A Game of Proof (6 page)

Whose life belonged to herself.

The car bounced along the track towards a solid, brick built farmhouse. Cows watched them from a field on their right, and a black and white collie streaked towards them. As the two policemen got out, the collie danced around them, barking hysterically. Terry put out his hand to it, to no effect. It danced away and growled ferociously at Harry Easby.

‘Come on boy. Where’s your missus?’

‘I’m over here!’ They looked up and saw a sturdy woman in gumboots and a torn, muddy coat coming towards them. She had iron grey hair and a brown, crinkled face.

Terry showed his badge. ‘Mrs Steersby? I’m Detective Inspector Bateson and this is DC Easby.’

‘’bout time too.’ The woman held out her hand and Terry shook it. Her grip was strong, the hand redolent of cow dung. Seeing that they were not enemies the dog leapt up too, planting  two muddy paws on the trousers of his suit.

‘Get down, Flash, you daft bugger! Away now!’ The woman shoved the dog aside and glanced scornfully at Terry’s efforts to brush himself clean. ‘It’s only mud, it’ll dry. D’you want to see Helen, then?’

‘If she’s home from school, yes.’ Terry took an incident report out of his pocket. ‘Your daughter was frightened by a man two nights ago, Mrs Steersby. Is that right?’

‘’course it’s right.’ The woman turned her back, cupped her hands round her mouth, and in a voice loud enough to be heard in Lancashire yelled: ‘
Helen!
Come here now!’

Terry saw a girl riding a pony on the far side of a field. She popped the pony over a line of jumps and cantered towards them, pulling up in a flurry of mud.

‘What d’you want, mum?’

‘It’s the police to see you!’

‘Again?’ The girl looked bemused. ‘But they came yesterday.’

‘These are different. Inspector Bateson - top brass Sherlock Holmes feller - so you’d best answer his questions. That pony’s done enough for today, anyhow.’

‘Okay. But I’ve got to cool him down first.’

‘Right. Ten minutes then. I’ll put kettle on.’

Terry watched as the girl walked the pony quietly around the field, and pondered what he knew of her story so far. Someone had tried to attack her while she was riding alone in the woods. A man in a black tracksuit and woolly hat, similar to his image of the man who had murdered Maria Clayton, and assaulted Karen Whitaker. That was why he was here now.

It disturbed him. It couldn’t be Gary Harker this time, unless Group 4 had taken to letting their rapists out for a run in the woods on the way back to Hull. So what was it? Coincidence? Copycat? Or false alarm?

Terry watched as she unsaddled her pony. She was a pretty girl in a grubby blouse and jodhpurs. How old was she? Fourteen, the report had said.

So if there had been an attack, what sort of pervert were they dealing with? A child abductor, a paedophile - or just a common lecher who fancied young girls in tight trousers? Or a monster the girl had made up? That was why he had come, to hear it from her own words.

In the farm living room, the four of them sat in faded brown armchairs grouped round an open fireplace. Terry smiled at Helen. ‘You told Constable Watson that you were riding in the woods at about half past seven when a man came up to you. Can you remember what he was wearing, Helen?’

‘A black sort of tracksuit thingy, trainers, and a black woolly hat.’

Not a hood, then.
‘So you could see his face, could you?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded, looking thoughtful, a little apprehensive perhaps.

‘And you have no idea who he was?’

‘No. I’ve never seen him before. And I do meet people quite often in those woods. I ride there most days.’

‘How old was he?’

‘I don’t know. Thirty, perhaps.’

‘I see. So what exactly happened when you met him?’

‘Well, I was just walking down the track on Toby at the time, and I saw him jogging towards me. Then he put his hand on my bridle and said something, like ...’

She hesitated and looked down, and Terry saw tears in her eyes. Not such a big girl after all then. She
had
been frightened.

‘He said, “that’s a nice pony, darling,” something like that, and asked me how old Toby was. So I told him, and he said was he nice to ride, and I said he was brilliant but a bit lazy sometimes, and then he said could
he
have a ride. So I said no and he said, “oh come on,” something like that, and put his arm round my waist trying to pull me off, so then ...’

Helen looked up at her mum, who nodded for her to go on.

‘... I screamed and hit him hard with my riding whip. He didn’t let go at first so I tried to kick him too and then Toby reared and we got away. Then I galloped home and told mum.’

Terry nodded. ‘You must have been very frightened.’

‘I was, yes. Course I was.’

‘Did you see what the man did when you got away?’

‘No. I looked back once and saw him running into the woods. Then he was gone. I didn’t want to see him.’

‘No, of course not.’ Terry watched her for a moment in silence. He was fairly convinced she was telling the truth; there seemed no reason not to. ‘How did he speak? Like someone from round here?’

‘No. It was a funny accent - not local.’

‘And you’re sure he tried to pull you off the horse? You couldn’t have made a mistake - he wasn’t just trying to be friendly?’

‘No! What do you mean, mistake? I can feel him doing it, now!’

‘All right, I’m sorry.’ He had really upset her now, he saw. She was crying, and her mother reached out to hug her. This
was
serious, he thought angrily. It could have been very serious indeed. But the great thing was, she had seen his face. And heard his voice.

He waited for a moment while the tears subsided, then, as gently as he could, said: ‘Listen to me, Helen. It’s important to catch this man, isn’t it? So I want you to do one more thing for me - in a while, when you’re feeling better. I want you to help us make a photofit picture of this man. We’ve got a lady officer who’s very good at that. Will you come and see her, please?’

She nodded, still with tears in her eyes but determined, too. Encouraged, Terry made the arrangements with her mother and left.

He sighed as Harry drove down the track, the collie streaking alongside. After Gary Harker’s arrest, this sort of thing should be over. Of course there were other men like Gary, but statistically, Terry knew, this sort of behaviour was odd. Most rapists were known to their victims; more rapes were committed by relatives in the home than by strangers in the woods.

He thought how angry he would feel if such a thing happened to his own girls. It would be insupportable. I’d kill the bastard, he thought, his hands tightening on his knees. Kill him and ask questions after.

Chapter Four

A
S SARAH wheeled the Kawasaki into the street something tugged at her memory. She glanced at her watch and swore. 7.40. Her daughter Emily had a school concert that night and she had promised to go. When did it begin - eight? Eight thirty? Pray God it was the latter. Quickly she fastened her helmet, settled herself in the saddle, and turned the key. The engine purred smoothly. I must be quick, she thought. Not so much freedom after all.

But as the bike wove its way swiftly down the street the old thrill returned. It was so powerful and free, compared to a car. Why shouldn’t she enjoy it, this daily adventure on the roads? It was her reward for long hours of work, for all the disasters of her childhood.

If Emily was late for the concert and threw a tantrum, so what? Secretly Sarah regarded her daughter as spoilt. What did Emily know of trouble or poverty?  Nothing, compared to her mother.

Sarah had been fifteen when she met Kevin Mills, and he had been seventeen. She had been an ordinary conscientious working-class girl at her local grammar school, not particularly clever or pretty, five foot six with short dark hair. The first risk she had ever taken was to drink two halves of lager and lift her miniskirt for Kevin in the back of his parent’s yellow Ford Cortina; and that risk had ruined her life. She still remembered, almost every day, the lonely dread for weeks afterwards waiting for a period that never came. And then the morning sickness, and telling her mother.

And Kevin.

Kevin was of course a devil, a satyr to have seduced an underage schoolgirl, but he had great pride. He was shorter than other boys, but wiry and strong, able to command respect with a look or sharp word. Nobody put him down; he was too dangerous for that. He was also capable of great charm. She knew he’d had other girls but he’d chosen her. She had felt proud and excited to be with him. Not afraid, not then.

Not even when she told him she was carrying his baby.

At that moment, he had been brilliant. Or so she had thought at the time. She could remember how the angry pimple on his forehead flared red as the rest of his face went white with shock. But then, when the truth had sunk in, he had puffed out his chest like a little fighting cock - he had been
proud!
She was pregnant with
his
baby - he had done it before most other boys on the estate! So two days later he had stood in her front room with her hand in his and told her parents he was going to marry her. Not asked them,
told
them. At seventeen years old he said he loved her and wanted her children and they were going to get married.

Such fools they both were.

They were married when she was sixteen, and the social services found them a council house on the Seacroft estate in Leeds. It was a dreadful estate; their house had damp running down the walls so freely that they saw snails crawling above the cot. The wallpaper was peeling off, the window frames were rotting and the weeds were two feet high in the garden, growing out of the dog muck that the previous tenant’s three rottweilers had left.

But at first it didn’t matter. It was their own house and they were young and determined and it almost seemed like a game. They furnished it with second-hand carpets and a plastic three piece suite, a brand-new cot from social services for the baby and a mattress on the bedroom floor for themselves. In the kitchen they had a Baby Belling cooker with two electric rings only one of which worked when the oven was on. Her mother gave her a cookbook called
Healthy Eating for Less Than a Pound a Day
, and Sarah came to know all its recipes by heart. Often things were burnt or underdone but in those first few weeks it didn’t matter because afterwards, so long as the baby was asleep, they could go up to their own bedroom in their own house and make love as long and adventurously as they liked.

And they did like. When Sarah’s father had described Kevin as a randy little sod he had been telling the exact truth and Sarah, aged sixteen, responded with delight and enthusiasm. That grubby bedroom, with a mattress and a rug on the floor, a stained mirror and an old chest of drawers with paint peeling off it, became for that brief period their version of the Arabian Nights. In those first few weeks of marriage Sarah’s sexuality blossomed as suddenly and completely as a flower in an arctic spring.

But then it faded, never to be the same again. The demands of real life piled up outside the bedroom door. Unwashed dishes, crying baby, dirty nappies, shopping, social worker, doctor, colds, cystitis, measles, vaccinations, electricity bills, pegging out the washing, rent demands, broken windows, cleaning, cooking, milkman’s bills. Sarah wanted to go home, but she couldn’t - this
was
home.

And Kevin was away so much. He was a plumber’s apprentice, off to work at eight in the morning and then not back again for eight, ten, even twelve hours. Then he wanted food, sex, and sleep, in that order. He would play with the baby for a few minutes but wanted it go to sleep afterwards. When it didn’t, he became jealous. When it woke in the night, he was annoyed. When she cooked badly, he became irritable. When she was too tired or ill for sex, he became angry.

The first time he hit her was when she tried to discuss an electricity bill as they were undressing for bed. She had read about this technique for extracting money from your husband in a magazine in the doctor’s waiting room, whose agony aunt had clearly met no one like Kevin. Kevin just slapped her and continued with his lovemaking as though nothing had happened. The electricity was cut off a week later. She covered the bruise on her face with powder.

After that he began to stay out longer and longer. She prepared meals for him that dried up in the cooker. What do you want me home for? he asked, cruelly. You’ve got cystitis, you can’t do it. Anyway we need the money. It’s only me that earns it. They screamed at each other over the baby’s head. When she stood in the doorway to stop him going out he smacked her head against the door post so that it bled. He didn’t come back until one in the morning.

A week later he told her it was all over. He had met someone else, he said, an older woman called Sheila. He’d got to know her when he’d been fixing her pipes. Sheila and he had the same interests, and he was moving in with her.
Now
, today. There would be a divorce. She could keep baby Simon but he might want to see him sometimes at weekends when he was older. Teach him to play football. That was what people did, wasn’t it?

And then he was gone. The bubble burst, just like that. A week before their first anniversary the fairy tale was over. The coldness, the lack of emotional interest, stunned her so much that for the first, and only time in her life, she completely lost the power of action. When the social worker visited two days later Sarah had done nothing - no housework, no washing up, not even fed little Simon, who was howling upstairs. She just sat blankly on the green plastic sofa, staring at the wall.

The social worker put Simon in a foster home under a place of safety order. Sarah went back to her parents, there was nowhere else to go. The doctor gave her Valium and for a month she walked around like a zombie. Then her mother forced her to sign up for evening classes and take up studying again.

Which was the best thing my mother ever did for me, Sarah thought now. The one really good thing she did, the old cow. The thing that changed my life.