Out of the Dark (24 page)

There was a gasp. Then Bella said, ‘Yes, but how did you know? Have the police broken their promise of confidentiality already?’

‘What do you mean? Has the DNA test come through?’

‘I thought that’s why you were phoning,’ Bella said, sounding as though she was in the middle of a fog. ‘The results came yesterday. David is his. Which is why he’s keeping out of the way. He doesn’t know how to deal with it himself yet, and the last thing he wants to do is answer questions from anyone else. If the news does leak, he wishes to be well out of reach.’

‘What’s he going to do about the boy – his son?’

‘Trish, be reasonable. What can he do? He’s a man in his sixties, not in good health, with a triple bypass. He can’t start looking after a strange child just because once, years ago, a woman he was seeing got careless. Even if …’ The fog had closed in on her, cutting her off from Trish, who thought, Even if what? Even if he doesn’t go to prison for life?

Pretending she hadn’t thought it, and Bella had never even hinted at it, Trish asked mildly whether her father was intending David to be brought up in care.

‘Presumably,’ Bella said. Then her asperity loosened into a plea that sounded as though she was begging for something quite different from the words she used. ‘But Trish, it wouldn’t be all that different from the life this boy must have lived in both Southwark and Hoxton. And he’ll be safe. He won’t have this terrible threat hanging over him. He’ll be fine. You must harden your buttery heart sometimes.’

‘He’s not just “this boy”, you know.’ Trish thought of David’s fingers, white with stress as they clutched her wrist, and of the moment when he’d melted into relief when she first gave him her name. Her father might be able to see that child go into care; she couldn’t.

‘Maybe not, but Paddy can’t be expected to look after him. That woman caused him no end of trouble at the time, and he’s been in hell these past two weeks since she died. Hell. Trish, you have no idea how offensive the police have
been as they’ve dug through his past and cross-examined us both about the way he treats women.’

Then they must have something else, Trish thought. Lakeshaw is elusive, rude and unreasonable, but he wouldn’t have wasted so much expensive police time on the unsubstantiated word of Frankie Mason. Would he?

‘Look, Bella, I thought he had an alibi. Didn’t you say over the phone last week that you’d told Lakeshaw he was with you all of Tuesday night?’

‘Yes, of course I did. And he was.’ There was an energy in Bella’s voice now that didn’t ring true, and some odd stresses, like a singer who just manages to hit top A but has to strain for it, spoiling the sound, turning it into a scream.

‘Then have they changed their minds about the time of death? Or were you … ?’ Lying seemed too offensive a word. ‘Fibbing?’

‘No. I thought it was true. Hoped it was.’ Bella’s voice was taut now and the anguish was all too audible. ‘But I’d been sleeping so badly the last few nights before then that I took a pill that night. I probably wouldn’t have known if a herd of elephants had charged through the room.’

‘You mean, he might have gone out that night?’ Trish felt cold down her back again. And this time it was spreading through her entire body.

‘Something’s convinced Lakeshaw that he did. He keeps coming round badgering Paddy to admit that he got up and left the house in the middle of the night.’

‘What evidence has he got?’ Trish heard her voice snap like a trap.

‘He won’t say, but it’s clear there’s something. I’ve tried to ask Paddy if he went out just for a few minutes for some innocent reason. But it just makes him furious with me, so I can’t go on. I’m sure if he did go out, there’s a simple explanation. But he won’t give it. You know how stubborn he is, and he’s sworn all along that he was in bed
with me. I’m so worried, Trish. If there is some evidence that he went out, all this denial makes him look … makes it look as though it could have been him who killed that poor woman. I know he couldn’t have, but oh, Trish,
why
won’t he say what he was doing?’

Trish slammed her fist backwards into the car door. Her hand hurt so much that she stood back to look at the damage. There was only a faint red mark on the skin, which explained the throbbing, but there was an oval depression, about nine inches long and four high, in the side of the car.

She wished she could concentrate on the dead woman, or David, or even Paddy himself, but all she could think of now was the question thudding through her brain: is he going to take my career away from me just as he took my childhood?

So far she’d managed to avoid saying anything to anyone in chambers about the murder or Lakeshaw’s suspicions of her father, but if it came to an arrest she’d have to warn Antony. And there was no way he’d want her as his junior on a big commercial case if her father were charged with murder. The publicity would be unavoidable – and damaging.

‘Trish? Are you still there?’

‘Sorry, Bella. I’ve got to go.’ As Trish shoved her phone back in her bag, she realised that her subconscious had made the decision on her future, just as she’d hoped.

In a world where nothing was certain, where emotion could drive people to fierce cruelty, women could be beaten up and killed, and children could be abandoned by their own parents, a successful career was the only safety worth having. If she wanted the kind of unassailable security Antony Shelley had, she’d have to do the kind of work he did and in the way he did it.

She phoned his direct line in chambers, willing cool confidence into her voice. When he answered, she told
him of her decision and asked to be allowed to go on working with him on Nick Gurles’s case.

‘Good,’ Antony said without any particular emphasis. ‘I’m glad. And Henry Buxford will be, too. He was impressed with you. Now, Nick Gurles and Peter Loyle are coming in for a con. tomorrow afternoon. I want you there, and I’d like you to come in at twelve so that we can go through all the evidence first.’

‘Of course, I’ll be there. Thank you, Antony.’

‘See you tomorrow.’

Mikey Handsome was having a lie-in. He’d been late last night, partly on purpose to give his grandmother plenty of time to check all her hideyholes for evidence that he hadn’t touched her money, and partly because one of the girls’ punters tried to get away without paying and had to be sorted out. And after that, Celeste, as she called herself now, needed reassuring. Mikey didn’t much like going where all the punters had been before him, but sometimes it was necessary. And there were condoms, after all.

When she’d made him his coffee and they were drinking it together, she said, all coy but breathless, too, ‘I thought you’d have had a go at me, Mikey.’

‘What?’

‘When that old bloke wouldn’t pay, I thought you’d say it was my fault and, well, you know …’

‘Beat you black and blue with a coathanger?’ he suggested and heard from her frightened giggle that was exactly what she’d thought.

‘Have I ever laid a finger on you or Barbie? Have I?’

She shook her head, looking even more scared. So she should. He was angry now. Now it mattered more than ever that everyone should know – and admit – that he wasn’t like the rest of the family, that
he,
like his grandmother, had too many brains to indulge in stupid violence.

‘Come on, Celeste. Have I ever fucking-well threatened to lay a finger on either of you, let alone actually done it?’

‘No, Mikey,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t. Please.’

‘OK. So don’t fucking-well accuse me of it, right?’

‘No, Mikey.’

‘Makes me angry, that kind of thing.’ He shot his cuffs and settled his shoulders. ‘I don’t expect aggro from you when I come here, Celeste. I want peace and quiet. And I don’t like it. So don’t do it again.’

‘No, Mikey.’ She looked like she was about to cry and she was pushing herself back against the wall, tightening her silly, feathery robe round her. He’d never liked it, but she said the punters did.

‘And get that thing washed. It’s filthy. Beginning to smell, too. Remember what I told you?’

‘Keep clean, keep honest, and don’t tell no lies. I ain’t forgotten, Mikey. I’ve never told you no lies. I promise.’

‘Great. Where’s the takings then?’

She scrambled off the bed, letting him see too much doughy, dimpled thigh. She ought to lose weight as well as get cleaned up, but he couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of making her do it. If she started losing customers, which she soon would, he could let her go and find a replacement. But if everything went as well as it should and his nan gave him his due, he might not have to go on with all this for much longer.

It was no wonder he’d needed a lie-in with all that aggro. Now, sitting up in bed, wondering whether to get himself some breakfast here, or go out and have it cooked for him in the café, he tried to assess how much longer he’d have to wait for the business. His grandmother must know by now that he wasn’t going to beat her up. He knew she’d been afraid of that at the beginning, and for a long while after he’d come back, but he’d done everything he could to reassure her, and it had worked – until this last mess over his stupid uncle.

He didn’t mind that his nan had been scared at first; it showed how sensible she was. But she must know it was
safe to trust him by now. And she must know he’d sussed all her hiding places long ago. After all,
he
wasn’t stupid, and the flat was no bigger than a dog’s bowl, not like Trish Maguire’s.

He’d monitored the hiding places ever since he’d first found them, knowing exactly when she’d taken money out, how much she gave his uncle (the stupid waster), how much she took for herself, and how big a float she liked to have in the flat. What he didn’t know was what she did with the cash when she did take it, but that was OK. He could’ve found out if he’d wanted to. She’d worked hard for it; and it was hers. Or it had been. Now it was time for him to take control before his grandfather got out and wrecked his life again – or forced her into handing everything over to his uncle.

The bloody trousers were lying where she’d first put them. He still wasn’t sure why she’d kept them in the first place, but he assumed it was for insurance. That’s what he’d have done and usually they thought about things in the same way. He’d always liked that.

Lying back in his clean bed, Mikey thought about how he would run things when she’d retired. He’d take custom back from the catalogues and expand the operation into something worth having, and he’d start funding some of the drug addicts. He wouldn’t deal with all of them. She was right that most were too unreliable. But there were some who’d pay up. He’d go for them, a little at a time, as an experiment.

And he’d move off the estate as soon as he could afford it. He’d decided that long ago, but it had taken a while before he’d worked out what kind of place he wanted. Now he knew. He wanted a loft like Trish Maguire’s, and a gym of his own.

Soon he’d have other people running round doing all the work, and he’d pull the strings and make the decisions and give the advice. And his nan? Well, she’d be tucked up
somewhere, safe and warm, and with plenty of Battenburg cakes to keep her happy. Mikey would see to that. He’d see her right in every way. Give her her cut whenever it was due, just like he collected her pension for her now. He wasn’t going to rip her off.

‘Mikey? You in there?’

‘Yes, Nan. D’you need something?’ He got off the bed and pulled on his sweats.

‘I’ve got the kettle on. D’you want some breakfast?’

‘No, thanks. I’m going to go to the gym. I’ll have something after. Shall I bring you anything when I come back?’

‘I need more fags,’ she said, which was a first. She knew what he felt about them. Was this another test? He put on his trainers and went out to see.

He ran the long way round to the gym so that he could pass Trish Maguire’s building. It took him seven minutes longer, but it was worth it to monitor her comings and goings. And he liked being at the point where the borough started to get rich. You stepped from one world into the next just crossing a single road. It showed him how easy it was going to be for him to get away from all the failures on the estate and have the life he should’ve had all along.

All Trish Maguire’s windows were shut today, which told him she’d already gone out. She wasn’t usually off so early. He wondered what was happening and where her fat boyfriend was.

 

Antony had drilled Trish backwards and forwards through the evidence, finding connections she’d never even guessed at. Almost able to forget about her father and Jeannie Nest, she’d been exhilarated by the process and full of more admiration for Antony than she’d have confessed to anyone. As he’d asked her questions, she’d watched him untwist the ropes of fact and straighten every strand,
before whipping them together again in unrecognisable forms.

At the end, he put his hands behind his back and stretched so that the tendons in his neck cracked.

‘Good. Well, I think we’re ready for Nick now.’ He looked at his shabby old watch. ‘Where are they?’

‘In the waiting room, I imagine,’ Trish said, laughing as she got to her feet. She felt released from some of the last weeks’ angst. This was her world. She was OK here.

Nick came in with such a broad smile she felt as though he’d flung his arms around her.

‘Trish! I’m so glad you haven’t abandoned me.’

‘Of course not. You look well.’

‘Thank you. I wish I could return the compliment, but I have to say you look exhausted. I hope it’s not because you’ve been toiling over my wretched case.’

‘You should be glad she has, Nick,’ said Antony. ‘She’s done a very good job. Sit down, Trish, and let’s get going.’

She exchanged tightly polite smiles with the Sprindlers partner, whose trainee had sent her the treacherous note. He didn’t look half as pleased to see her as Nick was.

‘Now, Nick, we need to run through one or two things, so that I have everything clear in my mind,’ Antony said. ‘Just tell me in your own words how you came to design the MegaPerformance Bond Fund.’

As he obeyed, explaining every stage of his plans, Nick kept up the boyish enthusiasm with which he’d greeted them. It was quite unlike the smoothness he’d originally shown Trish, and she liked it better.

‘Right,’ Antony said as Nick finished describing the drafting of the documents for the fund. ‘Is anyone putting pressure on you by this stage?’

‘Good lord! Of course they are. It’s been made abundantly clear that if I don’t come up with something pronto, I’ll be out on my ear.’

‘And does that distress you?’

‘Absolutely terrifies me.’

‘Even though, when you do decide to leave, you pick up a good job back in the City at a greatly enhanced salary?’

‘Even so. You’ve no idea what the atmosphere at the DOB is like. Was like. It may have changed. Margins were so tight, and the shareholders so angry, and the board so desperate, that they spent the whole time sniping. Panic turns people into bullies, you know.’

Antony nodded. He didn’t even glance at Trish, but she could feel his awareness of her and his determination that she should understand the message he wanted her to take from Gurles’s account.

‘Was the MegaPerformance Bond Fund the first product you’d taken to them after the launch of the Big-Day Booster Account was so successful?’

‘Lord no! I’d been battering my head against the brick wall of their negativity for months. They nagged me to produce stuff, then wouldn’t let me do anything with it. Every idea I came up with – and some of them were damn good – was turned down. Sometimes I thought they might be using me as a weapon against the shareholders – you know, to prove they were trying. After a while I was sure they were planning to offer my head at the AGM.’

Trish kept her face blank, but she was intrigued by the story Antony was drawing out of their client. She wondered whether someone had briefed Nick to rearrange it, or whether he’d refrained from telling it this way in the first place because he hadn’t wanted to look like a wimp in front of a woman. She could see how the facts and documents she’d so carefully amassed might support it, but it wasn’t quite what he’d told her earlier in the year. On the other hand, it was something they could use more easily.

Clever old George, she thought with a private smile.

‘Right,’ Antony said sharply, bringing her back into focus. She nodded to him to prove that she was awake.
‘But then suddenly they did want you to put one of your ideas into practice. Is that what happened?’

‘Yes. They remembered the MegaPerformance Bond Fund and asked for all the papers again. I provided them. They suddenly got all over-excited and said they must have it up and running within a month. It was the most incredible scramble to get everything done and all the documents drafted, but we worked twenty-hour days and just made it.’

‘Right. I see. And did you yourself have any doubts about it?’

‘Well, of course I did. Who wouldn’t? I mean, all investments carry risk. I didn’t have any idea it would go belly up so fast or so spectacularly. I’d never have presented it to the board in the first place, if I had.’

‘And did you express your reservations?’

‘Absolutely. But face to face. I never wrote to anyone about them, so there’s no documentary evidence. Unfortunately.’

‘Yes. Now we come to this memo here.’ Antony pointed to the note that had caused Trish such problems. ‘The one that includes a paragraph about “the other matter”. Can you tell me why you didn’t email it? I think all your other communications with your head of department were emails. Why wasn’t this?’

‘I can’t imagine.’ Gurles uncrossed his legs and leaned forwards. ‘But there must have been a reason at the time. Occasionally we had server problems. It could’ve been that the screens were down that day, and I didn’t want to wait. But it’s not relevant to this, you know. It had nothing to do with the MegaPerformance Bond. It was about a savings account we were thinking of setting up for students, which never went anywhere.’

‘Right. Well, the state of the server shouldn’t be impossible to check,’ Antony said. Trish looked at Gurles, but couldn’t see any anxiety. Maybe it was even true that
the server had been down. She still wasn’t convinced of the genuine otherness of ‘the other matter’, but she’d just heard Gurles claim it, unprompted, and so she could – just – keep her doubts to herself.

‘Good. Then I think that’s all I need.’ Antony’s eyes twinkled. He looked like everybody’s favourite uncle. Trish didn’t believe in the expression for a moment, and she knew exactly what he’d been doing. When he turned to her, the twinkle was doused. ‘Trish, is there anything else you’d like to ask Nick while he’s here?’

‘Yes, one or two things.’

‘Fire away,’ Nick said, swivelling in his chair so that he was facing her. He looked strong and serious, but affectionate with it. More and more she got the feeling he’d been coached. But she had enough faith to know it wouldn’t have been Antony who’d done it.

‘You’ve read the depositors’ statements about the losses they incurred on the fund?’

‘Yes. A lot of very sad stories, aren’t they?’

‘In the light of those, can you still say that the marketing of the fund and the terms and conditions were clear enough to protect the naive investor?’ Her tone was deliberately provocative and it duly provoked him.

‘Come on, Trish. This bond was paying five per cent over the odds. Everyone knows you get increased risk with increased rewards. If they were greedy enough to want so much more than they’d have got in any of the DOB’s entirely safe accounts, or in gilts, then they deserved to lose it.’

Trish sat back in her chair and looked at Antony, all her body language saying, ‘I rest my case,’ like an American attorney.

‘As I’ve explained before,’ Gurles went on, decoding the gestures without too much difficulty, ‘no bank is in business to protect investors. It’s in business to make money for its shareholders, not its depositors.’