Martin Edwards - Suspicious Minds

“No thanks, I won’t take up too much of your time.”

“No hurry.” They sat down facing each other and she smiled at him. “Hughie works long hours. He isn’t due until half-seven. We won’t be eating till after then.”

“Hughie?”

“The new man in my life,” she said with a laugh. “Hughie Wakefield. He runs a business which digs holes in the ground and then fills them in again at a large profit. I always knew business works in a mysterious way, but I never realised how mysterious till I met Hughie.”

“Wakefield Waste?” Harry nodded. “I know them. Big company.” Unexpectedly, he felt a sense of disappointment at her news, which was as irrational as it was unfair. Sally had known hard times. Why should he begrudge her a little pleasure?

As if she could read his thoughts, she said, “It took a while for me to get over Clive. Now I’m simply spreading my wings again.”

“I’m glad,” he said. And, after his momentary pang of envy, he meant it.

Three years earlier he had acted for Sally Jean-Jacques in her divorce. She had been widowed at thirty and left a tidy sum by her first husband, a dentist twenty years her senior who had died of cancer. Too quickly Sally had re-married, to a marketing consultant from Bermuda whom she had met while taking a hard earned holiday after months of nursing a dying man. Clive Jean-Jacques had been fun when times were good between them, violent when they were not. After he had fractured her jaw in a fit of drunken temper she had decided that enough was enough and had walked out with Gina and returned to her roots in Merseyside.

Harry’s professional shoulder had been there for her to cry on and she seemed to value that as much as his advice on the matrimonial proceedings. When the case was over and the file closed he had once or twice wondered what would have happened if he’d taken her to bed instead of confining himself to a chaste farewell kiss on the cheek. It never could have worked out, he told himself, for two vulnerable people there would have soon have been an end in tears. Whether he really believed himself was another story.

“You sounded very mysterious on the phone,” she said.

“Sorry. It was — quite strange talking to you again after all this time.”

“I was glad to hear from you. As you ought to have guessed. But what is all this about Gina? How can she help you?”

“As I said, Claire Stirrup’s father is a client of mine. I gather she went to the same school as Gina and a girl called Stephanie Elwiss. I was speaking to Stephanie last night. She told me that Gina had been attacked by The Beast.”

Sally’s eyes clouded. “That’s right. Four weeks ago and a night hasn’t passed since without her waking in the night, crying out for me to help her.”

“Christ, Sally, it must be hell to live through something like that.”

“And yet, what else can you do but live through it? You can’t simply give up the ghost. Life goes on. We all ought to count our blessings. And all the other cliches I’ve heard a thousand times. You know what I mean.”

“She’s lucky to have you to lean on.”

“You think so? I feel very inadequate sometimes.”

He looked at her, his face grave. “Not you, Sally.”

“Well… you’re still kind, still good for my morale. Anyway — what can we do for you?”

“Claire came to visit Gina last Friday night, I believe.”

“Yes, she did. The police asked about it. Apparently they saw all the girls poor Claire knew at school, but Gina came in for special questioning simply because she was one of the last people to see Claire alive. I doubt she could tell them much they didn’t already know, but obviously they think the man who raped her may also have murdered Claire.”

“Were you surprised when Claire came to visit on Friday?”

“To tell the truth, I was. This sounds dreadful after what happened to her, but I’d always thought of her as a self-centred girl. She and Gina were never close. Not that Gina has many good friends, poor girl. At least not of the two-legged variety. You’ll remember she’s crazy about horses? Or was, before…”

“Sally, would you mind if I talked to Gina about that evening? I’m trying to piece together what Claire was up to just before she was killed.”

“Why, Harry?”

“Because I think it may help me to understand why she was murdered.”

“Surely the police…”

“Don’t ask me to explain yet, Sal. I’m not sure I could if I tried. My mind’s a jumble at the moment. All the same, I think Gina could help me clear things up, if you and she were willing.”

“It’s all right by me. I know you’ll be sympathetic when you talk to her.”

“Sit in with us if you like. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t.”

“No. I spoke to her after you called. She liked you. That time she came with me to your office, she remembers it to this day. Take her for a walk along the front, it’s a beautiful afternoon. I want her to start trusting men again, to be willing to be alone with them. Within reason, of course. She’s got to learn that you’re not all brutes.”

“Sometimes I wonder about that myself.”

“Nonsense. There are good men and there are bad men. We all have to make our judgements about which are which. No one can go through life expecting the worst of everyone they meet. I’ll call her down now. If you want me later, I’ll be in the kitchen.”

She left the room and he heard her calling her daughter’s name. There was the soft sound of footsteps coming down the carpeted steps, then the creak of the door as someone came in behind him.

He got to his feet, “Gina, how are you?”

The girl’s fair hair had been as long as her mother’s when last he had seen her; now it was cropped short. All the colour seemed to have been washed out of her cheeks and she was painfully thin. Immediately he suspected anorexia and wished he hadn’t asked the conventional question.

To his surprise, she answered in a level tone. “Okay, could be worse, could be better.”

“I was sorry when I heard…”

It was another sentence which he regretted as soon as he started to utter it. Gina was not the first rape victim he had met. He had acted for clients who had been attacked, as well as several who were attackers. Why he felt so awkward with this girl, he wasn’t sure. Was it the sense of intruding on misery, the awareness that to satisfy his own curiosity he must force this child to recall the worst moments of her short life?

She shrugged away the brief embarrassment. “I’m getting over it. You may not think so to look at me. But I am.”

“Good.” He was uncertain how to continue.

Again she rescued him. “Mum told me you work for Claire’s father. She didn’t know what you want from me, but she said you wouldn’t ask to see me if you didn’t have a good reason.”

“So is it okay with you that we talk?”

When she nodded he went on, “Your mother suggested a stroll along the promenade. How does that sound to you?”

“Selfish.” Gina managed a smile. “It means she can listen to her Barry Manilow records in peace for a few minutes. Shall we go?”

Once outside they crossed the road and leaned on the railings, looking across the estuary towards the three small islands, Hilbre, Middle Hilbre and Little Eye, each of them so near and yet somehow so remote. The sanctuary where monks had once lived a life of penance and prayer had long ago crumbled. Now the islands were home to terns and wading birds rather than men of God. All that remained was the air of peace; you could sense it even from the mainland.

For a few minutes neither of them spoke. Harry guessed the girl was summoning up her courage to talk about her ordeal, trying to draw strength from the tranquillity of the scene.