Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) (49 page)

Sarah cringed. No doubt it was kindly meant but he could hardly have made a worse suggestion. The image of Alison Grey came into her mind. Stepping out of her bath, soap bubbles sliding down her naked body, into a warm towel held by - who?

‘I think, if you don’t mind, I’ll skip the bath this evening.’

‘Really?’ He frowned. ‘You disappoint me. I was thinking perhaps tonight ...’

‘I’m tired, Michael. I’ve had a long day, and I’ve got a bit of a stomach ache. But the whisky will deal with that, if I just take a few minutes to unwind. Then all I want to do is get into bed, pull the duvet over my head, and dive into the land of dreams. If that’s all right with you.’

She looked at him, making sure he’d got the point. No sex, and she was sleeping alone tonight. Separate bedrooms, separate houses. That was the agreement.

‘I see.’ His bonhomie faded. ‘I thought a hot bath and massage would help you relax, that’s all. Help us both, matter of fact.’ There was hurt and anger in his face, quickly mastered. ‘But it’s your choice, of course. In that case I’ll say goodnight. I’ve had a hard day too.’

‘Oh, really? What happened? Stay and tell me about it, if you like.’

‘Not now. It’s too long and complicated anyway. Maybe tomorrow night, if you’ve got more time. And your stomach isn’t troubling you.’

‘All right.’

He knocked back his whisky, got up and left. Sarah sat quietly, listening to the sound of his footsteps fading across the grass. An owl hooted in the woods; his front door closed. Looking through her window, she could see the lights from the windmill reflected on the grass outside. She sipped her whisky and waited. After about half an hour the downstairs lights went off, and there was a single light in his bedroom, on the third floor. She waited a while longer.

Ever since she’d met Terry she’d been wondering: what else is there here, what else can I find? The only specific thing he’d asked her to look for was a mobile phone, but Michael always kept his in his jacket. Anyway she’d told Terry his number and that wasn’t the one he was looking for, apparently. Why on earth should Michael have two phones? The more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed.

The only other thing she could think of was that file on Brenda’s death and Jason’s trial. It had seemed meticulously kept, but she hadn’t had time to study it closely, and it had seemed odd, rather than important at the time. Curious, perhaps, but not worrying.

She still didn’t see what relevance if any, it had to this investigation of Terry’s. After all, she knew just about everything about Jason’s case and his appeal - she’d seen all the case papers. But those were prepared with a particular end in view - first Jason’s conviction, then his acquittal. That’s what she and Lucy and the lawyers before them had focussed on - the facts most relevant to their client. But now it occurred to her that Michael may not have seen it like that - certainly he hadn’t collected his materials for that purpose. So if he had another purpose, what was it? Some passages in the texts, she remembered, had been highlighted in yellow. What were they?

She waited until the light in Michael’s bedroom went out. Then she walked quietly into the dining room, took out the file from behind the cookbooks where she had found it, carried it to her own study upstairs, and began to read.

For about ten minutes she read swiftly, all her attention on the file, as she’d learned to do as a barrister. But the answer to her question eluded her. Several passages were highlighted, but they were the ones you’d expect - the key items of evidence, the lawyers’ main arguments, quotations from the police, the judge’s decisions. Nothing she didn’t know already.

Then, at the beginning of the file, she came across some yellowing cuttings from the
Yorkshire Evening Press
, and the
Yorkshire Post
- ones she hadn’t seen before. The content of the articles was nothing new or obviously useful - early stages of the investigation, quotations from the anguished friends and family of Brenda Stokes. Not things she would need for the appeal. But there were also a few photographs - one in particular which caught her eye. It was of a memorial service, held in Brenda’s memory - not a funeral, since without her body, there was nothing to bury. Her family were there, clustered outside a church, and behind them older people. Policemen - she recognised Robert Baxter, the detective superintendent who’d cursed her in court. So young he looked here! And behind him, younger people, Brenda’s friends presumably, in the strange fashions of the 1990s. And then, there it was.

One face stared out at her from the photo, different from all the others. A young, skinny version of a face she knew well. A face she’d touched, kissed, seen on the pillow beside her own. It was Michael, she was sure of it. A young student Michael with long hair and a foolish, droopy moustache, but Michael for all that. She couldn’t be wrong.

So he didn’t know Brenda just vaguely, she thought, as he told me.
He lied about that.
He knew her at least well enough to attend her memorial service, with what - a dozen other young people at most, in the photograph anyway. She picked up a magnifying glass from the desk and studied the expression on the face of the young man in the photo. But it was hard to decipher - calm, controlled as usual, the lip hidden by the droopy moustache. He looked serious, but that befitted a memorial service.
Why was he there?

She was about to put the magnifying glass down when she realised something else - the girl standing next to Michael was holding his hand. Not just with her left hand that was beside his right, but with her right as well - she was reaching across to clutch his arm tightly with both hands as though without his support she’d fall over. And the expression on her face was much easier to read. Not just grief or respect but something stronger, like horror perhaps, or shock.

Why shock, Sarah wondered? It seemed strange at such an occasion, excessive, unnecessary. Grief would be more appropriate, sorrow. After all, Brenda must have been missing, presumed dead, for several months.

Sarah peered at the yellowing photo closely, moving it directly under the table lamp and holding the magnifying glass to get the best possible magnification.

It wasn’t just shock, Sarah decided, it was fear. The girl looked terrified. As if something awful was going to happen to her at any moment. As if she expected it, almost. And she was hanging on to Michael for dear life.
Why?

And who was she?

Sarah got up. She had guessed who it was, but to be sure she needed to compare the photo of this girl with the one of Alison Grey that had been published in the
Yorkshire Evening Press
several times over the past few weeks. There was a pile of newspapers on the floor beside her desk. She had meant to throw them out, but never got round to it. She leafed through them quickly, searching for the photograph she remembered. At last, at the bottom of the pile, she found it. Just as she had remembered.

The woman in the picture was older, of course, and looked much happier, as murder victims always do. The press seem to choose the prettiest picture they can find, perhaps to comfort the relatives slightly. This is how she was in her good days, before she died.

But the hair was the same, the shape of the face, everything. There was no doubt. The girl holding so tightly on to the youthful Michael as though he was her only support in the world, was a younger version of the woman who had been found hanged the hallway of a house belonging to Michael, eighteen years later. Alison Grey.

She was his girlfriend first, and then his tenant, Sarah thought.

Just like me.

54. Interviewing Peter

‘I
WANT a lawyer,’ Peter Barton said. ‘I can have one, can’t I?’

‘Of course you can, Peter. A very wise decision, in my view.’ Jane Carter smiled at the boy. Not a kind smile; more like the eager grin of a bitch watching a rabbit. ‘These are serious charges you’re facing.’

When George Graham had learned the name of the young man he’d arrested, he’d been delighted. It was Peter Barton, the lad they’d all been looking for. The attitude of the CID officers, Terry Bateson and Jane Carter, brought him further relief. He’d arrested a murder suspect, that’s what mattered to them. The car could be repaired. He hoped his uniformed superintendent would take the same view.

‘He went back then,’ Jane Carter said, while they waited for the doctor to attend to Peter’s bruises. ‘Like a dog returning to his vomit.’

‘It looks like it,’ Terry agreed. ‘I wonder what he was doing there.’

‘Gloating, probably,’ Jane answered. ‘Trust me, this is one sick kiddo.’

The sick kiddo turned up an hour later in an interview room. He sat beside the duty solicitor, Rachel Horsefall, a young woman with spiky copper brown hair and a thin elfin face, which was currently creased in an earnest frown appropriate to the seriousness of the case. She clasped her hands firmly together on the battered interview table and leaned forward, her green eyes focussed sharply on Terry Bateson.

‘Before we start this interview, Detective Inspector, my client has a complaint. He believes he was arrested with undue violence. He was nearly throttled and sustained several injuries.’

Terry sighed. ‘What injuries? Could I see them?’

Peter Barton rolled up his sleeve. There was a gauze bandage taped to his forearm. His face was grazed on the left temple where some ointment had been applied.

‘Several cuts and bruises, as you see,’ Rachel Horsefall insisted. ‘It was clearly a violent arrest.’

‘He was trying to steal a police car, Miss Horsefall. He caused a serious accident. Placing the arresting officer in danger of his life.’

‘Does that justify brutality? My client was nearly strangled. His throat is bruised.’

Terry peered across the table. There was the faintest of marks on Peter Barton’s neck, under the tracksuit top. Possibly mud, possibly a bruise. Either way ...

‘I note your complaint, Miss Horsefall, and if you put it in writing it will be investigated. In the meantime, this is a murder enquiry.’

‘My client has no knowledge of any murder.’

‘Really? Perhaps
he
could answer a few questions.’ Terry inserted two cassette tapes in the recorder, checked that it was working, issued Peter with a caution, and recorded the time, date, and names of the people in the room. ‘What were you doing in that house, Peter?’

‘Which house?’

‘The one in Crockey Hill, where you were arrested.’

‘Nowt.’ Peter stared at him sullenly. ‘It were empty, so I dossed down there. Then this copper tried to kill me.’

‘How long had you been there?’

‘Since last night. What’s it to you?’

Terry looked at him coolly. There was more to this lad than first appeared, he decided. But then there would be, if he was as guilty as he seemed.

‘So you just decided to break in?’

‘There were no lights on. I were cold.’

‘That house was someone’s home, Peter. What if the owner had been there? What would you have done then?’

‘But she weren’t, were she?’

‘She?’
Terry let the word hang in the silence for a moment. Rachel Horsefall, he was glad to note, was looking worried. ‘How do you know it was a she?’

Peter shrugged. ‘Women’s things, all over’t place. Make-up and such. I just thought.’

‘Thought what?’

‘That a woman lived there.’

‘And that’s why you broke in, is it? Because a woman lived there on her own?’

‘No. I told you. It were empty.’

‘Why did you doss down there? Why didn’t you just go home?’

‘
You
know why.’

‘No, I don’t. Tell me. Why don’t you?’

Peter’s lips moved, but he said nothing. He just stared at Terry, shaking his head. Terry let the silence build for a while, then he said: ‘It’s because you’re on the run, Peter, isn’t it? You skipped bail, and you’re on the run from a different crime.’ He sat back, nodding at Jane. ‘DS Carter has some questions for you about that.’

Jane leaned forward, her arms on the table, her face a few inches from Peter’s. He gazed back at her anxiously.

‘Peter Barton, two weeks ago a man wearing a mask broke into a house off the Tadcaster Road, just by the Knavesmire. A woman lived in this house, a young mother called Elizabeth Bolan. She’d been out for a run and was having a shower before her child came home. When she was drying herself after her shower a man came into her bedroom. A man with a mask over his face, and latex gloves on his hands. Can you imagine how terrified she was?’

Peter shook his head slowly, not speaking. Jane stared, forcing his eyes to meet hers.

‘The man knew she was in the house. He came prepared to assault her. He held a cord in his hands, like this.’ She reached beneath the desk and pulled up a plastic evidence bag. ‘I’m showing Mr Barton a pink dressing gown cord which was found in Ms Bolan’s bedroom. Do you recognize this, Peter?’

Silence. Another shake of the head. A bead of perspiration began to form on Peter’s left temple.

‘Mr Barton is shaking his head. The next thing that happened, Peter, was that this man assaulted the woman. He put the cord round her neck, and tightened it so she couldn’t breathe. He held her like that in front of the mirror for a moment, and then pulled her towards her bed. But she was a brave woman, and she fought back. She pulled his mask sideways and he let go of the cord. Then she found a pair of scissors, and threatened him with them. That must have been a shock for the man, don’t you think? Not what he expected.’

Peter made no response. But his face seemed paler than before, the perspiration more pronounced. The solicitor grimaced, as if she had eaten something nasty.

‘Not as brave as you thought, were you, Peter? Didn’t fancy being stabbed with those scissors. Might have got you in the balls, mightn’t she? Cut off your prick?’

Peter winced, and Rachel Horsefall intervened. ‘Detective sergeant, is that necessary? You have the right to question my client, not harass or insult him.’