Limestone Cowboy (10 page)

“Yes, Sophie,” I replied. “I know what you mean, and I love you more than ever. That’s not always the
case, the morning after, believe me. Now eat your breakfast. I want you downstairs in ten minutes.”

As I crossed the landing I heard her call: “Can I have a shower, please.”

“Yes!” I yelled back.

I drove her down to Cambridge and we breakfasted at a Little Chef on the A1. Sophie said she was
determined
to get her degree, even with a baby to look after. If Digby stayed on for his masters it shouldn’t be a problem. Near Cambridge we stopped again and had a chat sitting in a car park outside a greasy-spoon. I warned her that her mother’s birthday was looming large and that she’d be in big trouble if she forgot to send a card. She said that might be a good time to introduce them to Digby and announce their
engagement
. We said our goodbyes, swore our undying love, and I told her that I’d always be there for her.

“And don’t forget to send me an invite,” I said as I started the engine for the last few miles.

“You’re top of the list, Uncle Charles.”

“Thank you.”

“Shall we make it and friend?”

“No, I don’t think so. Which way?”

“Follow the ring road. Is there anybody?”

“Not really. I thought there might be, but suddenly she doesn’t want to know.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s she called?”

“Rosie.”

“She’s a fool. When she knows you better she’ll
change her mind.” Sophie reached out and touched my face. “Your hair’s long.”

I tilted my head to trap her fingers between my cheek and shoulder. “It needs cutting.”

“I like it long. It suits you.”

“Thanks. I don’t think Rosie will ever have the chance to know me better.”

“In that case you’ll have to work at it, won’t you? And then we can all be happy.”

“Are you happy, Sophie?”

There was the slightest hesitation before she said: “Yes, I am.”

“Then I’m happy too,” I told her.

I hadn’t tried to put a face on Digby, but he wasn’t quite what I expected. He was an inch shorter than Sophie but broad-shouldered, with sandy hair and a rugby player’s nose. The rugby image was
reinforced
by the county shirt he was wearing, and I
suspected
that he’d earned it, not bought it at JJB Sports. He was clearly devoted to Sophie and his face lit up like an herbaceous border as he hugged her. He shook my hand, then asked Sophie how her parents were.

“They’re fine,” she replied, lying with a facility that would have been the envy of most of the villains I meet. “Uncle Charles came round and insisted on
driving
me back.”

“That’s really nice of you,” he told me.

“My pleasure,” I replied. “We see so little of Sophie these days.”

They gave me afternoon tea and Digby said he was studying computer sciences and had been offered a job
with Intel in Dublin. I liked him, and thought Sophie’s dad would, too, once he’d cleared the Digby hurdle.

“Look after her,” I told him as we shook hands again, standing on the pavement next to my car.

“I will,” he promised, and I believed him.

Sophie gave me a peck on the cheek as she hugged me and I rubbed the small of her back in a non-
avuncular
way. “Don’t forget to talk to Rosie,” she said, matter of fact, as much for Digby’s benefit as mine, I suspected. Round the corner I stopped and sorted through my CDs for the long drive north. “Desire” would do for starters:

Hooray for 24-7 supermarkets. It was early evening as I hit Heckley, so I called in Grainger’s and did a
medium
shop. The place was manned by schoolgirls,
earning
money for riding lessons and the latest Pop Idol CD, but I wasn’t complaining. I had a calorie-counter’s sweet-and-sour chicken for tea, followed by sticky
toffee
pudding and custard, all done in the microwave. Very tasty. As weekends go this one had been pretty serendipitous. OK, be honest, it was one of the most serendipitous weekends of my life. I was on a roll, so I decided to push it. I found my diary and dialled Rosie’s number. She picked up the phone after the first ring.

“Um, hello Rosie,” I said, slightly off guard. “It’s 
Charlie Priest.” This time I didn’t add the as in Roman Catholic.

“Hello Charlie. How are you?”

“I’m splendid. Fine, thanks. And you?”

“Oh, I’m all right.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound it.”

“Well I am.”

“Good. So how about that drink sometime?”

“I don’t think so, Charlie. I thought I made that clear the last time we spoke.”

“Rosie,” I began, “I’m not very good at this sort of thing, and I don’t want to be a nuisance, but I thought we were getting on reasonably well, and then, I don’t know, you suddenly became distant. Did I say
something
I shouldn’t have, or offend you in any way?”

“No, of course not, Charlie. It’s just that… I don’t want to become involved.”

“Going out for a Chinese is hardly becoming involved.”

“I know. I tried to tell you, on the phone. I come with baggage.”

“To hell with baggage, Rosie. I don’t give a toss about baggage. We were doing fine until I said that I was a cop. That’s when your attitude changed. Now, I don’t think you’re a master criminal – a Mafia
godmother
or head of an international drugs cartel – so what’s it all about?”

She was silent for a while and I expected her to come back and tell me to mind my own, but eventually she said: “You’re right, Charlie. It is to do with you
being a detective. I’m involved in a legal procedure and I’ve been advised not to speak to any policemen, that’s all.”

“What, by a solicitor?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then by whom?”

“By a TV production company. First Call TV.”

“And why don’t they want you talking to any policemen?”

“Because they say you’ll try to influence me. We’re taking out an action against the police, and they say you’ll apply pressure for me to drop it.”

“Oh, I see. Well, no I don’t see. If you had a case, Rosie, we’d probably help you. There are procedures for this sort of thing. Do you want to tell me what it’s about?”

“It’s about my father. I’m trying to clear his name and they’re helping. They want to do a documentary about his case.”

Alarm bells started clanging when I realised that journalists were involved. For Rosie’s sake, not the police’s. As with politicians, there are some good ones. And there’s probably life on Mars, too.

“What did your father do?” I asked.

“He didn’t do anything,” she protested, her voice beginning to crack. “It’s what he had done to him.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess I’m conditioned to adopt an attitude. I’ve been in the job too long. What did they do to your father?”

“They hanged him, Charlie,” she sobbed. “They hanged him for a murder he didn’t commit.”

I did a quick calculation. The last people to be hanged in the UK were two hapless souls in Lancashire, back in 1964. Rosie would have been a little girl, a baby, then. I tried to think of names but they wouldn’t come, and Rosie’s mother may have changed hers after the event. Capital punishment doesn’t punish just the accused. A vast cone of misery extends out from under the gallows, enveloping everyone involved with the whole rotten process, including the victim’s family. Their expectations that a life for a life would ease the burden always proved to have been a hollow promise.

“Rosie,” I began. “We can’t leave it like this, and I’m not happy with you being involved with a TV
company
. They want a story, that’s all, and they don’t care who gets hurt. I’m coming round to see you. I’ll be ringing your doorbell in about fifteen minutes. If you don’t want to let me in, fair enough, but I’ll be there.”

“I don’t know…”

“Fifteen minutes.” There was a long silence as I waited for her to either reply or replace her handset, but before she could my brain reminded me of a
simple
fact. I said: “There’s just one thing. You told me in the pub that you live on Old Run Road. It’s a long road and I don’t know the number. I could ring the station and ask someone to consult the electoral roll, but it would be easier for you to tell me.”

After an even longer silence she said: “Two hundred and twelve. It’s number two hundred and twelve.”

On the way over I called in a filling station and bought a bunch of flowers. Pink carnations. Outside her house I wondered if they were appropriate, but decided to risk it. She lived in a small bungalow with a neat
garden
and her Fiesta was parked on the drive. Its
presence
confirmed that I was in the right place and something in my stomach did a little fandango at the thought of seeing her again.

Rosie was watching for me and opened the door as I extended my hand towards the bell push. I thrust the flowers at her, saying: “Last bunch in the bucket, I’m afraid, but they look OK.”

“Flowers,” she said, with obvious pleasure as she took them from me. “It’s a long time since anyone bought me flowers.”

We had tea in china cups, with home-made carrot cake. Rosie was bare-footed, wearing red jeans and a baggy V-necked sweater, with no jewellery or
makeup
. That strange mixture of confidence and
vulnerability
struck me again and I had to remind myself that this wasn’t a date: I was here in the role of friend, adviser and confidant. But her toenails were painted scarlet and the sweater clung to her and although one shoulder was poking out of it I couldn’t see a bra strap. When she lifted the teapot and looked at me I nodded a “Yes please” and she leaned forward to fill my cup.

I said: “First of all, Rosie, I’m not here as a
policeman
. I’m here as your friend. I don’t know anything about the case and if you don’t want to tell me I’ll understand, but I must warn you about any
involvement
with television. You want to prove your father innocent; they want a story. They have a documentary
to produce. I don’t know what your father is supposed to have done or if he is innocent or guilty, but just
suppose
– just suppose – that he is guilty. The crew won’t go home saying: ‘Oh well, we lost that one.’ No, they’ll put a spin on it so that they become the heroes of the plot: they proved your dad was a villain and the public will get their half-hour of entertainment. Your feelings will be cast aside like… like… I don’t know, yesterday’s tea bags.”

She sat back in her easy chair, white-faced, pulled the sweater on to her shoulder and sniffed.

I went on: “That’s all I want to say, Rosie. Be careful, because the chances are you’ll get hurt. If you want the case re-opening there are other ways of doing it. Safer ways.”

The picture over the mantel was an interpretation of Malham Cove, semi-abstract but still quite distinctive. Very appropriate for a geologist. I stood up to inspect it more closely and Rosie asked if I liked it.

“Yes, it’s good. Puts my own efforts to shame, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, I’d forgotten you were an artist,” she said.

“Mmm.” I turned and sat down again. “I used to be an art student. That’s where I learned to draw.” I smiled at her. “Then it was either graphic design or the police, and the police won.”

Rosie returned the smile. “More tea?”

“Ooh, go on then.”

“They’re small cups.” She poured for both of us, then said: “It may be too late to stop the TV people.”

“If they’re on to a story it will be impossible to stop them. Have you signed a contract or anything?”

“Not a contract, as such. A request for an exhumation. They’ve applied to the coroner’s office for a warrant to have my father’s body exhumed, and for something called… what is it… a faculty of the
diocese
, or something?”

“I think that’s just permission from the Church of England to do work on their land,” I said. “What are the grounds for conducting the exhumation?”

“Because of the availability of DNA profiling. And they said that there are new techniques that can show if statements have been interfered with.”

“ESDA,” I said. “It’s called ESDA.”

It was nearly dark outside. Rosie drew the curtains and switched on the light. It was a pleasant room, small and minimally furnished, with plain walls and the odd splash of colour from a painting or poster. There were candles in the hearth and she was halfway through Pride and Prejudice. I looked but I couldn’t see a
television
. Maybe it’s at the foot of her bed, I thought.

I finished my tea slowly, watching her above the rim of the cup. She drew her legs under her and gazed at a spot somewhere to the left of the fireplace, her brow furrowed. Eventually she said: “I was in the school play. Eleven years old. We were doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream and I was Mustard Seed. It wasn’t much of a part but I put my heart and soul into it. We had a rehearsal after school but I forgot to tell my
parents
. Dad came to collect me, as he often did, but I
wasn’t
ready to leave, so he walked back home alone.”

I slowly replaced my cup and saucer on the low table and waited for her to continue. “The girl was called Glynis. Glynis Evelyn Williams, aged thirteen.
Lived three doors away from us. When she didn’t arrive home from school a search party went out to look for her. They found her body on the hillside. She’d been strangled. Not raped or anything, just strangled. There was blood under her fingernails, group B, less than ten percent of the population. They tested all the men in the village and a week later arrested my father and charged him with murder. He made a full
confession
, they said, and hanged himself in his cell later that night. He plaited strips of material from his shirt into a rope and hanged himself. The police took great delight in telling Mum that it would have been a slow death, but only what he deserved.”