Dead Run

Chapter Three

DS Burbidge had not let the grass grow under his feet. It took only a cursory investigation of the premises to establish that his bird had flown, and in what manner. Not doubting for a minute that he had been on the right track, the detective took off for his car in the visitors' car park, with a speed that belied his overweight appearance and which much surprised his junior colleague.

Within five minutes, he had alerted the radio room to his difficulties and asked for assistance. While waiting for what help Uniformed Branch could offer him, he tried to make his plans. He had come up against Tom Walton many times in his attempts to put local villains behind bars; sometimes he had succeeded, sometimes not.

"I'll be damned if I'm going to let that sharp bloody lawyer get away with this," he thundered, crashing his fist down on the roof of his red Vauxhall. His anger brought a surprising animation to the dour Birmingham drawl. Young Detective Constable Clive contrived to make himself invisible, having no idea what he could say that would not exacerbate his gaffer's ill humour. He rather thought that the sergeant's oath amounted to locking the stable door after the horse had bolted.

"Those buggers in Uniformed are so busy booking motorists, they haven't got time for real bloody criminals. Where are they?" He rounded on DC Clive. "Don't just stand there, go and find out where he's gone. Get hold of his secretary. Find out who his friends are. See if he's married. I want to know everything about him. Someone will know where he's gone!"

From his car, Eddie Woo's watcher noted the arrival of the police cars, some ten minutes later, and decided to make himself scarce. He telephoned his boss and reported what was happening. Within quarter of an hour, another surveillance car had rolled into the car park of Jenny's flats. Woo reasoned that Walton would turn up there, sooner or later.

By half past ten, DC Clive had learned from the travel agents two doors from Walton & Co's offices that yesterday, around 12.30, a man who matched Walton's description had bought a ticket on today's 15.50 flight from Heathrow to Geneva. The man had been about six feet tall, late thirties, dark hair, greying slightly at the temples and wearing a dark grey suit that Burbidge and Clive recognised as the one they had seen Walton in that very morning. The ticket had been paid for by Visa and the credit card counterfoil for the sale clearly showed it had been bought by Thomas Walton.

"Strangely," the travel clerk had said, "the ticket is not for Mr Walton it's in the name of Enoch Hickman."

"Not really so strange," thought Burbidge, "but how does he expect to get through embarkation under a false name?"

"Come on, Clive!” he called after him as he left the travel agents. "He's got no car, so he's on a bloody train!"

An hour later, the two West Midlands detectives were rattling down to London on the 11.23 from Birmingham New Street, to meet British Airport Police at Heathrow. Check in time was 13.50. They should get there in time to meet Walton, alias Enoch Hickman, at the baggage counter. It would be Clive's first major arrest.

The police patrol car that had met them at Euston Station swept into Terminal Two at Heathrow. With typical British reserve, the Metropolitan Police driver had doused the sirens on leaving the M4 and the two high intensity blue strobes on the roof were stopped as soon as the car came to rest. The two Birmingham detectives leapt out and were greeted by a BA Police inspector.

"I take it you don't want a visible Police presence at the check-in," the inspector queried as they hurried into the building. Burbidge's raincoat flapped round his short legs, as they worked to keep up with the tall Londoner.

"No, you're right," he panted. "No more than usual, though some plainclothes officers would be useful in case he does a runner."

The two visiting policemen were taken to a briefing room, where Burbidge listened while the Inspector rapidly outlined the arrangements of the arrest. A faxed photograph of the suspect was circulated, along with a written description, for the benefit of the waiting British Airport Police officers.

"Right, let's go!" called the Inspector, and the room emptied.

At 13.50 baggage started to be checked in for flight BA136 to Geneva. At that time, there was no-one to match Walton's description amongst the small knot of passengers

"What's the latest time he can check-in?” Burbidge snapped.

"Well, passengers are told one hour before takeoff, though, in truth, they can get on right up till the last quarter of an hour if need be."

DC Clive ventured a suggestion. "Couldn't we close the gate as soon as everybody else is through."

The two other officers stared at him, astonished.

Burbidge's lack of height prevented him from physically looking down on the young constable. As it was, he resorted to sarcasm. "That's a good idea, lad. We stop him getting on this plane then we can stand at the check-in of every other plane that's leaving Britain instead. In fact, you could do that, while I visit all the ferry terminals." He turned his back and spoke to the inspector. "You've got his photograph and even young Clive here might be able to spot him if he stops and asks him the time! I'm going to phone Birmingham. Personally, I don't think he's going to show."

There was only five minutes left before the check-in desk officially closed, when Burbidge noticed a disturbance some distance away along the concourse. His heart pumped as he realised that one of the uniformed officers near the entrance was struggling to restrain a man. As he ran towards the commotion, he recognised the grey suit. They had got him.

“Hold that man!” he shouted over the heads of the holiday makers. "Don't let him go!" The crowd of passengers parted before him as he shouldered his way through them. In moments, he had Walton by the shoulder and spun him round.

"Thomas Walton, I arrest you for…” His voice trailed off then his rage overwhelmed his self-control. He started to shake the man violently.

"Where is he?" he shouted. "Where's that bastard Walton?" He got control of his emotions and pushed the astonished traveller away from him.

"This is not your man then?" ventured the BA Inspector, visualising the catastrophic fallout that would descend on him for allowing a bona-fide customer of the airport to be manhandled by one of his uniformed officers and then assaulted by DS Burbidge.

"No! It's not the least bit like him."

The Inspector looked closely at the grainy photograph, and then at the unfortunate passenger. There was a similarity of height, build and the colouring matched the description up to a point. He dismissed the uniformed bobby, saying "All right lad. Not your fault." Then he turned to the traveller. "I'm sorry for what happened, just now. Can I ask you to come with me to my office, while I explain?"

The passenger, recovering from his shock, indignantly waved an airline ticket at the two policemen. "No you can not!" he retorted vehemently. "My plane leaves soon and now I'm late for checking in, thanks to this idiot." He pointed accusingly at Burbidge.

"Then, perhaps I can at least see you on to your flight, sir?" The Inspector was furious with Burbidge for having attacked the man. He disliked injustice, but he loathed having to suck up to this man, just because the stupid Brummy couldn't control his temper. "May I see your ticket," he paused, taking the customer's airline ticket from him then continued, "Mr Hickman?"

Burbidge turned apoplectic. "Hickman!” he cried. "Enoch Hickman? Let me see!" The Detective Sergeant snatched the paper from the Inspector and scrutinised it. "I'm arresting him!" he shouted. "I'm arresting him!" he repeated reaching out to lay hands on Enoch Hickman

The BA Inspector pulled the Birmingham detective unceremoniously to one side. "No you are not," he hissed through clenched teeth. "You've done enough bloody damage here today, and if anyone's going to arrest this man on my patch, it'll be me. Now, why don't you just go away, Sergeant, and leave me to deal with this."

With exaggerated politeness, he turned back to the passenger. "We were expecting someone called Thomas Walton to show up with this ticket. Perhaps you would come with me and explain just what's going on?"

Enoch Hickman, small-time burglar from Walsall, philosophically followed the Inspector to an interview room. It was not the first time, and would probably not be the last, but he did feel that he had been sadly misused by Tom Walton. There had been no mention of hordes of angry policemen, when Tom had given him the ticket to Switzerland along with two hundred pounds spending money.



*



"Birmingham International, this is Birmingham International," the metallic voice announced from somewhere in the ceiling. It was 9.33 in the morning. A mere ten minutes had elapsed since Walton had boarded the train at New Street Station. Now, excusing himself, he squeezed past his fellow travellers and stepped out onto the platform at Birmingham Airport's own railway station. Hopefully, the Police would be led off to London and Heathrow at a hundred and ten miles an hour, while he doubled back to Jenny's flat, near the Blues football ground in South Birmingham. The taxi fare was exorbitant but he supposed, worthwhile. It dropped him five minutes walk from the flat. A precaution he felt was verging on the John LeCarré but nevertheless he did not want to leave a trail leading to the lady with the two hundred grand. At least not if he could help it.

In the car park beneath the tower-block, a man sat up to get a better look as someone walked past him. He watched carefully as the pedestrian opened the wired glass door to the stairwell of Jenny's block of flats.

The watcher spoke into his mobile phone. Walton was back.



*



As Walton pounded up the concrete stairs, he felt that, one way or another, today had already been quite exciting enough. Once in Jenny's flat, he recounted the day's happenings and how he had expected to feel the heavy hand of the law on his collar all the way there. However, he was particularly pleased with the trick about the airline ticket and reckoned it might have bought them a few valuable hours.

In the bedroom, three large shoulder bags were packed and waiting - not a lot to show for your life so far, he thought ruefully. Leaning up against them were two startlingly new car number-plates.

Picking one up, he held it across his chest like the number a prisoner holds for his mug-shot photograph. He turned his head to left and right, offering the woman his two profiles then, in a passable Boggart impression, he asked whimsically, "Which one suits me better, sweetheart, left side or right?"

Jenny threw a pillow at him, and they both laughed.

"Well," he hefted two of the bags, draping them from his broad shoulders and continued the American drawl, "is it the helicopter from the roof, or the submarine off Anglesey?"

Jenny had no idea what he planned for their next move. She shrugged, "Your call, Boss. No magic carpet?"

"No magic carpet," he said over his shoulder as he made for the door.

"Well you've blown away the traditional aeroplane, since you've more or less told them that's what you planned." She savoured the picture of Burbidge at Heathrow Airport for a moment, "They'll be really pissed off when they find out what you've done to them." Then she continued where she had left off, "Well since you're not going to take the magic carpet, I suppose it will have to be the submarine to Ireland."

"Right idea," he quipped "wrong direction." Suddenly he stopped so unexpectedly that she cannoned into him. "You don't get seasick, do you?"

Jenny dropped her bag "Shit, Tom! That hurt." She held her arm across a bruised breast. "How the hell should I know if I get seasick, I've never been to sea, never mind on a submarine?"

He started walking again, engrossed. "Stugeron. Whatever else we do, we must get loads of Stugeron. Seasickness tablets. Used by pirates the world over. Even works on parrots!

"Well you know where you can stick your parrot." She picked up the bag again, "And don't think you're coming to bed with a wooden leg. You'll have to hop the last yard!"

"No time for bed," he deliberately misunderstood her, "We've got a boat to catch!"

It started to rain again as they carried their belongings to Jenny's car. The watcher studied them as they slammed the tailgate of the battered white Metro and the girl got behind the wheel. Walton was happy for her to drive. He understood well her independence - after all, it was what he liked about her - and anyway, as he said, he had forgotten how to drive a car with a gear stick.

"M6, M1, M25, A12, Chelmsford," he said, cryptically. "Wake me when we get there."

"You can get stuffed," she replied, grinning across at him as she pulled out onto the main road. The morning rush hour traffic had subsided and she made light work of threading the car through the rain-grey suburbs and out to the motorway. "What I want to know is; why the number plates. I went to a lot of trouble to get them. Obviously they're for this car, but I still don't see why."

"Ah, you see, it occurred to my acute, but, alas, now redundant legal brain that it would be a dead give away, leaving your car at a railway station, or a ferry terminal. Sooner or later, it would be noticed, and traced back to you. And if you and I had been connected, by that time, Bingo, the trail would start all over again.

"I reckon the easiest way to hide your car, is to make it somebody else's." He reached into the back for the new plates. "Before we abandon it, we stick on these plates, so when someone complains that it's blocking their drive, the Police check it out on their computer and then chase up the real owner of these plates - God knows where he lives! Eventually they'll end up at Smithfield's Garage and there, the trail will end." Walton sat back with a satisfied flourish. "Meanwhile, we'll be half way to the West Indies!"

"The West Indies?"

"Yes. You know, thinking of number plates, I once acted for a guy who ran an identical motorbike to one of his friends. Both bikes had the same plates for months, and no-one ever twigged, even when they both used to park side by side, in the town square for a Saturday night booze up."

"If he was so smart, why were you acting for him?"

"Do you really want to know? How long have you got?"

"Well, since I'm half your age, I suppose I've got longer than you have."

"Your Honour!" he cried in mock horror. "I apply to have that remark struck from the record!"

The next hour passed pleasantly enough. Jenny was happy to drive on autopilot, half listening to Walton as he recounted stories from his legal past.

Sometimes her thoughts would wander off by themselves, taking a last look round the recesses of what she would be leaving behind to be with this man. The motorway rumbled monotonously by, but when she looked across at him, his seat reclined, far back, long legs stretched out as best they could in her little car, she felt sure she had made a good decision. It was a fair exchange. Sure, he would get her, but at last, she'd be out of the squalor and hustle, able to do what she wanted. She had always dreamed of running an art shop. Now she would be able to sell her pictures to tourists, somewhere hot and sunny, with surf rolling in along a white sand beach. He'd said the West Indies!

In a moment of concentration, Jenny glanced at the fuel gauge. "Oh, shit. Is there a service station soon?"

As they pulled up at the fuel pumps twenty minutes later, Jenny noticed the watcher. She had not really paid any attention to him, up until then, but now she realised that the same car had been appearing and re-appearing in her mirrors most of the time they had been on the motorway. She filled the car then, to Walton's surprise, she took a detour round the car park and stopped in an empty space. Sure enough, the watcher followed and pulled up some yards away. She tried again, changing to the opposite end of the service area. It was as though the other car was on elastic. Whatever she did, it did. Eventually they went back to the petrol pumps, where Jenny put some air in one of the tyres. As she crouched by the wing of the Metro, she saw the other car roll into view and hesitate, before pulling over to wait. She got back into the car, heart banging against her ribs. "Who is he?" she asked breathlessly.

Walton craned round to get a better look at the car. It did not have the feel of a Police car; no extra aerials, dirty number plates, only one person in it. "Not the Police," he ventured.

"Then who?"

He quickly ran through the options, but one name kept coming back to him. "It's Woo. He's the only other person I can think of who knows what we're up to, though God knows how he's picked us up." The two of them looked at the dirty, blue Ford saloon, trying to recall if they had seen it at the flats.

Eventually, Walton sighed. "Well, it's not Eddie Woo, himself, it's one of his men. He doesn't seem in a hurry to come and talk to us, so I suppose that means he's got a watching brief; keeping us in sight while Woo finds out if the bank draft's OK. I don't see that there's a lot we can do about him, just now, but I don't want to be near him when his boss finds out that the bank won't honour the cheque."

"I thought a draft was like actual cash?” Jenny asked, as she selected a gear and gathered speed.

"Well, up to a point, it is," he replied. "It's a bit like a cheque with a cheque card - the bank can't refuse to pay out, unless there's been some dishonesty involved. The question is, will he get his cash out of my bank, before Lewis finds out that I've stitched him up?" Walton looked at his watch. Not yet mid-day. He rather thought that the game would be up, by now, but would Lewis be aware yet that the draft had hit Woo's account? Walton could not see it. "Even if the draft were stopped, my bank won't get it into their system till later today, and then they'd have to return it. I don't think Eddie Woo will know the worst till tomorrow morning."

"Do you think they will put a stop on it?" she asked.

"Too right they will," Walton replied, looking over his shoulder at the Ford, which had given up any pretence of discretion.

"Terrific, Tom. So you haven't just stolen your own money, you've stolen Eddie Woo's as well!" Jenny whistled through her teeth. "I think that could be really bad news."

She whistled some more. "I think we should lose this guy." She jerked her head in the direction of the car behind them. "Don't you?"

They drove two or three miles in silence, Jenny imagining more and more bizarre ways of getting rid of their unwanted tail. Suddenly she spoke.

"If this was Top Gun, we'd make him 'fly through'. You know, Tom Cruise stands his plane on its tail and the enemy screams past, ending up in the missile sights and boom." She made screaming past motions with one hand, while looking across to see if he had got the drift.

Walton raised an eyebrow and grunted. "Equally, Mad Max would blow him away with a bazooka, but I don't think that helps either. Does it?" He returned her glance.

They drove on.

Without warning, Jenny swerved out into the fast lane and floored the throttle. The acceleration was wholly unimpressive and the other car simply slipped out behind them and closed up. She braked hard, forced her way between two massive forty-ton trucks in the middle lane, crossed the slow lane and pulled up sharply on the hard shoulder. Now the Ford was stuck outside the two articulated lorries as they roared towards London. If she could just stay hidden for a minute, the blue car would be swept away from them, unable to make it back against the relentless tide of the motorway. She held her breath.

Suddenly the Ford was spat out of the current, into the backwater of the hard shoulder a short distance ahead. Steadily, inexorably, it grew larger as the watcher backed up towards them so fast his car swerved from side to side. As they watched they realised what he meant to do and Jenny fought to put the mini into reverse but before she could let the clutch up the Ford slammed into the front of the Metro hurling it backwards. The driver leapt from his car, even as the Metro recoiled from the impact and Jenny was being thrown against the steering wheel. Walton's head snapped forward onto his chest and in the seconds it took him to recover, the driver had wrenched open Jenny's door. His mouth was contorted with brute ferocity. He grabbed her shoulder with one hand, punching at her throat with the other but she deflected it with her forearm and, as his head came within reach, Jenny seized his ears in one violent movement, and smashed her forehead into his face. With a cry, he fell backwards out of the door. Jenny dropped the clutch. The gearbox howled as the car jumped back and the open door flung the man sprawling into the road. He stumbled back to his feet, clutching at his bleeding nose and ran blindly after her, shambling like a crazed automaton.

Stamping on the brakes, she crashed the car into first gear. Her door slammed shut. The man reached inside his flapping coat. She accelerated. He stopped and both hands came up in front of his face. Till that moment Walton thought she would drive round him but something had snapped inside the girl's head and she just locked her arms quite straight. They hit him so hard that his face crumpled against the windscreen leaving it smeared with blood before he was cast aside onto the grass verge, away from the speeding traffic. As Jenny jerked the car to a halt, a heavy black automatic pistol slipped off the roof and down onto the bonnet. Unmoving Jenny stared at it through the bloody glass, the pounding in her head mixed with the roaring of the traffic, which thundered past, oblivious.

Walton looked on in horror. Numb with disbelief at everything he had seen, he stepped unsteadily from the car and knelt, looking down at the man. Choking back the bile that rose in his throat, he laid two fingers on the side of the bloody neck and felt for a pulse but could feel nothing. He moved his fingers, searching, hardly breathing, while he watched the man's chest for the tell-tale rise and fall. What was that? He moved his fingers back and there it was, a pulse. The man was at least alive. Still kneeling, Walton stripped off the suit jacket he wore and very carefully eased it under the man's head then looked round, expecting to find Jenny standing nearby, but instead he saw her reaching through the passenger door of her wrecked car, tearing at the three holdalls, wrenching them over the seat back and throwing them out onto the tarmac.

"Bring me something to keep him warm," Tom shouted, still expecting help from her but she ignored him. She had recovered the back-pack with the money, and the number plates from the Metro then she stopped to look across at him for a motionless, silent moment.

Unconsciously the girl wiped the man's blood from her forehead with the back of her hand then seemed to come alive. "For Christ's sake, Tom," she shouted. "Leave him!" and, without waiting to see if he was following, she turned and ran for the Ford, half dragging, half carrying her luggage.

Walton's mind could not encompass what he had witnessed. She was just going to leave this man at the side of the road.

The Ford smoked and lurched as Jenny threw it into reverse. The tyres scrabbled for grip on the wet dirt as she powered it back towards the motionless solicitor. He could see her face and staring eyes through the back window, as she piloted the car backwards. It jerked to a stop, nearside brake-light shining white in the crumpled bodywork of the boot. She turned away from him, looking forward.

Walton looked from the car to the injured man and, seeing the eyes flicker open, gently wiped some of the blood from round them. He heard the gears as she thrust the car into first. She blipped the throttle impatiently, summoning him. He turned his head in time to see the Ford start rolling forward, away from him. Through his staggered mind, he realised that she would leave him there if he did not come. Raging at the conflict she was forcing on him, he looked down one last time into those helpless eyes then his body snapped into action. He leapt for the remaining shoulder bag and threw himself into the Ford as it started to gather speed.

Through the back window of the strange car, Walton watched the bloody tableau shrink as Jenny accelerated and rejoined the motorway traffic. Many words passed through his mind, but all that came out was "Damn you. Damn you," over and over again. In all his years of mixing with criminals - even murderers, he had never been so intimately involved with such cold violence. It had always been an intellectual exercise, the complexities of the law allowing him to keep the victims' pain and suffering at arm's length. But while he had been upholding justice in his gown and tab collar, what had this girl been doing that enabled her to attack someone so violently and so instinctively?

"Damn you," he said, again.

"Aren't you going to say anything else?” Jenny asked him without turning her head. "Something middle-class and pompous about gratuitous violence," she cast him a glance. "Something about how I've involved you in trying to kill a man, and how you could go to jail for years? Does it bother you that I don't care if I've killed him?” Her voice rose, challenging him for a reply.

Walton rounded on her. "Since you've asked me, yes it does. For God's sake, why did you do it! Why didn't you just drive round him and go? There was no need to try and kill him!" He thought for a few seconds. "And then you just drove off. You have left him there, not caring whether he lives or dies. Christ what sort of an animal are you?"

The two of them fell into angry silence.

Eventually, when she spoke, it was in dangerously quiet, measured words. "What were you going to do if I hadn't acted? I'm choking to death with a smashed throat or he's holding that gun to my head and saying - OK Mr Big Solicitor Walton, give me back Eddie Woo's money - and you say sure thing, be my guest, but please stop killing my accomplice. Do you think he was going to stop at that? Do you think he was going to let you get away with it, or were you just going to jump out and run off up the motorway?"

His silence threw her into a fury.

"You're outside the fucking law, now, Tom! You started this war. It wasn't my idea to steal Woo's money. That was your idea. Well fine, but don't expect me to stand around while people try to kill me."

She banged the steering wheel in frustration. "Jesus, you people don't have the least idea, do you? Ever since I've had tits, men have been hitting on me. Do you have any idea what it's like being a girl on the streets? There are men in Birmingham I would kill tomorrow for what they've done to me. And this guy was just the same as the rest of them. He's the animal, not me! He thought he would just move in on me and take what I had. Well, he was wrong. He was just another bastard and I stopped him. I have no feelings for him. He can choke on his own blood for all I care." Exhausted, she pulled across to the hard shoulder without warning and stopped the car.

"You drive."

Walton looked at her, not seeing the girl he had thought he knew.

"You drive the fucking car," she said, getting out and walking round to the passenger side.

They drove in an uneasy vacuum. Each knowing that too much had been said, and afraid of saying more,

Walton slumped in the seat of the car and thought about the man who had, until a few minutes ago, been behind this steering wheel. Why had he attacked them, surely the news of the bank draft could not yet have filtered through to the men on the street? The more he thought about it, the more sure he became that the man had been under orders to watch and wait, but what would Woo have done to him if he had lost them and therefore the money? Walton did not like to consider this. He knew the Casino owner's reputation for acts of brutality. No, he decided that, faced with the evidence that Jenny would do anything to lose him, the man had taken matters into his own hands and tried to recover the money.

He looked across at the girl. She was right, without her explosive response to the attack, they would certainly have lost the cash and they could well have both died. Walton's shock was giving way to anger that this man had tried to hurt her. He was angered, too, and shamed, by his own reaction to the assault. He replayed it through his mind, changing the events, so that it was he who had been in the driving seat. He smashed the man's face with his forehead. He hurled the jagged bonnet of the Metro into the man's body. It was he who had defended this girl from the ferocity of the attack. Walton felt his heart thumping, the pulse banging in his head as he relived the scene. Then he swam up from the daydream, realising that he had failed utterly to do any of these things. He had failed even to recognise what was happening, until it was too late. He had left it all to this young woman with the body-piercing and the tattoo.

Walton reached out a hand and rested it gently on hers. "Jenny, I'm sorry. I don't know you very well, do I?"

For a moment, she took his hand in hers, but would not look at him. Instead, she looked straight ahead at the rain that rattled off the windscreen. She started talking, almost to herself.

"When you've been beaten," she started slowly, "your body takes care of things for you. The cuts mend, the bruises heal, things like that, then you decide you've gone back to how you were before. But you haven't, have you? You think you're OK but you're not. Everything's changed. It's like you've lost the gentleness you entered the world with. You pack away what's happened, your learning the rules of a game."

"Like when my sister died."

He looked across at her and she said, "You know it was suicide, don't you?"

Tom was shocked. "No!"

"She was the bright one, Becky." The girl refused to cry, she just carried the weight around with her, round her heart. "I was six when she was born. I'd been an only child so long I think my parents thought I was a grown up. I used to help change her nappies and feed her and do all the things a big sister does. We were like that right up till the time I left home." She sighed. "If I'd stayed, maybe it would never have happened."

There was a silence as though she was making a decision and then said, "She killed herself in my flat. Cut her wrists in the bathroom while I was out. I came back and she was there, on the floor. Jesus," she looked straight into his eyes, "how could such a skinny person have so much blood in them? And she was only just fifteen." She bit her lip and was quiet for a while.

She asked suddenly, "And do you know why she did it?"

Tom shook his head. "No."

"Because of men like that. I told her I could help her. I took her to the Women's Centre but the interfering cow there made her tell the police and they started questioning her. As though she was the one who was in the wrong. Pigs!"

Silence.

"And I had to go to work and she said she'd be all right. But she wasn't, was she and I was too stupid to notice." There was another silence.

"She used a kitchen knife."

Her head was turned away from him, staring out at the rain-soaked grass embankment that ran alongside the motorway. He could see her shoulders heaving but there was no crying. "She cut her wrists in my bathroom with my fucking kitchen knife!" After a moment she said, "Bastards."

What could he say? "Who?"

"The police, the courts, all of them, they're all bastards. They didn't care. She was my sister. She deserved better!"

"I'm sorry."

"Why should you be sorry?" she asked with the aggression that comes from pain. "You weren't anything to do with it."

"No," he said, gently, "But I'm still sorry."

Afraid of the reaction, but needing to know, he asked, "What had she done?"

The girl rounded on him. "Done? Nothing! She'd been raped for God's sake. Again and again and again by the same man and when it all came to court he walked away and she thought it was somehow her fault."

Walton drove carefully down the slow lane of the motorway. He hardly noticed the lorry he was following.

"She was only a kid and she was too innocent to know any better. And do you know what happened when they got him into court? Some fucking lawyer got him off. Can you believe it? Oh, sure, he had to sell up and leave Birmingham. Big deal! She's dead and he has to leave Birmingham, the bastard. I never saw him again, but if I ever do, I'll know him. Then he'll wish he'd gone to prison."

Walton remembered the case, it had been big news a year or so back. Like she had said, he hadn't been involved in it, but he knew the solicitors who had been. And the girl's name in the case was kept out of the papers because she was a minor. Becky Lindt – Jenny's sister.

"I had no idea," Tom said. "I mean that she was your sister. Or what happened to her," he finished. "That's the trouble with court cases. We hear the verdicts but we never really see what effect the outcome has on the families - fathers going to prison, children taken into care. Or this. I'm sorry, Jenny, really I am."

She stared ahead and he asked, "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I'm all right. I'm always all right."