Innocent Blood by Elizabeth Corley Page A

those mothers on the 1 st January each year, singing “Auld Lang Syne” as if tragedy were going to apply to someone else and not to them. I make the files ready, stick on blank labels. Then I drink a toast to the New Year’s victims and their parents. I don’t know who they’ll be and neither do they, but there hasn’t been a year yet that I’ve put a file away empty on the 31 st December. Usually I have to buy more. 1992 was a bad year. I ran out of filing space down here in July.’
    He realised then that she had become deranged by grief.
    ‘I write to them all. Letters of hope at first because I really appreciated those. Then the prayers. I was sent some lovely ones. They mean nothing to me but they might help the others. And, eventually, I send them condolences. I’ve improved the wording over the years and I’m quite pleased with the latest letter. Would you like to see it?’
    ‘No, thank you, Mrs Hill. I’m sure it is very fine.’
    His skin crawled and he wanted to be gone. He stood up.
    ‘Wait! I haven’t told you about my father, what he did to me and Paul. He came around one evening, months after Paul had disappeared. My husband was still living with me then, just…’
    Her concentration drifted away into an echo of remembered conversation and he waited. He understood grief and remembrances.
    ‘He told me that Paul had to be dead, that I should give up hope and start to grieve. That it would be good for me. Good for me!’ Her shriek made him jump and he almost dropped his water.
    ‘He was murdering Paul with his words. I had to shut him up. Every sentence he uttered was death for Paul; I couldn’t allow it. I hit him. He didn’t defend himself. The more I punched the more he seemed to want it. Eventually, my husband pulled us apart. I told them both to get out, that I never wanted to see them again.’
    ‘And they stayed away?’ He was fascinated despite himself.
    ‘Not at first. It took a long time but I finally made them leave me and Paul alone. No one comes to disturb us here now.’
    He tried not to stare at the dowdy woman in front of him who had shaped her personal madness from hatred born of grief.
    ‘He’s dying, your father.’
    ‘Of course he is. Why else would he send you here after all these years?’
    ‘He wants to see you.’
    ‘No. I will never forgive him for wishing Paul dead.’
    The hatred in her face made him frightened for Stanley. It was better that his old friend never saw his daughter than be forced to confront this dangerous wreck. But still he argued, loyal to the last.
    ‘I don’t think that your father wished Paul dead. He was probably trying to help you, as well as finding a way to cope with his own grief.’
    She shook her head in denial but he continued, endeavouring to do his best.
    ‘I’m sure that your father was as desperate for Paul to be found alive as you were. He just couldn’t hold on to hope for as long as you were able to. He never wished Paul dead.’
    Sarah Hill bent forward and picked up the letter, weighing it in her hands as if it were her father’s soul on the scales of Judgement. Abruptly she ripped it across the middle, the noise as loud as a pistol shot in the silence of the room. She kept tearing at it until the pieces littered the carpet like confetti. He had his answer.
    ‘I’ll see myself out.’
    ‘Wait!’ She ran up behind him as he opened the front door and inhaled fresh air. ‘You’re a man of the world, you have experience. Tell me, do you think he’s still alive, my Paul?’
    Her eyes held him. Their plea for something, anything, to keep her hope alive humbled him.
    ‘Yes,’ he said and felt his gut churn with guilt at the lie, ‘yes, I do.’

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Based on his revised statement and on the authority of the Criminal Prosecution Service, with Quinlan’s approval, Nightingale rearrested Jeremy Maidment for attempted murder on 25 th July at ten o’clock. She took him into custody on her own authority