stairs, Bob hesitated. ‘Why?’
‘For the bathroom. I want it to be warm and comfortable and womb-like. Bring up a CD with some Mozart as well.’
‘Anything you say.’
I don’t want to see anything clearly tonight, she thought as he went upstairs. Tomorrow will be a day for decisions, rows of them waiting for me in the sun. Tonight I want to close my eyes, lie there and get clean.
Clean. The word formed like a pearl on her lips, perfect and pure. She leaned her head back and whispered it again. That’s what I want to be.
Clean.