The Backs (2013)

Also by Alison Bruce

Cambridge Blue
The Siren
The Calling
The Silence

Alison Bruce

Constable & Robinson Ltd
55-56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com

First published in the UK by C&R Crime,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013

Copyright © Alison Bruce 2013

The right of Alison Bruce to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication
Data is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-47210-211-9 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-1-47210-215-7 (ebook)

Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon

Printed and bound in the UK

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Jacket design:
www.simonlevyassociates.co.uk
; Jacket images: © Derek Langley

Iakona
,
Aloha Aku No
,
Aloha Mai No
,
Alekona
x

Thank you to Krystyna Green, Peter Lavery, Sophie Brewer, Saskia Angenent, Jo Stansall and the entire team at Constable & Robinson; I am very grateful for the support you have given the Goodhew series and I love the new cover designs . . . especially this one!

And to my agent Broo Doherty, I truly appreciate all the support and advice you have given me, as always. Thank you so much, Broo.

And also thank you to my lovely sister Stella, to Genevieve Pease, Jane Martin, Claire Tombs, Sue Gully, Gary Goodhew, Justin and Chris Lansdowne, Charlotte Hockin, Ayo Onatade, Cath Staincliffe, Kelly Kelday, Kirsty Forsyth, Cressi Downing, Jon and Gabrielle Breakfield, Jayne-Marie Barker, Edith Welter and Joyce Reeves, James Linsell-Clark, Christine Bartram, Dave Sivers, David Prestidge, Lisa Hall, Barbara and Graeme Key, Jim and Anne Cross, Brenda Mead. And thanks to the Goodhew series I’m delighted to be back in touch with old friends Beris Cumming, Emily Merrick and Ali DiMaggio.

Special thanks: to Steve Mosby and Richard Reynolds for their generosity. To the Royal Literary Fund for their support and also the privilege of being appointed as an RLF Fellow. To Dr William Holstein for specialist advice and entertaining emails, and to Kimberly Jackson for creating a jaunty but sinister three-word phrase. To Miles Orchard: I wrote you a sentence; it’s to make you smile, Chadwick!

Thanks to everyone who’s emailed me about the books, Goodhew and my music choices. I’m on Twitter@Alison_ Bruce and can also be contacted via my website,
www.alisonbruce.com
. Once again the readers I’ve met libraries, bookshops and reading groups have made it a very special year. Thank you all.

Finally, and most importantly, I have to say a big thank you to Jacen, Natalie, Lana and Dean, my fantastic family who make home a happy and creative place to be xxxx

Guilt.

When Genevieve Barnes was eight years old, her uncle had dropped dead in front of her. No cry of pain, clutching at the chest or desperate gasps for breath. One moment he was laughing with her mother and the next collapsing to the floor with so little resistance that afterwards she imagined that she’d seen him deflate slightly on impact.

His eyes rolled up into his head, and for one second his gaze seemed to sweep over her. Then he was gone.

His death had been as unexpected and almost as instant as it was possible to be, yet she relived his last minutes over and over. Imagining she knew about CPR. Thinking she should have known enough to spot a warning sign sometime earlier in the day. Rerunning the entire scenario and thinking of a hundred different ways of changing the outcome.

From then on she developed a new awareness of the world around her. She carried her little burden of guilt quietly and learnt first aid at school, then later trained in nursing, and after that as a paramedic.

Now, at thirty-four, she had already faced the challenge of saving lives more times than she could count. She understood that sometimes it would be impossible, but even that realization still hadn’t shaken off the shadow of helplessness and unjustified guilt that had followed her since that day in her childhood.

Guilt had become the architect of so many of her subsequent decisions.

Except, ironically, on the one day in each year when she thought of her uncle again as the real person, rather than just a watermark in the vaguest corner of her memory.

His name was Eric, and there had been no greater passions in his life than his twin loves of DIY and real ale. Genevieve still didn’t understand how anyone could be so enamoured with bookshelves and tiling, but the rugged charm of real-ale pubs and Cambridge’s annual beer festival did appeal.

And so, each year, like today, she’d arrange to meet her husband in the beer tent, pick the three most obscurely named beers, and enjoy a half pint of each.
Cheers
,
Eric
.

Genevieve cut through the back streets, and then the back alleys of other back streets. As she came closer to Jesus Green there would be others, like her, heading for an after-work drink, and an almost equal number coming away. The bursts of heavy rain wouldn’t deter many; it certainly wasn’t going to put her off.

The sun had broken through, drying big patches of pavement, but leaving anything in the shade untouched. The surrounding buildings were affected similarly, the grey and cream of rain-sodden brickwork having darkened to the colours of pewter and damp sand. The sun was hitting them again, restoring them to their natural shades. Even the air now smelt clean, and Genevieve slowed down a little to enjoy its warmth.

She crossed Alpha Road and turned down the narrow track running behind the houses on Searle Street. This short-cut saved her from walking the long way to Carlyle Road. The garden fences here were too high to look over but she could still see the upper-floor windows, many of them children’s bedrooms with a toy on the windowsill or a bunk-bed just visible through the glass. A skinny tortoiseshell cat watched her from the top of one fence.

She stopped to stroke it. It pushed its head into the palm of Genevieve’s hand, then jumped down and nudged against her ankles until it was ready to walk on.

Genevieve bent down and the animal immediately flopped on to her side and then rolled over. ‘Are you still a kitten?’ Genevieve asked out loud.

Her voice sounded out of place here in the silence of the alleyway. Suddenly it felt as though every house around her stood empty, and that she’d slipped into a completely abandoned corner of town. The only sound came from the distant main road, but the noise of passing cars had all but evaporated by the time it reached her.

She made herself talk to the cat again, ‘Good girl, good girl.’

The animal tried wrapping its front paws around Genevieve’s fingers but, although she continued to pet her, Genevieve’s attention had moved away. The cat stood up again, disappointed. Genevieve straightened, too, listening hard.

She tried to rewind what she thought she’d heard: a yelp, definitely a yelp. Human, not canine. She wasn’t sure which direction it had come from, or how close.

‘Hello?’ She made sure she uttered it with confidence but noticed that her voice sounded small and thin in any case.

She felt for her mobile in her pocket. She could phone Jimmy but, even if he could hear his phone inside the rowdy beer tent, what would he do? Most likely tell her to walk away, tell her she’d overheard nothing more sinister than a couple of shagging teenagers.

She stayed still and replayed the sound in her head once more. It had been small. Small but desperate. It had sounded female, she thought.

How would she feel if that had been a cry for help? What if the shagging was actually rape? Or the woman had fallen, and lay injured? Genevieve’s own working day was filled with such incidents, and often worse.

‘Hello!’ She said it with more force this time, and not as a question but more as a demand for a reply. No response came back.

The yelp hadn’t been loud, so she guessed it must’ve come from one of the gardens nearby. Probably just ahead of her and to the right.

She pushed at the nearest gate but it was locked. The second swung open by four or five inches before snagging on the uneven concrete underneath. She pushed it harder, and it gave a little. She squeezed through, shoulder first, and found herself in a small back yard, plain and tidy apart from four old tea chests piled beside the three-foot wall separating this property from the garden with the locked gate. The wall was the same height on both sides, so she could check out three gardens at once.

Both the neighbouring yards turned out to be empty apart from a bird feeder in one and a rotary drier in the other.

She patted her mobile again, glad she hadn’t bothered Jimmy with her over-anxiousness. She’d scanned the beer festival programme and now decided that her first half had better be
Wild Goose –
unless one called
Looking for Trouble
had since been added to the list.

She smiled, and was still smiling, as one of the back gates, two houses along and on the other side of the alley opened.

The gate was newly constructed from untreated wood panels, and it fitted badly. As it opened, a gap appeared between the hinges and, from the angle at which she stood Genevieve could see more clearly through that than through the gate itself. She saw a young woman beyond, half-sitting, half-slumped against a fence post. Genevieve swiftly pulled the mobile from her pocket just as a man stepped through the gateway. He wore a dark woollen overcoat and his hands were thrust deep into his pockets.