Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) (57 page)

‘Yes. Well, that’s the second part of the story.’

61. Rough Love

‘Y
OU UNDERSTAND something now, at least, don’t you?’ Michael asked, gazing bleakly across the table. ‘You see how we were bound to each other? Not because I loved her or anything like that, that all ended the day Brenda died - on my side at least. But we shared this one terrible secret, that we could never discuss with anyone else, ever. Until you.’

Michael rested his head in hands, gazing down at the table. He sat like that, silent, for over a minute. A fox barked in the night beyond the open door, and somewhere far away down the valley, the sound of a distant car engine rose through the stillness.

‘I never imagined I’d have this conversation,’ he said at last. ‘Not with anyone. It’s good of you to listen, at least.’

Sarah said nothing. She was not a woman given to sympathy - her life, and the career she had chosen, had left little room for that. Until now, she had respected Michael for qualities she recognised in herself - the way he had created his own business out of nothing, ran it efficiently, took responsibility for his own decisions. Now, as his story progressed, she felt the last vestiges of respect leaking away from her mind. In its place was a growing sense of horror for what she had heard, and self-disgust for the intimacy she had shared with such a man.

But she needed to understand, so she stayed silent and listened.

‘It would have been better, probably, if we’d split up and never met again,’ he continued. ‘I could have managed that, but she couldn’t. You see, from the beginning she was fonder of me than I was of her, and after Brenda’s death, well, she thought I’d saved her from prison, which I suppose I had, so then love, or whatever she felt, was mixed with gratitude in her mind, and she could never stay away.’ He sighed, shaking his head. ‘Oh, she tried, of course. I got married, and for a while she respected that. She trained as an English language teacher, and went as far away as she could - Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Japan, even Outer Mongolia for a year - but she always came back, and it was always the same. She’d met some man, a doctor or foreign student or teacher, but the affair always broke up because he didn’t match up to me, that’s what she said. So then we’d meet in a hotel or go away for a short holiday and ... you can imagine.’ He looked at Sarah ruefully. ‘No, actually, you probably can’t. It was too nasty, too violent for that. Because she loved me and I didn’t love her - that’s how it all went wrong in the first place, of course, with the scarf - and also because she, on top of this, felt guilty for killing Brenda, well ... often the only way I could satisfy her was to punish her.’

‘How, exactly?’ Sarah asked quietly.

‘With punishment, bondage, domination - all that S & M stuff. She liked it, she found it exciting, and so did I, in a way. After all, it expressed the way we were together; not lovers, exactly, but well, partners in crime.’

Sarah said nothing. Thank God he never tried that with me, she thought.

‘And then at other times I’d try to be really nice, to break out of all that. So I’d make her a bubble bath, give her a massage to heal the bruises, you know, like ...’ He met her eyes, appealing for understanding. Sarah looked down, at the photo on the mobile.

‘Is that what you did here in York?’

‘Yes. Both of those things. But it was before I met you, Sarah. Remember that.’

With an effort, Sarah looked up and met his eyes. ‘That first time, we ... had sex ... in Cambridge, that was the day after she died, wasn’t it?’

‘I suppose it was, yes.’

‘Did you know she was dead, then?’

‘No!
Of course I didn’t - what sort of a monster do you think I am? Damn it, Sarah, the only way I could have known that would be if I’d killed her, and I’ve told you I didn’t - you have to believe me!’

‘So when was the last time you had sex with her?’

‘I ...’ he let out a long, slow breath. ‘I told the police it was two days before - I mean, I didn’t tell them I had sex with her then, I said that was the last time I saw her, when I went to fix her central heating. But in fact ... the last time I saw her was on the morning of the day she died, before I drove off to Scarborough.’

‘And what happened then?’

‘Oh ...’ he shook his head miserably. ‘It was a terrible conversation, as a matter of fact. I wish I could make you see it, how it was.’

‘Try,’ Sarah said coolly. Her small stock of sympathy was almost used up.
Whatever happened that morning,
she thought
, the very next day he drove to Cambridge intending to seduce me. Which he did, that Sunday. Thinking this Alison was still alive and waiting for him in York.

Alison saw the BMW as soon as it turned off the road. She watched it crawl slowly down the drive, a farmtrack about a hundred yards long, and disappear around the back of the house. Michael always parked there, out of sight. Her nearest neighbour, Mrs Phillips, lived a quarter of a mile away across a field, and Alison hardly knew her, anyway, so there was no real reason to hide these visits, but the habit of secrecy had become engrained with them both over the years. Alison always used Michael’s special phone, never sent him emails, never told his secretary she was anything but a normal tenant. Indeed, when the last secretary had suspected it, she’d been replaced.

It was all part of the punishment she’d endured for eighteen years. Michael would only visit her, he insisted, if no one else knew about their relationship at all. If even one person guessed what really bound them together, everything would unravel uncontrollably. And they both had too much to live for to allow that.

Or at least, they
had
had too much to live for. But Alison had just visited her oncologist. He had been kind, sympathetic, professional - and had confirmed her worst fears. The cancer was inoperable; it was too far gone for that. Without treatment, she might last three months, maybe four - with chemotherapy, maybe a couple of years. No more. And the chemotherapy, she had heard, was dreadful. The thought of it terrified her, almost as much as the thought of death itself.

Either way, she had little left to live for. The English language teaching books she was so proud of would be published and sell worldwide, bringing in thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of pounds, but she had no idea who to leave the money to. Her father was dead, her mother was 80. She was an only child. She had no husband, no children, no current lover except for Michael.

And she didn’t even really love him. That wasn’t the nature of their relationship any more. It was deeper and darker than that.

But since it is death that I have to face, she thought, as she went to open the back door, perhaps he is the best person to talk to. He knows more about me than anyone else. And before I die, one thing has to change.

They sat round an open wood fire in the small front living room, while she told him what the cancer specialist had said. Her cat climbed onto her lap and she stroked it to soothe herself, keeping her voice as calm as she could.

‘It’s terrifying,’ she said, ‘but it comes to us all, in the end. In a dreadful sort of way, it’s good to know the truth. It concentrates the mind. There’s one thing I have to do before I die.’

‘Which is?’

He guessed the answer, she could tell by his face. But she told him all the same. ‘You know I’m planning to become a Catholic, I told you that before. I’ve been taking instruction. But there’s one thing an applicant has to do before he or she’s received into the church, and there’s no point doing it unless you do it properly, with your whole heart. You have to confess your sins.’

‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘you can’t do that. We’ve kept this secret all our lives, we have to take it to the grave.’

‘But that’s a cold and lonely place,’ she said with a shudder. ‘Or perhaps not so cold for me, if I don’t confess. This is my eternal soul I’m talking about, Michael. It’s all right to tell a priest, they’re trained to keep everything secret. You know that.’

‘You can’t be sure,’ Michael said. He frowned, thinking hard. ‘Anyway, at the very least they’ll ask you to atone for it in some way. And how could you do that, without going to Jason or Jason’s lawyer and explaining why he’s innocent? And what would come of that? We’d both end our lives in prison.’

‘My life’s about to end anyway,’ she said softly. ‘I’m thinking about what comes after.’

‘But what about me? I’ve got thirty or forty years left. Do you want me to spend that time behind bars?’

‘No, of course not, Michael, but I don’t have to involve you. After all,
I
killed her, you didn’t. I can just confess to what
I
did. I won’t even mention you.’

Michael got up, and stood with one hand on the mantlepiece, glaring down at her. It was a familiar anger; she had seen every facet of his temper, down the years. She deserved it, she knew that, but she hoped it would not follow her beyond the grave.

‘They’ll know though, won’t they?’ he insisted. ‘Brenda was a heavy girl, bigger than you. No one will believe you carried her from the road to where we buried her on your own. They’ll guess you had help. So then they’ll talk to people who knew us at the time, and ask who you would have trusted to help you and keep your secret. The answer will be obvious, won’t it?
Me.
’

Disturbed by his anger, the cat sank its claws in her thigh. Alison winced, lifting it up and stroking it gently to soothe it. ‘What are you talking about?’ she asked. ‘Who is this
they?
I’m not going to tell a lot of people, certainly not the police. I just want to confess to a priest, that’s all. To take this burden off my soul.’

‘You can’t,’ he insisted flatly. ‘You can never tell anyone. Neither of us can. We agreed that 18 years ago.’

‘I know. But now I’m dying ...’

‘It doesn’t make any difference. There’s nothing beyond the grave, anyway. Just silence, and peace ...’

‘How do you know that, Michael? How can you possibly know?’

‘I don’t know, it’s just obvious, that’s all.’ He threw a log on the fire, and watched the woodlice scurry to escape the flames. ‘We’re all animals; this religion of yours is so much claptrap people invent to comfort themselves. Think about it, Alison - how is it comforting to believe in eternity? Especially for you and me - an eternity in which we can never forget what we’ve done. Is that what you want? With Brenda up there too to make your life ...’

‘
Hell
. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it? To make our lives hell?’

‘Exactly.’ He smiled - an odd, mocking grin which he intended to be comforting. ‘But you don’t have to worry about that, Ally, you see, because it’s all nonsense. There’s nothing after death, just silence. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. You remember what Brenda looked like - do you think she had a soul? She didn’t; she was just a body. Dead, gone, finished. That’s all it is. Silence. Think about it for a moment; isn’t that more comforting? You never have to worry about anything ever again. There’s no
you
to worry any more. Nothing. No guilt, no recriminations, nothing at all. Peace and silence for all eternity.’

‘That’s even more frightening. I don’t think I could cope with that.’

‘You don’t have to cope with it. It just happens.’

They sat in silence for a while, looking at each other, appalled by the prospect they’d been discussing. In a sudden smooth leap, the cat sprang from Alison’s lap onto the floor. She looked up at him defiantly.

‘I’ve made an appointment with a priest on Tuesday.’

‘You can’t do that, Alison.’ A note of menace, familiar to them both, entered Michael’s voice. ‘You know that. I would have to punish you.’

‘No, Michael, please. Not this time.’

‘Yes. You know you deserve it; this time more than ever. It’s the only way you’ll get any release.’ He seized her wrist, dragged her up out of the chair to her feet.

‘No, don’t. You’re scaring me.’ She struggled to escape. Not hard; she knew from long experience that it was impossible.

‘You deserve to be scared,’ he insisted. ‘You’ve been a bad girl. You want it really, that’s why you’ve been telling me all this.’

‘I don’t want it.’

‘You do. At least if it hurts, you’ll know you’re not dead. Not yet, anyway.’

‘And that’s how you left her?’

‘Yes. I knew she was ill, so I wasn’t really rough. I just whipped her a few times with a cane I kept in my car. It was punishment, sexual humiliation, something she enjoyed. Therapy, in a way. I told you, she was used to it.’

‘She was dying, Michael.’ Sarah struggled to keep the disdain out of her voice.

‘Not then. She was fully alive when I left her. Happier, in fact, than when I arrived.’ He gazed at her dejectedly across the table. ‘I knew you wouldn’t understand. I should never have told you.’

‘Did you run a bath for her too? Before you left?’

‘No. I was in too much of a hurry. I had a shower, but she didn’t. Maybe she ran a bath for herself later. She often did that, to comfort herself.’

And to wash all traces of you off her body, Sarah thought bitterly. I could do with a shower myself, right now. All trace of her affection for Michael was gone. She understood, but did not sympathise.

‘And that was the last time you saw her?’

‘Yes. I swear it. I drove out to Scarborough, spent the evening in conference with the builders, and came straight back here. Next day I drove to Cambridge. I had no idea she was dead until Monday.’

Sarah turned the phone towards him. ‘So who did this, then?’

‘Your client, Jason Barnes. The man you freed from prison.’

‘What?’
This idea had never occurred to Sarah
.
‘What makes you think that?’

‘It’s pretty obvious, don’t you think? Who else would want to kill her, a single woman like that? Nothing was stolen, as I understand it, she wasn’t raped. She had no other enemies. Besides, look at that photo. What do you see?’

Sarah shuddered. ‘A naked woman hanging from the banisters.’

‘Yes, and what’s round her neck?’