I told him I was working for one of the women’s weekly magazines on a feature about burglary and home invasions. ‘What we want to do is give them a “what you should do” guide, using real-life cases as an indicator of what you should and shouldn’t do.’ I smiled brightly. ‘I thought the Sarah Blackstone murder was a perfect example of what you don’t want the outcome to be,’ I added, letting the smile drop.
Collier nodded and mumbled something indecipherable. He swallowed, washed his mouthful down with a draught of Tetley, then said, ‘You’re not kidding.’ It hardly seemed worth the wait.
‘So…what can you tell me about this case?’ I asked.
He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘Sarah Blackstone had been working late in the IVF laboratory at St Hilda’s Infirmary. As far as we can ascertain, she left the hospital at around half past nine. At 10.27, we got a treble niner from a call box on the corner of her street. A woman who didn’t give her name said she’d just been nearly knocked down by a black youth with what looked like a knife in his hand. He’d come running out of a house, leaving the door wide open. We took it seriously, because let’s face it, between you and me, you don’t get a lot of blacks living in a street like Pargeter Grove. We got there at 10.40, four minutes after the ambulance. Dr Blackstone was already dead. The knife had gone straight under her ribs and into her heart.’
I took notes as he spoke. ‘And you reckon she disturbed a burglar?’ I asked.
‘That’s right. A pane of glass in the back door was smashed. The key was in the lock. That’s something to remind your readers about. Unbelievably stupid, but you’d be surprised how many people do that.’
‘I read that nothing appeared to have been stolen,’ I said.
‘That’s right. We reckon he’d just walked in the back door when she walked in the front. She were still wearing her mac. He didn’t have time to do anything except strike out at her. I doubt he even had time to think about what he were doing, he just lunged at her. She was really unlucky. Not many stab wounds kill you as fast as that. When he saw what he’d done, he legged it empty-handed.’
‘Wasn’t the house alarmed?’
‘No, it was just a bit nervous!’ He guffawed. I’d heard the riposte too many times to find it funny any more, but I smiled nevertheless. ‘She did have an alarm fitted,’ he continued. ‘But like a lot of people, I suppose she just left it switched off. People never think it’s going to happen to them. You should stress that to your readers. If you’ve got an alarm fitted, never leave the house without setting it.’
‘Good point,’ I said appreciatively. He wasn’t to know, after all, that Sarah Blackstone was so security conscious it bordered on the paranoid, and with good reason. Another argument against the random burglar. There was no way Sarah Blackstone would leave the alarm switched off. ‘This woman that phoned in — wasn’t it a bit funny that she didn’t give her name?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘More often than not, they don’t, around there,’ I deciphered through a mouthful of barm cake. ‘They don’t want to get involved. Even when they’re the only proper witness we’ve got. They don’t want to have to miss work to come to court to give evidence, they’re frightened that if they stick their necks out, it’ll be their house the bad boys come to next. Far as they’re concerned, their civic duty stops with the 999 call.’
‘That’s your middle classes for you,’ I said.
‘You’re not wrong. Especially after the riots down Hyde Park. They’re terrified of repercussions. We tell them they’re safe to give evidence, but they don’t believe us.’
Neither did I. I’d heard too much about West Yorkshire Police. I know a woman whose house was being broken into by three teenagers with a sledgehammer in broad daylight. The next-door neighbour dialled 999 and the police arrived a full half-hour later, protesting that there wasn’t a lot they could do since the burglars had already gone. I flicked back through my notes. ‘Fascinating case, this one. No forensic, I take it?’
‘There are some indicators that the forensic team are working with,’ he said guardedly. ‘But they won’t even tell me what they’ve got. All I know is that it’s a bit of a struggle to make it look like one of the usual suspects.’ He winked.
‘She took her time coming home from St Hilda’s,’ I commented. ‘Can’t be more than fifteen minutes’ drive at that time of night.’
‘She’ll have stopped off on her way home for a drink or fish and chips,’ he said confidently.
‘Or popped round to see somebody who turned out not to be in,’ I suggested. ‘So you’ve no other eye witnesses except for the mystery caller?’
‘That’s right. It was chucking it down, so the usual dog walkers and drunks would have been head down and hurrying, that time of night. We were a bit surprised that no one saw him going over the back wall on his way in, since it’s overlooked by the student residences, but we’ve not had a lot of luck all round with this one. Something else to tell your readers — set up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme if you want to cut down the risk of violent burglary in your street. It really works, according to our Community Security team.’
‘Community Security?’
He had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘What used to be called Crime Prevention,’ he admitted sheepishly.
Only it didn’t. So in the same way that ‘closing hospital beds’ became ‘care in the community’, a quick name change had been necessary. I asked a few anodyne questions, bought Collier a second pint, then made my excuses and left before I had to watch him demolish a slice of Black Forest gateau about the same size as its namesake.
I sat on the top floor of the city art gallery under the huge Frank Brangwen panels representing the horny-handed sons of toil of the industrial revolution, their bodies suspiciously like those of the desk-bound Stallone wannabes you see down every designer gym in the country. Today, though, I wasn’t thinking about social change. I was staring at The Rolling Mill without seeing it. All I could see was the picture in my mind’s eye of Helen Maitland’s face, ugly with anger and pain as she lashed out at the woman she had once loved and who had deprived her of her dream of motherhood.
I had a pretty clear idea now what had happened. The results of DNA testing would have confirmed Helen’s guess at what Sarah had been doing. This wasn’t an experiment that had come out of nowhere; I could imagine the conversations as the lovers had snuggled together under the duvet, Sarah fantasizing about the day the technology would be there to make babies from two women, Helen dreaming of what it would mean to them, to her. But Sarah had refused, for whatever reason. And the refusal had driven a wedge so deeply between them that it was impossible to continue their relationship.
The scenario was as vivid as film to me. When she realized the truth, Helen must have gone round to confront Sarah. But Sarah hadn’t been home. She’d been working late. I could picture Helen sitting in her car, impotent rage building like a bonfire. When Sarah had eventually arrived, Helen had probably been beyond rational conversation. She had insisted on being admitted and the two women had gone through to the kitchen. There, the argument had raged before Helen had snapped, seized a knife and thrust it deep into Sarah’s body.
The act of murder must have sobered her. She’d had the sense to go to the back door and make it look like someone had broken in. If they’d had drinks, she had cleared glasses or cups. Then, making sure she was hidden by darkness, she’d slipped out of the house, back to her car, and driven to the phone box where she’d made the spurious 999 call.