Ralph’s Children (20 page)

One less stop than planned.

Then home. Roger and Pig to their homes in Reading and Swindon. Jack to his long-suffering wife and children in Newbury.

Simon’s flat remaining empty.

Ralph wondered how long it would be until her body was identified.

It hurt just to think of her that way.

How long would it take before Simon’s colleagues at school would become sufficiently concerned to query her absence, how long before an absent Oxford teaching assistant became linked to a
violent death in an isolated converted barn in the Berkshire Downs?

Ralph wondered if a post-mortem might reveal any pre-birth internal scars caused by her desperate young mother, wondered if Simon’s old hospital records were intact, if computer systems
would be able to connect the dots; and if so, what difference it would make to the police investigation into the killing of Laurie Moon.

They had agreed, during their last, unhappy conversation, that there could be no further contact between them for the foreseeable future.

Safer that way for them all.

R
ob had brought Kate back from Oxford that day to the cottage, and had not left.

Still paying rent on his flat in Coley Hill, though, both of them agreeing that the hideous shocks of unlawful imprisonment and murder might not be the soundest foundations for reconciliation
and long-term happiness.

The police had not finished with Kate and were still putting her through interviews, the stresses of being pulled back and forth, being treated one moment as victim, the next as a potential
suspect, all taxing her considerably. Laurie Moon and Simon preoccupied her constantly, her attempts to deny to herself her part in their deaths hopeless; the dead gang member exercising her
conscience almost as much as Laurie, however irrational she knew that to be.

‘Something monstrous was about to happen.’ Rob had reiterated that in so many ways, as had her parents. ‘You had to do something, you had to fight.’

‘I know that,’ Kate had told them all.

Except the fact was that
what
she had done had resulted in Simon’s death. And Jack
had
been wavering about killing Laurie until Pig had told him Simon was dead.

‘Which means that if I hadn’t pushed Simon, Laurie might still be alive now.’

‘You can’t think like that,’ Rob had said.

‘You
mustn’t
think like that.’ Her father.

Her mother had not said that, for which Kate was grateful.

‘If you are feeling it,’ Bel had said last week, ‘it’s probably better to voice it than let it eat you alive.’

‘But there’s no justification to Kate feeing even a
shred
of guilt,’ Michael had said with passion, ‘when it’s clear that if she hadn’t fought back
at that moment, she and Laurie might
both
be dead now.’

‘No,’ Kate had said. ‘That wasn’t the aim of the game.’

That was when she’d seen the flicker in her father’s eyes.

Of doubt, or at least confusion.

She had seen it in his eyes before, and in Rob’s, too, when she’d mentioned the
game.
Though not in Bel’s, interestingly. From her often self-obsessed mother,
she’d had nothing but support of the most unconditional and intelligent kind.

As, of course, she’d had around the time of her miscarriage.

‘Mum’s being amazing,’ Kate had told Rob soon after the Caisleán weekend.

‘She adores you,’ he had said, simply. ‘Couldn’t bear to lose you.’

‘But she’s being so calm,’ Kate said.

‘Don’t knock it,’ Rob advised. ‘Try cherishing it instead.’

They were both a little confused about their reconciliation. They knew they had been coming close to it before, when they’d argued shortly before the horrors; but they
had
argued,
and their separation had come about in such an acutely painful way. Kate still remembered, all too clearly, longed to forget, the way Rob had changed then, the hardening of his attitude towards her
– and though the blue of his eyes was soft again now, the chastening fact remained that they were only together again now because Kate had come so close to death, and because she needed
help.

And
because Rob loved her. And she him.

Surely no better reason.

They all spoke of Laurie by her first name, as if they had known her.

They did know a little more by now.

She had been identified within twenty-four hours by her father, the Mann Children’s Home having notified her parents of Laurie’s no-show, and a missing person’s report having
been made by afternoon that same day.

The news story had made the national press by that Monday morning, local TV and radio news reporting it before that. Pictures of Caisleán surrounded by crime scene tape and looking
somehow sordid; shots of Kate – including a honeymoon photo of her with Rob in Venice, no one having any idea how it might have been obtained – and of Laurie, Michele and Peter Moon,
and of their young grandson, Sam. Quotes from Laurie’s neighbours expressing shock and disbelief, all speaking of a lovely, friendly, quiet, talented young woman – and of their
surprise, too, that she had a child.

‘The boy is eight years old, and has Down’s syndrome.’

Kate had heard this from Martin Blake, her new lawyer, a former colleague of her dad’s. Having continued to insist for days that as a victim she did not need a lawyer, that bringing one in
seemed tantamount to raising her very own question mark over her innocence, Kate had finally accepted that she probably needed all the help she could get.

‘Even that word –
“innocence”
–’ Bel had been incensed, had told Michael as much – ‘implies she has something to prove.’

‘No one’s saying that,’ Michael had tried to calm her. ‘We all know Kate is completely blameless.’

‘Of
course
she’s blameless,’ Bel had shouted at him. ‘She’s the
victim.
’

The fact that Sam Moon had Down’s syndrome – Martin Blake agreed – lent weight to Kate’s theory that the gang might be some kind of fanatical pro-life splinter or
entirely independent group. He also said that, so far as he could ascertain, the general consensus of opinion, pending further investigation, was that the police did not exactly
dis
believe
her.

‘Not exactly,’ Kate had echoed grimly.

‘The problems lie, obviously, with all the physical evidence,’ Blake said.

‘All against me,’ Kate said.

‘It would be preposterous,’ Michael said, ‘if it weren’t so tragic.’

‘It’s barking
mad
,’ Bel said.

‘It’s their game,’ Kate said.

* * *

‘T
he problem,’ Martin Blake pointed out to Kate at their next meeting, a few days before Christmas, ‘is that even the elements which
seem to support your story can be explained away.’ His expression was apologetic. ‘Could even, theoretically, have been arranged by you.’

‘God,’ Kate said.

They were alone together in Blake’s office, both feeling better able to proceed more effectively without family passions igniting every other minute.

The room, in a modern building in Banbury Road, Oxford, was well-ordered, if not overly tidy. Unlike the law offices her father had formerly practised from in Henley, this possessed, Kate felt,
no elegance or even any atmosphere to speak of, yet in a curious sense that seemed of comfort to her at present, since normality, even the commonplace, was what she craved a return to.

The solicitor himself – a pleasant-looking, sandy-haired man in his late thirties with features that drooped in repose, but were all the more bright and pleasant when he became animated
– was clearly a realist but on her side, which seemed to her what mattered most, especially since she hoped that ultimately there would be no need to prove his talent as a lawyer.

Blake went on to catalogue the problems.

The minor bruising – Kate’s only injuries, caused by the slaps and hog-tying – could have happened as a result of her tussle with Simon.

‘Though if it came to it,’ Blake said, ‘we’d have an expert witness to support our explanation and refute theirs.’

The tyre tracks found some way from the barn and probably left by a van, which tallied with her account of the gang’s comings and goings, could have been left by
any
van, its
driver perhaps altogether unconnected with the criminals or Kate, maybe lost and seeking an address.

‘Or you might have set up the tracks yourself,’ Blake said.

‘Not very likely,’ Kate said, ‘surely.’

She was choosing, she was aware, not to face the incredible devastation of all that had happened and was still happening to her. Not just of being a victim and a witness to a most depraved brand
of so-called ‘justice’ handed down in the name of the unborn and sinned-against mothers. In some ways, what was happening now seemed just as hard to believe; the very notion that
someone might for a single moment believe that Kate could . . .

Too much to face.

Better, therefore, not to.

Her missing front door keys, Martin Blake continued, had been found buried beneath the wild primrose patch where Kate had told the police she always left a spare set, proving nothing in her
favour.

‘Likewise the kitchen window smashed by you from inside,’ said Blake.

‘May I ask a question?’

‘As many as you wish.’

‘Exactly
why
am I supposed to have set up this elaborate chamber of horrors?’

‘I would presume,’ the lawyer replied, ‘that any basis for accusation would be on the assumption that you
were
taken prisoner, but that either you used excessive force
against Simon . . .’ He paused. ‘Or, even more ludicrously – lest you doubt my opinion – that you killed both Simon and Laurie Moon.’

‘And then set up all this evidence after they’d gone,’ Kate continued the theme. ‘Because I thought no one would believe me otherwise.’

‘Unless someone comes up with some other motive,’ Blake said, ‘some link, perhaps, with either Laurie Moon or the other woman.’

‘Which they won’t,’ Kate said, ‘because it doesn’t exist.’

‘Quite,’ Blake said.

The telephone, not working when Kate had tried to summon help from inside Caisleán, had been functioning perfectly by the time the police had arrived. The distress in Kate’s voice,
recorded when she’d managed to make her report from outside, didn’t count for much, since she might, of course, be a good actor.

‘Can’t they tell if a phone line’s been cut off or tampered with?’ asked Kate.

‘Perhaps,’ Blake answered. ‘I have a colleague looking into that.’ He saw her frustration. ‘You must remember that you and I are playing our own game of worst case
scenarios, which is an unusual approach, and one we’ve only begun because your family are getting so angry and upset on your behalf.’

‘Can you blame them?’ Kate asked hotly.

‘Not at all,’ Blake replied. ‘That’s why Michael approached me, because he thought I’d understand your collective anxieties and do my best to shoot down any
seriously off-course wild geese before anyone tries to chase them.’

Kate laughed. ‘If I ever want to seriously dement my editor, could I please come to you for some metaphor-mixing lessons?’

‘Any time,’ Blake said.

The lightness had already passed. ‘Do you think DCI Newton believes me?’

‘I’d say so, in all probability.’ Blake paused. ‘Though until she has more to go on, or at least some starting point in the hunt for the gang—’

‘I’m the only game in town,’ Kate said.

‘More accurately,’ the lawyer said, ‘you’re their only witness.’

‘I suppose,’ she said slowly, ‘I need to keep my focus on that, rather than being so oversensitive. Concentrate on helping the police catch the bastards.’

‘That’s what we both need to focus on,’ said Blake.

‘Thank you,’ Kate said. ‘I think we’ve strayed from your list of problems.’

‘It wouldn’t do,’ Blake said wryly, ‘to be too upbeat.’

He returned to his notes.

‘Miss Moon’s car hasn’t been found yet,’ he said. ‘Which only presents a problem in that the car might provide valuable evidence if they could locate it.’

‘I’m surprised no one’s suggested I’ve got it stashed away somewhere.’

‘I thought you were going to be positive,’ Blake said, ‘and let me play devil’s advocate.’

Kate nodded.

Her claim to have been locked in the bathroom, Blake went on, could not be proved because she’d got out so easily, and her insistence that there had been no lock – confirmed by Rob
– was not provable since he had also had to admit that prior to the weekend of the killings he hadn’t been to the barn for months, which meant that Kate might have had the lock fitted,
or even have done it herself.

‘I’m lousy at DIY,’ she told Blake.

‘So you say.’ He grinned.

‘Ask anyone,’ she said.

‘All people who love you,’ he said. ‘They don’t count.’

‘God,’ she said again, humour gone.

‘On the plus side—’

‘Is there one?’ Kate interrupted.

‘Certainly,’ Blake said. ‘We’ve already touched on the fact that the police do appear to believe that you did not know Laurie Moon.’

‘Hang out the flags.’ Kate shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

‘Bizarrely enough,’ Blake went on, ‘the fact that there were
two
bodies in Caisleán works in our favour, since one would have been much easier to pin on
you.’

‘Tell that to the bodies,’ said Kate.

‘I do have something more,’ Blake said.

‘A third body?’ Her irony splashed up like acid.

‘Something rather better.’