Verdict Unsafe (16 page)

Back to the newsreader.
“Colin Drummond was cleared of all charges of rape and sexual assault …”

Matt switched off the television. Bloody hell. Had they nothing better to report? No wars? No famines? Wasn’t that what was on the news every other night? Tonight, it was Colin Drummond. It was the rapes. It was the police corruption, the miscarriage of justice story. Sex, violence, and dodgy cops—you couldn’t beat it. All that statement-falsifying and evidence-rigging wasn’t confined to big metropolitan forces. Here was a cozy little county force doing the same thing. The story was big.

And now he, too, was waiting for the axe to fall.

God, was she never going to leave? Ginny answered her questions without ever wondering if she had any right to be asking them; police asked questions, and if it wouldn’t get you into trouble, you answered. If it would get you into trouble, you said no comment.

“I can charge a lot more,” she said. “Now they can come to me.”

DI Hill looked impressed. “You don’t go out looking for them anymore?” she asked.

“No.”

It wasn’t against the law, doing it like this, Lennie said. Sometimes they rang up—well, not at the moment, because the phone wasn’t working—but they had, for a while. And Lennie brought the others.

She had her fingers crossed that she didn’t hear the double hoot of the taxi horn that meant he had one with him, and she should go upstairs and get ready. Because that
was
against the law. Him getting them for her. Ginny had never understood
why some things were and some weren’t against the law, but she knew which was which.

“You must be charging a great deal more to have all this,” said DI Hill.

“Yeah, And there’s Lennie’s money from the taxi.”

“Oh, yes.” She looked as though she found that funny. “How on earth did Lennie get into taxi driving?” she asked.

“It belongs to a—” Ginny stopped, and thought, unable to assess whether or not the deal with Rob was against the law. Better not say, just in case. “A mate of his,” she said.

“Oh.” Inspector Hill smiled again. “How many taxis does this mate of his have?”

“Just the one.”

“Maybe I should take it up,” she said. “It must be a very lucrative business.”

Ginny frowned. “A what?” she asked.

“It must pay.”

“Yeah.”

Ginny felt slightly more at ease as seven o’clock came and went; Lennie never brought anyone after that, because the taxi had to be back at eight, and Rob got mad if it wasn’t. But she was beginning to worry that DI Hill might still be here when Lennie got home; he would go ballistic if he found a cop in the house, and he’d blame her. She told the inspector that.

“So he would,” she said, getting up. “I’m on my way. Just—you know. Watch yourself.”

“Yeah,” said Ginny. “Right.”

Her free time had been taken up by an unwelcome visitor once again; Ginny sighed with relief when the inspector had gone, and set about making Lennie’s tea. It would have to be another fry-up—she didn’t have time to do anything else. She didn’t like giving him too much fried stuff, though he would live on it given half a chance. But they said it was bad for you. Men in particular. And she didn’t want anything happening to Lennie.

She was chipping the potatoes when she heard the taxi drawing up.

*   *   *

Rob got out of the backseat, and slid in behind the wheel, catching sight of Lennie’s wallet lying on the floor. He picked it up, flipping it open: two fivers, that was all. He had thought it would have a lot more in it than that, in view of the way Lennie was ripping him off.

“Hang on, mate!” he shouted to Lennie’s retreating figure, and got out, taking him the wallet. “You must have dropped this,” he said.

Lennie took it, nodded his morose thanks, then let himself into the house. Funny—Lennie was usually talkative, almost like a real cabdriver, giving a running commentary on his day, and his life. He wasn’t usually down, but he was tonight. He hadn’t said a word on the way home.

Rob drove back into Stansfield, being hailed almost as soon as he was within its boundaries. He drove past to a V-sign, switching off the
FOR HIRE
sign, and cutting the radio.

He had more important things to do.

“YOU COULD HAVE RUNG,” LLOYD GRUMBLED.

“I tried to—Ginny’s phone was out of order.” She looked penitent. “It’s not as though anything spoiled,” she said.

“You didn’t know that!” Lloyd poured himself a drink, then remembered that it was, after all, supposed to be her birthday celebration. “What do you want?” he asked.

“A G and T will be fine,” she said. “I knew you weren’t likely to be doing a soufflé when you didn’t even know when to expect me,” she said.

“I did expect you sometime before seven forty-five. I intended to eat at eight.”

“So how long’s it going to take? Does it matter when we eat?”

“Not to you, obviously.” He handed her her drink as churlishly as one could hand someone else a drink. In truth, the birthday dinner was one which would take as long as it took the tiny late new potatoes to cook; there had never been a problem about that. He had been worried, that was the problem. Worried because she was gone so long, and that nutcase was ringing her up. But he wasn’t going to tell her that. She was already far too personally affected by Drummond without his adding to it.

She sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just got worried about Ginny after that phone call.”

“Perhaps you could give her some lessons in self-defense,” Lloyd said.

Judy sat down, too. “Is that what this is all about?” she asked.

“Well, no, since you ask. It isn’t what it’s about. It’s what brought it home to me, though.”

“Brought what home to you?”

He looked at her for a moment before he spoke. “This is your fortieth birthday,” he said slowly. “I have known you since before your twenty-first, and I don’t believe I know you any better now than I did then.”

“Don’t be silly.”

He and Judy had met in London, when he had been trying to make it in the Met, and she had been a probationer. He had been married then; she had been single. They had met again in Stansfield ten years later, when he was no longer married, but she was. Despite that, they had embarked upon the love affair for which he had always known they were destined, and her marriage had ended in divorce. But it was still a love affair, not a relationship. He told her that.

“That’s nonsense.”

“Is it?” he asked. “Is it?” His voice rose. “You teach self-defense, apparently—now that’s something I would have thought most people might know about their partners, but me? No. Why not, Judy? Why don’t I know?”

She shrugged a little. “No reason,” she said. “It just … never came up.”

“Oh, for God’s sake! It isn’t something you just find yourself doing! You must have thought about it, arranged it, publicized it—and you never said a word. Something must have made you think of doing it—what?”

She flushed a little, and put her drink down on the table. “Drummond,” she said, looking at him at last. “I made inquiries with the college the day after my interview with him. And you already thought I was obsessed with him—what do you suppose would have happened if I’d told you?”

“What?” he said, feigning a lack of comprehension. “What would have happened?”

The air of innocence wasn’t cutting much ice with Judy. “You wouldn’t exactly have approved, would you?”

He would not. He had given her many lectures on fear-mongering, on press-promoted hysteria, which was what he
thought it was, Drummonds were few and far between. He sipped his whisky, trying to make himself change the subject, to stop the row that he was quite deliberately starting, but he couldn’t. “That won’t wash,” he said. “Because that’s just one thing. I see you at the weekends, and high days and holidays, like this. What about all the rest of the time?”

She shook her head slightly. “What about it?”

“I don’t know what you
do
You have a life I know nothing about, Judy!”

“Well, I don’t know what you do.” She picked up her drink again.

“Yes, you do,” he said. “You know all there is to know about me. You know what I do to relax, you know who my friends are, you know which pub I go to, and when you’re likely to find me there. You do, Judy. You know. I don’t. What do you do when you’re not teaching self-defense?”

“This is silly.”

“Tell me!”

“I don’t know! I—I do normal things. Visit friends, stay at home and do things that need doing, like ironing or washing … I’m going to have a go at putting some tiles up in the bathroom—I don’t know! Oh—” She looked a little sheepish. “I do some stuff for MADS,” she said.

“Who?”

“Malworth Amateur Dramatic Society.”

“Oh—you act. I’m sorry I didn’t catch your
Hedda Gabler.”

“I don’t act! I do their admin—their books.”

He stared at her, shaking his head slightly. “How did you get involved with something like that?” he asked.

“You’re making it sound like a pedophile ring.”

“I just want to know how you got involved! I didn’t know you had the slightest interest in amateur dramatics.”

“I don’t. A friend of mine was in it—”

“Which friend? Anyone I know, by any remote chance?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No, I don’t imagine I do. What sort of friend?”

“What
sort
of friend?” she repeated, puzzled, then her
brown eyes widened a little. “Not the sort I sleep with, if that’s what’s bothering you,” she said, tight-lipped.

“I wasn’t suggesting that you—”

“Oh, yes, you were.”

“Well? Why not? How am I supposed to know what you’re getting up to?”

“Getting
up
to?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know what you mean. And I don’t like it.”

He didn’t think she was getting up to anything. But he felt as though she was a stranger, sometimes. Once, he’d thought it was because she was locked into a dead marriage that she had kept a part of her life- to herself. Out of loyalty to her husband, or consideration of his own feelings, even. Now that marriage had long since ended in divorce, and he knew that her motives were, as ever, selfish. She didn’t want him to be part of her life, not her whole life. She just wanted him to be there when she needed him, or wanted him. Damn it, it wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair, and he hit back sometimes, despite himself.

“I don’t like it, either!” he shouted. “You could be doing anything, for all I know! You shut me out, Judy! You go home to that damn flat and shut me out!”

“You’ve got a key, Lloyd,” she said, maddeningly reasonable. “You’re welcome to use it morning, afternoon, evening—in the middle of the night, if you like. But you don’t, do you? I thought I had burglars this morning—that’s how often I get a visit from you.”

“That’s because I don’t
want
to visit you!” he shouted. “I want you with me.”

“Where you can keep an eye on me? See what I’m getting up to? Well, tough.” She put down her untouched drink, and stood up. “And I’m going,” she said.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Judy—” He got to his feet in a half-hearted attempt to stop her, but she brushed him aside.

“This isn’t going to get any better, and I’m not going to let it get any worse,” she said, going out to the hall, shrugging on her jacket. “Good night.”

The door closed, quietly, and she was gone. She didn’t even
slam doors. She didn’t shout. She didn’t let rows run their natural course. She just walked out on them, left them up in the air, unfinished, unresolved. Always. If she stayed, he hurt her, with his wicked tongue. Always. She knew that, so she didn’t stay. And who could blame her?

Oh, to hell. At least it was a good night on the telly. He switched on the television, got himself a beer, and sat down as the program started. Within fifteen minutes the policeman hero was bedding yet another desirable woman in his ceaseless search for whodunit.

Life wasn’t really like that, he thought, then amended that. It sometimes was. But not if you couldn’t stop yourself saying things you didn’t mean, and buggering everything up. All the same, it couldn’t always be his fault. She did shut him out. She did hang on to that flat and her independence because that was how
she
wanted it, and to hell with what he wanted. Oh, he could force the issue—make her do things his way, give her an ultimatum to move in with him or else. In an uncharacteristic moment she had shown that she needed him enough for that to work.

But that would make him feel guiltier than ever, and she knew it.

Lennie’s good humor of the morning had entirely vanished. He had eaten in silence, drunk his tea, and now he was watching television. When the credits went up, he switched off the TV and shrugged on his jacket. “Get your coat,” he said.

Ginny went upstairs and got the fake fur jacket that he’d bought her for her birthday. Once, she had dreamed of real fur, but now it was cruel, so she’d got fake. “Where are we going?” she asked, as she came down.

“You’ll have to work the park,” he said.

“The park?” she said, dismayed. “Why, Lennie?”

“Because I’m telling you to.”

“But it takes too long for them to bring me here with the bypass.”

“They won’t be bringing you here.”

She frowned. “Where, then?”

“You can work out of the van,” said Lennie.

“Aw, Lenny—you said I wouldn’t have to do that anymore!”

“Well, now I’m saying different.” He opened the door. “Out,” he said.

“No!” she said. “It’ll be bloody freezing in the back of that van! And you can’t charge as much as you can if they come here, so it’s stupid!”

“You can do more punters,” said Lennie.

That didn’t sound at all like a good idea to Ginny. “Not if I don’t go!” she shouted.

He caught her by the arm, and his other hand delivered a stinging backhanded slap to her face. “You’re going!” he said, pushing her out.

“I won’t get any punters at all if I’m covered in sodding bruises!” she shouted, as she stumbled on to the pavement.

Matt walked around the corner to see Lennie pull his side door shut, and manhandle Ginny toward the Transit.