The Betrayal of Trust (13 page)

‘Rationally, I suppose. I know I felt guilty that we had Katie, that she was safe. I went into her room in the middle of every night for months. Every night. I was terrified she wouldn’t be there. Mad.’

‘No, it isn’t.’

She
smiled at Simon. ‘You’re very understanding,’ she said. ‘And of course I know why you’re here. Do I remember anything new?’

She drank her coffee and they were all silent for a moment. Serrailler thought she had been going over it in her mind for days, that if there was the slightest thing that worried her she would have picked it out and pulled it apart.

‘Harriet was quite young for her age,’
she said. ‘She certainly wasn’t likely to have a boyfriend for instance – say a boy she’d arranged to meet that day without telling anyone. Even if she had, I think Katie would have known. But it would have been completely out of character. She was an only child – a bit old-fashioned maybe?’

‘But popular?’

‘Very. No one disliked Harriet – not just her friends, but their parents, her teachers.
Well, there was nothing to dislike.’

‘Was she clever?’

‘She did fine, but as far as I remember she wasn’t an academic high-flyer. She loved sport and music – she sang, she played the piano well, she told me she wanted to learn guitar but she’d have to win her parents round to the idea. They would think she didn’t have time, more music would get in the way of studies – you know the sort of thing.’

‘How did you find her parents?’

‘We didn’t really know them. I only met Sir John once – he brought Katie home after she’d stayed with them. Her mother was quite a shy person, you didn’t get to know her well. She seemed very – self-contained. She was musical too. That’s where
Harriet
got it from. The sportiness seemed to be all her own.’ She looked up at Simon and he saw the tears still in her
eyes. ‘None of this is any help, is it?’

‘Yes. Everything helps us to build up a picture. We’ll be talking to Katie too.’

‘Morris, she is now. Katie Morris.’

‘Thank you.’ Ben made a note.

‘I know you’re divorced, Mrs Cadsden.’

‘Seven years ago.’

‘Are you in touch with your ex-husband?’

‘Not really. He lives in Bevham, and I have his contact details, but he remarried, he has a second family.’

‘Was he at home that afternoon of Harriet’s disappearance?’

‘No, he was working.’

‘What time did he come home that day?’

‘He didn’t … he was at a conference in London – he didn’t get back till the next afternoon. He heard about Harriet being missing on his car radio as he drove home. So there wouldn’t be any point in talking to him, really.’

‘Probably not – but if you could give us his address?’

‘Daffern Road, number 23. I’ve got the phone number somewhere.’

‘We’ll find it.’ Serrailler stood up. ‘One other thing – your neighbour, the man who was cutting his hedge that day …’

‘Ronald. Ronald Pyment. He died a while ago. Had a heart attack. He was so distressed about Harriet, you know. He might have been the last person to see her or talk to her. He came round to us … he was really upset.
I think it affected his health, personally. He brooded about it so much. He never really got over it.’

She showed them to the door, and as they left, said, ‘None of us ever did, you know. None of us has ever got over it. And I honestly don’t know whether finding her body has made it better or worse. Is that a terrible thing to say?’

‘No,’ Serrailler said, ‘it isn’t.’

‘She didn’t have anything
to do with it,’ Ben Vanek said in the car.

‘No.’

‘Nice-looking woman though.’

‘Was she?’

‘Oh come on, guv.’ But he saw Simon’s expression and moved on. ‘Where now? The ex-husband? House-to-house?’

‘They knocked on every bloody house in Lafferton in ’95. Nothing.’

‘Look, someone, somewhere, saw her. If she left the bus stop and walked for a bit, maybe to the next one. If she got a lift. If
she went back to the Cadsden house. If she went to meet someone. It was broad daylight, it was the middle of the afternoon. There were cars, buses, people looking out of windows, people on bikes … just people. So, let’s say a friend passed, offered her a lift – maybe the parent of a girl at her school, someone she knew. They’d pull up, speak to her, she’d get in, they’d drive off. Now somebody saw
that. If it happened. The chances of that main road being deserted are zero.’

‘Agreed. If that happened someone saw it – but they didn’t remember because it was a perfectly normal occurrence. No one dragged her into a car – somebody would have noticed
that
and come forward.’

‘Not sure that a car slowing beside a bus stop, where a pretty fifteen-year-old girl is waiting, and then her getting
in, is what you’d call perfectly normal, guv. Might have an innocent explanation. Might not.’

‘Problem is, we have no evidence that any car slowed down or that Harriet got into one.’

‘
Crimewatch
.’

‘What about it?’

‘Wonder if they’d do an item about it. Reconstruction-type thing.’

‘Too long ago for them.’

‘I could call them.’

Simon started the engine. ‘You could call them.’

THE WOMAN RANG
a week after Jocelyn had posted her enquiry on the forum. Her name was Hazel Smith and she would give more details when they met, if that was what Jocelyn still wanted.

She did still want.

‘It’s a good idea to see one another for the first time on neutral ground. Do you know Victoria Park?’

She did.

‘There’s a nice café by the pond. It’s quite quiet before eleven o’clock
and if it’s pleasant we can sit outside. Are you still able to drive?’

She was.

But as she put the phone down, she realised that she might not be for much longer. How long? Would she realise when she became unsafe? She did not think she was unsafe yet.

The phone rang again almost at once.

‘I thought you might like to have lunch,’ said Penny, who never had time for it.

‘Today?’

‘No, I’ve
got a summing-up to prepare. But I can take an hour tomorrow. I’m not in court.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why?’

Did other people’s adult children interrogate their parents? But that was Penny’s training – cross-questioning became a way of life.

‘I’m already having lunch with someone.’

‘Who?’

‘Margaret Dean.’ She plucked the name out of the air.

‘You fell out with Margaret Dean years ago. You said you
wouldn’t mind if you never set eyes on her again.’

‘Well, perhaps I need to mend some bridges now.’

Penny sighed.

‘I’m sorry, Pen. Next week?’

‘It’s never easy finding a free lunchtime.’

‘Come here on Sunday then.’

‘I’m in the West of England Bridge Tournament, I did tell you.’

Had she? Jocelyn did not recall it but having memory lapses was nothing to do with having MND, she knew that perfectly
well. Everyone had what they now called ‘senior moments’, a term she disliked.

The next morning, before their meeting, Hazel Smith rang again. She had a pleasant voice. Steady. Not too matey, not too businesslike.

‘I’m just ringing to say that if you would rather take a bit longer, not meet quite yet, then that’s fine. I shan’t mind in the least.’

But she did not need longer. She would be there.

If Hazel Smith had been chummy or had spoken in the way carers sometimes speak to the elderly, she would not have wanted to meet her. Or if she had sounded brusque, as if this were purely a business arrangement. That would not have done. There had to be something – what? She supposed she just meant, well, human.

It puzzled Jocelyn that she still felt determined, clear-minded. Calm. Ought she
not to be nervous and full of second thoughts and questions, ought she not to be lying awake going through what would happen step by step, imagining? Dreading?

No. All her imaginings, all her dread, were for how it would be if she did not do this but had to let her illness run its course, until she was helpless, trapped inside a body whose every function but consciousness had been gradually taken
away. Going into a beautiful, tranquil room, however, lying down on a soft,
freshly
made bed, with a view of sky and trees beyond the window, and swallowing a small glass of liquid before drifting off to sleep, with an understanding companion sitting beside her – what was to dread in that?

She took care with her appearance that day. She had had her hair set. She tried on a couple of things before
settling on the taupe jersey suit with a chocolate silk blouse and a long scarf in browns and blues that Penny had brought her back from India. Plain court shoes. She took time over her make-up.

Getting into the car, she realised that she did not feel nervous so much as excited, as if she were setting out for a holiday. Which was madness.

She backed out of the drive.

Madness.

It was warm enough
to sit outside at a table against the wrought-iron railing that separated the café from the path. A couple of the inevitable mothers with gargantuan pushchairs were at the other side. No one else. The park had been refurbished and replanted over the past year in a fit of municipal pride, the flower beds spruced up, turf relaid, pond cleaned out, playground renewed. The bandstand was freshly
painted. Even the ducks looked cleaner.

They got coffee and Danish pastries. The sun was creeping round to them. Hazel Smith had a husband. Two adult sons. She and Jocelyn would be thought simply friends. Not unalike. Not dissimilar clothes. Hazel was a head taller.

‘What would you like to ask me?’

Easy. She had had the question in mind from the start.

‘Why do you do this?’

Hazel smiled.

‘Is that something everyone asks?’

‘It is. Understandably.’

‘So why?’

‘I went to the clinic with someone I knew – not very well but she had no one. No family at all. She lived near me, I used to pop in and see her when she became ill. And one day, she just asked me, point-blank. Would I go with her. I was shocked, to
be
honest. But I knew her, I knew she was determined and I knew she had very
little time left in which she’d be well enough to travel at all. So I agreed. Mainly because having no one – no one at all in the world – seemed so terrible. I was very glad I went. It’s six years ago now.’

‘It’s against the law – well, our law. Doesn’t that worry you?’

‘No one has been prosecuted under it. Besides, they would have to find out about me first. They won’t.’

Jocelyn thought.

‘Or rather, they haven’t so far and I am very careful. But if I were to be prosecuted, I’d defend myself all the way.’

‘Yes. I can see that you would.’

Hazel sipped her coffee.

‘What was wrong with the first person you took there?’

‘She had an inoperable brain tumour. And she didn’t have long.’

‘I suppose I have months – or even years.’

‘Months certainly, from what I know. But rushing is
not a good way. You need time. She didn’t, and she didn’t regret it, but now I wouldn’t consider taking someone who had so little time.’

‘How many people have you taken?’

‘A number.’

‘And …’ But she did not go on. She realised that she knew enough and did not want to know more. It was not her business. She was her business.

‘Jocelyn, now that we’ve met, the next thing is for you to think hard
and then decide in your own time. Any questions, please send them via email.’ She took out a piece of paper. ‘Here are all my details. I’ll answer anything you want me to. And when you decide – one way or the other – let me know. If it’s no, fine, but I’d be grateful for a message. Would you like another coffee? I think I would.’

Jocelyn had warmed to her. In another context, they could have
become friends who went on a shopping trip or to London for the day or who decided to diet one last time. Or not to diet ever again. Talked about everything, disagreed sometimes.

They had more coffee. The sun came round. The café filled up.
The
ducks bobbed and dived and swam for bread thrown by solemn toddlers. She was filled with rage and pain that it could not stay like this.

When she turned
round from watching the ducks and the toddlers, Hazel had left.

They had not discussed money.

LENNY WAS A
bad driver. She had been a bad driver all her life but it had mattered less when there were fewer trunk roads and thundering lorries. Nevertheless, she enjoyed driving and, when she got behind the wheel, felt a small surge of power and the need to behave recklessly, to take chances round bends, to overtake. Passengers closed their eyes. Olive sometimes let out little shrieks
– or had, when she had been more aware of the danger she might be in.

It was a pleasant day and dry. Lenny would once have felt excited at the prospect of a thirty-mile spin. She could turn up the radio. She could put her foot down quite hard on the accelerator.

But she was not going out for fun, she was going to face the usual scene – people at the end of their tether and being firm, Olive
having hysterics, the dreadful journey home as she screamed and cried and tried to open the van door, or wept and clutched suddenly, dangerously, at Lenny’s arm.

Halfway there, Lenny pulled into a lay-by where a caravan with flags hanging out, like washing to dry, was selling ‘Burgers, Sandwiches, ’Furters, Hot and Cold Drinks, Confectonairy’. Two lorries were pulled in as well. The caravan had
an awning, a plastic table and chairs. She got her tea and a cheese roll and sat at the table, watching the traffic race by. The sun was on her face. And suddenly, a memory of sitting at an outside table in a French village, drinking coffee and eating slices of tarte aux
pruneaux
made with crumbling flaky pastry, came to her. How long ago? Twenty years? Twenty-five? More? Yes, more. They had both
been teaching at Drivers Hill, had holidayed together, the first time of many. At the end of that summer they had decided to buy the cottage. Olive had been shy, still unsure of these new feelings, terrified that her father might find out. But underneath, there had been the determination Lenny had seen through to, as well as the infinite capacity for love. For admiration. For adoration. Who would
not have responded to that? But she knew hers had not been a response – she had led. She had decided, during the previous term, in fact, when Olive had barely been aware of her.