Shadow Play (19 page)

So. He had seen her and been driven off like a fox from the hens. Seen his Eenie child, fancifully named to remind his wife of the Ena Harkness rose she had once tried, in her usual, unsuccessful fashion, to grow in the backyard. They should have stuck to calling her plain Rose. ‘Eenie' had soon been coined out of Enid at school. It was an ugly name, but it stuck somehow, as she grew ever more beautiful. A lithe, lissom, little thing with a bottom like a peach and long legs like a colt and all that glorious hair. When her mother had combed out that hair while the child stood still, temporarily mesmerised by the touch, Logo had watched, equally spellbound until the spell was broken by her energy and she twitched to move again. He would watch while the little body wriggled away with sinuous grace: enough, Mummy, enough of this being still. And then when Mummy began to go out, more often, as she grew bored with the child and the child with her, Logo and daughter would play together. Shadow play, she squealing and screaming with delight.

At first, only shadow play. And then less and less of the delighted screaming until she was silent.

 

S
unday afternoon saw the doorman at Helen's office let Bailey past the door on the merest flash of a warrant card, nodding Helen through on sight of a small plastic permit because it looked the right colour. ‘You could have shown him your bus pass,' Bailey said, admiring but aghast. ‘This place is about as secure as a football pitch.'

‘Or a lunatic asylum.'

‘No, far worse than that.'

‘Don't tell,' said Helen. ‘Everyone thinks it's safe. The railings, you know.'

No file, and no computer record of a file when Bailey found his way into the screen. No sign of back-up records in Rose's neat hand. Helen looked in the open book which contained each person's home address and phone number. Rose's was crossed out. Secretive, isn't she?' Bailey commented mildly. Helen was defensive.

‘So? She may have reason, poor child. They may not have a phone.'

‘All teenagers have phones. They live on the phone.'

Helen wasn't listening. ‘I'll have to ask for yet another adjournment. Unless the court's changed the date, but it still doesn't explain why everything's gone from here. I could try the basement, but I don't know where to start, all that paper—'

‘You said this would take one hour out of our twenty-four,' Bailey pointed out reasonably. ‘So far it's taken two and a half. Come on, cases are lost all the time. You must be used to it by now.'

‘No.'

There was that hard edge in her voice which he hated. ‘Losing them fairly in court is one thing. Losing them through negligence is another. Let's go home. Your place or mine?'

‘Mine. Ryan's collecting me later.' She grinned an apology.

‘Good, we can have a drink then. With the steak. Just for something completely different.'

Not perfect, but functioning as a team. This time she didn't want him to go. Nor did he. Neither of them said so.

 

A
nd by Monday, the briskness and the fury were back in business. Because Miss Helen West was a dozen times more persuasive than her junior colleague, John Riley, she managed to secure a two-week postponement of the drink-drive case without papers. The expression of anger on the face of the defendant as he left the dock was one to which she was well accustomed, might even have sympathised with, if only he had not looked so sublimely smug before. Something was wrong; something stank with a lingering smell, sniffed but not forgotten, tucked away in the hurly-burly which followed. Two thieves, four burglars, one rapist committed for trial, a posse of football hooligans up for affray, five neighbourhood fights to be bound over, three arguments between prosecutor and the clerk of the court, one with the magistrate, but none with the defence, and Helen was out of there, back to the office at a canter. Racing up the stairs with a bright coat flying over funeral black, unselfconsciously elegant and consciously impatient with the world. On a good day, Miss West could move mountains. On a bad day, she blew up tunnels with herself inside.

There was no sign of Rose. Off sick, someone said, she'd phoned in with a cough. Helen paused only to hope that Rose was not really sick but having a lovely time with Michael. Her own work ethic had taken a battering recently, she wasn't going to impose it on someone with such a meagre salary. There was also a big distraction. Notices on desks. All professional staff to go to Redwood's office at four o'clock. Helen went out to find Dinsdale, merely for the effect of his smile.

‘Panic attacks,' he said languidly, waving his own, photocopied notice. ‘He gets them on Mondays.'

‘What's it all about? He hates meetings.'

‘Don't we all? It's all about missing cases. Something of the kind, anyway. You know that débâcle with poor Riley last week? No, you wouldn't, you weren't in on Friday.' It was said neutrally, but still made her feel like a defector who had left the family behind. ‘Anyway, I told him about it on Friday evening, which he was quite content to ignore, but there's been a bit of a stink. Not from public authorities or the police, I hasten to add. Only from the solicitor who was hired to represent Riley's drink-driver, but was sacked by the client before the last hearing, on the basis of the client saying, I quote “it was all fixed”. The solicitor's furious at the loss of a private fee. He wants to know if it was “fixed”. He goes to the same golf club as Redwood. That's what it's all about.'

‘Drink-driving?'

‘No, suburban golf.'

‘So what's this meeting for? Increased handicaps?'

‘Something like that,' murmured Dinsdale as they dawdled towards Redwood's throne room. ‘Sorry about the weekend by the way. I gather your man was back.'

Dinsdale could always make her blush. So did the mention of Bailey.

‘Pity,' she said lightly. ‘Another time, if your harem lets you go.'

The door to Redwood's room was open: the meeting was already called to order. This is my life, thought Helen, should I ever want to progress in it. It will owe all the success in terms of status to being good at meetings, attending courses, bullshitting selection boards. It will have nothing to do, as Redwood's elevation does not, with being a good advocate and a creature of passionate common sense. Nothing to do with falling over in the course of justice, spending days on your knees looking for paper. She looked round the room at the others, seeking a mirror to her frequent frustration. The set of gargoyles looked meek and expectant. Optimism shone on their little faces, all but Dinsdale, who had the serene look of the respectful, ever-amused, ever-removed cynic. Redwood looked as if he were about to embark on a witch hunt. Normal.

‘It has come to my attention,' he began, portentously, ‘that we may be losing files from the office.'

This opening was greeted with hoots of laughter, some loud, some smothered. Lost files, lost cases and causes and egg all over advocates' faces was not exactly news. It might have been ironic if he had not looked so thunderous. The laughter died away. Aren't you a little worm, thought Helen, who had laughed loudest of all. Redwood raised a hand like a vicar stressing a point in a sermon, a gesture both of blessing and cursing.

‘Be quiet. Is this the way you behave in court?'

A long time since you've been to court, sir, we laugh all the time.

‘Someone has been interfering with the computer …' again, more smothered laughter. It sounded indecent.

‘… and emptying it of vital information,' he continued. ‘About ten cases appear to have been syphoned away, quite deliberately.'

‘The evidence?' Dinsdale's voice, calm and interested. ‘Does the evidence point to a culprit?'

Redwood looked at him meaningfully, man to man.

‘Yes, Mr Cotton, we have a very good idea, from purely preliminary investigations, I hasten to add. We have one absentee from the whole staff, one only today. Of course, the nonprofessionals are not at this meeting, they will have their own, and I think we may know who … The whys, apart from some kind of vendetta, have yet to be established. Obviously we cannot ask the persons who have managed to get themselves acquitted, and we don't want to involve the police who have no powers in these circumstances to do more than ask for voluntary responses …'

‘You've got to try. Even if it's entirely off the record, you've got to try. I'll try, if you like.' Helen's voice. Riley was nodding. He was remembering his own drunk driver of last week, the smugness of the man. Helen was remembering hers of this morning. Bribery and corruption? Mistake? Redwood thinks he knows who. She knew in a flash which way his meeting was going.

‘I needed you here to discuss,' Redwood was saying, ‘alternative methods of record keeping. New forms are being prepared. To be submitted to me, each week. With your diaries.'

Helen remembered him looking at desks late on a Friday night. She found herself on her feet.

‘You think it's Rose, don't you?'

‘… She's off today, was off Friday, has refused to leave an address … knows how to work the machine, spends a lot of time in the basement …' Redwood was saying it like a litany.

‘And is down with the lowest paid and the easiest to sack, so that's convenient, isn't it?' Helen was shouting. The others shifted in their seats with embarrassment. Redwood was shouting back.

‘She's the only one who stays late. The only one—'

‘With an attitude problem? OK.' Her voice had gone down an octave: Redwood was momentarily relieved. Then it rose again, not quite as high but still rising. ‘What about her notebooks?'

‘What notebooks?'

‘You don't know? Well, they're the sort of thing you might collect on a Friday night, if you happened to be tidying up,' she hinted broadly. Redwood had the grace to pause. ‘Anyway,' Helen continued, ‘anyone can get in here. My friend got in here, yesterday; so did I, just by flashing plastic, all of us here know how easy that is, apart from you. And it isn't Rose. If it's anyone at all.'

Helen sat down to refuel. She wasn't finished yet. Dinsdale looked discomfited. ‘Steady on,' he murmured in her ear. The proximity of his shoulder to hers was disturbingly public. ‘Steady what?' she hissed, recoiling from his reservation. Now all she noticed was the perfection of his hands which she did not want to restrain her.

The room, with its draughts and floor-length windows, was alive with little sights and sounds. The wind outside, rattling those inside, the muted buzz of shocked conversation, Helen's red cheeks, Redwood's sudden, public paleness. So that was what they were, those notebooks, bottom drawer left, next to one of his feet. He could not move. He had amassed them on Friday-night perambulations without any notion of their significance.

‘OK,' said Helen, conciliatory but ominous. ‘No meeting with the clerks, no stones thrown without evidence, OK? And if there's a real suggestion of malpractice, the police can investigate us just as they would anyone else. And no more forms to make up for lousy security, all right? We're already sinking in paper.'

‘Thank you,' said Redwood frostily. ‘Now, unless there are other comments, I suggest we postpone this meeting for a day or two …'

There were other suggestions. There was a chorus of complaints, a comparing of notes, a vote of confidence for prickly Rose Darvey, who treated them all with equal rudeness and served them well.

Dinsdale was silent, apparently vastly amused. Helen found herself irritated; all he could do was sit with one elegant hand fingering his silk tie. True to form, nothing emerged from the meeting; no master plan, no conclusions, nothing except an adjournment for a week and their silence requested. And Redwood's agreement that Helen West could keep Rose Darvey strictly at her own side, until the next meeting.

‘That man,' she said, striding away with Dinsdale, ‘needs a sign on the door asking you to knock so he has time to jump into a cupboard in case you ask him to make a decision.'

‘Could you do better?' said Dinsdale lightly.

‘No, probably not,' said Helen cheerfully. ‘But it would be different.'

 

C
heerfulness to this degree often followed the catharsis of anger. It always made Bailey deeply suspicious.

Helen went to the clerks' room, casually. They were ill at ease, full of speculation and her grinning presence was reassuring.

‘Anyone know Rose's address? Thought I'd send her some flowers.'

One of them gasped in astonishment; flowers for Rose, after what she'd said, but no, they didn't know. They all knew vaguely where one another lived, but names and street numbers, no. Helen phoned PC Michael's station from the privacy of her room, he would surely know where Rose lived, but Michael, she was told, was also off sick. The reserve officer was cagey, but a little verbal bullying and stressing of urgency revealed more. An accident, Whittington Hospital. Too bad if Michael didn't want visitors: if he couldn't worry about Rose, she must.

 

O
n Ward C, Michael Michael was sweating. My, haven't you been lucky, they said, if you'd been less fit, that beam would have killed you. But you've only got a hairline crack in your great big head, ha, ha, plus a face which would not look good in a mug shot at the moment, and a broken arm. No, you can't go home, not yet. The manic cheerfulness of doctors depressed him. He didn't feel lucky, he felt indescribably foolish. Flowers from Mum and Dad in Catford, fruit, food and forbidden alcohol from his relief, a trickling of cards so far, all with rude messages, winks and conspicuous attention from the rare nurses, a headache fit to blind and a heartache of worse intensity. What would Rose think? What had she been thinking? He could no more have told the wretched Williams, or Singh, or any of the others he knew well enough, to go round to Rose's place, knock on the door and give her a message. Faced with such a caller, she would think she had been placed back in the section house pot.