The Fifth Rapunzel Part 14

"Lying on the bed."

"Dressed or undressed?"

"Dressed."

"So Sally Loreto was lying on the bed, dressed. Did you speak to her?"

"No."

"Was she asleep?"

"She was lying with her eyes closed." He didn't want the memory that was creeping up on him.

Maybridge, sensing withdrawal, leaned forward and thumped the table sharply. "Come on - come on - come on - I want it fast - she might have been asleep - you don't know - you went up to her and you - come on, I want it - and you'll give it - you touched her, didn't you? How? Where?"

"Her hair ... I... it was a set-up ... you lot set me up ... I don't believe she was asleep ... I think she knew I was there ... and Mrs Mackay knew I was there ... if it hadn't been a set-up she wouldn't have looked as she did ... all tarted up ... long hair like the other one and her hands on her frock, one hand on top of the other on top of her private parts ... and then I ..." He totally lost control. "You b.l.o.o.d.y b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, what did you expect me to do ... or try to do ... I had to get at it, didn't I? ... And I couldn't get at it with her frock on ... and then she, Mrs Mackay, came in and went for me with the tray ... and I tried to hold her off and it got her in the face ... and she dropped it ... and I stepped back on it and fell."

Maybridge spoke quietly and persuasively again: "So you think we - the police - set you up. You're an intelligent man and you wouldn't think that without a good reason, I'm sure. Tell me about it."

Millington shook his head.

"You mean you won't or you can't?"

"I can't remember."

Maybridge sighed. "You've given that excuse enough mileage, Mr Millington. Let it rest. Let's look at it together. You see a girl lying defenceless on a bed. You rip her dress because you intend to rape her. The police, with Mrs Mackay's help and - we a.s.sume - the girl's agreement, arrange for her to lie on the bed in order to entice you to commit a s.e.xual offence. The police and Mrs Mackay and the girl - please note, not a policewoman, but a member of the public - do all this for you. No one else - not the postman - the milkman - the interior decorator - a pa.s.sing tramp - none of those. You. Interesting. You arrive and are about to perform. Can you put me wise? Tell me more."

Millington was sweating heavily. He didn't answer.

"Well, then, let's a.s.sume you weren't set up. You mentioned just now - and we have it on tape, I advised you at the beginning of the interview that you would be recorded - you said that she had long hair like the other one. What other one?"

"I don't know." Millington was getting tired of the sparring match. His head ached and his concentration was beginning to slip.

"I think you do and the sooner you tell me, the better. It has to be said some time, Mr Millington, even if it takes all night. This other girl with long hair - you mentioned her hands, one on top of the other. Who was she?"

Millington looked down at his own calloused hands. "I don't keep pigs." He thought he'd told Maybridge that before. It seemed important. He hadn't kept pigs for over two years. Nothing paid these days. That other girl, the one with the posh accent, had made sarcastic remarks about his battery hens. It was disgustingly cruel, she'd said, the things people did for money, and she'd told him he was charging too much for a nasty little bedroom and refused to pay for the night she hadn't slept in it. He began drifting out on that more recent memory, visions of blood floating before his eyes. Maybridge allowed him rope for a moment or two then hauled him back in. There was more here, he sensed, than he had antic.i.p.ated, and he was going to get it by whatever means he could. A squad of police were at this moment going over Millington's farm again, but thoroughly this time, inch by inch, inside and out. They should know something more by the morning. And by morning Mrs Mackay might be sufficiently recovered to be discharged from the casualty department of Bristol Royal Infirmary, where she was being kept overnight. If she were lucid and emotionally strong enough to be interrogated, she would have a lot of explaining to do. The stolen drugs, identified by Donaldson when he had gone into the bathroom in search of bandages and lint, had been left carelessly on a shelf. Maybridge guessed that she would eventually be convicted of manslaughter, rather than premeditated murder, Her anguish had been genuine when she had crouched by the body of the dead girl.

On the day that Sally died Simon and Rhoda made love. He hadn't known then that Sally was dead. There was no premonition. Nothing to trigger the panic attack. Rhoda had been about to leave him to go back to her own flat when he suddenly became terrified of being left alone. The police would come for him. He would never see her again. He felt the claustrophobic crushing of the nightmare bird on his face and he couldn't breathe. He tried gaspingly to take in air and began to shudder and sweat.

Frightened for him, she tried holding him, and spoke soothingly.

"It's all right, Simon. Calm yourself."

When he could speak he begged her not to go. To stay with him.

"As long as you want me to."

"All night."

"If that's what you want."

"I love you."

Oh, Simon, she thought, why did you have to say it? Emotions should be decently suppressed. The fourteen-year difference in their ages was strongly in her mind. But did it matter? What would Peter think of this - were he here to think of anything? What should she do now?, Tell him to go and lie down in bed while she warmed up some milk for him? Sit beside him on a chair all night? Play the maternal role - frustrate him even more? To sleep with him wouldn't be an act of seduction. He was already aroused. He had been wanting her a long time. So why resist him any more? Why make a moral dilemma out of a perfectly ordinary act? With Peter and Rhoda the foreplay had been skilled, funny, occasionally rough and with moments of tenderness. With Simon it was wholly tender, very gentle. She didn't flaunt her body as she had with Peter, but she used it in every way she knew. For Simon this was an act of love in the truest sense. He fell into a long deep sleep afterwards and she held his naked body close to hers for most of the night.

Maybridge was told by the police officer on surveillance duty that he would find Simon and Miss...o...b..rne at a wine bar in Regent Street. The lad had been acting like a tourist. Over the last couple of days he had visited the National Portrait Gallery and had sat for some while looking at the pictures. Miss...o...b..rne had sat with him. And she had accompanied him to the V. and A. and to Harrods - the food department. They hadn't bought anything.

All these to Simon were ordinary things. And he was an ordinary person doing them. Doing them, perhaps, for the last time. He was absorbing freedom through his pores while he still had it. n.o.body was noticing him or caring about him - only Rhoda. She had given him the photograph of his parents - and Clare - that morning. Rather warily and with apologies. She had nothing to apologise for, he told her. She couldn't help what other people did. For him she was perfection.

They were eating hamburgers and drinking lager at a corner table when Maybridge spotted them. It wasn't the best of venues to break the news, but where would be? The quiet ambience of a church, perhaps, but he couldn't ask them to accompany him outside and go somewhere else. Simon would think he was arresting him.

They looked at him, startled, when he approached. He was tempted to say quickly to Simon: "It's all right - you're off the hook - I'm sorry you were ever on it," but Sally at this moment, in this crowded noisy bar, was a presence that was very real to him, a young girl to be mourned. He broke the news gently. "Sally has been found dead - of barbiturate poisoning - no, not suicide." He leaned over and touched Simon's hand. "I'll tell you more on the drive back to Macklestone. Just remember this - none of it was your fault."

And then he turned to Rhoda. "I'd like you to come, too."

"Of course." Simon looked sick with shock, he would need her company, her support. "I'm most desperately sorry." And then she read Maybridge's expression more accurately. His compa.s.sion now was for her.

She felt suddenly very cold. "You've found Clare?" "We think so. We've found a body - and clothes." "I. see." It sounded calm. She heard but refused to see. This was unacceptable information. She wouldn't let it register.

Maybridge dreaded the drive back. Why was life so abominable for some? Why was there so much pain? When would her composure break? When someone was near to help, he hoped.

Tragedies tend to be built on trivial foundations and chance plays a part. Had Dawn been on the premises and not at choir practice she would have behaved sensibly towards Clare and Clare, in turn, would have been polite. She had booked a room for two nights at the farm as a gesture of independence. It was time, she believed, to declare herself. She wasn't a tart - or a nineteenth-century courtesan - or a red light floozy - or a ... whatever Peter liked to call her. She was Clare, who loved Peter and lived with Peter - well, most of the time - not someone to be kept quietly under wraps. This was the twentieth century, d.a.m.n it. She was Lisa's equal in every way except in marriage. She wanted to meet her. Peter had mentioned, casually, that he would be away for a few days in Birmingham a.s.sisting in a murder investigation, but that he would spend a few hours in Macklestone for the opening of the library extension where Lisa's mural would be on display. He felt he should be there. Clare had felt she should be there, too. Not brashly displayed as Peter's acquisition, but as a human being who didn't mind looking at murals. Or socialising with Peter's wife. Lisa needn't know she lived with Peter. But there was no harm in her knowing she existed. If everything went according to plan there would at some stage be a civilised divorce. She had told Rhoda this, many times, but not Peter. Peter had kept on living his dual existence in the bland a.s.sumption that she didn't mind.

A visit to Macklestone for the day would have sufficed. To stay two nights at the farm wasn't necessary. But she had seen it advertised in the local paper and it sounded rather attractive. She had booked in on impulse, without telling Peter, had stayed there the previous night and was mingling with the crowd around the mural when he arrived. He introduced her to his wife, coldly and very politely. Lisa responded even more icily before turning away for the group photograph. The row with Peter came later. He told her to cancel the room at the farm and go home. Which home? she'd blazed. She hadn't got a home. She had a bed in a flat. Lisa had a home. Lisa had everything. She wouldn't go back to the flat. She had other friends in other places. And he had better go back to his wife now. And stay. He'd told her brusquely that he had to return to Birmingham and do an autopsy. Which was true. Had he allowed himself more time, he could have gone to Millington's farm with her and then driven her to the station. Instead, he told her to call a cab. A few days later, when he returned to London, he wasn't too perturbed not to find her in the flat. She had walked out a few times before. She would come back, he believed, when she started liking him again.

Catching Millington in a bad mood was an unavoidable hazard and she had been too cross to sense the danger. When he had handed her the bill in his office, she had bent over the desk to read it before saying all the annoying things she.had said. And he had looked at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, seductive curves in her red and black dress, made more prominent by the way she stood. After paying him what she said was fair - the use of one bed for one night - and no cancellation fee - she walked out in the middle of his diatribe. And she walked the wrong way - past the shed where the hens were kept. She had stood in the doorway, her red straw hat in her hand, her long hair blowing in the evening breeze, and she had sniffed the fetid air of the shed and talked about money and cruelty, the rights of animals and the beastliness of man. Had she not taken a few steps inside the shed and made a sweeping gesture towards the hens, and caught him inadvertently across the face, she would have walked out alive.

Killing the woman in the copse had been swift and easy and terrible. Killing the woman in the shed had been marginally less terrible. Had he gone on killing, it would have been easier every time. A little manipulating of his memory afterwards, like twiddling the k.n.o.bs of a television set to blur the picture, helped. But not when Maybridge was there.

Clare Warwick was found fully clothed under the cement floor of the dog kennels. She had been buried hastily, wrapped in sacking. Dawn was due back and Millington hadn't hung around. The area had been in the final stages of preparation for the kennels and the cement, already mixed, was not yet hard. Millington couldn't remember what he had done with her hands.

He thought he had buried them somewhere else. With Maybridge's help he began remembering. "In the hens'shed," he said, "under the cage next to the door."

It would be an easy case to prove. Proving that he, and not Hixon, had murdered the fifth Rapunzel would take more time. Confessing to it wasn't enough. Clothes had been found in the barn and were being examined forensically, but it wasn't established and perhaps never would be that they were hers. Creggan's a.s.sertion that she was of Canadian origin would need to be verified. If correct, then her family might be traced and further evidence, such as date of birth and dental records, produced. Professor Bradshaw's testimony would have to be re-examined.

Maybridge, under Claxby's supervision, was organising an enquiry he found deeply troubling. Bradshaw wouldn't have deliberately misled the jury in order to protect Millington, so it must have been a case of incompetence. This was hard to believe. His earlier evidence was impeccable. And it was even harder to believe that he wouldn't have recognised a woman he'd known - probably intimately - in the past. The reconstruction had been a reasonably good resemblance of Trudy - alias Susan Martin - as far as Maybridge himself remembered her. Gross negligence or a deliberate effort to deceive had occurred. That Hixon had rightly been given a life sentence in the case of the other four murders and would continue serving his time, whatever the outcome of the enquiry, was irrelevant. The wrong man had been convicted.

Bradshaw's deliberate effort to deceive had taken a little while to germinate. When he had first seen the decomposing, mutilated body in Craxley Copse, it had just seemed another anonymous victim of violence. He didn't a.s.sociate it with Hixon. Hixon's four Rapunzels, quickly found, had a pale marbled serenity and their hair was beautiful. This cadaver was more a 'thing' than a person. The long hair was there, but in a sorry state. She had been strangled manually and no strands of hair had been found embedded in her neck.

While her face was being built up for identification purposes, Bradshaw had attended to his own personal matters in London - a visit to a consultant neurologist in Harley Street - and had returned, self-absorbed and depressed, to be confronted with Trudy's face sculpted in wax, her features a little coa.r.s.er than they had been in life, her eyes two mud-coloured orbs.

He was horrified.

His relationship with her, in the days when she had 'housekept' in Lisa's absence, hadn't been serious. She had been amusing company and he had been mildly fond of her. She couldn't see much harm in keeping his bed warm with him when Lisa was away, she'd told him. Neither could he. But when she'd confessed, after a drink too many, that she had been on the game for a while a few years ago, working in the Bristol area as Susan Martin, it had come as a shock. He couldn't have an ex-wh.o.r.e, charming as she might be, looking after young Simon in his mother's absence. He had seen her a few times after that, but not in his home. And not recently.

He should have identified her immediately, and probably would have done if he had been in a clearer frame of mind and feeling better physically. He had been too confused to think straight. The future loomed alarmingly and he hadn't yet planned how to cope with it. If any of the villagers identified her, the consequences wouldn't be pleasant. His relationship with her had been too overt. The police would come calling - looking for a motive. G.o.d knew what Lisa might say. Even now - years later - she referred to her as 'that b.i.t.c.h'.

That Trudy should be identified by a former 'client' as Susan Martin, after seeing a photograph of the reconstruction in his newspaper, had been more than he'd dared hope. It seemed the most amazing luck. The informant's name had been discreetly withheld from the Press and others had come forward in sufficient numbers to satisfy the police.

The de-personalising of Trudy had begun.

Bradshaw had linked the murder of Susan Martin, as he made himself think of her, with the murder of Hixon's fourth victim. Susan Martin had been strangled and buried shortly before or shortly after the body of the other woman had been found, he stated in his usual authoritative tone. Manual strangulation in both cases. No ligature, though an attempt might have been made with Susan Martin's hair, which was long enough. As for the mutilation - not part of Hixon's modus operandi - given the long period underground and the extreme disfiguration, it was difficult to be positive, but he had come to the conclusion whilst conducting the autopsy that the severance of the hands hadn't been caused by a knife, as had been suggested by his forensic colleague, but by an animal's sharp incisors, possibly a fox's, As for the depressed fracture of the skull - blows by a blunt instrument or kicks from a heavy boot, also suggested, would have been more than likely had the murder occurred in a different locality. But he had seen the body before its removal from Craxley Copse and thought that the damage might have been done by a falling tree branch. The area was strewn with them after recent gales. He had toyed with the idea of implicating Radwell at this stage, but had decided not to. The damage he'd caused by treading on the cadaver had been minimal. The goodwill of the police, even that of a gormless sergeant, had seemed politic under the circ.u.mstances. The absence of clothing had precluded forensic tests and he hadn't been called upon to comment. If they had been present, Hixon would have been acquitted. It was the acc.u.mulation of carefully prepared forensic evidence in the other four cases that finally influenced the jury. Already in the frame, he remained in it, despite his vociferous protests.

Bradshaw's conscience hadn't bothered him. He had protected his own family from scrutiny, that was all. Trudy - no longer Trudy, but Susan Martin, a longhaired Bristol prost.i.tute - had been Hixon's fifth victim. The jury saw it that way. Why not? They could be right. The police hadn't come up with anyone else.

But Hixon's tirade after sentencing had been hard to forget: When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

Uncomfortably prophetic.

Whoever took his office wouldn't have too happy a time sorting out his last lot of reports, he'd thought wryly. They had been deliberately brief. And inaccurate. He had knocked a few years off 'Susan Martin's' age to distance her from Trudy, though that would have made her a nymphet of about twelve when she had started whoring. Some of his actions weren't logical. He couldn't think why he'd suggested local burial and a tombstone - surely rather a risk? What had it been - a gesture of respect for Trudy or a final statement in stone that the deceased was 'Susan Martin'? Whatever his motive, the vicar and the villagers had gone along with it. There hadn't been one speculative glance in his direction.

On the whole, the period following the Rapunzel trial hadn't been bad. He'd had a loving relationship with Clare. It had been especially good in the early days, perhaps less so later. He and Rhoda were more mentally akin, a woman to go to in time of need as he had that night of Clare's celebration party. She had noticed the tremor when he'd held the gla.s.s of whisky and spilt some, and he'd nearly confided in her, but was glad later that he hadn't. The symptoms weren't too overt in the early stages, apart from a slight slurring of his speech. The medication the neurologist prescribed had helped to keep him fairly normal. He could still get around pretty well. And drive safely. The quality of life wouldn't be unduly impaired for a while, he'd been told; later he'd need more rest, more adjustment to physical weakness. And the right mental att.i.tude. He had listened without comment. The later stages of the prognosis didn't form part of his scenario. All he had was the present and the immediate future. He wasn't going beyond it. A degenerative neurological disease had one plus point amongst a lot of negatives - you understood its course and could monitor it, and offload what you couldn't cope with. Clare had offloaded herself, and for both their sakes it was less painful that way. He didn't know where she had gone and had stopped being concerned about her. She was probably f.u.c.king someone her own age - as she should be. The flat would be hers when she decided to go back to it. He had no intention of willing it away from her. They'd had good times there together.

But his wife and his son were his immediate concern.

He'd called on Donaldson a few days before the final holiday with Lisa, making a bill for Lisa's therapy an excuse to talk to him. "I'm not querying it," he'd said abruptly, as he handed over the account with the cheque attached. "I just hope that the bank doesn't get stroppy over my signature. I get the shakes sometimes. Can't write straight any more."

And then he'd asked Donaldson the vital question: "If anything should happen to me - to use the acceptable euphemism - how would Lisa react? Would her att.i.tude to Simon change? Or would she continue to be the antagonistic, emotionally unstable burden the lad couldn't take on?"

The even more vital question: "Is she dangerous?" couldn't be voiced. It had been at the back of his mind during the trial.

Donaldson, suddenly made aware of startling new vistas, hadn't known how to reply. His shocked expression, followed by deep embarra.s.sment as he'd tried and failed to find the right words, had been answer enough.

In the few silent moments that followed, Bradshaw had realised that there would be no opting out. There would be no rea.s.surances about Lisa to make him change his mind - there never had been - there never would be. Any more than his own illness would be miraculously cured. He had known it when he had sent Simon down the garden to say goodbye to his mother. And when he had hugged him he had tried to keep his emotions in check.

He knew that Donaldson would put Lisa in the best possible light if Simon came asking about his mother afterwards. And that was some consolation. If he could remember them both without pain, victims of an unavoidable accident it would be the best legacy he could leave him. Anyway, what other option was there? None, as far as he could see. He hoped he'd have the guts to do it when the time came. Lisa unaware. Unafraid. Somewhere quiet. No one else around.

Rhoda's memories of her sister would always be there. Stark and very frightening. Not a quiet death - a sleeping away into oblivion - but brutal. She was struggling through one of the worst periods of her life and trying to stay calm.

It was impossible for Cormack to make Clare's face acceptable for identification and she was spared that trauma, dental records would be sufficient, but seeing the articles of clothing was deeply distressing. Dusty and stained with the effluents of decomposition, they had been carefully arranged inside transparent plastic bags so that the worst parts were concealed. A ring which Millington had failed to remove from her severed hand was in a separate container and was the only item that had been, cleaned and was bearable to look at. It was a square amethyst, not large, and inscribed with the date of her twenty-first birthday. Rhoda remembered giving it to her. Other, more expensive rings, gifts from Peter weren't found. Perhaps she hadn't been wearing them.

She said: "Yes, they're Clare's. The same clothes as the ones in the snapshot. Were they on her when she ... or did he ..." She couldn't say it.

Maybridge cut in quickly. "She was fully clothed." He didn't have to be with her for the identification process, but she knew him better than anyone else, and he was trying to give her all the support he could. And so, he was relieved to know, was Alan Drew. He had phoned the solicitor with the news that Clare Warwick's body had been found, and his response had been immediate. He was waiting for her outside the building now.

She was going to stay with him in his Bristol flat for a few days but how he would be able to stand her, in her present mood, she didn't know. She wondered how Simon was. She hadn't enough strength to be supportive to him at this present time but she wished him well - was fond of him in a way - Peter's son. Peter, the pivot of this whole b.l.o.o.d.y merry-go-round of disaster.

She thanked Maybridge for being with her as they stepped outside. "You've been kind. It would have been even harder without you. Give my best wishes to Simon. I hope someone's with him, too."

Maybridge pa.s.sed Rhoda's message to Meg, the only person that Simon would see. On returning to Macklestone he had been greeted by'reporters who wanted his story - how does it feel to be an ex-murder suspect? - nd so on. He had ignored them and gone up to the studio. After a few hours of waiting they had given up and left him in peace. Mrs Mackay's cottage and Millington's farm were more newsworthy areas.

Villagers who had come with kindly offers of help at the time of his parents' funeral began calling again - ainly out of a feeling of guilt. They had behaved badly towards him over Sally. They had gossiped. Believed the worst. What should they bring him as gifts of atonement? they wondered. Flowers? But flowers were for women - and for funerals. But there would be a funeral. But not his fault. What then? Most were relieved when he didn't open the door and departed with their booze and their chocolates. They had meant well, they consoled themselves, as they drank the one and ate the other.

Meg phoned to tell him that she was coming and to please let her in. She was calm, practical and brought food. If he wanted to isolate himself in the room at the top of the house, then that was his way of dealing with the trauma. It worried her but she accepted it and was prepared to wait. It was the long summer vacation from university and she could give him all her time. If he didn't want conversation then so be it, but he had to eat. He gave her his spare key and she came and went frequently, calling out before leaving, "Grub's up, Simon. Are you okay?" She needed a response, no matter how brief. He sounded all right, though he obviously couldn't have been. She was reminded of Lisa who had had these periods of isolation, too.

After three extremely anxious days, during which time she listened to his moving about - going to the bathroom - walking along the corridor to his bedroom, and then back to the studio - always back to the studio - he came downstairs.

It was six o'clock and the evening sun was golden in the room. He stood at the sitting-room door, blinking at her as if he had emerged from a long dark tunnel into the light. There were dark shadows under his eyes and a growth of stubble on his chin. He was wearing a grubby brown cotton shirt, the sleeves rolled up, and shorts. His hands were stained.

"I think I want you to see it," he said. It was hesitant. He didn't seem sure.

Meg was carrying a bowl of freesias she had just arranged. She put it down carefully and tried to sound matter-of-fact. "See what?"

He shook his head and then, changing his mind, "Yes - I think perhaps you - it's in the studio ..."

She followed him upstairs.

He opened the studio door and stood aside for her to go in. The window was closed and the room smelt musty. The couch, pushed into a corner, was covered with a pile of rags stiff with dried paint. Water from the cold tap dripped into the sink, which held an a.s.sortment of brushes. And then she turned and looked at the wall where Lisa's mural had been and went rigid with shock.

It was Sally. A large, bold, fierce portrait painted in grief and with extraordinary brilliance. Sally running through a dark green landscape - Sally as she had been, every muscle working, head thrown back, lips parted, eyes looking towards something in the distance, something that enticed her, something good. Sally in a black skirt and a white T-shirt with patches of sweat under the arms. A girl of flesh and blood, unglamourised and so vitally alive Meg could almost hear her feet pounding on the forest path. She burst into tears.

Simon looked at her helplessly. "It was all I could do," he said. "What else could I do?"

It was the beginning of his future, though he didn't know it then.

End.