Not Safe After Dark

INNOCENCE

Francis must be late, surely, Reed thought as he stood waiting on the bridge by the railway station. He was beginning to feel restless and uncomfortable; the handles of his holdall bit into his palm, and he noticed that the rain promised in the forecast that morning was already starting to fall.

Wonderful! Here he was, over two hundred miles away from home, and Francis hadn’t turned up. But Reed couldn’t be sure about that. Perhaps he was early. They had made the same arrangement three or four times over the past five years, but for the life of him Reed couldn’t remember the exact time they’d met.

Reed turned and noticed a plump woman in a threadbare blue overcoat come struggling against the wind over the bridge towards him. She pushed a large pram, in which two infants fought and squealed.

‘Excuse me,’ he called out as she neared him, ‘could you tell me what time school gets out?’

The woman gave him a funny look – either puzzlement or irritation, he couldn’t decide which – and answered in the clipped, nasal accent peculiar to the Midlands, ‘Half past three.’ Then she hurried by, giving Reed a wide berth.

He was wrong. For some reason he had got it into his mind that Francis finished teaching at three o’clock. It was only twenty-five past now, so there would be at least another fifteen minutes to wait before the familiar red Escort came into sight.

The rain was getting heavier and the wind lashed it hard against Reed’s face. A few yards up the road from the bridge was the bus station, which was attached to a large modern shopping centre, all glass and escalators. Reed could stand in the entrance there just beyond the doors, where it was warm and dry, and still watch for Francis.

At about twenty-five to four, the first schoolchildren came dashing over the bridge and into the bus station, satchels swinging, voices shrill and loud with freedom. The rain didn’t seem to bother them, Reed noticed: hair lay plastered to skulls; beads of rain hung on the tips of noses. Most of the boys’ ties were askew, their socks hung loose around their ankles and their shoelaces snaked along the ground. It was a wonder they didn’t trip over themselves. Reed smiled, remembering his own schooldays.

And how alluring the girls looked as they ran smiling and laughing out of the rain into the shelter of the mall. Not the really young ones, the unformed ones, but the older, long-limbed girls, newly aware of their breasts and the swelling of their hips. They wore their clothes carelessly: blouses hanging out, black woolly tights twisted or torn at the knees. To Reed, there was something wanton in their disarray.

These days, of course, they probably all knew what was what, but Reed couldn’t help but feel that there was also a certain innocence about them: a naive, carefree grace in the way they moved and a casual freedom in their laughter and gestures. Life hadn’t got to them yet; they hadn’t felt its weight and seen the darkness at its core.

Mustn’t get carried away, Reed told himself, with a smile. It was all very well to joke with Bill in the office about how sexy the schoolgirls who passed the window each day were, but it was positively unhealthy to mean it, or (God forbid!) attempt to do anything about it. He couldn’t be turning into a dirty old man at thirty-five, could he? Sometimes the power and violence of his fantasies worried him, but perhaps everyone else had them too. It wasn’t something you could talk about at work. He didn’t really think he was abnormal; after all, he hadn’t acted them out, and you couldn’t be arrested for your fantasies, could you?

Where the hell was Francis? Reed peered out through the glass. Wind-blown rain lashed across the huge plate windows and distorted the outside world. All detail was obliterated in favour of the overall mood: grey-glum and dream-like.

Reed glanced at his watch again. After four o’clock. The only schoolchildren left now were the stragglers, the ones who lived nearby and didn’t have to hurry for a bus. They sauntered over the bridge, shoving each other, playing tag, hopping and skipping over the cracks in the pavement, oblivious to the rain and the wind that drove it.

Francis ought to be here by now. Worried, Reed went over the arrangements again in his mind. He knew that he’d got the date right because he’d written it down in his appointment book. Reed had tried to call the previous evening to confirm, but no one had answered. If Francis had been trying to get in touch with him at work or at home, he would have been out of luck. Reed had been visiting another old friend – this one in Exeter – and Elsie, the office receptionist, could hardly be trusted to get her own name right.

When five o’clock came and there was still no sign of Francis, Reed picked up his holdall again and walked back down to the station. It was still raining, but not so fast, and the wind had dropped. The only train back home that night left Birmingham at nine-forty and didn’t get to Carlisle until well after midnight. By then the local buses would have stopped running and he would have to get a taxi. Was it worth it?

There wasn’t much alternative, really. A hotel would be too expensive. Still, the idea had its appeal: a warm room with a soft bed, shower, colour television and maybe even a bar downstairs, where he might meet a girl. He would just have to decide later. Anyway, if he did want to catch the train, he would have to take the eight-fifty from Redditch to get to Birmingham in time. That left three hours and fifty minutes to kill.

As he walked over the bridge and up towards the town centre in the darkening evening, Reed noticed two schoolgirls walking in front of him. They must have been kept in detention, he thought, or perhaps they’d just finished games practice. No doubt they had to do that, even in the rain. One looked dumpy from behind, but her friend was a dream: long wavy hair tumbling messily over her shoulders; short skirt flicking over her long, slim thighs; white socks fallen around her ankles, leaving her shapely calves bare. Reed watched the tendons at the back of her knees flex and loosen as she walked and thought of her struggling beneath him, his hands on her soft throat. They turned down a side street and Reed carried on ahead, shaking off his fantasy.

Could Francis have got lumbered with taking detention or games? he wondered. Or perhaps he had passed by without even noticing Reed sheltering from the rain. He didn’t know where Francis’s school was, or even what it was called. Somehow, the subject had just never come up. Also, the village where Francis lived was about eight miles away from Redditch and the local bus service was terrible. Still, he could phone. If Francis were home, he’d come out again and pick Reed up.

After phoning and getting no answer, Reed walked around town for a long time looking in shop windows and wondering about how to get out of the mess he was in. His holdall weighed heavy in his hand. Finally, he got hungry and ducked out of the light rain into the Tandoori Palace. It was still early, just after six, and the place was empty apart from a young couple absorbed in one another in a dim corner. Reed had the waiter’s undivided attention. He ordered pakoras, tandoori and dhal. The food was very good and Reed ate it too fast.

After the spiced tea, he took out his wallet to pay. He had some cash, but he had decided to have a pint or two, and he might have to take a taxi home from the station. Best hang on to the paper money. The waiter didn’t seem to mind taking plastic, even for so small a sum, and Reed rewarded him with a generous tip.

Next he tried Francis again, but the phone just rang and rang. Why didn’t the bugger invest in an answering machine? Reed cursed. Then he realized he didn’t even have one himself, hated the things. Francis no doubt felt the same way. If you were out, tough tittie; you were out and that was that.

Outside, the street lights reflected in oily puddles on the roads and pavements. After walking off his heartburn for half an hour, thoroughly soaked and out of breath, Reed ducked into the first pub he saw. The locals eyed him suspiciously at first, then ignored him and went back to their drinks.

‘Pint of bitter, please,’ Reed said, rubbing his hands together. ‘In a sleeve glass, if you’ve got one.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ the landlord said, reaching for a mug. ‘The locals bring their own.’

‘Oh, very well.’

‘Nasty night.’

‘Yes,’ said Reed. ‘Very.’

‘From these parts?’

‘No. Just passing through.’

‘Ah.’ The landlord passed over a brimming pint mug, took Reed’s money and went back to the conversation he’d been having with a round-faced man in a pin-stripe suit. Reed took his drink over to a table and sat down.

Over the next hour and a half he phoned Francis four more times, but still got no reply. He also changed pubs after each pint, but got very little in the way of a friendly greeting. Finally, at about twenty to nine, knowing he couldn’t bear to wake up in such a miserable town even if he could afford a hotel, he went back to the station and took the train home.

Because of his intended visit to Francis, Reed hadn’t planned anything for the weekend at home. The weather was miserable, anyway, so he spent most of his time indoors reading and watching television, or down at the local. He tried Francis’s number a few more times, but still got no reply. He also phoned Camille, hoping that her warm, lithe body and her fondness for experiment might brighten up his Saturday night and Sunday morning, but all he got was her answering machine.

On Monday evening, just as he was about to go to bed after a long day catching up on boring paperwork, the phone rang. Grouchily, he picked up the receiver: ‘Yes?’

‘Terry?’

‘Yes.’

‘This is Francis.’

‘Where the hell-’

‘Did you come all the way down on Friday?’

‘Of course I bloody well did. I thought we had an-’

‘Oh God. Look, I’m sorry, mate, really I am. I tried to call. That woman at work – what’s her name?’

‘Elsie?’

‘That’s the one. She said she’d give you a message. I must admit she didn’t sound as if she quite had her wits about her, but I’d no choice.’

Reed softened a little. ‘What happened?’

‘My mother. You know she’s been ill for a long time?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, she died last Wednesday. I had to rush off back to Manchester. Look, I really am sorry, but you can see I couldn’t do anything about it, can’t you?’

‘It’s me who should be sorry,’ Reed said. ‘To hear about your mother, I mean.’

‘Yes, well, at least there’ll be no more suffering for her. Maybe we could get together in a few weeks?’

‘Sure. Just let me know when.’

‘All right. I’ve still got stuff to do, you know, things to organize. How about if I call you back in a couple of weeks?’

‘Great, I’ll look forward to it. Bye.’

‘Bye. And I’m sorry, Terry, really.’ Reed put the phone down and went to bed. So that was it – the mystery solved.

The following evening, just after he’d arrived home from work, Reed heard a loud knock at his door. When he opened it, he saw two strangers standing there. At first he thought they were Jehovah’s Witnesses – who else came to the door in pairs, wearing suits? – but these two didn’t quite look the part. True, one did look a bit like a bible salesman – chubby, with a cheerful, earnest expression on a face fringed by a neatly trimmed dark beard – but the other, painfully thin, with a long, pock-marked face, looked more like an undertaker, except for the way his sharp blue eyes glittered with intelligent suspicion.

‘Mr Reed? Mr Terence J. Reed?’ the cadaverous one said, in a deep, quiet voice, just like the way Reed imagined a real undertaker would speak. And wasn’t there a hint of the Midlands nasal quality in the way he slurred the vowels?

‘Yes, I’m Terry Reed. What is it? What do you want?’ Reed could already see, over their shoulders, his neighbours spying from their windows: little corners of white net-curtain twitched aside to give a clear view.

‘We’re police officers, sir. Mind if we come in for a moment?’ They flashed their identity cards, but put them away before Reed had time to see what was written there. He backed into the hallway and they took their opportunity to enter. As soon as they had closed the door behind them, Reed noticed the one with the beard start glancing around him, taking everything in, while the other continued to hold Reed’s gaze. Finally, Reed turned and led them into the living room. He felt some kind of signal pass between them behind his back.

‘Nice place you’ve got,’ the thin one said, while the other prowled the room, picking up vases and looking inside, opening drawers an inch or two, then closing them again.

‘Look, what is this?’ Reed said. ‘Is he supposed to be poking through my things? I mean, do you have a search warrant or something?’

‘Oh, don’t mind him,’ the tall one said. ‘He’s just like that. Insatiable curiosity. By the way, my name’s Bentley, Detective Superintendent Bentley. My colleague over there goes by the name of Inspector Rodmoor. We’re from the Midlands Regional Crime Squad.’ He looked to see Reed’s reactions as he said this, but Reed tried to show no emotion at all.

‘I still don’t see what you want with me,’ he said.

‘Just routine,’ said Bentley. ‘Mind if I sit down?’

‘Be my guest.’

Bentley sat in the rocker by the fireplace and Reed sat opposite on the sofa. A mug of half-finished coffee stood between them on the glass-topped table, beside a couple of unpaid bills and the latest Radio Times.

‘Would you like something to drink?’ Reed offered.

Bentley shook his head.

‘What about him?’ Reed glanced over nervously towards Inspector Rodmoor, who was looking through his bookcase, pulling out volumes that caught his fancy and flipping through them.

Bentley folded his hands on his lap: ‘Just try to forget he’s here.’

But Reed couldn’t. He kept flicking his eyes edgily from one to the other, always anxious about what Rod-moor was getting into next.

‘Mr Reed,’ Bentley went on, ‘were you in Redditch on the evening of 9 November? Last Friday, that was.’

Reed put his hand to his brow, which was damp with sweat. ‘Let me think now… Yes, yes, I believe I was.’

‘Why?’

‘What? Sorry…?’

‘I asked why. Why were you in Redditch? What was the purpose of your visit?’

He sounded like an immigration control officer at the airport, Reed thought. ‘I was there to meet an old university friend,’ he answered. ‘I’ve been going down for a weekend once a year or so ever since he moved there.’

‘And did you meet him?’

‘As a matter of fact, no, I didn’t.’ Reed explained the communications breakdown with Francis.

Bentley raised an eyebrow. Rodmoor rifled through the magazine rack by the fireplace.

‘But you still went there?’ Bentley persisted.

‘Yes. I told you, I didn’t know he’d be away. Look, do you mind telling me what this is about? I think I have a right to know.’

Rodmoor fished a copy of Mayfair out of the magazine rack and held it up for Bentley to see. Bentley frowned and reached over for it. The cover showed a shapely blonde in skimpy pink lace panties and camisole, stockings and a suspender belt. She was on her knees on a sofa, and her round behind faced the viewer. Her face was also turned towards the camera, and she looked as if she’d just been licking her glossy red lips. The thin strap of the camisole had slipped over her upper arm.

‘Nice,’ Bentley said. ‘Looks a bit young, though, don’t you think?’

Reed shrugged. He felt embarrassed and didn’t know what to say.

Bentley flipped through the rest of the magazine, pausing over the colour spreads of naked women in fetching poses.

‘It’s not illegal you know,’ Reed burst out. ‘You can buy it in any newsagent’s. It’s not pornography.’

‘That’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it, sir?’ said Inspector Rodmoor, taking the magazine back from his boss and replacing it.

Bentley smiled. ‘Don’t mind him, lad,’ he said. ‘He’s a Methodist. Now where were we?’

Reed shook his head.

‘Do you own a car?’ Bentley asked.

‘No.’

‘Do you live here by yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ever been married?’

‘No.’

‘Girlfriends?’

‘Some.’

‘But not to live with?’

‘No.’

‘Magazines enough for you, eh?’

‘Now just a minute-’

‘Sorry,’ Bentley said, holding up his skeletal hand. ‘Pretty tasteless of me, that was. Out of line.’

Why couldn’t Reed quite believe the apology? He sensed very strongly that Bentley had made the remark on purpose to see how he would react. He hoped he’d passed the test. ‘You were going to tell me what all this was about…’

‘Was I? Why don’t you tell me about what you did in Redditch last Friday evening first? Inspector Rodmoor will join us here by the table and take notes. No hurry. Take your time.’

And slowly, trying to remember all the details of that miserable, washed-out evening five days ago, Reed told them. At one point, Bentley asked him what he’d been wearing, and Inspector Rodmoor asked if they might have a look at his raincoat and holdall. When Reed finished, the heavy silence stretched on for seconds. What were they thinking about? he wondered. Were they trying to make up their minds about him? What was he supposed to have done?

Finally, after they had asked him to go over one or two random points, Rodmoor closed his notebook and Bentley got to his feet. ‘That’ll be all for now, sir.’

‘For now?’

‘We might want to talk to you again. Don’t know. Have to check up on a few points first. We’ll just take the coat and the holdall with us, if you don’t mind, sir. Inspector Rodmoor will give you a receipt. Be available, will you?’

In his confusion, Reed accepted the slip of paper from Rodmoor and did nothing to stop them taking his things. ‘I’m not planning on going anywhere, if that’s what you mean.’

Bentley smiled. He looked like an undertaker consoling the bereaved. ‘Good. Well, we’ll be off then.’ And they walked towards the door.

‘Aren’t you going to tell me what it’s all about?’ Reed asked again as he opened the door for them. They walked out onto the path, and it was Inspector Rodmoor who turned and frowned. ‘That’s the funny thing about it, sir,’ he said, ‘that you don’t seem to know.’

‘Believe me, I don’t.’

Rodmoor shook his head slowly. ‘Anybody would think you don’t read your papers.’ And they walked down the path to their Rover.

Reed stood for a few moments watching the curtains opposite twitch and wondering what on earth Rodmoor meant. Then he realized that the newspapers had been delivered as usual the past few days, so they must have been in with magazines in the rack, but he had been too disinterested, too tired, or too busy to read any of them. He often felt like that. News was, more often than not, depressing, the last thing one needed on a wet weekend in Carlisle. Quickly, he shut the door on the gawping neighbours and hurried towards the magazine rack.

He didn’t have far to look. The item was on the front page of yesterday’s paper, under the headline, MIDLANDS MURDER SHOCK. It read,

The quiet Midlands town of Redditch is still in shock today over the brutal slaying of schoolgirl Debbie Harrison. Debbie, 15, failed to arrive home after a late hockey practice on Friday evening. Police found her partially clad body in an abandoned warehouse close to the town centre early Saturday morning. Detective Superintendent Bentley, in charge of the investigation, told our reporter that police are pursuing some positive leads. They would particularly like to talk to anyone who was in the area of the bus station and noticed a strange man hanging around the vicinity late that afternoon. Descriptions are vague so far, but the man was wearing a light tan raincoat and carrying a blue holdall.

He read and reread the article in horror, but what was even worse than the words was the photograph that accompanied it. He couldn’t be certain because it was a poor shot, but he thought it was the schoolgirl with the long wavy hair and the socks around her ankles, the one who had walked in front of him with her dumpy friend.

The most acceptable explanation of the police visit would be that they needed him as a possible witness, but the truth was that the ‘strange man hanging around the vicinity’ wearing ‘a light tan raincoat’ and carrying a ‘blue holdall’ was none other than himself, Terence J. Reed. But how did they know he’d been there?

The second time the police called Reed was at work. They marched right into the office, brazen as brass, and asked him if he could spare some time to talk to them down at the station. Bill only looked on curiously, but Frank, the boss, was hardly able to hide his irritation. Reed wasn’t his favourite employee anyway; he hadn’t been turning enough profit lately.

Nobody spoke during the journey, and when they got to the station one of the local policemen pointed Bentley towards a free interview room. It was a bare place: grey metal desk, ashtray, three chairs. Bentley sat opposite Reed, and Inspector Rodmoor sat in a corner, out of his line of vision.

Bentley placed the folder he’d been carrying on the desk and smiled his funeral director’s smile. ‘Just a few further points, Terry. Hope I don’t have to keep you long.’

‘So do I,’ Reed said. ‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but shouldn’t I call my lawyer or something?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. It isn’t as if we’ve charged you or anything. You’re simply helping us with our enquiries, aren’t you? Besides, do you actually have a solicitor? Most people don’t.’

Come to think of it, Reed didn’t have one. He knew one, though. Another old university friend had gone into law and practised nearby. Reed couldn’t remember what he specialized in.

‘Let me lay my cards on the table, as it were,’ Bentley said, spreading his hands on the desk. ‘You admit you were in Redditch last Friday evening to visit your friend. We’ve been in touch with him, by the way, and he verifies your story. What puzzles us is what you did between, say, four and eight-thirty. A number of people saw you at various times, but there’s at least an hour or more here and there that we can’t account for.’

‘I’ve already told you what I did.’

Bentley consulted the file he had set on the desk. ‘You ate at roughly six o’clock, is that right?’

‘About then, yes.’

‘So you walked around Redditch in the rain between five and six, and between six-thirty and seven? Hardly a pleasant aesthetic experience, I’d imagine.’

‘I told you, I was thinking things out. I looked in shops, got lost a couple of times…’

‘Did you happen to get lost in the vicinity of Simmons Street?’

‘I don’t know the street names.’

‘Of course. Not much of a street, really, more an alley. It runs by a number of disused warehouses-’

‘Now wait a minute! If you’re trying to tie me in to that girl’s murder, then you’re way off beam. Perhaps I had better call a solicitor, after all.’

‘Ah!’ said Bentley, glancing over at Rodmoor. ‘So you do read the papers?’

‘I did. After you left. Of course I did.’

‘But not before?’

‘I’d have known what you were on about, then, wouldn’t I? And while we’re on the subject, how the hell did you find out I was in Redditch that evening?’

‘You used your credit card in the Tandoori Palace,’ Bentley said. ‘The waiter remembered you and looked up his records.’

Reed slapped the desk. ‘There! That proves it. If I’d done what you seem to be accusing me of, I’d hardly have been as daft as to leave my calling card, would I?’

Bentley shrugged. ‘Criminals make mistakes, just like everybody else. Otherwise we’d never catch any. And I’m not accusing you of anything at the moment. You can see our problem, though, can’t you? Your story sounds thin, very thin.’

‘I can’t help that. It’s the truth.’

‘What state would you say you were in when you went into the Tandoori Palace?’

‘State?’

‘Yes. Your condition.’

Reed shrugged. ‘I was wet, I suppose. A bit fed up. I hadn’t been able to get in touch with Francis. Hungry, too.’

‘Would you say you appeared agitated?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘But someone who didn’t know you might just assume that you were?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. I was out of breath.’

‘Oh? Why?’

‘We’ll I’d been walking around for a long time carrying my holdall. It was quite heavy.’

‘Yes, of course. So you were wet and breathless when you ate in the restaurant. What about the pub you went into just after seven o’clock?’

‘What about it?’

‘Did you remain seated long?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Did you just sit and sip your drink, have a nice rest after a heavy meal and a long walk?’

‘Well, I had to go the toilet, of course. And I tried phoning Francis a few more times.’

‘So you were up and down, a bit like a yo-yo, eh?’

‘But I had good reason! I was stranded. I desperately wanted to get in touch with my friend.’

‘Yes, of course. Cast your mind back a bit earlier in the afternoon. At about twenty past three, you asked a woman what time the schools came out.’

‘Yes. I… I couldn’t remember. Francis is a teacher, so naturally I wanted to know if I was early or late. It was starting to rain.’

‘But you’d visited him there before. You said so. He’d picked you up at the same place several times.’

‘I know. I just couldn’t remember if it was three o’clock or four. I know it sounds silly, but it’s true. Don’t you ever forget little things like that?’

‘So you asked the woman on the bridge? That was you?’

‘Yes. Look, I’d hardly have done that, would I, if… I mean… like with the credit card. I’d hardly have advertised my intentions if I was going to… you know…’

Bentley raised a beetle-black eyebrow. ‘Going to what, Terry?’

Reed ran his hands through his hair and rested his elbows on the desk. ‘It doesn’t matter. This is absurd. I’ve done nothing. I’m innocent.’

‘Don’t you find schoolgirls attractive?’ Bentley went on in a soft voice. ‘After all, it would only be natural, wouldn’t it? They can be real beauties at fifteen or sixteen, can’t they? Proper little temptresses, some of them, I’ll bet. Right prick-teasers. Just think about it – short skirts, bare legs, firm young tits. Doesn’t it excite you, Terry? Don’t you get hard just thinking about it?’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Reed said tightly. ‘I’m not a pervert.’

Bentley laughed. ‘Nobody’s suggesting you are. It gets me going, I don’t mind admitting. Perfectly normal, I’d say, to find a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl sexy. My Methodist inspector might not agree, but you and I know different, Terry, don’t we? All that sweet innocence wrapped up in a soft, desirable young body. Doesn’t it just make your blood sing? And wouldn’t it be easy to get a bit carried away if she resisted, put your hands around her throat…?’

‘No!’ Reed said again, aware of his cheeks burning.

‘What about those women in the magazine, Terry? The one we found at your house?’

‘That’s different.’

‘Don’t tell me you buy it just for the stories.’

‘I didn’t say that. I’m normal. I like looking at naked women, just like any other man.’

‘Some of them seemed very young to me.’

‘For Christ’s sake, they’re models. They get paid for posing like that. I told you before, that magazine’s freely available. There’s nothing illegal about it.’ Reed glanced over his shoulder at Rodmoor, who kept his head bent impassively over his notebook.

‘And you like videos, too, don’t you? We’ve had a little talk with Mr Hakim in your corner shop. He told us about one video in particular you’ve rented lately. Soft porn, I suppose you’d call it. Nothing illegal, true, at least not yet, but a bit dodgy. I’d wonder about a bloke who watches stuff like that.’

‘It’s a free country. I’m a normal single male. I have a right to watch whatever kind of videos I want.’

‘School’s Out,’ Bentley said quietly. ‘A bit over the top, wouldn’t you say?’

‘But they weren’t real schoolgirls. The lead was thirty if she was a day. Besides, I only rented it out of curiosity. I thought it might be a bit of a laugh.’

‘And was it?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘But you see what I mean, don’t you? It looks bad: the subject-matter, the image. It all looks a bit odd. Fishy.’

‘Well it’s not. I’m perfectly innocent, and that’s the truth.’

Bentley stood up abruptly and Rodmoor slipped out of the room. ‘You can go now,’ the superintendent said. ‘It’s been nice to have a little chat.’

‘That’s it?’

‘For the moment, yes.’

‘But don’t leave town?’

Bentley laughed. ‘You really must give up those American cop shows. Though it’s a wonder you find time to watch them with all those naughty videos you rent. They warp your sense of reality – cop shows and sex films. Life isn’t like that at all.’

‘Thank you. I’ll bear that in mind,’ Reed said. ‘I take it I am free to go?’

‘Of course.’ Bentley gestured towards the door.

Reed left. He was shaking when he got out onto the wet, chilly street. Thank God the pubs were still open. He went into the first one he came to and ordered a double Scotch. Usually he wasn’t much of a spirits drinker, but these, he reminded himself as the fiery liquor warmed his belly, were unusual circumstances. He knew he should go back to work, but he couldn’t face it: Bill’s questions, Frank’s obvious disapproval. No. He ordered another double, and after he’d finished that, he went home for the afternoon. The first thing he did when he got into the house was tear up the copy of Mayfair and burn the pieces in the fireplace one by one. After that, he tore up his video club membership card and burned that too. Damn Hakim!

‘Terence J. Reed, it is my duty to arrest you for the murder of Deborah Susan Harrison…’

Reed couldn’t believe this was happening. Not to him. The world began to shimmer and fade before his eyes, and the next thing he knew Rodmoor was bent over him offering a glass of water, a benevolent smile on his bible salesman’s face.

The next few days were a nightmare. Reed was charged and held until his trial date could be set. There was no chance of bail, given the seriousness of his alleged crime. He had no money anyway, and no close family to support him. He had never felt so alone in his life as he did those long dark nights in the cell. Nothing terrible happened. None of the things he’d heard about in films and documentaries: he wasn’t sodomized; nor was he forced to perform fellatio at knife point; he wasn’t even beaten up. Mostly he was left alone in the dark with his fears. He felt all the certainties of his life slip away from him, almost to the point where he wasn’t even sure of the truth any more: guilty or innocent? The more he proclaimed his innocence, the less people seemed to believe him. Had he done it? He might have done.

He felt like an inflatable doll, full of nothing but air, manoeuvred into awkward positions by forces he could do nothing about. He had no control over his life any more. Not only couldn’t he come and go as he pleased, he couldn’t even think for himself any more. Solicitors and barristers and policemen did that for him. And in the cell, in the dark, everything seemed to close in on him and some nights he had to struggle for breath.

When the trial date finally arrived, Reed felt relief. At least he could breathe in the large, airy courtroom, and soon it would be all over, one way or another.

In the crowded court, Reed sat still as stone in the dock, steadily chewing the edges of his newly grown beard. He heard the evidence against him – all circumstantial, all convincing.

If the police surgeon had found traces of semen in the victim, an expert explained, then they could have tried for a genetic match with the defendant’s DNA, and that would have settled Reed’s guilt or innocence once and for all. But in this case it wasn’t so easy: there had been no seminal fluid found in the dead girl. The forensics people speculated, from the state of her body, that the killer had tried to rape her, found he was impotent and strangled her in his ensuing rage.

A woman called Maggie, with whom Reed had had a brief fling a year or so ago, was brought onto the stand. The defendant had been impotent with her, it was established, on several occasions towards the end of their relationship, and he had become angry about it more than once, using more and more violent means to achieve sexual satisfaction. Once he had gone so far as to put his hands around her throat.

Well, yes he had. He’d been worried. During the time with Maggie, he had been under a lot of stress at work, drinking too much as well, and he hadn’t been able to get it up. So what? Happens to everyone. And she’d wanted it like that, too, the rough way. Putting his hands around her throat had been her idea, something she’d got from a kinky book she’d read, and he’d gone along with her because she told him it might cure his impotence. Now she made the whole sordid episode sound much worse than it had been. She also admitted she had been just eighteen at the time, as well, and, as he remembered, she’d said she was twenty-three.

Besides, he had been impotent and violent only with Maggie. They could have brought on any number of other women to testify to his gentleness and virility, though no doubt if they did, he thought, his promiscuity would count just as much against him. What did he have to do to appear as normal as he needed to be, as he had once thought he was?

The witnesses for the prosecution all arose to testify against Reed like the spirits from Virgil’s world of the dead. Though they were still alive, they seemed more like spirits to him: insubstantial, unreal. The woman from the bridge identified him as the shifty-looking person who had asked her what time the schools came out; the Indian waiter and the landlord of the pub told how agitated Reed had looked and acted that evening; other people had spotted him in the street, apparently following the murdered girl and her friend. Mr Hakim was there to tell the court what kind of videos Reed had rented lately – including School’s Out – and even Bill told how his colleague used to make remarks about the schoolgirls passing by: ‘You know, he’d get all excited about glimpsing a bit of black knicker when the wind blew their skirts up. It just seemed like a bit of a lark. I thought nothing of it at the time.’ Then he shrugged and gave Reed a pitying look. And as if all that weren’t enough, there was Maggie, a shabby Dido, refusing to look at him as she told the court of the way he had abused and abandoned her.

Towards the end of the prosecution case, even Reed’s barrister was beginning to look depressed. He did his best in cross-examination, but the damnedest thing was that they were all telling the truth, or their versions of it. Yes, Mr Hakim admitted, other people had rented the same videos. Yes, he might have even watched some of them himself. But the fact remained that the man on trial was Terence J. Reed, and Reed had recently rented a video called School’s Out, the kind of thing, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that you wouldn’t want to find your husbands or sons watching.

Reed could understand members of the victim’s community appearing against him, and he could even comprehend Maggie’s hurt pride. But why Hakim and Bill? What had he ever done to them? Had they never really liked him? It went on and on, a nightmare of distorted truth. Reed felt as if he had been set up in front of a funfair mirror, and all the jurors could see was his warped and twisted reflection. I’m innocent, he kept telling himself as he gripped the rail, but his knuckles turned whiter and whiter and his voice grew fainter and fainter.

Hadn’t Bill joined in the remarks about schoolgirls? Wasn’t it all in the spirit of fun? Yes, of course. But Bill wasn’t in the dock. It was Terence J. Reed who stood accused of killing an innocent fifteen-year-old schoolgirl. He had been in the right place at the right time, and he had passed remarks on the budding breasts and milky thighs of the girls who had crossed the road in front of their office every day.

Then, the morning before the defence case was about to open – Reed himself was set to go into the dock, and not at all sure by now what the truth was – a strange thing happened.

Bentley and Rodmoor came softly into the courtroom, tiptoed up to the judge and began to whisper. Then the judge appeared to ask them questions. They nodded. Rodmoor looked in Reed’s direction. After a few minutes of this, the two men took seats and the judge made a motion for the dismissal of all charges against the accused. Pandemonium broke out in court: reporters dashed for phones and the spectators’ gallery buzzed with speculation. Amidst it all, Terry Reed got to his feet, realized what had happened, if not how, and promptly collapsed.

Nervous exhaustion, the doctor said, and not surprising after the ordeal Reed had been through. Complete rest was the only cure.

When Reed felt well enough, a few days after the trial had ended in uproar, his solicitor dropped by to tell him what had happened. Apparently, another schoolgirl had been assaulted in the same area, only this one had proved more than a match for her attacker. She had fought tooth and nail to hang onto her life, and in doing so had managed to pick up a half brick and crack the man’s skull with it. He hadn’t been seriously injured, but he’d been unconscious long enough for the girl to get help. When he was arrested, the man had confessed to the murder of Debbie Harrison. He had known details not revealed in the papers. After a night-long interrogation, police officers had no doubt whatsoever that he was telling the truth. Which meant Reed couldn’t possibly be guilty. Hence motion for dismissal, end of trial. Reed was a free man again.

He stayed at home for three weeks, hardly venturing out of the house except for food, and even then he always went further afield for it than Hakim’s. His neighbours watched him walk by, their faces pinched with disapproval, as if he were some kind of monster in their midst. He almost expected them to get up a petition to force him out of his home.

During that time he heard not one word of apology from the undertaker and the bible salesman; Francis still had ‘stuff to do… things to organize’; and Camille’s answering machine seemed permanently switched on.

At night Reed suffered claustrophobic nightmares of prison. He couldn’t sleep well and even the mild sleeping pills the doctor gave him didn’t really help. The bags grew heavier and darker under his eyes. Some days he wandered the city in a dream, not knowing where he was going, or, when he got there, how he had arrived.

The only thing that sustained him, the only pure, innocent, untarnished thing in his entire life, was when Debbie Harrison visited him in his dreams. She was alive then, just as she had been when he saw her for the first and only time, and he felt no desire to rob her of her innocence, only to partake of it himself. She smelled of apples in autumn and everything they saw and did together became a source of pure wonder. When she smiled, his heart almost broke with joy.

At the end of the third week, Reed trimmed his beard, got out his suit and went in to work. In the office he was met with an embarrassed silence from Bill and a redundancy cheque from Frank, who thrust it at him without a word of explanation. Reed shrugged, pocketed the cheque and left.

Every time he went into town, strangers stared at him in the street and whispered about him in pubs. Mothers held more tightly onto their daughters’ hands when he passed them by in the shopping centres. He seemed to have become quite a celebrity in his home town. At first, he couldn’t think why, then one day he plucked up the courage to visit the library and look up the newspapers that had been published during his trial.

What he found was total character annihilation, nothing less. When the headline about the capture of the real killer came out, it could have made no difference at all; the damage had already been done to Reed’s reputation, and it was permanent. He might have been found innocent of the girl’s murder, but he had been found guilty too, guilty of being a sick consumer of pornography, of being obsessed with young girls, unable to get it up without the aid of a struggle on the part of the female. None of it was true, of course, but somehow that didn’t matter. It had been made so. As it is written, so let it be. And to cap it all, his photograph had appeared almost every day, both with and without the beard. There could be very few people in England who would fail to recognize him in the street.

Reed stumbled outside into the hazy afternoon. It was warming up towards spring, but the air was moist and grey with rain so fine it was closer to mist. The pubs were still open, so he dropped by the nearest one and ordered a double Scotch. The other customers looked at him suspiciously as he sat hunched in his corner, eyes bloodshot and puffy from lack of sleep, gaze directed sharply inwards.

Standing on the bridge in the misty rain an hour later, Reed couldn’t remember making the actual decision to throw himself over the side, but he knew that was what he had to do. He couldn’t even remember how he had ended up on this particular bridge, or the route he’d taken from the pub. He had thought, drinking his third double Scotch, that maybe he should go away and rebuild his life, perhaps abroad. But that didn’t ring true as a solution. Life is what you have to live with, what you are, and now his life was what it had become, or what it had been turned into. It was what being in the wrong place at the wrong time had made it, and that was what he had to live with. The problem was he couldn’t live with it; therefore, he had to die.

He couldn’t actually see the river below – everything was grey – but he knew it was there. The River Eden, it was called. Reed laughed harshly to himself. It wasn’t his fault that the river that runs through Carlisle is called the Eden, he thought; it was just one of life’s little ironies.

Twenty-five to four on a wet Wednesday afternoon. Nobody about. Now was as good a time as any.

Just as he was about to climb onto the parapet, a figure emerged from the mist. It was the first girl on her way home from school. Her grey pleated skirt swished around her long, slim legs, and her socks hung over her ankles. Under her green blazer, the misty rain had wet the top of her white blouse so much that it stuck to her chest. Reed gazed at her in awe. Her long blonde hair had darkened and curled in the rain, sticking in strands over her cheek. There were tears in his eyes. He moved away from the parapet.

As she neared him, she smiled shyly.

Innocence.

Reed stood before her in the mist and held his hands out, crying like a baby.

‘Hello,’ he said.