David Belbin - Bone & Cane

‘I did a nice piece about you for today’s paper.’

‘I’ll look forward to it.’ The Evening Post had just gone to press. Her constituency office would fax her any important local stories by midday.

‘One story that isn’t in the paper today, I thought you’d want to know. Ed Clark.’

‘What about him?’

‘Got his compensation through. A quarter of a million he settled for. Could have held out for more, given the strong implications that the police fitted him up for killing one of their own, but he was in a hurry for the money, evidently. I’m surprised he didn’t call to thank you.’

‘Maybe he left a message at my office,’ Sarah said, not revealing she already knew about Ed’s ill-gotten gains. ‘Unlike you, he doesn’t have my home number.’

‘Word is, he’s gone to the Caribbean,’ Brian told her. ‘In the air now. I spoke to his mother just before I left the office. She says he bought a one-way ticket, doesn’t know when he’s coming back.’

‘Was he on his own?’

‘That’s what I heard.’

Sarah wondered if Polly knew about the one-way ticket. But she’d exhausted her sympathy for the bereaved sister.

‘I rang the police after I heard about the compo, asked if they’d reopened the case.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ Sarah said. ‘You were given the usual we are not pursuing any other suspects .’

‘No, even they realized that was a bit tactless in the circumstances. They said, off the record, that we’d never know if Liv Shanks killed her husband, or not.’

‘They never proved that those were her fingerprints on the gun,’ Sarah pointed out, angry and a little bored that the police were trotting out a theory she had always avoided as being in bad taste.

‘The fingerprints on the gun were smeared, but a close match nevertheless. She could have shot him, then shot herself.’

‘With the best part of an hour between the shootings? It still doesn’t make sense.’

‘There was a blow to the head before the shooting. Maybe Liv knocked Terry out, then went hunting for the gun. It took her a while to find it, to work up the courage to finish him off.’

‘And the motive? Marital rape?’

‘That we’ll never know,’ Brian said. ‘But it makes as much sense as Ed Clark having hung around to kill Liv. I thought you’d like to know what the police were saying, so you could put it behind you. Congratulations on the job. You’ll be in the cabinet before you know it.’

‘Thanks, Brian. I appreciate your support.’

‘You’d have beaten Barrett Jones easily even without my help. You know that?’

‘Probably,’ Sarah said, aware that Brian was none-too-subtly reminding her she owed him a favour. ‘Water under the bridge. Anyway, if there are any stories I can put your way, I will.’

‘Appreciated,’ Brian said. ‘I’ll let you get back to your work.’ He left for second class. Sarah opened her copy of the Guardian but didn’t read. She thought about Ed in the air. He was gone for good, with any luck. She could put that behind her now. There was work to do.

Nick managed to catch a couple of hours’ sleep before seeing his probation officer. He apologised profusely for missing his meeting of the week before.

‘No problem,’ said Dave Trapp. ‘I expect you were ill.’

Dave liked to treat Nick as an equal. They were two guys with degrees and careers, only Nick had taken a wrong turning: that was Dave’s approach, one that Nick found easy to go along with. He was about to tell the truth when he remembered that failure to provide a legitimate excuse resulted in a warning, three of which would put you back inside.

‘I came down with some kind of fever, lost track of time.’

‘Been to the doctor?’

‘No. I was too ill to go out. When I felt better, it was the weekend so the doctor wasn’t open. Didn’t seem much point in going today. I had a lie-in, but I seem to be on the mend.’

‘You don’t look too bad now,’ Dave said. ‘But, next time, do yourself a favour, get a doctor’s note.’

‘Will do,’ Nick said. He was being treated with respect but still felt humiliated, a naughty schoolboy forced to sustain a trivial lie.

‘Any work?’ the probation officer asked.

‘Just the two private tutees I told you about.’

‘No problems there?’ They had discussed at their last meeting whether Nick was required to disclose his convictions to the parents. He’d have to disclose them were he applying to work in a school. Dave had reached the conclusion that this wasn’t necessary, so long as Nick didn’t lie if asked. Probation wanted him to work. Statistically, Nick was much more likely to reoffend if he was unemployed.

‘None at all.’

‘All this free time isn’t giving the devil work for idle hands?’

At least he hadn’t asked the awkward question he’d asked in their first few meetings: Keeping off the wacky baccy? Smoking it wasn’t the same as growing it. According to Dave, Probation Services assessed Nick’s biggest risk factor as a return to some kind of drug dealing.

‘My sister-in-law just had a baby. I’ve been round there a lot.’

‘Good to hear. Have you thought about doing some voluntary work? It’s a good way of getting recent references for a job you like. In the long run, with someone of your experience and intelligence, it could lead to a full-time job. Drug counselling, for instance.’

‘That’s a thought,’ Nick said.

‘I’ll give you some leaflets. Think it over. That’s it, then. Another couple of weeks and you’ll be down to once-a-fortnight interviews.’

After that it would be once a month, until Nick reached what would have been the three-quarters point in his sentence: six years. Beyond that, he would no longer be on license. He could still be recalled to prison if he was convicted of another crime – but only if a punitive judge decided to embellish his sentence with the unused time from his previous sentence. It would be two and a half years before Nick was completely clear. Even then, as he’d served more than five years, the law said that he would always have to declare his conviction on application forms, no matter how inconsequential the job.

‘Anything I can help you with? Courses, references, whatever . . .’

‘No, I’m fine.’

Despite the missed appointment, Nick’s interview had taken less than ten minutes, as usual. He walked back through the city, thinking about the love of a good woman. He’d nearly had that with Sarah. Deep down, though, he’d always known Sarah was too good for him, even in the days when they were living together. Maybe that was why he’d not fought harder to keep her when she joined the police.

He bought a first edition of the Evening Post from a paper stand by the Council House. LOCAL MP JOINS GOVERNMENT the headline said, with the story that Nick had heard on the early morning news. Sarah Bone, after her surprise re-election, was joining the home office as a junior minister. For prisons.

38

‘So he took it well, you dumping him?’

‘I didn’t give him much choice. Nick’s still on probation. He’s liable to be recalled if he commits another crime, no matter how minor. I’ve already got him out of hot water once.’

‘What for?’

‘The police were threatening to do him for perverting the course of justice, pretending to be his brother when he drove a cab. Not serious, but enough to put him back inside if they prosecuted. I care about Nick, a lot. But I couldn’t turn down the job. Think I was too hard on him?’

‘No. If you’d known what he’d done, you wouldn’t have started things up with him again.’

It wasn’t as simple as that, but Sarah wasn’t going to show Andrew how guilty she felt. It was a relief to find somebody she could talk this over with, someone who knew Nick nearly as well as she did. They had both dumped him. That was how friendship worked when you were older – you stuck with someone while you could be of use to each other, then let go when the wind changed. Maybe it had always worked that way.