Living Proof (10 page)

"We thought," one of the women was shouting, 'you'd like to know what it was like. "

Lynn pushed the two youths aside and in four paces she was at Cathy Jordan's side; Cathy standing, arms outstretched, blue of her shirt adrift in blood.

"Are you all right?"

"What the hell do you think?"

On his knees, Derek Neighbour was lifting books from their box as deftly and carefully as he could; those that had been lying on top were thickly spotted and stained.

Lynn part-swerved round him, part-vaulted over him; the mother with the Warehouse bag dragged her screaming child towards her and Lynn cannoned into the shelves avoiding him. Ahead of her she could see the two women pushing their way through the doors on to the street.

"Make way!" she called.

"Make way, police!"

Nobody moved.

Lynn ran between them, failing to notice the table opposite the cash desk until she struck it hard, somewhere between hip and thigh, her cry lost in the crash of books against the floor.

Stop! "

They were running full-pelt down the middle of St Peter's Gate, ignoring the traffic, both pavements clogged with lunchtime shoppers, grazing on their take away burgers or baked potatoes.

Police! "

Halfway down, they separated: the one in black continuing on, actually gaining speed, the woman in the dress dodging her way into the arcade of fashionable shops that led towards the square.

Lynn ducked into the narrow alley higher up and emerged on to Cheapside before the woman was in sight; for a moment, Lynn thought she might have doubled back, but no, there she was, pushing between a knot of people outside Saxone's window.

Right! " Lynn yelled, catching hold of the collar of the woman's dress.

"That's it!"

The dress ripped and, stumbling, the woman, all but bare-chested, fell across the kerb by the pedestrian crossing. A green double-decker bus pulled up not so far short of where she was sprawling.

Lynn seized one of the woman's arms and yanked her back on to the pavement; leaning over her, a crowd gathering quickly round, she drew out her warrant card and held it high in the air.

"I'm a police officer and I'm placing you under arrest. You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but anything you do say may be given in evidence."

Someone at the back of the crowd began a slow hand clap and several more jeered; the majority started to drift away. On the ground, without bothering to pull the 86 material of her dress around her, the woman began to laugh.

Seventeen "Well, I suppose," Marius said, pausing by the bathroom door, 'you could say that some kind of natural justice has been done. "

The door was open just a crack and he could smell the sweet, urine-like smell of baby powder, the kind with which Dorothy liked to dust herself after her bath. At first, Marius had found it almost repellent, but now he savoured it along with almost everything else the small and delicate ways in which she kept her body sweet to the touch.

"Marius, dear. Hand me my dressing gown, would you?"

Quilted, pink, it slid around her shoulders like satin over old silk.

"Tea's ready," Marius said.

"And I found some more of those nice little cakes. The butterfly ones with the cream."

Stepping out into the main room of their small suite, Dorothy Birdwell smiled her thin-mouthed smile.

"Marius , you spoil me. You really do."

"Not really," he replied, smiling back. Not nearly enough, he thought.

"Now, dear," said Dorothy, settling carefully into a high-arched chair.

"I want you to tell me all about what happened in the bookshop. And I don't want you to miss out a single thing."

"Will you please state your name?" Lynn asked. "For the record."

88 "Vivienne Plant."

"And your address?"

"Hat seven, Ancaster Court, Baimbridge Road, Map- perley."

Like all of the interview rooms at the police station, this was small and airless and hung over with the unmistakable pall of stale cigarette smoke. Vivienne Plant, with her bright dress and upright posture, the after-image of a sneer on her well-tended middle-class face, looked impressively out of place.

"What is your present occupation?" Lynn asked.

"I'm a lecturer in Women's Studies."

"Here in the city?"

"In Derby."

"And are you married or single?"

"Neither."

"I'm sorry?"

"I have lived with the same partner for seven years; we have a three-year-old child. We are not married. Is that clear enough?"

As a manifesto, Lynn thought

"Ms Plant, you do admit the assault on Cathy Jordan..."

"Demonstration. I was making a demonstration."

"In relation to Ms Jordan?"

"In relation to her work."

"You disapprove of her books, then? You don't like them?"

"Which question do you want me to answer?"

No wonder she didn't want a solicitor, Lynn thought, she thinks she is one.

"Aren't they the same thing?" she asked wearily.

"Disapproving and not liking?"

"Yes."

"I like eating Terry's Chocolate Oranges, sometimes two at a time; I also like popping into McDonald's last thing at night for apple pie. I don't really approve of either."

Someone walked past along the corridor outside, heavy feet set down slowly and with purpose. Lynn tried not to look at her watch or the clock on the adjacent wall.

"Can you tell me," she asked, 'why you disapprove of Cathy Jordan's books so strongly? "

"Which version do you want? The fifty-minute lecture or the single-paragraph outline?"

Lynn was reminded of those times she had been lectured by her head teacher at school.

"The outline will be fine."

"Right. What I object to about her books is that they rely on an almost exclusive portrayal of women as victims, usually victims of violent and degrading assault. Their degradation and pain are in direct proportion to Jordan's profit. She's got rich on women's suffering. She should know better."

"And your intention was to teach her that lesson?"

"I thought it was appropriate."

"Covering her With paint?"

Yes, don't you? "

"Then you do admit to throwing paint over Ms Jordan?"

"I thought of it more as pouring, but yes, all right. I do."

"You assaulted her."

"Surely that's for the court to decide?"

"You want this to go to court?"

"Of course."

Oh, God, Lynn thought, spare me from people who know what's right for me better than I do myself. The whole Greenpeace, civil liberties, feminist bunch of them. "This action, was it carried out on behalf of some group or organisation?"

"Not officially, no. It was an individual act."

Vivienne Plant's shoulders braced back even further. "There was no such person."

"Ms Plant, I was there in the shop. I saw you standing in line with another woman, talking. A woman wearing a black shirt and jeans. You came into the shop together. Approached Ms Jordan together. After the incident, you ran out together. You were not acting on your own."

"Well, that's going to have to be your word against mine."

Lynn shook her head. She could have thought of places she would rather be than shut up with Ms Self-righteous, plenty of them.

"All right," she said, 'we'll come back to this again. "

"Look," Vivienne said, leaning forward, holding Lynn with her eyes, 'the responsibility for what happened is mine. Okay? But what I did, I did for all women; not just me. "

"All women?" Lynn said.

Of course. "

"I don't think so."

No? "

Lynn pushed back her chair and got to her feet.

"You didn't do it for me."

Vivienne pitched back her head and laughed.

"Well, you really do need the fifty-minute version, don't you?"

Lynn reached sideways, towards the Off button on the tape machine.

"This interview stopped at thirteen minutes past three."

Once Naylor had settled him down, assured him that in all probability he would be able to drive back to Newark ahead of the evening rush hour and allowed him to make a call to his partner, Derek Neighbour had proved a good witness. He had seen Vivienne Plant's actions clearly and described them with accuracy. Yes, she and the other woman, the one in the black shirt, had chattered away all the time they were waiting in the queue and although he hadn't heard a great deal of what they had actually been saying, the impression they gave was not of two people who have only just that moment met Absolutely not.

"So it was your impression that the two women were friends? That they knew one another quite well?"

Very well, more like. "

"And their names? Did you hear either of them address the other by names?"

"No. Come to think of it, no. Not that I can recall. I don't think they did."

"All right, Mr Neighbour. Thanks a lot. We've got your address and if we need you again-we'll be in touch."

Naylor got to his feet. Derek Neighbour continued to look up at him, uncertain.

"Was there something else?" Naylor asked.

"Something you wanted to add?"

"It's just, well, you know, the damage..."

"To Miss Jordan? Apart from the shock, I don't think it was too serious. Her clothes, of course, and..."

"No. To me. My books."

"Well, I don't know. Perhaps Waterstone's, in the circumstances..."

"You don't understand. There's a first edition of Uneasy Prey, absolutely ruined. I don't even know if I'll be able to find another one, and if I do, the cost is going to be close to three hundred pounds. More."

Three hundred, Naylor was thinking, for one book. Only a crime book, at that. Debbie's mum got through four or five a week from the library, large-print editions in the main. Bebbie reckoned she could get one finished between Neighbours and Countdown. Why would anyone pay three hundred quid for something you could get through in a few hours and never want to look at again? It didn't make a scrap of sense.

* 92 "The stuff with the paint she's ready to admit to. Eager. Not that she could do anything else." Lynn was at her desk in the CID room, talking to Graham Millington. Vivienne Plant she had left to stew a little in the interview room. "The woman who was with her, though, she won't give us a thing. Denies knowing her altogether."

"No chance she's telling the truth?"

Lynn looked up at him.

"None."

"Charlie," Skelton said, 'we're not going to let this woman wrap us round her little finger, commit time and money, all so's she can garner free publicity for whatever cockamamie idea she's spouting.

Women's Studies, that's her, isn't it? Jesus, Charlie! Women's Studies, Black Studies, Lesbian and Gay Studies, what in God's name happened to good old History and Geography, that's what I'd like to know? "

Resnick couldn't oblige. Though he had recently been taken to task for carelessly using the masculine pronoun by a very intelligent and thoughtful young woman, who, it had turned out later, believed Norwich to be located in the middle of Hampshire.

"What about the American?" Skelton said.

"Is she keen to press charges?"

"We don't know yet..."

"Then it's about time we bloody did!"

Right, Resnick thought, getting to his feet, and it's about time you went back to running before you have some self-induced heart attack.

Whatever was going on behind closed doors in Skelton's executive home, it wasn't happy families.

Lynn was waiting outside Resnick's office.

"Graham and I had another go at her. Still won't budge. Didn't know the other woman from Adam.

I mean Eve. " She's lying?"

"Not just that. She knows we know she is, but at the moment there's not a lot we can do to prove it. Loving that, isn't she? Clever cow!"

"Not your favourite person, then?" Resnick smiled.

"Women like that," Lynn scowled, 'whatever their intentions, just end up making women like me feel inferior. "

"Well, looks like you can have the pleasure of kicking her free. Last thing the old man wants to do is contribute to her publicity campaign."

"What about Cathy Jordan? Suppose she wants..."

To lay charges? I doubt it. Wouldn't exactly help her, would it? But if she does. " Resnick shrugged.

"I don't suppose Ms Plant's about to do a runner, do you? Suddenly turn into a shrinking violet?"

Lynn looked back at Resnick, concerned; unless she was very much mistaken, he had made a joke.

"Catherine, dear. How awful for you. How perfectly awful."

How Cathy Jordan hated being called Catherine; especially by Dorothy Birdwell, watt led hands flustering all around her, smelling her old maid's smell of face powder and malice.

"Yes, well, you know, Dotde, it really wasn't so bad."

"Perhaps you should consider following my example, dear, and have a nice young man to look after you."

Marius Gooding was standing a short way off, blazer buttons glistening. For the first time, Cathy noticed his manicured hands, long fingers flexing slightly at his sides. Catching Cathy's gaze he made a quick dipping gesture with his head, somewhere between a nod and a bow, a token smile of sympathy passing across his face. Without her understanding exactly why, something deep inside Cathy shuddered.

"I don't need a nice young man, Dottie," she said,

"I have a husband."

"So you have, dear, sometimes I forget."

"What in hell's name happened to you?" - Frank's first words when Cathy had appeared back at. the hotel in borrowed clothes, face oddly aglow, hair clotted red. "Something go wrong at the beauty shop?"

"Screw," she'd said, pushing past him on her way to the bathroom, 'you! "

"Nice idea, Cath, if you could remember how. Wait for you to screw me, might as well hand my dick to Lorena Bobbitt for surgery."

The only answer was the sound of water bouncing back from the shower.

Frank poured himself a drink and took it across to the window, looking out There was a plane rising slow between the small, off-white clouds and for a moment, wherever it was heading, he wished he were on it. Then he laughed. The thing that had most fascinated him about the whole Bobbitt affair, the way the guy had made a living later in a Californian nightclub, women handing over good bucks to dance with him in the hope of scooping ten grand by giving him a boner.