Out of the Dark (4 page)

Trish swigged some more coffee, hoping the caffeine would keep her awake as she went back to filling out index cards for the first of the lever-arch files. For once there were no interruptions and she was able to work steadily all afternoon. It was soothing stuff, needing absolute concentration but no mental energy. Her lack of sleep and the pill’s hangover didn’t impede her, as they might have done if she’d needed any creativity, and the constant
physical movement and need to keep track of documents and facts meant that she couldn’t think about her own problems. Or not too much.

 

Robert Anstey passed Trish’s open door again soon after four o’clock on his way to the clerks’ room. He was tempted to apply another goad, but she was concentrating so hard she didn’t even know he was there. He hoped she’d make a cock-up of the case. If she did, Antony would come to him next time. Even so, he felt a faint stirring of sympathy when she suddenly shivered, in spite of the heat.

She was frowning over her papers and her left hand was clamped down on the gelled spikes of her dark hair. Robert had always loathed the cut, considering it wholly inappropriate in these ancient chambers, but he had to admit it looked better under a wig than the straggly curls of some of the other women. And at least she was thin. Some of them positively wobbled under their gowns, the greedy cows.

Maybe he’d leave her be this afternoon. After all, she was no real competition. He looked away and saw Dave beckoning, with a fat-looking brief in his hand.

 

At one moment, needing to clear her brain of the overloading detail, Trish clicked on to her email and saw that there were several messages in her in-box. Most were of no consequence, but one was from George. She opened it, smiling as she read:

He’d been eight, Trish remembered. The same age as the boy last night. How could anyone send a child of that age into boarding-school exile?

She’d hardly ever thought of George as vulnerable. He was always so sure of himself, so calmly effective, that it was a shock to imagine him as a homesick child. No wonder he’d lost all touch with the person his mother was. You’d have to shut yourself off to deal with that kind of loneliness.

Shaken at the thought of what else his strength might have been hiding, and angry about what his parents had done to him, she went back to his email.

Refreshed by the thought of Gourmet George as a wraith, and by the reminder that there was more to life than clients, or damaged children, Trish went back to work, only to be pulled up soon afterwards by the discovery that she was missing a document. It ought to have been impossible. But it was true. Cross-referring each statement as she entered it on her index cards, she’d found a gap in the chain of evidence.

There was a note Nick Gurles had sent to his head of department about the compliance officer’s report that referred to something dated 13 March. Trish couldn’t find any sign of it. In fact, there was nothing at all from 13 March. She checked in her old diary to make sure it hadn’t been a Bank Holiday and found that it had been a perfectly ordinary weekday.

Every other piece of paper referred to anywhere had been provided by the solicitors, Sprindlers & Partners. Trish had numbered and filed them all. She needed this one, too.

Thanking God that she had embarked on this time-consuming process while Antony was still away, she reached for her phone and dialled Sprindlers’ number. When she got through she asked for Peter Loyle, the partner in charge of the case.

‘He’s on holiday,’ the receptionist said. ‘Can someone else help at all?’

‘Is there anyone in his office at the moment who’s working on the Nicholas Gurles case?’

‘I don’t know, but Lucy Ranking might be able to help you. I’ll put you through.’

Lucy Ranking was not very knowledgeable, but she
obviously wanted to be helpful and she kept apologising for the missing note.

‘I’ll start looking for it at once. I’m sure I can find it, if it’s here. I think I know where to start. And I’ll bike it over as soon as I’ve got it. If I can’t find it I’ll give you a ring at once. Is that OK?’

‘Great,’ Trish said, ‘but don’t worry about the bike. I’ve had enough for today. Bung it in the post, would you? Thank you. Bye.’

Her phone rang as soon as she’d put down the receiver. It was Dave, telling her that a policeman had just left with as much information about her recent cases as he could be given without a breach of client-confidentiality.

‘Thanks, Dave. Didn’t he want to see me?’

‘Of course he did, but you’d said you didn’t want to be involved, so I refused to call you. He didn’t press it, just asked for the list of cases and names of your clients. If you ask me, they’re just going through the motions.’

‘Then they must have a good idea who the boy is. Did they tell you anything about him?’

‘Not a thing, and I didn’t ask. You do not want to be involved. You’ve got too much to do on the Gurles case. Forget the boy. He’s not your problem and there are plenty that are. Concentrate on them.’

Trish left chambers. Outside, the air was still and warm, and the soft light pink. She nearly always dawdled over Blackfriars Bridge, often stopping to look up at St Paul’s, solid and beautiful between the flamboyant high-rises. But this evening the City held little allure for her, so she turned her back on it all, for once preferring the massed slabs of the National Theatre and the muddle beyond. As she let her gaze sweep round, past the London Eye, across the river towards the rooves of Whitehall, she thought of Dowting’s Hospital, hidden by the theatre.

‘You don’t want to get involved,’ Trish reminded herself in Dave’s voice and then again in her own.

At the Southwark end of the bridge she hesitated, thinking of the boy, and of George aged eight and abandoned to boarding school. For a second she looked back towards the Temple, then knew she had to find out more. She turned right to walk to Dowting’s.

The boy had been moved up to a ward on the tenth floor. The nurse Trish found there recognised her name at once.

‘I’m so glad you’ve come. He can’t tell us who he is, and he’s frightened to death. God knows what kind of a mother he must have.’

Trish gripped her bag and told herself that she’d been mad to come. ‘How is he? Physically, I mean.’

‘He’s got a broken leg, broken ribs, multiple bruising and concussion. He had an arterial bleed from a cut in his thigh, but that’s been dealt with. He’s recovered consciousness, but he’s not talking much – which may be the concussion, or it may not.’

‘Has he really not said anything about who he is?’ Trish asked. ‘Anything at all?’

‘No. He says he can’t remember, doesn’t know why he was on his own in a Southwark street or why he had your name sewn into his clothes.’

‘And he’s in pain?’

‘Yes. We’re giving him analgesics, but they’re never enough. He’s a brave child, though. He doesn’t make a fuss.’

‘May I see him?’ Oh, Trish, don’t be a fool, she told herself.

‘For a few minutes. But if he becomes distressed, you’ll have to go.’

‘Of course.’

‘And see if you can get him to tell you anything.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

Trish didn’t think the boy was asleep when she reached his bedside, but he was lying with his eyes closed. His injuries looked less terrifying now that he wasn’t immobilised and tubed, but they were still bad enough. One of his legs was strung up in a cradle, both his eyes were black, and one side of his face was criss-crossed with dark-red cuts and grazes. A faint crease appeared between his brows.

Seeing that she was simply adding to his difficulties, she walked closer, saying, ‘Hello. My name’s Trish Maguire. Is it all right to sit down?’

The lids flickered and lifted. His eyes looked very dark and very frightened. Trish smiled.

‘Hello,’ she said again. ‘I think you wanted to see me last night, didn’t you?’

He shut his eyes again. Trish was relieved. This indifference might let her off the hook. Then she saw that the black lashes were wet. Fat tears oozed out and spread over his bruised face. His breathing deepened, but he made no other sound. One almost flayed hand emerged from the bedclothes, palm upwards.

Trish took it. Her own eyes grew damp as she felt him relax at her touch. Still holding his hand as gently as she could, she manoeuvred the nearest chair so that she could sit down. When his tears had stopped, and he’d sniffed to clear his nose, he looked at her.

‘Can I get you anything?’ she asked quietly. He shook his head while his hand clung to hers. ‘Can you tell me who you are?’

‘David,’ he whispered.

Trish bent closer. ‘What’s your surname?’

He shook his head again, which must have hurt because the crease deepened between his eyebrows. He lay very still, resting against the pillow and looking straight ahead.

‘OK. Don’t worry about it now, David.’

His eyes slid round towards her again.

‘Your surname doesn’t matter, but if I’m to help you I need to know why you wanted to see me. You did, didn’t you?’

‘She told me.’ He was whispering again. ‘She said: “Go to Trish. She’ll look after you till I can come to c’llect you”.’

‘Who, David? Who told you?’

She felt a tug against her hand and let him go. He pulled up the sheet, covering himself up to his small, pointed chin.

‘It’s wicked, letting a poor little mite like that get lost in London in weather like last night’s.’ Trish looked up to see that the speaker was one of the other nurses. ‘You’re Trish Maguire, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. But I’ve no idea why he wanted me. I’m as lost as he is.’

‘Give it time,’ said the nurse. ‘The police will find out, even if he doesn’t remember. They’re talking to all the missing-persons charities now. It won’t take them long.’

David’s frown was back and his mouth tightened, but he kept his eyes shut. The nurse nodded meaningfully at Trish and mouthed something she couldn’t interpret. She smiled and waited until the nurse had walked away.

‘It’s all right, David,’ Trish said quietly then. ‘She’s gone. You can open your eyes.’

Watching the cleft between his flying dark brows, Trish rubbed the space between her own with the middle fingers of her left hand. It was there that the headaches always began. ‘That’s because you frown so,’ George often told her. ‘It’s not surprising it hurts. You’re clenching all the muscles, pulling them down. Let go.’

Missing him even more than usual, she took her fingers away from her face and let them rest lightly on David’s forehead.

‘I’ll do whatever I can to help. I hate answering questions, too. Have you had any food in here that you like, David, or would you like me to get you some chocolate or something?’

Trying to remember what she’d wanted as a child when she was ill or hurt, she came up with Lucozade. Her mother had always produced a bottle at the first hint of a temperature. The sticky sweetness and the strange taste of it, as well as the glamorous orange bubbles, had become part of remembered comfort.

‘Do you like Lucozade?’ David looked so surprised that she knew he’d never heard of it. ‘Or Coke?’

‘I’m not allowed Coke. I have juice. Apple juice.’

‘That’s a good idea. Shall I get you some?’

‘Yes.’ There was a pause, then two more fat tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘Please.’

Oh, God, Trish thought as her heart lurched. What am I doing? To myself and him?

‘All right, David. I won’t be long.’

The Friends of Dowting’s had a shop on the ground floor and there, in amongst the cards, fruit and flowers she found some individual boxes of fruit juice, with straws attached. She bought six apple-juice packs and took them upstairs. David was lying where she’d left him, eyes closed.

‘It’s me again,’ she said.

He had a quick look to check, then his bruised lips curved slightly. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it told Trish more clearly than any words that he hadn’t expected her to come back, that he probably didn’t expect anything good of any adult.

Whoever the ‘she’ was who’d sent him across London in the dark, Trish hated her. No one should let a child become so frightened that he reacted like this without provocation. Who could she have been? And what had she been thinking of, to send him after a total stranger in the middle of the night? Fear was the only possible excuse, but fear of what?

Trish picked the straw from its glue on the side of the carton, pushed it into the top and bent it so that David could drink without changing his position. She watched his face as the cool, sweet juice reached his tastebuds and saw that she’d done something good. He didn’t want much, spitting out the end of the straw after only a few moments’ sucking. Trish made to relieve him of the carton, but he clung to it, holding it against his chest.

‘All right, David,’ she said again. ‘I just wanted to help. I do want to help, you know, in any way I can. But it would be easier if I knew a little more. Who is it who sent you to me? Is it your mother?’

‘I’m not allowed to say.’ His hands clutched the juice carton.

‘OK. Try not to worry too much. Do you know why she wanted you to come to me?’

‘“If I tell you to go, go straight to Trish Maguire”, she said.’

‘I know. But why me?’

He looked surprised, as though she should have known. ‘I don’t know. But she told me your address and how to get there. We used to come and look at where you live. On Sundays. When I was little, she showed me; then I led the way. In case I forgot, she wrote it down and sewed it in my clothes and said if I got lost I must take a taxi and show the address and you’d pay for it. If I got lost. But I didn’t. I got hurt.’

‘I know. There was a car accident. But you will be all right and it’ll stop hurting soon. When did she start teaching you the way to my flat?’

‘Since always.’ That didn’t help much. ‘Then yesterday, it happened. She said it: “Go to Trish like I showed you. I’ll come when it’s safe. Go now.” She wasn’t shouting
then
. She was whispering, but she looked like she did when she was shouting. Cross.’ His lips trembled, but he sniffed and
wiped his free hand across both his eyes, before gripping his juice box more firmly.

Trish knew he’d been trained not to complain or cry, just as clearly as she knew how frightened he was. Was it because he’d picked up this woman’s own fear, or had she brutalised him into it? Who
was
she? And who did she think she was to dump this responsibility on Trish?

‘You won’t tell, will you?’ His voice rose. ‘She said I wasn’t to tell anyone except you.’

‘I must tell the police, David.’

His eyes looked like black holes in his white face. ‘No, you mustn’t. It’s not safe. You mustn’t. You mustn’t.
You mustn’t.’
The whisper was more intense than any scream could have been.

‘OK,’ Trish said at once. ‘It’s OK, David. I won’t tell and I’ll make sure you’re safe.’

As his panic receded a little, she thought, What the hell do I do now? ‘The nurses are kind to you, aren’t they?’ she asked aloud, wanting all the reassurance she couldn’t give him.

David nodded, then felt with his lips until he’d got the straw back in his mouth. Noisily sucking up apple juice meant that he couldn’t be made to answer any more questions.

‘Good. Then you’ll be all right here with them until your leg’s better. I’m going to have to go now, but I’ll come back tomorrow.’

His lips wobbled around the straw, but he didn’t protest, just sucked more furiously. Trish had a sudden, almost hallucinatory idea that she’d somehow been time-travelled into the future and was looking down at the child her foetus would have become if she hadn’t ill-wished it. She turned away.

‘Don’t cry,’ said a quiet voice in front of her.

A blonde woman in her twenties, holding a grubby
toy duck to her chest, gazed at Trish with excoriating sympathy.

‘He’s going to be all right, I’m sure. He looks so much better than he did last night when they brought him up. I was here then, too. Honestly, I’m sure he’ll be fine.’

Trish felt her forehead tightening. She couldn’t make herself say anything.

‘I’m not surprised you’re so shocked,’ the woman said kindly. ‘It must have been terrible when you heard what had happened. But at least you weren’t driving. I can’t think of anything worse, can you? For a mother to half-kill her own child, I mean.’

‘He’s not mine,’ Trish said, but it came out as a croak. Suddenly she needed to be on her own, away from even the kindest of strangers. But when she’d pushed her way out of the swing doors and reached the lift, she realised how rude she’d been and rushed back to apologise.

‘Don’t worry,’ said the woman. ‘We all go a bit mad when our kids are in here. Mine’s doing so well now that I’m functioning again, but it took me at least ten days. Try to get some sleep. You won’t do him any good if you give in to it. Better to dope yourself and get some rest than lie worrying all night. I’ll probably see you tomorrow, won’t I?’

Trish abandoned the effort to explain. She didn’t know enough to make it convincing, so she just left the woman believing David was her son and she distraught with anxiety for him.

Walking back to the flat, she was glad to find the streets as unthreatening as usual. Angry with the policeman for putting unnecessary fears into her mind last night, she went upstairs for her usual post-work shower. Even before she’d taken off her clothes, she stared at her face in the bathroom mirror. It was impossible not to see the similarities with David’s.

‘Who the hell is he?’ she asked her reflection.

Getting no answer, she had her shower. Then, with wet hair sleeked back and dressed in floppy shorts and T-shirt, she poured herself a glass of wine and tried to think instead of feel.

The most obvious source of help was Caroline Lyalt, a sergeant in the Met, whose advice was always worth more than most people’s. She was also absolutely trustworthy and could be relied on to keep anything Trish said to herself. The two of them had met on a murder case in the past, when Caro had been working with AMIP, and they’d become something more than acquaintances if less than friends. Recently, Caro had been posted to an East London police station, while she worked for her next promotion.

Trish refilled her glass with icy New Zealand Sauvignon and rang Caro’s mobile.

‘Caroline Lyalt,’ said a crisp voice that wasn’t actually rude but made it clear that the call had better be important. It was a tone Trish knew well. She used it herself whenever the demands of clients, colleagues and emails got too much.

‘Hi, Caro. It’s Trish Maguire,’ she said very fast, to take up as little time as possible. ‘I need to talk to you. Are you very busy, or might we be able to meet?’

‘I’m frantic. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. OK? Sorry. Bye.’

Sympathising, Trish took another mouthful of wine, letting the cool sharpness prickle against her tongue and slide down her throat. She thought of David’s relaxing as the apple juice eased into his mouth and knew she had to do everything in her power to help. The trouble was that she couldn’t think of anything useful to do.

Her mobile was ringing. She hoped it was Caro, but heard her father’s voice as soon as she answered it.

‘Trish? ’Tis Paddy here. How are you, now?’

‘I’m fine,’ she lied because they still weren’t on the
kind of terms that would allow her to tell him about the miscarriage.

She’d pretty much forgiven him now for abandoning her and her mother soon after her seventh birthday, but it had been hard to get over the huge barrier of mistrust. Paddy hadn’t even bothered to try to make contact again until she’d established a reputation at the Bar. Then, each time one of her cases figured in the law reports or her name was mentioned in any article about successful women, there would be another letter or phone call from him.