A Poisoned Mind (9 page)

The whisky mac tasted surprisingly good, the sweetness of the ginger nicely spiked with spirit. She had no idea where she was and felt an extraordinary liberation. If she didn’t know, then no one else did, so none of them could get at her.

Something buzzed at her side. For a second she thought there must be a live wire somewhere within the plastered wall, or maybe the bench. Moments later, she realised the vibration had to be coming from Greg’s phone in her pocket.

She pulled it out, hating him all over again. Why couldn’t he leave her alone?

At last, she remembered he could only get to her if she answered, so she put the phone back in her pocket. When the buzzing stopped she let her head flop forwards as she tried to mop the worst of the rain from the back of her neck with an old tissue she’d found under the phone in her pocket.

It buzzed again. Again she ignored it. But he wouldn’t stop calling, and once the other drinkers started to stare at her every time the insistent noise started up again, she knew she’d have to do something.

The phone wasn’t like her own brick-heavy old-fashioned one and she couldn’t work out how to turn it off. None of the obvious buttons worked and the noise just went on, getting louder. At last she found the right button and stopped the buzzing dead.

‘Ham sandwich?’ called a woman from the internal doorway at the back of the pub. ‘Who ordered a ham sandwich?’

Angie raised her hand and the woman, who was dressed in the kind of flowered apron that buttoned at the back and hadn’t been seen anywhere else since the early 1960s,
put down a large plate with a doorstep sandwich. It had been cut into quarters and was flanked by damp-looking lettuce and slices of beetroot that were already leaking purple juice into the bottom slice of bread. Angie paid, smiled her thanks and rescued the sandwich from the beetroot juice.

The ham tasted like real meat and the bread not at all bad. She’d expected limp, steam-baked slices. Chewing hard through the dense crust, she realised that most of what had made her feel so weak had been hunger. Another mouthful of whisky mac and she’d be fine.

The depth of the bread meant she couldn’t eat too fast and there was still nearly a third of the sandwich to go when the pub doors opened and another man came in. Were there no women up here in the wilds of north London?

The man removed his damp raincoat and shook the drips off it, turning to look around as he did so. She recognised Ben Givens from the party and lowered her head, hoping he wouldn’t clock her.

He walked straight to the bar to order a pint. While it was being pulled, he turned casually and leaned back against the bar, surveying the other drinkers. When the barman put the full tankard on the bar, Ben pointed to Angie and, with a quite exaggerated leer, said: ‘And give me another of whatever the lady’s drinking.’

The barman looked across at Angie, as though asking permission. Not at all sure what was going on, she shrugged, then nodded because it seemed easier than risking a scene. Moments later Ben brought both drinks to her table.

‘Mind if I join you?’ he said in a voice she didn’t quite recognise.

‘If you want.’

He hooked a stool forward with his right foot and sat down, leaning his elbows on the table, which meant he could more or less cover his mouth without being obvious.

‘You’re a long way from home,’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I just needed time on my own. d’you want a sandwich? This is quite good.’

He shook his head. ‘I’ll be eating later. What happened in court? Did Maguire rough you up?’

‘She’s vile, you know. It gets worse every day. She’s obsessed with proving John did it deliberately – bunged up the filters to make the tanks explode, as a way of committing suicide.’

Ben laughed openly, but the sound didn’t convince her; nor did the apparent ease with which he leaned back on his stool.

‘I doubt it. She’s never been a fool, and only a fool would run a defence like that. She’s trying to distract you while she’s going after something else. Tell me exactly what happened, what she asked your witness and what he replied.’

‘Why the hell should I?’ Angie’s aggression shocked her as much as it surprised Ben. He patted her knobbly hand in an avuncular kind of way and she wrenched it away.

‘Is he annoying you, Miss?’ said the barman, coming out from behind his bar with a cloth in his hand.

For a second she was tempted to say yes, then dreaded the fallout that might follow and the inevitable fight with Greg. She shook her head. The barman’s creased face hardened and gave her a look that more or less told her she deserved anything that was coming to her if she let herself be pushed around by a stranger.

‘Why?’ she said again, loudly enough to make everyone else see that she could take care of herself. All the old men in the pub looked up. She could tell most of them disapproved of the noise.

‘So I can give you some relevant sympathy,’ Ben said much more quietly, lifting his glass and smiling at her over the top of it. ‘I rather thought you needed it.’

‘I don’t need anything, except for this bloody case to be over. I wish I’d never started it, and quite frankly I’ve been wondering what I could do to persuade CWWM to settle. Almost anything would be better than letting the judge ruin me with costs and damages when Maguire wins for them.’

Ben put down his drink and spent some time examining his nails as though deciding what to say. Then he looked up with an expression that scared her.

‘It’s too late to back out now.’ There wasn’t a single scrap of sympathy left in his voice. ‘You’ve come too far and taken too much from Fran and Greg.’

‘Is that why you’re here? To keep me on the straight and narrow? Were you following me?’ She saw from his slight withdrawal that he must have been, and added with far more aggression than she usually allowed herself, ‘How dare you? What’s
your
interest in my case?’

‘Friendship,’ he said quickly. ‘I told you: I admire what FADE do for absolutely no reward. You stand to get a lot of money if you win, but Fran and Greg? Even if the decision goes the right way, all they’ll get is the satisfaction of seeing a polluter punished and a beautiful part of England restored to health.’

Angie wouldn’t have thought anyone could make her feel worse until now.

‘Come on,’ he said a little more kindly. ‘Finish that sandwich and I’ll take you back to them.’

He hustled her out of the pub and unlocked the doors of a top-of-the-range BMW. As she slid into the passenger seat, the rich woody scent of the leather made her think of the car John had had when they’d first met.

They’d hardly ever had time to do any of the usual things a couple on the edge of a relationship would do: no candlelit dinners, no romantic weekends wandering through beautiful beechwoods before coming home to eat gourmet food and quaff champagne. But there had been journeys in his car. Most of their closest moments had been spent sitting side by side, on their way to client meetings, talking their way into love. They’d known all about each other before they’d made love the first time, and neither of them had ever had to pretend to be more successful or glamorous than they were.

Turning her head to the side as though she wanted to look out of the window, she wiped her eyes with the cuff of her coat sleeve.

‘Angie, I’m … Bugger!’ A phone rang with a proper old-fashioned ring, not the sneaky buzz of the one Greg had lent her. ‘That’ll be Greg. Could you answer and let him know I’ve found the lost sheep and am bringing her home? The phone’s there in the box by the gear lever.’

Hating him, Angie let it ring.

‘Message from Mr Shelley.’

Trish looked up from her desk on Friday morning to see Steve peering round her door. His expression was cheerful enough to keep her from worrying.

‘He said your note got lost yesterday, but one of the cleaners just gave it to him, and he wants me to tell you—’ He fished in his pocket. ‘I thought I’d better write it down to get it right. He says: “Tell her I didn’t summon her for a wigging. Just wanted to see her. I promise not to be asleep next time she’s got a minute to come over. But she’d better phone the ward first so they can keep me awake. Chin chin.”’

The absurdity of ‘chin chin’ as a farewell made her smile, but it was the meat of the message that gave her the real lift. ‘Thanks, Steve.’

‘How’s it going?’

‘Not too badly. They finished their case yesterday. Now it’s our turn. So I need to keep focused.’

‘Right you are. Good luck.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to say “break a leg” or something?’ she said as she went back to her papers and reached for another yellow Post-it to mark a particular piece of evidence.

‘“Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.”’

‘I never knew your hero was interested in superstition,’ she said, still concentrating on her work. ‘Or religion.’

‘Hero? What hero?’

‘Churchill. I can’t remember ever hearing you quote anything about superstition before.’

‘I’ve moved on, see.’ Steve sounded strange enough to make her glance up again and meet his shifty gaze. He smirked. ‘Or rather back. It’s Burke now. He said even more useful things than Mr Churchill.’

‘Lucky old you.’ Trish’s mind was already back with her evidence, and she didn’t even notice Steve walk out of her room.

Robert had calmed down as he’d watched the last couple of days’ cross-examination and, although he still wanted a turn on his feet, he’d stopped giving her warning notes whenever he thought she was straying. He’d even made a few jokes of his own about checking the climbing ropes and ensuring she had enough carabiners and pitons in her kit.

The door crashed open and he erupted into the room, waving a clutch of paper.

‘What on earth has happened?’

‘I’ve got to hand it to you, Trish: you’ve got a splendidly devious mind.’

‘Aha! The mystery man. Have they found him?’

‘Absolutely.’ He dropped into the better of the two visitors’ chairs and shoved the piece of paper across her desk.

A short printed report was clipped to a selection of black and white prints of the interior of the most depressing kind of unreconstructed pub. The first showed Angie Fortwell,
looking as though she was halfway through an operation without anaesthetic, ignoring the wine glass between her hands. A man was sitting opposite her with his back to the camera.

Trish shuffled through the prints until she came to one that showed him full-face emerging from the pub.

‘Who is he?’

‘Don’t you recognise him?’

‘I’m not sure. It is him, though, isn’t it? The bulk and the shoulders are right. And I think I’ve seen that Burberry in one of the original shots.’ She reached down to the bottom drawer of her desk, where she had the first set of surveillance photographs. ‘Yes. It is. Look: here and here. Who is he?’

‘Benjamin Givens.’

‘Givens? Why do I know that name?
Givens
? You mean the barrister?’

‘That’s it. You’re a clever baggage, you know, when you put your mind to it. I’ve been looking through all the investigators’ reports and I think you’re right that he did deliberately evade the watchers. Which means you may also be right about his involvement with FADE.’

‘When were these taken?’

‘Wednesday night. You wanted the dogs put back on Angie and her confreres. They were picked up outside the RCJ on Wednesday evening. And the people following her found this. They made the identification yesterday.’

‘I wonder what was so important that he came out of hiding,’ Trish said, half to herself.

‘No time to argue about it now. We’ll be late if we don’t get moving. I’ve sent Hal on ahead with the documents. Have you had enough coffee?’

‘What? Oh, lord yes. Plenty. Let’s go.’

But she found it hard to put down the photograph and even harder to stop her mind crunching through the possibilities thrown up by the identification of Ben Givens. Was he really giving pro-bono help because he cared about the protection of the environment? Or was someone paying him?

Probably not. Accepting secret payments for legal advice could get him disbarred if anyone found out. But if he wasn’t being paid, why the secrecy?

 

David was standing outside the head’s office, waiting to be called in. He hadn’t done anything wrong, so he was cross. Everyone could see him here, and they’d all think he was in trouble. It wasn’t fair. And he had work to do. At last his form teacher came out of the head’s room and jerked his head back.

‘You can go in, David.’

He slouched forwards to show what he thought about it all and found himself looking around Mr Black’s room like a tourist. He’d never been in it before and was surprised to see how like Trish’s chambers it was. There were the same white-painted bookshelves all along one wall and a desk just as big as hers, but not as messy.

‘Now, David,’ said the head, stroking his heavy chin and looking out from under his hairy eyebrows, ‘what’s all this I’ve been hearing about Jay and your trainers?’

‘Nothing. Why?’

‘It’s not nothing. Jay has been seen wearing a pair of trainers, box fresh and just like your new ones. You have been seen wearing the old worn-out ones. It doesn’t take a genius to make the connection.’ He waited a moment or
two but David didn’t volunteer anything. ‘I don’t want to go running to your sister without having the full story.’

‘I give them to him.’

‘Gave, David; gave, as you very well know. Why did you give them to him?’

‘He hasn’t got any. And his family hasn’t got any money to buy them for him.’

‘That’s true, but it’s not enough of an explanation. Why now?’

David shrugged and said he didn’t know. The pattern on the carpet was interesting, all geometric with lozenges and octagons. He started to count the different shapes in the way he’d learned when he was young and people were telling him things he didn’t want to hear.

‘David, pay attention!’

He went on counting.

‘You’re not in any trouble. I just need to be sure that Jay hasn’t been putting pressure on you to give him expensive things that belong to you.’

‘Course not.’ He looked up, having arrived at eight for the number of different patterns. ‘I told you I
gave
them to him.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I wanted him to have them.’

‘Is your sister happy about it?’

‘She doesn’t know yet. She’s busy at the moment. She’s got a big case. But I’ll tell her soon.’

‘That’s not good enough, David. I’ve been teaching boys of your age for twenty-five years now, and I know when there’s more to a story than they’re telling me. Things haven’t been right between you and Jay all week. Now here he is wearing your best trainers. What’s going on?’

‘Nothing.’ Now he was counting the lines of different lengths. There were patterns there too.

‘I’m going to have to send a note to your sister to alert her to what’s going on.’

‘Don’t do that.’ There were three sorts of short lines and six longer ones. They could probably be subdivided even more. ‘She’s busy.’

‘You leave me no alternative. I’m too worried to let this go.’

He went back to counting the shapes. He could’ve missed one the first time.

‘David?’

‘Oh, OK. I’ll tell her tomorrow or Sunday, when she’s not working all the time.’

‘Good. Make sure you actually do it. You’d better get going now. You’ve got English next, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Which was good. He liked English.

‘Right. Well, don’t go giving Jay anything else. If I see any sign of him in possession of anything that belongs to you, I’m phoning your sister’s chambers right away, however busy she is.’

David didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything to say. He thought of the jeans Jay wanted. They were still hanging in the cupboard at home because David liked them too much to let them go. But if he had, he wouldn’t be in this mess now: Jay wouldn’t have worn the jeans at school, so no one would’ve known. Maybe he’d talk to George tonight and get him to sort Trish out. Maybe. It would depend what mood George was in when he got home.

Now Trish was so busy, George stayed in Southwark every night instead of only sometimes, and he was always there first, ready to cook supper. But he usually had a briefcase
full of papers to work on afterwards and worrying about them could make him irritable and uncooperative. You always had to pick your moments with George, even when Jay was making him laugh.

 

When Trish got back to her room in chambers after the day’s session, she recognised the head teacher’s writing on the hand-delivered envelope at once. Her mind lurched. What had Jay made David do now? She longed to rip the letter open right away, but it would have to wait until she’d dealt with Robert and CWWM’s solicitor, Fred Hoffman.

‘I still don’t understand, Trish,’ he said in his agreeably relaxed voice.

She’d always liked him for his brains and his determination to cooperate whenever he could. He must have been in his mid-fifties and there were plenty of solicitors of his generation whose first reaction to any request was to explain why they couldn’t provide what you wanted. Not Fred.

‘Have a seat,’ she said, waving towards the better of the visitors’ armchairs and leaving Robert to the one with the broken spring.

‘Run it past me again.’ Unusually Fred was frowning, which made his eyebrows protrude and hang over his brown eyes like a gorilla’s.

‘Evidence from the surveillance photographs suggests Angie Fortwell is being secretly coached by Benjamin Givens,’ she said, trying to banish the ludicrous image of Fred as a vast primate thundering through the damp Rwandan forest. ‘There’s no obvious reason for the secrecy so I need to know what he’s up to.’

‘How d’you suggest I find that out?’ Fred’s tone was sarcastic but even now he wasn’t refusing to try.

‘I’ve no idea, not being a detective,’ she said, smiling. ‘But you and CWWM employed plenty of those in the run-up to the case, and whoever you’ve got now produced these helpful photographs from Wednesday night. I have every faith in them – and in you,
dear
Fred.’

He produced a sharp, humourless crack of laughter, then drummed his broad fingers on the edge of her desk. ‘Far be it from me to turn away a compliment from any silk, Trish, but I’m not sure how—’

‘“Find the money,”’ she quoted. ‘Find out if there is any and, if so, follow it. There must be ways.’

‘Probably none you could use in court.’ The dark eyes lit with amusement, which made her think he must be fantasising about wicked schemes of burglary and intimidation.

‘Maybe not. But there’s still time to settle this thing. Just.’ She put her elbows on the desk and leaned towards him.

He moved forwards too, hunching his broad shoulders, as though trying not to overwhelm her with his size.

‘Look, Fred, what I most want is to avoid CWWM being forced to pay big damages and only later finding out that FADE and Angie Fortwell have been up to something illegal all along. With such an impoverished bunch, we’d never get the money back for CWWM even if we won on appeal. So it’s pretty urgent.’

He leaned back and dug a hand in his pocket to extract a small leather folder with gold edges. He peeled one card away from the rest and wrote himself a note. Trish thought of her huge legal pads and wondered why anyone, but particularly a man as burly as Fred, would confine himself to such an affected, shopping-list kind of jotter.

‘How long d’you think you’ll take with our witnesses?’ he said, looking up again.

‘Not much more than a week.’

‘But we could spin it out a bit,’ Robert said from the sidelines. ‘Quite legitimately.’

‘“Quite” meaning partly,’ said Trish with unusual dryness, ‘rather than absolutely. What a useful word that is. Will you get it under way, Fred?’

‘Will do. Now, d’you need me for anything else tonight? I’ve got to go to Heathrow to meet CWWM’s managing director. He’s on his way back from sorting out some disaster in the States and wants a first-hand report on how things are going here.’

‘I’d heard they were having a run of bad luck, but I hadn’t realised it extended across the Atlantic,’ Robert said. ‘What’s been happening there?’

‘Too complicated to go into now.’ Fred kept checking his watch and was visibly itching to be off. Trish nodded to him.

‘You get on, Fred. Robert and I can manage here. Thanks.’

He extracted himself from the deep chair with surprising ease for such a big man and ambled out. Trish and Robert worked their way through the other questions thrown up by the day’s proceedings.

Only when Robert had eventually followed Fred out of the room could she at last pick up the head’s letter. Trying to think of the worst it might contain, she tore open the envelope.