Creeping Ivy (21 page)

‘Yes, of course,’ said the sergeant in a pleasant voice. ‘Take your time.’

‘Do go and sit down,’ said Trish firmly, pointing towards the two vast black sofas that squatted on either side of the open fireplace. ‘I won’t be long.’

With memories of some of her clients’ complaints against unscrupulous police officers ringing in her mind, she hurriedly stripped off her T-shirt and towel and substituted knickers and her usual jeans and a pink-and-white quartered rugger shirt. Socks and bra could wait, she thought as she scrubbed her teeth and slooshed crimson mouthwash around her gums, before running her fingers through her hair until it stood up in confident-looking black tufts.

Her eyes were pressed back in their sockets by lack of sleep, and the rims were red as cayenne pepper, and so she stole another minute to draw black lines round them and then had to add a puff of powder blusher and a smear of lipstick to stop herself looking like a drunken panda. The final effect was not particularly enticing, but the last thing she wanted to do was entice either of the police officers.

Shoeless, she ran down the spiral staircase to see the constable poking about among the papers on her desk. With anger roughening her voice, she said, ‘What are you doing? I asked you to wait for me over there.’

He turned lazily and smiled with so much offensiveness that she wondered what he and the tall sergeant could possibly have come for and decided not to offer them coffee. She was longing for some herself, not least to jump-start her brain, but that would have to wait. The constable was making no effort to obey her instructions and Trish was damned if she was going to leave him to make free with the papers on her desk while she went to the kitchen.

‘Do go first,’ she said, pointing once more to the sofas.

Slightly to her surprise he went, smirking, and sat at the far end of the sergeant’s sofa. Trish herself took the opposite one, bunching up the scarlet, emerald and purple cushions behind her aching back.

‘Well?’

‘We understand,’ said the sergeant, ‘that you have been several times to Antonia Weblock’s house since her daughter was taken and also to her ex-husband’s.’

Since no question had been asked, Trish made no comment even when the silence stretched out too long.

‘Isn’t that right?’ asked the sergeant, looking surprised.

‘To be specific: I’ve been to Antonia’s house once and telephoned several times, and I’ve been to her ex-husband’s twice. I hadn’t realised you wanted confirmation. Why didn’t you say so?’

The sergeant smiled, making her flat face look almost beautiful. ‘Could you tell us why you went to see them both?’

‘Why d’you think?’ Trish rubbed her forehead and then her burning eyes. The last wisps of the nightmare were still floating about in her brain. ‘Charlotte has disappeared. Of course I went. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Know Charlotte well, do you?’ asked the constable, butting in as though he found his superior’s manner too dilatory.

‘Yes. Her mother’s my cousin. Of course I know her.’ Trish turned to glare at him.

‘When was the last time you saw her?’

‘Six weeks ago. Why?’

‘Sure of that, are you?’

‘Yes,’ said Trish, feeling the familiar deep line pulling her eyebrows together. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘What was the occasion of your meeting?’ asked the sergeant, still sounding polite and detached, unlike her sidekick.

‘I was at a dinner party held by Antonia and Robert Hithe. Charlotte came down talking of a scary nightmare, and I volunteered to put her back to bed.’

‘I see,’ said the sergeant, consulting a note in her little black book. ‘When exactly was this party?’

‘Give me a minute to look it up and I’ll tell you,’ said Trish, increasingly puzzled. It had, of course, occurred to her that they might suspect her of having done something to Charlotte, but she had dismissed the idea at once. It was too absurd. They could not possibly have had any evidence.

Conscious of their gaze following her to her desk, she found her diary and checked the date of Antonia’s party.

‘Let me have a look,’ said the constable from just behind her, making her jump.

Trish whirled round, with the diary pressed to her shirt.

‘Don’t creep up on me like that,’ she said, taking a moment to suppress her jumpiness. ‘No. There’s no reason for you to see my diary. What is all this?’

If he had asked politely and without trying to startle her into co-operation, she would probably have let him see it. There were no secrets in it. But it was not a good policy to let the police get into the habit of thinking they had a right to anything they wanted. And besides, she didn’t like him.

‘Nervous, aren’t you, Miss Maguire. Why would that be? Little private notes in it, are there? Things you wouldn’t want strangers to know about you?’

As she looked at him, trying to understand why he should want to make her angry, Trish saw him pushing his lips a little forward in a proto-kiss. She made a face; she couldn’t help it.

‘What’s all this then?’ he asked, pointing at the jumble of papers, books and photocopied articles that were spread across the surface of her big trestle desk.

‘I am working on a commission for Millen Books about crimes involving children.’

‘Interested in that, are you?’

‘Yes.’ She raised her eyebrows, still feeling the ache of the frown between them. ‘I’m a barrister. I’ve been specialising in cases involving children since I finished pupillage.’

‘Why’s that then?’ he said, looking unimpressed. That didn’t surprise Trish. She knew that most police officers loathed lawyers, just as most barristers were determined never to let the police get away with anything. Both sides had heard too many horror stories of trials that had gone wrong, bullied suspects, and convictions thrown away because of mishandled evidence.

‘Because I’m a woman, Constable Herrick. When I started at the Bar, women tended to be given such work.’ She was determined not to use the word briefs and see him laugh at the pun. ‘As I understand was once the case in the police force.’

He wandered away from her towards her computer.

‘You on the Internet at all?’

‘Yes,’ said Trish warily. ‘Why?’

‘Ever come across pornography on it?’

‘Yes, Constable Herrick. I do. It’s part of my work.’

‘Like it, do you?’

‘No. I find it repellent, as I find the way you’re asking these questions. If you have nothing else to say to me, I’d like you both to leave now. I certainly have nothing to say to you.’

‘You’re wrong there, Ms Maguire. You’ve got a lot to tell us. For a start, what exactly you did with Charlotte Weblock when you were up in her bedroom during her mother’s dinner party. And how many other times you were alone with her, and how you made her—’

Trish stared at him, appalled. The brief time she had spent with Charlotte had meant a great deal. To have a man like Constable Herrick licking over it revolted her.

‘That’s enough,’ she interrupted. ‘I have said that I would like you to leave. Please do so now.’

The constable tried to bluster and demand an account of everything she had done since the previous Saturday morning, but Trish was too angry to give him anything he wanted. When he tried to bully her, she recited the law relating to the questioning of suspects who were not under arrest. She had meant to keep her voice cold and low, but she found herself shouting before she had reached the end.

The sergeant came to join in.

‘Ms Maguire,’ she said, smiling gravely, ‘you must understand that in our efforts to find Charlotte Weblock we have to ask all sorts of apparently impertinent questions of everyone who could possibly tell us anything that might be useful.’

‘I’m well aware of that,’ said Trish through her teeth.

‘Then please could Sam have a look round your flat?’

‘Not without a warrant,’ she said, moving towards the front door. ‘Unless you’re going to arrest me, I’d like you both to go now. This is outrageous.’

‘I’m sorry you see it like that. Everyone else we’ve been to interview has been very co-operative. Are you sure …?’

‘Will you please leave.
Now
.’

‘Sam?’

He looked as though he might protest, but after a moment he followed the sergeant quite meekly. Having shut the door on them both, Trish stomped towards the kitchen, swearing as she went.

She cursed the constable and herself for having lost her temper and even Ben for having worried her so much the day before that she hadn’t slept properly. If she’d had a better night, she’d have handled the police much more sensibly.

Banging her hands against the worktop and crunching one of her mugs on the edge of the sink, taking such a huge chip out of it that she had to throw it away, she eventually managed to make herself some vaguely drinkable coffee. She ate some toast, too, hoping the carbohydrate would calm her down. When she could trust herself, she rang Antonia, who sounded preoccupied and unfriendly.

‘What d’you want, Trish?’

‘Just to tell you the preliminary results of Emma’s polygraph test.’

‘Oh, yes? Did she find out anything useful?’

‘Only that it seems likely that everything Nicky said about the playground was true.’

‘Well, that’s not much help, is it?’

‘And that there’s a possibility that she caught a glimpse of Charlotte’s swimming teacher there. She did get very muddled when Emma tried to confirm it and said what she must’ve meant was that she’d seen him at the pool earlier in the day, but I thought you might want to tell DCI Blake. It could be useful for him to know the swimming teacher could have been there.’

There was silence.

‘Antonia? Are you there?’

‘Yes, of course I’m here. I’ll tell him, all right, but I don’t see what good it’ll do. The swimming pool’s only about four minutes’ walk away. There’s no reason on earth why he shouldn’t be walking through the park.’

‘No, I suppose not. Antonia?’

‘Yes? What now? I’m very busy and Blake’s due any minute. He’s insisted that Robert wait here to answer yet more questions.’

‘Oh, I see. Right. Well, I won’t keep you then.’

‘Before you go, Trish, if you’re talking to your mother, will you thank her for writing to me? It was really kind of her, and luckily her letter arrived before I started burning the mail.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve been getting anonymous filth by every post. “Serves you right, a bitch like you.” “If you’re not prepared to look after children, you shouldn’t have them.” “Mothers like you should hang.” That sort of thing. I couldn’t go on reading them. Now I just pick out letters with writing I recognise – or obviously official stuff – and burn the rest without even opening it. Robert’s and Nicky’s, too. They’ve had some revolting stuff, both of them. It’s better burned before they even see it.’

‘Don’t the police mind?’ asked Trish, worried.

‘It’s none of their business. Goodbye, Trish.’

Well, that didn’t do much good, thought Trish, as she made another mug of coffee. She took it to her desk, where she started to tidy up the mess. When she had relabelled a whole boxful of floppies and filed heaps of letters, she had given herself at least an illusion of control over her work.

That done, she switched on her computer to re-read what she had written in the draft introduction to the book. As she read, she was surprised by the clarity of the aims she had set out and began to feel happier until she came on the description of the murder of a four-year-old girl.

That child had been strangled. It was impossible not to see Charlotte, with her pale face still and her dark curls tumbled, lying with a great purple bruise spreading around her neck like some macabre necklace.

‘Oh, God,’ said Trish as she leaned forwards, resting her face in her hands.

Chapter Seventeen

‘Well, Kath?’

‘I’m not sure, sir.’

‘Why?’ Blake knew he sounded impatient, much more so than he usually was with her. He couldn’t help it.

None of the house-to-house enquiries near the park had produced anything; none of the bus drivers on the relevant routes had caught even a glimpse of the child. The closed-circuit televisions had produced nothing useful. None of the known paedophiles had been anywhere near the playground at the operative time. The expensive second dragging of the park’s pond had been as useless as the first. All the budgets had been crashed; none of the team had come up with anything yet, and he was being hassled by the superintendent because
he
was being hassled by the media and the politicians. You had to get a result quickly in a case of child-killing.

‘Maguire seemed OK,’ Kath told him, unfazed by his spurt of temper. ‘It’s true she looked as if she was living in a nightmare, but then she would, wouldn’t she? I mean, anyone involved with Charlotte would be. And I know it’s not proof of anything, sir, but her eyes looked honest to me.’

‘You’re right, Kath,’ he said unpleasantly, ‘it’s not proof of anything. And you should know better than to make silly judgements like that. Anyway, if she’s so honest, why wouldn’t she answer Sam’s questions or allow him to look at the stuff on her desk? She was obstructive, not just uncooperative, from what he’s told me.’

‘That’s true, but you know how Sam can be. I always thought it was a mistake to let him loose on her.’

‘Then why the fucking hell did you agree to it?’

She didn’t remind him, as she could have done, that he had ordered her to give Sam his head. After a moment she said quietly, ‘I should have insisted on following my first instinct and asked the questions myself. I have a feeling she might have answered them. I’m sure she’s on our side. But she is a brief; and you know what they can be like when they get angry.’

‘You could be right,’ he said, trying to match her fairness. ‘On the other hand, it’s all a bit too suggestive, isn’t it? Come on, for a minute, Kath, forget feminist sympathy or whatever it is and use your head. There’s a lot about Maguire that’s bloody suspicious.’

Blake thought of the tall thin woman he’d met on Sunday, whose harshly magnificent face and anguished eyes had softened as she tried to comfort Antonia. Could a woman like that really be capable of what had been suggested?