Unforgotten

UNFORGOTTEN

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Homeland

Crime

Deceit

Betrayal

A Dark Devotion

Keep Me Close

A Death Divided

Thrillers

Night Sky

Red Crystal

Wolf Winter

Requiem

Non-fiction

Come Hell or High Water

Come Wind or Weather

The Commanding Sea

CLARE

FRANCIS

UNFORGOTTEN

MACMILLAN

for O. H.

Hugh Gwynne arrived at the Royal Courts of Justice soon after nine thirty and made a quick inspection of the noticeboard and the location of Court 12 before stationing himself to one side of the Great Hall to wait for the rest of the team. The hall was more church than law, a vast Gothic cathedral of soaring arches and high stained-glass windows, designed to overawe. As clumps of people formed and dissolved, he shifted a little to maintain a clear view of the entrance, where a stream of barristers, solicitors and officials hurried in only to bunch impatiently at the security check. There was still plenty of time, but that didn’t prevent him from feeling a nudge of anxiety in case one of the team should get held up, a tension heightened by the rarity of his trips to London and the unfamiliar surroundings of the Royal Courts. There had already been a scare late on Saturday evening when it looked as if their key witness Dr Ainsley might be delayed by a snowstorm in Chicago. Then Hugh’s client Tom Deacon had called last night to insist on a case conference before court resumed, on a subject he refused to reveal in advance. The conference was meant to happen at ten, the hearing to resume at ten thirty, so when no one had appeared by five to ten Hugh allowed himself a more serious twinge of concern. Where had they all got to?

A minute later Hugh spotted Desmond Riley’s round figure approaching at a leisurely pace, his gown draped over one arm, his briefcase swinging lazily at his side, and, close behind, Sanjay, dragging a wheeled case, his free arm full of documents. Leading and junior counsel, and no mistaking which was which.

‘Oh, hello, Hugh,’ said Desmond with a show of mild surprise, as if they’d bumped into each other by chance. ‘Well, here we are again.’ His tone, like his walk, was deliberately casual, almost off-hand, an affectation which Hugh had found disconcerting in the early days of the hearing, until he realised it was less a vanity than a disguise for the anticipation Desmond felt at the prospect of a stimulating day in court.

Sanjay smiled. ‘Hi, Hugh.’

Hugh was on the point of asking after the latest addition to Sanjay’s family, which had been imminent when they’d last met, when Desmond came in with: ‘All set?’

Hugh said, ‘We’re just waiting for Tom.’

‘Ah.’ Desmond’s face took on a distracted expression, as if clients, essential though they were, could be something of an unwelcome complication.

Hugh said, ‘I’m sure he won’t be long.’

Desmond made a show of looking at his watch. ‘But do we really need a confab now? Can’t it wait till lunchtime?’

‘He was anxious to go through a few points.’

‘Points?’ Desmond echoed dubiously.

‘I think he’s been going over some of the witness statements.’

‘Ahh.’ Desmond managed to instil the sound with a breadth of meaning. ‘He gave no indication of what these points might be?’

‘No.’

There was a pause while they pondered the intricacies of dealing with Tom Deacon. For Hugh, who could never think of his client without a stab of sympathy intensified by a reflexive guilt at his own good fortune, Tom’s wilder ideas and strange inconsequential obsessions demanded respect and attention, if, ultimately, firmness. The fact that Tom no longer trusted Hugh with his ideas, stubbornly guarding them for Desmond’s scrutiny, was just another manifestation of the man’s psychological injury, which was, after all, why they were here in the first place.

‘It’s nothing
urgent
though?’ Desmond asked hopefully. ‘Nothing that concerns this morning’s business?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘Nothing in the way of new instructions as such?’ Desmond persevered.

‘Not that I’m aware of, no.’

Desmond glanced towards the doors, as if to emphasise Tom’s non-appearance.

‘He must have got held up,’ Hugh said lamely.

‘In that case, I think we’ll go on ahead,’ Desmond declared with a brisk smile. ‘Perhaps when Tom arrives . . .’ He passed this thought to Hugh with a lift of his eyebrows.

‘I’ll bring him straight up.’

‘And if there’s no time for the confab we’ll hold it over till lunchtime, shall we?’ Abandoning any last pretence of languor, Desmond moved rapidly away.

As Sanjay started to follow, Hugh asked quickly, ‘Boy or girl?’

Sanjay gave a happy grin. ‘Boy.’

‘Wonderful news. Congratulations.’

Sanjay tilted his head in thanks and hurried off, only to turn back with an air of having forgotten his manners. ‘And your son – did he get that university place?’

As with so many matters concerning Charlie there was no simple answer to this, and after a moment’s hesitation Hugh called, ‘Near enough anyway,’ adding a baffled shrug, which Sanjay took as a show of fatherly modesty, but which caused Hugh a darting sense of disloyalty, as though he had damned Charlie’s achievement with faint praise.

Finally, Hugh’s trainee Isabel Mazzara came into sight with Derek, the firm’s outdoor clerk, wheeling a porter’s trolley of boxed documents.

‘The traffic,’ Isabel breathed, with residual anxiety. ‘I knew London was bad, but . . .’

‘Lots of time,’ Hugh assured her.

‘What’s the news on—’ Isabel broke off with a deep
spluttering cough. ‘Sorry.’ She scrabbled for a tissue and blew her nose. ‘Thought I’d shaken this off . . .’

Isabel was a health and yoga devotee, who in her eighteen months at Dimmock Marsh had tried with gentle fervour to encourage Hugh into healthier lunching habits. Seeing her watery eyes and reddened nostrils, Hugh offered a sympathetic wince. ‘Bad luck.’

Her naturally grave face, accentuated by a wide, slightly startled gaze, creased into an expression of concern. ‘Just hope I don’t give it to everyone else.’ She snuffled into her handkerchief again. ‘Did Ainsley’s flight get in all right?’

‘Yesterday morning. He said he’d be here by ten fifteen.’

He could see Isabel mentally assembling the documents that would need to be on hand for Ainsley’s evidence. When she had ticked everything off to her satisfaction, her expression, always a mirror to her thoughts, registered the fact with a small gleam of relief. ‘And Hugh – what do you want me to do once I’ve got things set up? Do you want me to come back and wait for Tom?’

‘No.’ It was unthinkable that anyone else should wait for Tom. ‘No. If you’d just keep an eye out for Dr Ainsley. In case I miss him in the crowd.’

Needing no encouragement to get up to the courtroom and work out how best to arrange the documents, Isabel picked up her briefcase, only to set it down again and root hastily through her handbag.

Derek took a step forward. ‘How are you, Mr Gwynne?’

‘All right, thanks, Derek.’

‘Mrs Gwynne keeping well?’

‘She is indeed.’

‘Still working for the Citizens Advice?’

‘Yes. Keeps her pretty busy.’

‘And the rest of the family?’

‘Thriving.’

Having a good idea of what was coming next, rather hoping
to avoid it, Hugh made a point of looking away towards the entrance. But Derek had served thirty years in the Bristol police before coming to work for Dimmock Marsh and took a fussy proprietorial interest in events that impinged on his former territory.

‘No further news?’ he asked in a confidential murmur.

‘Sorry?’

‘From the local force?’

‘It was only a broken window, Derek.’

‘And fifty pounds in cash,’ Derek corrected him, in the manner of someone who likes to get the facts rights. ‘And some jewellery.’

‘It was costume jewellery, worth very little.’

‘You haven’t found other items missing subsequently?’

They’d had this conversation several times in the last two weeks, but going over old ground had never been a problem for Derek.

‘Nothing, no.’

Departing from his usual script, Derek declared, ‘Likely an addict then. They’re the ones that go for the cash.’

Hugh cast him a sharp look, wondering if he knew about Charlie’s problem but was too polite to mention it.

But Derek’s bland transparent face was void of pretence as he said, ‘Likely as not someone known to the local lads if they’d bothered to take prints.’

‘They issued me with an incident number, Derek. That’s all you can expect nowadays.’

Derek’s doleful expression suggested that things had gone steeply downhill since his time on the force. ‘Well, if there’s anything I can do, Mr Gwynne, you know where to find me.’

‘Thanks, Derek.’

With a small exclamation, Isabel finally extracted a small packet from her handbag. ‘Here, Hugh, take one of these every two hours. They’re the best thing for warding off colds. They’ve got vitamin C and zinc and—’

‘No, you keep them, Isabel.’

‘But I can get some more at lunchtime.’ Conscientious to a fault, she would go without eating to scour the neighbourhood.