Текст книги "The Risk of Darkness"
Автор книги: Susan Hill
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“About Sleightholme? No. This is something else. Do you happen to know Colin Alumbo?”
“Chief in Northumbria? Only by repute.”
“First black Chief in our neck of the woods. Quite young. Very good. You could do worse for a Chief.”
“I couldn’t do better than I’ve already got but carry on.”
“Had a drink with him before a long evening of Lord Mayors. He’s looking for someone to head up a new task force. DCS.”
“What area?”
“Waking the Dead territory. Cold cases.”
“Erm c”
“I know what you’re thinking. It’s what they all think. Stone cold, dead end. Needn’t be. I told him he needed someone like you.”
“I like action, Jim. I don’t get enough of it as it is.”
“Hanging on to a cliff face by your fingernails, ay, I know. No reason why you wouldn’t get it.”
“Sounds like a lot of hours trawling old paper files and a lot more in front of a screen.”
“There it is any road. Up to you. Nice up there.”
“Nice down here.”
“Thought you’d itchy feet?”
“Possibly.”
“Want me to keep my nose out of it and my gob shut then?”
Simon laughed. “I’m flattered to be on your list, Jim. Don’t rub my name off the whiteboard.”
But as he put the phone down, he knew that cold cases was the last area he wanted to work in. And contemplating a genuine job offer brought him back to reality. If he was to remain in the police force and make serious career progress, he would have to move from Lafferton. But he was not ready to be bounced into the wrong decision.
He got up and went down the corridor to the drinks machine. There were three or four people waiting to buy ice-cold cans. The heat was getting to everyone.
“You at nets tomorrow night, guv? Only we were pretty weak in the batting last Saturday. We handed them those first three wickets. Not enough regular nets practice.” Steve Philipot from the traffic-control room juggled with three cans of Coke as he spoke.
“I’ll try.”
“Do better than that. Be there.”
Yes, he thought, wandering back to his office, he would. A bit of focusing on the way he returned york-ers would take his mind off just about everything else. But once back in his office, instead of returning to the file, he went on to the Police Review website and scrolled down the recruitment section, to get a sense of what was out there. It was all pretty routine and nothing appealed.
He thought of his flat in the close. Where else would he find to equal that? Where else would he have his family round him? Where but Lafferton would he ever be able to call home?
Forty-four
They had left him at the entrance. Max Jameson stood and felt the heat rise up from the pavement and radiate from the brick walls of the Old Ribbon Factory. He felt disorientated and his head ached. He had been bailed and his solicitor had given him a lift back. Now all he had to do was go in and c
He had no idea what came next. He had the odd sensation that a bit of his mind had broken off and floated away, like a portion of an iceberg. He knew who he was and where, he knew where he had been and why. But he could not put the day, and his presence in it, into any context or proper order. He felt grubby and sticky and his clothes needed changing.
A pigeon flew down and began pecking about in the dust and debris of the gutter. Max watched it. Lizzie had hated pigeons. She had hated any bird larger than a sparrow, had had nightmares about big birds sometimes. She did not know why—probably some silly thing as a child.
He wondered if he should kill it for her. One less pigeon in the world to frighten her. One less big bird. He hated the thought of her being upset, being afraid. He was prepared to kill it but he knew that it would take off the moment he made a move and anyway, what would he kill it with?
He watched it. The feathers on its back were pearlised and beautifully, intricately folded.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “It’s not even very big.”
The bird hopped a few feet further on down the street. He realised that he had spoken out loud. But there was only the pigeon to hear him.
He went inside. The darkness of the stairwell blinded him for a moment after the brilliant sunlight, he had to stop and wait for his eyes to adjust to it.
Is it bright? he thought suddenly. The place people believe you go to when you die. Is it bright? He remembered storybook pictures of heaven filled with rays from a setting sun and radiant faces. He did not believe in those and he did not believe in the place other people imagined was there. Where? Somewhere else. Waiting for you.
There had to be someone who could work it out for him. He should have asked the young priest when he had the chance. She might have told him. He cursed himself for forgetting to ask her everything he was desperate to know. He had wasted the time they had spent together. He could have got answers to the questions that tumbled round and round in his head like pebbles in a drum. He put his key in the lock and opened the door into the long, bright room.
“Lizzie?”
She was there, at the other end, always there, her hair back, her eyes looking away from him, her face grave.
He sat at the table. The silence filled his ears and pressed down inside his head like earth. He wanted to tell someone what had happened and then to explain what it felt like. Lizzie had died. Lizzie was dead. He knew that. He had watched her die. He had seen her dead body and he had watched her coffin slide through velvet curtains into the furnace beyond. Lizzie was dead. But he had seen her, seen her often, in the street, in the old warehouse, walking towards him, standing at the foot of his bed when he woke. He was not frightened of what he saw but he was confused. This was not a ghost Lizzie, not a picture of Lizzie, not a Lizzie in his mind, this was flesh-and-blood Lizzie, real Lizzie.
Lizzie was dead.
The only person who could help him was Jane Fitzroy He could talk to her. There was a bond between them, though he could not put his finger on why or how it had come about.
He went to the cupboard, took out the whisky bottle and poured himself half a tumblerful, topping it with a inch of tap water. When he had drunk this, he would have courage to go and find her. It tasted of fire and salt and smoke. He sipped it at first, then gulped the rest and the fire snaked down into his chest and dropped to his belly, before the flames licked up through his veins into his head. He took a deep breath.
If he saw Lizzie in the street he would take her with him so that Jane would believe him. When she saw them coming to her together she would have to believe. For a second he remembered that he had been cautioned not to speak to Lizzie, not to approach her, not to acknowledge her existence, and that he had agreed to it all, signed his name to it. But he was not going to do her any harm. He wondered how they could imagine that he ever had or would, when Lizzie was his wife and he loved her. He had followed her, spoken to her, called her name, tried to get her to answer him, come to him, walk home with him so that everything would be normal again, but he would never hurt her. When she had tripped and fallen and screamed, he had been desperate to help her, look after her, take her away with him and nurse her here. He had tried to tell them that. They had appeared to listen but then they had turned on him, like a dog which snarls and bites your hand when you stroke it out of kindness.
He poured another tumbler of whisky and this time did not bother with the water. The water diluted the fire he needed to blaze up inside him and burn into his brain.
When he had swallowed it, he went out.
Forty-five
Nathan Coates pushed open the door of the CID room and looked round. Half a dozen people were at their desks.
“Anyone know if the new DCs in yet?”
“Carmody? Yeah, went to the Gents. You minding him?”
“Some racial stuff over Battle Corner. DCI wants me to take him with me once I’ve introduced him round.”
Jenny Osbrook made a face. “I think you’ll find he’s done that for himself.”
“What’s up?”
“You’ll find out.” She nodded in the direction of the door. “Cheers, chaps, I’m off to court.”
Nathan caught sight of the man who had just come in, letting the door go just as Jenny reached for it. If he had not been in the CID room, he would not have looked out of place in custody. He was not a particularly big man, no more than five foot nine or ten, but he was thickly muscled, and stocky, with a completely smooth, shining bald head. The back of it had a curious outcrop that jutted over his neck. He wore a navy blue T-shirt and no tie.
Nathan went across. “Hi, I’m Nathan Coates.”
Carmody looked at him. “Heard about you,” he said. ‘The infant prodigy.”
Nathan felt himself flush and was furious about it. “I ent that young.”
“Look it to me, sunshine.”
He ought to pick him up on it, correct him, make him say “Sarge.” He couldn’t. He hadn’t been made to feel so small and stupid for a very long time.
Carmody swung himself into the Honda, pulled a flattened packet of gum out of his trouser pocket and unwrapped the last stick. He screwed the paper up and put it into the door pocket.
“Oi, you can take that out, thanks, my car ent a dustbin.”
Carmody rolled his eyes, picked it out with exaggerated care, and held it between two fingers. “What would you like me to do with it?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
The DC slid his legs forward into the well and folded his arms. “Wake me when we get there.”
“You’d best be awake now, I got things to ask you.”
Carmody sighed.
“How long you been at Exwood?”
“Too bloody long.”
“Which is c?”
“Twelve years, sunshine.”
“And stop callin’ me sunshine.”
The DC laughed. “Twelve years, seven months and four days. I told you, too bloody long.”
“In uniform there, was you?”
“Nope.”
“Where then?”
“Further south.”
“Why CID?”
“Why not?”
Nathan gave up.
The traffic round the railway station was snarled up as usual on Tuesday, when the cattle market was held to the east of it, next to the Lafferton football ground.
“What’s this then, the local yokels?”
“Pretty old, the cattle market. Been here for centuries.”
“Time it went then. Can’t be hygienic.”
“You’re taking the piss.”
“Who, me? Think of how many houses they could get on there. Put the market out in the sticks, solve your traffic problem and your housing problem in one.”
“I wonder what you come here for at all.”
“A few days’ peace.”
“Oh ha ha.”
“You on that serial-killer job, were you?”
Nathan used the sudden freeing of the traffic to avoid replying. He wasn’t going to talk to the likes of Joe Carmody about what had happened, what it had been like. It was still there, still raw and it wouldn’t ever really go, he knew that, Em knew that. Move on, people said. Well, you couldn’t move on from some things because they moved with you. Wherever.
“Nasty that was. Wouldn’t have minded being on it myself.”
“Now you aretaking the piss.”
“Better than all this.”
“All what?”
“Bloody PC stuff. Bet you if it was my letter box they shoved turds through and my garage door they sprayed stuff on CID wouldn’t be in any rush.”
“You got a problem with this job?”
“No problem at all, sunshine.”
“Don’t c”
“Sorry. Nathe.”
“Sarge,” Nathan spat out before he could stop himself.
Carmody laughed. “Get on with your DCI, do you?”
“Great, yeah. Top man, he is.”
“Heard a lot about him.”
“Right, well, unless it’s all good, I don’t want to know.”
“Don’t worry, Nathe, I got no problem with gays. So long as they keep it to themselves.”
“The DCI ent gay. Where’d you get that idea?”
“Come on.”
“I said, where’d you get that idea?”
“All right, all right, what’s the big deal?”
“Because he’s not.”
“If you say so.”
Nathan slewed the car round against the kerb to put paid to the conversation. “Right, this is Inkerman Street. We’ll walk down from here. Corner shop, couple of houses round about. Knock on a door or three. You all right with that?”
Carmody shrugged and swung in beside him. They walked in silence. The streets were quiet in the morning sun. A woman pushed a pram with a toddler in a seat on the front. An elderly man in a turban shuffled along, tapping a white stick. The houses were uniform terraces, with bow windows at the front above and below and doors straight on to the street. The shop was on the corner of Trafalgar Street. They went into the usual densely packed mini-market-cum-video rental store that smelled of musty spices and floral air freshener.
“Mr Patel? I’m DS Coates, this is DC Carmody, Lafferton CID. I gather you’ve had a bit of trouble?”
The usual questions, the usual story: graffiti sprayed on the windows and walls; offensive, crude, racist abuse; excrement pushed through several letter boxes. Leaflets. Nathan asked to see one. Joe Carmody was wandering round the shop peering at shelves and into freezers.
The leaflet was printed, an A5 bill. It was a crude denunciation of “immigrants and asylum seekers,” claimed to speak for the Alliance of True Brits and all with a Birthright to Belong. A paragraph in smaller print ranted against “alien parasites,” with a mention of Muslims and Jews in passing.
“Very nasty,” Nathan said. “They all like this, were they?”
They were. Several hundred of them spread round the network of streets. Swastikas had also been sprayed on the walls of the synagogue, on a couple of front doors and several strips of pavement, along with trails of dripped red paint.
The shopkeeper seemed relatively unworried, putting it all down to a few “yobs and vandals.” They had never had any trouble like this, never been bothered in any way. It would blow over. But a couple of people had complained because some of the older residents were frightened and the children had started to ask questions.
“You did the right thing. We ent having this. We’ll slap down on it hard, stop them before they’ve got going. Thanks for your help.”
Out in the sunshine, Joe Carmody unwrapped another piece of chewing gum and dropped the paper on to the pavement. Nathan turned on him.
“What’s your problem? You want someone to drop that on your doorstep, do you?”
Carmody rolled his eyes.
“Pick it up and stop messing with me.”
The DC kicked the paper into the gutter and went on kicking until it reached a drain. He pushed it down one of the slats with his toe. Nathan watched him. He was annoyed, but he was also uncertain how to deal with the man. It seemed easiest, at least for the moment, to ignore everything but the job in hand.
“OK, you take those two houses—14 and 16, I’ll take 21 and 23.”
“What for?”
“We’re asking if they’ve had any leaflets, stuff through the letter boxes, and we want to know if they’ve seen anyone, heard anything c the usual.”
“They won’t have if they’ve got any sense.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Right, 14 and 16. Let’s hope they speak English.”
Carmody wandered across the road. Nathan watched him, not wanting to turn his back. Not that the DC wasn’t right. No one would have seen anything and if they had, they wouldn’t say. You couldn’t blame them. They weren’t dealing with a handful of little scrotes from the Dulcie estate bunking off school and looking for trouble. Little scrotes didn’t get leaflets printed.
Carmody moved away from number 14, gesturing across that there had been no reply. He hammered on the next door.
They got nowhere much. One woman produced a leaflet. The old man had reached his house and stood outside as they approached him. He shook his head at the questions.
“Told you,” Carmody said. “What can you do?”
“Keep on asking.”
The synagogue was closed but the caretaker lived in an adjoining house and was at home. He was also voluble. He had taken digital photographs of the graffiti, had collected as many leaflets as he could find, had spent time watching the street, had his own fully formed opinions as to who was responsible.
Neo-Nazis. Thugs from Bevham, a local offshoot of a national organisation, well trained, cunning, good at planning. A worldwide problem, a worldwide hatred of Jews, an internationally organised alliance of anti-Semitic and racist forces.
“Gordon Bennett,” Carmody said as they walked back to the car. “Thought we’d be there till dinner time. Got a bee in his bonnet.”
“Wouldn’t you have?”
“I bet you make them very proud, Sarge.”
“I don’t know what you’re on about half the time. I need a coffee.”
“You toe the line, see? Goody-two-shoes. You’ll go a long way, Nathe, a long, long way. You know which side your bread’s buttered. Me? I come in, do the job, put away some criminals, make a few people sleep easier in their beds at night and bugger the rest. Call me old-fashioned.”
“I ent calling you anything. Get in.”
“Waste of a morning.”
“Not. Plenty to go on.”
“That caretaker was right. All of this—it’s national. Lafferton’s nothing. Dot on the map. They’ll be miles away.” He slid down in the passenger seat again and folded his arms. “Your DCI,” he said.
“Leave him out of it.”
“Why, fancy him, do you?”
Nathan felt his right hand itch. But all he hit with his fist was the steering wheel.
Joe Carmody laughed. “You fall for it,” he said, “every time. Makes it fun.” He reached over and pinched Nathan’s cheek. “Sarge.”
Forty-six
He didn’t think he knew her. She was maybe thirty, maybe less or more, he always found it hard to tell with young women. She had nice hair, straight and brown and clipped back at either side, showing her face off. Nice face. Heart-shaped. Lovely eyes. Dark blue. She smiled. Nice smile. A bit—shy? Nervous? Made him warm to her. She had a big bag over her shoulder. Green. Bright green. Funny that. Handbags used to be brown or black or navy and now they were pink and had jewels on. Or bright green.
All of that in the split second after he opened the door. She wasn’t trying to sell him anything, he could just tell that. She was nicer than that.
“Hello. I’m sorry to trouble you but I’m trying to find Mrs Meelup—Mrs Eileen Meelup. I asked round here and someone said this was the house? If it isn’t I’m really sorry to bother you.”
He smiled. She brought a breath of fresh air with her and, whatever she wanted, he was grateful for that. Fresh air. Ray of sunshine. There hadn’t been much of that lately.
“It’s no bother at all, my dear, this is the right house.”
“Thank goodness for that. I hate it if I’ve barged in on someone and they’re busy and they’d come downstairs and then it isn’t the place after all c” She looked relieved and worried and pleased and nervous all at once. He liked her.
“Don’t you worry. Now, it was the wife you wanted you said? Eileen? I’m Dougie Meelup.”
She put her hand out, trying to stop the big bright green bag from falling off her shoulder and pushing it back and laughing nervously and then her hair came unclipped at one side.
“Here, you’d better step in, sort yourself out by the look of it. Come on, come on in.”
She hesitated. Seemed not to want to intrude. She looked nervous again. A bit worried.
“Come on, lass. Eileen’s in the back.”
“Well, if c thank you, thank you so much. I only want a quick word, but if it isn’t convenient, if she’s busy, I can come back, it really doesn’t matter.”
“She’s just doing something on the computer. Tell you the truth c” he drew her back a bit and lowered his voice, “I’ll be glad of an excuse to get her off it. Visitor and that, she’ll stop. It’s new, you see, and a bit complicated. I dare say you know all about them, the young ones all do, my sons, they do and their boys, only it’s all a bit much for Eileen to take in. She would do it though, said she had to c anyway. You come in the back.”
The computer was on a card table by the window. Keith had got it for her and set it up; the wires trailed a bit, the screen was too big and the whole thing, which was an old model, too cumbersome, but it worked, did the job, as he had said, and Eileen had watched, twitching to start, twitching to use it to find out everything she had to about those children, where, when, what, so she could find the mistake they had made with Weeny.
Two lessons at the library had shown her enough. She had said she wanted to check things about her family. Family trees. “Oh, everybody’s into genealogy now,” the woman had said, “we get dozens in here. Mind you, nothing will take the place of getting out there and looking up public records, church records, all of that. You won’t find everything on the Internet and in my view it won’t be half so exciting. The detective work’s best done on foot, you know.” But she had said it was a start. That was what they’d agreed on. How to make a start. It was easier than she had expected.
She was clicking on the mouse as they walked in.
“Here, there’s a visitor for you, love. Can you drag yourself away from that for a minute? It’s c”
The young woman introduced herself quickly.
“Lucy,” she said. “It’s Lucy Groves.”
“Lucy Groves,” Dougie repeated. He looked foolish. Hadn’t he asked her name at the door? Now he said, “I’ll put the kettle on.”
Eileen had found a newspaper report about one of the abducted children and it was in the middle of the screen. She swung round on her chair and then swung back again in confusion, wanting to get rid of it and not knowing how.
“Mrs Meelup?”
A nice-looking girl. Pretty. Nice hair. Smiling. She held out her hand. Eileen hesitated. She had no idea who she was or why she was here and Dougie had his back to them, busy with the kettle. Eileen glanced round again at the screen, hoping the picture might have vanished of its own accord, but it had not. The headline bored into her brain. “Just a moment c I have to just do this. If you’d wait a minute c”
She swung her chair round again. It was an old typing chair. Keith had got that too, from a friend whose office had closed down. The screen was full of print that she did not want anyone else to see. She fiddled with the mouse under her palm, clicking it this way and that. The printing moved sideways and back again but that was all.
“Can I help?”
The girl was at her shoulder, looking at the screen. “It’s a nightmare at first, isn’t it? Your husband said you were just learning. You’ll be an expert in two ticks, honestly, but if you want me to do anything c”
Eileen felt her neck prickle. The girl was too close and she seemed to be both looking at the screen and looking at her, in an odd way. She smelled of something like sweet apples.
“No.” Eileen pressed the knob on the front of the screen and the picture shrank to a pinpoint of light and went out.
“Ah c don’t know if they told you, but it’s probably not a good idea to do that. It’s really better to close down first—just switching it off can mean you lose data.”
Eileen backed away and got off the chair. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m so sorry, you must wonder what on earth is going on, some total stranger walking in and trying to teach you how to work your computer. I do apologise.”
Eileen said nothing. The girl put her bag on the sofa. Bright green. Big. A big bag.
“I’m Lucy Groves.”
“You said.”
“I’m so sorry to barge in c” She looked confused. A bit pink. She pulled the grip out of her hair at one side, fiddled with it and put it back. Eileen felt suddenly sorry for her. “I wanted to talk to you, if it’s possible. I really won’t take up much of your time but it is quite important.”
Dougie was mashing the tea.
She was from the police. It was obvious. A plain-clothes policewoman. It was the only thing she could be and it was all right. In a way, Eileen felt a huge sense of relief that someone had come who knew about it, so that she didn’t have to skulk and didn’t have to pretend. It would be good to talk to her. A nice young woman. Her eyes were the most wonderful deep blue. Eileen had never seen such a deep but bright blue in anyone’s eyes before.
“Sit down,” she said, “please. Dougie’ll get us a cup of tea.” She jumped up and went to the cupboard for the tin of biscuits. Empty. She’d been lax, not bothering with things, not stocking up. She saw everything at once, as if the young woman had shown it all to her. How she’d neglected things.
“Dougie c” She beckoned him out of the room into the hall. The young woman sat, fiddling with her hairgrip again. “Can you pop to Mitchell’s, get one of their malt loaves and something c Swiss roll or a Battenberg, whatever they’ve got?”
“But the tea’s mashed.”
“Doesn’t matter, we can have another pot, only it seems rude, I’ve got nothing in, I’m ashamed of it.”
“You don’t—”
“I do.”
He looked round for his jacket.
“Police,” Eileen whispered.
“What is?”
She jerked her thumb. “You can tell.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t been able to.
“Plain clothes. She’ll be a help now, she’ll be able to give me a better idea what to do, how to go about getting it sorted out. You got enough money?”
“Of course I’ve got enough money.”
At the door, he glanced back. Yes. Policewoman. Now she’d said so, it was obvious, of course it was. And it was always going to be a policewoman. It was always going to come.
He went out to the car.
*
“What a lovely man,” the girl, Lucy Groves, said. She leaned forward slightly, smiling. She had her hand on her bright green bag. “But perhaps you’ll feel more comfortable talking to me now we’re on our own.”
“Dougie and I don’t have secrets.”
“No, no, I’m sure you don’t. But isn’t it true that sometimes it’s difficult to say some very personal things?”
Eileen was silent.
“Mrs Meelup, you’re probably wondering who on earth I am and why I’m here. I should explain everything carefully. There’s nothing at all to be alarmed about c absolutely not. Quite the contrary. I’m here to protect you, if anything. You can talk to me. I can reassure you. I know you will want to talk, people in your sort of situation always do. You need to talk and I do understand that it isn’t always easy to talk to those closest to us. You’ll want to protect your close family c that’s so natural. It’s perfectly OK.”
She spoke quite softly, but quickly, so that Eileen had to lean forward to catch everything she said, and the girl leaned further forward in her turn, so that they seemed almost to be putting their heads together, to be forming an intimacy with scarcely a space separating them.
“I don’t know what terms you use,” Eileen said. “I mean, are you a constable, or a detective policewoman or what? Seems funny not to know how it works.”
Lucy Groves smiled but moved back slightly, widening the space between them again. She reached up and took out her hair clip, fiddled with it and pushed it back. “Please don’t worry, please. I can understand how frightening it is.”
“Not frightening. Only you didn’t say.”
“It is alarming when the police arrive, you feel threatened, don’t you, wondering what you should say or dare say even, what they might make you confess to?”
“Confess to?”
“It’s normal. It’s natural. People do feel like that. Nothing that has happened is your fault, nothing at all, yet you will feel it is. Goodness, that’s understandable.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Maybe the best thing would be for you to start telling me how exactly you do feel? I don’t want to put words into your mouth. I want you to tell me the story as you see it. As it affects you. How you feel now, whether you’re bewildered or angry or ashamed. Have you seen Edwina yet?”
There was something awry, like a picture that wasn’t straight or a voice that was odd. Eileen fumbled around in her mind, trying to work out what it was. Have you seen Edwina yet? “I thought you’d know that sort of thing. I thought it would all c”
The girl was leaning forward again. “Mrs Meelup, can I just ask you if you would let me c?” She had her hand on the bright green bag. Eileen looked at it. Smoke. She was going to ask to smoke, which surprised her. She didn’t think police did, on duty. Like drinking. Maybe it was different when they didn’t wear a uniform. Only she didn’t care for smoking in her house.
“I’ll understand if you say no, of course, and it is absolutely up to you, completely. It’s just that it would make it easier for me. To remember.”
“Remember?”
“I want to be sure that everything you say, every word, is accurate. I’m here to help you tell the truth, to put your side of things, your story. I’m not in the business of putting words into your mouth, you know. You do understand?”
She didn’t. She was understanding less and less as the young woman said more and more.
“So would it be all right?” She reached into the bright green bag and took out a small silvery box. She held it up. “To use this?”
“I thought you were going to ask to smoke a cigarette,” Eileen said.
Lucy Groves laughed, a loud, high little laugh. “Oh help! No. God, no, I don’t smoke, haven’t for about ten years, not since we smoked walking home from school, you know, thought it was soooo sophisticated. God, how funny.”
“What’s that?”
They both looked at the small silvery box which Lucy Groves had set down on the table.
“State of the art. I promise you. No whirring, no clicking, no interruptions, you’ll forget it’s there in ten seconds.”
“What is it?”
“A recorder.”
“Tape recorder?”
“Yup. Digital. Everything you say, everything you whisper, will come up clear as crystal. It won’t miss a thing.”
“I didn’t know you used tape machines.”
Lucy Groves smiled. “I promise. It looks after itself. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not—”
The front door opened.
“Reinforcements,” Dougie Meelup called.
“Dougie?”
Something was wrong. Eileen’s voice told him that but he couldn’t quite tell how badly wrong. The young woman started up, and he noticed that the shyness had got hidden, that she seemed a slightly different person now, not fiddling with the hair clips, not looking down at her lap.
“Mrs Meelup, what I would like you to consider very carefully is this. You will get other people coming to see you. If we can find you, so can the rest of the others, and not everyone will play fair, I warn you. Now, I have a very, very good offer for you. Not everyone will offer you anything at all. I’m glad I got here first because we aren’t in the business of deceiving and cheating. You have a story to tell, we need your story. Your daughter Edwina Sleightholme stands accused on some very serious charges. Whatever the small details, those are the facts as everyone knows them and is talking about. They are talking about them, you can be quite sure c well, of course they are. You would, wouldn’t you? Now, what we want is to hear everything from you c about Edwina as a child, her growing up, school, friends and all of that, how she got on with you, with her sister and her father c the full story. If it’s interesting we would run it over at least a couple of weeks, maybe more and it could even be a book, so of course you’d stand to make even more. But our initial offer is just for the story. Exclusive to us. Now, clearly nothing can be printed until after the trial, it’s all sub judice, but the moment everything is over, we’d run with it c no one else would have it, and you can tell the truth, the whole truth c” She laughed a short little laugh.
