Cold Justice (23 page)

Lauren frowned and she shook her head.

‘Fourteen years ago, in June 2000, Toby came down here with his father for the summer. He had a holiday romance with Kensa, the woman you met today. Things didn’t end well. Toby was accused of attacking her but it never come to court. It wasn’t even investigated.’

Lauren looked away as she tried to take in everything Willis was saying. She picked up her pen and began writing headings.

‘So let me get this straight,’ she said. ‘Toby is supposed to have attacked the woman who came here today?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have to talk to him.’ Lauren stood and picked up her phone.

‘Use the landline.’

‘No, I need to get some fresh air.’

‘Lauren, wait, please sit down. I haven’t finished.’

She sat down again.

‘The circumstances around the incident are difficult.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The claim is that Toby raped Kensa.’

‘Raped? That’s not possible. But, even if it were, what has that got to do with Samuel? Why would they take my son? Does someone hate Toby that much?’ Willis didn’t answer. ‘Did he admit to the rape?’ asked Lauren.

‘He believes he must have done it.’

‘I need to talk to this woman and I have to ring Toby.’

Lauren stopped to catch her breath as she walked up the steep and winding road. Willis walked on ahead. Lauren was clutching her phone in her hand. She wanted to get to the top of the road to be sure she had enough signal so they wouldn’t get cut off. Willis stopped and waited at the beginning of the second field; she stepped into the gateway as Lauren rang Toby’s number; it went straight to answer machine, so she left a message. Willis stood looking out over the green sodden field as it rolled up into the blue sky. She took a few deep breaths as she leaned her arms on the top of the gate and rested her chin. Lauren joined her.

‘I can smell wood smoke,’ she said. ‘I haven’t smelled that in years.’

‘Lauren, remember to keep as calm as possible with Kensa. She is also a victim in this. If she knows anything about Samuel’s whereabouts we need to make her want to tell us. If we upset or scare her she’ll be gone.’

‘I understand.’

Willis unlatched the gate and pushed it open, avoiding the deep muddy ruts where vehicles had pulled in. Lauren followed Willis as she walked to her left past the thick hedge and up to the line of caravans at the top of the field. As they walked towards them Willis kept her eyes on the last van. She was also looking for the horse but there was no sign. The smoke curled upwards from a fire to the back of the van. She saw movement and Kensa came round to the front and threw out a bucket of water into the grass. She looked their way and stood staring at Lauren for half a minute, watching them push their way up the steep field. Then Kensa turned away and disappeared from sight.

As they reached the van Kensa was sitting on one of the white plastic chairs, poking through the ashes of a fire. She looked up as she raked the ashes; the wood flared red beneath the black of charcoal as it spluttered and spat. Kensa took up a piece of cardboard and began fanning it.

‘My horse has gone – someone’s taken him. I rode him home, came to see to the fire and now he’s gone.’

‘Morning, Kensa.’ Willis watched as Kensa studied Lauren. ‘I’ve come to ask you some more questions if you don’t mind. This is Lauren, you met already at the house?’

‘Hello,’ Lauren said.

‘He’s called Misty. I’ve raised him since he was a foal. He’d never wander.’

Willis pulled out a chair away from the smoke and sat down.

‘Kensa, we’ll get searching for you when we leave here.’ Willis looked up at Lauren. Lauren gave a small nod to reassure Willis that she was okay.

Kensa squinted up at Lauren through the smoke. ‘Sorry for scaring you this morning.’ She reached over and picked up a few sticks from a pile, snapping them into shorter lengths.

‘I’ve been told about your friendship with Toby,’ said Lauren. ‘I’m so sorry for anything bad that happened to you.’

‘That night was all a big secret until Mr Forbes-Wright took his own life. Funny that.’

Lauren shook her head. ‘I never knew him, but he seems to have been important to this place.’

‘What happened to me wasn’t the worst of it. Has he ever been nasty with you?’ Kensa looked up at Lauren as she fed the sticks into the embers.

‘Toby?’

‘Yes.’

‘No. He’s a very gentle, sensitive man, very shy.’

Kensa smiled as she reached across for a log for the fire.

‘That’s him. I thought he was gorgeous.’ She looked up at Lauren and smiled. ‘He had such a sweet way about him.’ She pulled her blanket tightly around herself as she sniffed and wiped her nose with the edge of it.

‘It was never proved, never investigated, was it, Kensa?’ Willis said.

‘Nope. Didn’t need to, Sheriff said, facts speak for themselves.’ She looked up at them both. Shook her head. A sadness had come over her. It deadened her face. Aged her. ‘They said it was an absolute certainty that he had done it to me; they said they had proof, they had witnesses and that was all done and dusted. They said did I want to press charges. Did I want to ruin his life and mine and my dad’s – they offered Dad ten thousand pounds and he took it. For the best.’

‘Who advised you, Kensa? Who was there that day?’ Willis asked.

‘Sergeant Raymonds. Raymonds took care of it all. He said it would not make a scrap of difference to the lad, he was one of those lads from public school who looked down on us and he wouldn’t give a damn about a girl like me. He said it served me right for going with a lad like that, above my station, and I would have to live with the shame of letting myself be taken advantage of. He said if I agreed not to press charges then no more would ever be said about it, otherwise the whole village would know.

‘They said it was your own fault?’ Lauren asked, sounding shaky.

‘Oh, yes. Should have known better than to trust a stranger. The locals said he brought drugs with him, he planned it all along. Drugged me, raped me, beat me up.’

‘I’m sorry you never got justice, Kensa,’ Willis said. ‘It’s not too late.’ Willis was staring at the wreck of a woman before her; she could see that all her self-esteem had vanished that night.

‘And you never saw Toby again?’ asked Lauren.

‘No. I try to remember him as the sweet lad I knew. We had two weeks of summer love before it all went wrong. I try and remember him like that.’ She smiled sadly.

‘Kensa . . .’ Lauren leaned into her and spoke. ‘When we sell the house and settle his estate, pay the tax, I will make sure you get something.’

Kensa shook her head as she stared into the fire. Then she looked up at Lauren and the embers lit her eyes.

‘Don’t ever sell the house. The house belongs to the people of the village. It has too many secrets now. You live in it and bear those secrets or you sell it to Raymonds and let things continue as they are. Believe me, you’ll never get your boy back.’

Lauren gasped as she rocked on her feet.

‘What do you know, Kensa? Who said that?’

‘I only know that you cross the town and you pays for it. I’ve already said too much to you and they will punish me.’

On the way back down the hill Lauren strode forward.

‘I’m going to call Toby again now.’

‘I’ll see you back at the house. There will be another officer with us, a Family Liaison Officer, soon.’

‘No, I don’t want anyone else in the house,’ Lauren said, visibly upset.

‘Sorry, Lauren, it’s not up to me.’

‘But I have you here.’

‘I can’t stay with you all the time. I need to take an active part in the investigation.’

‘Am I a suspect?’

‘No.’

‘Then I don’t need nursemaiding, I need you to get results. I’ll tell you if I’m not coping.’ She stayed back to try Toby again.

Raymonds watched the news that morning and the reconstruction on television. It fascinated him as he pulled up his camel-skin pouffe and sat a foot from the TV screen, watching every single move that the pretend Toby took.

Eileen watched him from the doorway.

She stared at the back of his head and thought about the boiled egg and smashing it.

As the reconstruction ended, Raymonds got up to switch the TV off. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked his wife.

‘Waiting.’

‘For what?’

‘The truth.’

He gave a derisory snort through his nose and snot came out that he hadn’t bargained on. He took his cloth handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his nose.

‘What is it you want to know?’

‘Marky?’

‘Hasn’t he been to see you yet?’

‘Oh yes, he’s been. But he’s not himself. He’s not well, I know it. He couldn’t look at me when he was talking to me. He couldn’t stay still. He’s talking about Kensa again. He’s so worried. I’ve told him none of it was his fault.’

‘Okay. That’s interesting. Did you also tell him to stop shoving white snow up his nose? Look . . . look . . . I had hoped to spare you this but I can’t. You think Marky is your blue-eyed boy, who can do no wrong, but the truth is I’ve been covering his arse since the moment he was born and I’m sick of doing it. He’s dragging this town down.’

‘Marky is what we’ve made him and he can’t help what he was born.’

‘Bullshit, you want to believe that, then you go ahead. He’s a weak-minded little shit.’

‘It’s not him, it’s Towan and Jago.’

‘Is it? Is it really, Eileen? Okay . . .’ He raised his palms in the air and shook his head. ‘Okay, say you’re right and all our son is is a sheep, following the black one in the herd. What then? All we’ve built up for ourselves is wasted on him?’

‘You’ve kept him too controlled. He doesn’t know how to be a man.’

‘Blaming me now?’

‘Yes, blaming you for not doing what you should have years ago.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Face the truth.’

‘Are you for real? Do you understand what you’re saying?’

‘Yes.’

‘No, no you fucking don’t. Get out of my way.’

Raymonds got into his car and drove the long way round to make sure no one saw him. He parked up below Kensa’s field where no one would see him.

Kensa was inside the caravan when he got there. She was staring out of the window and watched him approach.

‘Kensa?’ There was an agonized bewilderment in her expression. ‘Kensa?’

Raymonds stood by the open door. Kensa was still looking the opposite way, out of the window. ‘Kensa?’ She didn’t move. ‘Turn round.’ She breathed in – visibly: her shoulders rose and held on to it, then let it fall; her skinny arms seemed to shiver. She did as she was told. Her thoughts were still elsewhere. He could see it. She was full of panic. She was about to scream and not be able to stop.

‘Kensa,’ he said in a soft voice, and she responded accordingly. She nodded but she did not see him, her eyes remained focused on some faraway place. ‘Are you okay, Kensa?’ She didn’t answer but she focused on him for a few seconds then turned her head sharply away. He had seen her like this many times. She was on the brink of oblivion. She was crumbling on the inside. She would sit for days like this, staring out at her own thoughts.

‘Kensa, snap out of it.’ He looked at her cracked lips. So deep were the cracks that her lips had swollen around them. Dark shadows encased her sunken eyes. She wore a scarf on her head. She looked like some refugee hounded from one country to the next, bitten by despair and harshness. ‘Where’s Mawgan? She needs to get things organized. It’s freezing in here. Switch on the fire, Kensa, for Christ’s sake.’

As he talked his breath came out white. He stood and switched on the gas heater; its orange glow filled the gloom of the van.

Kensa didn’t look at Raymonds. Her eyes remained large and dark, glazed, almost milky, as they stared off into space.

‘Misty’s gone.’

‘He’s not gone far. You can fetch him after we have our talk.’

She turned and glared at Raymonds. ‘You have no right to take Misty.’

‘I have every right. You need to behave yourself, Kensa. People are saying you’re not fit to look after a horse like Misty. You’ve been talking to people you shouldn’t.’

‘What people? I ain’t said nothing.’

‘About the boy, about the night in 2000.’

‘I said nothing, I promise you. Please, sir, I promise, I’ll do anything, just give me my horse back.’

‘Okay, if you promise you’ll be good.’

‘I will.’

‘People are sick of seeing you the way you are. You can’t sit here all day, Kensa. You’re a young woman still. Get washed and dressed and I’ll take you out somewhere. Let’s get you a hot meal and we’ll talk about things. We’ll have fun like we used to.’

As he spoke he looked around the shabby van. He was thinking how it had been six months or more since the last time he came up to see Kensa. It had been too long. He needed to make her his priority from now on – he hadn’t realized how she wasn’t taking care of herself. As he was just thinking of how he was going to sort it in the short term, he saw Mawgan walking up the field towards the van. She didn’t know he was there, he could tell. She was walking, head down. Strong powerful legs that were shapely beneath her breeches. It struck him that it was about time he found her a husband to create a new generation in the village. Raymonds stood back a little out of first sight, as she stepped up and opened the door to the van.

‘Kensa? I got you some breakfast – a sausage roll from Cam’s café. It’s still hot. Just like he is . . .’ She laughed. ‘He sends his love.’ Her breath was steaming out, her face glowing with perspiration. She turned and saw Raymonds and registered the strange, malicious, smug expression on his face. She looked back at Kensa.

‘Everything all right?’

She didn’t answer.

‘She’s becoming ill again,’ said Raymonds. ‘She needs you to take better care of her. She’s skin and bone and she has almost nothing on.’ Raymonds could see beneath her thin layers her scrawny breasts, her ribs, and the loose skin on her stomach. ‘In this bitter cold!’

‘Kensa?’ Kensa turned to look at her friend but she didn’t answer. ‘It’s okay, you can go now,’ she said to Raymonds as she pulled Kensa’s blanket up around her and started tidying. ‘I’ll look after her.’