12
The next morning was cloudy and cold and the gutters were still full of water from the night’s rain. Frieda and Sandy walked along the high street to the police station but she found it was no longer there. The solid brick building had been converted into a solicitor’s office and a café, and a shop selling flowers and local chocolates. They were all closed. Frieda had to ask three people before she found a man who could tell her where the new police station was. Through the car park next to the bank, turn left, cross the road. A big new building.
‘It’s probably closed,’ said the man. ‘It being Sunday.’
It was closed. According to the sign, it was open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between one p.m. and three p.m.
‘I don’t believe this,’ said Frieda.
‘It’s reassuring in a way,’ said Sandy.
‘But what happens if there’s a crime?’
The two of them walked round the side and found a uniformed officer sponging the windows of a police car. He was thickly built, breathing heavily with the effort.
‘I need to talk to a policeman,’ said Frieda.
‘Is it urgent?’ said the officer.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Has something serious happened?’
‘It’s about a crime that happened years ago,’ said Frieda. ‘But it’s important.’
The officer sniffed. ‘You’ll need to go over to Moreton. They’ll help you there. It’s a bit of a drive, it’s –’
‘I know where Moreton is,’ said Frieda. ‘Is it open?’
‘It’s open all the time. Twenty-four hours a day.’
‘I thought all police stations were open all the time,’ said Frieda. ‘Like churches.’
‘We’re lucky to be here at all,’ said the officer. ‘There’s talk of selling this, turning it into a supermarket.’
Sandy looked at Frieda quizzically.
‘I suppose now that we’re here,’ she said. ‘If you can bear it.’
‘So tell me about Moreton,’ said Sandy, once they were in the car and driving out of Braxton on to the bypass.
‘It’s bigger than Braxton,’ said Frieda. ‘It’s got a market on Saturday. It’s got a church that’s quite famous. It’s got a guildhall. Two women were burned as witches in the market square. That was quite a long time ago.’
‘You sound like a guidebook,’ said Sandy. ‘What part did it play in your life?’
‘I went to parties there a few times. At one, I sat with a girl I hardly knew called Jane Nichols while she was sick into the toilet. Is that autobiographical enough for you?’
‘It’s a start.’
They drove past fields and patches of woodland. There were tiny splashes of rain on the windscreen. You could see the spire of the church in Moreton from several miles away, but before they got into the old centre they drove past new housing estates, a hypermarket, stores for pet supplies and furniture, home lighting and frozen food. Sandy pulled up outside the police station. ‘This looks more like the real thing,’ he said. ‘Shall I wait here for you?’
‘Go and look at the church,’ said Frieda. ‘It’ll give you an idea of what this area was like before it started to go downhill about four hundred years ago.’
‘You sound like an angry teenager.’
‘I must be having a flashback,’ said Frieda. ‘I’ll call you when I’m done.’
As Frieda walked up the steps and the glass doors opened automatically to admit her, she really did feel – if only for a moment – that history was repeating itself. What had she felt like all those years ago? It was oddly difficult to remember.
She stood near the front desk. There was a sign asking queuers to stand behind the yellow line and give privacy to the person at the front. The woman at the front wasn’t giving herself privacy because she was loudly telling the uniformed WPC behind the desk that her driveway was completely flooded and that the level of the water was a quarter of an inch away from entering her house and destroying it. The WPC tried, rather more quietly, to tell the woman that the flooding wasn’t a police matter and that she should try the fire brigade but even they might not be able to do anything. Really, her property was her responsibility, and if there was no serious threat, even the fire brigade were not legally obliged to attend. The officer had to repeat this several times before the woman went away, muttering to herself.
‘It’s a disgrace,’ she said to Frieda, as she passed her.
It took a patient explanation from Frieda and a whispered consultation with a colleague and then, five minutes later, she was sitting in a windowless interview room with a female sergeant. The room seemed also to serve as a cleaner’s store space. There was a bucket and mop to the side of the chair Frieda sat in, a vacuum cleaner by the door, two brooms leaning against the wall, and a dustpan and brush on the table next to Frieda’s untouched cup of tea; the dustpan had lots of dead flies in it. The officer, a thin woman with short dark hair, picked it up and put it on the floor without comment.
‘I want to say that this must have been distressing for you.’
‘The question isn’t what I feel,’ said Frieda. ‘The question is what needs to be done.’
‘I’ll consult with colleagues,’ the officer said. ‘It’s difficult because, this being a Sunday, we’re not operating at full capacity. But I understand that there was an inquiry back at the time of the original event in February 1989.’
‘February the eleventh. It was a crime, not an event.’
‘I didn’t mean anything by that. But, from what you say, the inquiry didn’t progress and was discontinued. And from what you also say, with this new possible crime, the victim is unwilling to come forward.’
‘She’s worried that what happened to me will happen to her. She’ll mark herself as a victim and then not really be believed. But another important issue is that this man is still out there and still a danger.’
‘And this is based on a feeling you have?’
‘It’s clearly the same man.’
The officer picked up the plastic cup of tea, then remembered it was Frieda’s and quickly put it down again. Some of it splashed on to the table.
‘Obviously I have no knowledge of the case apart from what you’ve told me. All I can say is that if the young woman in question comes forward, we will take the case seriously.’
‘That doesn’t seem possible just at the moment,’ said Frieda.
‘That’s a pity,’ said the officer. ‘As I said, I will talk to my colleagues, but I can anticipate what they’ll say.’
‘Which is to do nothing.’
‘I don’t want to be unsympathetic,’ said the officer, ‘but I’m not clear what there is to investigate.’
‘It would mean going back to the original file,’ said Frieda. ‘That would be a start.’
‘As I said, I’ll discuss this issue, this difficult issue, with my superior. But he’s not in until tomorrow morning. I’ll contact you and let you know what he says.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better if I talked to him?’
‘I don’t think that will be necessary. For the present. If you just leave your details at the front desk so we know how we can keep you informed. Also, we can supply you with contact details so that you can obtain help. It can sometimes be very useful in cases like these to have someone you can talk to about it.’
‘Can it?’ said Frieda.
‘Yes. It’s sometimes very helpful to get these things out in the open and get advice on how to deal with it.’
‘Thank you.’ Frieda nodded. ‘I’ll consider it.’
Sandy was in the car outside. Frieda got in beside him.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘Look at me. Look at me and tell me what you see.’
‘I’m tempted to say the face of the woman I love. But I have a sense that might be the wrong thing, just at the moment.’
‘I’m an idiot,’ said Frieda. ‘An idiot. And I don’t know what to do.’
‘Well.’ Sandy spoke after a pause. ‘How about going to see your mother?’