time limit on this sort of case ... and I'm sure your brother would support you. He's the one who first suggested to us that your father abused you.'
The woman stared at her. 'Dad paid me and Micky a small fortune in blood money to keep quiet.'
'About what?'
'Micky had a knife ... said he'd chop my dad's dick off if he didn't pay for what he'd done.' She fell silent, looking back down some dark corridor of time. 'He was
Sasha ignored her boss's voice in her audio specs telling her to leave. 'Did he kill Cill, Mrs. Fletcher? Your brother says you know what happened to her.'
The woman stirred. 'It was Howard,' she said automatically.
'Is that what Roy Trent told you to say?'
Louise's mouth twisted into a cynical smile and, for a moment, she looked as if she were about to agree.
'Don't be an idiot, Lou,' said a man's voice from the doorway. 'There's no harm done except your pride's been dented. Let's cool it, eh?'
Sasha's heart leaped in her chest.
The woman looked murderously toward the visitor. This is my house, Roy. I'm the one who says what happens in it.'
'Except you're making a fool of yourself,' he said harshly, before jerking his head at Sasha. 'Get your stuff together, girl, and I'll see you out.'
There was a pulse of time in which Louise seemed ready to accept his authority. A look of resignation crossed her face and she leaned forward to abandon her cigarette in the ashtray before pushing herself to her feet. But something happened. Perhaps Roy was too insistent. Perhaps Sasha drew attention to herself by moving. Perhaps Louise heard the tinny voice in the spectacle arm. The end result was the same-a manic fury that was beyond anything Sasha had ever imagined or witnessed.
It happened so fast she could only watch in horrified paralysis as Louise swamped Roy with a burst of energy, battering at his head and eyes with the ashtray, kneeing, kicking, forcing him to the floor. 'It's always about
At the back of Sasha's mind was a bizarre hope that it was a performance put on for her benefit, and she was only halfway to her feet when Louise brought the heavy glass weight crashing down on Roy's temple. She lurched forward in a panic, sending the coffee table crashing onto its back. 'Mrs. Fletcher! MRS. FLETCHER! For God's sake, STOP! You're killing him.'
Either the woman didn't hear her or Sasha was too insignificant to worry about, but there was no time to debate the rights and wrongs of any particular action. Sasha's instinctive response was to stop the terrible battering and she lunged forward to grab at Louise's wrists. It was like being caught up by a tornado, a whirling frenzy of movement as Louise turned on her, knocking her to the floor. Sasha felt her shoulder glance off a coffee-table leg before the underside rim slammed into her spine and knocked the wind from her lungs.
If a sensible thought about tactics entered her head, she had no recollection of it. She just gritted her teeth and clung grimly to the other woman's hands, thwarting every attempt to bring the ashtray in contact with her face. Flat on her back, and unable to gain an advantage because she was trapped between the legs of the table, she fought a desperate, sweaty struggle to hold the other woman at bay.
She remembered thinking her boss would be furious because the audio specs were somewhere beneath her, broken. She remembered thinking she needed to lose weight, as she felt the back of her jacket rip. She remembered thinking her mother had taught her that nice girls never got into fights. Most of all, she remembered thinking that if she got through this she would hand in her notice immediately. Fear grew as Louise's knee jammed into her midriff and made the struggle for breath even harder. Why hadn't she heeded George's and Jonathan's advice?
After how long she decided to bullshit the woman, she didn't know. Hours? Seconds? 'You don't ... need to do this,' she grated out of half-starved lungs. 'We
Louise released her left hand from the ashtray. 'No one does except me and Roy,' she snarled, thrusting her hands apart and slamming Sasha's arms against the sharp edges of the table legs to break her hold. 'Micky's dead and Nick can't remember.'
'Then
Louise dragged her hands together again, preparing to repeat the exercise. 'Nick'll kill me.'
Sasha exerted all her strength to hold her wrists together. 'Not if we ... can
There was the briefest relaxation of pressure, and this time it was Sasha who whipped her arms out, gasping from the pain as the sharp edge of the wood cut into the flesh of her arm in the same place as before. As a tactic, it worked spectacularly. The shock of the impact catapulted the ashtray to the far side of the room and, by luck rather than judgment, toppled the smaller woman off balance, pulling Sasha into an ungainly roll. As the table legs gave way beneath her weight, she took a lungful of air and then flailed a leg across the writhing woman, pinning her to the ground.
'ENOUGH!' she roared. 'I am NOT Cill Trevelyan.'
POOLE POLICE STATION
CIVIC CENTER POOLE DORSET BH15 2SE
INCIDENT REPORT
Date: 5.26.03
Time: 1223
Officers attending: PC Alan Clarke, WPC Mary Chambers
Incident: Disturbance at Palencia, Frean Street, Sandbanks.
The disturbance was reported at 1223 by Duncan Bartholomew of WCH Investigations. An ambulance was requested at the same time. Officers Clark and Chambers arrived at Palencia within ten minutes. Five persons were in the house: Mrs. Priscilla Fletcher (tenant/occupier), Mr. Roy Trent (visitor), Mr. Duncan Bartholomew (partner with WCH Investigations), Ms. Sasha Spencer (WCH Investigations employee), Mr. Trevor Paul (Bentham Inquiry
