Henry stepped off his stool and approached John. ‘Are you sure you believe in me? In us, as free men?’
‘I believe, Henry, but how will we know when we’ve won the fight?’
‘Because there will be no rules, no possessions, no restrictions. We will take back what has been stolen. People lost their homes because the banks got greedy. There are empty houses but people live on the streets. None of this is right, and so anyone who isn’t with us is our enemy, you understand that?’
John nodded.
Henry grinned. He pointed at Lucy, and Arni, and David, the youngest male, skinny and twitchy. As they got to their feet, Henry ran out of the room, pausing only to collect some boots.
‘How long do we wait?’ John shouted, as he followed them outside.
Henry paused, and then turned back towards the house. ‘Until we come back. Don’t leave. If anyone else tries to come, don’t let them in.’ He pointed to the grilles. ‘The house is more secure, but stock it so we can defend it. Food. Oil. Wood. We might have to barricade ourselves in. Remember Waco, how the police underestimated them?’
‘Everyone died in the end.’
‘There is always a price to pay,’ Henry said.
‘But what about what we talked about earlier?’
Henry looked angry for a moment, but then he raised his fingers to his lips. ‘Remember what I said. There are things I’ve got to attend to first, because events might derail us.’ Then he ran to his van along with the others, laughing excitedly. There were knives in their pockets; John could see the glint of shiny metal where they jutted out.
He watched as the engine started and then they set off towards Oulton, bumping along the farm track, throwing up dirt in a cloud.
John closed his eyes for a moment as the van’s engine faded into the valley, and he was left with just the breeze in the trees and birdsong. Images from his past life came at him. Work. Family. Money. But it had been empty, he felt that now, as if his own life had been working towards this, and it felt like a rush, a surge of adrenaline, that feeling of belonging, of purpose.
He heard soft footsteps behind him, just light crunches in the dirt, and then arms encircled him gently, a head resting on his back.
It was Gemma, and so he turned around and took her face in his hands. She looked up at him, and for a moment he saw some doubt, fear flashing across her eyes.
‘Things are changing,’ she said.
John thought about what Henry had asked him to do. He kissed her on the forehead. ‘Yes, changing, but moving forward,’ he said.
‘But I’m scared.’
He closed his eyes so that she wouldn’t see the lie in them. ‘We’ve nothing to fear,’ he said. ‘Nothing to fear at all.’
Sheldon came to a stop outside Ted Kenyon’s house. He’d collected his car from the station car park, and had driven straight to Ted’s house again. Except this time he was off-duty, officially.
There wasn’t much movement inside. He stepped out of his car, the clunk of the car door loud in the street, and then walked slowly to the door. He let the gate clink shut behind him and as he paused, he went to straighten his cuffs. Then he stopped himself. The cuff edges on his shirt were threadbare, with threads of loose cotton trailing over his wrists, and the sleeves on his suit jacket were shiny with wear.
It was too late to turn back though, because Ted was in the window, watching as Sheldon walked up the path. Ted was at the door by the time Sheldon reached it.
‘Here again?’ Ted said, but still he stepped aside to let Sheldon in.
‘Mr Kenyon.’
Sheldon went through to the living room, where he had been before so many times, the scene of terse exchanges, although this was the first time that he could call his visit unofficial. He sat down without waiting to be asked.
‘What can I do for you, Inspector? Another search? An arrest this time?’
‘It’s not inspector,’ Sheldon said. When Ted looked confused, he added, ‘I’m on leave, just so that I can sort some things out. I’m here in my personal capacity.’
‘Personal?’
Sheldon nodded. ‘As someone who cares about what happened to Alice.’
Ted sat down. He looked at the floor for a few seconds, his lips pursed, before he spoke. When he did, his voice was quiet. ‘I never doubted that you cared,’ he said. ‘It was whether you had done enough.’
Sheldon’s hands trembled, and so he gripped one set of fingers with the other. ‘I did everything I thought I could, and more. If it wasn’t enough, and it was down to me, then all I can say is that I’m sorry for not catching Alice’s killer.’
‘And now Billy is dead.’
‘Yes. Now Billy.’
‘So, you’re done,’ Ted said. ‘You’ve said your piece, and so you can go back to whatever you want to go back to with a clean conscience.’
Sheldon shook his head. ‘It’s not that.’
Ted considered him for a few moments before he said, ‘Go on.’
‘I want to help you find out what happened to Alice.’
‘You’ve been trying for long enough. What makes you think you can do anything now?’
‘I might know things that you don’t, and I can guess that you know things I don’t. If we work together, perhaps we can get somewhere.’
Ted tapped his fingers on the chair arm and stared silently at Sheldon for a few seconds, until he said, ‘Do you think Alice’s killer is lying in that mortuary?’
Sheldon thought about that. There were only three outcomes; that Billy had known who had killed Alice, that he hadn’t known, or that he had been Alice’s murderer. Sheldon still didn’t know which one was the truth. ‘It’s possible.’
Ted shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Billy Privett did not kill my daughter.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I could do one thing you couldn’t do, and that was speak to him as another human being. You represented something that could lock him away, the police, and you were prepared to try. I was just a grieving father. He could be more honest with me.’
Sheldon was surprised. ‘When did you speak to him?’
‘Just before the anniversary of Alice’s death. I went to his house. He let me in, which surprised me. He didn’t say anything at first. He took me to the pool room and mumbled something about leaving me for a few moments.’
‘And did he?’
Ted nodded. ‘He was respectful, until I came out of there and asked him to tell me what he knew. No, not asked. I begged him. I cried, pulled on his clothes, lost every shred of dignity I had left.’
‘And what did Billy do?’
‘Nothing, except that he looked like he wanted to tell me, but something was stopping him.’
‘How do you know it wasn’t just guilt at something he’d done?’
‘Oh, there was guilt, but there was something else too; fear. He knew damn well who killed my daughter. He was just too scared to tell anyone.’
Sheldon was about to say something, but Ted held up his hand. ‘You don’t need to tell me that he was just scared of getting caught. I’ve gone through every possibility in my head, but each time I come back to what I thought when he looked at me, and it was a certainty that he was scared of telling me.’
‘But yesterday you were angry at what his lawyer said to the camera, that he died an innocent man,’ Sheldon said.
‘Just because he didn’t kill Alice doesn’t mean that he’s innocent. He was a coward, and I can’t forgive him for that.’ Ted rose up out of his chair. ‘Follow me,’ he said, and went towards the stairs. Sheldon went after him, not sure what to expect.
Ted was quiet as he climbed the stairs. Sheldon kept a respectable distance as Ted headed straight for the room that he and Tracey had avoided: Alice’s old room. Ted undid the bolt at the top of the door and pushed it open gently, stepping aside to allow Sheldon to enter.
It was a square room, with fitted cupboards at one end and a single bed below them. There was a corkboard of photographs; teenagers having fun, family pets, some people holding beer bottles. The room was clean, and Sheldon could tell that it was cleaned often. There was a picture on the side, in front of a switched-off clock radio. He didn’t need to get too close to know that it was Alice, and that it was the one item that had been added after she’d died. Her head was cocked, smiling, the sunlight shining through her hair like a halo. Sheldon imagined Ted and Emily sitting on the bed, clutching her photograph in the room that Alice had grown up in, from a toddler full of promise to a party-loving student, all of it snatched away by one night at Billy Privett’s house.
Sheldon thought that he had been brought to the room to be reminded of Alice, but he didn’t need to be reminded, because he thought of her every day. Then Ted opened one of the cupboards and Sheldon saw folders lined up, each with a title marked out in bold red on the spine.
Friends
.
Parties
.
Neighbours
.
‘These are all the notes I’ve made from the people I’ve spoken to,’ Ted said, and then he gave a bitter laugh. ‘At least, those who would speak to me.’
Sheldon went towards them and ran his fingers down one of the spines. His fingernails looked long and dirty.
‘Can I look?’ he said.
‘I’ll bring them downstairs,’ Ted said. ‘But first you eat.’
Sheldon was confused. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Inspector …’
‘Sheldon.’
‘Sorry, Sheldon. You don’t look well. You look tired and hungry.’ He pointed out of the room. ‘Have a bath, relax for a few minutes. I’ll find you some clothes. I think I’ve got some that will fit. I’ll make you some food. Then we’ll talk.’
Sheldon felt tears jump into his eyes, and his mind went back to the moment on the church tower, to how that young woman had saved him. He knew Ted was right.
‘I don’t think I’ve been dealing with it very well,’ Sheldon said.
‘No need to explain.’
Sheldon smiled his gratitude, but the choke of his emotions caught in his throat stopped him from speaking.
Charlie knew he had to get rid of the knife first, and so he turned towards Amelia’s house, wanting to put the knife back in the block. Then he would call the police, tell them what he had found, and all about the two men in suits.
He followed the same route back, ducking down back alleys, dodging round the discarded boxes and junk and dogshit, the knife inside his jacket. He was able to circle the town centre without venturing onto the street, his eyes always looking out for an unlocked gate so that he could hide out of view if a police car passed the end of the alley. He emerged onto the main road further down the hill from the town centre, with Amelia’s house on the other side. He wanted to walk there casually, so that he wouldn’t seem suspicious, but just as he was about to cross the road, there were police cars bunched up ahead, blocking off the road near Amelia’s.
Charlie jumped back into the alley, the knife digging into his side. Someone had found her; the news was out.
He turned to retrace his steps, not taking as much care, just wanting to get away from where the police were. He jogged along the alleys that ran behind the terraced streets, short parallel strips that stacked up the hills. His apartment was somewhere to avoid as the two men would still be there, but he knew he had to get rid of the knife before anything. Then Charlie remembered a quarry, now filled with water, a favourite for the local kids whenever the sun came out. If he followed the line of the houses, he would get to it. So he moved quickly, one arm clenching his side to keep the knife lodged there.
A shale path went towards a bramble-covered waste ground and then curved downwards to the lip of the quarry. He checked around, even though he knew it made him look more suspicious, but he couldn’t stop himself. Charlie wanted to know who might have seen him, so he would know who might one day give evidence against him. He had never been in this position before, so he didn’t know the rules.
The quarry appeared as a cliff behind some wooden fencing twenty feet above the water. Charlie peered over. The surface was deep blue and still.
He took the knife out of the bag and looked at it one last time. The sun caught the blade and sent flashes of light to his eyes. He thought of Amelia again, of what harm the knife had done to her, and then took another look around, to make sure that no one was watching. It was quiet, just a brief moment of calm in a day that had so quickly turned his life the wrong way. Then he shook his head, suddenly angry with himself. What about poor Amelia? What had she suffered before she died?
As Charlie held his hand out over the wooden fence, towards the quarry edge, he paused. What he was doing was wrong. He was disposing of a murder weapon. Then he remembered how the evidence looked stacked against him, and so he had to act.
It didn’t take much more than a flick of his wrist and then the knife was tumbling in the air, bright silver flashes as it arced downwards. And then it was out of sight. Charlie didn’t even hear a splash.
Now he just had to work out what had happened.
Images of Amelia kept on coming back to him, and not just her body in her house. Her smile, or the elegant sweep as she came into the office most mornings, tossing her black hair and putting her sunglasses onto her head. They hadn’t been close, but there had been a bond, he realised that now, and suddenly he felt lost.
But he shouldn’t think like that. Sadness over Amelia was no good now. Or was it just self-pity? Whichever it was, it was draining, self-destructive. Everything had changed so quickly, the length of time it took for him to take in what had happened to Amelia. And now there were men in suits looking for him, ones he had seen coming out of the office the day before. The murder weapon had been next to him as he woke.
Charlie thought briefly about the possible explanations, like a jealous boyfriend or disgruntled client, but he came back to one obvious answer: Billy Privett, because Billy was Amelia’s client. But where did Charlie fit into it all? He had nothing to do with Amelia’s death, he knew that. He wasn’t a murderer, it wasn’t in him. If something had happened, he would have remembered it, he was sure of it.