The Burden of Doubt (16 page)

‘Everything OK?’ the nurse asked, swinging herself behind the counter and easing off one of her shoes.

Anderson looked at her unsmiling. ‘It’s been a hard day,’ he said.

Georgie treated herself to a smoking session in the car, it was getting to be one of the few places you could have a puff without being reminded of what a filthy and deadly habit it was. Driving through the Bradford suburbs at night-time was hardly a cheering pastime, though it had its interests for a budding journalist. She noticed newspaper hoardings outside shops, tattered and smudged after the day’s sleet and icy rain:
Local man in custody for Moira’s murder
, they proclaimed. Tipsy folks spilled from the pubs, stopping at late night shops for fattening snacks. The women didn’t have half enough clothes on for the weather. They were just girls really, tottering on high heels, their tits popping out of their tight tops, their skirts halfway up their arses. When I have a kid, she thought, if it’s a girl, I’m not going to let her out until she’s twenty-five. She can wear any gear she likes, but she’s staying at home with me.

She turned into the council estate where Shaun lived. The road surfaces on the maze of streets were horrific, all broken up and full of holes. She had to steer like crazy, veering back and forth over the road to miss axle-busting canyons.

She stopped outside Shaun’s house, finished her cigarette, squirted Gold Spot into her mouth and then sprayed herself with Miss Dior, because she fancied you couldn’t get any classier smell around yourself than that.

Tina was prompt in answering the door. Georgie had her sized up in a split second: tiny, sexy, street-wise rather than clever, and probably as hard and brittle as a walnut shell. And very wary.

Concealing her amazement at the state of the entrance to the house, Georgie picked her way cautiously across the stony damp floor of the hallway, inhaling the scents of earth, drains and stale cooking. Poor Shaunie ending up in this hell hole she thought, keeping an eye on Tina who was leading the way into the living-room, her small bottom wiggling seductively in tight black jeans.

‘Sit down,’ Tina told her visitor.

‘Thanks. Call me Georgie.’ She gave an encouraging smile.

‘So what do you want then?’ Tina’s neat little face was tight with misgiving. She had remained standing up.

‘Don’t look so worried, Tina. I’m on your side. Yours and Shaun’s.’

‘Do the police know you’re here?’

Georgie grinned and snorted. ‘No way. You see what I’m after is getting justice for Shaun. Because both you and I know that he didn’t kill Moira Farrell.’ She spoke with slow steady conviction, at the same time digging into her handbag and taking out a half bottle of Pinot Grigio. ‘I guessed you’d be a white wine girl,’ she told Tina. ‘Could you get us a couple of glasses?’

Still looking doubtful, Tina disappeared into the kitchen. Streetwise, but does what she’s told, Georgie thought, looking around the chaotic living-room, and thanking God she didn’t have to live here. She got out her mobile phone and pressed the settings so it would record.

Tina returned with two cloudy-looking glasses. ‘Sorry about the mess,’ she told Georgie. ‘Shaun’s going to get things fixed up, and it’ll be really nice then. But …’

‘But he’s had other things on his mind. ‘Georgie unscrewed the cap on the wine bottle and poured herself and Tina a glass. ‘Cheers!’

‘Yeah,’ Tina said doubtfully, perching on the opposite end of the sofa to Georgie and taking a large sip of wine. ‘How can you get justice for Shaun?’ she asked.

‘I used to go to school with him when I was a kid,’ Georgie said, not ready to answer Tina’s question yet. ‘Ravenscar First school.’

Tina’s eyes sharpened. ‘Is that really true?’

‘Yeah. Mind you, Shaun wasn’t there a lot of the time. Bunking off.’

Tina gave a faint smile. ‘Yeah. That’s Shaun.’

‘In those days the teachers used to bawl kids out when they came back into school. So, guess what, they went bunking off again. It was like smacking a runaway puppy when it decides to come back to you.’

Tina took another swig of wine. Georgie could see that she was beginning to relax.

‘He had a bad time when he was a kid,’ Tina said. ‘His mum was a slapper; she went through men like a hot knife through butter. But his gran was nice.’

‘There’s always a silver lining,’ Georgie observed, wetting her lips with the wine. She wanted to stay sober and she certainly didn’t want getting caught drink driving.

‘It was her house where the police got him,’ Tina said looking thoughtful. ‘It wasn’t me who shopped him, you know. I never told the police, though I was pretty sure where he was. The police found out somehow.’

‘Well, sometimes they get things right,’ Georgie said with a wry grin.

‘I hope he doesn’t think I was the one that gave the police the nod.’

‘I’ll bet he doesn’t.’ Georgie said. ‘He used to be a loyal type, Shaunie. A bit of a delinquent but not nasty, not cruel.’

‘No, that’s right,’ Tina said. Her features registered sadness. She drained her wine. Georgie poured her another glass.

‘Have you been to see him?’

Alarm came into Tina’s eyes. ‘No.’

‘Do you miss him?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tina. ‘Yeah, I do.’ She stared down into her wine. ‘He’s been having a bad time.’

‘You can say that again,’ Georgie agreed.

‘Not just all this with the police. His gran died a few weeks back. He was gutted. He cried, he really cried.’

‘That’s sad,’ Georgie’s mind began ticking fast. ‘You don’t believe he killed Moira Farrell do you?’ she said, soft and slow.

‘No.’

‘You gave him an alibi.’

‘Yeah. But the police don’t care a jot about that. They think I’m a waste of space. A scrote’s tart. They think I’d say anything to get him off and keep a quiet life for myself.’

‘Do you think Shaun’s a “scrote”?’ Georgie asked.

Tina looked up. Her pale cheeks were becoming pink from drinking the wine. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’

‘And was he here with you when Moira Farrell was killed?’

There was no hesitation. ‘Yes, he was.’

‘Would you stand up and say that in court?’

A tiny pause. ‘Yes!’

‘So why aren’t you speaking up for him, Tina?’ Georgie asked.

‘What?’

‘Why aren’t you jumping up and down and making a fuss about his being held for questioning?’

Tina gaped at her questioner and placed the tip of her thumbnail between her front teeth. ‘They wouldn’t take any notice of me.’

‘Why not?’

‘I told you, they don’t rate me.’

‘I don’t think that’s true, Tina. In fact I think they’d start taking a lot of notice of you if you did a bit of jumping up and down and standing by your man.’

Tina looked baffled, but definitely interested.

‘I’ll help you,’ Georgie said.

‘How?’

‘First off, I’ll write an article about you and him. About how you’re determined to stand by him. How you know he didn’t do it, and how the police have sidelined you and chosen to ignore your vital evidence. Because, you see, Tina, what you say is proof that Shaun isn’t the man the police need to charge as he was here with you at the time Moira Farrell was murdered. End of story.’

‘Is it as simple as that?’ Tina asked in wonder.

‘Yes,’ Georgie said, happy to lie when necessity demanded.

‘I’ll be in the newspaper?’ Tina said, like a child being offered an unexpected present.

‘Yep, and I’ll get one of our photographers to come round to
your work first thing tomorrow morning and take a picture. So get your best kit on.’ Pleased with Tina’s reaction, Georgie pressed on, ‘And when the article’s published we’ll go to the police station together and talk to the big boss in charge.’

‘But what if they won’t let him go?’ Tina asked, wondering through the fuzz of the wine what she’d be feeling like if they did let him go.

‘They will,’ said Georgie. ‘And after that I’ve got something rather good up my sleeve to make sure the police won’t be bothering him again.’

Tina allowed herself to be convinced.

Georgie gathered her gear together and prepared to make a move. Her calculating mind threw up one final idea to leave Tina with. ‘So Shaun’s gran had her own house, did she?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well then, if she remembered him in her will, your Shaunie might be coming into a bit of money, mightn’t he?’ She winced slightly as she stepped down into the squelch of the hallway.

‘I suppose so,’ Tina said, as though the idea hadn’t occurred to her.

‘You could get this place all done up,’ Georgie ventured cheerily, being careful where she placed her feet.

‘Yeah.’ Tina was looking decidedly wistful now, quite the devoted girlfriend and soul mate. ‘Yeah, that would be cool.’

Georgie sat in her car for a few moments, and allowed herself a little gloating. She reckoned she had the makings of a good article –
Agony of girlfriend as local man faces murder charge
. Front page stuff. She imagined standing up to the editor, persuading, arguing, wheedling. He’d say he couldn’t promise the front page. Other stories might break. Already her article would have knocked a fatal car crash and the rape of a local teacher to the inside, etc, etc. But Georgie knew she could do a fantastic piece. And Tina was just the sort of downtrodden low self-esteem girl who would love the exposure and then playing the noble heroine standing by her man. And she’d photograph well. Moreover there was plenty more up Georgie’s sleeve to be toying with if Shaun got out.

And all for the price of half a bottle of Pinot Grigio.

Swift drove along the early morning streets, on his way to see Rajesh Patel at his house. It was snowing once again, but not settling: the roads gleamed black against the greying snow heaped at the edge of the pavements. During the time Swift had been planning a slot when he could see Patel once more, the professor had telephoned him with a request of his own for a talk. Swift did not know what agenda Patel had in mind but he knew by now that unless Patel, or someone else, produced some vital new evidence it was more or less certain they would have to release Shaun Busfield within the next couple of hours. Which, on the whole, he judged was probably justified, being privately inclined to believe that Busfield had not killed Moira, despite the evidence supplied by the bloodstained trainers in the garden.

As he drove, thoughts of Naomi rose to the forefront of his mind temporarily pushing the Farrell case on to the back burner. In the past two days he had had more than one phone call from Cat, both indicating that Naomi was doing fine, and, from what he could tell, indicating that Cat and Naomi had formed some kind of relationship. He was interested in how much the idea of it pleased him. His feelings towards Cat involved both warmth and trust, and the notion that she might be offering Naomi a degree of friendship and protection was nothing but welcome.

He recalled that before Naomi was born his and Kate’s friends had kept teasing them about sleepless nights and loss of freedom and how their lives were never going to the same. What they hadn’t mentioned was how knocked out they would be by how much they’d love her right from the word go. How precious she would be. And after that there was always the fear of things going wrong for her – just ordinary things, falling off a slide, contracting some awful illness, being bullied, getting in the way of a car when crossing the road. All the usual. And then Kate got killed and the worry was how he would ever manage to make the loss up to her. Which, of course, he could never do.

And now, totally unexpectedly, someone was sharing that concern, easing the load.

As he parked his car at the bottom of Rajesh Patel’s drive, the professor opened the door and stood waiting for him. He extended his hand as though Swift were a welcome visitor, then invited him to sit in the warmth of the kitchen. ‘Can I offer you some refreshment, Chief Inspector?’

Swift shook his head.

Patel sat down. ‘I went to see James Anderson yesterday. I don’t know if you’re aware.’

‘No.’

‘I challenged him about having an affair with Moira. And he admitted it. And I told him about the two babies, that only one of them carried my DNA.’

He spoke with steady clarity and a reasonableness quite remarkable for a man who had suffered such emotional pain during the last few days. Swift reckoned Anderson would have been seriously rattled if Patel had treated him to all this self-composure, which must surely be underlain by some grave, deep antipathy and menace.

‘Did he admit he could be the father of the other baby?’

‘Yes. And I happen to know that he’s currently having an affair with one of the sisters on the gynaecology ward. I have one or two students who are happy to act as moles.’

‘I see.’ Swift looked into the other man’s face. ‘Professor Patel, what else do you know?’

Patel sighed. ‘Nothing that’s going to help you find Moira’s killer. That’s if this man you’re holding turns out to be a red herring.’

‘Did you really not know about Moira’s pregnancy?’ Swift asked.

‘I’m afraid I didn’t, and that has been causing me a good deal of distress, that I should have been so lacking in perception.’

‘Was there something else? Some other worry regarding Moira which distracted you?’

Patel offered a fleeting regretful smile. ‘I was worried that she was going to destroy her career by making a complaint to the hospital management about Adrian Cavanagh. A complaint of professional incompetence. She’d witnessed it first hand on
several occasions. She’d seen patients suffer, she’d seen one or two die. And she was determined to do something about it.’

‘But you didn’t want her to complain?’

‘I knew it would be fruitless and I feared it might even destroy her career. Management don’t like to go public regarding incompetence in their consultants, it reflects so badly on hospital performance targets. And whistle blowers are simply not to be tolerated, they get ostracized; they even get suspended. And after that they don’t get new jobs.’

‘So the bodies are swept under the carpet?’

‘That more or less describes it.’

‘Did you and Moira argue about this?’

‘Oh yes. On more than one occasion. And notably on the evening before she died. It upset us both greatly. I warned her she was going to commit professional suicide by speaking out.’ He stared fixedly at Swift and for a moment it seemed that a confession was forthcoming. Swift skimmed through the possibilities: Patel had been driven to a point of utter frustration, had snapped, had dealt his wife one fatal stab. Had somehow managed to frame Shaun Busfield.