A Daughter's Secret (17 page)

‘I didn’t have you down for a twitcher,’ I say, holding out a latte as I sit down.

‘A twitcher?’ he says, raising a quizzical eyebrow to check the coffee’s for him and then taking it. He smiles gratefully, like I’ve handed him something far nicer than a cup of lukewarm foam from a dodgy van.

‘Bird fancier.’

‘So not a mentalist?’

‘Jury’s out on that one.’ Bad phrase.

The temperature’s been inching up the last few days: people are lying prostrate on the grass, with all the desperate neediness of humans who live most of their year swimming in grey soup. Patrick, dressed in a crumpled white business shirt, looks like he’s been lightly steamed, his face pink and damp-looking, his ginger locks flopping around his face for a bit of extra insulation.

‘Isn’t it just?’ he says drily, turning to me. ‘Lovely surprise you calling me, Mia. Didn’t have you down for a caller.’

‘I just . . . I wouldn’t want you to think I wasn’t taking my responsibilities seriously. I do understand I have a legal obligation to the police investigation.’

‘It did all get a bit heated, didn’t it?’ he says, holding my gaze.

‘Did it?’

‘I thought so.’

Conversation grinds to a halt. I watch a speckled brown duck kick up water, feathers ruffling with the sheer joy of it, and for one stupid second I want to swap places.

‘I know I called you, but you were the one who was so keen to meet in person,’ I point out. ‘It’s like some kind of Cold War assignation, third bench on the left, forty-five degrees north of the mallards.’

‘It’s a beautiful day, and it’s equidistant from our offices,’ he says. ‘You’re quite an overanalyser, aren’t you? Guess it comes with the territory.’

‘This isn’t a session,’ I say snappishly. ‘I don’t need a breakdown of my character.’

He gives me that half-smile I’m growing to hate, like he’s enjoying a private joke.

‘Just an observation. Are you thinking you’ve got a monopoly on the observations?’

‘Not at all.’

‘I wondered when you rang if you’d something to get off your chest,’ he says.

‘I’ve only seen Gemma once since we met. How about you?’

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘Oh come on. Turning up at my office just when she happened to be there . . .’

Patrick rolls his eyes, his hands bouncing on the slats of the bench.

‘And she’s off again with the rampant overanalysing.’

He swivels round, looks out across the water. I watch his profile, trying to work out whether this is act two of his performance – flirtatious and jocular haven’t worked, so let’s have a go with pensive and thoughtful. There’s a tightness to his jaw, like he’s swallowed something bitter and can barely hold it down, his palms grinding against the wooden surface of the seat. The easy charm might be an act, but this comes from somewhere more deeply felt.

‘I really need your help now,’ he says, brown eyes burning. ‘We’re running out of time. I know you’ll just keep pushing back, making out I’m – I’m the
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
child catcher . . .’ I can’t help laughing. In fact, I need to laugh. He eyes me, smiling for a brief second, then carrying on, urgent and intense. ‘You’re in pole position to find out what she knows. You could draw it out of her. She’d do anything for you right now. And if you don’t – if we don’t stop Stephen – people will die. It’s serious organized crime, Mia. I know I keep saying it, but it’s like you can’t hear me.’ He smiles again, eyes bright. ‘Are you deaf, is that it?’

‘I do know . . .’ I say, my hand reaching for his forearm without me consciously sending it there. ‘I understand it’s real lives, not just case notes.’ I’ve rung Mum every day this last week, and every day she’s sounded more Stepford and cheery than the last. I know from years of close study in the field that the shinier she seems on the outside, the dingier she feels on the inside. ‘But that’s entrapment, pure and simple. The reason she trusts me, if she does, is because she
can
trust me. I couldn’t live with myself.’

‘But if you led the conversation . . . it’s just you and her. It’s semantics. No one can prove that you set out to take her there.’

‘No! That’s not where I want to lead her.’

The word catches in my throat. Is Judith right – am I too bruised, too broken, to help her? Leading her is very different from supporting her, but it’s so hard to fight my desperation to draw her away from the long shadow cast by her dad. Lysette’s stupid card pops into my head; I’m feeling cracked all right, but it’s not letting the light in. It’s letting the shit in, if anything. I shrug out my shoulders, wonder how quickly I can extricate myself from this. I take a slug of bitter, lukewarm decaf, look out over the duck pond, trying to find some equilibrium.

‘Do you have to be so bloody middle class about it?’ snaps Patrick. ‘I’m not some neurotic writer stopping by for a whinge and a sniff of your scented candles. You’re so big on your grey areas: have you thought for one second that the moral thing to do might not be what you think it is?’

‘Excuse me, Mr Hotshot Lawyer, it’s hardly like you work down a bloody coal mine,’ I say, sliding myself away from him down the bench. It’s the least important part of what he’s saying, but it’s the cheapest shot I can line up.

‘I’m not middle class,’ he says, his voice a low growl. ‘I’ve worked my arse off for this.’

‘Oh what, and you think my qualifications got handed to me out of the back of an Ocado van?’

We glower at each other, the sun suddenly feeling relentlessly oppressive. I find my huge sunglasses in the recesses of my bag and jam them on my face, shielding myself from him. Why does it always end up like this: I started out so determined to pull off that cool, neutral professionalism Judith was steering me towards, and now I’m scrapping with him, two small children kicking a Coke can. I pretend to be trying to find something else. I should probably just leave, but leaving right at this moment feels like failing. Dangerous too, winding him up like a clockwork toy and leaving him to scoot away in whichever direction he’s facing.

‘Mia,’ he says, his tone conciliatory now. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, but there are people who would love to see this case fall over.’

‘What do you mean? Stephen’s people?’ He pauses again, then stares at me with an intensity that almost frightens me. He’s assessing me, working out if he can trust me. ‘Tell me.’

‘People who should want the absolute opposite.’

‘Like? What, police?’

He nods grimly .

‘Really?’ I search for anything in his face or body language that would tell me this is a tactic, a last-ditch attempt to turn the screws on me. ‘Well surely you can just report them? You’re all for fighting the good fight. Get them up on a charge.’

‘It’s not as simple as that. As you’re so very fond of telling me,’ he says, smiling for the first time in ages, his twinkle momentarily restored. There’s something childlike about it that makes me warm to him, almost despite myself. ‘It’s why it’s taken so many years to get this close to bringing Stephen down.’

‘So you’re saying he’s got police in his pocket who’ve kept the investigators away from it? And what, they’re so embedded, you can’t dig them out?’

It makes me shudder. How hard must it be to believe your enemies are out there on the battlefield, a clear and certain target, and then find the fight is so much dirtier than that? No wonder he’s looking for any tactic, any weapon he can lay hands on.

‘Gross simplification,’ he says, still smiling, ‘but basically, yeah.’

I smile back at him, accept his invitation.

‘I’m sorry I’m so gross and simple.’

‘I know,’ he says, the fight briefly leaving him. ‘Crying shame.’

I grab some sunscreen from my bag, push my sunglasses onto the top of my head so I can smear it on. The circular movements, the pads of my fingers working it into my skin, feel soothing.

‘But how are they so untouchable? It doesn’t make any sense.’

‘There was a guy, a detective, who felt just like you do. He pursued it, and pursued it, tried to get Stephen on a corrupt property deal where he’d been paying backhanders to council officials. Kept going until, guess what – he’s the one up on a corruption charge. Lost his job, lost his pension, his reputation, got sick. It was like Alice in Wonderland, no way back.’

‘Is he OK now?’ His face. Mild disbelief at the question. Could I? Could I help him? As soon as I have the thought I slam it in a box. If I don’t hold on to what I know is right, then everything is transformed to wrong.

‘He’ll be a lot more all right if he gets to see justice finally being done.’

Patrick turns away, looks back at the ducks. There’s a little boy holding on to his stroller with one hand, his other clutching a bag of crusts. I’m sure bread’s bad for them, but it’s hard to imagine him not having the satisfaction of watching them flap their way towards him, waddling and quacking. He turns to his mum, delighted, chubby face no more than a grin. I hope nothing bad ever happens to you, I think. I hope if it does there’s someone there to hold your hand.

‘But there’s still no definitive proof that Christopher knew about any of it,’ I say, trying to yank the wheel back towards our well-worn argument – it’s safer there. Patrick’s eyes stay on the little boy, now bowling a piece of bread towards a fiercer-looking greenish-black customer.

‘These gangsters, they keep it all above board by using people like him. A man as clever as Christopher doesn’t miss a trick. It’s in Stephen’s interests for Christopher to look whiter than white, with his kids at the posh school and his big cars. Stephen’s got all the same toys. It’s all about the illusion.’

It’s a dangerous business, illusion. We look at each other for a second, a silent standoff. An ice-cream van starts up, the tune jangling in my ears. Patrick jumps to his feet, the long length of him stretching upwards, light streaming behind him. He shades his eyes to look down at me, and I notice for the first time how his brown eyes are punctuated by little speckles of amber.

‘Want one? I’m fancying myself a 99 with a flake.’ He cocks his head. ‘Maybe two.’

‘Flakes?’

‘I like to live dangerously. What’ll you have?’ He looks down at me – no, assesses me, and I feel suddenly self-conscious.

‘I’ll just have a bottle of water.’

‘Come on. A Solero?’

‘Sparkling – you’re not the only one living on the edge. I’ll come with you, anyway.’

I should leave altogether. Instead I follow his diagonal course across the grass, my heels wedging themselves into its spongy surface. Why doesn’t he take the path like a normal person? He gets to the van, looks back at me. Come on, slowcoach, says his smile. He’s already mid-order when I arrive. There’s an oldish woman at the hatch, her hair dyed an implausible shade of black, big gold earrings glinting in the sun.

‘. . . and a lemon ice for the lady.’ He glances over. ‘AND a sparkling water.’

‘Honestly, I don’t want ice cream,’ I say, standing one-legged, trying to wipe the mud off my heels with a tissue. Patrick looks down at me, looks back to the lady:
Do you see what I have to deal with?
She beams at us, her smile reaching right through her – we’re a happy couple enjoying the sunshine, a tiny, vital boost to her faith in life, the same way that little boy was for me. I don’t want to snatch it away.

‘It’s good,’ she says, her accent Italian, her colouring making sense. ‘If not, you bring it back.’

‘I believe you,’ says Patrick. ‘She won’t be returning anything.’

I look at him – who’s the real control freak here – but it’s impossible to sustain my grump. She hands it to me, and I know on first lick that he had a point. I don’t think about additives or calories; it’s cold and slippery, its sharpness a welcome kick. It makes sense to me. Few things do right now. We walk away from the van saying cheerful goodbyes, Patrick cricking his neck to nibble at his flake like a giraffe zeroing in on a particularly delectable leaf.

‘It’s nice,’ I say, the words expensive.

Patrick gives a look of gratitude to the heavens, grins. The sun’s less fierce now, early evening stealthily creeping up on us. It’s more than an hour we’ve been together, the time slipping past equally stealthily. I need to go.

‘So how do you do it?’ he asks, attention moving away from the flake. ‘How do you climb inside people’s heads?’

‘Don’t say that. You make me sound like some kind of evil genius.’

He gives an evil-genius cackle.

‘If I was your patient, rather than a complete pain in the arse, what would you do? Where would we start?’

He stops a second, cocks his head expectantly, a thin stream of lemon ice melting its way down his bony wrist. Something’s happened. I’m actually enjoying being with him – I only realize it now, a wave of guilt instantly boomeranging back. Commuters are starting to stream through the park, walking from the West End to Camden, back to their real lives, a hat perched on top of the head of the day. This mustn’t be the hat. I think of Judith, draw some comfort from it. I’m keeping him on side so well that I’ve even fooled myself.

‘You could be my patient AND a complete pain in the arse.’ Patrick shrugs his acceptance. He’s scrutinizing me now, like the answer really matters to him. ‘OK, let’s say you’re a pain in the arse, you only half want to be here. Your wife’s left you, and it’s your only shot at persuading her you’re trying to change—’

‘The little fool!’

I realize with a jolt how many assumptions I’ve made. He doesn’t wear a ring, but it doesn’t mean he’s not married. He’s Irish enough, Catholic enough, to have got it out of the way early and got back to the serious business of winning cases. Is there some exasperated woman at home, knee deep in little Patricks, trying and failing to drag his nose out of a case file?

‘You’ve had a sneaky look at
Guardian
“Soulmates”. You don’t like the look of single life. As a last resort you come and see me.’

‘I did that once – lasted one date. I swear the woman was in love with her horse. Talked about him all night like she was two-timing him and he’d be sobbing into his oats. Have you ever tried it?’

‘No,’ I say, shutting him right down. ‘I might actually bring you somewhere like here. Watch how you operate, out in the big bad world.’