Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby)
Read Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) Online
Authors: Tim Vicary
Bold Counsel
Tim Vicary
The third book in the series ‘The Trials of Sarah Newby’
First published as an ebook by White Owl Publications Ltd 2011
Copyright Tim Vicary 2011
ISBN 978-0-9571698-1-4
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention
No reproduction without permission
All rights reserved.
The right of Tim Vicary to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988
This is a work of pure fiction. Although most of the places in the book exist, any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
Other Kindle e-books by Tim Vicary
Crime and Legal Thrillers
A Game of Proof
(The Trials of Sarah Newby, book 1)
A Fatal Verdict
(The Trials of Sarah Newby, book 2)
Historical novels
The Blood Upon the Rose
(Love and terror in Ireland, 1920)
Cat and Mouse
(Suffragettes and Ulster Rebellion in 1914)
The Monmouth Summer
(Love, tragedy and rebellion in 1685)
Website:
http://www.timvicary.com
Blog:
http://sarahstrials.wordpress.com
Twitter @TimVicary
Table of Contents
1. Fox
T
HE YOUNG fox’s ribs showed through its coat; its belly clung to its backbone. In the starlight before dawn, it was stalking young rabbits. Its eyes blazed bright in its skull as a couple of baby rabbits hopped cautiously out of their burrow, stood on their hind legs to sniff the breeze, and cocked their ears for danger. The fox’s jaws drooled, grinning with anticipation.
But his swift, lunging run sent the rabbits scurrying back underground, his teeth snapping uselessly behind them. The brief effort exhausted him. Outside the burrow, he gasped for breath. If he didn’t eat today, he would die.
Frantically, he dug down into the burrow, seeking food and shelter. A place to eat, or a place to die. He scrabbled deeper into the earth, with the energy of desperation. His paws grew sore, his nose and eyes were covered with soil.
But the digging intrigued him; another smell, not rabbit, entered his nostrils. A rare, unusual smell. Finally, to his intense delight, he unearthed it; something hard, crunchy and bone-like. He seized the bones in his teeth, and tugged.
They tasted of ancient, rotten meat. But they were hard to loosen. He braced his forepaws against the rock and tugged, growling through his teeth. It was like a game he had played as a cub, with kills his mother brought home. The strong got the best bones, the weak got the rest. But here it was just him and the rock.
At last, almost frantic with exhaustion, he wrenched the bones free and dragged them outside. Dawn was just breaking, a thin lemon glow in the east. Disappointingly, there were only a few tiny scraps of meat between the bones, as hard as old leather. He chewed disconsolately for a while; then, as the sun rose higher, he fell asleep.
He was woken by a draught of air round his nose. He opened his eyes as a crow, wings spread wide, snatched the bones with its beak. Enraged, the young fox leapt up and lunged. But the crow flicked its wings and floated lightly out of reach. Just a yard away, two - cool orange eyes taunted him to follow. When he did, the crow flew ten, twenty yards further, to the edge of his territory.
The fox knew there was no point rushing after birds; they saw you coming, and flew away. Still, he’d nearly caught a pheasant once by stalking it - belly to the ground, nose hidden in the grass, inching one foot forward at a time, waiting for just that moment when the bird felt safe, and looked down to peck at something.
That
was how to get them, by creeping close enough first.
He tried it now. He crept after the crow until he saw where it had landed. On the road, outside his territory. Probably it felt safe there; it could see all around. But the long grass hid the fox’s approach. And the crow was too keen on the bones. It pecked at them industriously, seeking the tiny, leathery scraps of meat between the joints.
The fox crouched in the grass, wound tense like a catapult. The crow pecked, then glanced up - not at the fox, but at something behind it. The young fox sprang. A huge growl filled its throat, with rage at the theft.
Then several things happened at once.
The crow dropped the bones and flew up, its wings flapping wildly in alarm.
The fox snatched the bones with its teeth.
And the car, which came roaring round the corner, its driver enjoying the emptiness of the early morning road, swerved wildly as the bird’s black wings flashed across the windscreen.
The fox looked to its right, just in time to see death, in the form of a Michelin tyre, coming towards it at sixty miles an hour.
The driver felt a soft thump and braked, slowing enough to see the crushed body of a young fox on the road behind him, but not stopping to get out or see what it held between its jaws.
The bones of a human hand.
2. Family Troubles
T
HE MOTORCYCLE headlamp sliced the dusk, creating a clear cone of light down the country lane. The rider, crouched behind the headlamp in her black helmet and leathers, felt no urge to twist the grip and surge ahead down the empty road. On this autumn evening she was unusually aware of the gathering darkness all around, the hint of rain, the chill in the air that meant winter was coming. She had never felt entirely at home in the country, and out here now, alone in the dark, she regretted the lights of the city, the demands of her work, the bustle of people all around.
Fallen leaves had blown across the road at the next bend. She slowed the bike to a crawl. If I skid and fall off here, she thought, I could lie for hours before anyone comes. Even longer, if I was waiting for anyone who cared.
It will be all right at home, she told herself, shrugging off the thought. But when she reached her house, in the quiet lane outside the village, no lights were on, as she’d hoped. No children at home, of course - her son Simon lived in town, her daughter Emily was at university. But Bob might have been here, at least. After all, teachers finished at four, didn’t they? Not six or seven in the evening as she often did, preparing for court in the morning.
But her husband’s school was in Harrogate, not York. He’d been late home more evenings recently than she could count. Sarah Newby wheeled her bike into the garage, and sighed. Bob had tried to persuade her to sell this house and move to Harrogate with him, but she had refused. Stubbornly, grimly, supported by their daughter Emily who loved this house more than Sarah and saw it as her home. But Emily, as Bob pointed out, was hardly ever at home and likely to be living here less and less. Whereas he faced a long daily commute along the A59, one of the most choked roads in the region.
And I work all over the north of England, Sarah thought. Harrogate would have suited me, just as well as York. So why did I refuse?
The answer had little to do with logic. It was a feeling. For the past two years, nothing had seemed right between Sarah and her husband. It had started with that terrible trial of her son, Simon, whom she had defended when Bob believed him guilty of murder. That had opened a rift between them, across which they’d tried to throw flimsy, aerial bridges which often broke down. Then Bob had had an affair with his secretary, which made matters worse. It ended, but Sarah’s respect for him was shaken. And so, when he’d wanted to move house ...
She’d just wanted to keep things the same, that was it.
Only nothing stays the same; time changes everything. Children grow up and leave, old priorities fade into new, relationships not constantly rebuilt are washed away like sandcastles by the sea. Even memories alter; what was once vital in the past seems distant, ancient history, a petty storm in the blood, half-remembered.
Sarah shrugged off her gloom and marched determinedly into the house, switching on lights, shrugging off her leathers, shaking out her hair, and putting on jeans and a sweater. The heating was on, at least - she was warm and comfortable. A Mozart string quartet CD filled the air with colour and life. She popped a Thai steamed dinner in the microwave, poured herself a glass of whisky, sat back in a reclining armchair, and ...
Her mobile rang.
It was her daughter, Emily. She was at Cambridge, studying environmental science. Six weeks ago Sarah and Bob had ferried her mountains of teenage kit down there in the Volvo, and settled her into her room at Sidney Sussex College. Since then Sarah had rung Emily most days, sometimes sharing excited, breathless accounts of her new friends and exploits, sometimes getting an embarrassed brush-off when it was not really a suitable time. Tonight, unusually, Emily had rung her. What she wanted to talk about was her boyfriend, Larry.
Larry was three years older than Emily, a postgraduate at Birmingham university. He was a slim, intense young man with a ponytail and wispy beard. He had two main interests in life: saving the planet, and making love to Emily. Often he managed to combine the two, taking Emily away for long weekends to protest at road developments, promote re-cycling or save wetlands for endangered species of birds, but since Emily had moved to Cambridge, this had become more difficult. Neither had much money, transport was difficult, and both found themselves thrown together in groups of vibrant young people where the other was not present.