Out of the Dark (19 page)

The other woman said nothing, so Trish had to try again. ‘Caro, when I think of that evening we spent here, when I told you about my miscarriage and you were so kind to me, I can’t believe it’s you stonewalling like this.’

‘That’s emotional blackmail.’

‘No, it’s not. It’s a reminder that we’re
friends.
Aren’t we?’

There was another sigh. Then Caro said very fast, as though she’d only get it out if she didn’t give herself much time, ‘Did you know that your father has a history of violence against women?’

Trish felt as though she’d fallen from the cliff edge now and was whirling in space, waiting to hit the ground. ‘Yes, but I don’t know how you’ve got on to it.’

‘And obviously I can’t tell you.’ Caro did not click off her phone, so Trish knew there was more. She tried to talk but her tongue felt as though it was frozen solid. She forced it to move.

‘Are you suggesting he really might be implicated in the death of David’s mother?’

George looked up. Trish couldn’t explain anything then, so she shook her head. He nodded and turned away to give her privacy. She knew he would wait until she was ready to tell him about this.

‘I’m not suggesting anything. It is not, thank God, my case.’

‘Or that
I’m
in some way involved? Is that it, Caro? You, or Lakeshaw, have decided that I was round at the Mull Estate, trying to find out Jeannie Nest’s new identity and address for my father. Is that really it?’

‘Don’t be stupid. Of course it’s not.’ There was a pause, which Trish did not feel inclined to fill. ‘If you had been,
you’d never have gone to the estate, you’d have used your legal contacts. And you’d certainly never have said anything to me about her. But, let’s face it, you could make a case for that story, couldn’t you?’

‘I could make a case for almost anything.’ Even Nick Gurles’s innocence. ‘But not this. Caro, you should’ve told me straight away, not made me ferret around for it.’

‘I shouldn’t have talked to you at all. When DCI Lakeshaw comes back to you …’

‘I won’t drop you in it.’ Trish wondered if she sounded as bitter as she felt. It surprised her to find Caro so cowardly.

A little energy returned with the robust response, ‘That wasn’t what I was going to say. I was warning
you
to be careful. Don’t let that temper of yours make you say more than you mean. Lakeshaw can be highly provocative. And I’ll deny ever having said that.’

‘Then you shouldn’t be using a mobile. Someone’s bound to be listening. Bye.’ Trish was ashamed of hanging up so abruptly.

She knew she ought to phone her father, but she had no idea what she’d say to him. She couldn’t believe that he was capable of killing anyone, but there was a despicable little worm of reassurance that was tunnelling through her brain. If Paddy
had
murdered Jeannie Nest, then Trish could forget about the small blond man – or men – who’d seemed so threatening.

‘That’s sick,’ she said aloud, making George look round from his emails again. She wanted to tell him everything Caro had hinted, but she needed to get it straight for herself first.

She tried to believe that she would have noticed something frightening in Paddy if he’d been able to commit a crime as terrible as this. But then she’d never seen anything in him to warn her that he’d ever hit her mother. It had taken his confession to make her see that capacity in
him. The worm of reassurance had metamorphosed into something monstrous. Now that she’d had time to think, she knew that she would infinitely rather be beaten up in the street than discover she had a killer for a father.

 

Caro was fighting her conscience on two fronts. She took out the sheaf of photographs DCI Lakeshaw had insisted on leaving with her. The body was in worse shape than any she’d ever seen. She wished Lakeshaw had given her some idea of the evidence that made him so sure Paddy Maguire had been the perpetrator. Either he didn’t have enough yet or he didn’t trust her not to pass it on. If Maguire was guilty, Caro wanted him charged, convicted and locked up as soon as possible, but she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of what Trish would go through if it happened without warning.

At least asking the question about his violence meant that Trish would be aware of what was going on, and that might in itself be enough to make her watch out for herself. If Paddy Maguire were capable of doing this to an old lover, what would he do to his daughter if he thought she were in league with the police?

Lil Handsome sat opposite her husband at one of the tea-stained grey tables in the visitors’ room. His wizened face and scrawny neck made him look ill, and much older than her, even though they were only two years apart and he never had to do a hand’s turn in here. He was coughing too, and spitting brown phlegm into his handkerchief, in a way that made her feel downright ill. If anything could make her give up the fags, it’d be this.

‘How’s business?’ he asked breathlessly when he’d wiped his mouth.

‘Not good.’

‘Why? Have you been slacking off?’

‘I’ve told you before,’ she said with as much patience as she could find for him, ‘it’s the mail-order catalogues. People can buy anything they want from them. And they’re not like banks. They give credit to nearly anyone, whatever they put in the small print. I’ve known women run up a thousand pounds on toys and stuff just to give their kids a good Christmas. Oh, my God, it’s disgusting.’

‘They can’t buy food from catalogues, though, can they, Lil? Nor pay the electric. When the Giro’s run out, they’ve either got to sit in the dark or come to us. You should do well enough out of that at the interest
you
charge.’

‘It’s small stuff.’

‘Then why aren’t you using Gal to get more men as customers, like I told you?’

‘He’s no good at it, Ron. Listen …’

But he wouldn’t listen. He never had. Now he was jabbing a finger towards her, only just holding himself from shouting like he used to do.

‘He says you’ve shut him right out, in spite of everything I told you – you and the boy.’

So that’s why he keeps phoning Mikey, Lil thought.
And
why Mikey’s fretting about who’ll get the business in the end. Maybe it’s that making him so angry. But if so, why’s he muttering about killing ‘the bitch’? Who is she?

‘I’m warning you, Lil.’

Hating him, she reminded herself that there wasn’t a thing he could do to either her or Mikey from in here.

‘Leave off, Ron. The boy’s helpful now I can’t get about like I did. Brings my shopping and that. And he’s much better with the customers than Gal ever was. More honest too.’

Her husband’s eyes went all cold and thin, while the rest of him got very still, just like the first time he’d hit her. Lil hadn’t had any idea then what was coming. Later she’d learned to read the signs, of course, but not that time. She’d been talking happily while she made him his tea. Pregnant, she’d been feeling sick, and the food she was cooking made it worse, but she’d been brought up to give a man a hot meal when he came in from work, so she was doing her best. But throwing up earlier had made her late.

He’d told her to stop chattering and get his bloody food on the table. She’d said it wouldn’t be long. He’d looked at her then like this, all cold and narrow and still, and asked her what she’d said. Thinking he must have wax in his ears, she’d said it again, louder, and then she’d felt his hand crashing into the side of her face.

That time the boiling water had been a mistake, she was sure. But it’d given him ideas and he’d used it on her again later. Thank God, he couldn’t touch her any
more, however much he jabbed his finger and effed and blinded.

‘I won’t fucking well have it,’ he said, still quiet and dangerous. ‘Letting your own son go hungry and giving everything to a boy like that. It’s not right, Lil. A man of Gal’s age deserves respect. See to it, or …’

It was good that there was the table between them and the officer on his little platform checking them all.

‘Or
what,
Ron?’ she said, letting herself sound more powerful than she’d ever done in the days when she’d tried so hard not to make him angry. She could feel how much he wanted to hit her now, but she wouldn’t look away from him. In here she was safe.

‘Or I’ll send round some of my mates to make you do it. I’m serious, Lil.’

He probably would, too. She saw a way to find out what she’d come for.

‘How d’you know they’d do it for you? A washed-up has-been like you.’

He didn’t answer, but he looked more than happy; she could tell he was pleased with himself about something.

‘Have you been sending them round to someone else, Ron? Jeannie Nest, maybe? There’s a lot of talk that something’s happened to her. Was that your doing?’

‘Of course not,’ he said, but he still looked pleased with himself. ‘I’m glad she’s got what she deserved, but I didn’t do it.’

‘How d’you know she has?’

‘I c’n read, can’t I? We get the papers in here.’

‘There hasn’t been anything about Jeannie in the papers. Did you get it from Gal?’

‘Don’t be daft! Why would Gal know anything? He hasn’t never had anything to do with that slag.’

‘Then who did tell you?’

Ron shrugged. ‘Had the police in, didn’t I? Asking the same like what you’ve just asked. But it’s nothing to do
with any of us. She was a nosy-parkering bitch and women like that don’t change. She’ll have pissed off lots more than us. Any of them could’ve gone after her. Interfering like she does is what gets women into trouble. Always.’

No, it isn’t, Lil thought. Taking up with men like you and Gary is what gets women into trouble.

‘D’you swear you don’t know anything about what happened to her?’

‘Oh, stop nagging, woman.’ Ron coughed again, then couldn’t stop, and was soon almost heaving his guts up.

He wouldn’t be seventy for another year. Sometimes when she saw famous people on the television, she couldn’t believe how old they were supposed to be. They looked years younger than her and Ron. Of course, they didn’t have her worries.

When he was quiet again, his forehead was shiny with sweat. ‘You’re killing me, like you always did. Get out of here. And no more playing favourites with the business or you’ll find yourself in trouble. I mean it.’

I’ve got trouble whatever I do, she thought. ‘I’d best be off then to get the bus. Is there anything you need?’

‘Phonecards and fags, for Christ’s sake. You should know that by now.’

‘I’ve already given them to the screw.’ She pushed back her chair and levered herself to her feet, feeling the pain in her knees and her back and her jaw. Oh my God! I hate him, she thought.

‘I’m going for a scan next week,’ he said suddenly.

‘Why? What for?’

‘Me lungs. See why I’ve got this cough.’

She picked up the shopping bag and, nodding to the officer, walked out.

‘You’re leaving early, Lil,’ said the officer on the gate.

‘No point staying. I’ve handed in his fags. He’s told me he’s going to hospital. Nothing more to be said.’

She walked painfully down the long pavement towards
the bus stop and the phone box, wondering how she’d feel if he was really ill or if he died. It would make life a lot easier, but she still didn’t like the idea. She hoped Mikey would be at the flat when she got home. She didn’t want to be on her own today, not with all the memories Ron had stirred up.

 

‘And so, Antony,’ Robert Anstey said, recrossing his long legs, ‘you must see that it would be in Trish’s own best interest to relieve her of this case before it makes her ill.’

‘Are you sure there’s not just a smidgeon of self-interest in this unprecedented concern for her?’

‘God no!’ Robert said virtuously. He leaned forwards to underline his sincerity, gazing at Antony with the Olympian kindliness of a consultant surgeon pronouncing a death sentence.

Marshall Hall eat your heart out, Antony thought, hiding his amusement behind his usual polite detachment.

‘It’s just that I haven’t seen her as white and twitchy as this since she had to take her sabbatical. And you know how worried we all were then.’

‘Indeed, but she sorted herself out well enough to write an important book during her months away from chambers. And she’s done superb work since.’ Antony was even more amused to see Robert’s full lips pouting like a Victorian courtesan’s. Clown! he thought.

‘Only in family law and she knows her way round that like the back of her hand. Nick Gurles’s case is different. It’s clearly putting her under much too much strain. Haven’t you noticed that she’s hardly been in chambers at all since you got back? She’s clearly terrified of your finding out how inadequate she is. It’ll be ghastly for her if she cracks up in the middle, embarrassing for chambers, and disastrous for poor Nick Gurles.’

Antony sat in his comfortable leather chair, saying nothing. He’d never liked Robert Anstey, and had in fact
voted against him in the year he completed his pupillage, but there was no denying his competence. And he was far from stupid. In fact, occasionally he saw rather further than Antony would have liked.

‘You must see that you’re doing her no favours by putting her under this kind of stress. It’s really not fair, Antony. She’s a lot more fragile than she or anyone else has realised.’

Antony thought of Trish’s eagle nose and spiky hair and the ferocious determination that had kept her fighting through every case she’d ever had, however unattractive her client. She might care a little too much, but to him that was preferable to Robert’s heavily blunted antennae.

‘You really can’t take the risk, Antony.’

He stood up, surprising Robert, who twitched like an electrocuted sheep before standing up and trying to look nonchalant as he leaned on the back of the chair he’d just vacated.

‘You do yourself no good by this kind of intervention, Robert. I have absolute faith in Trish, and I won’t be dictated to by any junior in my chambers. Now, I’ve got work to do, so you’ll have to excuse me.’

Robert flushed, but he was not stupid enough to protest. At the door he turned back. His face was controlled again and a familiar, rather unpleasant little smile was tweaking at the muscles either side of his full mouth.

‘I hope – for your sake as well as Nick’s – that you won’t be disappointed this time.’

Antony merely smiled and waited for him to leave.

 

Mikey must’ve seen Lil from the windows because he had the kettle on by the time she got to the top floor. He mashed the tea, and she saw he’d got a new Battenburg for her. It made a change to have someone to notice what you liked and get it for you. She shouldn’t have been so worried about what he was up to. He
was
a good boy, after all.

She peeled off the yellow outside and broke open the neat little squares of pink and yellow sponge. She always ate both pink ones first before touching the yellow bits.

‘Why d’you always leave the outside, Nan?’

‘I don’t like the almond.’

‘I could buy you ordinary cake then.’

She shook her head. ‘It’s this I like. You’re a good boy.’

‘Did Grandad say anything?’

‘Not much. Only the same stuff about giving Gal a share of the business.’

Mikey flashed a dangerous look at her, then calmed down as he saw her smile.

‘Don’t worry about it, Mikey,’ she said quickly. ‘You know I won’t. And your grandad’s not well. It’s his lungs.’

‘I’m not surprised, the amount he smokes, stupid git. What did he tell you about Jeannie Nest?’

‘Nothing, except that he hadn’t had anything to do with it. But I don’t know if he was lying. I thought I’d be able to tell.’ Lil picked up the last yellow square and ate it carefully, making it last. There was a crumb left on the plate, so she licked her finger and picked it up. ‘But I couldn’t.’

‘Nan?’ Mikey said, after a long pause.

‘Yes?’

‘You know what Uncle Gal said to you, the other day when we were round at his place?’

‘That you’re only here for what you can get out of me?’

‘Yeah. You didn’t believe it, did you?’

‘No.’ Old Lil considered her grandson, handsome as his name and healthy and helpful. And a lot less angry now than he’d been the last few days. Maybe now was the time for the final test. It would be good to know for sure that she could trust him so that she could get out of this place and
leave off all her worries. ‘And you didn’t believe him when he said you’d never get the business, did you, Mikey?’

Slowly he shook his neat head. ‘No. I think you’ll retire when you’re good and ready, and if Grandad isn’t out by then, I think you will want me to take over.’

‘You’re right there. And I’m nearly ready to do it now.’

His nice white teeth showed as he smiled. ‘Don’t rush for my sake, Nan. I’ve got enough to do with my girls and the cabbing. Like I said, the girls have been playing up. It’s hard enough to fit in sorting them with the collecting, let alone all the planning and accounting you do. I can wait, you know.’

Patting his hand, she said, ‘I know. And you’re a good boy. Help me up, Mikey.’

When she was balanced on her feet, she took him through to her bedroom and then on to the kitchen, showing him the false cupboard backs and all the other hiding places for the cash boxes with the float and the account books. She saw the brown-paper package with Gal’s bloody trousers in it, but she didn’t explain and Mikey didn’t ask. She made him laugh with her story of the mouse’s teethmarks on the debtors’ list.

‘I’m going out tomorrow for most of the day,’ she said as she covered the last hiding place again.

He did look startled then. ‘Where? What d’you mean?’

‘I’ve got things to see to if I’m about to retire. I’ll be back in time for tea. Will you be here?’

‘I’ll do my best, Nan, but I can’t promise.’

 

In all her years in court, standing up to hostile judges or cross-examining obstructive witnesses, even standing alone in a cell with a client who’d been accused of appalling crimes, Trish had never felt so uncomfortable. She rang the bell of her father’s flat in Cottesmore Court, just south of Kensington High Street.

‘Trish! Come in,’ he said, nearly smiling. Then his eyes hardened, perhaps in response to her stiffness. ‘Unless you’re planning to ask more questions about Jeannie Nest. If you are, you can bugger off now.’