A Game of Proof (31 page)

‘What am
I
doing?’ He still held her but less cruelly, more as though he had forgotten what his huge hands were gripping than anything else. ‘Minding me own business, until you turned up. What you poking your nose in here for?’

He looked more annoyed than vicious, so far as she could tell in the gloom. But it was not a situation she intended to prolong. Was this how things had begun with Sharon? She had to get out of here, quickly.

‘Let me go, you great oaf!’

‘Let you go?’ The hands still held her, a jeering smile twitching his lips. ‘Why should I? Looking for me were you, miss fancy knickers? Dressed up in all this kinky gear, too!’ His right hand squeezed her breast, then slid down her waist to her hips. ‘Fancied me all along, I’ll bet. Well, now.’

A snake of fear slithered up her spine. She felt sure that if she struggled again she would provoke him more. She listened intently, hoping for some voice from the yard outside, but there was only the TV laughter far away, fainter than the soft hiss of his breath.

Very quietly she said: ‘Gary, I know exactly who you are. You’re not wearing a hood now. So if you touch me you’ll have to kill me. Otherwise I’ll see that you get sent down for rape with the longest sentence that’s ever been passed. You’ll be an old man before you come out again, your prick will dry up and shrivel off. Is that what you want? Twenty years inside?’

His hand moved thoughtfully across her buttock. ‘Twenty years inside you, you mean?’

Dear God in heaven
, she thought,
what have I done coming in here all alone?
She panicked, wriggling like an eel to slip from his grasp, but that was a mistake; his grip tightened and he slammed her against the wall, knocking the breath out of her. His breath was on her face, his huge hands pinning her arms to her sides, immobile like a vice.

‘For God’s sake, Gary, you’re mad, I’m too old for you!’

She watched his face in the dim orange light as his mind lumbered to a decision. Her pulse was racing, she wanted to sprint away like a gazelle but she couldn’t move. This is how I die, she thought, in a squalid scuffle in a shed. Then, to her surprise, his grip slackened.

‘Old cow. Go on then, get out of it. I’m not that desperate, ta very much.’

Warily, she slipped past him, and stepped outside. An enormous urge to run surged through her but she took just three steps before turning round to face him. Three yards of pitch black shadows and orange glow between them. ‘Right. Now do you mind telling me what you’re doing here, in the first place?’

‘What’s it to you? You don’t belong here.’

‘I do, you know. This is my son’s house. I own it, in a way.’ It was amazing, she thought, how hard and insistent her voice could still sound, when her whole body was trembling like a jelly inside. Perhaps that’s part of being
old.

‘Who - Simon?
Your son?
You’re crackers.’

‘No, I’m not. So you see that gives me every right to be here, unlike you. What exactly are you doing in my son’s shed, Gary? Thieving? You won’t find much there.’

‘That’s what you think, fancy knickers. Shows how much you know.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your son - he’s been nicked, hasn’t he? For murder, I heard.’ 

Sarah’s brain began racing along a new track.
What did this mean?

‘It’s a mistake. The police
do
make mistakes, Gary, you ought to know that.’

‘Oh right.’ She could hear the mocking grin in his voice. ‘So what did happen then?’

‘I don’t know, yet. My son isn’t a murderer, Gary. If you’ve met him you’d know that.’

‘Not a thief either, I suppose?’

‘No, of course not. Look, you haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here?’

As the silence lengthened she thought
perhaps he knows about the ring, the balaclava.
Could he have been looking for them - or something else?

His answer came as a joke, of all things. ‘Cruising, o’ course. Waiting for tarts. They drop in from time to time, tha knows. All done up in kinky leather!’

He smirked, delighted with himself. Then he stepped towards her out of the shed. She backed away nervously. ‘That your bike, is it?’

‘It is.’

‘Fuck me.’ He swung his leg astride the saddle, and turned the handlebars this way and that. ‘Not bad. Fancy a ride?’ He patted the pillion seat.

Sarah took a deep breath, and felt in her pocket for the key to the house. ‘I’m going indoors now, Gary. If you don’t get off that bike straight away and piss off out of here, I’ll call the police and then we’ll have you for TWOC as well as breaking and entering and stealing whatever you’ve taken from that shed. Otherwise I’ll forget the whole thing. You choose.’

‘Right then, I will an’ all. Bitch.’ Her last challenge had been a mistake. Before she could move he swung his leg off the bike and with one long stride across the yard grabbed her arm and yanked her towards him. The other hand smacked her hard across the face. It was like being hit by a wall. The blow filled her mind, there was nothing else, only the massive jolt, the pain, the sense that her jaw had been realigned by a concrete block. When there was room for other thoughts she realized she was sprawled face down across the saddle of the bike, one huge hand tugging her leather trousers down to her knees.

She screamed, a brief bubbling sound which was choked off by his other hand which clamped over her mouth and nose.

‘Shut it, slag! I’ve always wanted to do this.’ He was spreading her legs behind her, she realized, trying to get one either side of the back wheel but hampered by the trousers around her ankles. She tried to bite his hand but it was too big and all-enveloping, squeezing her nose so that tears ran from her eyes and she thought
I’ll die, he’ll suffocate me!

Then she fell sideways and there was a clatter and bang and a vast, immoveable weight on her right thigh. There were men shouting, doors slamming. White light blazed in her eyes.

‘Are you all right, love? Christ, she’s under the bike!’

If the words had a meaning it didn’t register with Sarah. There was swearing, a shout of ‘Get in there and shut it!’ Then what sounded like a radio crackling ‘Ambulance needed, 23 Bramham Street, urgent please.’

The weight lifted from her thigh and a man’s voice spoke from the darkness. Calm, reassuring, not Gary’s. ‘It’s all right, love, it’s off now. Harry, get a blanket. You just lie still.
Sarah?
It’s Terry Bateson.’

‘Look, I wasn’t raped, all right? Ooooh, my tongue!’

‘I know you say that, but the officers say you were unconscious when they found you.  So it’s best to take samples to be sure. You might not know what happened.’

‘I
know.
’ Sarah’s mouth felt as though it was about to fall apart like a rotten, bloated potato. ‘It’s my mouth that hurts, not ...’ She gestured to the other end of the couch, where the female doctor was preparing her swab. And my pride, she thought. What a fool I look now, with my legs in the air and my neck in a brace while that police woman notes down what I say.

‘You’re lucky with your jaw. The X-rays show nothing broken, no teeth lost. The analgesics should kick in soon and you won’t feel it any more. Just shift this way, please. There, that’s it. Mmmm. No tears, no bleeding. Just these scrapes on your leg where you fell. You say he didn’t penetrate you?’

‘No!’

‘Vaginally or anally?’

‘
No!
Can I sit up now?’

‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry, I do have to ask these things.’

Sarah swung her legs over the side of the couch. ‘My mouth hurts and my leg aches but he didn’t rape me, all right? I was lucky, the cabblly came in time.’

‘Yes. The
what
, love?’ The doctor looked up from her notes and smiled, cool and distant and professional. Checking my mind isn’t deranged now, Sarah thought in despair.

‘Cav - al - ry,’
she said, as clearly and distinctly as she could through her throbbing, bloated mouth. ‘The
cavalry
came in time. Joke.’

‘Oh. Yes, I see.’ The doctor smiled again, and squatted in front of her, looking directly into her eyes as though she were a child. ‘Well, do you feel up to talking to the police now? Or would you rather they came back in the morning?’

‘Talk now,’ Sarah said. ‘Get it over with.’

‘All right, if you’re sure. But if you feel bad just tell them to stop.’ The doctor stood up and spoke directly to the detective, Tracy Litherland. ‘No more than half an hour, maximum, all right? She’s had a nasty shock and she needs to sleep. I suggest you just get the basic facts now and leave the rest until tomorrow.’

The basic facts, Sarah thought as she got carefully to her feet. Where do we start?

‘Right, Harker, what’s your story this time?’ Terry noticed, with grim satisfaction, how stiffly Gary had manouevred himself into the chair, as though his ribs were hurting. The arrest had not been conducted with excessive gentleness. But his manner was surly, defiant.

‘I dunno what you mean.’

‘Oh, really?’ said Terry derisively. ‘We caught you in the act, old son. Four police officers saw you trying to rape this woman, Mrs Sarah Newby. You had her trousers down and your hand around her throat, for Christ’s sake!’

‘Not round her throat. It were her mouth.’

‘Is that supposed to make a difference?’

‘Yeah. Big difference.’ Gary leered. ‘She were kissing it.’

‘You liar!’ Terry rose from his chair without thinking, but Harry caught his arm, glancing pointedly at the two tapes running smoothly in the machine. Terry recovered himself, sat down.

‘You were attempting to rape her. I saw you.’

A cunning leer came over Gary’s face as he took in Terry’s reaction. ‘Got the hots for her yourself, have you, copper? Well you’re too bloody late, that’s what. What you saw was just sex, no more and no less. She wanted it like that.’

The sheer effrontery of the idea stunned both detectives. Harry Easby recovered first. His tone, to Terry’s irritation, contained a hint of amusement, as though he half admired the man for coming up with such a preposterous suggestion.

‘You’re saying, are you, that a respectable woman like that, a barrister, actually
asked
you to half strangle her and rip her trousers down across the back of a motorbike?’

‘Summat like that, yeah.’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ Terry was finding it hard to control himself. Perhaps the old days of policing were better after all, he thought. A man like this deserved to be kicked to a pulp on the floor of the cell. Then the only shit that came out of him would be the real thing.

‘What were you doing there anyway?’ Harry asked.

‘Looking for young Simon.’

‘Who? Simon Newby? Do you know him?’

‘Yeah, a bit. He lives there, doesn’t he?’

‘Not in his back yard,’ Harry smiled contemptuously. ‘He lives in the
house
, Gary, not the back yard where we found you.’

‘Yeah, well, I tried the door but he didn’t answer, so I thought he might be in his shed.’

‘Notice anything unusual about the front door, Gary, did you?’ Harry asked, mockingly.

Gary thought for a bit. Then light dawned. ‘Yeah, I did actually. There was a padlock on it. After you lot smashed the door, no doubt.’

‘That’s right, Gary. And can you think why we might do that? Any ideas?’

‘Cause you’re a lot of friggin hooligans, that’s why. Smashing up property for no reason.’

‘So you hadn’t heard that Simon Newby had been arrested, is that what you’re saying?’

‘Arrested? For what?’

‘For rape and murder, that’s what! Oh come on Gary, it was all over the
Evening Press
last week, and on the telly! Don’t tell me you didn’t know!’

‘All right. So what if I did?’

Gary was sweating, Terry saw. Harry was doing well, so far.

‘So what you’re saying is, you knocked on Simon Newby’s front door when you knew full well he was in Hull gaol. Is that it, Gary? Doesn’t make an awful lot of sense now, does it?’

Gary stared at them, bemused. Like a rabbit caught in headlights, Terry thought. Harry laughed: ‘Or are you saying you went there to meet his mother, for a bit of rough sex?’

God no!
Don’t put words in his mouth, Terry thought. Gary seized on the excuse eagerly.

‘Yeah, right. That’s it. She’d asked to meet me there. When she didn’t answer the door I thought I’d wait in the back yard. I knew she’d put her bike there, didn’t I?’

‘I see. So you thought you’d wait in the shed, in the dark, so you could spring out and rape this woman when she arrived?’

‘I told you, I didn’t rape her. When she came in the yard she was hot for it.’

‘Hot for sex with you, you mean?’ said Harry incredulously.

‘Yeah. Some women are like that, you know.’

‘Oh yes.’ Harry paused. ‘Talk to her at all first, did you? Or just go straight at it?’

‘We talked for a few minutes, yeah,’ Gary said cautiously.

‘And then she asked you for sex?’

‘Yeah.’

Harry laughed. ‘So we just spoiled a nice private party?’ Beneath the derision in Harry’s tone there was still that faint hint of admiration, as though for a good spicy story shared between boys. Gary responded to it.

‘You could’ve joined in, if you’d asked. She’d like that. Four big coppers and me.’

Terry was consumed with loathing. This was the man he was sure had raped Sharon Gilbert, and probably murdered Maria Clayton too. Now he was denying what they’d seen with their own eyes. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t funny at all.

There was a knock at the door. A uniformed constable passed in a note. It read
Interesting finds in the shed at Bramham Street. May be relevant to your interview.
Mike Candor.

‘All right,’ Terry said. ‘Interview suspended at 11.35 p.m. We’ll resume in the morning.’

‘In that case,’ Gary said. ‘I want a lawyer.’

Sarah had hoped to be interviewed by Terry but Tracy Litherland ushered her into a room with Will Churchill. ‘Where’s... DI Bateson?’ she asked.

‘He’s interviewing your assailant,’ Churchill answered. ‘He knows a lot about him, as I’m sure you’ll understand. Whereas I have a particular interest in 23 Bramham Street.’