She crossed the corridor to her own room, leaving her door slightly ajar, just to tease Savvy who knew what happened next. She kicked off her court shoes and took off her jacket, hanging it neatly on a hanger behind the door. Then she stepped out of her skirt. Savendra whistled softly. Sarah strolled across her room, took a black leather jacket from a hook on the wall, pirouetted as she put it on, and blew him a kiss. Then she sat on the edge of her desk and pulled on some black leather trousers, smiling as they creaked around her. Finally she pulled on some heavy black boots, locked her door, and waved to Savvy as she went downstairs.
Her office was on the fourth floor of an old Victorian building in Tower Street, a stone’s throw from the courts. The barristers had chambers on the top floors; the solicitors, where Lucy worked, were downstairs. The building had lots of disadvantages — the narrow stairs, the small rooms, the fire risk — but one good part of it from Sarah’s point of view was the servant’s passage leading to a small back yard, where the Victorians had once had a loo and a coal shed. Now the lawyers had transformed it. There was an array of potted plants, some expensive wrought iron garden furniture; and in the coal shed were two gleaming motorcycles.
One — the larger — belonged to Savendra; the other, a jet black Kawasaki 500, was Sarah’s. She regarded it with a mixture of amusement and excessive, secret pride. She had bought it first as a solution to the problems of traffic and parking, but it meant far more to her than that now.
It was a joy she only shared with Savendra, when they compared, with sparkling eyes, the beauty of the machines and their accessories. She had grown to love everything about the Kawasaki — the shining black paintwork and gleaming chrome; the smooth responsive purr of the engine and the bike’s sensitivity to the slightest shift of her weight in the saddle; the sensuous creak of leather; the glorious freedom of weaving through traffic and accelerating to speeds that, though perfectly legal, seemed to her risky in the extreme. She loved the style of it too — black helmet, black leather clothes, black bike — and the way it marked her out, made her at once anonymous and different, her own person, not like the rest.
Not like a wife or a mother. Like a free spirit, like no one at all.
It was something, perhaps, to do with her desire to become a barrister in the first place. A free spirit who was faster than others, who played to win. A similar instinct, no doubt, had led Julian Lloyd-Davies QC to drive a black Jaguar with LAW 2 on the numberplate. Sarah couldn’t afford that — in fact her bike was cheaper than a small car — but it marked her out as someone to be taken notice of, someone not to mess with. And that was how she wanted to be. Not a victim ever again, but a person who made things happen.
Whose life belonged to herself.
The car bounced along the track towards a solid, brick built farmhouse. Cows watched them from a field on their right, and a black and white collie streaked towards them. As the two policemen got out, the collie danced around them, barking hysterically. Terry put out his hand to it, to no effect. It danced away and growled ferociously at Harry Easby.
‘Come on boy. Where’s your missus?’
‘I’m over here!’ They looked up and saw a sturdy woman in gumboots and a torn, muddy coat coming towards them. She had iron grey hair and a brown, crinkled face.
Terry showed his badge. ‘Mrs Steersby? I’m Detective Inspector Bateson and this is DC Easby.’
‘’bout time too.’ The woman held out her hand and Terry shook it. Her grip was strong, the hand redolent of cow dung. Seeing that they were not enemies the dog leapt up too, planting two muddy paws on the trousers of his suit.
‘Get down, Flash, you daft bugger! Away now!’ The woman shoved the dog aside and glanced scornfully at Terry’s efforts to brush himself clean. ‘It’s only mud, it’ll dry. D’you want to see Helen, then?’
‘If she’s home from school, yes.’ Terry took an incident report out of his pocket. ‘Your daughter was frightened by a man two nights ago, Mrs Steersby. Is that right?’
‘’course it’s right.’ The woman turned her back, cupped her hands round her mouth, and in a voice loud enough to be heard in Lancashire yelled: ‘Helen! Come here now!’
Terry saw a girl riding a pony on the far side of a field. She popped the pony over a line of jumps and cantered towards them, pulling up in a flurry of mud.
‘What d’you want, mum?’
‘It’s the police to see you!’
‘Again?’ The girl looked bemused. ‘But they came yesterday.’
‘These are different. Inspector Bateson — top brass Sherlock Holmes feller — so you’d best answer his questions. That pony’s done enough for today, anyhow.’
‘Okay. But I’ve got to cool him down first.’
‘Right. Ten minutes then. I’ll put kettle on.’
Terry watched as the girl walked the pony quietly around the field, and pondered what he knew of her story so far. Someone had tried to attack her while she was riding alone in the woods. A man in a black tracksuit and woolly hat, similar to his image of the man who had murdered Maria Clayton, and assaulted Karen Whitaker. That was why he was here now.
It disturbed him. It couldn’t be Gary Harker this time, unless Group 4 had taken to letting their rapists out for a run in the woods on the way back to Hull. So what was it? Coincidence? Copycat? Or false alarm?
Terry watched as she unsaddled her pony. She was a pretty girl in a grubby blouse and jodhpurs. How old was she? Fourteen, the report had said.
So if there had been an attack, what sort of pervert were they dealing with? A child abductor, a paedophile — or just a common lecher who fancied young girls in tight trousers? Or a monster the girl had made up? That was why he had come, to hear it from her own words.
In the farm living room, the four of them sat in faded brown armchairs grouped round an open fireplace. Terry smiled at Helen. ‘You told Constable Watson that you were riding in the woods at about half past seven when a man came up to you. Can you remember what he was wearing, Helen?’
‘A black sort of tracksuit thingy, trainers, and a black woolly hat.’
Not a hood, then. ‘So you could see his face, could you?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded, looking thoughtful, a little apprehensive perhaps.
‘And you have no idea who he was?’
‘No. I’ve never seen him before. And I do meet people quite often in those woods. I ride there most days.’
‘How old was he?’
‘I don’t know. Thirty, perhaps.’
‘I see. So what exactly happened when you met him?’
‘Well, I was just walking down the track on Toby at the time, and I saw him jogging towards me. Then he put his hand on my bridle and said something, like …’
She hesitated and looked down, and Terry saw tears in her eyes. Not such a big girl after all then. She had been frightened.
‘He said, “that’s a nice pony, darling,” something like that, and asked me how old Toby was. So I told him, and he said was he nice to ride, and I said he was brilliant but a bit lazy sometimes, and then he said could he have a ride. So I said no and he said, “oh come on,” something like that, and put his arm round my waist trying to pull me off, so then …’
Helen looked up at her mum, who nodded for her to go on.
‘… I screamed and hit him hard with my riding whip. He didn’t let go at first so I tried to kick him too and then Toby reared and we got away. Then I galloped home and told mum.’
Terry nodded. ‘You must have been very frightened.’
‘I was, yes. Course I was.’
‘Did you see what the man did when you got away?’
‘No. I looked back once and saw him running into the woods. Then he was gone. I didn’t want to see him.’
‘No, of course not.’ Terry watched her for a moment in silence. He was fairly convinced she was telling the truth; there seemed no reason not to. ‘How did he speak? Like someone from round here?’