Caroline Graham - A Place Of Safety

Arrangements had been made to remove the man on the hall floor, whose skull had been crushed as a result of his fall, to the morgue of the London Hospital as soon as some transport could get through. Meanwhile he was invisible underneath a bedcover removed from the flat upstairs where the argument had started.

DS Bennet sat on the stairs, devastated with shame. When the DCI arrived he sprang up.

‘Sir, Christ, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I heard them - how violent it was getting. I should have gone in before. I just didn’t know whether - what ... I’m so sorry.’

Barnaby crouched down, lifted a corner of the bedcover and carefully replaced it. He touched Bennet lightly on the shoulder as he went by.

‘No need to be sorry, Sergeant.’

Several hours later, extensive liaising having taken place between the Thames Valley and the Metropolitan police forces, Valentine Fainlight, having been formally charged, was released into the custody of two officers from Causton CID.

At the station he washed and changed his clothes for a clean shirt and jeans his sister had brought along. She had refused to go home and had been waiting in reception now for almost two hours.

Barnaby and Troy had been sitting in a room on the ground floor at the back of the CID building for roughly half that time, attempting to get some sense out of Fainlight, with no success whatsoever. In London he had been seen by a doctor, examined, his cuts and bruises attended to and declared fit to be interviewed. He had not spoken there either.

Physically fit, that meant. As for the rest of him, Barnaby was not so sure. Grievous bodily harm was a term well understood in police circles. But where was the definition to cover grievous mental harm? For that was surely what the end of Fainlight’s searingly destructive relationship had brought about.

He sat with his head in his hands, his shoulders bowed. He had been offered food, tea, water and had refused all, shaking his head without speaking. Barnaby had given up switching the tape on and off. Now he tried again.

‘Mr Fainlight—?’ Barnaby could see the man was not being obdurate. He suspected that Sergeant Troy’s presence and his own had hardly registered in spite of the time that had passed. Fainlight was simply consumed by quiet, impenetrable grief.

Barnaby got up, gestured to Troy to stay put and left the room. Their prisoner was not the sort of man who would refuse to talk to the police out of principle. When he had recovered from the shock, he would tell them what had happened. But when might that be?

As far as the chief inspector had been able to ascertain, until the moment Jackson fell there were no witnesses to the fight which meant only Fainlight could tell them what had actually occurred. And it was in his own interests as well as Barnaby’s that the sooner he talked, the better. Presumably he would not wish to remain in a cell until his trial which could well be months away.

All of this Barnaby explained to Louise Fainlight in the reception area. She had sprung up on recognising him. She was much changed. He had never seen her without make-up and her naked face, stamped with the most wretched anxiety, was grey and lined. Asked her age now, he would have guessed around fifty.

‘When can I see my brother?’

‘I was hoping—’

‘Has he got someone with him? What about a solicitor? That’s his right, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Do you have a family solicitor?’

‘She’s in London. When can I see Val?’

‘Come and sit down, Miss Fainlight.’

Barnaby took her arm and they made for an unwelcoming wooden slatted bench. Louise sat reluctantly and on the very edge, plucking at the fringe of her jersey.

‘I’m sure you want to help your brother—’

‘Of course I do!’

‘And we’re hoping you can persuade him to talk to us.’

‘What, now ?’

‘The sooner he answers—’

‘You’ve been at him at that other place for hours. He should be resting.’

‘He can’t be released—’

‘Is it true, about Jax?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, poor Val!’ And she began soundlessly to cry.

There was no question of leaving Louise and her brother alone together. But Barnaby arranged the most discreet and unthreatening police presence possible. Sergeant Brierley sat, not at the table but on a chair by the far wall. Barnaby was sure that within minutes Fainlight and his sister would forget she was there and so it proved to be. An assurance had been demanded by Louise that no recordings would be made of any conversation with her brother. Though longing to be with him, she was determined to make no contribution that might reinforce, even inadvertently, the prosecution’s case.

Barnaby was sitting in the next room along the corridor. There was a small, wire-meshed window set into the wall and through this he could see and hear Louise and her brother. They sat on hard metal chairs side by side. Louise held Valentine clumsily and at an awkward angle in her arms, rocking him back and forth like a baby. This went on for almost twenty minutes and Barnaby was just about to give up when Fainlight threw back his head and let out a terrible howl followed by a series of harsh, ratching sobs.

‘We’re off,’ said Sergeant Troy who had only just come in. ‘I’ve asked them to bring some tea. Do you want a Mars while they’re at it?’

‘So when I saw the door standing open I thought it was our signal. You can imagine, Lou, how I felt.’ Tears of pain flowed down Valentine’s face. He wiped them with the back of his sleeve. The table top and floor were littered with screwed-up tissues. Louise took her brother’s hand and pressed it to her lips.

‘I ran over - I nearly fell on the stairs I climbed so fast - but there was no one there. And I realised it must have been left open by accident.’

He gripped her fingers so tightly she almost cried out.

‘God, Lou, if only I’d left then. Why didn’t I just walk away? If I’d done that he’d still be alive.’

Louise closed her face against joy. Shuttered the light in her eyes. ‘I know, love, I know.’

‘Then there was that click on the phone you get when someone picks up an extension, and I thought it might be him. And that he might be ringing me. I swear that was it, Lou. I wasn’t spying or anything. And when I heard his voice, I couldn’t believe it! So tender, so loving and gentle ... saying things I’d never dared to even dream of hearing. That she was the only one who had ever mattered, first in his heart now and always, not to worry about anything, he would be with her as soon as he could get away, everything would be all right ...’

Louise’s heart turned over with pity. She produced more tissues and once more patiently dried his face. She would need to be very patient in the weeks and months to come. Patient and disingenuous. Tender, loving and gentle.

‘And then, of course, I had to know. I had to see her. Not to do harm, though I was blind with jealousy, but just to see what sort of person could bring this miracle about. So I sat and watched. And when Jax left the house I followed him.

‘He drove to this place in the East End. I just stopped the car, left it where it was and ran after him. They were in a room at the top of the stairs. The door was open and I could see them hugging, laughing. You’d think they hadn’t seen each other for years. And then he saw me - on the landing. And everything changed.

‘I’ve never seen such anger in a human being. He screamed and shouted, and the more I tried to say I was sorry, the more violent he became. How dare I bring my ... my dirt, my filth into her home. I was a sick fuck. A pile of vomit. I wasn’t fit to live. I think he was half mad. And all the time she was talking quietly, trying to calm him down. And then he hit me.