Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) (41 page)

They had buried Mary’s ashes in the garden here, behind this building, in a small plot they had paid for. He had come three times, with Jessica and Esther, to leave flowers above it. But then they had stopped coming; it caused too much distress, he decided, served no purpose. It was a grave smaller than one they had dug for a hamster.

After the final prayers, Terry and Jane followed the other mourners out into the garden of remembrance. They stood around, talking in subdued voices, uncertain what to do next. One of the elderly uncles reminded them that a buffet had been ordered at a hotel on the Tadcaster road, to which all were invited. Alison’s mother stared bleakly at the gardens, where the ashes of her daughter would rest; somewhere among the hundreds of miniature headstones among the neatly tended rose gardens. One of the soberly dressed crematorium staff appeared to offer her condolences, and discreetly usher them all back towards the car park.

At the hotel, people helped themselves to sausage rolls and sandwiches and stood around making conversation. Someone had had the foresight to put up a pin board with photographs of Alison on it - as a baby, a schoolchild, a student, and in various countries of the world. Jane joined a group of teachers who were studying it curiously, while Terry approached the woman he had identified as her editor.

‘Jennifer Barlow?’

‘Yes?’

‘Detective Inspector Terry Bateson. We spoke on the phone.’

‘Oh yes, I remember. You’re looking for Alison’s murderer.’

‘That’s right. So the more we know about her the better. Has anything more come to mind, since we spoke?’

‘I’m not sure. Perhaps.’ She manoeuvred her way across the room to a corner by a window. ‘I’m sorry, it’s all been such a rush and a shock; it might be best if you remind me of what I told you before. Then I can fill in the gaps, if there are any.’

She was an attractive woman, Terry thought; a strong character with presence. No wonder these young teachers cluster round her; several were watching now as they talked. She had several large rings on her fingers and bracelets on her wrists, which jangled as she moved her arm. She had a lively active face out of which her large grey eyes scrutinized him intently.

‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘Well, when we spoke on the phone, you told me you met Alison in Oxford on a postgraduate teacher training course. You became friends and taught together for a couple of years in Japan, is that right? But then you went into publishing while Alison carried on teaching English as a foreign language in various countries around the world, so you lost touch for a bit.’

‘That’s right, yes. We tried to meet when she came home, and we’d write, you know. But those were the days before e-mail, and she worked in some pretty remote places - even Mongolia for a couple of years - so yes, we lost touch.’

‘And then you met her at a conference, I believe?’

‘Yes, an IATEFL conference - that’s the International Association for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language - in Bournemouth, about four years ago. It was great. She gave a presentation about some teaching materials she had written, and as it happened they were just the sort of thing we were looking for at the time. So I asked her to write some more, which she did. She came to Oxford, people were impressed, and it all led to
First Class
.’

‘That’s the book she was working on?’

‘Yes. Or series of books, actually. Quite apart from the tragedy of her death, it’s going to be a major headache finding someone to take over. She had a real talent, poor girl.’

‘So the books were doing well?’

‘Very well. The launch was a terrific success, and the second book’s doing even better. It was a great breakthrough for her - a life-changing experience, really. I would imagine she’d already made enough in royalties to set her up for life.’

‘That’s interesting,’ Terry said. ‘Enough to buy a house, would you say?’

‘Oh, heavens, yes. Quite a good one, too.’

‘But she was living as a tenant in a small cottage. Not particularly luxurious. Just her and a cat.’

‘Yes, well, that’s Alison for you. She didn’t really care about money. After all those years of living abroad in rented flats and houses, she probably saw that as normal. I talked to her about buying a house once, and she said she’d get around to it when she’d finished the next book. That was what she was focussed on.’

‘What about her private life? Friends and so on?’

Jennifer Barlow shrugged. ‘She was a friendly person. Look around you - half of these people are teachers she’s worked with or helped in some way. Some of them have travelled long distances to get here.’

‘Any of them boyfriends?’

‘I doubt it. They all look a bit young to me,’ Jennifer surveyed the room thoughtfully. ‘But the truth is, I wouldn’t know. She had a couple of boyfriends in Oxford, I remember, but neither of them lasted.’

‘Why not? Do you remember?’

Jennifer shrugged. ‘Usual reasons, not compatible, I suppose. I think she was getting over some undergraduate affair at the time. No one she met in Oxford quite matched up.’

‘Undergraduate affair?’

‘Yes. She was a student here in York, I think, before she came to Oxford. But that was before I met her.’

‘I see. You don’t happen to remember his name, do you, this boyfriend of hers?’

‘No, sorry, she never told me.’

‘What about later, when she went abroad? There must have been other men, from time to time?’

‘I think there was a man in Indonesia - a doctor I think - but he was married and it all ended badly. There were probably one or two others, but she didn’t tell me about them all.’

‘She wasn’t bisexual, by any chance?’

‘Oh no. When she did talk about that sort of thing, it was always men. She could be quite forthright, on occasion - one or two things she came out with quite shocked me.’

‘But not in connection with any man in particular?’

‘As I say, there was this doctor - the Indonesian.’ She smiled faintly. ‘He was quite adventurous, it seems. The whole Kama Sutra. Taught Alison a lot.’

‘Do you have a name for him?’

‘Again, I never met him.’ Jennifer sighed, shaking her head. ‘I might have it in an old letter of hers somewhere. If I find it I’ll tell you.’

‘Thank you, that would help.’ Terry studied her thoughtfully, wondering how to phrase his next question. ‘I’m sorry to ask you this, but ... these sex games with this doctor; did they include bondage, sado-masochism, anything like that?’

Jennifer Barlow flushed. ‘They may have done, yes. He sounded quite adventurous, and Alison ... well, I think she enjoyed it. We had a few laughs at the time.’ Her face darkened suddenly. ‘Why? What’s this got to do with her murder? I thought she was hanged.’

‘She was. But how that happened exactly, we don’t know. So we have to explore every avenue until we find out, I’m afraid. So if you do remember the name of this doctor ...’

‘I’ll tell you, of course. But it was a long time ago, and on the other side of the world. I think it ended when his wife found out.’

‘A long shot, then.’ Terry shook his head. ‘Do you know what happened to this old boyfriend of hers? The one from York?’

‘Sorry, no, she didn’t say. She was always very secretive about him. But it’s always possible that was the reason she chose this part of the country to settle, I suppose, when she came back to England. Or it could just have been happy memories.’

44. Homeless Person

T
HE SALE of Sarah’s house went through quicker than she had expected. The young buyers had expensive, efficient lawyers, probably provided free by the man’s employers. They made it clear that any unreasonable delay on Sarah’s part could cancel the deal. And she felt pressure from the other side by Bob, who was eager for his share of the equity.

Sarah herself was gripped by an uncharacteristic mood of fatalism. She felt swept downstream in a torrent, by events that she couldn’t control. Normally she would have fought back, straining against the current, but for once she didn’t care. She felt a perverse pleasure in letting go, in feeling all the ties of her former life washed away, so much flotsam on the surface of the stream.

Two furniture vans came on the day of the move. One hired by Bob, to take his share of the furniture, or what they had agreed he could have. An antique writing desk and sideboard he had inherited from his mother, the books, bookcases, filing cabinet and computer equipment from the room he used as a study, and the king-sized double bed which he insisted he had bought in their former house, before she started earning.

They had nearly come to blows about that. It wasn’t that Sarah wanted the bed, particularly - it had memories, after all, of their married life together, of the hundreds, probably thousands, of times they had made love, or simply lain together, reading, talking, sleeping, cuddling, caring for each other in sickness and in health. Trusting each other, taking each other for granted, the way married couples do. Knowing and accepting all the intimate embarrassing details about each other - the way Bob snored, grew his toenails longer than she liked, and had hair on his back as well as his chest. All those things, together with the deep-chested, helpless way he’d laughed when she’d tickled him, and the soft scratchy feel of his beard on the top of her head as she’d snuggled up to him at night - all that would come with the bed if she took it. All those memories would surround her at night, like small colourful dreams of the past. Dreams poisoned by his betrayal, turning green, bitter and choking in her sleeping brain.

So for that reason she was glad to be rid of it. Better to buy a new bed of her own, she told herself. Start life afresh, on clean virgin sheets. But ...

Try as she might, she could not rid herself of rage at Bob’s reasoning. He’d been quite open about it. ‘Sonya’s bed is old,’ he’d said. ‘It sags, she’s never had a decent one. And since this is mine, after all, and still has a few years of use left in it ...’

It was that callous phrase that set Sarah’s teeth on edge. Her mouth felt sticky when she thought of it, as though she’d sucked rhubarb. It was that
few years of use
that enraged her. Not use by Bob alone, of course, but by him and Sonya. As well as her wretched children, too, no doubt, from time to time. Even a baby, God forbid, if Bob gave her one.

There was the rub. He wanted to sleep with Sonya, make love to her, cuddle her, talk to her, laugh with her probably, share his new bloody life with her in this same bed they’d shared for most of their married life. And he didn’t seem to care, damn him! All those memories and associations that came back to her almost every time she lay in the bed - did they mean nothing to him? Had he just deleted them from his memory? Was the bed just a thing - wood and fabric and springs cunningly constructed into a machine for sleeping - and nothing more? Apparently so, in his mind.

There must be something wrong with the man, she told herself.

Well, there is. That’s why he left me. So good riddance, that’s the best attitude. I’m better off without him, if that’s the way he thinks.

Only it hurts. It hurts all the time.

It hurt especially to see the bed being dismantled, lugged downstairs by two beefy men, and stowed in a van beside the rest of Bob’s furniture, bound for his new life in Harrogate. New
wife
in Harrogate, too, it seemed. Last time they’d met, quarrelling tetchily about the bed and other items as they toured the house and ticked them one by one off a joint list, he’d let slip that he intended to marry Sonya as soon as the divorce came through. He’d meant it as some sort of justification - a consolation for Sarah, perhaps - to convince her that this wasn’t just an affair, but a definite new direction in his life, a permanent commitment. But it felt like a slap in the face. When he persisted, saying he hoped one day she and Sonya might meet, even become friends, she turned her back on him and walked smartly away.

Since then they’d spoken only through lawyers.

When Bob’s van was packed and driven away, the van she had hired for her own furniture took all the rest. Annoyingly, there was more than she’d anticipated. All the stuff that neither of them wanted - books, clothes and papers from the loft, old curtains she’d stored in the hope of using them some time, Emily and Simon’s old school reports, toys and clothes they’d grown out of - all these had to be cleared out of the house before the buyers moved in, and since Bob didn’t want them she was lumbered with them. I’ve paid too little attention to this, she realised, watching the furniture van fill up with alarming quantities of junk, I’ve been too busy working to deal with it. She had nowhere to put it either. All her furniture was going into store, at a cost which had already seemed to her exorbitant, even before the amount of stuff had started to multiply before her eyes.

I’ll have to find somewhere to live, she thought. More spacious than I’d thought. And sooner, too.

The move had come upon her so suddenly, in the middle of her complicated fraud trial, that she’d had almost no time to look for suitable lodgings. It was only because the move took place on a Saturday that she was able to be here at all, supervising her life’s possessions being lugged out of the front door. A few days ago she’d contacted a letting agency, who’d taken her to see a couple of flats one evening, but they’d looked so battered and dreary to her, so lacking in hope, cleanliness, or even basic modern amenities, that the thought of taking either for a six month let, which was the minimum offered, made her feel suicidal. Is this what I’ve come to, she thought - after all my work, all my study, all my commitment to career and family? A one bedroom flat in a narrow side street, with grimy carpets, grubby shower, and a view over a vehicle spraying business? I can’t bear it.

The alternative was to live with Michael Parker. He’d made that offer as soon as she told him the sale was going through, and she’d smiled and said she’d consider it. That was the other reason she’d delayed so long, and been so dilatory about renting a flat. She was tempted. It tickled her fancy, the idea of living with this man in his house - and such an unusual house, too, a windmill. That would show Bob she wasn’t on the shelf, abandoned at forty! She was a still a desirable woman, she had a lover already!