"How about a celebration curry?" somebody was suggesting.
It was a great idea, everyone agreed, and numbers were counted.
"I'll ring the Last Viceroy," Jeff said, "and tell them to expect us. Six o'clock?"
"You coming, Charlie?" Dave asked.
I'd intended ringing Rosie on the off-chance that she'd baked another chocolate cake, hoping for an invite round, but I'd been dodging Dave for the last fortnight. The heat was off, now, and I didn't see how I could refuse. "Yeah, fine," I said. "Six o'clock it is.
When it comes to curry I like them hot, but the following night I was seeing Rosie, taking her to the theatre, so I stayed with the mild ones. There were fifteen of us and the proprietor of the restaurant was overjoyed to have so much custom so early in the evening. Prodigious quantities of rice, naan bread, popadoms and samosas were consumed, washed down with Kingfisher beer. I stayed sober, not wanting to have to abandon my car and take a taxi home. When talk started of moving on to a club we older ones made our apologies and split.
The answerphone was bleeping as I opened the door and I pressed the play button with unseemly eagerness.
It was Rosie, just as I'd hoped: "It's Rosie, Charlie. Give me a ring, soon as you can. It doesn't matter how late." She sounded breathless.
Her number wasn't committed to my memory, yet, so I tried the 14713 shuffle and was rewarded with a ringing tone.
"Is that you, Charlie?"
"Yes. What's happened?"
"I've heard from First Call. The samples don't match. Dad is innocent. Isn't it wonderful?"
I said: "Wow! That's fantastic. Really fantastic. When did you learn this?"
"About six o'clock. I rang you at home and at the station but you weren't there."
"Did they say anything else?"
"No. I tried to ring the producer earlier in the afternoon but he'd taken the afternoon off. His secretary said she would try his home number. She came back to me and he'd told her that he'd seen the report from the lab and it said that the samples didn't match and my dad was in the clear. Oh, Charlie, I'm so excited. I wanted to tell someone but there was only you and you were out. I'm… I'm… I don't know, it's all a bit too much for me."
"I can't begin to imagine how you feel, Rosie, but I'm so pleased for you." I wanted to say something about all we had to do was prove it was the right grave, but I didn't. It seemed churlish to cast doubts on the results, and the church records had been quite specific.
"Are we still going to see A Midsummer Night's Dream tomorrow?" I asked, "or would you prefer some other celebration?"
"No," she replied, firmly. "The Dream will be perfect. It will be like picking up my life again, from where it left off. I've put a bottle of champagne that I've been saving in the fridge. We could have a little celebration here, after the show."
"That sounds a good idea," I agreed.
"Oh," she said. "I don't suppose you'd want to drink and drive, would you?"
"It's OK, there's always a taxi," I replied.
"That's an unnecessary expense, but… you could always sleep on my settee."
"Another good idea. Thanks, I'll pack my toothbrush."
The office was quiet Saturday morning, the troops having a well-earned weekend off, probably nursing hangovers. I called in as usual to tidy a few things and do any jobs that required more attention than I'm capable of giving during the hubbub of a normal day. I like being there in an empty office, surveying the blank screens and the heaps of papers, marvelling that order can come out of such chaos. It's my domain, and I feel a little tingle of pride when I survey it.
At nine o'clock exactly I rang the lab at Chepstow. He was in. "It's DI Priest," I said, "about the Glynis Williams case. Apparently First Call TV have had their samples profiled and it's good news. Can you confirm it, yet?"
"Haven't you received my report?" asked the scientist who'd extracted the DNA and done the tests.
"No. The mail hasn't arrived yet."
"Well, we've completed the profiles and I sent the results to your home address. I knew you wanted them ASAP and there was less likelihood of them being lost in the system."
"That was thoughtful of you. It'll probably be waiting for me when I go home. So what did you find?"
"Bad news, I'm afraid, Inspector, not good news."
Something churned in my stomach and I felt as if my legs had been kicked out from under me. "Bad news?" I echoed. A picture of Rosie flashed into my brain and I thought of how her happiness was about to be smashed.
"Yeah, that's what I said. You got the wrong man. The tests show that the blood from under the girl's fingernails didn't come from Abraham Barraclough."
My emotions were being blown around like a newspaper in a hurricane, plunging earthward one second only to be sent soaring a moment later. I let the words sink in and when I was certain of their meaning I yelled a silent "Yabadabadoo!" She'd done it. Rosie had done it. The scientist, I realised, had a different agenda to me. He was looking at the case from the inside, objectively and impartial. But now I was up there with the birds again, with one final obstacle before we could once and for all declare Rosie's dad innocent.
"Oh, I see," I said. "And what about the grave? Have you verified that it was the right grave?"
"Oh, yes, we got the right grave, no doubt at all about that."
Hallelujah.
Chapter Fourteen
I dashed home, not content with the verbal report. I wanted to see it written down, neatly typed in appropriate language. Only then would I believe it.
My job is to catch criminals. Juries determine who is guilty, parliament decides on the penalties, judges apply them, prison officers carry them out. I just catch them. All the rest has nothing to do with me. A jobsworth, that's what I am; just another jobsworth.
Yesterday I came within an ace of handing Debra Grainger her gloves and telling her to take more care of them. Walking away. But then I remembered Mrs Norcup, banged up in some smelly secure ward with nothing to walk away from, no one to give her a break, so I did my job and left things to the courts.
And now this. The envelope was lying on the mat when I opened the door. I ripped it open and unfolded the single sheet of paper. I read it and re-read it, standing in the doorway. Then I read the conclusions again, looking for the weasel words or double negatives or a misplaced not, but there was nothing there. What it said was what it meant, and that was exactly what the cocky young scientist had told me on the phone. I re-folded the sheet, ran my thumbnail down the folds until they were as sharp as a blade and replaced it in the envelope. I pulled the door shut and walked back to the car.
I don't know why I came all the way up here. I had to go somewhere, get in the car and drive, and this was where it started. I parked at the end of the track and ducked under the barrier. The grass was longer and browner and the trees looked heavier, more sinister. Bethesda quarry is wedge-shaped, like a piece from a cake laid on its side, and a track made by a big-wheeled vehicle runs down one edge all the way to the bottom. Two burnt out cars stand at the top of the slope, slowly returning to nature. The body shells have disintegrated but the oil-covered engines are resisting change. They might last out for five or ten years, even twenty or a hundred, but in this temple to evolution that was nothing.
Long time ago I heard a definition of eternity. Imagine a rock a thousand miles high. Once every thousand years a bird lands on the rock, wipes its beak on it and flies off. When the bird had worn the rock away, that will be the first second of the dawn of eternity.