‘I’ll have your change waiting when you come to talk to Kim,’ he called after her.
Trish waved from the doorway and hurried through the
market, towards Fleet Street, dodging men dressed in white mesh hats and blood-stained white coats, who were carrying bare carcasses over their shoulders.
Trish had seen him when she first came into court. Will knew that, even though she hadn’t waved or smiled. And he watched her closely all morning. The whole legal performance still seemed absurdly over-complicated, and idiotically long-drawn-out, but he was prepared to go along with it.
Today they had Sally Trent, a junior from Furbishers contracts department, in the witness box, and the Furbishers silk was asking her to confirm the truth of her statement. She looked far too innocent – and too young — to have been part of the conspiracy. Will wondered how Antony Shelley would make her confess.
But even that wasn’t enough to stop him thinking about Jamie Maxden’s video clip and hoping Trish would see in it what he had seen and understand how it proved everything he’d been saying. He tried to get hold of her at lunchtime, but he wasn’t quick enough. By the time he’d got out from behind the crowd, there was no sign of any of the lawyers.
He had to go off to eat an expensive, pappy sandwich from a coffee shop in the Strand and fight for patience. Gulping it down, sucking in air with every rushed mouthful, and burning his tongue on the weedy coffee, he gave himself severe indigestion. But he was back outside court fifteen minutes before the time the judge had stipulated.
‘Trish!’ he called, seeing her approach from the far end of the corridor. He saw her turn and murmur something to Antony Shelly, then come towards him making an effort to smile. He’d hoped never to see that deliberate gentleness again. She was obviously angry with him.
‘How are you doing?’ she asked. She sounded cool.
‘Fine. I’ve got something you have to see. It’s a—’
‘Will,’ she said, laying her long white fingers on his sleeve, ‘I’d love to see it, but we have to go back into court now. This afternoon’s cross-examination is immensely important after Arthur Chancer’s evidence that he
had
spelled out the terms of the two deals to you—’
‘That’s a sodding lie!’ he said, and couldn’t understand why she looked suddenly happier.
‘So I don’t want to water down my concentration,’ she said, without explaining herself. ‘OK? Let’s talk afterwards.’
He had to breathe carefully to get a grip on his fury.
‘Will, it matters that I do well this afternoon. To you more than to me.’
His head rocked with the violence of his nodding. ‘I’ll wait here afterwards. It’s important that you see this today. It’s about the sausages.’
‘I’ll be here.’
She turned tail, her gown flicking him as it flew out behind her, and said something dismissively curt to her boss. Then the two of them swaggered into court. Will had to tell himself several times that Trish was on his side before he could make his mind and thumping heart calm down.
Trish wished she’d never involved Will in the hunt for the organism that had poisoned Caro. She also wished that he’d stayed away today. She shouldn’t have mentioned Chancer, but Will’s sudden appearance had jolted her, and she was concentrating too hard on this afternoon’s witness to think straight. Over lunch just now Antony had asked her to take Sally Trent’s cross-examination.
‘She’s the one, I’m sure. We can get to her. And I want you to do it. Get matey with her. She’s resentful. Did you see her hating Ferdy this morning? Get her to talk about her loathly boss. Lead her into her sympathies. I’ll bet you there’s someone she cares about, likes to protect. She’s that kind. Just make sure it’s you
today. Get her to want to help you. You can do that, Trish.’
All these people needing different things, she thought. Kim and Will and Antony and the rest of the clients. And now the defence’s witnesses too.
It was a bit like the first months after David had come to live with her, when he and George had competed – probably unwittingly and in their quite different ways – for every ounce of her attention. David had been so needy then, so frightened and so determined to do what he thought she wanted, that he’d been her priority.
Even he hadn’t needed as much as Kim. Would they ever find out what was behind her silent terror? And what if they didn’t? What if she were sent back, and her stepfather did kill her, as Pete Hartland was so sure he would? How would it be possible to live with the knowledge that she could have saved Kim with a bit more care, a bit more intelligence?
Trish pushed the thought away and felt like Sisyphus condemned eternally to roll the same boulder uphill. Concentrate, she told herself. Don’t split yourself and your attention or you’ll short change them all. Do one thing at a time. It’s not disloyal to forget the rest while you’re at it. She smiled at the woman in the witness box.
Will settled down to watch what his lawyers were going to do for him. He wished he knew exactly what sodding Arthur Chancer had told the court. He was such a twisting weasel, who never quite said what he meant, that he might have tricked them into believing him. Bastard. He’d have to ask Neil, even if it was too late to do anything about it now.
Two of the other claimants were sitting on the same hard bench. If they’d been here yesterday, they might be able to tell him what had happened. Will nodded to them. It didn’t surprise him they were keeping an eye on the proceedings. The only odd thing was that so many stayed away. Or maybe they were the
ones whose businesses had not gone down the tubes and who were still capable of making a living.
Trish was getting to her feet. Will was glad to see Antony giving up the limelight again. Leaning forwards, propping his chin on his clasped hands, Will waited.
The young contracts assistant was in the witness box again. She looked a bit like Mandy, with the same snub nose and cheery eyes, although this girl’s hair was red and she was better dressed. He didn’t think she could have a tenth of Mandy’s warmth. No one could.
Memories of Mandy’s sexy body and all the generosity she’d shown in bed were the only things likely to keep him from going mad. He wished he could see her every day. If it weren’t for emails, he didn’t think he could wait. Thank God for the Internet! He wanted to be with her all the time, and touch her. And … He felt his cock stir and thought he’d better start concentrating on Trish before anyone else noticed what he was up to.
‘And so, Ms Trent,’ she was saying in a smiley kind of voice, ‘could you tell the court how you come to be working in Furbishers’ contracts department?’
Will wished he could see Trish’s face, but all he had to give him a clue about her attitude to the witness was the sound of her voice and the back of her ludicrous wig and ugly black stuff gown.
‘I was a secretary there originally, and I gradually got promoted.’
‘Do many secretaries get to take on quasi-legal roles or management responsibilities?’
Trish saw the intelligence gleaming in Sally’s eyes.
‘It’s hardly management,’ she said. ‘I just look after the staff in the department and organize the changes to the boiler-plate contract.’
‘Does that allow you to know all the department’s wrinkles? And the strengths of your managers?’ Trish smiled in sympathy.
‘Oh, sure.’
‘Sketch them in for us. Who’s the best negotiator?’
And so it went on until Sally trusted her. The atmosphere in court was warm and very female. Trish could feel Antony’s approval. Sally grew in confidence with every bit of information that pleased Trish. And Trish took care not to ask or say anything that might make Ferdy leap to his feet and break open the cocoon she was spinning around herself and the witness.
It wasn’t long before she found herself liking Sally. They might never meet again, but for the moment they could have been best friends. Trish had no thought for the judge or Antony or Will or anyone else. There might have been only Sally and herself in the court, as she drew out the story, word by word and smile by smile.
And then at last Trish got it. She had to work hard not to let her mouth drop open in amazement.
Sally simply said, ‘It was one day in March when my line manager, Martin Watson, told me I had to spin it out. I’d been settling the questions too easily, he said. He liked a good fight and I was spoiling it for him by negotiating all the difficulties out of the way so soon. Like all women, he said, I wanted to keep things sweet and it was bad for business and for morale. I’d never progress until I stopped being so afraid of people being angry with me. I had to be like him and learn to enjoy conquering them. It would be good practice for the next rung up the ladder to get used to fighting, he said, so I’d better generate some good long battles now to show management that I could cope. He wanted me to spin out all the negotiations I was handling for a minimum of three months.’
Could she possibly not know the significance of what she’d said? Trish wondered.
This was the first half of the evidence she and Antony had
been angling for, the admission that Furbishers had deliberately lengthened the negotiating period. Without that, Will and the other clients would never have been forced to commit themselves to the huge expenses that had locked them in by the time the real, and much less satisfactory, deals were offered. Now, all Trish and Antony needed was someone to contradict Arthur Chancer’s damaging evidence. That would be a lot harder to get.
‘That was brilliant, Trish,’ Will said as she stopped to speak to him when the judge had risen for the day. ‘Amazing.’
‘Thank you. She was a good witness. And honest. Look, Will, I’m not trying to stall, but I will have to go now. What is it you want to show me?’
‘It’s a video clip I was emailed by Jamie Maxden,’ he said, flushing. ‘I haven’t been checking my emails for months, so I didn’t know it was there. I think you ought to see it, but it’s long and takes time to download, so I didn’t want to clog up your system, and—’
‘That was thoughtful. Thank you. But in fact it would be easier if you sent it through, so that I don’t keep Antony waiting now. I’ll check my emails as soon as I get home tonight. I promise. OK?’
‘Well, yes,’ he said, flushing an even deeper crimson, ‘only I don’t have your email address.’
Trish grabbed a pen and scribbled it down for him. As she handed it over, she touched his arm and said, ‘Today made a difference, Will. You should be able to let yourself sleep tonight.’
‘It’s not enough, though, is it? Specially not if the judge believed Arthur Chancer. If this is the best we’re going to get, maybe all the doubters were right and there was no point even starting the case.’
‘You’re right: there’s still a long way to go. But today
was
good. Don’t underestimate it. There is still hope. Honestly.’
He didn’t look convinced.
‘You’ve got to hang on, Will.’
‘It’s easy for you to say. OK. I know … you’ve got to go.’
Antony had sent Colin ahead to take the solicitor to his room, and he was waiting for Trish in hers. She shrugged off her gown and hung it on the peg behind the door. She felt his hand on her back, and turned.
‘The conqueror returns,’ he said, kissing her cheek. ‘Well done.’
‘It wasn’t that much.’ She walked round to the other side of her desk to remind him there was work to be done yet. Two people were waiting for him only a few yards away and she had to see Kim.
His eyebrows tweaked up as he produced his best smile. ‘Maybe not, but it gives us a terrific excuse for a celebration. The Ritz has some very glamorous bedrooms. Or we could go to the Rookery. You’d love it there, Trish. The sexiest hotel in London.’
‘Maybe,’ she said, wondering if he could possibly be serious, ‘but I’m not up for that kind of celebration. We’re in the middle of a case, anyway. What are you thinking of?’
The smile turned wicked. ‘Do you really want me to tell you? Now? Here?’
‘Certainly not,’ she said quickly, knowing that in this mood he was capable of saying anything. ‘You and I are too much married to celebrate with anything but food, wine, and good stories.’
‘You’re
not married, Trish.’
‘In every way except the strictest legal sense, I am.’
‘In that case, you’re the most shocking flirt I’ve ever met.’
Laughter bubbled up in her. She leaned across the space she’d fought to keep between them and kissed his cheek. The day’s stubble rasped her lips.
‘So, you vile seducer, are you. The others are waiting for you and I’ve promised to see the traumatized child again. I told you that.’
‘True enough,’ Antony said. ‘OK.
Vamos
.’
Andrew Stane greeted Trish at the door of the psychiatric unit.
‘She’s here,’ he said, ‘waiting for you.’
‘Great. Has she said anything so far?’
‘She hasn’t, but her foster mother reported that she had some kind of nightmare last night and woke the whole house, screaming. In fact Kim was the only person who didn’t wake, until she was prodded. Mrs Critch says she’s never seen such fear on any child’s face as she saw then, but Kim wouldn’t tell her what she’d been dreaming about; she just shook and apologized over and over until it was unbearable.’
With that warning, Trish had a fair idea of what she was going to see. Even so, the sight of Kim’s face shocked her. Trying to block out everything else, particularly the need to get somewhere today, she concentrated on making her face and body as small and gentle as possible.
‘You must have been very frightened last night, Kim,’ she said. ‘But it’s over now. No one is going to be punished because of you. No one at all.’
A tear swelled in the corner of each of the child’s eyes, and trembled on the edge of the lid before bursting. She pressed the backs of her hands against her eyes, saying nothing and making no sound. Tears poured around the edges of her hands and dripped off her pointed chin.
Trish was terrified that Kim was going to choke. She longed
to pick the child up and hug her and promise that nothing terrible would ever happen again; but one was against all the rules, and the other impossible. All she could do was provide paper handkerchiefs and hope the waves of unexpressed sympathy would reach her.
‘Thank you,’ Kim whispered, pressing the tissue to her eyes, instead of her fists. Eventually she blew her nose, too, and looked round for somewhere to put the soggy mess. Trish fetched a wastepaper bin and was rewarded by a faint smile.
‘Kim,’ she said, feeling as though she was stepping out on to ice so thin it crackled under foot, ‘I don’t want to make you unhappy or frightened, but if I’m to help you properly I have to ask some questions. Is that all right?’
There was no answer. Kim let her eyelids and her whole head droop, hiding herself all over again.
‘Kim?’ This time Trish allowed a little authority into her voice.
‘Yes?’
‘Kim, try to look at me. If you can.’
The smooth blonde head shook.
‘All right. Don’t worry about that then. Just try to tell me what happened at home if you screamed when you had a nightmare like last night’s.’
There was a gasp then a gulping swallow from the child, but no words. Trish tried again.
‘Kim, I think someone has told you that you mustn’t ever tell. But they won’t know about anything you say here in this room. No one will tell them. You are safe with us. And it’s safe to tell us what happened.’
Still looking down at the table, Kim spoke very quietly, but the words were absolutely clear and distinct from one another: ‘If I had a bad dream, I had to take off my nightie and stand on the box.’
Trish felt her head jerk up as though someone had pulled a string attached to her scalp. She caught the foster mother’s eye and knew she was as surprised as Trish herself.
‘What box?’ Trish asked gently.
‘At the end of his bed.’
‘The baby’s bed?’ Trish could feel the frown dragging her eyebrows together.
Kim looked up, surprised and a little pitying. ‘No,’ she explained, as quiet and matter of fact as ever. ‘At the end of Daniel’s side of the big bed.’
‘Ah.’ This could be enough on its own to extend the interim care order. ‘Have I got this right, Kim? When you had a nightmare, you had to stand, without any clothes on, at the end of your stepfather’s bed in the night? Is that right?’
‘Yes.’ There were no tears now, but Kim started shaking. Her hands gripped the edge of the table as though vertigo was making the chair rock under her. Blood was driven out of her finger ends as she held on, until the tips of her fingers were like a corpse’s. Trish knew she couldn’t be made to answer any more questions today.
‘Try not to worry, Kim. You’ll be all right now,’ she said, standing up very slowly so that the child could be sure she was not going to be touched in either anger or perverted desire. ‘I have to go out of the room for a moment, but Mrs Critch will be here. And I’ll be back soon. All right?’
There was the usual long pause, then Kim nodded and whispered, ‘Yes. That is all right.’
Andrew met Trish in the corridor and hugged her. ‘You’ve cracked it, you wonder.’
‘It’s only the beginning, but I don’t see how we can put her through any more now. Did you see how precarious she feels? She was hanging on to the table as if it were the only thing that would stop her falling to her death. Have you got enough to keep her safe for the present?’
‘I think so. And I agree, she has to be let off now. Are you going to tell her?’
‘I’d better; it’ll only confuse her if she’s faced with another adult now.’
‘OK. And will you tell Caro? It was your breakthrough, so you have the right.’
‘You could get to the hospital sooner than I could because I’ve got to go back to chambers now.’ Trish smiled at him, glad that he’d remembered how much Caro minded about this child. ‘So why don’t you tell her? I’ll call in this evening on my way home and answer any questions she may have.’
‘Great. Thank you, Trish. I
knew
we could count on you. We can take it from here. You’ve done great, even if you were wrong about Crossman punishing her for the baby’s noise or vice versa. I never did find that very convincing, I must say.’
Trish nodded and went back into the interview room. Kim was still sitting with her small hands gripping the edge of the table. Trish gave her a wide berth before coming face to face with her, smiling.
‘I haven’t got any more questions now.’
The tight hands relaxed and blood rushed back up under the nailbeds, making the pale-yellow flesh dark red.
‘And you will be safe with Mrs Critch.’
The foster mother caught Trish’s eye and nodded. Andrew had said she was one of their most experienced emergency carers, with an unblemished record and huge reserves of kindness and warmth. If anyone could make Kim feel safe in her bed at night, it would be Mrs Critch.
‘I hope I’ll see you again soon, Kim,’ Trish went on, ‘but I have to say goodbye now. Thank you for being so brave.’
More tears hung on the edge of her eyelids and Trish cursed herself for the choice of words. Terms like bravery, courage, grit would have been part of any retired sergeant’s lexicon, along with their opposites. Had Kim’s stepfather shouted at her for
being such a little coward, a noisy snivelling little coward, for crying in her nightmares, before he’d forced her to strip and stand on the box at the end of his bed?
Trish understood just how DC Pete Hartland felt. She wanted Daniel Crossman to pay for what he’d done. Even more, she wanted to whisk Kim away to safety. For a dangerous moment, Trish thought of the sense of security she’d managed to give David and longed to take on Kim, too. But she knew she couldn’t. She had to smile with the easy, uninvolved affection that was all she could safely offer, and back away.
‘Oh, Trish!’ Colin’s voice caught at her two hours later, just as she reached the last of the stone steps out of chambers. She paused and looked back.
‘Yes?’
‘You know you asked me to look up that journalist who died at the slaughterhouse? Jamie Maxden.’
She walked back up the steps to stand with him in the doorway. It wasn’t his fault she was feeling wrung out and longing to be on her own, or that she still had to deal with the video clip Will wanted her to look at tonight.
‘Have you discovered something?’ she asked, trying to sound excited.
‘A bit. You’re right: he was once quite famous for his work on the meat trade. Then he turned in a story that could have landed his paper with a vast libel claim and everything went pear shaped. The editor demanded proof. Maxden refused to name his source or provide any back-up evidence, and—’
‘Why?’
‘He said it was because the whole thing had been given to him off the record. He’d guaranteed anonymity, and he claimed the documents he had would identify the man – or woman, I suppose – who’d given him the information, so he refused to hand them over.’
‘Brave man.’
‘Or foolhardy. The editor promised he’d be backed to the hilt, so long as he could convince the lawyers the story would stand up. When he couldn’t provide a single shred of evidence, the editor decided he’d fabricated the whole thing, including the source. After that he couldn’t sell a report of a local flower show to a parish mag under his own name – hence his despair.’
‘So they really do think he killed himself, do they?’
‘Oh, absolutely. One last stand and a kind of “you’ll be sorry when I’m dead”. Apparently they’d been calling him Mad-Jamie-the-Meat for years. All the editors in London looked away when his name popped up in their email inboxes.’
‘I’m impressed. How on earth did you find all this out?’
‘A mate of mine, who’s a bit ahead of me at the Bar, is already reading
The Times
overnight for libel, so he’s well placed to ask these sorts of questions.’
‘Handy! D’you think he’d be able to find out why Maxden’s death wasn’t reported? It sounds like a pretty good story to me: crusading anti-meat journalist’s dramatic suicide outside abattoir.’
‘There’s nothing sinister,’ Colin said, looking pleased. ‘I’ve already asked about it.’
Trish could remember the first time she’d done something more than her pupil master had expected. She gave Colin all the approval that had been withheld from her then. He took it with admirable coolness. She was surprised and rather impressed.
‘Apparently,’ he said, ‘the discovery of the body was well reported in the relevant local paper, but none of the nationals picked it up from the press agencies. It was the same day as the Peckham cyanide scare, and that grabbed all the space.’
‘Cyanide?’ Trish felt as though bits of her mind were scattering in all directions, like rabbits startled by the sound of shooting.
‘You must remember,’ Colin said. ‘When they found a minilab,
brewing up some ghastly poison-bomb thing for the tube.’
‘Oh yes. Of course.’ The reports had come out just as Trish was embroiled in all the last-minute work for the case. She’d barely had time to listen to the radio and hadn’t read a paper for days.
‘And it happened on a Tuesday.’ Colin looked as though he was enjoying himself now. ‘Apparently that makes a real difference. If it had been a Friday, they’d probably have run the story. For some reason there’s never much news to print on Saturdays.’ He grinned. ‘The whole system sounds weird to me.’
‘Even weirder than the Bar?’ she asked, thinking of the puzzled concentration with which he usually listened to older members of chambers.
‘Maybe not quite.’ He laughed. ‘But what could be?’
‘Not a lot. You’ve been really helpful. Keep that channel open. It could be seriously useful.’
‘To you or to me?’ Colin asked, showing unusual cockiness.
‘Both,’ she said with a smile. ‘I take it you won at squash yesterday.’
‘Yeah. Thrashed the bastard. Made up for my last four defeats.’
Trish laughed. So it was that and not her compliments that had given him this new confidence. ‘Well done.’
‘Thanks. Anything else I can do for you while I’m at it?’
‘I don’t think so. Not at the moment.’
Trish wasn’t accustomed to watching shaky video film, and this had been shot in a peculiar kind of monochrome, with odd shadows and strange gleams. It was a while before she realized it must have been filmed in the dark with some kind of infra-red camera. She could see a small plane standing in the middle of the field. That wasn’t at all hard to decode. The rest was trickier.
There were men running. It took two replayings for her to
work out that there were only three of them going backwards and forwards. They didn’t look very different and the camera jumped about so much that they could have been a small army. At one moment the lens would point towards the plane, then sweep around a huddle of buildings, before catching the line of men or focusing on one at a time.
Luckily the tallest had a distinctive gait, lurching sideways with every step, which identified him in each of the six journeys in the film. Another had a tear in the back of his dark shirt. The third moved differently from the other two, as though he’d once been a sprinter. The others leaned forwards, hunched over as they ran, whereas he kept his head up, aiming his body and the force of his running at a fixed point. Someone had once trained him to race.
On every journey towards the plane the men carried something big and heavy. She couldn’t see what it was beyond the fact that each package was slithery. Sometimes one of the men would stop to push his load back, to rebalance it on his shoulder, before tucking his chin over the edge of it. It was hard to judge the length of the packages because of the foreshortening effect of distance. The bundles were wrapped in dark, shiny material. It could be black plastic, like a bin liner, but it was hard to see for certain. All the textures were fuzzy in the film, like the colours. There were really only light or dark. The men’s faces, which would definitely have been categorized as ‘white’, must have been different shades of pink or tan in reality. On the film they were a uniform silvery grey.
Something about the man with the tear in his shirt nagged at Trish and she played the film again and again, pausing at the point when he was running, unladen, towards the camera. Her face was almost touching the screen as she peered into it, trying to see his features more clearly. Only as the static sizzled between her nose and the screen did she remember that she had some kind of photographic program in the computer. It had
been pre-loaded when she bought the system, and she’d never considered using it until now.