The Shivering Turn, page 21
‘You can only see him if he agrees to see you,’ Macintosh points out, weakening.
‘I know that.’
‘And if he insists on his solicitor being present, you might as well forget the whole idea, because there’s no way on God’s green earth that even the most incompetent legal aid solicitor in England would ever allow his client to be questioned by a civilian.’
‘I know that, too,’ I say.
Macintosh shrugs wearily. ‘All right,’ he agrees. ‘I’ll ask. But if I were you, I wouldn’t start getting my hopes up too high.’
Jeff Meade is a decent lad who’s been led astray, I tell myself.
What happened to him could have happened to me – or to any working-class kid who suddenly found himself marooned on this island of privilege called Oxford.
All I have to do now is to burrow into him a little, and bring that decency back to the surface.
‘Did you hear what I said, Jennie?’ Macintosh asks.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t be getting my hopes too high,’ I tell him.
But I’m lying.
EIGHTEEN
When I enter the interview room, Jeff Meade looks up at me and gives me a weak smile, but by the time I’ve sat down opposite him, his eyes are firmly fixed on the table again.
‘Will you do me a favour, Miss Redhead – as one northerner helping out another?’ he asks me.
Ah, so that’s why, against the odds, he’s agreed to me see me – because he wants something.
‘What kind of favour are we talking about here?’ I ask cautiously.
‘You’re Chief Inspector Macintosh’s mate …’
‘You’re wrong about that – I hardly know him.’
‘Well, at any rate, he listens to what you say, and you can’t deny that, because I’ve seen him do it.’
‘I’m not denying it.’
‘So if you were to tell him—’
‘I can’t get the charges against you dropped,’ I interrupt him. ‘They’re in the system now, and you’ll have to appear before the magistrates, come hell or high water.’
‘I know, but the magistrates have the choice of dealing with me themselves or referring me up to the Crown Court, don’t they?’
‘In general, yes, unless their law clerk advises them that the crime merits a sentence of more than six months, in which case they have no choice but to refer it upwards.’
‘The thing is, my legal aid solicitor thinks I’ll get a better deal in the magistrates’ court than the Crown Court, so I’d like DCI Macintosh to tell the magistrates that that’s where he thinks I should be tried.’
‘And you want me to persuade him that’s what he should do?’
‘Yes. Will you do it?’
He thinks his biggest problem is facing a piddling little charge that, even without my help, he’ll probably get probation for – and, depressingly, as things stand, he’s probably right.
‘Will you do it?’ he repeats.
‘That depends,’ I tell him.
‘On what?’ he asks – and there is a sulkiness to his tone which suggests that he’d been sure I’d do it just because he was a fellow Lancastrian, and is rather disappointed that there are strings attached.
‘There are other things we need to talk about,’ I say.
‘What other things?’ he asked guardedly.
‘The things that I’m particularly interested in getting an answer to,’ I snap back at him.
‘All right,’ he agrees – though that agreement can scarcely be called very willing.
‘What was it that made you decide to do a runner?’ I ask.
‘I didn’t do a runner.’
‘No?’
‘No! I had no idea we were about to be arrested, and I just fancied a bit of a break.’
I stand up. It’s a gamble, because Jeff might just decide to let me go, but if I’m to achieve anything from this interview – if I’m ever going to help Linda Corbet and bring the Shivering Turn to justice – then gamble I must.
‘What are you doing?’ Jeff asks, alarmed.
‘If all you’re going to do is lie to me, then I’m wasting my bloody time being here,’ I tell him.
‘Sit down again,’ he implores me. ‘Please!’
‘What made you do a runner?’ I repeat.
‘Crispin thought that the police would be harder on me than they would be on anyone else.’
‘Why?’ I ask, still standing.
‘Because all the other lads are posh and I’m not. He gave me five hundred pounds, and said that – for the good of the whole society – I’d better make myself scarce, and that the best way to make myself scarce was to go abroad. I’ve never been abroad. It all seemed like a bit of an adventure.’
I sit down again – slowly and carefully, because if I don’t get it right, my body will soon remind me that I’ve only just recently been beaten up.
‘Isn’t it possible it was the other way round?’ I ask.
‘What was the other way round? I don’t know you mean?’
‘I mean that instead of Crispin sending you away to take the heat off you, he did it to take the heat off them.’
‘No, no … it wasn’t like that at all.’
‘Think about it,’ I say, formulating my new theory on the hoof. ‘You run away, which is a sure sign of guilt, but the rest of them stay, because they want to prove their innocence. So instead of all the attention being focused on Crispin – who is so obviously the leader – it’s focused on you.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Jeff says. ‘Crispin would never do that to me. We swore an oath – and that oath made us a band of brothers.’
He has invested so much of himself in the Shivering Turn that he doesn’t dare to think – however obvious it becomes – that the whole thing is a sham. I understand his dilemma. I might even sympathize with it, but for Linda Corbet, who is currently absorbing all the sympathy I can spare.
‘Did you all swear this oath together?’ I ask.
‘No,’ he says, ‘all the rest of them had sworn it before I joined, so it was just me.’
And I think I can just about discern the first shadow of doubt crossing his face.
‘I’ve said this before, but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in, so I’ll say it again,’ I tell him. ‘You’re not from the same class as them, you’re not from the same academic discipline as them, you’re not a rower, and you’re younger than they are. So why would they invite you – rather than anyone else in the whole college – to join them?’
‘There could be any number of reasons.’
‘There’s one – and one only. They did it because they needed a dupe – a fall guy!
‘No,’ he croaks.
‘And look what they’ve done to you. Think about what they’ve turned you into. You delivered an innocent girl to a pack of savages. Why?’
‘It’s part of the initiation ceremony to bring a girl,’ he says weakly. ‘All the others have done it.’
‘None of them has done it,’ I say, conveniently ignoring the fact that the Shivering Turn Society had previously booked the function room in Blind Beggar twice, before the night that Linda was raped. ‘What happened that Friday night was an experiment. And because it was an experiment, they did what the aristocracy always does – they brought in a serf to do the dirty work.’
‘No,’ he moans.
‘Come clean, Jeff,’ I plead. ‘Do the right thing – the decent thing. If we let Crispin and his mates get away with this, there’s no telling what they’ll try in the future.’
‘What you’re asking me to do is ruin my whole life because of one little mistake,’ he says.
‘Is that how you see it?’ I demand. ‘One little mistake? I don’t think that’s what Linda would call it. And she can’t just leave it behind. What happened on that terrible night will be seared into her brain until the day she dies.’
I’m getting too emotional, and that’s a mistake.
Worse, I’ve pushed Linda into the centre of things, and if I’m ever going to get him to cooperate, my whole attention has to be focused on Jeff’s needs.
I take a deep breath. ‘No, I’m not asking you to ruin your life,’ I tell him. ‘What I’m asking you to do is start rebuilding your life on a decent foundation.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You think you can live with what you’ve done, but you’re wrong. You’re a decent lad – you have a conscience – and that means you can’t just bury your guilt. Sure, you can lock it away for a while – but it’s still there, deep inside you, slowly festering away, and it will grow bigger and bigger until it poisons every inch of you. Come clean, Jeff – you know you have to come clean.’
For one joyous moment, I think I’ve got him. Then a look of arrogant contempt comes to his face which turns even his handsome features ugly.
He has learned the lesson of the Shivering Turn well – and even before he speaks, I know what he is going to say.
‘Linda Corbet must have known what was going to happen to her,’ he tells me.
‘What?’
‘Going out alone with a bunch of lads, she must have known what was going to happen – she must have wanted it to happen.’
‘Did she look to you as if she wanted it to happen when, one by one, you raped her?’
‘She was probably pretending not to enjoy it because she didn’t want to look cheap, but the more I think about it, the more I’m sure she was having one hell of a good time.’
As I start to get up, he reaches across the table and grabs my hand.
‘You can’t desert me,’ he pleads. ‘We’re two of a kind – northern kids doing our best to survive in what’s almost a foreign country.’
I look at his hand, which is still holding tightly on to mine.
‘I really want an excuse to hurt you,’ I say – and I’m not lying, ‘so you just keep on holding me like that, Jeff.’
He lets go of my hand as if it were suddenly on fire.
I stand up, and head for the door.
He doesn’t try to stop me.
The Bulldog is the nearest pub to the police station, so that’s what I hit first. I order a gin and tonic, and then, as an afterthought, a neat double gin chaser to go with it.
The barman looks at me strangely.
‘Just serve me the drinks I asked for, Tony – that’s what you’re there for,’ I tell him.
He shrugs. ‘Well, it’s your liver.’
Yes, it bloody well is.
From the Bulldog I go to the Red Lion, and from there to the Turl. It’s half-past nine when I reach the Eagle and Child. At least, I think that’s the time, but I seem to be having some difficulty in focusing on my watch.
The barman, Sebastian, takes one look at me and says, ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough, Jennie?’
‘That’s for me to know and you to find out,’ I say, and the moment the words are out of my mouth, I realize that they are meaningless.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Sebastian says, ‘why don’t you go and sit at that empty table over there, and I’ll bring your drink across to you when I’ve finished serving these customers.’
That seems fair enough.
I know he is still watching me, so I am determined to glide over to the table with all the grace of a very sober ballerina.
It doesn’t work out quite like that. Somehow I veer from my chosen path, and my swaying hip makes fairly heavy contact with a table at which two middle-aged couples are sitting.
It’s not a disaster. Not a complete one, anyway. The table wobbles, but one of the men is quick to steady it, so all that happens is that some of the contents of some of the glasses spill on to the table.
But none of the glasses falls over! I wish – here and now – to make that particularly clear.
Well … maybe one of them does – but it’s certainly no more than one.
‘Shorry,’ I say. ‘Let me get you … get you ’nother …’nother … round of drinks.’
‘No, that’s quite all right, dear, there’s no real damage done,’ says one of the women, who’s busy mopping the front of her dress with a handkerchief which is clearly too small for the task.
‘I inshist,’ I insist.
‘No!’ the woman says, quite firmly.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say her main priority at this moment is to get the redhead – who she wrongly assumes is drunk – as far away from her table as possible.
‘I’m perfectly sober …’ I begin.
‘Just go!’ she tells me.
‘Please yourself,’ I answer, and walk away with dignity.
I reach the empty table that the wonderful Sebastian has reserved just for me – how ’bout that! – and sink gratefully into the chair.
I’m feeling just a little bit tired, so maybe if I put my elbow on the table, and rest my head in my hand …
I’m being gently shaken, first this way and then that. I look up, and Charlie is standing there.
‘How d’you … what d’you …?’ I ask.
‘The landlord called me and said you might need some help,’ Charlie says. ‘Goodness, you are in a bit of a state, aren’t you? I think we’d better take you home right away.’
‘Lan’lord had no business to be phoning anybody ’bout the state I’m in,’ I mutter.
But, because I want to continue to behave in a ladylike fashion, I allow Charlie to help me to my feet and assist me to the door.
There is a taxi, with its engine running, waiting outside, but when the driver sees me, he says, ‘I’m not taking her.’
‘Why not?’ I demand. ‘Waz wrong with me?’
‘Let me handle this, Jennie,’ Charlie says firmly. ‘Why won’t you take her?’ he asks the cabbie.
‘Thaz just what I said,’ I tell him.
‘You’ve only got to look at the state of her to answer that,’ the cabbie says. ‘Likely as not, she’ll throw up in my taxi.’
I want to assure him I won’t – but I’m not entirely sure it’s a promise I can keep.
‘If she does vomit, how long would it take you to clear up the mess?’ Charlie asks, ‘because I’m willing to pay you for your time.’
‘It would take about half an hour,’ the cabbie tells him. ‘But that’s not the point, is it?’
‘Then what is?’
‘I’d have to use a lot of disinfectant, and you can’t go around picking up passengers in a taxi that smells like a bleeding hospital, so I’d lose a whole night’s work.’
Charlie reaches into his wallet, and takes out a lot of notes. He hands them to the cabbie.
‘There must be over two hundred pounds there,’ he says. ‘That should more than cover any lost earnings.’
I think it impresses the cabbie that Charlie doesn’t even check exactly how much money he’s handing over. And, if it doesn’t impress him, it bloody well should, because it even impresses me – and I know just how rich my friend, Lord Swift, actually is.
‘Well?’ Charlie asks
‘All right, then – climb in,’ the taxi driver says – as if he’s doing us a real favour.
We are back at my flat on the Iffley Road. I can’t say I remember getting here, but since we are here, we must have done.
‘I think it would be rather a good idea if I helped you to get undressed,’ Charlie says.
‘I’m perettly … perfectly capable of undressing myself,’ I say, with all the dignity I can muster.
But that isn’t true, alas. Someone has moved all my buttonholes, which makes them almost impossible to find, and there’s a buckle on my skirt which I swear wasn’t there yesterday.
Actually, Charlie is pretty good at this undressing lark, and soon I am standing there stark naked, while he virtually tears the flat apart looking for my nightdress, instead of just following the clear, simple instructions I’ve given him.
‘Here it is,’ he says, after at least two days have elapsed. ‘It was on top of the fridge.’
‘Isn’t that where I said it was?’ I ask.
‘Not even close,’ he tells me.
He slips the nightdress over my head, picks me up and carries me to my bed. Once I’m lying down, he goes around the bed, tucking me in. He doesn’t make a very good job of it, but it’s the thought that counts.
‘Charlie?’ I say, when he’s finished.
‘Yes, Jennie?’
‘You wouldn’t fancy the idea of being a heterosexual – just for one night – would you?’
‘I’m afraid, whether I fancied it or not, it’s simply not on,’ he says.
I suspected that might be the case.
‘But if you want me to stay the night, I will do,’ he says. ‘I’ll be perfectly happy sleeping on the sofa.’
‘That’s what you think,’ I tell him, ‘but that sofa’s got a genius for being uncomfortable, and it’s defeated better men than you.’
I’m joking, of course – there are no better men than Charlie.
‘Seriously, I can stay if you want me to,’ Charlie says.
‘Seriously, there’s no need to,’ I reply. ‘I’m sobering up, and I’ll be perfectly fine.’
Even with my assurance, he still hesitates at the bedroom door.
‘Go!’ I say.
And the second he has gone – the second I hear the front door click closed – I wish he hadn’t.
I’ve screwed up, I tell myself. I’ve let my client down, and let my client’s daughter down. I don’t know what else I could have done, but I should have done something.
But I didn’t do anything, and now all the members of the Shivering Turn can walk away, as free as birds and convinced they can get away with pretty much anything. So the next time one of them rapes a woman, it will be almost as much my fault as it is his – because I didn’t stop him when I had the chance.
But it’s not just the failure in the investigation which is making me feel so wretched.
I miss my dad!
I didn’t think I would – but I do.
I look up at the ceiling and, even though I know – or think that maybe I probably know – that there’s no one there, I still say, ‘Listen God, why don’t we do a deal?’
No booming voice suddenly fills the room!
There is no heavenly chorus!
Nor is there even a hint of celestial lightning!
