‘Perhaps that would have happened anyway,’ she said. ‘By all accounts-’
‘Don’t you dare.’ I felt anger sluice through me, my skin grow hot, my chest burn. I stood up. The taxi drivers were clustered outside their cabs, exchanging gossip, smoking, laughing on this fine autumn day.
‘You’ll destroy him,’ she pleaded. ‘For what? Have you no compassion?’
I walked away, across the setts, past the Albert Memorial, up along Princess Street where the wind was funnelled along the road, and the traffic swept past, unending, relentless.
NINETEEN
The bus cruised down Oxford Road, past the BBC and the universities, on through Rusholme and Fallowfield. I was dimly aware of the people paying, showing their passes, of those getting off, murmuring their thanks to the driver, of the mix of old and new buildings along the route. The weather was changing again, the sky darkening and there were the first fat drops of rain. But I was rerunning Heather’s story, thinking that if I went over it often enough it might become comprehensible. I didn’t dispute the facts of what she’d told me and they fitted with Damien’s account, but the sheer scale of collusion, the amorality and audacity, the stone cold nerve that both of them had demonstrated was hard to swallow.
Not quite ready to face home and hearth, I went to the park when I got off the bus. In the little copse by the stream, where the path meanders and old frayed rope swings hang from the sturdier branches, I watched the sun slice beams through the crown of the trees and midges dance in their shadows. The air was rich here, redolent of sap and must and the heavy clay soil.
Libby needed to know what had happened, Chloe, too, and then Dave Pirelli, the police detective and Damien’s lawyer. There was nothing to stop Heather denying her confession to me; in fact, if she was still hell bent on protecting Alex, she’d have to. Having come this far and with little sign of guilt or shame for her behaviour, she would probably stick to her original version of events. Had she really expected me to let it lie? For me to walk away and say no more about it? Did I have enough to convince the police to reopen the case? A hearsay confession from Heather, the recollections of a dead man: a darkened cottage, a cooling engine, a stranger hurrying down the hill. Could that possibly be enough?
Abi had walked the kids home and when I arrived back Maddie and Tom had been playing make-overs with Leanne. They’d raided my cosmetics and various kitchen items. Maddie had full-blown panda eyes and her hair had been backcombed and sprayed, forming clots and spikes, a sort of dragged-through-the-hedge look. In a stroke of genius, Leanne had suggested special effects to Tom, who had a scar across one cheek (lipstick, eye pencil, peanut butter and cornflakes), a moustache and a tattoo on his arm. Not to be left out, Baby Lola sported cat’s whiskers and a black nose.
I wasn’t unaware of the contradictory position I held. On the one hand I was intent on making the truth known about Alex’s attack on his father and the ensuing cover-up engineered by his mother and determined to see justice done – for Charlie, for Libby, for Damien and his family. On the other I was sure that my decision not to reveal the truth about Leanne’s past crime and in effect to help her evade prosecution was the right one. Alex had unintentionally killed his father in a messy argument; Leanne had intentionally taken a life in an act of revenge, in the midst of a terrifying encounter, hitting back at one of the men who had orchestrated abuse on a brutal scale.
The process of law can be a clumsy tool but while I thought Leanne would only have suffered further at its hands, I really believed there’d be understanding and clemency for Alex. If only he had admitted to the terrible accident immediately. His mother’s counsel had been disastrous, distorting everything and trapping them both in a tragic lie.
Why had Heather been so intent on covering up? Had it not been the accident that she described? Self-defence, she had said at one point. Charlie had been violent – lunging at the boy. But if that wasn’t the whole truth, if Alex deliberately attacked his father then Heather’s actions after the death made a lot more sense.
I’d rung Libby and asked her to come round to my office. I wanted to tell her what I’d learnt in person. I told Leanne that Ray would soon be home if she could hold the fort till then – I’d be an hour or so.
Even with an umbrella, I got wet walking the short stretch to work. The rain drummed on the cars parked along the roadside and gushed along the gutters. It spattered the leaves on the trees and bounced off the paving stones.
In my office the Tupperware on the window sill was catching the drops from the leak in the narrow basement window frame: plop, plop, plop. I turned up the heating to take the chill off the room, made fresh coffee and rang Dave Pirelli. He was in, though rushed. But I impressed on him that what I had to tell him was extremely serious and wouldn’t wait. He couldn’t cancel his meetings that day but promised to see me first thing in the morning. I was thankful he hadn’t given me the brush-off or told me not to waste police time – both responses I have had from detectives in the past.
How might Libby react? I was nervous, having second thoughts. The truth would be a huge shock. Might it not be easier to fudge what I’d learnt and leave it as it was? If and when the police took action they could answer Libby’s questions. But I owed her: she’d hired me to do my best and expected an honest account from me. Could she handle it? Thinking about Libby and how she had conducted herself reassured me: she had survived the pressure of suspicion when the police first began the enquiry; she hadn’t gone haring off to Chloe Beswick when she got the letter about Damien’s conviction but brought me in to check it out; she had coped with me finding merit in Damien’s position with good grace and had now gone so far as to reverse her opinion and join Chloe Beswick in asking for further police investigation. She had done all this after finding Charlie violently killed, and in the midst of her shock and grief. In the past year she had lost her lover, their future together and had borne his baby. The latter in itself can be enough to make a woman slightly deranged for a good while, going by my own experience. She had kept her business going, too. Libby was strong enough to take the news and sorted enough not to do anything stupid. I’d a box of tissues handy in case of tears – and a bottle of brandy in the filing cabinet, in the best private-eye tradition.
Libby shook the rain off her coat and I told her to leave it on the hooks in the hall. She’d brought Rowena in with her; the baby was dozing in her car seat.
We sat on the sofa downstairs in my office. She picked up on the atmosphere straight away. ‘What’s happened to your face?’
‘Nick Dryden warning me off.’
‘Oh, my God!’
‘But he’s not involved with what happened to Charlie. He got the wrong end of the stick: thought I was spying for his creditors or the authorities. And I got the wrong end of his temper.’
‘Have you reported it?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m going to let it go. Too complicated. I don’t ever expect to hear from him again. But I’ve got other news. It’s going to be a big shock,’ I warned her, ‘I’m sorry.’
She drew herself up in preparation and regarded me solemnly; a wary look hooded her eyes.
I repeated what Heather had told me, sticking to the bare bones of the confrontation. Her eyes filled with tears and she didn’t say anything for a few moments after I’d finished speaking. Then she rubbed her hand across her forehead. ‘So, the alibi, and the things that Damien remembered – how does it all fit together?’
‘Here’s what I think. After it had happened, Alex rang his mother, probably hysterical, panicking. She told him to come back, to drive his father’s car home and she worked out a way to create an alibi.’