A Game of Proof by Tim Vicary Read Free Book Online Page A

herself.
    The car bounced along the track towards a solid, brick built farmhouse. Cows watched them from a field on their right, and a black and white collie streaked towards them. As the two policemen got out, the collie danced around them, barking hysterically. Terry put out his hand to it, to no effect. It danced away and growled ferociously at Harry Easby.
    ‘Come on boy. Where’s your missus?’
    ‘I’m over here!’ They looked up and saw a sturdy woman in gumboots and a torn, muddy coat coming towards them. She had iron grey hair and a brown, crinkled face.
    Terry showed his badge. ‘Mrs Steersby? I’m Detective Inspector Bateson and this is DC Easby.’
    ‘’bout time too.’ The woman held out her hand and Terry shook it. Her grip was strong, the hand redolent of cow dung. Seeing that they were not enemies the dog leapt up too, planting  two muddy paws on the trousers of his suit.
    ‘Get down, Flash, you daft bugger! Away now!’ The woman shoved the dog aside and glanced scornfully at Terry’s efforts to brush himself clean. ‘It’s only mud, it’ll dry. D’you want to see Helen, then?’
    ‘If she’s home from school, yes.’ Terry took an incident report out of his pocket. ‘Your daughter was frightened by a man two nights ago, Mrs Steersby. Is that right?’
    ‘’course it’s right.’ The woman turned her back, cupped her hands round her mouth, and in a voice loud enough to be heard in Lancashire yelled: ‘ Helen! Come here now!’
    Terry saw a girl riding a pony on the far side of a field. She popped the pony over a line of jumps and cantered towards them, pulling up in a flurry of mud.
    ‘What d’you want, mum?’
    ‘It’s the police to see you!’
    ‘Again?’ The girl looked bemused. ‘But they came yesterday.’
    ‘These are different. Inspector Bateson - top brass Sherlock Holmes feller - so you’d best answer his questions. That pony’s done enough for today, anyhow.’
    ‘Okay. But I’ve got to cool him down first.’
    ‘Right. Ten minutes then. I’ll put kettle on.’
    Terry watched as the girl walked the pony quietly around the field, and pondered what he knew of her story so far. Someone had tried to attack her while she was riding alone in the woods. A man in a black tracksuit and woolly hat, similar to his image of the man who had murdered Maria Clayton, and assaulted Karen Whitaker. That was why he was here now.
    It disturbed him. It couldn’t be Gary Harker this time, unless Group 4 had taken to letting their rapists out for a run in the woods on the way back to Hull. So what was it? Coincidence? Copycat? Or false alarm?
    Terry watched as she unsaddled her pony. She was a pretty girl in a grubby blouse and jodhpurs. How old was she? Fourteen, the report had said.
    So if there had been an attack, what sort of pervert were they dealing with? A child abductor, a paedophile - or just a common lecher who fancied young girls in tight trousers? Or a monster the girl had made up? That was why he had come, to hear it from her own words.
    In the farm living room, the four of them sat in faded brown armchairs grouped round an open fireplace. Terry smiled at Helen. ‘You told Constable Watson that you were riding in the woods at about half past seven when a man came up to you. Can you remember what he was wearing, Helen?’
    ‘A black sort of tracksuit thingy, trainers, and a black woolly hat.’
    Not a hood, then. ‘So you could see his face, could you?’
    ‘Yes.’ She nodded, looking thoughtful, a little apprehensive perhaps.
    ‘And you have no idea who he was?’
    ‘No. I’ve never seen him before. And I do meet people quite often in those woods. I ride there most days.’
    ‘How old was he?’
    ‘I don’t know. Thirty, perhaps.’
    ‘I see. So what exactly happened when you met him?’
    ‘Well, I was just walking down the track on Toby at the time, and I saw him jogging towards me. Then he put his hand on my bridle and said something, like ...’
    She