Tim Vicary - A Game of Proof

His face paled. ‘What attacks, Mum? Has someone else been killed?’

‘No, no one else has been killed recently. But there was the murder of that Clayton woman last year, and that rape case I defended, and another attack on a woman called Whitaker. Surely you must have read about them?’

‘I don’t read that stuff. What’s it to do with me, anyhow?’

‘The police are looking for what they call a serial rapist. And now that they think you killed Jasmine …’

‘They think I did these others too?’ His eyes widened, he clutched his head between his hands. ‘Oh come on, they can’t be that desperate!’

‘The police are desperate, Simon, that’s exactly what they are. But so far they’ve got nothing that fits. Until you. So if they find this hood in your shed …’

‘You’re not going to show it to them, Mum? You can’t!’

‘No, I can’t. But Simon, I need to understand …’

‘Time’s up, everyone! Come on now, hurry along!’ The warder was coming towards them. Only a few seconds left. Simon leaned forward earnestly.

‘You chuck those things away, Mum, right? Get rid of ‘em quick!’

‘Yes, Simon, but …’ The warder had his hand on Simon’s shoulder.

‘You sort it, Mum, please. I trust you. You’re a lawyer, you know what to do.’

No I don’t, Sarah thought, watching him led away. I haven’t got the first idea.

The coffee slopped into the tray as Sarah put it down on the Formica topped table. She had stopped at a transport cafe on the way back to York. She slumped into a seat, sipped the lukewarm, viscous looking liquid, then pushed it away in disgust. She leaned her elbows on the table and buried her fists in her hair, tugging at it until her scalp hurt.

What was she to do? Normally she thought of herself as a forceful, decisive person who took a grip on events and controlled them, but not now. What was going wrong?

She had told herself there was no evidence and then found some. She had confronted Simon with this hood and ring, hoping that he would provide an innocent explanation. But he hadn’t, had he? Not really. He had said he knew nothing of the ring and blustered about the hood but what had really hurt her was his eyes, the way they had avoided hers the whole time. And at first he’d pretended it was a joke , for heaven’s sake!

If he had been a hostile witness with an attitude like that, she would have crucified him. And that’s the point, she thought desperately. He will be on the stand and this stuff is evidence. I wish I’d never found it.

‘Is this seat free, love?’

She looked up and saw a man in a checked shirt with a tray of all-day fried breakfast grinning down at her. The cafe was fairly full, there were no spare tables near her.

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘Ta.’ He sat down, propped the Sun against the ketchup bottle, and began to saw his way into the double eggs, fried bread, sausage, bacon and beans. Sarah stared away from him, out of the window.

The point was she’d not only found it, she’d contaminated it too. Her fingerprints would be all over the ring and although she didn’t think you could get prints off a woollen hood the fact that she’d touched it and taken it to Hull would complicate matters horribly if it ever came to court. She felt an icy wave flow through her as she imagined the scene. ‘Why did you do that, Mrs Newby? You are aware, are you not, that all criminal evidence should be properly examined by the police?’ ‘I did it because he was my son!’ ‘Were you intending to hide the evidence or tamper with it in some way?’ She closed her eyes and shuddered.

‘You all right, love?’ The lorry driver was staring at her over his newspaper, a fork full of food halfway to his mouth.

‘What? Yes, fine, thanks.’

‘You don’t look fine. You went all pale like, I thought you were going to faint.’

‘No, I’m OK, really. Just a bit tired and cold, that’s all.’ She took a second slurp of the coffee, or whatever it was.

‘Cold, on a day like this? You on a bike?’ He nodded at the helmet and gauntlets on the table, which made the answer obvious. Sarah nodded.

‘Wish my missus had the figure to fit in them biking leathers. They suit you.’

Oh God. Not here, not now, please. ‘Thanks. My husband thinks so too. He’s a boxer.’

She favoured him with the ghost of smile, letting her eyes dwell on the paunch beneath his shirt.

‘Oh, yeah. No offence.’ He carried on feeding while she sipped the vile coffee and gazed into the car park. Even if Bob were a boxer he’d still be useless, she thought bitterly. He got us into this, betraying his own stepson to the police. How could he do that?

But then what am I going to do with this hood and this ring?

The ring was still on her finger: it felt unreasonably heavy, like lead. The balaclava was in a plastic bag in the pannier of the bike. Were you intending to hide the evidence or tamper with it in some way? Yes, she thought, yes . I wish I’d never found it, I wish it didn’t exist.

She picked up her helmet and gauntlets and walked out, past the man who was polishing the sauce from his plate with a crust of fried bread. She felt strange, light-headed and slightly foggy in her mind, yet she had decided exactly what to do. She walked to the bike, opened the pannier, and took out the plastic bag. She glanced inside to reassure herself that the hood was still there; a crumpled eye slit seemed to wink at her conspiratorially. She slipped the ring off her finger and dropped it in. The weight disappeared; swinging the bag lightly from one finger, she walked across the car park to a large litter bin just outside the cafe entrance. It was shaped like a post box, with a slot near the top. She pushed the bag in the slot, and posted it inside.

Then she took a deep breath, turned away, and felt a smile twist her face. She took five strides towards the bike, hesitated, and burst into tears. The tears were totally unexpected and utterly uncontrollable. Sarah never cried like this: she didn’t know what was happening to her. She leaned over the metal bike rail, sobbing so hard she was nearly sick. The tears overwhelmed her like a flash flood in a desert, and through her mind like sticks in the flood came memories. Simon as a baby sucking her breast; Kevin telling her parents he’d marry her; Kevin leaving, with baby Simon in her bruised arms; her first kiss with Bob, so gentle and different to Kevin; herself studying inside the playpen while the toddler Simon trashed the house outside; herself carrying Emily on her hips while Bob clumsily played football with Simon; opening her exam results — O Levels, A Levels, degree; going into court in her wig and gown for her first case, so proud; Simon arguing with Bob, their faces red, his school report torn on the floor between them; Emily’s empty bedroom only a week ago, teddy bears on the bed and books still open on the table; Jasmine’s pale bruised face on the mortuary slab with a twig embedded in the waxy skin; Simon in prison this morning, frightened and evasive; Simon maybe four years old, hitting his sister Emily over the head with a stick so that her forehead had to be stitched by the doctor; the contempt on the face of a judge she had once seen, sentencing a solicitor to jail for conspiring with his client to destroy evidence in a drugs case.

And then the pictures were gone and the tears with them, as suddenly as they had come. She clung to the bike rail in the car park, cold and trembling but able to stand upright again. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

‘Can I help you, love?’

She turned and saw the man from the cafe. He was big, rather flabby, with a round friendly face in which her clear washed out mind detected no sign of malice or danger.