‘Yes, yes, that’s all very well,’ said Hayward, ‘I hope he’s aware how difficult that’s going to be. Is he really able to offer the child a home as good as the mother can? He’s clearly very fully employed and from what you tell me of Mr Shaw he’s hardly likely to stay at home and look after her. What sort of set-up can he offer? The child’s not yet six, any judge will award care and control to the mother, unless she is proven grossly unfit. I mean, he’ll have to employ a nanny and it’s surely one of his beefs against the mother that she’s going out to work and employing one, and that’s only for two days a week. We need something a lot better than this if I’m even going to take the case on. He’s living in cloud cuckoo land. Joint custody, best he can hope for, and not sure about anything else.’
‘Ah,’ said Ivor Lewis. ‘Well, you’re right on the face of it, of course—’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Bruce Hayward was tired and he had a long afternoon in court approaching; he didn’t like Ivor Lewis, thought he was a tiresome upstart, grammar-school boys never quite up the mark in his experience and—
‘There seems quite a good chance of actually proving the mother grossly unfit.’
‘Oh, really? What’s she doing, running a brothel?’
‘Not quite. But I’ve had Jim Dodds, you know him, best private eye in the business, doing a bit of work for me and there’s quite a lot of gossip about her at the advertising agency.’
‘Ah, well, that sounds rather more encouraging,’ said Bruce Hayward, ‘tell Dodds to carry on with the good work. We might talk to the receptionist and maybe this artist chap, see if we can get them as witnesses—’
‘Art director,’ said Lewis.
‘Art director, artist, they’re all the same, all in love with themselves, disappearing up their own orifices.’
‘Indeed,’ said Lewis. It seemed to him that this was a pretty fair description of Bruce Hayward’s opinion of himself.
‘Let’s talk about your witnesses, shall we?’ said Philip Gordon. ‘We still haven’t got nearly enough.’
‘Sorry,’ said Eliza with a sigh. ‘I don’t quite know what I’m supposed to be doing. Or rather what they’re supposed to be doing.’
‘Well, it goes like this. We need to present a nice three-dimensional picture of you. The good mother, who is devoted to her child and her welfare, and then the very talented lady who takes her work seriously, isn’t just playing around, making a few bob and amusing herself. So – friends, relatives, work colleagues, anyone who can vouch for your good name. We have the lady in Milan, she’s clearly very important, and your mother of course, but – not really enough.’
Eliza sat down and drew up a list. And while fretting over its shortness, suddenly had an inspiration and rang Jack Beckham.
That afternoon, leaving Maddy’s workshop, she bumped into Jerome Blake.
‘Lovely to see you here, how are you?’
‘Oh – I’m fine. Yes, everything’s really good, thank you.’
‘Well, I know it’s not,’ said Jerome, giving her a kiss, ‘and I’m sorry. But it’s very nice to have you back in the real world. I hope KPD know how lucky they are.’
‘I think it’s me that’s lucky,’ said Eliza, ‘but they’re being very nice to me. Can’t say any more than that.’
‘So they should be. You know me and my camera are always at your disposal, don’t you? I’d just love to work on that cosmetic account, you know the Japanese one, any hope of that, do you think?’
‘There could be, yes. I’ll talk to Rob about you. I have put your name to him several times. But – you know what he’s like, he has his favourites, of course.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Jerome with a grin, ‘including you, we hear.’
‘Jerome!’ said Maddy. ‘Don’t be tactless.’
‘Sorry. But what the hell, anyway, sauce for the goose and all that …’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Eliza curiously.
‘Well – well, maybe I’m speaking out of turn, darling. But I assume the blonde’s got quite a lot to do with all this?’
‘What blonde?’ said Eliza.
‘A friend of mine,’ said Eliza rather breathlessly on the phone to Philip Gordon, ‘says he saw Matt getting into a taxi with a blonde girl, very late one night. Apparently they’d been in the same restaurant as him, and they were obviously very – very friendly, kissing and so on at the table, and then … What do we do, Philip, about that? Shall I say anything to him, or—’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Philip Gordon, ‘I’ll think about that one for twenty-four hours. It could be quite a nice little card for us to play, could affect his whiter than white image. Would your friend be a witness for us, do you think?’
‘I – I don’t know. I could ask him.’
‘Of course, it’s not exactly catching your husband in flagrante but it’s still what would be deemed inappropriate behaviour.’
She felt very odd at the thought of Matt being with someone else. Which was totally absurd, of course, given her own behaviour, given how much she hated him. But – yes, she was jealous, she had realised, examining her feelings, even now, jealous, unbearably hurt, at the thought of him being physically – and worse, emotionally – close to someone else. He was her husband, her lover, what had he done to whoever it was, how had he talked to her: and especially as it had been before the real horror started.
‘Anyway, yes, could be very useful,’ Philip Gordon was saying. ‘And – you’re still all right for Friday, are you?’
‘Yes. Yes, fine. Looking forward to it.’
She wasn’t, of course. He was taking her to see Tristram Selbourne, the senior QC at Toby Gilmour’s chambers. Philip had told her, very gently, that Toby felt she needed ‘a very big gun indeed’. That had really upset her. Not just that Toby wouldn’t be handling the case himself – obviously he didn’t want to work with her – but that he felt her case was pretty hopeless. But it had to be done.
‘My daughter’s just told me,’ said Matt to Ivor Lewis, his face dark with anger, ‘that she got lost in Milan. She was left with some servant while my wife did her own shopping, and she just wandered off and the girl didn’t realise. Mind clearly on other things. Emmie was wandering about the shops all alone for hours, in some bloody foreign city, she could have been kidnapped, anything could have happened to her, and nobody realised, as far as I can make out, for quite a long time.’
‘Really?’ said Ivor Lewis. ‘Good God. If it’s true, that will certainly help our case. It sounds appalling. Can you check it out? Make sure the child isn’t making it up.’
‘Of course it’s not true. Well—’ Eliza faced him across the room; she felt physically weak. Realising what she was really up against, the power of his rage and his hatred. It was horrible. ‘I – that is – she did wander off, yes.’
‘And you didn’t even notice?’
‘I was – I mean, I wasn’t with her, it was while Anna-Maria was looking after her—’
‘So how long did it take before you decided to interrupt your shopping and look for her?’
‘Matt, this is so unfair. She went off in the care of the maid, with Anna-Maria, and we all arranged to meet in half an hour. Next thing I knew, there was Anna-Maria panicking—’
‘Well, I’m glad somebody was. So Emmie was all alone in a foreign city, where nobody speaks English for – how long? Long enough to come to harm, that’s for sure.’
‘Matt, stop it.’
‘You are disgusting, do you know that? Quite disgusting. Not fit to be a mother. Well, you can be sure you won’t be for much longer—’
‘I think it’s time to consider marriage?’
‘Marriage!’
‘Yes. You know, nuptials, holy wedlock, that sort of thing. Or don’t you? Don’t look so surprised, we’ve been anticipating it, so to speak, for several weeks now.’
‘Anticipating? Oh, is that what you call it?’
‘It’s what the Victorians called it. At least I believe it was the Victorians. Anyway, my dearest love, what would you say?’
‘I would say yes,’ said Scarlett, leaping out of the bed, ‘yes yes yes yes yes. Oh yes.’
‘Right.’
‘But – don’t you think it’s a bit soon? I mean, we haven’t known each other properly for very long, and—’
‘Scarlett,’ said Mark, ‘tell me some of the things you love. Really love.’
‘Oh, now let me see. Well, you.’
‘Apart from me.’
‘OK. Trisos.’
‘Yes. Very good.’
‘Fast cars.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Champagne.’
‘Fine.’
‘Um – eggs with Marmite soldiers dipped in them.’
‘OK. That’ll do. Getting a bit silly. Anyway, how long did it take you to decide you loved them?’
‘No time at all. Instant love at first whatever.’
‘Well, then. And have you changed your mind about any of them?’
‘No.’
‘Then I rest my case. Why should you change your mind about me?’
‘It’s a bit different,’ said Scarlett, laughing.
‘I don’t see why. Love is love. It’s about absolute emotional happiness. Which I believe we have found. Listen,’ said Mark, and his grey eyes were very serious now, moving over her face with great tenderness, ‘you are the heart of my life. I want you to be there always. Please say you will. Dear, dear love, say you will.’
‘Oh, Mark,’ said Scarlett, ‘I do love the way you talk. So much. How could I live without that? Of course I will. Thank you.’
‘And we will be married on Trisos, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘In the autumn after the tourists have gone and before the bad weather arrives.’
‘And after this wretched divorce of my brother’s.’
‘And my mother can write us an epithalamium.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Wait and see.’
It was wonderfully odd to be so very, very happy.
‘Well, my dear, you are going to be very lucky not to lose this case. Very lucky indeed.’
Eliza, close to tears, stared at him: at Sir Tristram Selbourne QC, who she had been introduced to that day at Toby Gilmour’s insistence; everyone had told her how marvellous he was, including her godmother who was clearly impressed – ‘that ghastly old fruit with halitosis? Sheer genius, darling, if anyone can do it he can’ – and she had walked to his chambers with Philip Gordon with hope in her heart.
It was a beautiful day, the sunlight slanting through the trees of New Square, in the heart of Lincoln’s Inn, dancing off the brass door plates, with their lists of august names, Selbourne’s included, people strolling slowly through it, engrossed in conversation, others rushing breathlessly past them, clutching files, and in more than one case, wigs – but only barristers’ wigs, she noticed, none of the long variety belonging to judges, but then they had special lockers at the Law Courts to keep them in, or so Philip Gordon had told her – and God, she thought, looking at him, how absurd he would look in his wig, this odious man, with his red, self-satisfied face, his full, lisping lips, spraying saliva as he spoke – Sir Tristram Selbourne QC.
Toby Gilmour sat in on the interview, a slightly disturbing presence, his face an aloof blank as he looked at his master: how did he work under him, do what he bade him, follow his lead? Was it possible to be a gentle, courteous barrister, she wondered, or was the job description necessarily abrasive and arrogant?
But the hope had left her heart quite swiftly, as he sat talking to them, in a way that was at once patronising and self-satisfied, sitting at his desk in the lovely tall room, with its wooden shutters and stone fireplace and ceiling-high bookcases: a lot of tutting he did, and a lot of head-shaking and sighing as well, pushing pages of notes aside, reaching for books, flicking through pages, underlining passages, before finally sitting back and smiling at her and giving his verdict.
She had managed to stay calm, not to rise to the occasional bait: ‘surely you must have been aware of the dangers of feeding information to the press … odd, to have a child brought to the office at the end of the day … of course you do realise, admitting adultery is all very well, and you don’t seem to have an alternative, but it won’t be considered responsible behaviour, you know …’ and even, unforgivably, ‘that must have been difficult for you, losing your baby.’
Not difficult, she had wanted to scream, but hideous, horrible, unbearable; yet she had managed to remain calm and say yes, it was very sad, very sad indeed.
‘And would you say you became – shall we say – unstable at that point?’
‘No,’ she said, steadily, ‘no, not unstable. Distressed, of course.’
‘Distressed or distraught?’
‘Sir Tristram, I was not distraught. But very, very unhappy. It would have been very odd, I’m sure you would agree, to have been otherwise.’
She heard Gilmour rustling papers at this point and turned to look at him; his brilliant dark eyes were fixed on her, and she thought she could read not exactly admiration in them but at least some slight degree of approval. For the first time, she felt she might grow to like him.
She stood out in the sunshine, when they had said their goodbyes to him and to Selbourne, breathing in the fresh, warm air, looking round the lovely square with its tall houses, all occupied by barristers and solicitors, its central paved garden, its lush trees, and feeling closer to despair than she had been since the whole dreadful business began.