Still small voice, p.24
Still Small Voice, page 24
Andy
John coughs and Lucy wipes away a tear with the back of her hand. Neither speaks for a few seconds. It is Lucy who breaks the silence.
‘That’s absolutely heart-breaking. I feel so desperate for Andy and I can’t imagine how he is going to face the future after all this.’
‘I know. He will definitely need some help. But there just might be a positive outcome. James Scott has supported him all this time and now maybe it will be his turn to support James. That might give him something to live for.’
‘I hope so,’ Lucy says.
‘Off with you now,’ John says. ‘You need to pick up James Scott. Take DC Harvey with you. I’ll try to get hold of Caron Trapido in the meantime.’
9
For a long time after James has been returned to the cell, he feels paralysed. He can’t move or think; he just sits on the edge of the bed staring vacantly at the wall. It seems like hours before his brain starts working again but, when it does, he begins to feel a huge sense of release. The pressure has been building over the last few days and it is as if someone has shaken a bottle of soda water and unscrewed the cap.
Much as he had wanted Alex Worthington to take the blame for everything that had happened, James had known deep down that the truth would eventually come out, and it has, although not in the way he anticipated. And, now that he has seen Andy’s letter, he knows he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he had let Andy take responsibility for what he himself had done.
He finally allows himself to revisit the events of that night and to feel, once again, the shock of seeing Alex Worthington stepping onto the pavement. James remembers getting out of the car once Alex was out of sight, and how he staggered slightly as he crossed the road. He remembers walking up the front steps to the house and putting his hand on the wall to steady himself. The fury inside him had been so intense that he could barely contain it when he rattled the handle and pushed hard on the doorbell with the flat of his hand. It had seemed ridiculously civilised to be ringing the bell when he actually felt like smashing his way in. He waited a few seconds and then pressed it again. Nicky was saying something as she opened the door, and he knew that her radiant smile, which vanished as soon as she saw him, was for someone else entirely. The words died on her lips.
‘Fucking bitch.’ James had shoved her violently and she stumbled backwards against the wall with a small cry, and then she had turned and started to run down the hallway, grabbing a torch from the radiator shelf. She took a wild swing at him, the blow glancing off his arm, but he had gripped her wrist and wrestled the torch out of her grasp with his other hand. She managed to pull away from him again, but he had caught her before she reached the stairs and yanked her around with his one arm while lifting the other and swinging it forward.
It is only ten days, but it seems like a lifetime ago.
For all that time, he has been so angry with Nicky and so consumed by his hatred for Alex that he has buried the memory of what happened to her deep in his subconscious; now a wave of emotion strikes him with such a force that he collapses forward onto his knees, his forehead pressing against the cold floor. With his arms wrapped around the back of his head, he cries for everything that he has lost.
10
Monday, 7 September
The DNA results finally come through at 10.15 am showing a match between the samples taken from James Scott’s shoes and those found on the carpet in the hall of 6 Bramall Road, proving that he had been in the house on the night his wife died. At 11.20 am, Scott, having made a full confession in the presence of his lawyer, is charged with the unlawful killing of Nicola Anne Butler.
Lucy and John are sitting in his office working on their final report.
‘I think we have to go for manslaughter,’ John says. ‘We’ll never prove that he had the torch with him when he entered the house and, to be honest, I think it’s unlikely that he did.’
Before Lucy can comment, Adam Newman’s grinning face appears in the doorway.
‘So, when are you buying us that drink, guv? You said you would stand us the first round if James Scott turned out to be the killer.’
‘Ha! That’s bollocks and you know it,’ John laughs. ‘I said I would buy the first round if James Scott turned out to be telling the truth. You actually lost that little bet, mate.’
Newman makes a good effort to look crestfallen.
John chuckles, holds out both his hands and shrugs his shoulders. ‘You can’t win them all.’
EPILOGUE
Thursday, 17 September
It is a blustery, autumn day in South West London, the first after a long, hot summer. The wind moves in gusts through the trees and muffles the distant sound of traffic and a police siren. A taxi pulls up outside a wisteria-clad, four-storey brick house and a man gets out and looks around. Tall, bearded and scruffy-looking, he seems out of keeping with the sort of people who normally frequent this street, but for now the road is deserted and there is nobody to see him. Although it is late morning, he notices that all the curtains in the house are drawn as if it is guarding a secret.
The driver pulls away and Mikey Scott waves goodbye to him cheerfully, then he hoists his rucksack onto his shoulder and walks up the front steps, pulling a key out of his pocket. But he doesn’t get any further because his way is barred. Leaning against the front door is a soft toy, a rabbit, and in front of it a large bunch of roses that has clearly been there for some time because the dry petals have scattered and the leaves have turned brown.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to my first readers, Rosie and Tom, for protecting my fragile confidence in the early stages of writing this novel; to Emma Haynes of Blue Pencil Agency for her advice at the very beginning of the process; to my great friend Julia for her honest and valuable feedback; to my brilliant proofreader Alexia Lawson; and to Rosie and Luke for their help with the cover illustration.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Although her roots are firmly in Devon, where she was born, Victoria Goddard has lived much of her life overseas, most recently in Cape Town, where the family moved in 2005. She now divides her time between South Africa and England. This is her first book.
Victoria Goddard, Still Small Voice
