Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) (59 page)

Was it? Are you sure?

Of course I’m sure.

What if you’d stayed, shown a little compassion? You condemned him for the decision he took, ages ago. How are you going to feel about this, in five year’s time?

I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Shut up, please, I’ve got things to do.

Sarah found her bag, on the floor beside a pillow, and took out her phone. I ought to ring the emergency services, she thought, but how do I explain all this? She felt a wave of weakness pass over her, and a desperate need for strength and sympathy. On impulse, she pressed the number for her son, Simon. He answered on the second ring. His voice sounded sleepy.

‘Hello. Mum? Is that you?’

‘Simon, I need your help.’

‘Why? What is it?’

‘Something terrible. It’s Michael. He’s dead ... and I can’t get him down.’

‘What?
Mum, what the hell are you talking about?’

‘Please, Simon, get here quickly. I need your help. Just hurry.’

‘All right, but what is it?’

‘I can’t ... Michael’s killed himself. Please.’

A wave of nausea gripped her and she clicked off the phone. She collapsed to her hands and knees, retching, then staggered to her feet and stumbled down the stairs. I must phone the emergency services, she thought, but which - police, ambulance, firemen? Someone’s got to stop the sails and get him down. She tried to press 999 but her thumb was clumsy and when she peered at the phone through a blur of tears she saw she’d pressed 666 instead. She was fumbling with the buttons to press
Clear
when she came into the kitchen, looked up, and saw …

... a man in the doorway.

‘Thank God!’ she said. ‘Please - I need help. There’s a man, hanging out there ...’

‘I know. He deserves it.’

‘What?’
At first her brain was too tired to believe what she’d heard, then the adrenalin kicked into overdrive and she backed away, towards the stairs.
I know this man
, she thought,
I’ve seen him before, but who the hell is he?

‘It’s a pity you screamed,’ he said. ‘I was just leaving. I thought he was alone.’

A short, stocky, man with muscular arms that hung heavy by his side like a weightlifter’s. He wore a dark sleeveless teeshirt, jeans, and trainers. His head was shaved, his face had the bitter resentment and pallor of the long-term prisoner.

‘Jason!
Jason Barnes!’ Of course! What had Michael said last night?
‘I thought of moving to Spain to get away and hide before he finds out where I live.’
Her mind was racing; in an instant everything fell into place in her mind, like a kaleidoscope changing. That’s why the bedroom looked wrecked - there must have been a fight. Jason must have crept into the house in the night - that was the noise that awakened her, his car arriving, perhaps. He sent that photo to Michael as a threat, a warning - to say
I know who killed Brenda, it wasn’t Alison alone. You’ll be next.
Now here he was. That’s how Michael died.

‘You killed him, didn’t you?’

‘He deserved it. After what he did to me.’ Jason stood poised on the balls of his feet, ready to spring at her; but a frown crossed his face. ‘I know you, don’t I?’

‘I was your brief,’ she said. ‘Your barrister, at your appeal. Remember?’

‘Fuck me, so you are. What are you doing here, darling?’

‘Calling the police.’ It was a stupid thing to say, she realised that immediately. He was halfway across the room in a second, reaching for the phone. She flung it in his face, and ducked to her left, under his outstretched arm. He turned, trying to grab her as she backed away against the worktop. Her hands fumbled behind her and seized the first thing she found, a plastic kettle. She threw that at him too, spraying him with water, and screamed. ‘Leave me alone! I saved you, didn’t I? I set you free!’

He stood in the middle of the room, staring at her, shaking his head to clear his face of the water from the kettle. ‘It doesn’t matter, you stupid bitch, you shouldn’t be here. What were you, his dolly bird?’

‘Mind your own business.’

‘My business is to stay out of gaol. You know I killed him now, so unless you’re prepared to keep your mouth shut ...’

‘You know I can’t do that.’

‘Then I’ll shut it for you.’ He lunged for her again, and Sarah dived desperately towards the door. She was almost through it when his hand caught her shoulder, spinning her round, so that she crashed backwards against the door frame. But at the same time his hand let go as he fell flat on his face. He had stepped on one of the knives from last night and his foot slid from under him on the wet floor. He groaned; he’d hit his head on the fridge.

I should run, Sarah thought, he’ll be up in a minute. But if I run he’ll just catch me, he’s too quick. She glanced round wildly, snatched up a frying pan from the hob, and smashed it on his head just as he was getting up. He dropped like a log to the floor.

Oh my God, I’ve killed him, Sarah thought, standing there with the pan in her hand. No I haven’t, he’s still breathing. Perhaps I should hit him again.

But then he’ll really be dead, and what then?

A memory flashed into her mind, of a client who’d been charged with manslaughter for killing a burglar with a baseball bat, and she thought no, I mustn’t do that, I just hope he’s out cold. So she threw away the frying pan and ran.

The keys to her bike were in her house, just inside the front door. As she came out of the door she saw Jason, stumbling out of the windmill. He looked groggy and was holding his head, but when he saw her he broke into a shambling run. Sarah sprinted for her bike, fumbled the key into the ignition -
what’s wrong with my fingers, why won’t it go in? -
and turned it.

Nothing happened.
What’s the matter, what now?
She glanced over her shoulder and saw Jason ten yards away, moving faster. She looked down and realised she hadn’t disconnected the immobiliser.
What the hell was the code?
157-3, was it, or 4? She often had trouble with pin numbers, especially in moments of stress. She closed her eyes, and let her fingers remember for her
.
Her muscles should know, even if her mind didn’t. 1573. She opened her eyes, saw the light change from red to green.
Thank God!
She turned the key in the ignition and the engine fired.

‘Come here!’

‘No!’ As she let in the clutch his hand grabbed her leg. She twisted the throttle but the bike skidded sideways around in a circle so she almost fell off. She looked round and saw him sliding, face down on the grass but still clutching her leg. She leaned away from him, twisting the throttle hard, and there was a wild lurch as his hand let go and she almost fell off the bike on the other side. Then she was away, skidding across the grass.

As she turned onto the track through the woods she glanced over her shoulder and saw Jason back on his feet, sprinting towards Michael’s BMW. Then she turned to look where she was going and screamed. Right in front of her was the smouldering wreck of a car. She swerved, trying to avoid it, but she was too late. Her front wheel bounced off its side and the bike fell over on the track.

Sarah lay under it, stunned. For a moment she thought her leg was trapped but with an enormous surge of adrenalin rushing through her she wrenched her leg free and heaved the bike up. She flung herself back into the saddle just as the BMW began to move towards her across the grass. She twisted the throttle and roared down the track, bouncing over potholes towards the road.

What the hell was that, she wondered. A burnt out car in the woods? Then she understood. It must be Jason’s car, the one he came in. That was the fire I saw earlier, which I thought was the sun coming up. He must have torched it when he saw the BMW and decided to nick that instead, the greedy little bastard.

She turned left at the gate and roared down the road as fast as she could. She had no helmet, no leathers, and the icy dawn wind knifed through her thin clothing as though it wasn’t there, freezing her hands and face and streaming her eyes with tears. The sky was lighter in the east, she saw vaguely, she could make out the blurry shapes of fields. But when she twisted round she saw the dark shape of the BMW, closer, much closer than she’d hoped.

She was heading down a steep hill which rose in a switchback on the far side. At the bottom, she remembered, there were two field gates where cows often crossed, leaving mud on the road. She throttled back slightly, not daring to put on the brakes, but as she did so, Jason came alongside. He swerved the car towards her, trying to drive her off the road. Sarah screamed, and twisted the throttle back as far it would go. The bike zoomed ahead, flying down the hill, faster than she’d ever been before. At the bottom she hit the mud, and felt the back wheel slide, left, right, then straight again, and she was still upright. She laughed with relief, and roared up the hill, the BMW a distance behind.

But at the top there was a tight bend and then another steep descent to a series of zigzags before a T junction. As she approached this there was a loud clang from her front wheel, and the bike slowed and swerved abruptly. Sarah wrenched it upright, but she couldn’t maintain her speed, and the BMW drew alongside again. I must have damaged something, she thought, when I hit that torched car. But I can’t stop now. She twisted the throttle again, and the bike roared ahead. The fault seemed to have cured itself. She leaned into the first zigzag as the BMW fell behind.

But when she shifted her weight to go the other way a shadow crossed the road in front of her.
What the hell’s that? A fox
. Instinctively, Sarah swerved to miss it, but she was already leaning over too far, she lost her balance and went into a skid. As her back wheel came round she felt herself turning sideways, and released the throttle, trying to wrench the bike upright, but it was too late. The bike hit the grass verge, ploughed into soft mud, and flung Sarah backwards into a hedge.

Afterwards, she tried to work out how long things had taken. In her memory it seemed like a dream sequence, lacking logic. The crash must have lasted milliseconds, yet the details of it - the jolt as she flew into the air, the shadow of the escaping fox - were printed on her mind in slow motion. That’s because you didn’t hit your head badly, the doctor said, you were lucky that hedge was so thick. She didn’t feel so lucky when her broken arm was in plaster for a month, though, or when she lay in bed and felt the myriad cuts and grazes on her back, legs, head, and arms itching like fire. She remembered lying in the hedge, trying to work out where she was and why there were twigs in front of her face, and blood dripping over one eye. But part of her mind kept telling her that the twigs and blood, close as they were, weren’t nearly so important as the man getting out of the car. In the dream that was really a memory she watched him take a large adjustable spanner out of the boot and limp slowly towards her down the road. Part of her mind told her this was important, she should get up and do something about this, but she couldn’t think what or why. After all it was comfortable here in the hedge and the man looked strong, he was swinging a heavy spanner in his hand so probably he had stopped to help her. She knew something had gone wrong but she couldn’t quite remember what it was.

Then the man came closer so Sarah could see his face and she screamed. She knew what was wrong now, this man meant to hurt her, she had to get away. Only something was wrong with her body, it didn’t seem to work very well. She thrashed her limbs in the hedge, but she was trapped like a fly in a web. The man grinned like a spider, raising the spanner slowly above his head as she struggled.

Then a white van stopped with a screech of brakes. The man with the spanner hesitated and turned. Amazingly, the man who got out of the van was her son Simon. What was he doing here? Sarah couldn’t understand it, but Simon had no doubts at all. He ran at the first man and threw him straight to the ground. There was a fight, a threshing of limbs in the grass and mud in front of the hedge. Sarah couldn’t see it all, but there were groans and thumps and Simon seemed fiercer and angrier than he’d ever been in his life before, even when he was a teenager and fought Bob. Although she’d been afraid of the man with the spanner she felt sorry for him now, and when Simon stood up she could see he wasn’t moving at all.

Then, very gently, her son helped her out of the hedge, a process which hurt and seemed to take for ever. For some of this time, strangely, she heard sirens approaching in the distance, though she couldn’t think why. Then, as she stood up, as weak and wobbly as a rag doll with Simon’s strong arm round her shoulder, a police car drew up and Terry Bateson got out. A short time later an ambulance arrived. She couldn’t imagine why.

‘I called them, Mum,’ Simon explained gently. ‘You told me a man had died.’

Then the floodgates of memory opened, and Sarah broke down in tears.

63. New Start

I
T WAS a sunny day in early April. Sarah stood on the balcony of her new flat, enjoying the spectacular view across the city. The flat was on the fourth floor of a modern block built on the site of an old warehouse beside the river Ouse. Immediately below her she could see swans and pleasure boats on the water; beyond them, just across Skeldergate bridge, was the Crown Court and the castle, Clifford’s Tower, its mound covered with daffodils.

Sarah drew a deep breath of the warm spring air, and leaned over to wave to her son, Simon, as he emerged with Lorraine onto the riverside walk below. Lorraine walked slowly, Simon’s hand in hers, but she smiled as she looked up. She’s less nervous of me now, Sarah thought. Perhaps that’s because she’s come to see me as more vulnerable. Sarah’s right arm was still in plaster after the accident, and Lorraine had been surprisingly helpful in organising the flat warming party that was just ending. Not long now, and they’ll be asking me to babysit, Sarah thought hopefully. If they trust me, that is.

She could hear the sound of Lucy Parsons washing up in the kitchen, chattering cheerfully to Terry Bateson’s two young girls and her own daughter Emily. That was another thing that Sarah was pleased about. The mortgage on this flat was costing half her income, but it had three bedrooms, one of which Sarah had given to Emily, for her to decorate with her own posters and memorabilia. Emily was delighted - she could glimpse York Minster from her bedroom window, and threatened to bring all her student friends to stay.