A Poisoned Mind (26 page)

‘No,’ George said. ‘They went off to the flicks to see the six o’clock showing of the old Laurence Olivier
Henry V
. It seemed a surprisingly tame and educational choice.’

Shelby flinched visibly.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ Trish asked too aggressively. She moderated her voice. ‘It’s one of their set books.’

‘Nothing’s wrong, if that’s what they
are
watching,’ Shelby said. ‘But the local cinema’s also showing a 1980s arthouse horror film called
Near Dark
. Are you sure they’re not going for that?’

‘Does it really matter? They’re fourteen,’ Trish said. ‘There can’t be many films worse than their beastly computer games.’

‘Jay is very susceptible at the moment,’ Shelby said, pursing her lips with a particularly prissy air. ‘Horror or violence on the big screen should definitely be avoided.’

‘I think it will be,’ George said comfortably before Trish could make a remark about Shelby’s refusal to take Darren’s actual violence half as seriously as this. ‘David swore they’d see
Henry V
, and he’s like his sister. They always keep their promises.’

Trish blew him a kiss.

‘Anyway, moving on,’ he said, acknowledging her gesture with a secret smile, ‘Shelby just missed them, so I thought we’d have tea to make up for her wasted journey. Jay hadn’t told me he’d arranged to meet her here or I’d never have let them go to the cinema at all.’

‘I can imagine. How irritating for you, Shelby,’ Trish said, trying to feel friendly. ‘But good in one way because I wanted to run something by you.’

‘Oh yes?’ She sounded not just doubtful but actively hostile.

Trish bit her tongue to keep her own dislike in check. Then she smiled.

‘Jeremy Black may have told you that I’ve volunteered to pay half of Jay’s fees at Blackfriars, but I’ve been wondering since whether it might be better to find a boarding school for him. It would be a lot more expensive, of course, but it could be worth it to get Jay away from Darren for three-quarters of the year.’

And it wouldn’t be half as difficult as having him living here, she added to herself, then went on aloud: ‘What do you think, Shelby?’

‘Sounds ideal to me,’ George said with even more warmth. ‘Just what Jay needs. I’ll happily chip in the extra.’

Shelby wrinkled up her nose as though trying to get rid of a pungent stink.

‘Not a good idea,’ she said.

Trish was about to protest when George extracted himself from the depths of the sofa.

‘Tea, Trish?’ His warning voice told her he thought she was about to be unhelpfully provocative.

‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling up at him and trying to show she knew they needed to keep Shelby reasonably sweet for Jay’s sake. ‘That’d be great.’

She and Shelby watched George’s backview as he disappeared into the kitchen.

‘Boarding school would be divisive, Trish,’ Shelby said, recrossing her short legs so that her right foot stuck out. She
was wearing diamond-patterned tights, which made her legs look even fatter. ‘I mean, why should Jay have so much, when the other two will never get a chance like that?’

‘Isn’t it better that one is saved than none at all?’

‘Not at the cost of the others.’ Shelby paused, uncrossed her legs, then offered a small placatory smile. ‘You see, there’s hope for the family now they’ve got the man who attacked Rosie.’

‘Have they? I hadn’t heard. Thank God for that. Who is he?’

‘A rough sleeper, who seems to have passed Rosie, seen her cans of White Star and tried to get them off her. Rosie fought back, which is why the beating was so bad.’

‘So, once more Jay was innocent when half the world was sure he was guilty.’ Trish looked at the other woman, hoping to see some signs of shame on her very pink face. There weren’t any. ‘He
is
worth helping, you know.’

‘Rosie’ll be dried out by the time she’s released from hospital,’ Shelby went on, as though she hadn’t heard Trish’s comments or didn’t think them worth discussion. ‘We’re arranging some family therapy so she can learn to interact safely with her kids when she gets home. If Jay’s taken away now and given all these extra advantages, the whole dynamic will be changed, and that could screw everything up for the other three.’

Trish wanted to push it, but George came back with her tea before she’d thought of a safe form of words.

‘You must be so busy, Shelby,’ he said, handing the mug to Trish. ‘We shouldn’t keep you. I’ll ask Jay to give you a ring as soon as the boys get back.’

‘Thanks, George. I’d appreciate it.’ She picked up a sacklike bag and stuffed a notebook into it. ‘Goodbye.’

‘I’ll see to your car. Back in a moment, Trish.’

She hoped he’d take the opportunity to dent some of Shelby’s prejudices against Jay. When he came back he was looking preoccupied. Trish sipped some tea while he flumped down beside her on the sofa.

‘She’s not such a bad woman,’ he said. ‘Although she was expecting to see Jay, she actually came to tell me I’ve been officially cleared. Which was good of her. She didn’t have to do it.’

‘Cleared? What on earth d’you mean? Cleared of what?’ George kissed her. ‘You’d forgotten, too, hadn’t you? Apparently Darren didn’t stop at telling Jay I was a paedophile; he told Shelby too.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Surely she didn’t take it seriously.’

‘She had to look into it. Come on, Trish, with all your experience in the family courts, you know what’s done to children. Any allegation like this has to be investigated.’

He was right. But it was different when it affected your own family.

‘You haven’t actually been interviewed by the police, have you?’ she said, appalled at the idea that she might not have noticed something so important going on in front of her.

‘Nope. Shelby’s too experienced to take anything Darren says at face value. When she asked for evidence, Darren talked about the trainers and the iPod and the Play Station – about which, of course, she already knew. So she was more or less sure there was nothing in it, but just to be safe she had Jay physically examined by a doctor.’

‘Poor boy,’ Trish said. That kind of physical examination could seem like an outrageous intrusion to anyone; to a damaged adolescent like Jay it might be unbearable. ‘As though he hasn’t had enough to put up with!’

‘Precisely. But there’s nothing we can do about it now. So, what would you like for supper? Shall I do the lamb? There’s time to roast it before the boys get back.’

‘Why not? Who’s that now?’ Trish said, as the iron staircase clanged outside her front door. A key crunching in the lock told them both. Trish snatched a look at her watch: it was far too early for the film to have finished.

David skidded in and came to an abrupt stop as he saw both of them staring at him.

‘What?’ he said with an aggression that was new.

‘What’s happened?’ Trish said, still wanting to protect Jay, still trying not to blame him for the way David was changing.

He shrugged and turned away, dragging off his jacket.

‘David!’ George said in a voice that made Trish flinch.

‘Something’s happened,’ she said, much more gently. ‘Can’t you tell me what it is?’

David stood where he was, shaking his head. His chin jutted as it had when he was much younger and she’d tried to make him do something he hated, like handing over his favourite clothes for cleaning or washing his hair.

‘Is it Jay?’ Trish said. David didn’t move, so she said: ‘Where is he?’

‘At the cinema.’

‘What did he do?’

He turned his head a little towards her and looked out from under his fringe.

‘Why d’you think he did anything?’

‘Because you look so worried. Did you fight? Did he—?’

‘He had a cigarette lighter,’ David said, looking at the floor and picking his nose. Now was not the time to tell him to use a handkerchief.

Trish thought of all the arson cases in which appalling damage had been done by boys of Jay’s age. Was this a reaction to whatever Shelby’s doctor had said or done to him?

‘He was trying to set fire to the seats in front,’ David went on, ‘but they wouldn’t light.’

‘No,’ George said in a reassuring voice, obviously trying to cool the emotional temperature. He smiled at both of them. ‘Too much fireproofing, I imagine.’

David’s pale skin was flushing. In spite of the colour, he looked more like his usual cooperative self. ‘That’s what I said too, so it’s my fault.’

‘What is?’ Trish asked, feeling as though they were all standing on the very edge of a cliff. ‘What happened when they wouldn’t light, David?’

‘I tried to concentrate on the film, so I didn’t see what Jay was doing. Not really. But he took off his socks and filled them with bits of paper torn out of the books in his schoolbag, then he draped them over the seat in front and flicked the lighter on again. I was still there when the first bits of paper started to crackle and smell. The flames were getting bigger when I left.’

‘Did you tell someone?’ George was keeping his voice impressively calm.

Trish searched David’s face and clothes for burn marks. There were none. Would Jay have been so lucky?

David nodded. George and Trish both breathed again.

‘I said if he didn’t stop I would. And he didn’t stop. So I told the person in the ticket booth, who was the only one I could find. Then I came back here. I didn’t want to get him in trouble, but …’ His voice faded and he had another go at excavating his nose.

‘You were quite right.’ Trish remembered a fire at a private cinema in north London some years ago. A lot of people had died.

‘Try not to worry too much,’ she said. ‘Jay was probably only testing you, trying to find out how far—’

‘Why do you always have to talk about everything?’ he shouted. ‘It’s fucking boring!’

He stormed off to his room and slammed the door behind him.

‘
Shit
!’ Trish said. She looked up at George. ‘I should have handled that better.’

‘Yes,’ he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. ‘Although you were right. Maybe not lamb tonight. I don’t suppose we’ll be seeing Jay and you won’t want a great huge lot of meat after that. I’ll go and turn off the oven, then I’ll phone the cinema and find out what’s happening.’

Angie spent Saturday morning cleaning. The more she did, the more she understood how tired Polly had become, and how poor her eyesight must be. At first sight nothing in the house had looked too bad, but with every wipe of wet cloth or duster, more dirt had been revealed. Each time Angie moved a piece of furniture she saw curls of dust floating above years’ worth of grime and dead insects. There were hard black mouse turds too. But no sign of rats, which was something on an isolated farm.

When Polly came in for lunch, ahead of Bill, she was limping and one hand was clamped to the small of her back. Angie, who had her own aches, could see how much Polly hurt from the careful way she was breathing. But when she caught sight of the table, already laid, with cold mutton and hot vegetables, as well as a newly defrosted loaf and a hunk of cheese, she smiled.

‘What luxury! Thank you, Angie. Bill will be here in a moment.’

‘You look all in.’ Angie pulled out a chair for her. ‘Sit. D’you want some tea? Or just water?’

‘Tea would be great. But why haven’t you laid a place for yourself? You’re not going to pretend to be a servant, are
you?’ Polly rubbed her eyes, then put back her glasses, blinking. ‘That would be silly.’

‘I thought, if it was all right with you, I might make a sandwich and go over to Low Topps. I need to see—’

‘How the caretaker shepherd’s been managing? Of course you do. d’you want to take the Land Rover? I don’t think Bill will need it today, but we’d better check first.’

Angie looked away. ‘I thought I might walk actually.’ She waited for Polly’s protest about the unnecessary time it would take and the amount of work that still needed doing in the house.

When she didn’t speak, Angie had to face her again. What she saw in Polly’s expression almost made her gasp: all the compassion there’d been in Trish Maguire’s before she turned into a vengeful harpy.

‘In Adam’s footsteps?’ Polly said. ‘It won’t help, you know, pet.’

Angie grabbed hold of the chair in front of her. She felt as though the floor was unsafe. How much did Polly suspect? Adam had been staying here only days before the explosion that killed his father. It wouldn’t take a genius to make the connection. Or did she actually know something?

Had Adam confessed and sworn her to secrecy about this, too, perhaps making her believe all he’d wanted was to blow up the tanks and that killing his father had been a terrible accident? Polly had never been one to talk if talk wasn’t necessary. She could well have decided that reporting Adam to the police wouldn’t bring John back to life and would double Angie’s grief.

Was this why Polly was looking at her with so much pity?

‘They’re unknowable, our children,’ she said now with a gentleness that made Angie’s eyes water. ‘They think we
need protecting from knowledge that wouldn’t hurt a fly; and yet they can do and say things so cruel it feels as if they’ve ripped the skin from our backs. By all means walk to Low Topps, pet, but don’t expect it to help you see into Adam’s mind. It won’t.’

Angie only nodded. She couldn’t say anything. Polly nodded as though she had.

‘If you’re too tired to walk back, phone me. One of us will come and pick you up in the Land Rover.’

‘Thank you. You’re—’ Hearing Bill’s footsteps, Angie left the kitchen by the internal door to avoid any more explanations. Only when the sound of his chair legs scraping along the stone floor told her he was safely at the table did she get her boots and set off.

It was the perfect day for a walk: bright and cold. With her hands in the softly lined pockets of her old Barbour and a scarf around her neck, just covering her mouth, she strode out. Some of the aches eased at once. Using muscles for walking was quite different from stretching and compressing them as you scrubbed and swept. Low Topps was six miles away; it shouldn’t take too long. And walking might help clear her mind of some unbearable thoughts.

 

Two and a half hours later, she stood on the last hill above her farm. The retired shepherd she was paying to keep an eye on the animals had obviously done as he’d promised. They were dotted about the fields, as they’d always been, peacefully eating. They were no more now than grass-cutting machines and living subjects of experiments in the adverse effects of benzene-poisoning, but they had to be kept from straying and mixing with other flocks; flocks that had yet to be contaminated.

The little lough looked perfect inside the ugly five-foot chain-link fence the health-and-safety people had erected. There was hardly any wind today, so the surface of the water was like polished silver again in the middle of the soft green land. But the fish had died and so had some of the wild duck. No animal could drink from it without risk.

Off to the right was the jagged wreck of the tanks, surrounded by the dead cypress trees, the broken concrete walls, and the blackened earth all around. Angie thought the whole site looked like a broken tooth in a rotting gum. Orange, diamond-shaped HazChem signs were posted along the temporary fences here too.

Had Adam stood like this, when everything was still clean and alive, to hatch his plan? Or was the story Polly had offered actually true: had he come to make peace and failed to find enough courage?

Maguire and her witnesses had been so convincing in the evidence they’d given that Angie now knew all this devastation had to have been caused by a blockage in the breathing vent of one of the tanks. But she still clung to the hope that it could have been an accident, that something might have been blown into the vent by a freak wind.

She sank down until she was squatting, all her body weight resting on her calves and heels.

The trouble was she couldn’t remember any freak winds around that time. And she still found it hard to believe that John could have ignored a visible blockage for seventy-two hours. The only explanation for his leaving something in the vent would be if it had been stuffed so far inside he couldn’t actually see it. And the only way that could have happened was by human agency.

You could walk down from here to the tanks in a straight line and never be seen from the house. If John had been checking the tank enclosure when saboteurs approached, he would have seen them. But if he’d had been at his normal job, his real job of sheep-farming, the intruders could have spent hours uninterrupted while they fiddled about with the tanks.

Of course, whoever they were, they would have had to break into the locked enclosure. Or maybe climb the concrete walls.

Angie tried to forget that Adam had always been an agile tree climber. When she couldn’t, she told herself the smooth concrete walls of the enclosure would have presented real problems to anyone without a ladder.

So maybe he’d brought bolt cutters with him, or a crowbar and smashed his way in.

Had it been a broken padlock and swinging gate that had attracted John’s attention in the end, so that he’d gone to investigate just at the moment when the overheated charcoal burst into flame and triggered the explosion? Or had he felt the heat from outside the enclosure and rushed to find out what was wrong?

No one would ever know because the fire had destroyed the gate.

Angie wasn’t crying now. Sympathy from a woman like Polly might make her do that. This kind of horror was far too much for tears.

Her heart jolted – once, twice – as though offering her the chance to stop it completely.

 

Trish and George cooked the lamb on Sunday, after a tense twenty-four hours she never wanted to repeat.

When George phoned the cinema manager on Friday to find out what had happened with Jay, the man was furious. His staff had found no evidence of any fire-raising, or any sign of a 14-year-old boy on his own in either of the two sections of the cinema. He told George to warn his ‘son’ that if he ever played a trick like that again the police would be called and he would be barred from the place.

None of them slept well. On Saturday Trish sent the others off for their usual training hour in the swimming pool and later felt passionately grateful for David’s interest in chess and Scrabble, and for George’s tolerance of both. They played one or other game for most of the day. There was no sign of Jay, no phone call and no response to any of David’s texts. At eight on Sunday morning David bounced into her room to ask if his old friend Sam could come for a traditional Sunday lunch and life began again.

George was carving the roast lamb now. As Trish spooned redcurrant jelly on to her plate, she watched David shedding all the emotional armour he’d had to acquire for dealing with Jay. At one moment she thought: yes,
you’re
the boy I knew before this term started; I’ve missed you.

After lunch, she waved the two boys off on some private expedition of their own, without the slightest anxiety about what they might do. She and George cleared up together, neither talking much. It was as though there were too many things to say and too little action they could take until they knew more about what had happened to Jay. Trish had phoned Shelby to warn her about the cinema episode, but she’d had to leave a message and there’d been no return call yet.

‘Has it crossed your mind, Trish,’ George said as he scoured the last crusty lumps from the roasting tin, ‘that
David might have invented the fire-raising as an excuse for dumping Jay?’

‘No.’ She reached for a cloth to wipe the worktop.

‘He’s been getting more and more difficult, and it wouldn’t be surprising if David—’

‘But this isn’t his style, George. He’s never lied about anything except being “fine” when he obviously isn’t.’ Trish put down the cloth and stood with her back against the worktop.

George swilled detergent foam off the roasting tin and leaned over to kiss her cheek.

‘Don’t look so worried,’ he said. ‘One way or another we’ll get it sorted.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

‘So why don’t we allow ourselves to revel in having the flat to ourselves for once?’ He balanced the roasting tin on the rack and dried his hands.

She felt the tension in her face crack, letting all the muscles soften. ‘Good idea.’

‘Are you working this afternoon, or do you feel like a—’ He broke off, to push a few stray strands of her hair off her face. ‘A healthful snooze?’

She kissed him, glad of the opportunity to bury her fears. ‘A healthful snooze sounds wonderful.’

He put an arm around her waist and swung her out of the kitchen. They climbed the spiral staircase to her bedroom, dredging up silly jokes and catch phrases from their earliest days together and trying to forget all their responsibilities until the light went and David came home. They managed well enough, but Trish couldn’t quite stop listening for the knock on the door that would signal Jay’s return to their lives.

 

 

She phoned Carl Bianchini again as soon as she reached chambers on Monday morning to tell him she’d met Maryan Fleming and wanted to know whether he’d been on any of the corporate-bonding sessions at the climbing school when he worked with GlobWasMan.

‘My other phone’s ringing,’ he said. ‘I have to go.’

She waited, while ideas trickled through her mind like sand in an hourglass. To her surprise he hadn’t cut the connection. She could hear the traffic beyond the trees on the Embankment and Steve’s voice as he ranted at someone at the far end of the corridor. On the open phone line, she heard only soft breathing, until at last it was overtaken by a question.

‘Have you really got a troubled teenage protégé called Jay Smith?’

‘Absolutely,’ she said, encouraged. The harshness, the long silence and now this suspicious question told her he had some secrets. But if he didn’t want to hand them over, why was he hanging on? Could he possibly be afraid of eavesdroppers?

‘And there’s lots more I want to ask you about him,’ she added quickly. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be doing it on the phone. Would you prefer it if we met somewhere face to face again?’

Another long pause.

‘That might be a good idea,’ he said at last. ‘But I’m not sure … Yes, I know: I have to be near Trafalgar Square this afternoon. I could meet you by Landseer’s lions at one-thirty.’

Bizarre, she thought, but why not?

‘I’ll be there.’ She clicked off the phone as Steve put his head round her door to tell her the new brief would be in
her pigeonhole within the week and that Sarah Fortescue had phoned him to open negotiations for a very large banking case. Trish leaned back in her chair, stretching all her limbs in relief.

 

Three hours later, she left chambers to walk up to the Strand and on to Trafalgar Square, enjoying the crispness of the air on her cheeks as much as the sunlight dancing over the pinnacles of the buildings and the shiny bodywork of the expensive cars.

There was no sign of Carl Bianchini anywhere near Landseer’s lions, so she sat on the white stone parapet of one of the fountains, closed her eyes and tipped up her face to the sun. There was still some warmth in it. She felt as though her skin was becoming more elastic under its care and her mind let go of all kinds of minor stresses.

As she allowed herself to relax, a mental guard she’d raised began to drop too. The sensation of comfort dribbled away.

For the first time she thought of the link between children like Jay – clever, worthwhile but unhappy, frustrated and therefore explosively dangerous children – and the kind of toxic waste stored by companies like CWWM and GlobWasMan. Twenty-first-century society created both in frightening quantities and there weren’t nearly enough facilities to keep them safe.

She closed her eyes again, groping for her old defences and for the few blissful moments of relaxation she’d felt under the sun’s warmth.

‘Trish? Anyone in there? Trish.’ The familiar quiet voice made her open her eyes again, but all she could see was a dark figure against a dazzle of light.