Dead Wrong - [44]

‘But I was nowhere near it. I was up the other end of Market Street, up near Piccadilly.’

‘Near enough,’ she retorted. ‘You were there, you were in town, you heard it – probably felt it, didn’t you? It was strong enough to shake my windows.’

I nodded. ‘You don’t think I’m going mad then?’

She smiled. ‘Do you?’

‘No. It shook me up though. It was so unexpected, this instant reaction. So strong.’

‘It makes sense, Sal. Don’t beat yourself up about it.’

‘Least I didn’t run out into the street in my cossie or do anything else horribly embarrassing.’

‘It’s not happened before?’

‘No. That’s why it was such a surprise. God, I hope it doesn’t happen again. What if it starts happening all the time?’

Diane laughed. ‘That’s it, think positive. Look – suppose it does, then you go and see someone, get help. There’s counsellors and all that. But it’s probably a one-off.’

I nodded. ‘It was just that sensation. It was so…oh, I can’t even explain it.’

By the time Diane left I felt I’d recovered enough to get on with my day. Just voicing my fears took the teeth out of them.

I made myself a sandwich and got some milk then walked round to my office. The Dobsons were out. There was only one piece of mail for me on the hall table. It was from the bank, who were trying to sell me a pension. Like something lurking to get me. Or not lurking actually. My erratic, often pathetic income puts me well out of the private pension league. The last time I read a breakdown of figures and returns in the paper I worked out I’d have to stop paying the rent or stop eating in order to pay contributions. No contest.

Downstairs there were no messages on the answerphone. I opened the window to air the room a bit, stuck the kettle on and made a list of the calls I wanted to make.

I’d been advised against trying to collar Dermott Pitt at lunchtime so I’d have to try and get in late afternoon, the worst time for me as I’d have to sort something out for the children. I couldn’t do it today anyway, as Maddie had a friend coming for tea. Tomorrow then. I rang Dermott Pitt’s office and asked his secretary to make sure Mr Pitt knew I would be waiting to see him tomorrow when the court finished its business for the day – say at four o’clock. I would go to his office if they had already adjourned.

‘I don’t know whether Mr Pitt will be free then,’ she began.

‘He’d better be,’ I said, ‘I’ve already been to the police and I’m sure he will want to know all the details so that he can represent his client properly.’

She hesitated, uncertain whether this was a threat or an insult. I carried on. ‘I’ll be there as I say, and if I’m not able to speak to Mr Pitt then I would feel duty bound to inform his client of his unavailability.’ Duty bound? Why did I end up speaking their language?

Mr Wallace caught me before I’d made my coffee and demanded to know what was happening. He went ballistic when I explained that there’d been a delay in seeing Pitt and threatened to get onto it himself. I emphasised that I had a firm appointment fixed for the following afternoon and that I had been to the police. I managed to fudge the issue of why I couldn’t ambush Pitt today instead of tomorrow by talking crisply about other work and pointing out that he wasn’t my only client.

‘I’m sure Pitt will give me a full hearing tomorrow and things will start to move,’ I promised.

‘What about this hypnotist?’

‘Hypnotherapist.’ Eleanor insists on the distinction. She doesn’t want to be lumped alongside stage shows in which people do daft things in front of an audience. ‘I’m going to ring her soon; she should be back from Golborne by now. I’ll let you know how it went as soon as I have the details.’

The authorities had agreed to Eleanor using one of the private consulting rooms at the Remand Centre for her session with Luke. ‘It’ll be much better if he can relax,’ she had said, ‘and the surroundings can help that a lot.’ Eleanor was a friend of a friend who had given up working for Manchester Housing to retrain as a hypnotherapist. Her skills were used for all sorts: helping people to stop smoking, treating insomnia, teaching women to use hypnosis to ease the pain of childbirth. I had spoken to her, once the appointment had been fixed, to brief her on the background to the Wallace case; I covered the known and alleged events, and explained who the various people were and what the crucial time-frame was.

When I rang her to see how the hypnosis had gone, she had just got back.

‘You beat me to it,’ she said.

‘What happened? Did he remember anything?’

‘No, I’m sorry, Sal. He remembers being in the club dancing and the next thing he’s coming round at the police station. The rest is blank.’

‘Nothing?’ I was disappointed.

‘Nothing.’

‘You said he might be deliberately blocking things out, memories that he couldn’t face.’

‘Yes, but I don’t think that’s happening with Luke. If it was, I would have expected some restlessness, signs of unease when I asked him about that part of the evening but he was quite calm. He only became agitated as we moved on to the time when he was at the police station.’