A Poisoned Mind (14 page)

Hal’s round face didn’t suit a frown: it was designed for
jokes or comfortable placidity. He looked as though he wanted to protest but wasn’t sure it was allowed.

‘Robert may have told you I think there’s more to what happened than straightforward bad luck, or—’

‘He did.’

‘But there are no sources of evidence for the existence of any saboteurs like the ones we’d get in a city: no CCTV; no petrol station attendants; no passers-by. The only possibility is a rambler who might have seen something relevant and recorded it on a blog. There may be nothing anywhere, but I’d hate to miss it if there were.’

The unconvincing frown was back and he was fiddling with the pens on his desk.

‘But Miss Maguire—’

‘Trish. Please.’

‘Isn’t it a bit late for this kind of search? I mean the skeleton went in months ago; and we’re halfway through the trial. Don’t you think—?’

Trish reminded herself of the years when she’d had to stand up to the old prejudices of the Bar and prove she was as good as any of her male colleagues. Hal couldn’t have been much more than a toddler then, so it wasn’t his fault. But she needed him to do what she told him.

‘I have to fight the case in the way I see fit,’ she said, adding a smile to soften the impact, ‘and I want to know who was walking around the area before and after the explosion. OK?’

He shoved a hand through his red hair as the blood rushed to his freckly cheeks. ‘I’ll see what I can find, although Robert’s given me rather a lot of work, so—’

Her mobile rang in her pocket. ‘Hang on a minute, Hal.’ She put the phone to her ear and gave her name.

‘Trish? Jeremy Black here.’

‘Just a second, Jeremy.’ She put a hand over the phone, smiled at Hal again and said: ‘Do what you can for me. OK? Great. Thanks.’

Putting the phone back to her ear, she said: ‘Jeremy. I’m here.’

‘Good. I wanted a word with you. Have you a moment now?’

‘Yes. What’s happened?’

‘Nothing in school, but I thought you should know that after you alerted me to the way Darren has been beating Jay, I talked to his social worker, Shelby Deedes.’

‘Yes, I know. George told me.’

‘It might be a good idea for you to meet her, too, so that you can understand what’s going on.’

‘Darren’s physically abusing Jay,’ Trish said. ‘It’s not hard to understand.’

‘There are other views. According to Shelby, Darren is not all bad. In his own overphysical way he’s trying to keep his family together.’

‘He damaged Jay. If the blow had landed an inch or two to one side, he could have cracked his skull. Or ruined the sight in that eye.’

‘Darren’s only seventeen and, in the face of the mother’s alcoholism and erratic behaviour, he is doing his best to care for Jay and their 11-year-old half-sister, Kimberley. He also has to manage the family’s inadequate budget. When he sees Jay ignoring his share of the tasks and playing with the highly desirable, extremely expensive, hi-tech equipment David keeps giving Jay, he is – understandably – enraged.’

Trish didn’t comment. She was trying to think of another way of showing David that generosity could be destructive,
and that giving people things couldn’t make up for the misery of their lives – or act as a kind of defensive earthwork to keep the same misery out of your own.

‘You should know – and find a way to tell David – that Kimberley became involved in a potentially risky situation because Jay was distracted by the Play Station. According to the social worker, if Darren hadn’t happened to see her agree to go off with a stranger to earn ten pounds, we could be looking at a rape or worse.’

I’m certainly not going to tell David that, Trish thought, noticing how formal Jeremy Black was being as he reported the social worker’s threats. Did he dislike the drama, too?

‘I’ll talk to him again,’ she said aloud. ‘Thank you for letting me know. How much further have you and the governors got with my proposal about keeping Jay in the school?’

‘At the moment, we’re rather wishing we had never agreed even to this term’s experiment. Having at last reached you, I must now get on. Please do what you can to stop David exacerbating the situation by handing over more desirable presents.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘What d’you want me to say, Trish?’ David’s voice was hard and his dark eyes looked very cold across the remains of their breakfast. ‘That I promise I won’t give Jay anything else, however much he wants it, or however much I want to show I’m sorry for something I’ve done – like when I hit him and made his mouth bleed? Is that it?’

‘Yes,’ she said, not avoiding his gaze. ‘It sounds stingy, but yes. For the moment that is the message. I hope, when Jay gets more to used to us and school, and manages to sort out the gap between us and his home, it’ll change. D’you see what I mean?’

He nodded, but he didn’t look happy, and his mouth was pinched in disapproval.

‘You’d better go or you’ll be late for work,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask Jay for my i-Pod back if that’ll make you happy. And I
will
lock up; don’t worry.’

How could she not worry?

Ten minutes later, hurrying across the bridge, she knew she was going to be late for her pre-court discussion with Robert, but it had been important to tackle David quickly. Had she been too formal, too infected by Jeremy Black’s
style? She’d wanted to keep the emotional temperature cool, but maybe she’d overdone it.

Too late now, she thought, wishing George hadn’t gone home to Fulham last night. If he’d been at breakfast with them, he could have said something that would have stopped David looking at her like a hostile stranger.

Robert’s expression was just as bad when she walked into her room in chambers and found him waiting there. She had never seen him angrier.

‘What?’ she said, unbuttoning her coat.

‘I have just sent Hal home.’ His voice bit. ‘He was apparently here
all night,
searching for stuff on the Internet for you.’

‘I didn’t ask him to do that,’ Trish said, dumping her case on the floor and pulling off her coat. ‘I just asked him to look up some blogs for me when he had time.’

‘Do I have to remind you that he is
my
pupil, and answerable to me? He claims he protested that doing your research would get in the way of what I’d already asked him to do, but you—’

‘He did.’ Trish arranged her coat on the hanger she kept on the back of the door.

‘But you told him that didn’t matter?’

‘Robert, this is not a good morning to stand on your dignity or beat me up. We’ve got a bare hour before we have to be in court, and there are things I have to do. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you and I’ll make it up to you – and Hal – later.’ Her own anxieties rose up, mixed with her irritation at his lack of cooperation, and boiled over.

‘And next time you’re angry with me for asking your pupil to do something for me,’ she said with a ferocity that made him blink with surprise, ‘you might reflect on the fact
that
you
never bothered to ask Fred Hoffman for the Fortwells’ b & b accounts. I waited so long I had to do it myself in the end. Now I’ve got to work. I’ll tell you when I’m ready to leave for court.’

She sat at her desk without looking at him again. He had a point, but she couldn’t deal with it now. When there was time she’d apologise to Hal. She should have been clearer about how much she’d expected him to do.

‘He insisted on emailing you the results of his search before he left.’ Robert’s voice was laden with all the old dislike. ‘Looking like shit, I may say. Don’t forget to use the product of his exhaustion. To ignore it would be the final insult to us both.’

Trish waited until he had gone before she let herself rub her eyes.

‘All choices have consequences,’ she quoted to herself. Then she flicked on her laptop and summoned up her emails.

Despite the fast broadband connection, Hal’s took a while to download. He must have found something. As soon as she could she opened the email and read the first paragraph.

‘Trish, there’s a fair amount of rambling (in both senses of the word) bloggery devoted to that bit of Northumberland around the time of the explosion. I don’t know whether any of it’s useful. The urls are all listed below and I’ve cut and pasted anything that seemed remotely relevant. Including maps of the area. Hal.’

With a whole series of highly detailed maps, no wonder the thing had taken so long to come through. There wasn’t time to read all the text now, so she merely pulled out the list of all the known members of FADE and searched Hal’s
documents for each one. None appeared. She filed the huge document and set about preparing herself for the day’s proceedings.

 

‘I can’t go home, Dave.’ Jay’s voice wasn’t usually anxious like this. ‘Please let me come with you. I gotta work and if I go back Darren’ll lay into me again. Please.’

‘We’re not allowed,’ David said, trying to remember how Trish had said to him at breakfast that he wasn’t responsible for Jay, however much he liked him and wanted to make his life better. ‘My sister’s in court and George has to work.’

Jay turned away. Then he looked over his shoulder. His face was sulky but his eyes were all scrunched up. David knew that meant he was thinking the whole world was against him again.

‘Look,’ David said, aware of the danger. ‘Wait. I’ll phone George and see if—’

‘It’s fine,’ Jay said, sounding almost like Trish at her crossest.

‘No, it isn’t,’ David said, using one of George’s simplest but most effective answers when she was in a bad mood and trying to pretend she wasn’t. ‘Wait there. I’ll phone.’

George’s number was programmed into his phone, so it only took a minute to get through. David explained.

‘I can’t come back to the flat,’ George said, sounding harassed but OK. ‘I’ve got a client meeting. But you could bring Jay here and do your prep in one of the small meeting rooms. Hang on a sec and I’ll check there’s one free.’

David sent a hopeful look in Jay’s direction and held up crossed fingers like in the old Lottery advertisements.

‘David? All’s well. There’ll be a room free for you. I’ll
probably be with the client when you get here, so just tell Charlie, the receptionist, who you are and she’ll show you the way.’

‘Thanks.’ David knew he didn’t have to say any more. George would see what he meant.

‘And don’t forget you’re in someone else’s office, will you? No racket or larking about. d’you want me to have a word with Jay myself?’

‘Yes, please.’ David handed the phone over to Jay and watched his face. It tightened up, but then he smiled and said:

‘I can see you wanting to trash your brother’s whole room when he pissed you off, but I can’t see you doing it.’ He laughed. ‘Nah. I knew you wouldn’t of. All right. I’ll pretend I’m you then. Yeah. Right. Great. Cheers, mate.’

He gave the phone back to David.

‘George?’

‘That’s all settled, David. Jay and I have a deal. I’ll come and get you both, probably about half past six, and we’ll go and eat. But if the client takes longer I’ll be late. Bye now.’

‘How far is it?’ Jay said as David stowed the phone in the inner pocket of his blazer, tucking it down as carefully as George did with his wallet.

‘Shouldn’t take us more than fifteen minutes if we get going.’

‘OK. So, what’s your sister done?’

‘What d’you mean, Jay?’

‘You said she’s in court. What’s she done?’

David laughed, relief tickling him all over in the best kind of way. ‘Nothing. She’s a barrister. Didn’t you know?’

Jay shook his head. ‘If I’d known, Id’ve—’

‘What?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ A lorry crashed past them, throwing up fans of dirty spray from its enormous wheels. Jay moved sideways to get out of the muck, pushing David into a shop window. Luckily the glass didn’t break.

‘I had a brief once,’ Jay said, ‘but he wasn’t like Trish. If I get nicked again, I’ll have her. She’ll see me right.’

David thought about telling him the difference between civil and criminal law, but couldn’t think of a way of doing it that wouldn’t sound superior, so he didn’t, just led the way up New Bridge Street, into Fleet Street, up Chancery Lane, and so to George’s offices.

It felt weird being shown into the meeting room, all pale grey and empty-looking, instead of into George’s own office, which had some of his own stuff in it and was much more like a real person’s room.

There was a water cooler in the corner here, and Jay dumped his bag on the grey table straight off and went to get himself a drink. David watched, worrying about what he might do with the water, and if he’d let the paper cup overflow. But he didn’t. He just filled it and drank, then chucked the cup in the bin.

‘D’you want some?’

‘No. I’ll only need to take a piss.’ David unzipped his rucksack to get out his homework, hoping this would be one day when Jay wasn’t too edgy to settle.

Jay roamed around the room, pulling all the knobs like a baby. Some of the cupboards opened, but there wasn’t anything interesting in any of them, luckily. The blinds opened and shut on a kind of electrical system, but he only activated it five or six times. Then he grabbed his bag and undid it and pulled out his own books.

David didn’t dare breathe too deep in case it set Jay off,
but he bent his head and tried to forget he wasn’t alone. Trish had told him more than once that if you concentrated hard enough you could make even Piccadilly Circus feel like an empty room. Maybe he’d learn how one day.

Jay turned a page and picked up his pen. Then he started to write – and on the proper paper, not in the textbook or on the pale-grey tabletop.

‘You’re not responsible for Jay,’ David said in his head, imitating Trish’s voice as well as he could. If he said it often enough, it might come true.

But today was all right. Quite soon he let himself believe Jay really was working so he could start on his own essay.

 

The judge listened to Trish’s witness with his usual courtesy, but she knew he was anxious to adjourn for the day. They were already half an hour later than usual, but Angie Fortwell had been dangerously vigorous with her cross-examination of the vet who had been testifying to John’s forgetfulness and ever-increasing refusal to be on time for any appointment. Trish had had to do a certain amount of damage limitation.

She asked her last question of the livestock transporter, who had also found John impossible to deal with in the last months of his life, got a satisfactory answer, nodded to the judge and told her witness he could step down.

When the judge rose everyone stood in the approved fashion, even Greg, who occasionally flexed his radical muscles by refusing to conform. Which was odd, Trish thought, given how bossy he was whenever Angie got anything wrong.

‘Well done, Trish,’ Robert said quietly. ‘That could have damaged us, but you pulled back beautifully.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, trying to hide her surprise. Was this genuine, or had Antony been giving him some lessons in silk-management over the phone? ‘How’s Hal?’

‘Recovering,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Did his research produce anything?’

‘Not yet.’ She was reluctant to say more here. ‘I’ll show you what I’m after when we get back to chambers. If you deal with the trolley, I’ll take those extra files.’

‘Sure you can manage?’

She pulled two heavy box files under one arm, tucked her wig on top of them, and led the way out through the familiar small crowd of FADE supporters, while Angie and Greg were still tidying their papers. By now Trish recognised most of the faces, but this time there was a man who was completely strange to her, sitting a little apart from the rest.

He was about her height and had a sharply defined face with high cheekbones and deep eye sockets. If it hadn’t been for his beautiful mouth, he would have looked forbidding. As it was, his expression was pretty severe. He must have felt her staring at him because he met her gaze with a challenge in his eyes. She smiled faintly and turned aside to speak to Robert.

Once they were back in the echoing halls, she asked him if he knew who the young man was.

‘Not a clue. Are you off on another frolic like the Ben Givens one? That didn’t get us very far.’

‘Not this time.’ She smiled to dispel the implied criticism. ‘I was just curious. He was different from the usual bunch of FADE members, though there was something about his face I thought was familiar. I can’t pin it down.’

 

 

Angie was looking at her son for the first time in eight years, while words tumbled through her mind: dangerous, unsayable, scarily needy words. Her head felt hollow, echoing, and her hands were shaking. She prayed for self-control.

‘I had to come,’ he said, and he didn’t let his eyes drop. She wished eyes really were windows on to the mind – or the soul or whatever it was – then she’d have known what he was thinking. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Yes.’ She turned to Greg, introduced the two of them, then said: ‘Adam and I need some time. I’ll come back to the flat later.’

He put a heavy hand on her shoulder. ‘Fine, Ange. Take as long as you need. We’ll see you for supper. And if Adam wants to come and eat with us, too, there’ll be plenty.’

‘Thank you,’ he said with some coldness, perhaps interpreting his mother’s unspoken feelings, ‘but I’d like to take her out myself this evening.’

Greg hesitated, met Adam’s eyes, and then nodded, as though he was giving permission.

‘Whatever Ange wants. I’ll take the files back and see you when I see you. Don’t be too late: you need to mug up all the stuff Maguire’s going to do to you tomorrow.’

Angie said nothing. When Greg had loped off, only dropping three bits of paper, which he then scooped up and crammed into his distended pockets, Adam looked at her again.

‘Ange? When did you start calling yourself that?’

‘I don’t. It’s Greg’s speciality.’

‘I see,’ said Adam, sounding censorious. ‘Like the way he orders you about. Don’t you mind?’