you.'
I had another cup and enjoyed a piece of Christmas cake with Lancashire cheese. It was nearly as good as Wensley-dale. When we'd finished I said: 'Down to business, Herbert. What can you tell me about a character called Darryl Burton, or Buxton?'
His eyes widened and his body stiffened. 'Darryl Burton,' he repeated.
'Darryl Burton. Don't tell me you've managed to pin something on him?'
'No, I'm afraid not. But with your help I'm hoping to.'
'What's he done?'
I related the story of the Christmas Eve attack and told him what we knew about the mysterious Darryl.
'It's Burton all right,' he asserted. 'He's changed his name. It's him, as sure as God made little green apples.'
'Drago said he'd done something similar a few years ago. Is there anything else we ought to know?'
'Five times,' he said. 'He's done it five times, that we know of.
Yours makes it six.'
'Five times!' I gasped. 'Are you telling me he's been accused of rape five times?'
Herbert's breathing became laboured and his wife looked concerned. 'Do you mind if he has a little rest,' she said. His panting was shallow and rapid, hardly giving each fresh charge of oxygen time to get past his Adam's apple.
'Of course not,' I replied. 'Tell you what, I'll have a little walk round your garden, if you don't mind. It looks as if one of you has green fingers.'
Herbert cleared his throat with a noise like a Sammy Ledgard bus changing gear on Blue Bank. I was glad to get out of there, into the fresh air. F d had enough of sickness. I recognised the signs: the bottles of pills on the sideboard; the get-well cards with ready-written messages to save the sender the trouble; the bucket hiding behind the settee, where it could be grabbed in an emergency.
Nature was reclaiming the garden, too. Herbert was a vegetables man, and orderly rows of sprouts, turnips, broccoli and onions were long past their best, overgrown and straggly, losing the battle against the local competition. I found a colander in the kitchen and filled it with sprouts and a few other things.
'Oh, you shouldn't have bothered,' Mrs. Mathews told me, obviously pleased.
'It's no bother, and there's nothing like home-grown. How is he?'
'He's all right now. He just has these bad spells. They don't last long. Would you like some sprouts for yourself? It's a shame to waste them.'
'I can't stand them,' I confided. 'I'd like to ask Herbert a few more questions, but I can always come back, if you'd prefer it.'
'No,' she assured me. 'He's all right for a while. Talking to you is the best tonic he's had in a long time.'
I went through into the sitting room and asked Herbert to tell me all about it.
Darryl Burton, as he was then, had stood in the dock accused of rape on three occasions. Each time the victim had been interrogated by Burton's barrister and reduced to hysterical weeping as he harangued her in ways that would have had the police hauled before the Council for Civil Liberties. She had led his client on, he accused her. She had been with many men before. He'd puffed and pouted, pleaded and pointed, spittle flying from his lips as he turned victim into villain and guilt into innocence. She had admitted that she liked a good time and regarded herself as 'fun loving'. She knew what to expect. And the judge went along with it and directed the jury to acquit.
On one other occasion the CPS had refused to prosecute, and the first victim, sixteen years old, had withdrawn the charges. How many women had failed to report an attack was anybody's guess, but it was almost certainly the hidden portion of the iceberg.
'Do you know this barrister's name?' I asked. 'No, sorry,' Herbert told me, shaking his head.
'What about the instructing solicitor?'
Herbert pressed his knuckles against his lips. 'Sorry,' he said, after a while. 'I can't remember. My memory's going. It was a fancy foreign name. He was from Manchester they said he'd never lost an important case.'
'I know the type,' I said. It's the instructing solicitor who loads the gun and dumdums the bullets. The barrister just pulls the trigger in court. 'What about Burton's juvenile record. Did he have one?'
'Mmm. He was a classic. We should have predicted how he'd turn out, except that there's thousands like him who mend their ways. He was cautioned for burglary when he was fifteen and should have been cautioned again for another, but he refused to be. We had no evidence so we had to NFA it. Later, he was suspected of an aggravated burglary and indecent assault, but we couldn't make it stick.'
NFA. No further action, but we still count it as a clear-up. Accepting a caution is an admission of guilt, but if the culprit refuses to accept it the ball bounces straight back at us. We have to put up or shut up. And even if he is cautioned, when he reaches the age of eighteen his slate is wiped clean and he can start again. Then we have to rely on the memory of men like Herbert, but strictly off the record, of course.
Rapists who ply their trade indoors usually started on a life of crime as burglars. They break into empty houses at first, but as their skills and bravado increase they turn to houses with sleeping occupants, preferably lone females or single mothers. The adrenalin level is high and one thing leads to another, or maybe the victim wakes, and suddenly there's an escalation in the offence. That's what Herbert meant when he called Darryl a classic.
Muggers, who rely on speed and opportunity rather than stealth and cunning, are different. They evolve into the rapists who drag their victims into the bushes or a handy back alley. Both types are just as dangerous. The next step on the ladder of infamy is murder, and Darryl was pulling his way up the rungs.
'You've been a big help, Herbert,' I said, standing up. 'I'm glad I called.' I placed my cup and saucer on the table and picked up my coat.
'Glad to be useful, for once. I was wondering where he'd gone. There was a bit of a local campaign against him after the last acquittal.
Someone did some posters with his name on them and stuck them on lampposts all around the town, and the local paper was threatening to expose him. It was enough to drive him away from Burnley, but it looks as if he washed up in Heckley. Sorry about that. Do you think you'll get him?'
'Thanks a lot. We'll get him, sooner or later. Let's just hope it's sooner.'
I shook his bony hand and thanked Mrs. Mathews for the tea. 'I'll show you out,' she said.
I'd turned to leave when Herbert said: 'Charlie.'
'Mmm.'
'Don't ring Padiham Road, will you?'
'How do you mean?'
'Don't ring them, to tell them to visit me.'
He'd read my mind. 'Why not?' I asked.
'I don't want them coming to see me. Not now. It's too late.'
'If you say so.'
'I do.'
'What about me. Do you want to know how we get on?'
'You can come anytime.'
'Thanks.'
'Good luck with it.'
'And you, Herbert. And you.'
As Mrs. Mathews opened the door from the room for me I turned back to him again. 'This solicitor from Manchester,' I said.
Herbert looked at me.
'I've met his type before. And beat them. And I'll move heaven and earth to beat this one, too.'
January 2 was the day I'd promised Maggie we'd bring Darryl in. It was also the day Annabelle was coming home. I didn't know if I was up to such excitement, but I'd do my best. I thought I'd slept in when I looked at the curtains and saw how bright it was outside, but when I opened them there was a thin dusting of snow over everything. That meant traffic chaos in the town so I set off early. I welcomed the troops back, gave a stirring address about fighting crime in the last years of the millennium and sent them out into the bleak streets.
All except Maggie. I said: 'Come and sit down.' When she was comfortable I said: 'On second thoughts, do
