Common Murder

2

Lindsay stroked the four-year-old’s hair mechanically as she rocked her back and forth in her arms. “It’s okay, Cara,” she murmured at frequent intervals. The sobs soon subsided, and eventually the child’s regular breathing provided evidence that she had fallen asleep, worn out by the storm of emotions she’d suffered. “She’s dropped off at last,” Lindsay observed to Dr. Jane Thomas, who had taken charge of Cara after her mother’s dramatic arrest.

“I’ll put her in her bunk,” Jane replied. “Pass her over.” Lindsay awkwardly transferred the sleeping child to Jane, who carried her up the short ladder to the berth above the cab of the camper van that was Deborah’s home at the peace camp. She settled the child and tucked her in then returned to sit opposite Lindsay at the table. “What are your plans?” she asked.

“I thought I’d stay the night here. My shift finishes at midnight, and the boss seems quite happy for me to stop here tonight. Since it looks as if Debs won’t be using her bed, I thought I’d take advantage of it and keep an eye on Cara at the same time, if that sounds all right to you. I’ll have to go and phone Cordelia soon, though, or she’ll wonder where I’ve got to. Can you stay with Cara while I do that?”

“No sweat,” said Jane. “I was going to kip down here if you’d had to go back to London, but stay if you like. Cara’s known you all her life, after all. She knows she can trust you.”

Before Lindsay could reply, there was a quiet knock at the van’s rear door. Jane opened it to reveal a redheaded woman in her early thirties wearing the standard Sloan Ranger outfit of green wellies, needlecord jeans, designer sweater, and the inevitable Barbour jacket.

“Judith!” Jane exclaimed, “Am I glad to see you! Now we can find out exactly what’s going on. Lindsay, this is Judith Rowe, Deborah’s solicitor. She does all our legal work. Judith, this is Lindsay Gordon, who’s a reporter with the Daily Clarion, but more importantly, she’s an old friend of Deborah’s.”

Judith sat down beside Lindsay. “So it was you who left the note for Deborah at the police station?” she asked briskly.

“That’s right. As soon as I found out she’d been arrested, I thought I’d better let her know I was around in case she needed any help,” Lindsay said.

“I’m glad you did,” said Judith. “She was in a bit of a state about Cara until she got your message. She seemed calmer afterwards. Now, tomorrow, she’s appearing before the local magistrates. She’s been charged with breach of the peace and assault resulting in actual bodily harm on Rupert Crabtree. She’s going to put her hand up to the breach charge, but she wants to opt for jury trial on the ABH charge. She asked me to tell you what happened before you make any decisions about what I have to ask you. Okay?”

Lindsay nodded. Judith went on. “Crabtree was walking his dog up the road, near the phone box at Brownlow Cottages. Deborah had been making a call and when she left the box, Crabtree stood in her path and was really rather insulting, both to her and about the peace women in general. She tried to get past him, but his dog started growling and snapping at her and a scuffle developed. Crabtree tripped over the dog’s lead and crashed face first into the back of the phone box, breaking his nose. He claims to the police that Deborah grabbed his hair and smashed his face into the box. No witnesses. In her favour is the fact that she phoned an ambulance and stayed near by till it arrived.

“It’s been normal practice for the women to refuse to pay fines and opt for going to prison for non-payment. But Deborah feels she can’t take that option since it would be unfair to Cara. She’ll probably be fined about twenty-five pounds on the breach and won’t be given time to pay since she’ll also be looking for bail on the assault charge and Fordham mags can be absolute pigs when it comes to dealing with women from the camp. She asked me to ask you if you’d lend her the money to pay the fine. That’s point one.”

Judith was about to continue, but Lindsay interrupted. “Of course I will. She should know that, for God’s sake. Now, what’s point two?”

Judith grinned. “Point two is that we believe bail will be set at a fairly high level. What I need is someone who will stand surety for Deborah.”

Lindsay nodded. “That’s no problem. What do I have to do?”

“You’ll have to lodge the money with the court. A cheque will do. Can you be there tomorrow?”

“Provided I can get away by half past two. I’m working tomorrow night, you see. I start at four.” She arranged to meet Judith at the magistrates’ court in the morning, and the solicitor got up to leave. The night briefly intruded as she left, reminding them all of the freezing February gale endured by the women outside.

“She’s been terrific to us,” said Jane, as they watched Judith drive away. “She just turned up one day not long after the first court appearance for obstruction. She offered her services any time we needed legal help. She’s never taken a penny from us, except what she gets in legal aid. Her family farms on the other side of town, and her mother comes over about once a month with fresh vegetables for us. It’s really heartening when you get support from people like that, people you’d always vaguely regarded as class enemies, you know?”

Lindsay nodded. “That sort of thing always makes me feel ashamed for writing people off as stereotypes. Anyway, I’d better go and phone Cordelia before she starts to worry about me. Will you hold the fort for ten minutes?”

Lindsay jumped into the car and drove to the phone box where the incident between Deborah and Crabtree had taken place though it was too dark to detect any signs of the scuffle. A gust of wind blew a splatter of rain against the panes of the phone box as she dialed the London number and a sleepy voice answered, “Cordelia Brown speaking.”

“Cordelia? It’s me. I’m down at Brownlow Common on a job that’s got a bit complicated. I’m going to stay over. Okay?”

“What a drag. Why is it always you that gets stuck on the out-of-towners?”

“Strictly speaking, it’s not work that’s the problem.” Lindsay spoke in a rush. “Listen, there’s been a bit of bother between one of the peace women and a local man. There’s been an arrest. In fact, the woman who’s been arrested is Deborah Patterson.”

Cordelia’s voice registered her surprise. “Deborah from Yorkshire? That peace camp really is a small world, isn’t it? Whatever happened?”

“She’s been set up, as far as I can make out.”

“Not very pleasant for her, I should imagine.”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head. She’s currently locked up in a police cell, so I thought I’d keep an eye on little Cara till Debs is released tomorrow.”

“No problem,” Cordelia replied. “I can get some more work done tonight if you’re not coming back. It’s been going really well tonight, and I’m reluctant to stop till my eyes actually close.”

Lindsay gave a wry smile. “I’m glad it’s going so well. I’ll try to come home tomorrow afternoon before I go to work.”

“Okay. I’ll try to get home in time.”

“Oh. Where are you off to? Only, I thought you were going to be home all week.”

“My mother rang this evening. She’s coming up tomorrow to do the shops, and I promised I’d join her. But I’ll try to be back for four.”

“Look, don’t rush your mother on my account. I’ll see you tomorrow in bed. I should be home by one. Love you, babe.”

A chill wind met her as she stepped out of the phone box and walked quickly back to the car. She pictured her lover sitting at her word processor, honing and refining her prose, relieved at the lack of distraction. Then she thought of Deborah, fretting in some uncomfortable, smelly cell. It wasn’t an outcome Lindsay had anticipated all those years before when, a trainee journalist on a local paper in Cornwall, she had encountered Deborah at a party. For Lindsay, it had been lust at first sight. As the evening progressed and drink had been taken, she had contrived to make such a nuisance of herself that Deborah finally relented and agreed to meet Lindsay the following evening for a drink.

That night had been the first of many. Their often stormy relationship had lasted for nearly six months before Lindsay was transferred to another paper in the group. Neither of them could sustain the financial or emotional strain of separation, and soon mutual infidelities transformed their relationship to platonic friendship. Not long after, Lindsay left the West Country for Fleet Street, and Deborah announced her intention of having a child. Deborah bought a ruined farmhouse in North Yorkshire that she was virtually rebuilding single-handed. Even after Lindsay moved back to Scotland, she still made regular visits to Deborah and was surprised to find how much she enjoyed spending time with Deborah’s small daughter. She felt comfortable there, even when they were joined for the occasional evening by Cara’s father Robin, a gay man who lived nearby. But Lindsay and Deborah never felt the time was right to revive their sexual relationship.

After she had fallen for Cordelia, Lindsay’s visits had tailed off, though she had once taken Cordelia to stay the night. It had not been a success. Deborah had been rebuilding the roof at the time, there was no electricity, and the water had to be pumped by hand from the well in the yard. Cordelia had not been impressed with either the accommodation or the insouciance of its owner. But Lindsay had sensed a new maturity in Deborah that she found appealing.

Deborah had clearly sensed Cordelia’s discomfort, but she had not commented on it. She had a willingness to accept people for what they were and conduct her relationships with them on that basis. She never imposed her own expectations on them and regarded her reactions to people and events as entirely her responsibility. It would be nice, thought Lindsay, not to feel that she was failing to come up to scratch. Time spent with Deborah always made her feel good about herself.

Back at the van, she brought in a bottle of Scotch from the car and poured a nightcap for herself and Jane.

“Are you all right, Lindsay?” Jane asked.

Lindsay’s reply was drowned out by a roar outside, louder even than the stormy weather. It was a violent sound, rising and falling angrily. Lindsay leapt to her feet and pulled back the curtain over the van’s windscreen. Fear rose in her throat. The black night was scythed open by a dozen brilliant head-lamps whose beams raked the benders like prison-camp searchlights. The motor bikes revved and roared in convoluted patterns round the encampment, sometimes demolishing benders as they went. As Lindsay’s eyes adjusted to the night, she could make out pillion riders on several of the bikes, some wielding stout sticks, others swinging heavy chains at everything in their path. It was clearly not the first time the women had been raided in this way, for everyone had the sense to stay down inside the scant shelter the benders provided.

Lindsay and Jane stood speechless, petrified by the spectacle. The van’s glow seemed to exert a magnetic effect on three of the bikers and their eyclops lamps swung round and lit it up like a follow-spot on a stage.

“Oh shit,” breathed Lindsay as the bikes careered towards the van. She leaned forward desperately and groped round the unfamiliar dashboard. What felt like agonising minutes later she found the right switch and flicked the lights on to full beam. The bikes wavered in their course and two of them peeled off to either side. The third skidded helplessly in the mud and slithered into a sideways slew on the greasy ground. The rider struggled to his feet, mouthing obscenities, and dragged himself round to his top-box. Out of it he pulled a large plastic bag which he hurled at the van. The women instinctively dived for the floor as it slammed into the windscreen with a squelching thud. Lindsay raised her head and nearly threw up. The world had turned red.

All over the windscreen was a skin of congealing blood with lumps of unidentifiable material slowly slithering down on to the bonnet. Jane’s head appeared beside her. “Oh God, not the pigs’ blood routine again,” she moaned. “I thought they’d got bored with that one.”

As she spoke, the bikes revved up again, then their roar gradually diminished into an irritated buzz as they left the camp and reached the road.

“We must call the police!” Lindsay exclaimed.

“It’s a waste of time calling the police, Lindsay. They just don’t want to know. The first time they threw blood over our benders, we managed to get the police to come out. But they said we’d done it ourselves, that we were sensation seekers. They said there was no evidence of our allegations. Tyre tracks in the mud don’t count, you see. Nor do the statements of forty women. It doesn’t really matter what crimes are perpetrated against us, because we’re sub-human, you see.”

“That’s monstrous,” Lindsay protested.

“But inevitable,” Jane retorted. “What’s going on here is so radical that they can’t afford to treat it seriously on any level. Start accepting that we’ve got any rights and you end up by giving validity to the nightmares that have brought us here. Do that and you’re halfway accepting that our views on disarmament are a logical position. Much easier to treat us with total contempt.”

“That’s intolerable,” said Lindsay.

“I’d better go and check that no one’s hurt.” Jane said. “One of the women got quite badly burned the first time they fire-bombed the tents.”

“Give me a second to check that Cara’s okay, and I’ll come with you,” Lindsay said, getting up and climbing the ladder that led to Cara’s bunk. Surprisingly, the child was still fast asleep.

“I guess she’s used to it by now,” Jane said, leading the way outside.

It was a sorry scene that greeted them. The headlights of several of the women’s vehicles illuminated half a dozen benders now reduced to tangled heaps of wreckage, out of which women were still crawling. Jane headed for the first aid bender while Lindsay ploughed through the rain and wind to offer what help she could to two women struggling to salvage the plastic sheeting that had formed their shelter. Together all three battled against the weather and roughly re-erected the bender. But the women’s sleeping bags were soaked, and they trudged off to try and find some dry blankets to get them through the night.

Lindsay looked around. Slowly the camp was regaining its normal appearance. Where work was still going on, there seemed to be plenty of helpers. She made her way to Jane’s bender, fortunately undamaged, and found the doctor bandaging the arm of a woman injured by a whiplashing branch in the attack on her bender.

“Hi, Lindsay,” Jane had said without pausing in her work. “Not too much damage, thank God. A few bruises and cuts, but nothing major.”

“Anything I can do?”

Jane shook her head. “Thanks, but everything’s under control.” Feeling slightly guilty, but not wanting to leave Cara alone for too long, Lindsay returned to the van. She made up the double berth where Jane had shown her Deborah normally slept.

But sleep eluded Lindsay. When she finally dropped off, it was to fall prey to confusing and painful dreams.

Cara woke early, and was fretful while Lindsay struggled with the unfamiliar intricacies of the van to provide them both with showers and breakfast. Luckily, the night’s rain had washed away all traces of the pigs’ blood. Of course, the keys of the van were with Deborah’s possessions at the police station, so they had to drive into town in Lindsay’s car.

Fordham Magistrates Court occupied a large and elegant Georgian townhouse in a quiet cul-de-sac off the main street. Inside, the building was considerably less distinguished. The beautifully proportioned entrance hall had been partitioned to provide a waiting room and offices and comfortless plastic chairs abounded where Chippendale furniture might once have stood. The paintwork was grubby and chipped and there was a pervasive odour of stale bodies and cigarette smoke. Lindsay felt Cara’s grip tighten as they encountered the usual odd mixture of people found in magistrates’ courts. Uniformed policemen bustled from room to room, up and down stairs. A couple of court ushers in robes like Hammer Horror vampires stood gossiping by the WRVS tea stand from which a middle-aged woman dispensed grey coffee and orange tea. The other extras in this scene were the defeated-looking victims of the legal process, several of them in whispering huddles with their spry and well-dressed solicitors.

For once, Lindsay felt out of her element in a court. She put it down to the unfamiliar presence of a four-year-old on the end of her arm and approached the ushers. They directed her to the cafe upstairs where she had arranged to meet Judith. The solicitor was already sitting at a table, dressed for business in a black pinstripe suit and an oyster grey shirt. She fetched coffee for Lindsay and orange juice for Cara, then said, “I’d quite like it if you were in court throughout, Lindsay. How do you think Cara will cope if we ask a friendly policeman to keep an eye on her? Or has she already acquired the peace women’s distrust of them?”

Lindsay shrugged. “Best to ask Cara.” She turned to her and said, “We’re supposed to go into court now, but I don’t think you’re allowed in. How would it be if we were to ask a policeman to sit and talk to you while we’re away?”

“Are you going to get my mummy?” asked Cara.

“In a little while.”

“Okay, then. But you won’t be long, will you, Lindsay?”

“No, promise.”

They walked downstairs to the corridor outside the courtroom, and Judith went in search of help. She returned quickly with a young policewoman who introduced herself to Cara.

“My name’s Barbara,” she said. “I’m going to sit with you till Mummy gets back. Is that all right?”

“I suppose so,” said Cara grudgingly. “Do you know any good stories?”

As Lindsay and Judith entered the courtroom, they heard Cara ask one of her best questions. “My mummy says the police are there to help us. So why did the police take my mummy away?”

The courtroom itself was scarcely altered from the house’s heyday. The parquet floor was highly polished, the paintwork gleaming white. Behind a table on a raised dais at one end of the room sat the three magistrates. The chairwoman, aged about forty-five, had hair so heavily lacquered that it might have been moulded in fibreglass, and her mouth, too, was set in a hard line. She was flanked by two men. One was in his late fifties, with the healthy, weatherbeaten look of a keen sailor. The other, in his middle thirties, with dark brown hair neatly cut and styled, could have been a young business executive in his spotless shirt and dark suit. His face was slightly puffy round the eyes and jowls, and he wore an air of dissatisfaction with the world.

The court wound up its summary hearing of a drunk and disorderly with a swift £40 fine and moved on to Deborah’s case.

Lindsay sat down on a hard wooden chair at the back of the room as Deborah was led in looking tired and dishevelled. Her jeans and shirt looked slept in, and her hair needed washing. Lindsay reflected, not for the first time, how the law’s delays inevitably made the person in police custody look like a tramp.

Deborah’s eyes flicked round the courtroom as a uniformed inspector read out the charges. When she saw Lindsay she flashed a smile of relief before turning back to the magistrates and answering the court clerk’s enquiry about her plea to the breach of the peace charge. “Guilty,” she said in a clear, sarcastic voice. To the next charge, she replied equally clearly, “Not guilty.”

It was all over in ten minutes. Deborah was fined £50 plus £15 costs on the breach charge and remanded on bail to the Crown Court for jury trial on the assault charge. The bail had been set at £2500, with the conditions that Deborah reported daily to the police station at Fordham, did not go within 200 yards of the Crabtree home, and made no approach to Mr. Crabtree. Then, the formalities took over. Lindsay wrote a cheque she fervently hoped would never have to be cashed which Judith took to the payments office. Lindsay returned to Cara, who greeted her predictably with, “Where’s my mummy? You said you’d get her for me.”

Lindsay picked up the child and hugged her. “She’s just coming, I promise.” Before she could put Cara down, the child called, “Mummy!” and struggled out of Lindsay’s arms. Cara hurtled down the corridor and into the arms of Deborah who was walking towards them with Judith. Eventually, Deborah disentangled herself from Cara and came over to Lindsay. Wordlessly, they hugged each other.

Lindsay felt the old electricity surge through her and pulled back from the embrace. She held Deborah at arms’ length. “Hi,” she said.

Deborah smiled. “I didn’t plan a reunion like this,” she said ruefully.

“We’ll do the champagne and roses some other time,” Lindsay replied.

“ Champagne and roses? My God, you’ve come up in the world. It used to be a half of bitter and a packet of hedgehog-flavoured crisps!”

They laughed as Judith, who had been keeping a discreet distance, approached and said, “Thanks for all your help, Lindsay. Now you’ll just have to pray Deborah doesn’t jump bail!”

“No chance,” said Deborah. “I wouldn’t dare. Lindsay’s motto used to be ‘don’t mess with the messer,’ and I don’t expect that’s changed.”

Lindsay smiled. “I’ve got even tougher,” she said. “Come on, I’ll drop you off at the camp on my way back to London.”

They said goodbye to Judith and headed for the car park. Deborah said nonchalantly to Lindsay. “You can’t stay, then?”

Lindsay shook her head. “Sorry. There’s nothing I’d rather do, but I’ve got to get back to London. I’m on the night shift tonight.”

“You’ll come back soon, though, won’t you, Lin?”

Lindsay nodded. “Of course. Anyway, I’m not going just yet. I expect I can fit in a quick cup of coffee back at the van.”

They pushed through the doors of the courthouse and nearly crashed into two men standing immediately outside. The taller of the two had curly greying hair but his obvious good looks were ruined by a swollen and bruised nose and dark smudges beneath his eyes. He looked astonished to see Deborah, then said viciously, “So you’re breaking your bail conditions already, Miss Patterson. I could have you arrested for this, you know. And you wouldn’t get bail a second time.”

Furious, Lindsay pushed forward as Deborah picked up her daughter protectively. “Who the hell do you think you are?” she demanded angrily.

“Ask your friend,” he sneered. “I’m not a vindictive man,” he added. “I won’t report you to the police this time. When the Crown Court sentences you to prison, that will be enough to satisfy me.”

He shouldered his way between them, followed by the other man, who had the grace to look embarrassed.

Deborah stared after him. “In case you hadn’t guessed,” she said, “that was Rupert Crabtree.”

Lindsay nodded. “I figured as much.”

“One of these days,” Deborah growled, “someone is going to put a stop to that bastard.”