Tim Vicary - A Game of Proof

Helen looked up at her mum, who nodded for her to go on.

‘… I screamed and hit him hard with my riding whip. He didn’t let go at first so I tried to kick him too and then Toby reared and we got away. Then I galloped home and told mum.’

Terry nodded. ‘You must have been very frightened.’

‘I was, yes. Course I was.’

‘Did you see what the man did when you got away?’

‘No. I looked back once and saw him running into the woods. Then he was gone. I didn’t want to see him.’

‘No, of course not.’ Terry watched her for a moment in silence. He was fairly convinced she was telling the truth; there seemed no reason not to. ‘How did he speak? Like someone from round here?’

‘No. It was a funny accent — not local.’

‘And you’re sure he tried to pull you off the horse? You couldn’t have made a mistake — he wasn’t just trying to be friendly?’

‘No! What do you mean, mistake? I can feel him doing it, now!’

‘All right, I’m sorry.’ He had really upset her now, he saw. She was crying, and her mother reached out to hug her. This was serious, he thought angrily. It could have been very serious indeed. But the great thing was, she had seen his face. And heard his voice.

He waited for a moment while the tears subsided, then, as gently as he could, said: ‘Listen to me, Helen. It’s important to catch this man, isn’t it? So I want you to do one more thing for me — in a while, when you’re feeling better. I want you to help us make a photofit picture of this man. We’ve got a lady officer who’s very good at that. Will you come and see her, please?’

She nodded, still with tears in her eyes but determined, too. Encouraged, Terry made the arrangements with her mother and left.

He sighed as Harry drove down the track, the collie streaking alongside. After Gary Harker’s arrest, this sort of thing should be over. Of course there were other men like Gary, but statistically, Terry knew, this sort of behaviour was odd. Most rapists were known to their victims; more rapes were committed by relatives in the home than by strangers in the woods.

He thought how angry he would feel if such a thing happened to his own girls. It would be insupportable. I’d kill the bastard, he thought, his hands tightening on his knees. Kill him and ask questions after.

As Sarah wheeled the Kawasaki into the street something tugged at her memory. She glanced at her watch and swore. 7.40. Her daughter Emily had a school concert that night and she had promised to go. When did it begin — eight? Eight thirty? Pray God it was the latter. Quickly she fastened her helmet, settled herself in the saddle, and turned the key. The engine purred smoothly. I must be quick, she thought. Not so much freedom after all.

But as the bike wove its way swiftly down the street the old thrill returned. It was so powerful and free, compared to a car. Why shouldn’t she enjoy it, this daily adventure on the roads? It was her reward for long hours of work, for all the disasters of her childhood.

If Emily was late for the concert and threw a tantrum, so what? Secretly Sarah regarded her daughter as spoilt. What did Emily know of trouble or poverty? Nothing, compared to her mother.

Sarah had been fifteen when she met Kevin Mills, and he had been seventeen. She had been an ordinary conscientious working-class girl at her local grammar school, not particularly clever or pretty, five foot six with short dark hair. The first risk she had ever taken was to drink two halves of lager and lift her miniskirt for Kevin in the back of his parent’s yellow Ford Cortina; and that risk had ruined her life. She still remembered, almost every day, the lonely dread for weeks afterwards waiting for a period that never came. And then the morning sickness, and telling her mother.

And Kevin.

Kevin was of course a devil, a satyr to have seduced an underage schoolgirl, but he had great pride. He was shorter than other boys, but wiry and strong, able to command respect with a look or sharp word. Nobody put him down; he was too dangerous for that. He was also capable of great charm. She knew he’d had other girls but he’d chosen her. She had felt proud and excited to be with him. Not afraid, not then.

Not even when she told him she was carrying his baby.

At that moment, he had been brilliant. Or so she had thought at the time. She could remember how the angry pimple on his forehead flared red as the rest of his face went white with shock. But then, when the truth had sunk in, he had puffed out his chest like a little fighting cock — he had been proud! She was pregnant with his baby — he had done it before most other boys on the estate! So two days later he had stood in her front room with her hand in his and told her parents he was going to marry her. Not asked them, told them. At seventeen years old he said he loved her and wanted her children and they were going to get married.

Such fools they both were.

They were married when she was sixteen, and the social services found them a council house on the Seacroft estate in Leeds. It was a dreadful estate; their house had damp running down the walls so freely that they saw snails crawling above the cot. The wallpaper was peeling off, the window frames were rotting and the weeds were two feet high in the garden, growing out of the dog muck that the previous tenant’s three rottweilers had left.

But at first it didn’t matter. It was their own house and they were young and determined and it almost seemed like a game. They furnished it with second-hand carpets and a plastic three piece suite, a brand-new cot from social services for the baby and a mattress on the bedroom floor for themselves. In the kitchen they had a Baby Belling cooker with two electric rings only one of which worked when the oven was on. Her mother gave her a cookbook called Healthy Eating for Less Than a Pound a Day , and Sarah came to know all its recipes by heart. Often things were burnt or underdone but in those first few weeks it didn’t matter because afterwards, so long as the baby was asleep, they could go up to their own bedroom in their own house and make love as long and adventurously as they liked.

And they did like. When Sarah’s father had described Kevin as a randy little sod he had been telling the exact truth and Sarah, aged sixteen, responded with delight and enthusiasm. That grubby bedroom, with a mattress and a rug on the floor, a stained mirror and an old chest of drawers with paint peeling off it, became for that brief period their version of the Arabian Nights. In those first few weeks of marriage Sarah’s sexuality blossomed as suddenly and completely as a flower in an arctic spring.

But then it faded, never to be the same again. The demands of real life piled up outside the bedroom door. Unwashed dishes, crying baby, dirty nappies, shopping, social worker, doctor, colds, cystitis, measles, vaccinations, electricity bills, pegging out the washing, rent demands, broken windows, cleaning, cooking, milkman’s bills. Sarah wanted to go home, but she couldn’t — this was home.

And Kevin was away so much. He was a plumber’s apprentice, off to work at eight in the morning and then not back again for eight, ten, even twelve hours. Then he wanted food, sex, and sleep, in that order. He would play with the baby for a few minutes but wanted it go to sleep afterwards. When it didn’t, he became jealous. When it woke in the night, he was annoyed. When she cooked badly, he became irritable. When she was too tired or ill for sex, he became angry.

The first time he hit her was when she tried to discuss an electricity bill as they were undressing for bed. She had read about this technique for extracting money from your husband in a magazine in the doctor’s waiting room, whose agony aunt had clearly met no one like Kevin. Kevin just slapped her and continued with his lovemaking as though nothing had happened. The electricity was cut off a week later. She covered the bruise on her face with powder.