Authors: Catherine Hunt
By the time she reached the police station in John Street she was clutching her chest like an old woman having a heart attack. She hadn’t spotted Ben Morgan or anyone obviously suspicious, but the feeling that she was being followed never left her. As bad luck would have it, her favourite sergeant was manning the desk. The cold and the fear had made her nose run and she didn’t have a tissue. She wiped it on her sleeve but it kept dripping. The sergeant looked at her, that same cynical expression on his face.
‘Hello again Madam, what can I do for you?’ he asked.
‘I’m here to see Inspector Barnes,’ she managed a smile.
‘I’m afraid he’s not available,’ said the sergeant.
‘I think you’ll find he is. I spoke to him a short time ago and arranged to see him.’ Her smile was dying fast.
‘Sorry, Madam, it’s not possible.’
‘He’s expecting me, I told you,’ she snapped out.
‘As I said, he’s not available. He’s … ’
‘Look, will you just tell him I’m here!’
‘Please, stay calm,’ said the sergeant.
‘I am calm,’ she shouted.
Suddenly, shockingly, she started to cry, not gentle tears filling her eyes and rolling down her cheeks, but great violent, heaving sobs, which made her chest burn with pain. She couldn’t believe it. Not here, she thought. Not in front of him. Please.
She had been wrong about the sergeant. He wasn’t immune to tears and he could see her distress was genuine. His manner changed, the hardness gone, and he guided her to an interview room. Laura sank into a chair, wiped her nose again. He brought her tea and a box of tissues.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘No problem. Would you like me to call someone? Your husband, maybe, who could make sure you’re all right,’ he said, carefully.
‘I really do need to see the Inspector.’
‘He had to go out on an urgent call. Just before you arrived. I was about to tell you.’
‘I see,’ she said, blowing her nose, disgusted that some weak, frightened part of herself had taken over. This wasn’t meant to be her, this scared, defeated woman.
‘If you want to give me any information I’ll make sure Inspector Barnes gets it as soon as he gets back. Or you’re welcome to stay here and wait for him, but I don’t know how long he’ll be.’
She thought about it. She wanted very much to stay put. She felt safe in the police station and there weren’t many places left that she could say that about. But it was only a temporary haven. She wasn’t likely to get police protection on the basis of a few threatening texts and some nasty incidents that might or might not be connected.
She pulled out the envelope with the mobile from her coat pocket, handed it to the sergeant, and asked him to give it to Barnes when he returned. She told him about the texts and about Ben Morgan and how horrified she’d been to see him walk in to Morrison Kemp. The sergeant noted it all down, and this time, she hoped he might not have added the words ‘drama queen’. His attitude had changed and he seemed to be taking her seriously. But then again, she thought, maybe it was just the tears that had wiped the doubting look from his face.
The sergeant arranged for her to be dropped back at work. The breakdown in the police station had shocked Laura, and as she sat in the back of the police car, the stubborn, single-minded streak that had helped her to succeed in the past kicked in. She was not going to cower away in dread, she was going to fight back. Like Anna Pelham, she would not let herself be a victim.
Monica pounced as she came through the door: ‘Laura, I’ve been trying to get hold of you. Joe’s been calling. I said you’d gone out but I didn’t know where. He sounded a bit frantic, wanted to know if you were all right.’ She paused for breath, eyeing Laura closely: ‘There’s nothing wrong is there?’
‘I’m fine, Monica. Bit of a headache, that’s all.’
‘Hmm,’ she said.
Laura attempted a smile and tried to hurry past.
‘Oh and Anna Pelham came in for you. She waited for a bit but then she had to go. Nothing important, she said, she’ll call you tomorrow.’ Monica lowered her voice confidentially, ‘That husband of hers is a total shit, isn’t he?’
Laura didn’t wait to answer and headed up the stairs to her office. She called Joe and for once he answered on the first ring. He was appalled when he heard details of the texts, said he had one more meeting and then he was coming straight over. She told him he didn’t need to, told him she could handle things, but he said he was coming and that was that. He wanted to take care of her.
For the next hour she concentrated on Ben Morgan. She called a friend at her old firm and asked for a copy of the Morgan divorce file to be sent over. It was a thick one, she remembered, and contained the three threatening letters he had sent her from the psychiatric hospital.
The newspaper coverage she found on the Internet was familiar, but she wasn’t prepared for ‘Ben’s Story’ as he had written it on the divorce web site. It had been posted only three months ago. It began:
I have a daughter, Millie, who I haven’t seen for six years now …
It shook her and she realized how much of a grudge he had. She was staring at it when Joe arrived. He came rushing in and hugged her close. Pain spiked from her rib.
‘You OK?’
She nodded, biting her lip and pointing at the screen, ‘Take a look at this.’
Joe began to read.
‘Wow,’ he said after a while, ‘he certainly blames you a lot for what happened, but he also blames the system.’
‘He sees
me
as the system, Joe. We’re the same thing. I represent the system that screwed him and took away his daughter. That would make him hate me quite a lot, wouldn’t it?’
Joe turned from the screen to look at his wife, his bright blue eyes scanning her face. It was wearing a brave little smile, but the smile looked fragile and dislocated.
‘I’m so sorry, honey, I should’ve taken your word on this. I should’ve realized you weren’t imagining things.’
‘You weren’t to know. It could all have been coincidence. Some of the time I doubted myself.’
‘I haven’t been there for you, Laura,’ he stopped for a moment, ‘but I’m going to be.’
He wasn’t struggling anymore but that didn’t mean good news. He wasn’t struggling because he’d been sedated again. He was sluggish and his eyes were dull.
Joe and Laura stared miserably at Valentine trapped in the sling while a frowning Jeff Ingham explained that they’d tried to put the sedative in Valentine’s feed but he’d refused to eat it. In the end, they’d had to syringe it into his mouth as a paste; the whole operation had been highly distressing for everyone involved.
He pointed to a haynet hanging in front of Valentine’s nose. ‘He should be grazing on that all day long because he needs the fibre. He’s hardly touching it at the moment. Without it, his gut is starting to dry out and he’s likely to get colic.’
Laura winced. Colic, a serious threat to a healthy horse, would be a certain killer for Valentine.
She climbed up on to the platform beside him where there was a bag of feed. Carrots, apples, molasses were mixed in to tempt him to eat. She took a carrot from the bag and stroked the horse’s head, whispering to him, coaxing him. To her huge delight, the carrot disappeared.
Her smile of triumph irritated the vet and his usual gentle manner deserted him.
‘You have to realize what’s happening here,’ he snapped. ‘So far he hasn’t been able to cope with life in a sling and also he’s not eating properly. If that doesn’t change, even if he avoids colic, his body will start to feed off itself and it won’t be long before his muscles waste away.’
Laura took a handful of feed and held it under the horse’s mouth. He began to eat, slowly, without enthusiasm, but he was eating.
‘Visiting him for an hour a day,’ the vet paused trying not to be rude, ‘well, you may not get the full picture.’
‘How much longer should I give it?’ Laura stroked Valentine’s flank. Her hand came away sticky from the polymer gel that coated the sling to try to prevent bed sores.
‘If he’s not eating reasonably well and we can’t get him off the sedatives by the end of the week, there’s no point in putting him through any more.’
‘Is there anything else we can do to help his chances?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Maybe another nurse. It’s a pretty much around the clock operation. Depends if your insurance will stretch that far.’
‘Yes. That’s no problem. Please do get another nurse.’
‘Laura, I hate to say it, but this is really going to cost us,’ Joe said.
She felt a sting of disappointment in him.
Jeff Ingham looked at her sharply. ‘No insurance?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ she said curtly.
‘I thought you said they’d turned you down flat,’ Joe again.
It was true, the insurance company had confirmed what she already knew, that she didn’t have a claim. No question. Private land, out of bounds, not even arguable, they’d said gleefully. But she didn’t want Jeff Ingham to know – in case he tried to save her money.
‘No, they just said it wasn’t clear cut, they’d have to look into it.’
The vet wasn’t fooled. ‘You’ve already got a bill for thousands of pounds. For a week, I don’t know, maybe if he means that much to you, but if it goes on after that you’re going to need to take out a mortgage.’
‘It’s what I said, honey. He’s a great horse, but we have to be realistic. I think another nurse is pushing it.’
She glared at him. He had a strange idea of being there for her.
‘I have the money,’ she said in a frosty voice, ‘I would like to employ an extra nurse, and,’ she turned towards the vet, ‘after four days, as you suggest, we will review.’
Jeff Ingham nodded and said no more. He’d made the position clear and now he would just get on and do his best for Valentine and for the woman. He liked her strength and stubbornness and wondered why she’d ended up with such an arse of a husband. Self-regarding, mean-spirited, he stopped himself adding to the list of faults, surprised by his own strength of feeling.
On the drive back from the clinic Laura sat huddled in the passenger seat of Joe’s car trying to stop her rib from being jarred by the journey. Her head was bent over and she looked at Joe from the corner of her eye. His face was tight and she knew he was annoyed by her unilateral decision to spend more money on Valentine. It was a pity; she’d hoped for more from him.
‘OK,’ he broke the silence, ‘which way do I go?’
She directed him to the narrow road over the Downs. Earlier, he had suggested going back to the place where Valentine fell to get photos of the wires on the trees. Laura had been pleased; it showed that his attitude had changed. No longer did he dismiss her fears as fantasy.
‘Great. How about going first thing tomorrow?’ she’d said. ‘Doesn’t matter if I’m a bit late in to work.’
‘Can’t do that,’ he shook his head. ‘Meeting at nine. Let’s go tonight.’
Laura had been doubtful whether they’d get any decent pictures in the dark but Joe assured her his camera would have no trouble, and the full moon would help.
She recognized the spot where the minicab had dropped her and Joe parked at the side of the road. They set off together over the clifftop and down towards the wood. A cold wind was blowing and clouds came and went across the face of the moon, but its light still shone bright and she easily found the way.
‘There it is,’ she whispered pointing ahead, ‘the wire’s on that tree.’
Joe unslung his camera and walked quickly towards it. He bent over, examining the trunk.
‘Can’t see anything on this one,’ he said as she caught up with him.
She saw at once that he was right. There was a whooshing from the wind in the tree tops and the light from the moon was dimmer here. Joe took a torch from his pocket and played its beam up and down the tree and on the surrounding ground. Nothing. There was no wire and no sign that one had ever been there.
‘You sure this is the place?’
‘Positive.’ She walked across the track to the other tree. Nothing there either. The wires were gone.
‘Someone’s taken them away,’ she said, returning to Joe’s side.
He was examining the trunk again. ‘There’s got to be some damage,’ he muttered. ‘You and Valentine whacked into that wire, must’ve left a mark.’
‘That was the point of the rubber casing, Joe. So there would be no tell-tale marks on the trees.’
He straightened up and looked at her, one eyebrow raised, that disbelieving expression she’d seen too much of recently. He began talking but she had to tune him out, either that or bite his head off. He was saying things about ‘accidents’ and ‘not getting carried away’. She turned from him and walked further into the wood, straining her eyes for the wire.
The clouds cleared and the moon blazed down through the trees and Laura thought she saw something ahead, something that might be black rubber hosing. She began to run, and almost at once, she tripped on a rabbit hole and fell to the ground, letting out a yell of pain. She lay on her face taking shallow breaths, then turned and looked up. Joe loomed over her, his face pale and set in the bright moonlight.
Panic spurted in her chest. He was going to attack her. Suddenly, it was obvious to her that Joe was the one who wanted to kill her. Barnes’s question flashed through her head,
what sort of relationship do you have with your husband
? She knew the answer now, how stupid she had been not to realize it before.
She tried to back away but it was too late, his strong fingers gripped her arm and he pulled her roughly to her feet. She yelled again, this time in terror, and then his mobile started to ring.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I forgot about your rib. Are you OK?’ He silenced his phone, put his arm gently round her shoulder and started kissing the top of her head.
Laura felt the tension rush out of her. Ridiculous, she was being ridiculous. Of course it wasn’t Joe. What the hell was wrong with her; was she losing her mind? She felt tears close to the surface and didn’t trust herself to speak.
‘Honey, are you OK?’ Joe said again, urgently.