Courting Trouble (10 page)

‘So Chantelle bit, punched, urinated and graffitied on herself then, did she?’ the Countess asked, appalled.

‘Just last week I heard a leading London lawyer ask a rape victim whether her so-called screams for help were really cries of pleasure.’

‘May his wig shit on his head,’ the Countess seethed succinctly.

‘I heard another boofhead defence barrister describe a child as “sexualized” and “dangerous”. He said she was “glowing with hormones” and “very confident about her body’s power and movement” when she “seduced” a fifty-year-old bloke. He said she “played the game well” and was, he claimed, a danger to men. He was describing a girl who was eleven.’

The Countess narrowed her dark eyes. ‘Let’s just hope Satan has something special planned for that particular gentleman.’ She sashayed back into the office kitchen to fetch the wine.

‘Chantelle will be branded a fantasist or an attention seeker,’ Roxy explained. ‘She’ll be repeatedly called a liar in front of a court room full of strangers, which will leave her feeling raped all over again . . . And which is also why eighty to ninety per cent of attacks are not reported. And why rapists are likely to attack again . . . And why Matilda is likely to see Jack later today and get the granny’s trial on first.’

‘Mother, I know Jack Cassidy won’t help unless I go out with him. And that’s as
likely
as, I dunno, the Pope pole-dancing.’

‘I just hope the poor girl gets a female judge,’ the Countess said, uncorking the wine.

‘Not bloody likely. The police and the judiciary are paler, maler and staler than ever. The only country in Europe to have fewer female judges is Azerbaijan.’

‘Save your breath, Roxy. I refuse to be bribed by Jack Cassidy. The man’s ego is so big it casts its own shadow.’

‘But at least he doesn’t pretend to be anything he’s not. The reason I like Jack is because I don’t trust good men. Your father was considerate, romantic, attentive . . . and look who he turned out to be,’ Roxy said bitterly.

‘Who? Who exactly did he turn out to be?’ I asked. My father’s betrayal was always with her – like a shadow on an X-ray. And yet she would never talk about him. ‘How can I ever have a healthy relationship with a man when I know nothing about the man who made me?’

My sudden ability to hear the bloke in the flat next door trimming his nostril hairs suggested to me that we had come up against what is known as an ‘awkward silence’.

‘You know what? You’re right. I think it’s high time I told you the truth about your father, Matilda. The truth might help you rethink your attitude to Jack Cassidy. Your father should have come with a “Buyer Beware” sticker on his forehead. But what you see with Jack is what you get. There’s no jiggery-pokery.’

‘Roxy, dah-ling! . . . Are you sure you want to tell her the truth?’

‘What truth?’ I demanded of the Countess.

A few invisible tumbleweeds blew through the room before the Countess thrust a glass of wine at me. ‘Jesus. I think you’ll need a little vino collapso first, dah-ling.’

‘It’s 3 p.m.,’ I remonstrated. ‘On a workday.’

‘Drink. You’ll need it. I know
I
bloody do.’ My mother downed her glass in one gulp, then held it out for more.

It was now so quiet I could practically hear the cockroaches fornicating in the High Street. I stood up. ‘Do you think we might conclude this conversation any time in my lifespan, because I do actually have a court case to prepare.’

Roxy took another deep swig of fortifying alcohol. ‘Your father told me I was his soulmate. That he loved me more than life itself . . .’

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ I said impatiently. ‘I’ve heard all this before. But then he ran out on you. And you had no choice but to gird your leopardskin loins and just get on with it.’

‘When I found out I was up the duff with you, I contacted the British Consulate in Spain and Greece. I phoned every bloody backpacker hostel in Europe . . .’ Her voice petered out. What the hell was happening? My vibrant mother had suddenly developed the charisma of a crash dummy.

The Countess picked up the story. ‘Your mother even hired a private investigator. But not even he could find any trace of the elusive Daniel Kincade, dah-ling.’ She, too, took a nerve-steadying glug of wine.

‘It was the start of a journey for the truth which ended with me knocking on the door of a Mr and Mrs Kincade of Middleton.’

I sat back down with a jolt. ‘You never told me you’d met my grandparents.’

‘That’s because they’re not really your grandparents.’

‘What do you mean? Who were they?’ No answer was forthcoming. ‘Okay, the Sphinx is less of a riddle than you right now,’ I sighed in irritation.

‘Your father told me he was estranged from his parents. It was something we had in common, actually. Two orphans in the big, bad world. I thought the totally exciting news of your existence might broker a truce . . . and of course help me find your dad . . .’ Roxy petered out once more.

‘But when Roxy knocked on the door of what she thought was the family home – oh, can you imagine how horrendous?’ The Countess put her head in her manicured hands.

‘What was wrong with them? Were they scientologists? Card-carrying Nazis? Or worse . . .’ I said flippantly. ‘. . . Tory Party voters?!’

But Roxy’s tease-o-meter was turned off. ‘The two people I thought were going to be your grandparents started crying. It totally freaked them out to have someone asking after a child who had died aged eight.’

‘What? You’re not making any sense, Mother.’

‘It didn’t make any sense to me either, Tilly. I thought they were just playing silly buggers. The town and the house and everything looked exactly as Danny had described them to me. I felt as though I was in some weird sci-fi movie. But then these poor people showed me Danny’s death certificate . . .’ My mother’s voice broke off raggedly.

‘The document confirmed the details Danny had always given us.’ The Countess took up the conversation. ‘It named the town where he was born in March 1955. It was the same person. The same parents. The same address. But Dan Kincade had died as a boy in a hit-and-run accident.’

‘I chucked a mental,’ Roxy continued. ‘I refused to believe them. I gave them the rough end of my tongue, believe me. Eventually, the only way they could get me to shut my gob was to take me to the graveside. I saw the sculpture of the boy standing guard above the grave. “Safe in the arms of Jesus” – that’s what the engraving said. It was then that my world turned upside down.’

The Countess nodded. ‘It was only later, after some serious in-depth sleuthing, that your mother found out the truth.’

‘What truth?’ I asked urgently. ‘Roxy?’

‘That your father was an undercover cop.’ My mother coughed up this confession like a fur ball. ‘Using the alias of Danny Kincade.’

It’s a strange sensation when two people you know well suddenly start speaking to you in Swahili. ‘What?’ I said.

‘It’s like something out of a horror movie, I know. Your father belonged to a special unit in the police force. He stole this dead boy’s identity so he could infiltrate protest movements. Of which I was a member.’

I only knew of my dad as a crude outline filled in with grey and black. And now here he was, in full, garish, ghoulish Technicolor. ‘I don’t believe you,’ I said, as casually as a cardiac arrest would allow.

‘It’s true. Even though it sounds more like something that would happen in an old Communist Bloc country. Turns out it was common practice in the seventies and eighties for undercover British police to use the identity of dead babies who roughly matched their age and ethnicity. The cops issued their undercover agents with fake passports, drivers’ licences and national insurance numbers in the name of these poor little boys who’d died,’ the Countess confirmed.

‘And it was me who unwittingly gave the bastard credibility. I fell in love with a bloke I thought was a gardener. He was so sympathetic to all my beliefs and causes – animal welfare, pro-abortion, anti-nuclear – that I welcomed him into my circle. Because of me, this “Danny” was able to get inside information on all the peace activists and other protesters. It was the complete dingo act. I fell in love with a fraud,’ Roxy fumed, violently tossing back more vino.

‘And, oh, he was bloody good at his job,’ the Countess elaborated. ‘We found out years later that Danny’s skills of deception earned him legendary status in the elite ranks of the covert unit known as the Special Demonstration Squad.’

It also earned him legendary status as the Biggest Asshole Ever. I gazed at my mother in mortified astonishment. I’d always fantasized that my missing father was off in the Amazon, using his horticultural expertise to discover herbal cures for cancer that would win him the Nobel Prize for medicine . . . Or that he’d died heroically rescuing blind orphan babies from a fire in a far-flung favela. ‘Oh my God, Roxy. Why didn’t you ever tell me this?’

‘I’m only telling you now because I want you to rethink your attitude to Jack Cassidy. Yes, he’s a rogue and a rascal. But he doesn’t pretend to be what he’s not. Yes, he was a bit of a sexual kleptomaniac at college, but you were both young. I’m sure he’s mended his wicked ways.’

I looked at my mother the way you would look at a stranger on the Tube who had 50 pounds of plastic explosives strapped to his body. A wave of irritation overwhelmed me.

‘Well, I hate to break up this little joy seminar of yours. And I’m sorry about my biological father’s appalling behaviour. I’m sorry about Phyllis taking the law into her own hands. I’m sorry about the quality of the prison soap on remand. I’m sorry about the male dominance of the law . . . But what I’m
not
sorry about is that Britain has a jury system which works – twelve good men and women and true who know that rape is a heinous crime and will convict those scumbags with or without the interference of Senior Treasury Counsel, Jack Hymen-stealing-Cassidy.’

My office door flew open and my daughter pirouetted into the room. Most pubescent girls are little more than a hormone upheaval; a sulk with fake tan on it. Their preferred position is horizontal on the couch, with the remote control, while lackeys bring delicacies. When vertical, they merely moan. My Portia is the opposite. When not at school, she learns tap dancing, volunteers at a nursery for underprivileged kids and organizes fun runs to raise money for cancer research. She has the ability to lift everyone two octaves up on the happiness scale and she doesn’t even know it. Her personality’s so bright, she could act as a beacon for sailors adrift in the ocean. But today her wattage was dimmed. She dropped her tap shoes and school bag on to the floor and flumped into a chair.

‘All the kids at school are talking about Chantelle. Some of the girls reckon she’s a slut – so raping her doesn’t count. During lunchbreak this one girl Tamsin – well, she said that Chantelle’s so ugly they could use her in prisons to cure sex offenders. Tamsin’s boyfriend reckoned he called the Rape Advice Line but, unfortunately, it’s only for victims . . . Another one of the boys wanted to know if you raped a pregnant bitch could you then tell your friends you’d had a threesome? . . . A prefect was on lunch duty. He overheard some of this and marched over to interrupt. He said, “Rape isn’t funny. You should never rape anyone.” I felt
sooo
relieved and the boys stopped laughing and were kinda worrying about detention. Then this prefect said, “Unless you have a really good reason . . . like
they won’t have sex with you or something
.” The boys killed themselves laughing. And then on the way home from school I noticed this new graffiti in the bus stop that says “Stop rape, say yes.” What does it all mean, Mum?’ My darling daughter turned her elfin face towards me and gave me her famous candid stare, her pale-blue eyes wide.

My mother’s head was tilted like a bird’s, in that hyperalert way that says nothing will get past her. ‘What it means is that to many people rape is not a heinous crime, but just a “struggle cuddle”,’ she said pointedly.

I kissed the tip of my daughter’s perky nose, picked up my bag and headed for the door. What it
meant
was that I was off to the Old Bailey. To see Jack Cassidy.

‘Must you have the heating so low? It’s freezing in here,’ I said, sweeping into the office of my nemesis unannounced.

Unable to find Jack at the Old Bailey, I’d tracked him down to his Chambers. I inhaled the aroma of dusty furnishings pomaded with cigar smoke.

‘I employ a company called “Stiff Nipples Air-conditioning”. Excellent, isn’t it?’ Jack said, dropping his eyes to my chest. ‘So, I hear you’re representing the ball-blaster?’ He smiled wryly. ‘Why does that not surprise me? Your “practice”, and I use that term loosely, does so metaphorically, already. You’re always giving men a bollocking.’

‘The reason my mother and I set up Pandora’s is because women make up 51 per cent of the population, do two-thirds of the work . . . earn 10 per cent of the money and own 1 per cent of the property. In other words, it’s still a man’s world. The only reason you blokes let women off sinking ships before you is so we’ll check the strength of the bloody lifeboats.’

Jack laughed warmly. ‘Let me just check . . .’ He placed a hand on his heart and cocked his head for a moment. ‘Yes, I still avidly adore you. And not just because your nipples are on high beam.’

‘Sorry, but I obviously left my spontaneous quips in my other handbag. Something to do with the fact that I’ve just been visiting a little girl in hospital who was brutally raped by two heartless thugs.’

‘Allegedly.’

‘Your chronic scepticism is the very reason why we need to try my client first, before their rape trial. If the poor girl doesn’t give a good account of what happened – and who could, under the circumstances, she’s just turned sixteen, for God’s sake! – the rapists will get off and my gran will go down. In your position as Treasury Counsel, it’s the only humane and just thing to do.’

‘Ah, so you’ve come here to make a plea bargain.’ Jack Cassidy’s eyes narrowed with keen interest. ‘I hear the plea. But what’s the bargain?’ He gave me a playful smirk. ‘If I do this favour for
you
, what’s in it for
me
?’