A Game of Proof

of the whole incident and wanted to block it out, but more because she feared Simon’s response. He would be outraged by an attack on his mother, and she’d had enough of his rage already. No doubt the prison warders had too.

So she continued, rather feebly: ‘… and he has a record of petty crime and violence going back to his teens. In addition to which he had met Jasmine, hadn’t he? At your house?’

‘Yeah, I suppose he had, once or twice. But he had nowt to do with her, surely?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘I wasn’t there.’

‘No, well, he didn’t. She was always with me when he was there, and … Christ, I’ll kill the bastard if he’s touched her!’

‘We don’t know that he did, Simon,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s just that, you see, he’s the sort of man who could have killed her, isn’t he? If he asked her for sex, perhaps, and she refused.’

‘Jesus.’ Simon banged his forehead with his fist, repeatedly. The thought of Gary with Jasmine clearly hurt him badly.

‘So if you can think of any occasions, any incidents that might suggest his involvement, tell us about them and we’ll pass them on to the police and if possible use them in court,’ Lucy continued. ‘Any suggestion that someone else may have killed her is good. But Gary’s rather a long shot. He was only released from court on the afternoon of the day she died. You didn’t see him at any time that day, did you?’

Simon looked at her blankly. ‘No, how could I? I was with Jasmine all afternoon, in bed mostly. I didn’t see him there.’

‘He didn’t come round to your house, ring you, anything like that?’

‘No.’ He swallowed nervously. ‘Look, if he killed her — and you’re right, mum, he could have, he’s the sort of bastard who could, no doubt about that — then I don’t know why or how he met her. But — oh God …’ He sank his head in his hands, and Sarah realised he was crying. ‘ … it’s bad enough that she’s dead, but to think it might be him...’

They waited until he recovered his composure. Sarah remembered the suspicion she had voiced so unwillingly to Terry Bateson the other night; what if this series of crimes had actually been perpetrated by two men, working together, one perhaps under the influence of the other? Had Gary controlled her son, in some way?

When he looked up, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, she asked gently: ‘Why do you hate him so much, Simon?’

‘Because …’ He shook his head. ‘No, I can’t.’

‘Because what? Tell me.’

Still no response. He looked away from her, at the wall, but found no comfort there.

Lucy added her voice. ‘Come on, Simon. We can’t help you if we don’t know.’

‘Oh God!’ He put his hands flat on the table, looked at the two women desperately. ‘Because I’m afraid of him, that’s why, if you really have to know. So if he can scare me, what he might have done to Jasmine …’

‘What did he do to you, Simon?’

‘It wasn’t just him.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Him and that bastard Sean. They beat me up in the loo and … I shit myself.’ He shook his head violently from side to side, as though to escape the memory. ‘They stuck my face down the loo … That’s why I let them use the bloody shed! I don’t want to talk about it, mum, I’m sorry.’

He got up and turned away from them again, banging the wall repeatedly with the flat of his hand, and then his head, thump, thump …

Sarah stood up and held him, put her hand on his forehead so that he would have to bang that if he wanted to bang his head. She could feel him sobbing, her big strong son … She put her slim arms around him but how could they protect, if his own strength had been destroyed?

He tried to push her off but she wouldn’t let go. As she held him she met Lucy’s eyes and they both thought, we’re Gary Harker’s defence team, we got him off …

At last Simon sat down. Ashamed and embarrassed, he tried to regain his dignity. ‘I’m sorry, it weren’t that bad really, just their idea of a filthy joke. But no one’s ever done owt like that to me before and if they tried I could always stop them. But not these two. And the thought of him, either of ‘em, having to do with Jasmine, it’s … I don’t want to think of it.’

Two of them, Sarah thought. But not Simon and Gary, after all …

Terry was at home, in his living room, reading. His daughters were, he hoped, asleep. His Norwegian nanny, Trude, was on the phone in the corridor, talking to her boyfriend. Terry could hear the conversation but he wasn’t intruding; he couldn’t, he didn’t know any Norwegian.

He was reading Maria Clayton’s diary. Re-reading it, rather; he had read it several times before. It was an odd mixture of personal appointments, notes, lists, philosophical reflections and comments on her clients.

It was the latter, naturally, which interested Terry most. They had a wide number of preferences, some of which, clearly, Maria had found amusing. Terry sympathized with her. Why, for example, would a salesman, married with two children, want to dress up as a French maid and have his bottom spanked if he spilt Maria’s drinks? Or a bank manager pay her to cover his erect penis with ice cream and lick it slowly off while he gave her?5 notes?

No wonder some of these men had been reluctant to help the police enquiry. Still, Terry thought, such activities were harmless, if absurd. Whatever the men who indulged in them were, they were not dangerous psychopaths.

So it was the other details Terry was checking on now. The appointments, the notes. He checked them all, one by one, against a timetable of the last two months of Maria’s life. It was a slow, painstaking search for the one vital clue which would throw everything else into place.

But not tonight, it seemed. He yawned, his mind wandering. Best to stop now, he told himself, before I miss something. He heard Trude put the phone down in the corridor and as she came in he dropped the diary gratefully on the sofa beside him.

‘How’s Odd?’

She smiled. ‘Oh, happy, I think. His team won yesterday so — that makes up for me.’

‘He prefers football to you?’

‘Sometimes, yes, I think he does.’

He gazed at her, astonished — this slender young woman with the cropped teeshirt and provocative, lithe bellybutton. ‘How could he, Trude? That’s really odd, you know.’

‘It is, isn’t it? Let’s hope he’s not bent as well.’

It was an old joke between them. Terry had been bemused to learn that her Norwegian boyfriend was called Odd, and astounded to hear of other boys in Norway called Bent. Later he had learned that she herself had nearly been christened not Trude, but Randi.

He could imagine what the lads at work would have said about that. It was hard enough anyway, sharing a house with a lovely young girl in whose eyes he was, presumably, geriatric. He had wondered sometimes what might happen if she ever cast an erotic glance his way; but sadly, it seemed the thought never entered her head.

‘I’m off to bed soon,’ she said innocently. ‘Would you like a drink, Terry?’

‘A hot chocolate if you’re making one. Thanks.’

While Trude made the drinks Terry thought about his conversation with Sarah earlier that day. Had he been too harsh? No, probably he’d been too soft before. All that guff the other night about Simon being not the type to commit such crimes was just self-deception on his part.

Churchill was right. The lad had assaulted a secretary and hit his girlfriend; why couldn’t he murder as well? He had a problem relating to girls; probably caused by his bitchy, over-achieving mother. I should keep clear; the pair of them are nothing but trouble.

When Trude had gone to bed he picked up the diary and leafed backwards to an entry that had puzzled him earlier. It seemed to refer to one of Maria Clayton’s clients. He read it again.

S big promise, no result. Gets it up but can’t get it out. V frust for him, poor lamb, blames me. Outside? No way, Jose, I say.

What did it mean? Terry wondered. Like many entries it seemed to refer to a client with sexual difficulties. But Maria’s attempts at therapy had caused more frustration, which he apparently blamed on her.