Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) (52 page)

She watched for a moment longer, then wheeled her bike across to the house. She could see Michael moving around in the windmill kitchen. He didn’t seem concerned about the storm. She imagined him working hard in the irritable, nervous frenzy which seemed to characterise his cooking, and checked her watch as she went indoors. 6.30 - just time to shower, change, and make it without annoying him unnecessarily by being late.

As she crossed to the mill later the wind whipped her skirt around her legs, but it seemed gentler than before. She glanced across the valley and saw stars appearing in the far west, beyond the clouds. There was a flurry of rain, and she stepped carefully across Simon’s patio, to avoid tripping over a pile of bricks or putting her foot in a pool of damp mortar. To her relief, the work looked good, as far as she could tell. She asked Michael about it in the warmth of the kitchen.

‘Yes, it’s coming along fine. He’s a grafter, your son, I’ll give him that. When he manages to turn up, that is.’

‘Well, he’s got other jobs, as well as this. I suppose he fits it in when he can.’

‘Don’t they all?’ Michael was busy chopping herbs on the side. He glanced at her briefly, and changed his dismissive tone. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. He’s doing fine, really. Doesn’t talk to me much, but then that’s not what I’m paying him for. Sherry? Wine? Juice? What d’you fancy?’

‘Juice, to start with, anyway.’ Sarah wanted to keep a cool head, if she could. She was only half convinced that she was wise, to be here at all. But then, what she really needed was to resolve her doubts. If Terry Bateson was right and there really was something suspicious about Michael, then the sooner she found out about it the better. Then, if necessary, she could make the decision to leave - find another place to live and cut him out of her life altogether. But if Terry was wrong, as she hoped, and this man was as decent as he seemed, then well - he was the best thing that happened to her for ages. Ever since things went so badly wrong with Bob. The last thing she wanted to do was to shipwreck a friendship that had so recently been launched.

But how could she decide, without revealing her suspicions? How would Michael react, if she told him she had been speaking to Terry, or that she had been examining the file of newspaper clippings in his study in her house? He’d be angry, she felt sure. Hurt, angry and betrayed. Even if he had a perfectly reasonable answer to her questions, he’d still feel she’d been spying on him behind his back, discussing him with the police as though he were some sort of criminal. No man would react to that kindly, she felt sure - certainly not a man like Michael who, for all his good points, had already shown several frightening flashes of temper in the short time she’d known him.

But if she didn’t reveal the reasons for her suspicions, how could she get answers to her questions? Sarah had puzzled over this all afternoon, ever since Michael had rung her from Scarborough. She had never been good at feminine wiles; she was more used to cross-examination in the courtroom, with precise, detailed, questioning based on evidence that was out in the open for all to see.

This time, she thought, she would have to try something different. Get answers, if possible, without asking too many obvious questions. She was far from certain that she would succeed.

She asked him about the sails, and he smiled. ‘Yes, stunning, aren’t they? I thought I’d test them in a moderately strong wind, and they’re holding up well, just as the guys told me they would. We must be generating enough electricity to light up a whole village - and we will do, too, once the grid people pull their fingers out and get us connected properly.’

‘It’s like a giant propellor. I’m surprised the building doesn’t take off.’

‘No wings, or it would. Don’t worry, the wind’s forecast to die down this evening. Anyway, it’s been here three hundred years, it’s seen worse than this before now. Though it’s probably a good idea the grindstones aren’t connected any more. I read about a hurricane one year - 1750 or sometime like that - when several mills spun so fast for so long that they caught fire. I guess the friction made the stones red hot.’

‘That can’t happen to us, can it?’

‘Let’s hope not. Anyway it would be a spectacular way to go, don’t you think?’

He seemed in a good mood, Sarah thought. Slightly tense, perhaps, but then he was often like that, when he was cooking. No hint of the guilt or anxiety she might have expected if Terry’s suspicions had been true. But then, how well did she really know him? There’d been several times before when he’d started out like this, then changed suddenly for no apparent reason.

The sea bass, at least, was a success. Light, fresh, steamed on a bed of green beans with a white wine, vanilla, cream and garlic sauce, with new potatoes and sprinkled with celery leaves, set off with a crisp dry Chablis.

‘Your best so far,’ Sarah said appreciatively. ‘You’re becoming a chef.’

‘Not me - Jamie Oliver. I’m glad you like it.’ He sipped his wine, watching her thoughtfully. ‘I hope you like my next idea too.’

‘Which is?’

‘Tell you in a minute. Let me fetch the sweet first.’

They were eating on the second floor tonight, at the circular dining table with the two redundant millwheels underneath. While Michael went downstairs Sarah strolled to the glass door leading onto the balcony, and watched the sails revolving steadily between her and the stars. Were they going a bit slower now? Their power unsettled her. But the night sky looked a little clearer. She could see stars around the Moon. What was this idea he seemed so keen about? She had a miserable feeling she was about to disappoint him, even before she probed for information. And she still had no idea how to do that.

Michael came up from the kitchen with a tray carrying apple pie, whipped cream, and a cafetiere with coffee cups and saucers.

‘My idea,’ he said slowly, putting the tray on the table, ‘is quite simple really. I’m thinking of moving to Spain.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve a friend who’s into property there, and I’ve been talking to him. He’s been there for years now, already made a fortune, and says there are plenty of opportunities left - not on the coast where the lager louts go, but inland, the more select areas where smaller operators like me might move in. For expats looking for the real Spain, in villages and old farmhouses like I’ve been converting here. He’s even found several old windmills, believe it or not.’

‘But why would you want to do that?’

‘Oh, I’ve been thinking about it for some time ...’ Sarah listened in wonder, putting a few questions here and there, while he developed his idea. It was nothing like what she’d been expecting. He seemed enthusiastic, she thought, but nervous too. As though he was trying to convince himself as well as her. The crux came over coffee. ‘... if I really put my mind to it, I reckon I could sell up here in about six months, a year at most, and begin again over there. We’d have plenty to live on, you wouldn’t have to work, only ...’

‘We?’
She put her cup down, with a clatter.

‘Yes. I’m sorry, I’m not explaining this well. The reason I’m telling you this is that I ... well, I was hoping you’d want to come with me.’

From where he sat, with his back to a spotlight in the wall, half his face was in shadow, but the eye she could see watched her eagerly. There was a shy smile on his lips.

‘Michael, I have a career.’

‘Yes, I know, but they have lawyers in Spain, don’t they?’

‘I’m not qualified to practise in Spain. I don’t know the law or the language.’

‘You could learn. Anyway, as I say, you wouldn’t need to work. I could earn enough for us both.’ He reached forward across the table for her hand. ‘Sarah, I’m asking you to come with me.’

She let him take her hand for a moment, but then withdrew it. ‘I’m very flattered, Michael, but ... I’ve never thought about leaving this country. Or my career.’

‘Well, I’m asking you to think about it now. Of course it comes as a surprise, I understand that. You don’t have to decide today. I’m just laying out my plans, and saying, I suppose, that I’d like you to be part of them. I really would. That’s all.’

There’s no way,
snapped a little imp in Sarah’s mind,
no way in hell that I would ever give up my career and put my life in the hands of a man, not this man or any other, not while I have breath in my body.
But she didn’t say it. She gagged the imp swiftly as other, contradictory thoughts came rushing in.
He is a nice man after all, a good lover, and this is the best offer I’m likely to get, at my time of life; I should consider it at least.
And then, more subtly:
this is my opportunity, this is my way in, if I was to think of going with him, it would be natural to know more about his past, wouldn’t it? If I turn him down flat I never will.

So she said, very cautiously: ‘It is a surprise, Michael, let me think about it. I can’t decide on a thing like this, to change my life, in a day.’

‘So let’s go over it again,’ Terry said, when they had got Peter in an interview room. ‘Why did you go to Crockey Hill?’

‘I went out for a walk.’

‘What, in the middle of the night?’

‘Yeah, why not? It’s the best time. Nobody sees you.’

‘Why would it matter if people saw you?’

A look of deep cunning crossed Peter Barton’s face. ‘Well, you know that, don’t you? I were on the run.’ He made it sound glamorous, like Robin Hood or Bonnie and Clyde.

‘I see. So it was exciting, was it?’ Terry kept his tone as neutral as he could. As he’d explained to Jane over lunch, he didn’t want to antagonise Peter by pointing out the evil of his ways; what Terry wanted was his co-operation. If that meant pandering to the boy’s fantasies, even seeming to understand and approve them, then that’s what he would do. He needed to build up a bond of trust with him.

So far, Terry thought, so good. The first really difficult hurdle for Peter had been his confession to the sexual assault on Lizzie Bolan. When he’d finally completed his statement he’d been sweating and trembling so much he could hardly hold the pen to sign his name. His solicitor had even called a break for medical attention. Part of Peter’s problem seemed to be that he expected punishment to follow immediately - he would be locked up in some cold dark cell, tortured, chastised. When none of that happened - he was given a decent meal, a night’s rest, even a congratulatory half-smile from Terry - a tide of relief flooded through him. He relaxed, seeming to regard the three of them - Terry, Jane, and his solicitor - if not as his friends, then at least as his audience, witnesses to what he had done. Perhaps he deluded himself that they approved, even applauded his achievements, who knows? At any rate, this mood had lasted long enough for him to agree to show them his hideout; and that, Terry had to admit,
was
a triumph, of sorts - for Peter to have eluded the search efforts of the whole York and Selby division for so long. Local farmers had been on the lookout for him, too; but not the owners of the airfield, who were legendary for their lack of co-operation with the local community.

Jane sat silent, her chair pushed back a little from the table, while Terry leaned forward encouragingly to Peter. What interested him was the proximity of Peter’s hideout to Alison’s house in Crockey Hill. No more than a couple of miles cross-country at most - much of it through woods and open scrubland, far from the nearest farmhouse.

‘It must be quite interesting, walking in the country at night.’

‘It is. You get to see things.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Owls. Deer. I saw a fox once. And badgers.’

‘What about people?’

‘Not many people about that time of night. See them through windows, though.’

‘You watch people through windows, do you?’

‘Sometimes. It’s better than TV. You get surprises.’

‘What sort of surprises?’

Peter smiled, and glanced pointedly at Jane. ‘She’ll say it’s wrong.’

‘Don’t worry about her, Peter. Talk to me. I understand.’ Terry leaned forward further, willing Peter to look back at him, meet his eyes. ‘Ever see any women through windows at night, Peter?’

‘It happens.’ A cunning, troubled look crossed the young man’s face. ‘They want me to, but I don’t. I don’t watch. Not always.’

‘They want you to watch, you say?’

‘Yeah, course they do. They think they look good, don’t they? They want everyone to see. They don’t realise what it’s like.’

‘What is it like, Peter?’ Jane asked quietly, from behind Terry’s shoulder.

He stared at her sharply, a surge of anger in his voice. ‘Ugly, of course. Fat like you. Not pretty like they think.’ He paused for a second, then turned back to Terry almost as an ally. ‘That woman who was hanged in that house, now. She was in front of a mirror, wasn’t she? She got to see. How ugly she was, at the end.’

A chill came over the room. Terry looked at the tape recorder to make sure it was functioning properly. Peter had had newspaper reports of Alison’s death in his hut, but the detail about the mirror, he was quite sure, had never been released to the press.

‘How did you know about the mirror, Peter?’ he asked quietly.

‘Dunno. Can’t remember. Why, what’s it matter?’

‘Do you remember what the woman looked like, hanging in the hall?’

‘Yeah, it was in the paper. Naked, wasn’t she? Hanged by a scarf from the staircase. Showing her tits and all in the mirror.’

‘Were her feet touching the ground?’

‘Couldn’t have been, could they? She wouldn’t have hanged else.’

‘So how did she get to be there, hanging in the hall with her feet off the ground?’

‘Must have stood on a chair or something, and knocked it over.’

Ideas chased each other like rats in Terry’s brain. Peter’s eyes were bright, eager - he was clearly excited by this conversation. Was it just because he was a sad sick pervert, turned on by such horrors? Or was it because he had been there, and wanted them to know? Was he trying to admit to the murder, perhaps? The detail about the scarf had been in the
Evening Press,
but not about the mirror.
How did he know about that?
Was it just that he’d seen it in the house and worked out how it had been?
Or had he been there when Alison died?