I met Annabelle that day about five years ago when the sun moved backwards in the sky and one of our tennis players hit one back against Boris Becker. She's tall and elegant, and looks just as beautiful when she's meeting ambassadors and statesmen as she does when she's halfway up Goredale Scar and the rain is running down her neck. I'll lean on a rock to gasp for breath, and she'll think it's the exertion and give me an encouraging smile. But her nose wrinkles when she smiles and all that does is make the lead weight sitting on my diaphragm feel heavier and heavier, and I have even more trouble trying to breathe.
Nobody answered at her sister's. She's called Rachel and they have hardly spoken since they were schoolgirls. Their family was well-off until daddy ran away with his secretary and their mother hit the bottle. Annabelle went to work in the Third World, married young, was widowed and fell in with me. Rachel married Harley Street's Osteopath to the Stars and enjoys the fruits of his success. Christmas was some sort of attempt at reconciliation and I think it worked. We had lunch at the golf club fifty quid a head and, while the sisters gossiped, George, Rachel's husband, introduced me to his friends and explained all the fascinating golfing memorabilia that adorned the walls of the clubhouse. I'd have preferred having extensive bridgework without anaesthesia.
I pushed the phone away and wandered into the annexe where we make the tea. Some kind person had washed all the mugs. I dropped a tea bag into one with 'The Boss' in gold letters on the side and plugged the kettle in. There was a new notice above the sink, printed in forty-point Hippo. It said: 'Please do not leave your used tea bags in the wastepaper bins.' The advent of the word processor has greatly improved the quality of informal notices. When I'd brewed I left the bag sitting in the spoon on the draining board because I couldn't see a more preferable alternative.
Nobody answered again. Or should that be still. They must have gone out somewhere. I put my feet on the radiator and fished the top document out of my in-tray. It was a request for next year's budget forecasts. I wrote: 'Deal with this, please, Nigel,' in pencil across the top and dropped it on his desk. After a sip of tea I reached for the next document but immediately slid it back on to the pile this was becoming too much like work. When my phone rang I grabbed it before realising it couldn't possibly be Annabelle.
'Charlie?' enquired Maggie's voice. 'Yep.'
'This woman. She's in the rape suite. Apparently the offence took place on Christmas Eve, so there's no point in a medical or anything, but she knows the bloke. I've asked her if she has any objection to a male officer being present and she says she hasn't.'
'I'm on my way.'
My tea was too hot to finish, and no doubt they were having one themselves, so I carried my mug down with me. The rape suite is a haven of luxury and calm in the midst of the normal utility and hurly-burly of the nick. It's all pastel tints and deep armchairs, but there's a sophisticated tape recorder on the wall and a medical examination room through a door. I chose the pictures. I was an art student before I became a policeman, so I get all those jobs. My own choice would have been Pollock and Kandinsky, but I'd reluctantly decided that they weren't to everybody's taste and settled for Monets.
I knocked and went in, sliding the bolt across to the occupied position behind me and engaging my empathy mode at the same time.
I was right: they all had disposable cups from the machine. 'Hello, Mr. Priest,' Maggie greeted me. 'This is Janet Saunders.' Turning to the woman she said: 'Inspector Priest is the senior officer at Heckley at the moment.' Looking back at me she said: 'You know PC Kent, don't you?'
It was the nearest I'd get to an introduction. I nodded at her without smiling.
'Do you need me, now?' PC Kent wondered.
I turned to Janet Saunders. 'We have you outnumbered, I'm afraid, but do you mind if PC Kent stays?'
She shook her head and mumbled: 'No.'
'Thank you,' I said. It was all experience for the young PC, and it didn't create the impression that she had something better to do.
Janet Saunders was about thirty and had once been blonde. There were crow's-feet around her eyes and deep lines down her cheeks, but you could still tell that she'd be attractive under different circumstances. She was wearing a black leather jacket and jeans. I couldn't fault that — I was wearing the same.
Maggie said: 'I'll bring you up to date, Boss, and Janet can interrupt if I get it wrong. She's single divorced — with a five-year-old daughter. She lives on Marsden Road, about half a mile from the Tap and Spile public house, where she works as a barmaid three nights per week. She was working there on Christmas Eve, and a man she only knows as Darryl bought her a drink and later he offered to walk her home. She declined and walked home in the company of two neighbours.' Maggie turned to the alleged victim. 'Did you say they lived next door to you, Janet?'
'No. Next door but two. Mr. and Mrs. Brown, they're called.'
'Right. Janet's ex was bringing their daughter round at nine a.m. It was her turn to have her over Christmas. She left the pub at midnight, sharp, because she had presents to wrap and other things to do.' Maggie turned to Janet.
'Would you like to go on from there, Janet. I don't want to put words into your mouth.'
Janet gazed at the table for a moment. She was wearing a wedding ring but no other jewellery. Her fingernails were short and unpainted and the sleeves of the leather jacket were too long so she had to keep hitching them up. She shuffled her position until she was more upright and said: 'I wanted to make a trifle. Clean up a bit. And I had presents to wrap for Dilly.'
'Dilly's your daughter?' I asked.
'Mmm. Working at the pub, you come 'ome stinking of cigarettes. First thing I always do is have a shower. I had a good long soak and dried myself. I was going to put my jogging suit on and get stuck in for a couple of hours. Make things nice for…'
Up to then she'd been in control, but as we approached the offence she lost it and pulled a scrap of tissue out of her pocket. PC Kent produced a box of man-size and placed them alongside her.
'Thank you,' she sniffled, taking one.
I said: 'You normally only work three nights at the Tap and Spile, Janet?'
She nodded. 'Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. They're not busy enough on Mondays and Tuesdays.'
'And not at weekends?'
'Not usually. I have Dilly at weekends.'
'Do you have a full-time job?'
She shook her head.
'Tell us what happened next, Janet, if you can.'
She bit her lip for a second before answering. 'I heard a noise.
Thought it was someone outside, you know, revellers. I was drying my hair on the towel when, all of a sudden, I went cold. There was a draught and the light changed somehow. I lowered the towel and… he was standing there, with the door wide open. I screamed. Tried to cover myself. He just stood there, laughing.'
'This was the man you know as Darryl?' Maggie asked.
'Yes.'
I said: 'Janet, we're not recording this, but Maggie will do a statement later and we'll ask you to check it and sign it. If you're finding this too difficult would you prefer to write it down yourself?'
She shook her head. 'No, I'm all right.'
'Well, we can break off anytime you want.'
'You're doing fine,' Maggie assured her.
Janet had a drink of coffee and went on: 'I shouted: 'What the 'ell do you want?' or something. He said: 'What do you think I want?' and he waved a knife at me. He grabbed me by the 'air and dragged me into the bedroom and… he did it to me. On the bed.'
She took another tissue and blew her nose.
'You must have been terrified,' I said.
She looked at me and gave a little sniff of disdain at my description of her fear. Her eyes were blue.
'Did he say anything else?' Maggie asked.
'He pointed the knife at me, said he could kill me. But he said that was messy. He said if I reported 'im he'd just say I'd consented.
Nobody would believe me. It would be my word against his. He said… he said…' She couldn't go on.
