A Fatal Verdict (24 page)

31. Wedding Anniversary

Riding home two days later, Sarah eased the black Kawasaki 500 through a line of blocked traffic on the way out of York, and gunned it into the outside lane of the A64, opening the throttle to somewhere near its limits. She crouched low against the oncoming wind, watching the speedometer creep up towards 90 as she swayed in the sudden alarming swirls of slipstream from the vans and lorries that she passed.

She didn’t care if she crashed; she needed this recklessness to purge her of the anger she still felt about losing the case against David Kidd. It had left a particularly nasty taste in her mouth: however Shelley had died, Kidd was the cause of it. Yet the toad was free as a bird, while Shelley’s family drank the poison of failure. If I was that girl’s mother, Sarah thought, I wouldn’t let things rest as they are. If I saw David Kidd in front of this motorbike I’d ...

She swerved, nearly losing control in the backwash from a large van, and slowed at the exit for home. Don’t be stupid, she told herself, you could lose everything like that, in a single moment of madness. It’s not worth it, not for me or the Walters. But then if the courts, the criminal justice system, have failed them, where else can they go?

Savendra looks sick, too. He knows something, and it isn’t making him happy. Out of professional etiquette Sarah had refrained from discussing the trial with Savendra, but she needed to discuss it with someone who understood. Terry Bateson, she thought, I’ll ring him.

But when she got home there was no time. She opened the front door, still in her leathers, and stumbled over a vast bouquet of gift-wrapped flowers. Behind it stood her husband, Bob, an anxious, triumphant grin on his face.

‘Happy anniversary, darling.’

She stared, astonished. ‘Bob! Are these for me?’

‘Well, maybe.’ He affected to consider the question. ‘Yes, I suppose they are.’

It was an unprecedented event. Sarah usually remembered their wedding anniversary, but Bob, until now, had always forgotten. This used to cause rows, until Sarah decided to back off, thinking what the hell, it’s the fact of being married that matters, not the ritual, and anyway we’re both too busy to make anything special of it. But now, after a fortnight when they’d prowled round each other like bears ...

‘What is this, a peace offering?’

‘Call it that if you like. It’s a gift.’

She bent down to read the card.
Eighteen happy years. With all my love, Bob
. No actual apology then, for the way he’d treated her. But then, her own words hadn’t been the kindest. She gathered the colourful crinkly package in her arms. ‘I’d better put them in water then. Have we got a vase?’

‘All ready, in the kitchen. I’ll do it, you get changed. I’ve booked a table at eight.’

‘What? In a restaurant, you mean?’

‘Yes, of course in a restaurant. That new French place near the castle.’

‘Oh Bob, this is lovely, but I can’t, not tonight. I’ve got a brief to read through.’   

‘Nonsense. You’ve always got briefs and trials. This is about us.’

‘Bob, I can’t. I ...’

‘Come on, Sarah. I don’t often do this.’ His face, the tone of his voice, made her pause. What am I doing, she thought, making him plead? All these years I complain that he takes me for granted, and then when he offers flowers, a meal, I reject it?

‘All right, I suppose I’ve got to eat somewhere,’ she said, with less grace than she meant. ‘What time did you say - eight?’

‘Yes.’ He looked wary but eager, like a dog who hopes to escape whipping. Should I admire or despise him for this, she wondered? This is the husband I chose, after all. Shared half my life with.

‘Right. Just so long as we don’t stay too late.’ Halfway up the stairs, she thought no, that’s not the right tone either. She leaned over the banisters, flashed him a smile. ‘Thanks, Bob. It’s a lovely surprise.’    

Every year since it was built, York Minster has attracted thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of visitors, and not all of them are honest. Many come each day to pray for forgiveness of their sins, others - a small but significant minority - come in the hope of committing more. The cathedral attracts tourists, many of them rich, some of them careless, and  from time to time the police are called out to investigate crimes committed against such people.

Terry had spent the afternoon taking statements from an American lady who, as her tour party confirmed, had the unfortunate habit of carrying her open handbag slung over her shoulder, and as a result found herself burdened with considerably fewer worldly possessions when she left the house of God than when she had entered it. After taking the statement, Terry lingered for a while, sitting quietly in a side chapel, listening to the chant of evensong, and the silence of the vast building in the pauses between the psalms. There was peace in here, and comfort: the murmur of voices floated up, indistinctly, between the pillars of the vast stone forest above his head, the sounds losing all clarity and individuality the higher they rose. Perhaps it’s like that with prayers, Terry thought; so many millions must have been uttered here, some sincere, some frivolous, all rising and mingling together like smoke joining clouds.

Such faith they must have had, such certainty, those who spent hundreds of years building this ancient cathedral! Raw as he was with the failure of the prosecution, Terry found himself wishing he’d been brought up a Catholic, with the option of anonymous, confidential confession. Would that ease this pain? He’d seen Will Churchill manipulate the truth before, yet failed to check up on him this time. So in that sense, at least, Kidd’s acquittal was his own fault, and the pain of the Walters family was on his head. Silently, he slipped to his knees in the empty chapel, rested his hand on his bowed forehead, and tried to remember the formula for prayer. It was so long since he’d tried ...

‘Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned ...’

The muttered words seemed appropriate, but unnecessary, somehow. If there was a God, then He knew the whole story already; and if there wasn’t, well, it was a waste of breath. He stayed for a few moments nonetheless, the ache in his knees and his back a minor penance of sorts, then looked up to see a priest approaching with a sympathetic smile on his face.

Terry got to his feet swiftly, but he was too late. To his dismay he recognised Canon Rowlands, the priest from David Kidd’s trial. Escape was impossible without blatant rudeness, so he nodded: ‘Good afternoon, father.’

‘Mr Kidd was acquitted, I hear.’ Close to, the man’s face looked strained and pale; the smile not sympathetic but anxious. ‘I’ve had to move out of my flat.’

‘Really? Why is that?’

‘Well, I gave evidence, and he’s a violent man ... I still wonder, you know, whether I did the right thing. It’s so hard to sleep, but I pray ... I mean, when I heard them quarrel that day, if I’d just gone in. Do you think I would have saved her?’

‘It’s impossible to say, father. He might have cut her wrists already ...’

‘Nonetheless, if I’d done something, I might have saved her!’

The little man was trembling with the intensity of his emotion. Terry put his hand on his shoulder. ‘Listen, father, it’s not your fault. We all make mistakes, each one of us. It’s part of being human. Surely your God ...’ He looked up at the forest of stone pillars, bathed in gentle colours as the evening sunlight flowed in through the stained glass windows. ‘... our God, I mean, He understands that. He won’t blame you.’

‘That’s what the Dean said, when I confessed to him. But though I pray, it’s not easy.’

‘You did the right thing, father. You gave evidence, you couldn’t do more.’

Even as he spoke, Terry was backing away, and with a brief encouraging smile he was off, his long legs carrying him swiftly down the aisle to the exit. As he left he was fuming, muttering to himself. Who the hell do you think you are to give absolution? God? After all if He exists He knows why Kidd was let off and it wasn’t that priest’s fault, it was Will Churchill’s and mine. What the hell happened back there anyway? Did I pray and God send me that priest for an answer? What kind of a sick joke is that? Christ Almighty!

Still blaspheming, he got into his car, and began to move off, crawling slowly through the crowds behind a horse-drawn taxi whose guide was pointing out the sites to the last tourists of the day. Terry turned right into St Leonard’s, sitting in a queue behind two large coaches. As he waited, a message on the police radio caught his attention.

‘All units, urgent response to Gillygate. Suspicious female reported in gardens under city walls. Any units available to respond?’

Terry snatched the microphone from the dashboard. ‘DI Bateson here. I’m in St Leonard’s. I’ll take that. How far along Gillygate exactly?’

‘Just past the pub, sir, under the city walls. Passing through gardens from Lord Mayor’s Walk. Woman believed suspicious.’

‘OK, I’ll check it out. On way.’

Terry looked at the blocked traffic ahead of him and thought, quicker on foot. He pulled the car over onto the cobbled square outside the Art Gallery, leapt out, and ran. But which way? The entrances to the gardens along Gillygate were awkward, often locked, difficult of access. Probably just a burglar or false alarm, but it was a relief to have something to do.

Directly across the road in front of him was the ancient fortified medieval gate of Bootham Bar, a popular site of access to the city walls. Terry sprinted across the road, and ran up the stone staircase, through the medieval gate tower, and out along the narrow footpath behind the crenellated fortifications of the city wall. On his right was the Minster, on his left the backs of the houses, flats and shops in Gillygate. At first, near the Bar, they were only a few metres from the wall, but further along long narrow gardens appeared, partly shielded from view by tall spindly trees, growing in profusion at the end of the gardens, directly under the wall.

Muttering excuses, Terry pushed past some tourists busily photographing the Minster in the rosy glow of the evening sunlight, and climbed a few steps onto a watch tower, where he had a better view. He called control on his mobile phone.

‘DI Bateson. I’m on the wall behind Gillygate. Which house exactly?’

‘She was reported moving along the wilderness area directly under the city wall, sir. Past the old folks’ homes at Lord Mayor’s Walk end. Isn’t there an acquaintance of yours who lives along there? A David Kidd?’

Kidd? Of course! His flat backed onto the city walls. Terry peered down, between two trees, and sure enough, there was the first floor roof garden which he’d seen when he’d examined the flat after Shelley Walters’ death. A light was on in the window too, so maybe David was in.

Bastard, Terry thought. What’s he doing in there? Watching TV? Making himself a meal? Cutting meat with the knife we found on the bathroom floor? I could show him what to cut with it, Terry thought. And it wouldn’t be steak.

But for the moment, there was this female burglar, or whatever she was. As he looked,  something stirred in the undergrowth below. It was shadowy down there; the wall and trees blocked out most of the daylight. But something - or someone -  was moving. His pulse began to race with the joy of the chase.

There she was! A woman in a long dark coat, creeping furtively between the trees. She was approaching from the Lord Mayor’s Walk end, where no walls divided the gardens from each other. Her attention seemed focussed on the backs of the houses, not on the wall above. Opposite David Kidd’s flat she began to step down, cautiously, through the wilderness towards the garden. For a moment she stood behind a tree, studying the windows ahead.

The last rays of the sun vanished and a cold breeze crept along the wall. Goose pimples rose along Terry’s arms. What is this, Terry wondered? Why is she approaching Kidd’s flat?

A man’s figure passed across the lighted window of the flat and as it did so the woman reached the last tree before the wilderness ended, took something long out from under her coat, and bent it with a movement that was suddenly, shockingly familiar. She straightened it with a click, and stepped out onto the lawn with a shotgun in her hands.

For a second, Terry hesitated, wondering what to do. If this woman intended to kill Kidd, why not just watch and arrest her later? But he couldn’t do that, of course not, this was a real murder about to happen before his eyes. He looked down from the tower and saw to his right, on the wall itself, the drop was less. He ran back down the steps, climbed onto the wall, pushing through a swarm of Japanese schoolgirls - each mouth a perfect O of astonishment, covered with a hand - and jumped.

He fell ten feet, landing in soft leafmould and pitching forward off balance. Half running, half falling, he lurched down the slope until he managed to wrap both arms round a tree and swing himself to a halt. The woman, it seemed, hadn’t noticed. Intent on her own purpose, she had reached the stone steps leading up to the patio outside Kidd’s flat. Terry let go of the tree and stepped down onto the lawn.

How do you deal with an armed assailant? Not like this. The pages of correct, cautious procedure flashed through his mind and were gone. No time for that now. And anyway there was something personal here, a mystery that had to be solved. He had only seen the back of the woman, her figure obscured by the long dark coat, but there was something terribly familiar about her. If he knew her they could talk, he felt sure.