A Poisoned Mind (3 page)

Trish’s sleep had been disturbed by menacing dreams and restless legs and once or twice by George’s snoring. But it was the ringing phone that woke her properly just before eight on Saturday morning.

As she reached for the receiver, she looked in the opposite direction to see George still asleep with his mouth open

‘Hello?’ she said quietly, cupping her hand around the receiver to keep the sound from waking him.

‘Trish! You don’t sound very alert this morning.’

‘Antony?’ Her dreams had all been of his funeral or wheelchairs and day-long operations. To hear his voice, even slurred like this, made her shiver. Odd that relief could make you feel so wobbly.
‘Antony!
Fantastic to hear you. Listen, hang on while I go downstairs to the other phone.’

She replaced the receiver as quietly as possible and slid out from under the duvet. Her dressing gown was in the wash, so she pattered downstairs in nothing but the long T-shirt she wore instead of a nightdress. Its hem barely covered the top of her thighs, but there was no one to see, and she didn’t want to waste time.

‘Antony,’ she said in a more normal voice, sitting down at
her long tidy desk. ‘This is just … brilliant. How are you feeling?’

‘Never mind that. I need you here. You’re taking over the CWWM case, and you’ll have a lot of work.’

‘I can’t. I—’

‘Trish, I’ve got a broken neck, ripped artery and concussion, so not much patience. You need a big case. I need someone I trust to—’

‘But that poor woman.’

‘Don’t be sentimental. If you’re not here in half an hour, I’ll never forgive you.’

A buzz that sounded like a dying bee told her he’d cut her off. The leather of the chair felt horrible under her bare thighs. Her feet were freezing and her long toes looked as bony as a chicken’s claws when she glanced down, trying to decide what to do. A loud tick from the kitchen clock marked out the seconds with a remorselessness that matched Antony’s.

‘Who was that?’ George said from above and behind her.

She looked round to see him standing at the top of the spiral staircase, wearing a bath towel like a Roman toga. His dressing gown was in the wash too.

‘Antony. Awful injuries, but his mind’s as sharp as ever. He wants me to step into the CWWM case.’

George’s face, so much less pudgy these days than when she’d first known him, lit up like a beacon.

‘But I can’t. You know what that woman’s been through. How can I think about making money from her misery?’

‘Don’t be so wet. Or so bloody arrogant!’

Trish flinched. She’d heard his deep voice velvety with affection, springy with laughter and cold with anger often
enough; she’d never known it sound as contemptuous as this.

‘It’s not your job to comfort the whole world. If you turn this down, you’ll infuriate the man who’s done more to help your career than anyone else; you’ll give your clerk every reason to stop trying to get you work; and you’ll make
me
exceedingly angry. Whatever you may think about what’s-her-name, Angela Fortwell, your job is to represent your clients and put their case as well as it possibly can be put. There’s no moral dilemma here, Trish.’

Still she didn’t get up.

‘This is make or break time. Start moving. I’ll get your clothes together while you shower.’

He didn’t wait for an answer, just hauled his great towel more tightly over his left shoulder and tramped off.

Trish made herself walk towards the foot of the stairs, feeling contrary ideas jerk forward and back in her brain. He’s right. They’re both right. And it’s not just the unhappy Mrs Fortwell I’m worried about. What if I lose? Antony was sure he would and no one would have thought the worse of him. But if I screw up, everyone’ll say it’s my fault. George thinks I’m arrogant. I’m not: I’m scared. I owe Antony too much to let him down. But there’s David too. And Jay. If I go to work now, I can’t let him—

David’s voice stopped her and she stood with one bare foot on the bottom stair, looking at him over her shoulder. His dark hair, much thicker than hers, was tousled around his white face, and his black eyes were soft with sleepiness. Already he topped her five feet ten, and his old red pyjama trousers hung a good four inches above his huge feet.

‘What’s going on?’ he said.

‘Hi, David. Sorry we woke you. I’ve got to go to work – which
means, I’m afraid, that you’ll have to put Jay off today.’

‘Why?’
David scratched his head and scowled at her from under his ruffled fringe.

‘I don’t want him here without either me or George, and George is going to Twickenham. We can sort out another weekend for Jay and do something extra special with him to make up.’

‘You let Sam be here when you’re not. Just because Jay’s family’s not rich like Sam’s, you think he’ll nick something. It’s not fair, Trish.’

This was too important to ignore, in spite of George’s voice from upstairs calling, ‘Trish! Hurry up, for God’s sake.’

‘David, I’ll explain what I mean about Jay when I can. It’s not that I think he’s going to steal our stuff. Honestly. But it’s true I don’t think it’s … safe for him to be here with only you. As soon as I’ve got time, I’ll talk it all through with you. But right now, I’ve got to go.’

‘You never have time.’ He turned away and launched a heavy kick at the back of the black sofa. ‘Not for anything. It’s not
fair
.’

‘David, grow up!’ George was halfway down the stairs again. ‘And don’t worry, Trish, Jay can come today as planned. I’ll be here.’

‘But it’s one of the Autumn Internationals,’ David said, bemused. ‘Us v. New Zealand. You always go to Twickenham for that.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Trish has to go to work. And Jay has to come here. So I’ll see to it.’

David’s tense frown eased into his best smile and he almost danced back into his own room, the bright pyjamas flapping around his long thin frame.

‘Come on, Trish. I’ve called a taxi for you. It’ll be here in eight minutes. So you’d better hurry up.’

‘Why, George? It won’t hurt David to do without Jay’s company today and rugby matches like this are your biggest pleasure.’

He shrugged. ‘David could easily cope with a mild disappointment; I’m not so sure about Jay. Giving him a day here is more important than going to the rugger. Don’t stop to argue. You haven’t time.’

 

Antony’s eyes were closed when Trish arrived, wearing the tight black jeans and coral sweater George had picked out for her. She was glad to have a moment to quieten her banging heart and deal with the shock she felt at the sight of the man in the bed.

He had a contraption like a cross between a cage and a steel crown screwed into his head and reaching down over his shoulders, presumably to keep his neck from moving. His right leg was heavily bandaged and there was a long scrape down one side of his face, red and crusting at the edges. The thin white tabs stuck across it didn’t seem strong enough to hold it together.

She bent sideways to let her briefcase down on to the floor as quietly as she could. It was heavy with a laptop and dictating machine, as well as pens and paper. There was a chair about five yards away. She walked silently in her sagging leather boots to collect it.

‘Knew you wouldn’t let me down,’ he said. She almost dropped the chair.

‘I thought you were asleep.’

‘Your scent woke me.’

‘Not wearing any. There wasn’t time.’

His short laugh made her relax a little more. ‘Must be yesterday’s shampoo then, or maybe just you. Now listen carefully because I haven’t the strength to say it twice; don’t argue; don’t protest. OK?’

‘All right. But before you start, why not ask for an adjournment? You’d get one with no problem for something like this.’

‘CWWM don’t want to wait.’ A faint version of his old wicked smile tweaked at his features. ‘And I want you to have the chance. Don’t fight me.’

‘OK.’

‘Robert’s on his way to chambers. Help you prepare. But listen, Trish: the judge’ll bend over backwards to help Angie Fortwell. Don’t sneer or make it hard for her.’

‘I won’t.’

‘She’ll use the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher. CWWM have a strict liability over the escape of dangerous chemicals. You’ve got to mitigate the damages. Contributory negligence. Maybe
volenti
. Don’t forget—’

Antony seemed to be growing paler, and he was scarily breathless, as though his lungs or heart had been damaged along with all the rest. Watching him, Trish wasn’t even tempted to remind him that, although it was twenty years since she’d qualified, she knew all about strict liability tort in general and Rylands v. Fletcher in particular.

He choked and his eyes watered, but he fought his weakness to add: ‘Big implications here, Trish. The world produces filthy waste that kills. Companies like CWWM contain it.’

‘Most of the time,’ she said with a dryness that made him blink.

‘Don’t. They mustn’t be ruined by frivolous litigation.’

If his face hadn’t contorted in pain, she might have said what she thought about his calling Angela Fortwell’s suit frivolous. Her husband had been killed by the explosion in CWWM’s tanks. There was nothing frivolous about wanting punishment for that.

Antony was fighting for control of his body. His muscles were rigid, the cords in his neck stuck out like high relief decorations, and sweat poured off his skin.

‘You’ll need to get a grip on how the filters worked.’ The slurring in his voice was worse, but he battled on. ‘And the way the tanks breathed, and … Sod it! I can’t. Robert’ll tell you. Go now.’ His right arm twitched, as though he wanted to gesture but couldn’t.

Was he paralysed?

‘Don’t let me down, Trish. Or yourself.’

His arm turned slightly so that his hand was lying palm upwards. She put hers on to it and felt his fingers move. Relief acted on her like heat on a lump of wax, taking all the stiffness out of her muscles.

‘I’ll do my best, Antony. Don’t worry. Save your strength.’

She could see what it had cost him to keep his mind on his work and wondered just how much pain he was managing.

‘Are you—?’

‘I’ll be fine. Go now. Trust yourself, Trish.’

She watched his eyelids close again. A squeak behind her warned of a nurse’s arrival and she gestured towards the door. The nurse nodded and waited there until Trish joined her.

‘How long will he have that thing screwed to his head and neck?’

‘Two or three weeks probably. Maybe more. He hates it.’

‘I’m not surprised. How much damage is there?’

‘His neck is broken, but the people who stopped his arterial bleed had the sense not to move him, so he should make a good recovery.’

‘No paralysis, then?’

‘He’ll need physio, of course, and it’ll be a slow process, but provided there are no complications and no infections, he should be all right. The doctors think he could be able to use a wheelchair by the week after next.’

‘Thanks. Don’t let him go too long without painkillers, will you?’

Seeing the nurse’s surprise, Trish thought about explaining how long she’d known him and how much she cared. Then she remembered Robert in chambers, and the speed with which she’d have to educate herself about the storage of explosive chemical waste and farming, as well as the bundle of documents in the case. She said goodbye and ran for the street.

‘It’s coming, Ange,’ Greg said, ‘but you’re still not showing the authority you’ll need.’

Angie rubbed her eyes and pushed her hands through her ragged hair, trying not to show any of her feelings. She’d never expected Greg to be leading these role-playing sessions. As the founder of FADE, Fran had always been the boss till now. But here was lanky Greg sitting behind the kitchen table, pretending to be the doctor who’d been the first on the scene after the explosion had allowed carcinogenic reformulated benzene to spill out on to her land.

‘Let’s start again,’ Greg said. ‘OK? Ready? You first, asking if my name is Barry Jenkins.’

Tempted to shout, you bloody well know it is, she smiled a little, nodded in as dignified a way as she could and asked the question.

‘What I don’t understand,’ she added before she could stop herself, ‘is why we have to go through this pantomime. We’ve sent in our skeleton argument and so have they. We’ve disclosed all our evidence and the witness statements and everything. So why do we have to have this theatrical Q&A in court at all?’

‘It’s the way they do it, Angie love,’ said Fran, looking
over one shoulder and twisting her long straight hair into a rope to get it out of the way.

The reddish blonde colour suited her. With her big square shoulders and strong-featured face, it made her look like a Viking warrior-princess. Angie thought it all wrong that such a powerful woman should be cooking today’s vegetable stew.

‘Greg’s taken me to sit in on lots of trials now, and we do know what we’re doing. I promise you that.’

‘I know,’ Angie said, regretting the spurt of temper. Why was it that her ever-present rage kept popping up to bite the wrong people? ‘I’m sorry. It just seems such a stupid waste of time. Not stupid of
you;
the system. No wonder it’s so expensive no normal person can afford to go to law.’

‘You’re telling me,’ Greg said, smiling at last. ‘Come on, let’s get to it, then we can have lunch and a drink. The new apple wine is just about ready now and tasting seriously good.’

‘Great,’ she said faintly, pining for an absolutely enormous gin and tonic of the kind she hadn’t drunk in years.

‘Cheer up. You’ll be fine, Ange. I only want to make sure that when that bastard Shelley starts challenging your witnesses in cross-examination and rubbishing your evidence, you won’t get angry and forget what really happened. These blokes can twist anything they hear and make you confirm the way they see it before you’ve realised what they’re doing.’

 

Trish watched Robert as he led her through the story of what had happened at the Fortwells’ farm. Most of her mind was taken up with what she heard, but she wasn’t
quite disciplined enough to avoid surprise that he was being so straightforward, so generous with his information.

As she’d already said to Antony, most cases like this would have been adjourned if the leader were taken to hospital at the last minute. If, for some reason, the judge wouldn’t allow it, a junior with as many years’ experience as Robert could have expected to take over himself. In his place she’d have been pretty resentful.

When they broke for a cup of coffee and a recap just after noon, she said as much. He stopped stirring chocolate dust into the top of his cappuccino with his forefinger, licked the foam off it, and said:

‘I might want to kill you for it, Trish, but with Antony, Steve and the client all agitating for you to lead me, I’m stuck. Being stuck, it makes sense to do everything I can to help you do the best job of which you’re capable. It’s my reputation too.’

She wanted to find a way to thank him without sounding either doubtful or pompous.

‘It’s like when you’re climbing,’ he said, surprising her even more. He leaned back in his chair, crossing one dark-green corduroy leg over the other and revealing bright-yellow socks. ‘You have to choose a leader and then support him all the way, never questioning his orders or putting forward alternative ideas. If you do either, you risk damaging his confidence, making him doubt, and if that happens you’re likely to end up at the bottom of a crevasse with him and the rest of the team. Dead.’

‘I didn’t know you climbed.’

‘I don’t any more. There isn’t time to keep fit enough. But I did a bit of snow-and-ice stuff in the Alps with my father and brothers before I went up to Oxford. Taught me a lot
about life. Now, back to work. Have you grasped the principle of the activated charcoal filters?’

‘I think so. The principle and the various risks. What I don’t understand is how enough oxygen could have got into the tanks at the Fortwells’ to feed the fire.’

She pulled forward one of the drawings that showed the design of the tanks with all the safety features demanded by the regulations governing the Control of Major Accident Hazards, apparently known in the trade as COMAH.

In the old days she might have expected a sneer about her lack of scientific education. Not this morning. Robert merely put a clean, unsucked finger on the relevant bit of the drawing and gave a potted lecture about the way the storage tanks responded to the external temperature.

‘It’s as though they’re breathing, you see, Trish; breathing out as they warm up during the day and in again when they cool down at night. The exhalations are smelly and loaded with toxic particles that are known to increase the risk of leukaemia, so something has to be done about them.’

‘The activated charcoal,’ she said, to prove she had been listening properly and had understood the drawings laid out in front of her.

‘Exactly. The emissions are drawn across the activated charcoal, and that adsorbs … you will get that right in court, won’t you, Trish? It’s
ads
orbs
,
not
abs
orbs
.’

‘I’ve got that.’ She smiled, working as hard as he was to bury their old rivalry.

‘Good. Now, because activated charcoal gets hot, and has even been known to ignite as a system like this breathes in at night, these particular tanks were fitted with a special venting system so they could inhale through quite separate
valves, which wouldn’t allow fresh air – with all its dangerous oxygen – to be drawn over the carbon and turn it red hot. D’you understand so far?’

‘Yup.’

‘The valves had worked perfectly well for the three years the tanks had been there,’ Robert went on, ‘so there was clearly nothing wrong with the fundamental design or operation of the system.’

‘So what do you think did go wrong? Could the valve have been blocked?’

‘That’s the obvious thing,’ he said, with the approving nod of a teacher relieved at the first sign of a dim student’s intelligence. ‘The one real danger in fact, because however well designed a protective cage around the air inlet might be, there’s always the risk of, say, a glue-like pad of wet leaves being blown against it and getting stuck and blocking the inflow.’

‘Which is why CWWM paid John Fortwell this regular salary to make visual checks?’

‘Precisely. If not leaves, there could, I suppose, have been a kamikaze bird that dive-bombed the cage and somehow got stuck. You’ll see the list of possible hazards from the expert-witness statement. Not that anything removes CWWM’s strict liability.’

‘No,’ Trish said, making herself smile. ‘I know all about that.’

‘Of course you do.’ Robert’s smile was as forced as hers. ‘It’s hard sometimes to get out of the habit of explaining things to pupils.’

If this is the way you keep supporting the leader, she thought, maybe it’s a good thing you don’t go snow-and-ice climbing any more.

‘And there’s no evidence of whatever the blockage could have been,’ she said aloud, ‘because—?’

‘Because everything was devoured in the explosion and subsequent fireball. Along with all the fire-protection devices, sprinklers and so on.’

‘And we don’t know exactly where John Fortwell died, do we? If it was on the land CWWM leased from him and occupied, i.e. their land, not his own, my memory of Read v. Lyons suggests the strict liability of Rylands v. Fletcher wouldn’t apply to his death.’

‘Right.’ This time Robert looked surprised, as though he hadn’t expected her to remember any of the relevant cases. She didn’t tell him she’d spent the taxi journey from the hospital, looking them up on the Internet. Lots of people were reluctant to use wireless access because of security fears, but there were times when it was too useful to ignore. This had definitely been one of them.

Rylands v. Fletcher was the name of a nineteenth-century case, which had established the rule that if you had a dangerous thing on your land and it escaped, you were liable for any damage it did, even if you hadn’t been negligent. The thing could be an animal, a gas, a chemical, even water. Read v. Lyons was a much later case, which clarified the rule a bit and meant that if someone came on to your land and was damaged by the dangerous thing there, you might get away with it.

‘Although,’ Robert added, ‘if CWWM had been negligent over the design or maintenance of the tanks, then they would be liable for that, too, wherever the victim was when he died.’

‘Naturally,’ Trish said, writing notes as a way of pinning the information into her brain. ‘I’m getting there. Angie Fortwell says CWWM have a strict liability for the escape
of a dangerous thing, which killed her husband on his land – not theirs – and contaminated that land, making it impossible for her either to continue to farm it or to sell it, thus leaving her incapable of earning a living and prey to continuous anxiety about her own health.’

‘Very good, Trish.’

‘And we say he was on CWWM’s land when he died, the body merely being thrown in the explosion on to his own field, and that the balance of probabilities is that he failed to complete the checks for which he was paid, thus mitigating CWWM’s liability by contributory negligence. I can see why Antony didn’t think it’s winnable.’

‘So can I. Chemical waste is an emotive issue. Angie Fortwell’s going to be a touching advocate for her dead husband. And what were CWWM doing putting their tanks of filthy benzene on a working farm only just outside a national park anyway?’

‘They’ve got to go somewhere,’ Trish said, at last finding some much-needed indignation on behalf of her clients.

‘Tell that to FADE.’

‘Who?’

‘The environmental pressure group that’s behind Angie Fortwell. I doubt if she’d have known where to begin as a litigant in person without them.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Bunch of whiny North London vegetarians,’ Robert said, at his most unpleasantly dismissive. ‘You know, the earnest sentimental sort, who feed sweet furry foxes in their gardens because they look like Basil Brush or something out of a baby’s ickle-wickle picture book.’

Trish didn’t have the strength to tackle his prejudices and quickly reverted to the facts of the case.

‘CWWM must have had planning permission,’ she said. ‘Presumably an isolated chunk of countryside is thought to be safer than somewhere like an industrial estate. Imagine if this explosion had happened in the middle of a city.’

He surprised her with another approving nod. ‘Precisely. And don’t forget, if the judge doesn’t accept our defence of mitigation and CWWM have to pay big damages, they may decide to shut down other smallish tank sites all over the country – and perhaps abroad as well – and then where will the chemical waste go? Less scrupulous companies may shunt it off to the third world, where there aren’t such strict laws, or bury it or dump it in quarries or out at sea. Wildlife will die. People will die. Children and the elderly especially.’

‘Pity we can’t use that argument in court,’ Trish said, noticing the way Robert was playing to her well-known sympathy for vulnerable victims.

‘True. But don’t forget: they briefed John Fortwell on what he was going to be storing for them and on all the dangers – their letters to that effect are in the bundle – and no one forced him to take their money.’

‘Just as no one forced Doctor Faustus to take the Devil’s deal,’ Trish said almost to herself. ‘OK. Thanks, Robert. I think I’m clear on the basics, so I can stop spoiling your weekend and get to work on my own now.’

‘Sure?’ He glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘I’ll still make lunch if you really don’t mind.’

‘I’m happy. Leave me your mobile number, though, so that if I get stuck—’

He pointed once more to the top sheet of his notes. She saw the numbers of his mobile and land line, as well as the number of his lunch hosts’ house.

‘Great. I hope I won’t have to bother you. See you in court on Monday morning.’

‘Good luck, Trish. Don’t forget to eat and sleep.’

 

Greg turned on the television while they ate. The butternut squash and tomato stew was aromatic with spices and very filling. Angie admitted to herself that she had had a bellyful of mutton from the exhausted sheep she’d killed over the years.

The international news was over and the weather forecast had begun. It was heaven not to have to listen to it. Here in Kentish Town it didn’t matter if there was rain or frost to come.

A perfectly dressed and groomed young woman appeared on the screen to give the local London news. Now this did matter: if there were to be a tube or bus strike on Monday, they’d have to borrow bicycles to get to court, and it would be hard to get the documents there without some kind of trailer. Could they afford a taxi?

Angie tried to stop worrying. Greg and Fran knew their way about London as well as the courts and the legal system. They would take the lead. All she had to concentrate on was asking the right questions with enough confidence to stand up to Antony Shelley.

‘Antony Shelley, a senior barrister, was run over by a motorcycle on a pedestrian crossing outside the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday afternoon,’ said the news reader in icily distinct syllables no one could ignore. ‘His condition is said to be serious but stable.’