A Clear Conscience Read Online Free PDF Page B

sooner rather than later.’
    â€˜Why should she?’
    â€˜Because she hasn’t got anywhere else to go.’
    â€˜Andthen she’ll only skip again, next time. After another few hundred pounds of public money?’
    â€˜Please,’ said Constable Secura. ‘Please, Miss West. Next time he might kill her.’
    The usher stood by the door, smug with sympathy and the prospect of a short morning.
    T he tea was cold, the service indifferent.
    â€˜Look, I apologise for calling you a stupid ignorant cow,’ Mary Secura said with a touch of stiff formality an hour later as they sat in the canteen. They had bypassed the rows of cheese rolls, weary even this early in the day, ignored the bacon smell from the steamers, the rack of sad toast which no-one would eat now, the baskets with packets of biscuits and the plates holding forlorn scones. Court canteens always purveyed food to the lowest common denominator of taste, bland in the extreme. Helen imagined the custard for the lunchtime apple pie was made once a month and carved into slabs.
    â€˜Don’t wrap it up, say what you really think,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I wouldn’t be here if the occasional insult made me curl up and die, but I don’t like them much from someone I respect. Which is why I should apologise too. Of course I knew you’d have done everything you possibly could to get that woman to court. I implied you hadn’t, because I was irritated.’
    â€˜Irritated?’ said Mary. ‘I was furious. I like Shirley. And the child’s just beautiful.’
    They were silent for a moment.
    â€˜Anyway, you’re halfway right,’ said Helen. ‘I am ignorant. I mean, after all this time and all these cases, I don’t understand the pressures. Not really. I still don’t quite know how a woman stays with a man who hits her.’
    Constable Secura stirred her filthy coffee.
    â€˜Oh, I think I do, a bit. Which is why I’d like a change. Something simple. Like catching criminals and getting convictions.’
    â€˜You been reading fairy stories again?’ Helen asked. ‘Or do you want to join the robbery squad?’
    Securashrugged and smiled. ‘You know what I mean. From where I sit, a stint on robbery or murder looks like a holiday. You don’t get too many results with battered wives.’
    â€˜If I were you,’ Helen said cautiously, aware of her own frustration rather too freely expressed earlier, ‘I’d sometimes want to hit them myself.’
    â€˜Well I don’t, because you get to the point where you can’t get angry, any more than you would with a child. I only get angry with the man. It’s like treading on eggshells. The neighbours call us out more often than the victim, and off we go. Usually the drunken bastard gets arrested on a late-night domestic and we come in to collect the evidence next morning. By which time the victim with her limited knowledge – and I can’t tell you how limited it often is – looks at us like a dog turd. And screams. So you get her to climb down and maybe make a statement. Then she sits at home with a couple of screaming kids, works out that the devil she knows isn’t half as bad as the one she doesn’t, especially if the feckless sod helps keep the roof up. Oh yes, and then there’s this little complicating factor of love.’
    â€˜For someone who breaks your ribs?’
    â€˜Yes, ma’am,’ said Mary, saluting Helen mockingly. ‘C’mon. You’ve got Bailey, I’ve got mine, we know all about Love.’
    â€˜Not that way, we don’t.’
    Helen sensed that Mary did not want to go on in such a serious vein. She cared too much, Mary did, took all professional failures personally. They had got their temporary reprieve, Helen implying that Shirl’s absence could well be the result of illness or kidnap rather than reluctance. She could lay on the