Peter Robinson - Not Safe After Dark

‘Yes, of course. Cast your mind back a bit earlier in the afternoon. At about twenty past three, you asked a woman what time the schools came out.’

‘Yes. I… I couldn’t remember. Francis is a teacher, so naturally I wanted to know if I was early or late. It was starting to rain.’

‘But you’d visited him there before. You said so. He’d picked you up at the same place several times.’

‘I know. I just couldn’t remember if it was three o’clock or four. I know it sounds silly, but it’s true. Don’t you ever forget little things like that?’

‘So you asked the woman on the bridge? That was you?’

‘Yes. Look, I’d hardly have done that, would I, if… I mean… like with the credit card. I’d hardly have advertised my intentions if I was going to… you know…’

Bentley raised a beetle-black eyebrow. ‘Going to what , Terry?’

Reed ran his hands through his hair and rested his elbows on the desk. ‘It doesn’t matter. This is absurd. I’ve done nothing. I’m innocent.’

‘Don’t you find schoolgirls attractive?’ Bentley went on in a soft voice. ‘After all, it would only be natural, wouldn’t it? They can be real beauties at fifteen or sixteen, can’t they? Proper little temptresses, some of them, I’ll bet. Right prick-teasers. Just think about it – short skirts, bare legs, firm young tits. Doesn’t it excite you, Terry? Don’t you get hard just thinking about it?’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Reed said tightly. ‘I’m not a pervert.’

Bentley laughed. ‘Nobody’s suggesting you are. It gets me going, I don’t mind admitting. Perfectly normal, I’d say, to find a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl sexy. My Methodist inspector might not agree, but you and I know different, Terry, don’t we? All that sweet innocence wrapped up in a soft, desirable young body. Doesn’t it just make your blood sing? And wouldn’t it be easy to get a bit carried away if she resisted, put your hands around her throat…?’

‘No!’ Reed said again, aware of his cheeks burning.

‘What about those women in the magazine, Terry? The one we found at your house?’

‘That’s different.’

‘Don’t tell me you buy it just for the stories.’

‘I didn’t say that. I’m normal. I like looking at naked women, just like any other man.’

‘Some of them seemed very young to me.’

‘For Christ’s sake, they’re models. They get paid for posing like that. I told you before, that magazine’s freely available. There’s nothing illegal about it.’ Reed glanced over his shoulder at Rodmoor, who kept his head bent impassively over his notebook.

‘And you like videos, too, don’t you? We’ve had a little talk with Mr Hakim in your corner shop. He told us about one video in particular you’ve rented lately. Soft porn, I suppose you’d call it. Nothing illegal, true, at least not yet, but a bit dodgy. I’d wonder about a bloke who watches stuff like that.’

‘It’s a free country. I’m a normal single male. I have a right to watch whatever kind of videos I want.’

‘ School’s Out ,’ Bentley said quietly. ‘A bit over the top, wouldn’t you say?’

‘But they weren’t real schoolgirls. The lead was thirty if she was a day. Besides, I only rented it out of curiosity. I thought it might be a bit of a laugh.’

‘And was it?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘But you see what I mean, don’t you? It looks bad: the subject-matter, the image. It all looks a bit odd. Fishy.’

‘Well it’s not. I’m perfectly innocent, and that’s the truth.’

Bentley stood up abruptly and Rodmoor slipped out of the room. ‘You can go now,’ the superintendent said. ‘It’s been nice to have a little chat.’

‘That’s it?’

‘For the moment, yes.’

‘But don’t leave town?’

Bentley laughed. ‘You really must give up those American cop shows. Though it’s a wonder you find time to watch them with all those naughty videos you rent. They warp your sense of reality – cop shows and sex films. Life isn’t like that at all.’

‘Thank you. I’ll bear that in mind,’ Reed said. ‘I take it I am free to go?’

‘Of course.’ Bentley gestured towards the door.

Reed left. He was shaking when he got out onto the wet, chilly street. Thank God the pubs were still open. He went into the first one he came to and ordered a double Scotch. Usually he wasn’t much of a spirits drinker, but these, he reminded himself as the fiery liquor warmed his belly, were unusual circumstances. He knew he should go back to work, but he couldn’t face it: Bill’s questions, Frank’s obvious disapproval. No. He ordered another double, and after he’d finished that, he went home for the afternoon. The first thing he did when he got into the house was tear up the copy of Mayfair and burn the pieces in the fireplace one by one. After that, he tore up his video club membership card and burned that too. Damn Hakim!

‘Terence J. Reed, it is my duty to arrest you for the murder of Deborah Susan Harrison…’

Reed couldn’t believe this was happening. Not to him. The world began to shimmer and fade before his eyes, and the next thing he knew Rodmoor was bent over him offering a glass of water, a benevolent smile on his bible salesman’s face.

The next few days were a nightmare. Reed was charged and held until his trial date could be set. There was no chance of bail, given the seriousness of his alleged crime. He had no money anyway, and no close family to support him. He had never felt so alone in his life as he did those long dark nights in the cell. Nothing terrible happened. None of the things he’d heard about in films and documentaries: he wasn’t sodomized; nor was he forced to perform fellatio at knife point; he wasn’t even beaten up. Mostly he was left alone in the dark with his fears. He felt all the certainties of his life slip away from him, almost to the point where he wasn’t even sure of the truth any more: guilty or innocent? The more he proclaimed his innocence, the less people seemed to believe him. Had he done it? He might have done.

He felt like an inflatable doll, full of nothing but air, manoeuvred into awkward positions by forces he could do nothing about. He had no control over his life any more. Not only couldn’t he come and go as he pleased, he couldn’t even think for himself any more. Solicitors and barristers and policemen did that for him. And in the cell, in the dark, everything seemed to close in on him and some nights he had to struggle for breath.

When the trial date finally arrived, Reed felt relief. At least he could breathe in the large, airy courtroom, and soon it would be all over, one way or another.

In the crowded court, Reed sat still as stone in the dock, steadily chewing the edges of his newly grown beard. He heard the evidence against him – all circumstantial, all convincing.

If the police surgeon had found traces of semen in the victim, an expert explained, then they could have tried for a genetic match with the defendant’s DNA, and that would have settled Reed’s guilt or innocence once and for all. But in this case it wasn’t so easy: there had been no seminal fluid found in the dead girl. The forensics people speculated, from the state of her body, that the killer had tried to rape her, found he was impotent and strangled her in his ensuing rage.

A woman called Maggie, with whom Reed had had a brief fling a year or so ago, was brought onto the stand. The defendant had been impotent with her, it was established, on several occasions towards the end of their relationship, and he had become angry about it more than once, using more and more violent means to achieve sexual satisfaction. Once he had gone so far as to put his hands around her throat.