My heart goes out to him. I desperately want to offer him a few comforting words, but I also want to get through this ghastly story as quickly as possible – for both our sakes. And so I say nothing.

  ‘There was a middle-aged man who lived in a big house on my newspaper round, and who’d made it quite plain that he was interested in me,’ Corbet says. ‘I went to see him. I … I offered my services to him. He did some terrible disgusting things to me, but he paid well, and so when he asked me if some of his friends could join in, I said yes. That was even worse, as you can imagine. At times, I didn’t know how I could endure it for even a second more. But I did endure it – so that my mother wouldn’t have to. I saved up the money until I’d got nearly a hundred pounds, which was a small fortune back then. I gave the money to my mother. And do you know what she said?’

  ‘No,’ I tell him – though I think I could make a fair guess.

  ‘She said, “That’s wonderful, darling, but we can’t live on it for ever. Will there be more?” I said yes. She never asked where I got the money from, but given that I was still only a kid, she must have had a fair idea, mustn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ I agree, ‘she must have had a fair idea.’

  ‘She promised me she’d come off the game, but just a few nights later, I saw her in an alley, screwing a drunken soldier. That was when I realized that there are some women who, whatever they may say, like to be humiliated – who take pleasure from rolling around in the filth and degradation of their own making. And when Linda told me that she’d had sex with all those boys against her will, I didn’t believe her – because I thought she was as immoral and duplicitous as her grandmother.’ A tear rolls down his cheek. ‘But even at that moment – even as I despised her – I couldn’t help loving her. You have to believe that.’

  ‘I do believe that,’ I tell him. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘For Linda and Mary?’ he asks ‘So am I.’

  ‘For you as well.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry for me,’ he says. ‘I won’t be suffering long.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They’ve got me on suicide watch at the moment – but they can’t keep that up for ever.’

  EPILOGUE

  It is a mild Sunday evening, towards the end of May, and I’m sitting at one of the wooden tables in the Head of the River’s beer garden. The last rays of the setting sun cast a blood-red glow across the wide sky, the birds are singing their farewell to the day, and the river laps gently against the shore. It is all very peaceful – all very calming.

  I have just returned from Whitebridge, where I went to attend my dad’s cremation. When my mother asked me if I wanted to bring some of his ashes back to Oxford with me, I was surprised to hear myself say yes, but I’m glad I did, because, in a way I still don’t quite understand, I find them comforting.

  ‘Ground control to Jennie Redhead,’ says a voice, quite close to me, in a Scottish accent. ‘Are you receiving me? Over.’

  I turn to face DCI Macintosh, who is sitting opposite me. I wonder, not for the first time since we arrived at the pub, exactly what we’re doing here. We might, I suppose, be called friendly acquaintances, but we are certainly not friendly friends, so there is no reason I can think of that a fairly senior officer in the Thames Valley Police should have called me, out of the blue, and suggest we go for a drink. And that, you must admit, is slightly disturbing.

  ‘Jennie?’ he says again.

  ‘Sorry, I was miles away,’ I admit. ‘What were you saying?’

  ‘I was asking you if you thought it was Tom Corbet who wrecked your office?’

  ‘He certainly didn’t tell me that he was the one who did it – and now we’ll never know,’ I say.

  Poor Tom Corbet. He was a good man – a man who always tried to do the right thing. It was tragic that he should have ended his life hanging from a pipe in a prison cell.

  And poor Mary Corbet. I went to see her after her husband had confessed to me – and all the time that she was sobbing in my arms, I was struggling to hold back my own tears. It was not an experience I ever want to repeat, and when I eventually left her in the capable hands of Linda’s best friend, Janet, I took the wad of notes that was to have been Linda’s university fund, and dropped it in the box at the Oxfam shop.

  ‘I’ve lost you again, haven’t I?’ DCI Macintosh asks.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, for a second time.

  ‘Tom Corbet didn’t tell you he wrecked your office, but what do you think?’ Macintosh persists.

  And I’m beginning to suspect that the question is less about Tom Corbet, and more about why we’re here now.

  ‘It was certainly wrecked in a neat and orderly way, and since Tom was the only neat and orderly man I know who had anything to gain by wrecking it, I suppose it must have been him,’ I say.

  ‘He thought that might frighten you off – but he didn’t know you like I’m getting to know you,’ Ken Macintosh says.

  Is he making a pass at me? I wonder in a mild panic.

  Is it a case of flattery first – and knickers off second?

  And then I relax. Macintosh put his career on the line in the Linda Corbet case, and he did it because he has three daughters, so he’s certainly not going to risk having his contact with those daughters limited to two weekends a month just for the sake of a bit of illicit nooky.

  ‘You’ve got a good degree from an excellent university, haven’t you?’ he asks.

  ‘A goodish degree, at any rate,’ I say, wondering what this change of direction indicates.

  ‘So whatever made a young woman with your qualifications join the police force?’

  I have a standard answer for that question – one that, I think, succeeds in being both amusing and in signalling to whoever asked the question that it’s something I’d rather not go into too deeply.

  But Ken Macintosh, while he is still not quite a friend, is at least a comrade with whom I have stood side by side in battle – and I think he deserves an honest answer.

  ‘I used to babysit for a DCI in Lancashire, and she once told me that before she adopted her daughter, her work was the only thing that had stopped her from coming apart at the seams,’ I say. ‘And it seemed to me then – and it still seems to me – that any job which can do that is one you should seriously consider.’

  Macintosh looks at me strangely – and that’s the trouble with being honest, people do look at you strangely.

  ‘Do you worry about coming apart at the seams?’ he asks.

  ‘Doesn’t everybody?’ I wonder.

  ‘The reason I asked about why you joined the police,’ Macintosh says (leaving my last question diplomatically unanswered), ‘is that I’ve been talking to the chief constable recently, and he’s been very impressed with the way you handled yourself during the investigation.’

  ‘That’s good to know,’ I counter, noncommittally. ‘Because I’m not proud – I’ll take fans from wherever I can find them.’

  ‘And he’s instructed me to tell you that if you apply to rejoin the force, not only are you very likely to be accepted, but your years on the outside will be counted as relevant experience, so you won’t lose any seniority.’

  ‘That’s very generous,’ I tell him, ‘but I left the force for a reason, and that reason hasn’t gone away.’

  ‘I think we’re talking about Chief Superintendant Dunn here, aren’t we?’ Macintosh asks.

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Yes, I rather think we are. Well, I have reason to believe that the chief superintendent will soon be in no position to cause you any grief.’

  ‘He’s being investigated, isn’t he?’ I ask, with a slight flush of pleasure which is probably unworthy of me. ‘And it’s more than likely that he’s going to be booted off the force – if not jailed.’

  Macintosh shifts uncomfortably in his chair. ‘I didn’t exactly say that, you know.’

  ‘You didn’t exactly have to.’

  ‘So will you consider reapplying?’ Macintosh asks.

  I feel that I should take time to seriously consider the offer – but I don’t want to.

  ‘No,’ I tell him.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I quite like the job I’ve got now.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ Macintosh says.

  There’s no denying he has a point.

  ‘Yes, I probably am,’ I agree.

  ‘You’re a good investigator, Jennie, but there’s only so far you can go working on your own. Rejoin the force, and you could be a DCI in a few years. Stay where you are, and you’re doomed to frustration, because you simply won’t have the resources available to you in the police. It’ll be like banging your head against a brick wall.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ I agree. ‘But there are brick walls in your job, too. Once you’d released the members of the Shivering Turn the first time, there was nothing more you could do. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘But I could do more – and did – because the only boss I have to listen to is me.’

  ‘Even so—’ Macintosh begins.

  ‘Let’s be honest, we all end up banging our heads against brick walls whatever job we do,’ I interrupt him, ‘but at least, in my case, I get to choose my own bricks.’

 

 

  Sally Spencer, The Shivering Turn

 

 

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