David Belbin: Bone & Cane

Bone & Cane

David Belbin

For James and Jane Urquhart

1

MARCH 1997

Members of Parliament can be many things. Campaigners. Law makers. Media personalities. Even detectives, of a public kind. One thing MPs can’t be is shit-faced in public, especially in their own constituency. In the House, it was okay to let your hair down. When you were guest of honour at a very public party, it wasn’t wise to be one drink away from legless. Sarah was well aware of this. But tonight she had a right to celebrate.

‘Another?’ The stocky man with the shaved head and fat neck had already planted two slobbery kisses on her lips. Sarah was determined to avoid a third.

‘I’m going to take a pause,’ she shouted. ‘I’ve drunk enough already.’

Ed had been inside for several years, so he wouldn’t be used to heavy social drinking. Yet he didn’t look drunk, not as drunk as Sarah felt.

The PA blasted out ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ .

‘Want a word,’ he yelled over the music. ‘Come outside for a minute.’

Ed had been given two life sentences for a double murder. The first victim was a police officer, Terry Shanks, who Ed had a grudge against. The second victim was the police officer’s young wife, Liv. She had probably been raped before she was murdered, but Ed had not been charged with that.

Sarah, campaigning in a by-election that she wasn’t expected to win, had made all sorts of promises to the voters. One of them was that, if elected, she would raise Ed’s case in the House of Commons. She’d kept her promise, even helped found the campaign group that organized tonight’s celebration. The more she found out about Ed’s case, the more dodgy the conviction had looked, but his first application for appeal was turned down. This despite the only forensic connecting Ed to the scene – a hair on the carpet – being highly questionable.

Last year, Sarah had agreed to visit Clark in Nottingham Prison. She’d not been in a prison before, so arranged for the governor to show her round.

‘You’re the first politician we’ve had for a while,’ he told her. ‘We get the occasional judge or magistrate, but mainly it’s out of sight, out of mind.’

Afterwards, the smell stayed with her for hours: stale, cooked cabbage, probably masking the stench of sweat and urine. She couldn’t forget the wretched clothes of the men on the lifer’s wing: cheap, worn-out rags that a charity shop would reject. Everything about the place made her question the justice system. It was so hopeless, so hateful. She expected prison to have taken its toll on Clark, but when they met, he was all smiles.

‘You had a wander round then?’

‘Just a short one.’

‘I could tell by look on your face. It’s grim. But you learn to get by.’

Ed was far more cheerful than ninety per cent of the people who attended her MP’s surgeries. There was no swagger about him. He even took care to look at her face rather than her chest. He had fair hair then, which made him appear younger, softer.

‘I’ve made lots of mistakes in my life, but a double murder weren’t one of them,’ he told her. ‘Terry Shanks were one of theirs, so the police needed a result. I was the obvious suspect. But you’d have to be bloody stupid to kill the guy who put you inside only a couple of weeks after they released you.’

Sarah agreed that you would. Ed didn’t come across in the least stupid. Inside, he told her, he’d taken A levels in Sociology, Economics and Law, got good grades. He planned to start an Open University degree course.

‘You’ve got to do something to take your mind off life inside. The time I did before was enough to make me go straight. I’d never risk them sending me back, no matter how much I wanted revenge. Anyway, I weren’t bothered about getting back at Terry Shanks. He were only doing his job.’

Sarah believed Ed. The more she looked into the case, the more she thought that Clark’s conviction was a classic miscarriage of justice. Strong emotions had overwhelmed both judge and jury, resulting in a flawed verdict.

That visit to Nottingham Prison was a turning point in Sarah’s new parliamentary career. She had found an area that she wanted to focus on. She joined the Howard League for Penal Reform, began reading up on prisons, wrote to newspapers and the Director of Public Prosecutions, highlighted inconsistencies in the evidence that convicted Clark. The group she’d set up circulated a petition, organized a letter-writing campaign. At last, Ed was given leave to appeal. Yesterday lunchtime, Ed Clark’s conviction had been quashed.

Sarah followed the freed man out of the ballroom. In the corridor, he squeezed her arse. Sarah didn’t complain. Today, of all days, Ed could be excused for behaving badly. Sarah was aware that Ed fancied her. Some level of desire was the background hum to most of her relationships with straight men and she had become adept at avoiding unwanted advances. Her signals were only mixed if she intended them to be.

Once they were outside, the October breeze sobered her a little. There were other people on the balcony beyond the ballroom, but none within listening distance. Without warning, Ed gripped Sarah’s left thigh with his large right hand. He leant into her right ear.

‘You and me are going to celebrate in my room. Tonight.’

‘That’s very flattering,’ Sarah began, then realized the line wasn’t strong enough to defect an ex-con the day after he’d got out. This evening, Ed’s prison humility had been replaced by a brute arrogance.

‘There are a dozen women in there who’d go upstairs with me the moment I clicked my fingers. You’re the only one I want.’

His hand moved another inch up her thigh. It didn’t pinch. Nor did it faze her: alcohol helped that way. She might have found the firmness of Ed’s grasp exciting had it come from a man she fancied.

‘I’m sorry, Ed. I have a boyfriend.’

‘I don’t give a shit,’ Ed whispered, hand stretching to the panty line. ‘You want me too. I know what makes you tick. When you visited me inside, I could see you thinking, I hope he’s innocent, because I really want to fuck him .’

‘You’ve got it wrong. I helped you because you’re one of my constituents, nothing more. Now I have to go.’

She pulled away.

‘My room’s number seven, when you change your mind.’

Ed wasn’t a bad bloke. He was a randy, working class lad with a home-made tattoo on one arm and a hard-on for his local MP. Sarah empathised. When you’d served four and a half years for a crime you didn’t commit, you were desperate to get your end away. But she’d never succumbed to doling out a sympathy shag, not even with men she fancied. Not even when pissed.

Tonight, Ed had handled rejection well, all things considered. She’d had to fight off more assertive approaches from half a dozen of her fellow MPs. But now it was time to leave. Sarah hurried past several couples and found herself in the corridor behind the back of the over-lit ballroom. She’d noticed a public phone booth somewhere round here.

Not this corridor. One of these days, she would get herself a mobile phone. She took a turn at the end, noting that the fleur-de-lys pattern in the pale purple carpet was starting to move about. That was what came of letting people buy you doubles. There the booth was, next to Reception, where Ed Clark was getting his key from the desk. Sarah ducked into the phone booth, out of sight.

Dan answered on the tenth ring.

‘Tell me you haven’t had a drink.’