Maggie and I shook our heads and he looked disappointed.
'Or you could let them drop out of the bottoms of your trousers as you walked across the car park every evening.'
'Right,' Gilbert said. 'Having solved my problem of how to dispose of wet tea bags is that it, or is there something even more pressing?'
I looked at Maggie and spread my fingers, inviting her to talk. She told the super everything Janet Saunders had alleged the night before, and the little we knew about Darryl the Rapist.
Gilbert looked grave and gave a big sigh. 'Has anyone recognised him?' he asked.
I shook my head. 'No, but it's early doors. And if he's local he shouldn't be too hard to find. He seems to be a creature of habit.'
'So you want to fetch him in?'
'I think we should. We need to know who he is, at the very least.'
'OK, but don't waste too much time on it.'
There was a look of panic on Maggie's face as she looked from one of us to the other. 'What's the problem?' she demanded. 'He's a regular in the Tap and Spile. We'll get him.'
'It might be better, Maggie, if we didn't,' I suggested.
'And let him get away with rape!'
'Which would Mrs. Saunders prefer: not catching him, or we arrest him and the CPS refuses to prosecute?'
Gilbert said: 'Darryl was right, Maggie. It'd be her word against his.
The vast majority of rapists are known to their victims, and we have a less than thirty per cent conviction rate if we go ahead with it. It looks as if he knows the score.'
'We can't just let him get away with it,' she protested.
'What would happend if it went to court?' I asked her. 'I liked Janet. I admire her courage and believe every word she said. But how would she look in the witness box?' I took hold of my thumb, as if counting. 'Her husband has the daughter through the week. That looks to me as if he has custody. Why is that? Was she the guilty party?' I moved to my index finger. 'Janet works in the pub three nights per week, but doesn't have a full-time job. Is she on benefits? Almost certainly. Does she declare her pub income?' I shrugged my shoulders.
'They're just for starters. What else might we find out about her that can be twisted by a barrister to destroy her character? She'd get torn to pieces, Maggie. It'd be worse than the rape.'
Poor Maggie looked shell-shocked. She'd heard of cases like this, heard of judges who still lived in the Stone Age and believed that 'she was asking for it' was a sound defence. But it's impossible to accept that there might be another point of view when you've dried the victim's tears, wiped the snot off her cheek and steadied her trembling shoulders. I didn't mention the final kick in the teeth: if the CPS decided that it wasn't worth pursuing, or if Janet decided not to give evidence, we regarded it as a clear-up.
'But,' Gilbert said, removing his half-moon spectacles and polishing them on a large handkerchief, 'as Charlie said, we need to know who he is. If he gets away with it once, he'll do it again. Let's have a look at him, eh?'
I turned to Maggie. 'How do you fancy a couple of nights on the town, with Mrs. Saunders?'
'No problem,' she replied.
'Overtime?' I wondered, turning to the super.
He rolled his eyes. 'Two hours,' he said. 'Not a minute more.'
Chapter Two
I caught Annabelle on the telephone when I arrived home. It was rather late, but I was missing her, so I risked it. I'd been for a swift half with Dave and Nigel, and when Dave didn't invite the two of us home to share his evening meal we repaired to the Eastern Promise for something spicy to stimulate our jaded palates. The proprietor joined us and we lingered a while.
'It's me,' I said, recognising her voice, relieved it wasn't Rachel.
'Hello Charles. How are you?'
'Missing you.'
'Me too. Did you try to ring earlier?'
'Yes, I did.'
'Sorry about that. We were invited to a dinner party next door. Only came in a few minutes ago. Have you eaten?'
Annabelle takes a motherly interest in my diet. I said: 'Yes. I've just finished Dover sole, with jacket potato and seasonal vegetables.'
'No you haven't. Tell me the truth.'
I swivelled round in the easy chair and hung my legs over the arm. 'Er, chefs curry of the day,' I said.
'Look after yourself, Charles,' she sighed. 'You must start to eat properly. It's a pity you're not still here. We are going up to London tomorrow evening, to a brand new restaurant that has just been opened by one of George's clients, somewhere in the West End. He's recruited some chef from the television and it all sounds rather grand.
Apparently he originates from Iran that's George's client, not the TV chef but he likes to call himself a Persian. Rachel says he's the wealthiest person she's ever met, and they know quite a few.' She lowered her voice as she told me about the Persian and his wealth.
'Sounds fascinating,' I said, my tone implying exactly the opposite.
'Let me know all about it.'
'Will do. And what about you? Did you arrive home in time for the social evening last night?'
'Mmm, no problem. The roads were quiet.' 'I'm so glad we could get away for Christmas, Charles. You deserved a break, after what happened last year.' She lowered her voice again. 'Even if we did have separate bedrooms.'
'That won't happen again,' I growled. We chatted aimlessly for another twenty minutes. I'm not good at small talk, but this was no effort at all. I couldn't believe it was me saying these things, but it felt natural, comfortable. This was a second chance for both of us, and we were taking things very slowly, but it felt good.
We said our goodbyes. I hoped she would enjoy her posh meal and she told me to be careful. I watched the late news and went to bed, but I knew I wouldn't sleep. Too many people had reminded me about last Christmas, and I didn't need any reminding at all. I lay on my back, gazing at the ceiling, thinking about Annabelle, churning over all those emotions, imagined conversations and secret signals that I thought I'd grown out of at about the time my acne went away. It didn't work. A car turned into the end of the street. A shaft of light through a chink in the curtains swung slowly across the wall and over the ceiling, as if searching for something. I half hoped it was coming for me, but I heard a door slam several houses away, and the screech of a garage door that desperately needed a squirt of garage door oil. I sank back into my pillows and gave way to last year's memories.
Susan Crabtree threw herself off the multi-storey car park on the eve of the anniversary of the birth of Christ. No one saw her jump, so all we had was a dead body on the pavement, last week's paper blown against her leggings and a ribbon of blood gravitating towards the drain. I found a purse and a bunch of keys in the pocket of her anorak, and saw that she had brown eyes and a polyp near the corner of her mouth. A pair of shattered spectacles lay nearby and their indentations were visible on the sides of her nose. I couldn't be sure that she hadn't been hit by a car or even shot, so I checked for tell-tale marks as well as I knew how. We needed a head start on the pathologist, if possible. I gently lifted a strand of hair away from her ear and noticed that it wasn't pierced. One thing she wasn't was a fashion victim.
The doctor who pronounced her dead gave her a more thorough examination and concluded that she'd come from the fifth floor, the short way. The next question was all mine: was she pushed or did she jump? An ambulance took her to the hospital mortuary and fifteen minutes later myself and a uniformed PC were unlocking the door of Susan's bed sit He found the bundle, but from its shape we both had a good idea what might be in it. It was wrapped in newspaper and tightly bound with Sellotape, so it looked like something from an Egyptian tomb, except that they didn't have the Guardian in those days. I found a pair of scissors in a drawer next to the sink and the PC
