Tim Vicary - A Game of Proof

‘I put a plaster it,’ Simon said.

‘But he doesn’t mention a plaster. I’ll check that, though.’ Lucy frowned, and made a note. ‘Third — this is the least important but it would be wonderful if we could do it — we have to think about who did kill her if you didn’t.’

‘What do you mean, least important? It seems like the most important to me.’

‘Of course it’s important , Simon,’ Lucy explained patiently. ‘But it’s not strictly our job. It’s a matter for the police. All we have to demonstrate is that you didn’t kill her. Or in fact less than that — simply that there’s no evidence that you did. But believe me, even that’s going to be hard enough. Finding out who did do it is another matter altogether.’

‘Well, I can give you one name for a start. David Brodie. He should be locked up instead of me, the bastard! See how he likes it!’

‘Why do you say that, Simon?’

‘Well, isn’t it obvious?’ Simon snorted contemptuously. ‘She was living with him but he was no good at sex — she told me. That’s why she came back — treated me like a fucking stud! Well, he must have known that, mustn’t he? She needed it too much, she’d have told him. So that would have driven him mad, even a wimp like him. And where was her body found? Quarter of a mile from his house. So why aren’t they searching his place, eh? Looking for bloody knives in his cupboard?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lucy answered cautiously. ‘I can ask the police, though.’

‘Well, ask then, will you? Please?’ Simon glanced aside at his mother.

Sarah smiled faintly, encouraging his attempt at politeness. ‘We’ll ask, certainly. But while we’re on this, Simon, what about another possibility? Gary Harker?’

‘Gary?’ he said. His face paled slightly. ‘Why him?’

‘Well, he’s a violent man, as you know. He almost certainly raped Sharon Gilbert, and …’ Sarah hesitated. She hadn’t told Simon how Gary had attacked her, and she didn’t want to tell him now. Partly because she was ashamed of the whole incident and wanted to block it out, but more because she feared Simon’s response. He would be outraged by an attack on his mother, and she’d had enough of his rage already. No doubt the prison warders had too.

So she continued, rather feebly: ‘… and he has a record of petty crime and violence going back to his teens. In addition to which he had met Jasmine, hadn’t he? At your house?’

‘Yeah, I suppose he had, once or twice. But he had nowt to do with her, surely?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘I wasn’t there.’

‘No, well, he didn’t. She was always with me when he was there, and … Christ, I’ll kill the bastard if he’s touched her!’

‘We don’t know that he did, Simon,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s just that, you see, he’s the sort of man who could have killed her, isn’t he? If he asked her for sex, perhaps, and she refused.’

‘Jesus. ’ Simon banged his forehead with his fist, repeatedly. The thought of Gary with Jasmine clearly hurt him badly.

‘So if you can think of any occasions, any incidents that might suggest his involvement, tell us about them and we’ll pass them on to the police and if possible use them in court,’ Lucy continued. ‘Any suggestion that someone else may have killed her is good. But Gary’s rather a long shot. He was only released from court on the afternoon of the day she died. You didn’t see him at any time that day, did you?’

Simon looked at her blankly. ‘No, how could I? I was with Jasmine all afternoon, in bed mostly. I didn’t see him there.’

‘He didn’t come round to your house, ring you, anything like that?’

‘No.’ He swallowed nervously. ‘Look, if he killed her — and you’re right, mum, he could have, he’s the sort of bastard who could, no doubt about that — then I don’t know why or how he met her. But — oh God …’ He sank his head in his hands, and Sarah realised he was crying. ‘ … it’s bad enough that she’s dead, but to think it might be him. ..’

They waited until he recovered his composure. Sarah remembered the suspicion she had voiced so unwillingly to Terry Bateson the other night; what if this series of crimes had actually been perpetrated by two men, working together, one perhaps under the influence of the other? Had Gary controlled her son, in some way?

When he looked up, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, she asked gently: ‘Why do you hate him so much, Simon?’

‘Because …’ He shook his head. ‘No, I can’t.’

‘Because what? Tell me.’

Still no response. He looked away from her, at the wall, but found no comfort there.

Lucy added her voice. ‘Come on, Simon. We can’t help you if we don’t know.’

‘Oh God!’ He put his hands flat on the table, looked at the two women desperately. ‘Because I’m afraid of him , that’s why, if you really have to know. So if he can scare me, what he might have done to Jasmine …’

‘What did he do to you, Simon?’

‘It wasn’t just him.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Him and that bastard Sean. They beat me up in the loo and … I shit myself.’ He shook his head violently from side to side, as though to escape the memory. ‘They stuck my face down the loo … That’s why I let them use the bloody shed! I don’t want to talk about it, mum, I’m sorry.’

He got up and turned away from them again, banging the wall repeatedly with the flat of his hand, and then his head, thump, thump …

Sarah stood up and held him, put her hand on his forehead so that he would have to bang that if he wanted to bang his head. She could feel him sobbing, her big strong son … She put her slim arms around him but how could they protect, if his own strength had been destroyed?

He tried to push her off but she wouldn’t let go. As she held him she met Lucy’s eyes and they both thought, we’re Gary Harker’s defence team, we got him off …

At last Simon sat down. Ashamed and embarrassed, he tried to regain his dignity. ‘I’m sorry, it weren’t that bad really, just their idea of a filthy joke. But no one’s ever done owt like that to me before and if they tried I could always stop them. But not these two. And the thought of him, either of ‘em, having to do with Jasmine, it’s … I don’t want to think of it.’

Two of them, Sarah thought. But not Simon and Gary, after all …

Terry was at home, in his living room, reading. His daughters were, he hoped, asleep. His Norwegian nanny, Trude, was on the phone in the corridor, talking to her boyfriend. Terry could hear the conversation but he wasn’t intruding; he couldn’t, he didn’t know any Norwegian.

He was reading Maria Clayton’s diary. Re-reading it, rather; he had read it several times before. It was an odd mixture of personal appointments, notes, lists, philosophical reflections and comments on her clients.

It was the latter, naturally, which interested Terry most. They had a wide number of preferences, some of which, clearly, Maria had found amusing. Terry sympathized with her. Why, for example, would a salesman, married with two children, want to dress up as a French maid and have his bottom spanked if he spilt Maria’s drinks? Or a bank manager pay her to cover his erect penis with ice cream and lick it slowly off while he gave her?5 notes?

No wonder some of these men had been reluctant to help the police enquiry. Still, Terry thought, such activities were harmless, if absurd. Whatever the men who indulged in them were, they were not dangerous psychopaths.

So it was the other details Terry was checking on now. The appointments, the notes. He checked them all, one by one, against a timetable of the last two months of Maria’s life. It was a slow, painstaking search for the one vital clue which would throw everything else into place.