Never Tell (38 page)

I watched Ash Kattan rise through the party ranks and win the Tory seat just before Christmas, not Eddie Johnson’s, but snatching a Labour one in Berkshire, much to the
Telegraph’s
delight. There was never any mention of his father in the British press, although one night I thought I caught Hadi’s name on the radio, a report on the World Service about a party for the Saudi royal family who were visiting Tehran. I wondered what Kattan was doing in Iran now. I imagined that, though on the streets chaos reigned as the people started to fight hard for democracy, Kattan would rise above it all as ever, enigmatic and mysterious. And in his wake, would Danny be following?

I had pushed all thoughts of Danny as far from me as possible, until sometimes it all seemed like a dream. There were many nights when I couldn’t sleep, his face spinning through my head, but I was no longer crippled with yearning as I had been at first. The sickening pain dulled to a monotonous ache. The drug that had filled my veins ebbed away, the fear that this was my one last chance for happiness faded. I accepted my lot, but it was a long and torturous path, considering the brevity of our relationship, and one I struggled to comprehend. Only I could have chosen someone who, rather than rejuvenate my flagging self-worth, actually plunged me deeper into despair. And yet, I started to think now, was it more to do with the place I’d been in, than the man I had chosen?

Whatever the answer, I had fallen too fast, too hard; irrationally, illogically. Now I had to get back up again.

Most frightening though, Lord Higham’s newly formed party, the UK National Party, was being greeted by the British public with an alacrity that was entirely alarming. As charismatic as smooth Robert Kilroy-Silk but not as oily or overly earnest as the new UKIP lot, Higham spoke with such charm and fervour that he whipped the proletariat up into a frenzy of desire to be British, to unite, to see the nation return to its ‘on the beaches’ mentality, accompanied by the trusty bowler hat or knotted headscarf. Occasionally Higham would mention the scourge of Muslim terrorists, the rise of divisive faith schools, immigration gone mad – but he tucked these subjects carefully into his speeches between the other more noble kind.

‘He’s a dangerous fucker,’ Xav sniffed at the television we were watching with the sound down, gorging ourselves on the champagne truffles he’d brought with him.

‘I’ll say.’

I looked at those protuberant glacial eyes and I thought of my friend Dalziel. I remembered the way his father had covered the crisis up; how a fatal situation had been made slick after Higham’s hand carefully smoothed it over.

Who knew what lay beneath?

PART THREE

Chapter Thirty-One
THE TIMES, APRIL 2009

Our pleasures in this world are always to be paid for
.

Northanger Abbey
, Jane Austen

The notorious Revolver trial of James Miller finally began today at London’s Old Bailey. Mr Miller, the millionaire club promoter and record producer, is accused of smuggling heroin; the consignment police seized holds a street value of £2.5million. The drug was allegedly contained in a shipment of marble and wooden furniture bound for Miller & MacAvoy’s new super-club Revolver, based in Smithfield. A last-minute development means Miller will now stand trial along with co-defendant Saquib Baheev; both men are said to be pleading not guilty. Miller’s wife, Rose, formerly Rose Langton, was at the court today, although his business partner, Liam MacAvoy, is still out of the country; there has been no suggestion of MacAvoy’s involvement in the case
.

Prior to the birth of her three children, Mrs Miller enjoyed an award-winning career as an investigative journalist, but she declined to comment outside court today
.

The Sunday morning before the trial finally began, I awoke to find Effie staring at me.

‘Open your eyes, Mummy,’ she was saying, squishing my cheeks between small hands. I opened and shut them again quickly. I felt vertiginous: like I was at the top of the ski-jump in Innsbruck where James and I had gone when we still did things like that, the Christmas before Alicia was conceived.

I screwed my eyes up tight; saw myself as a minute speck waiting at the top of the mighty white expanse – about to hurtle off the end into oblivion.

‘Open,’ Effie insisted. Reluctantly, I did. She stuck a small finger in my eye.

‘Ow!’

‘I want a biscuit, Mummy,’ she guffawed with delight. ‘Now.’

It had been the strangest year of my life. A year of guilt and unrest. A whole year after the party where Katya had fallen to her death and my world had finally split open like someone had cleaved it clean down the middle.

As soon as the case was over, whatever the outcome, we’d move from the Cotswolds. I’d relinquished the delusion that I could ever make it home now; valiantly I’d endured the gossip and the stares until finally everyone got tired of us and forgot the scandal. Surprisingly, a few had shown true friendship; even Helen Kelsey had insisted on making me a weekly casserole, for which my kids were eternally grateful. Properly cooked food, made with care – unlike my burned offerings. I realised James’s story about her crush had probably been a downright lie.

My mother packed the children into the car that breezy April afternoon and took them up to Derbyshire. For the duration of the trial I’d stay in London with Jen or Xav, and see the children at the weekends.

I kissed them bravely and then my mother hugged me. ‘Good luck, Rosie. I hope it goes all right.’

My parents had been mortified by the whole situation, I knew, but stoically and with absolute loyalty, they had never once mentioned their embarrassment, though my own guilt was immense.

I waved the car off, tears springing to my eyes as Effie blew me kisses through the back window. As they turned the corner, I saw Freddie stick his light-saber up Alicia’s nose.

After a year of indrawn breath, I was waiting to exhale again.

I got up at dawn the next day and drove into London beneath speckled mackerel skies. As I sped down the Westway, my phone rang.

‘Rose?’ It was Ruth, James’s solicitor. ‘I’ve got some bad news, I’m afraid.’

‘What?’ Fear gripped me; for a moment I felt light-headed. The van in the lane beside me blasted his horn as I swerved dangerously.

‘We’ve only just heard. The Crown want to call you as a witness.’

‘I don’t understand.’

The van driver was mouthing at me, jabbing his finger at my mobile. I ignored him, tucking the phone under my chin. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means you’d be a witness for the prosecution.’

A motorbike flashed by, the driver crouched like a bat out of hell.

‘God,’ I mumbled. ‘And what does
that
mean?’

‘It means, Rose, that you will be called to give evidence
against
James.’

Given the massive media interest in James, I was unsurprised by the amount of press as I arrived at the Old Bailey that first morning – but still I nearly turned back. The hounds were baying for blood as I put my head down, hiding behind sunglasses although the day was dull and grey, the sky overcast. Still, I recognised faces I’d known for years, more that I hadn’t; TV crews, even paparazzi in some vain hope that a real celebrity might turn up (some hope; James’s famous friends had proved fair-weather so far).

Every fibre of me screamed ‘go back’ as I broke through their ranks. It was utterly alien for me to be on this side – but I had no choice. Suddenly I knew how the fox felt.

‘Give us a break, guys,’ I muttered. A few stood back to let me through.

The first four days, I just waited around. As a probable defence witness I wasn’t allowed to enter the court whilst the Crown case proceeded first. But I felt it was my duty to be near James, despite not being able even to see him. I sat in the corridor or the canteen; I read gossip magazines and drank a lot of tepid tea. I taught myself Sudoku. Occasionally I tried to write something, but my concentration was shot. And all the time I was waiting the refrain played through my head: if James gets out, I have to tell him I’m leaving anyway.

I watched families come and go, crying, ashen-faced, complacent. I watched the defendants who swaggered and those who’d bought a new suit for the occasion. I watched those shaven red-raw for the judge, white shirts still showing the creases from their M&S packet. I watched nervous girlfriends called to give evidence. One tall thin girl stuck in my mind, biting her nails as she waited to speak in an assault case. I watched the innocent and the guilty, and try as I might to discern which was which, I rarely could. Did people wonder the same about me?

Each night after court adjourned, Ruth would patiently run through things with me. I read the witness statements. The Crown were alleging that James had known about the heroin; it had entered the UK inside a massive furniture shipment. They said that James had long been part of the team to mastermind the operation. The drugs had been inside hollowed-out furniture – garden tables, statues – and they believed that he had used the clubs as a front.

Another man was on trial too, a British-Pakistani called Saquib Baheev. I vaguely remembered James mentioning a Saquib, but the fuzzy little head-shot they showed on the one news bulletin I saw meant nothing to me. The prosecution alleged the two men had worked in conjunction with each other, but James had made the initial contact. There was never any mention of Hadi Kattan.

‘He’s slipped the net on this one,’ Ruth had said when I pressed her. ‘Even if he
is
involved – and the CPS have no evidence apparently to say he is – I’d guess he’s being protected by someone. I don’t know. We have no extradition treaty with Iran. Even if he was charged, they’d never be able to bring him in.’

Danny’s words echoed in my head: diplomatic immunity. He was like a phantom, Hadi Kattan, like the Scarlet Pimpernel.
They seek him here, they seek him there
. Somewhere, someone was protecting him. I just didn’t know why.

And then it was my turn. I took the stand on the Friday morning, feeling under-prepared, trembling with nerves. I’d tried so hard to be calm and collected but I even fumbled my swearing in. It was the first time I’d seen James in a week; he looked thin and anxious as we smiled at each other shakily across the room. And then I looked at the other defendant seated next to him and I felt nausea rise quickly in my gullet.

Saquib Baheev was Zack from Albion Manor: the heavy who had been part of Kattan’s entourage.

Cold sweat broke out under my arms; I grasped the card I was reading from so tight I left shiny fingerprints on it. Saquib looked over at me and I could have sworn he winked.

The barrister for the prosecution, Janet Leen, stepped up. Leen’s face was clay-like, raw and ill-defined, like someone had forgotten to finish it. She moved uncomfortably in her smart clothes; her wig was tatty and trailing hairs; she stamped across the court. But when she spoke, she was sharp as a cut-throat razor.

‘So your husband was experiencing severe financial difficulties?’

‘Not to my knowledge, no. His income was considerable.’

‘But we know he was; his accountant’s already told us. And his spending was out of control.’

‘Not really, for someone who earned what he did.’

‘But the money had dried up.’

‘Not as far as I was aware.’ I had to be honest now. ‘He was in charge of his business affairs.’

‘Ah,’ Leen sniffed disdainfully. ‘The dutiful housewife taking the back seat.’

Christ. What was it with these bloody women and my domestic life?

‘Hardly. But James dealt with his business income himself. I mean, why would I get involved?’

‘Why would you indeed, Mrs Miller, apart from to spend it?’ She smiled a horrible
faux
smile.

‘I’m not some sort of WAG,’ I retorted. The jury smiled and I relaxed a little. ‘I had a successful career myself before having my children.’

‘Really? Doing what?’

‘I was – I am a journalist.’

‘A journalist.’ Leen spat out the word as if I had just professed to being a child killer. ‘So how did you feel when you found out he was having the affair?’ Slowly she drew out the syllables of ‘aff-air’.

The head of John Huntingdon, James’s barrister, snapped up. There was a murmur through the jury. My stomach plunged.

‘I didn’t know anything about an affair.’ I tried to keep my voice steady. I hadn’t; not when James was arrested, so I wasn’t lying, I told myself.

‘Didn’t it start whilst you were at university?’ Leen said calmly. ‘When you were involved with the ghastly Society X.’

James and I glanced at each other; I tried to hide my shock. There had been no indication that this would be brought up; we had not talked about the Society to Ruth and she had never mentioned it.

‘Objection, Your Honour.’ James’s barrister shot to his feet. ‘What bearing can university shenanigans possibly have on this case?’

The judge looked down from her position of gravitas. ‘Expand, please, Ms Leen.’

‘I just want to explain that Mr Miller is far from the blemish-free character that has been suggested so far.’

‘That’s absolute rubbish,’ I expostulated. ‘Society X—’

‘Mrs Miller,’ the judge said quite gently, ‘please. Wait until you are asked to speak.’

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled. James’s legal team were looking vaguely horrified, muttering to one another. I stared at Janet Leen. She stared calmly back. Her nose looked like someone had given the clay a sharp twist.

‘I believe your husband was actually arrested and charged in 1992, was he not? Accused of intent to harm after an incident in Oxford’s Randolph Hotel?’

‘For about an hour. All charges were dropped. It was a mistake.’

Leen looked at me and then she turned to the jury. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I would just like you to take into account that James Miller was a member of the notorious Society X, whose pranks ended in the tragic death of at least one member.’