43

Katherine opened the door. She was in shorts and a cropped top. She looked lean and fit and bad-tempered.

‘You should have telephoned first. I’m going for a run.’

Sarah said, ‘Can we come in?’

Katherine leaned her hand on the door frame. ‘No, you can’t. This is the third time one or other of you has been here. You gave me your card. If I had had anything more to tell you, I’d have rung.’

‘We’ve got news.’

Katherine’s face changed: there, in an instant, was that blankness of expression that the death message sometimes brings. Without speaking she moved through to the sitting room, sat down and waited, her hands folded in her lap.

Sarah sat opposite her. She said, ‘We’ve found a body. We’re still awaiting official confirmation, but we’re confident it’s Tania.’

First Katherine said, ‘I just don’t know.’ Then, after a pause, ‘I’d always hoped she was still alive.’

Elaine said, ‘We can call someone for you.’

Katherine shook her head. There was silence.

Elaine said, ‘Can I make you tea? Coffee?’

‘No.’ She gazed around the room blankly. ‘Do you know how she died?’

Sarah said, ‘We’re working on that now. We need your help.’

Katherine nodded. She looked slack, defeated.

Sarah continued softly. ‘Would you allow Elaine to make you that cup of tea?’

‘Yes, all right, tea.’

Elaine filled the kettle, found cups. The water hissed its way to boiling.

Sarah said, ‘Do you remember last time I was here I said I wanted you to feel you could talk to me about anything?’

Katherine nodded but did not speak.

Elaine put the sugar bowl and cups on the table. She sat too. Katherine looked warily between the two police officers.

Elaine said, ‘Tania was unlawfully buried. Do you understand what that means?’

Katherine shook her head.

‘That means someone hid her burial. We were never meant to find her.’

Sarah watched Katherine who appeared to be listening with an extreme attentiveness.

Elaine continued. ‘Tania had suffered a fracture to the C2 vertebra in her neck. We’re working on the basis that she was killed.’

Suddenly Katherine pressed her hands hard against her eyes. Both Sarah and Elaine waited but she did not speak.

Elaine said, ‘Richard Stephenson says he spent the day with you the day she disappeared.’

Katherine took her hands away from her eyes. She looked at Elaine and nodded.

Elaine said, ‘Is that a yes?’

‘I was with him, yes.’

Elaine said, ‘My guess is that you’ve got your reasons for not talking over all these years.’

Katherine assented with the tiniest dip of her nose.

Elaine said, ‘But you need to talk to us now.’

There was a silence. Katherine took a swig of her tea. She rubbed her collar bone.

They drove Katherine to the interview suite. Elaine conducted the interview and Sarah watched on the screen in the control room.

The view offered by the camera was impersonal but in spite of the fixed indifferent eye Sarah saw well enough the nature of the thing in Katherine’s faltering gestures – a hand on the face, a downward cast of the eyes, a running of the nail under the teeth. It was there too in the hesitant speech, the occasional sudden angry bluntness.

Painstakingly Elaine started to split what had happened into words and syllables, the first breach of the secrets Katherine had never told.

16 October 1987, the morning after the storm, and the phone had rung in Katherine’s house. She’d been on her own in the garden, smoking, waiting for Tania to arrive. Those had been the last of the bored teenage days where every ring of the phone seemed to promise, if nothing else, then at least a break from tedium. She left her cigarette burning on the wall, ran inside, snatched the phone off its cradle before whoever it was hung up. When she realized who it was she blushed, was uncertain, pleased. Usually so aloof, he sounded friendly. He’d got Katherine’s telephone number from the school’s files, he said. He hoped she didn’t mind him calling her at home?

‘Uh, no, sir.’

There was a kindly chuckle on the other end of the line. ‘Not sir any more, surely we know each other better than that?’

‘Mr Stephenson, it’s fine you calling, really.’

‘Richard.’

‘Yeah, OK then – Richard.’

While her own mind raced, he moved on breezily. He’d sensed recently with her playing that she was ready to go to the next level. All she needed was a bit of help, someone to show her the little things that would make all the difference. Today they’d both been given a bit of enforced idleness. He could come round? If she was on for it, that is . . . For the first time she heard a note of severity. He warned her he didn’t like to work with people who weren’t committed.

She dashed upstairs to change and put make-up on. She was a prey to spots in those days and she tried to cover them with her concealer stick. She’d forgotten briefly that Tania was coming too. Then she remembered but it was too late to ring and put her off. She was suddenly annoyed with Tania: they’d hardly been speaking. How come she suddenly wanted to be friends again?

Mr Stephenson was at the door in no time. He kissed her on the cheek at the doorway, just as if she were an adult. They went into the sitting room. He asked her to get her violin out. At first he sat and watched her playing. Then he got up and put an arm round her to show her the exact technique, the martelé bowing she had been struggling with. The door sounded. Stephenson stepped away from her.

He said, ‘I thought you said you were free for a lesson.’

Katherine blushed. ‘I am. It’s only Tania. I’ll tell her to come back later.’

‘I’ll wait here then.’

Tania was at the front door in her short skirt, with frizzy hair and her bag and violin case. Katherine didn’t know why she lied to her. Perhaps because – as Mr Stephenson said to her later – she’d known all along what was going on. Sarah watched the adult Katherine on the monitor.

‘I did know, in a way, but I didn’t know. Not really. Does that make sense?’

Elaine nodded but did not speak.

Katherine said, ‘So I said to Tania, “Sorry but I’d forgotten I’d promised my mum I’d go shopping.”’

And Tania said, ‘Oh Katherine! I’ve walked all the way here.’

‘I’m sorry!’

‘I can come in for a minute until you’re ready to go –’

‘No really. I’m not ready and Mum will be cross. She’ll be back in a min.’

Tania hesitated. Then she shrugged. ‘See you later then.’

The door shut. Katherine was nervous now, unsure this was such a good idea after all. She went back into the sitting room. Mr Stephenson was sitting, legs wide apart, hands on his knees. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked with what seemed an irritated smile.

She said, ‘Should I start playing again?’

But then there was hammering on the door, shouting through the letterbox. ‘I know he’s in there! I can see the car!’

Katherine took the violin from under her chin and rested it on her arm. She didn’t know what to do.

Stephenson said, ‘I’ll speak to her.’

He went to the hallway. At first she couldn’t hear anything clearly, just a hushed insistent voice. She put her violin on the sofa, stepped from behind the door and watched from the end of the hall. Any view of Tania was obscured by Stephenson’s back at the door. She heard him say, ‘If you can’t talk nicely I’ll have to close the door.’

But then Tania leaned past him and saw Katherine and she started shouting, ‘Katherine, Katherine!’

It was only a matter of seconds. Stephenson had already shut the door. The shouting stopped.

Katherine suddenly felt very, very sorry. She wanted to run out to Tania but Stephenson was in the doorway so she ran instead up to the first floor window of her parents’ bedroom and watched her friend walking away, hunched over, looking at the pavement.

She wanted to go out, to say she was sorry and let’s just be good friends again, like we’ve been for years. But Stephenson was there behind her. He put his arm around her.

He said kindly, ‘You haven’t done anything wrong.’

He kissed her softly on the cheek, whispered into her ear. Come on, you know she was just jealous. He put his hand on her cheek, turned his face to hers. I really like you. The words were nice but she was alarmed. She had been jealous of Tania but she hadn’t meant this. The emptiness of the house was no longer a blessing. His teeth were hard against her own. His enormous tongue was in her mouth. She pulled away.

Come on, you know why I’m here.

His hand was on her breast. He’d hurt her. Later she’d seen a bruise. She tried to laugh it off but he wasn’t laughing.

Come on. You want it too. Why else have you dressed like that?

This was surely nothing more than a misunderstanding. He would understand.

No, really, Mr Stephenson.

Richard.

Richard, I don’t want—

But his hand was already between her legs, firmly pulling her pants to one side. It was very quick. She was on her back, noticing how there were cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling, and he was pushing her head against the wall repeatedly as he banged her on the floor of her parents’ bedroom. It had hurt, but that was fine in a way because it wasn’t her body it was happening to.

Afterwards she didn’t know what to do. She thought he’d leave but he didn’t. She wanted to be on her own but he stood in the doorway to the bathroom while she took a shower. He said she was lovely and that he wanted to treat her specially, like a lady, like she deserved. He helped her choose her outfit. He took her out in his big green car with the leather seats. She didn’t want to go but she didn’t know how to get rid of him. They weaved past fallen trees and had the roads almost to themselves. He bought her a meal in a pub, encouraged her to drink wine, told her she was special.

Elaine was completely still as she listened.

Katherine was still too, looking away to her left, speaking without inflection. Sarah made notes, being professional, assessing the account, trying to watch it all through the filter of evidence. But she could see the quiet country pub, the glimmering wine in the glass, Katherine being offered a menu and encouraged to choose. She was out of her depth, in shock, both elevated and betrayed by her predator’s method.

On the way back, he pulled the car over into a country lane.

That car, the early autumn darkness already drawing in. The adult man with the appetite. The child in the seat next to him.

He slid his seat back away from the steering wheel.

Sarah wanted to interrupt the act. Here were his words, the inevitable words, the words that were no more than a method.

You are fantastically beautiful.

It’s your fault. I can’t resist you. It’s not fair for you to lead me on like this.

It’s a special thing you can do for me. I’ll like it and you’ll like it too.

No actions as he sat in the car increasingly impatient; no tender caresses, no kisses, just the steps necessary to have the thing he wanted.

He undid his flies. ‘Come on, put it in your mouth.’

And here was Katherine, the child, resisting, protesting, fighting her corner.

I said I was frightened. I wanted to go home. I said I didn’t know what to do. Before today I’d never done anything like this, only kissed a boy my own age a couple of times.

And then here was the devil, tired of waiting.

Don’t be such a baby!

Tania loves doing this. Is there something wrong with you?

Stop – being – so – pathetic.

And finally, the violence.

He put his two hands on the back of my head and forced me down so hard I gagged.

Fifteen-year-old Katherine in the car, her face in his lap, his hands on the back of her head. Revolted, frightened, horrified.

I couldn’t believe it when he came in my mouth. It was so dirty. I wasn’t even sure what had happened.

Katherine getting out of the car, leaving the passenger door open in her haste, puking and puking over and over in the hedgerow. And Stephenson sitting in the car, feeling nothing but impatience with the demands of this object so boringly necessary to him, waiting for her to return, to stop the messy tiresome business of her suffering.

When I got back in the car he said I was a good girl and that he loved me. This was what love was like. I would come to like it. I was just inexperienced. All girls found it hard to start off with. I started crying. He said, don’t cry. After all, you wanted it really, didn’t you? Why else did you send Tania away? He gave me his handkerchief and waited. He turned the key in the ignition.

It was like I’d dreamed it. Could it really have been so awful?

He drove me home. All the time he was talking. Not only did he love me but also I was a good violinist, really good in fact, exceptional. He was going to make me famous. He dropped me round the corner from my house and I walked home.

At about ten o’clock the police came round and said Tania was missing and asked if I’d seen her.

I didn’t know what to say. My last sight of Tania was her walking down the road, looking at the pavement. I’d taken Mr Stephenson from her and it had turned out I didn’t want him. There’s nothing worse than wishing with all your heart you hadn’t done something.

I wanted to see her so badly, to say I was sorry, to talk to her. Did you hate it, like I do? Did you love him? I thought, she’s probably dead. She’s killed herself. I wanted to kill myself too. I woke up that night and puked and puked. I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened. I was so ashamed. Until today I’ve never told anyone. But he couldn’t have killed Tania because he was with me all day on the sixteenth of October.

They paused the interview. Stephenson’s custody clock was ticking away towards the time when he would have to be charged or released. Establishing the detail of Katherine’s account was a work of precision that would take all day. Sarah needed to free herself to deal with Stephenson. There was lots to do. His detention would need to be extended. He’d have to be re-interviewed. She didn’t like to admit to herself that returning to this aspect of the investigation would also be an escape from Katherine’s story.

She made a few calls and then spoke with Fedden.

‘Stephenson has an alibi until at least early evening. But the burial is still linked to him so perhaps he killed her later, when he got home. I don’t know, to be honest. I can’t work it out. I’ve sent Lee to do a door-to-door at his former address. We’re looking for anything anyone remembers out of the ordinary. It was the day after the great storm. That might jog people’s memories. Can you task someone to take over from me here with Elaine? I’ll go back to custody and interview Stephenson. Steve Bradshaw has said he’s free to assist me.’

Steve let Sarah in through the back door of the nick as they’d agreed.

‘We’re good to go,’ he said. He tapped his shirt pocket. ‘You need a cigarette before we start?’

She shook her head. ‘No, better crack on.’ Briefly their eyes met, seeking out how things were between them nowadays. Steve broke out his crumpled smile that creased the tired lines at the edges of his eyes. It seemed to reveal something kinder than mere happiness but Sarah had long since come to suspect that it might be no more than a useful shorthand for getting on with people.

She said, ‘Thanks for helping me out.’

‘No worries. Sounds like a good job. I’m grateful to be asked to work on it.’

Sarah’s first cynical impulse was because he’s one of the proper bad guys, the ones you approve of catching, but then she thought of Lizzie lying unconscious in hospital. It was an unsettling image and the worry crossed her mind again that perhaps Steve had been right about Lizzie and she wrong.

She said, ‘Yes, well, it’s great to have you.’

They picked up the lawyer from where she was waiting in the front office and walked through into custody together.

Stephenson was sitting on the plastic mattress in his cell, annotating with a pencil the score he had brought with him. The fingers of his left hand tapped out a complex rhythm as he read the manuscript through the lenses of his rimless glasses. His jacket was laid out neatly at the bottom of the hard concrete shelf that formed the bed.

His lawyer was not the tired, scruffy type one usually saw in custody. She was in her forties, elegant, with shoulder-length steel-grey hair and an austere face that needed no make-up. She was slim, wore a dark pinstripe skirted suit over a light-grey silk blouse. She took a single step towards her client and said, ‘Richard.’

Stephenson looked up and removed his glasses, as if the people standing in his cell were students interrupting his work, coming in for a lesson perhaps. He made eye contact solely with his lawyer as if she was the only one who held any relevance. ‘Ah, Marion,’ he said standing up and pulling on his jacket. He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve been in here eight hours already and nothing appears to be happening.’

The lawyer’s voice was low. ‘I’ll be looking into all that in due course, but the officers are ready to interview now.’

The interview room was small and stuffy in the afternoon heat and smelled horribly of some earlier occupant. They discussed propping the door open but decided against: Mr Stephenson wished to maintain his privacy as far as possible.

‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I hope you won’t mind if I remove my jacket.’

Sarah said, ‘Of course not.’

As he stood up, took off his jacket and hung it on the back of the chair, Sarah’s eyes briefly met those of his lawyer. For a moment Marion seemed to leak an irritated impatience with Stephenson’s overworked formality, but – if that had even been so – she quickly mastered herself, composing her face into a calm expression that revealed nothing whatsoever of what she might be thinking.

They had agreed that Steve would lead the interview, and Sarah sat back, making notes, as he went through the formalities and made the further arrests.

‘The first allegation is that on the sixteenth of October 1987 between 0930 and 1100 hours you raped Katherine Herringham in her home; the second that on the same date between 1300 and 1800 hours you sexually assaulted Katherine in your green Jaguar car on a country road. This sexual assault was by way of orally raping Katherine. By today’s legislation it would be arrested and charged as rape.’

Stephenson immediately began an affronted protest. Katherine was lying! He had never imagined how his dedication could be used against him. He had given his life to music! The whole thing was a witch-hunt!

Sarah summarized it all in a three-word note: denies the offence.

After that, she tuned out the protest: it had no evidential content. Historical sex-abuse cases were always difficult. It was always his word, her word. In this case she was confident not only that Katherine was telling the truth but also that Stephenson would be charged. Katherine’s account chimed so finely with that of the other victims, who knew nothing of each other’s experiences. One, a girl at a private school in Leicestershire, had been orally raped in the car in the exact same way and also, strikingly, like Katherine, after a pub lunch during which she’d been encouraged to drink. The challenge in this investigation would not be to get a charge but rather, later on, to persuade the court to join the charges against the multiple victims so that the jury knew the extent and similarity of Stephenson’s offences.

Stephenson had perhaps picked up on her inattention, because he turned on her with some theatricality.

‘Do you know about the way children were used to falsely accuse adults during the Chinese Cultural Revolution?’

Sarah suppressed a smile. She was familiar enough with these outraged reactions, but likening her to a member of a Maoist cadre was a better class of hyperbole.

Steve intervened with that patient kindness that seemed to suggest sympathy. ‘Thank you, Mr Stephenson. Let’s take it slowly. We’ll begin with you telling me exactly what happened on the sixteenth of October.’

Sarah listened carefully while Stephenson narrated a day similar to the one Katherine had described but minus the sexual acts. In this telling the day and the man were of course entirely different: Stephenson was a generous teacher who went more than the extra mile to encourage his pupils. He was, in fact, a victim of his own kindness.

‘So,’ he said as he came to the conclusion of his account, ‘I dropped Katherine at home and that was that. Who’d have thought such a banal day would ever have ended up being discussed in a police station? Any teacher nowadays will have to be very careful.’ He repeated that slowly, with the emphasis of an implicit threat. ‘Very careful about being friendly with his students.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Katherine at least rules me out of the murder inquiry. I can’t have killed Tania because I was with her all day.’ Then he put his well-kept hands flat on the table as if to say, There, do your worst.

Steve said, ‘Well, Mr Stephenson, your link to the burial remains very strong, and the fact that Katherine states she believes you were sexually abusing Tania won’t help your case.’

The lawyer made a note in her book but said nothing. Stephenson looked crossly between Steve and Sarah. ‘Link to the burial? I had access to the car park. So what? So did hundreds of people.’

Steve said, ‘You’re stating categorically that you had nothing to do with the illegal burial of Tania’s body? I want you to think carefully before you answer that.’

Marion raised her hand from the table as if to slow things down but Stephenson was already answering. ‘I don’t need to think carefully because I had nothing to do with Tania being there.’

Sarah produced three photographs and put them on the table without comment.

Stephenson’s eyes flickered over them.

Sarah said, ‘The lab has been looking at the carpet Tania was wrapped in.’ She tapped the photograph on the left. ‘Exhibit JMR/1: an image of the soiled carpet as recovered from the grave.’ She tapped the next photo. ‘JMR/2: a sample of that same carpet, cut away and cleaned by the forensic team. It’s still discoloured and worn. Nevertheless there’s enough there for the lab to provide evidence that it’s a woollen carpet and that in significant details and proportions the pattern corresponds to that shown in JMR/3.’ She tapped the final photo: a design of red flowers, winding stems and leaves against a pale green background. ‘This carpet was manufactured by the Axminster company during the 1980s. Your former landlord provides a statement that it was in your flat when he rented it to you at the time of Tania’s disappearance, and that when he took back possession of the flat the carpet had been removed without his permission.’

She looked across at Stephenson. His face had become still.

‘Do you still deny that you had anything to do with the illegal burial of Tania Mills?’

Stephenson nodded. ‘I see how you’ve done it. You’ve shown that carpet to my ex-landlord and then asked him if it’s the right one. Not surprising he’s said it is. He didn’t like me.’

‘No, Mr Stephenson. Your ex-landlord provided us with a description long before we found Tania or researched carpet designs. Today we showed him several possible samples of carpets. He picked this one out without hesitation. Turns out he’d put it in several of his properties. We’re way beyond coincidence here.’

They left Stephenson and his lawyer in consultation in the interview room. Lee was in the main custody area, sitting on the bench playing on his phone. He stood up eagerly when he saw them.

‘I’ve been waiting for you! Guess where I’ve been?’

Sarah shrugged. ‘Dunno, Lee. Last time I saw you you were going on a door-to-door.’

‘Bristol!’

‘Bristol?’

He brandished a handwritten statement in a transparent folder. ‘Call me Sherlock.’

Steve smiled. ‘Why’s that then? Are you taking cocaine?’

‘What?’

Sarah laughed. ‘Never mind. What have you got?’

Lee sucked his teeth. ‘OK, so I found Stephenson’s former downstairs neighbour. Not bad, eh? Nice bloke. His wife died of breast cancer when she was only thirty and he raised their boy on his own. He’s only just moved out and gone to live with the son in Bristol. The new owner is still forwarding the post. Lucky to find him alive, to be honest. The old boy looks like a pelican. And not a healthy pelican either.’

Steve said, ‘And the upshot is?’

‘Stephenson was always a miserable bugger. Didn’t like children playing outside. Complained if they got up early or arrived home late – he was a ceiling banger. But October sixteenth, he’s Mr Friendly. Our witness remembers it because it’s the day after the storm and a tree has fallen in the garden. Plus his son’s had to have the day off school and he’s taken him out with his mate. Bit of a treat – bowling and then fish and chips. Anyway they’ve come home and they’re watching some chat show – Wogan, that’s it. There’s a knock. It’s Mr Stephenson. Can’t get into his flat. Front door’s jammed or something. Doesn’t want help with the front door. Just wants to borrow the ladder. Our friend the pelican foots the ladder and Mr S goes through the sash window. Doesn’t come downstairs, just waves from the window. “Thanks a lot. Everything’s fine now.”’ Lee grinned. ‘I’ve taken a statement.’

Sarah said, ‘What do you think it means?’

Lee shrugged. ‘Search me, but it’s a bit odd, don’t you think?’

Steve said, ‘Are you sure you’re Sherlock, Lee, and not Watson?’