Don't Let Me Go (48 page)

‘Don’t worry,’ Rick had said, when they’d walked on ahead of the others to say goodnight, ‘you’ll like the plans once you know what they are.’

Stunned, Charlotte asked, ‘You mean he’s confided in you and not me?’

‘No, no,’ he laughed, ‘but I think Dad might have an inkling of what they are, which fills me with confidence. Don’t quote me, because he hasn’t said anything, it’s just an impression I got when I saw them chatting earlier. You know what Dad’s like, always into everything, and those two seem to get along pretty well.’

‘And how are you two getting along these days?’ she asked, turning to take both his hands in hers.

‘Not bad. He’s met Hamish a couple of times now, and he’s invited him out to Te Puna when we get back.’

Thinking more longingly than ever of Te Puna, she smiled as she went on tiptoe to kiss him goodnight. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she whispered, ‘it means so much.’

‘We had to,’ he responded, hugging her close. ‘Try to get some sleep tonight, and if you can,
eat something
. I saw the miserable effort you made over dinner, not that I don’t understand, but we don’t want you fainting on us tomorrow.’

Thinking now that fainting would be the least of her problems, since she’d been on the verge of throwing up all day, Charlotte linked her fingers round Anthony’s as she said, ‘If it does turn out that I have to spend time in prison, will you carry on with your plans to travel? I mean, I’d want you to, obviously, I just . . .’

Stopping her with a finger over her lips, he replaced it with his own lips, but this time she pushed him away.

‘Anthony, please,’ she cried, sitting up, ‘I have to know at least something of what’s going on in your mind. You’re so cool about it all, so uncommunicative that it’s driving me nuts. Don’t you feel just a little bit worried, because I know I do and I can’t go on pretending I don’t.’

‘Of course I’m worried,’ he replied, ‘but my way of dealing with it isn’t the same as yours. I tend to internalise things more, which I understand can be maddening, but I’m afraid it’s the way I am.’

‘OK, then just tell me, what worries you most? Is it that I might go to prison? Or that I won’t be able to get over losing Chloe for good? Or that you’ll be stuck with me if you get me off . . .’

Laughing, he said, ‘Stuck with you? I’d hardly put it like that, my darling.’

‘Well, however you want to put it. What’s going on in your mind, Anthony? Please talk to me, tell me something of what you’re thinking.’

‘OK,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m thinking that whatever the outcome is, we will deal with it together and no, I won’t go travelling until you’re able to come with me. That’s not to say,’ he went on, seeing the panic in her eyes, ‘that I think you’re going to receive a custodial sentence, but it could be that we’ll need to spend some time in the family courts trying to get Chloe back.’

Merely hearing the words filled her with so much angst and hope that she could only cover her face and pray. There was so much at stake here, so very much, that they hadn’t even touched on the fact that a guilty verdict could mean she’d be unable to return to New Zealand. Maybe she wouldn’t want to go without Chloe, but what about her mother? After spending so many years apart, they were only just beginning to form the relationship they’d been denied.

And then there was Anthony. She couldn’t leave him, couldn’t even bear to think of it, but his life was here, whether he continued with the law or not. He’d never said he wanted to leave the country, apart from to travel, and why would he when his family was just down the road and his home and all his friends, his contacts, were in London?

‘I know this isn’t going to be easy,’ he said, ‘but I think we should try to change the subject. We need to do something, or talk about something else to distract you from all the craziness going on inside your head.’

Though she didn’t disagree, she couldn’t begin to imagine what could distract her tonight. She didn’t even want to make love, which was most unusual, and unless she was misreading him she didn’t think he was much in the mood, either. ‘Should we go over my statement again?’ she suggested.

‘No, we’ll do it tomorrow night, when we can adapt it if we need to.’

Accepting the sense of that, she said, ‘OK, so what do you usually do the night before a trial? How do you make yourself relax?’

After giving it some thought, he replied, ‘To be honest, I don’t have any set rituals, I guess because each case is different and some require more input than others.’

With a small, sad smile, she said, ‘If it weren’t me on trial tomorrow I’d be getting pretty excited by now about seeing you in action for the first time, wearing your wig and gown, objecting, sustaining . . .’

‘That’s American,’ he reminded her.

‘Actually, a part of me is excited,’ she realised. ‘I’m going to feel so proud of you . . .’ Turning to look at him, she felt elated all over again by how much he’d come to mean to her. ‘You know, you might look like a lawyer,’ she said softly, ‘and even be a lawyer, but you’re nothing like I imagined someone in your position to be.’

He regarded her warily. ‘Do I want to know what that is?’ he countered.

‘Well, you’re not stuffy and humourless, or pompous and arrogant. In fact you’re one of the kindest, most thoughtful people I know, and that alone would never have fitted with my idea of a barrister before.’

‘Ah, I see, you were taken in by the stereotype.’

‘I guess I was. Although you have to admit you don’t hear of many barristers coming down off their pedestals to get into relationships with social workers, do you?’

His eyebrows rose comically. ‘I admit I don’t know of any personally, but you might find there are more than you think.’

‘Mm, maybe, but I expect a lot more have partners who are also lawyers, or business tycoons, or high-flying successes of some kind. I was only remarking to Mum today that you must have been leading quite a glamorous life up to now, always off to some cocktail party or fancy dinner, all those opening nights, charity balls and weird rituals you barristers go in for. I’m guessing you do all the big events like Wimbledon and Glyndebourne . . .’

‘Wimbledon, yes,’ he conceded, ‘and the salmon fishing, but I don’t go to many of the others.’

‘Did you used to, when you were with Anthea?’ This was the first time his dead fiancée had been mentioned between them, and she was anxious now about how he might react.

‘Let’s put it this way,’ he replied, after a moment, ‘we were often on the guest lists, but we didn’t attend every event.’

Knowing it was ridiculous to feel jealous of someone who couldn’t possibly be a threat now, she tried to push it aside as she asked, ‘What was she like? Why don’t you tell me about her?’

A few tense moments ticked by before he finally said, ‘OK, well, she was a hat designer, and an excellent tennis player; someone who loved life, wanting to live it to the full, which was why it was so shocking, so hard to grasp when she was taken so suddenly.’

‘How old was she when it happened?’

‘Thirty-five. She’d just had a birthday. I’d given her a course of flying lessons . . . She was so excited, she’d always wanted to learn to fly, she said, ever since she was a child.’

Knowing that this was how she’d died, Charlotte tightened her grip on his hand as she wondered what kind of guilt he’d tormented himself with since the accident had shattered his world.

‘We were due to get married a couple of months later,’ he went on, almost to himself. ‘She had everything planned, the invitations had gone out, the flowers had been chosen, her dress was ready . . . It was going to be a big event, three hundred people in the gardens of the Inner Temple. All I had to do was organise the honeymoon. I still hadn’t come to a decision when I got the news, and the ridiculous thing is, for a long time after I used to think that if I’d already booked somewhere the accident might never have happened. You tell yourself crazy things when you’re grieving, or at least I found I did.’

‘You obviously loved her very much.’

‘Yes, I did, sometimes I thought too much, because I was prepared to marry her even though I knew she didn’t want children and I did. I suppose I thought I’d be able to talk her round, though she made it very clear the day she accepted my proposal that she wouldn’t change her mind.’

Finding herself struggling with his sadness, she said, ‘Was it losing her that made you want to take a break from the law?’

He smiled distantly. ‘Yes, it was, though I’d been aware for a while that something was missing, or I wanted more, or . . . I don’t know, it’s hard to put into words when it’s just a gut feeling. Anthea could never understand my doubts, I suppose because I was successful and we were having a great life, so what was the point in trying to change things? The trouble was, she enjoyed the social whirl and the status far more than I did; she was comfortable with it, had more or less grown up with it, whereas I found it all a bit superficial and pointless. I was sure there had to be more to life than having the right address or being seen at the right places with the right people, whoever they might be, on any given day. And when you add to that the skulduggery behind the scenes in my profession . . . Well, let’s not even get started on that. Suffice it to say it can be an ugly business, and once this trial is over I won’t be sorry to turn my back on it.’

She blinked. ‘You mean for a while.’

He sighed and stretched. ‘We’ll see. Time changes a lot of things, and falling in love again, this soon, wasn’t something I was expecting, that’s for sure.’ He put a hand to her face and gazed into her eyes as he said, ‘But I’m very happy I have, even if you have presented me with a bit of a challenge to keep you.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

‘
CHARLOTTE NICHOLLS, YOU
are charged with the abduction of Ottilie Wade, also known as Chloe, under Section 2 of the Child Abduction Act. It is alleged that on the evening of 6th October 2011 you took Ottilie Wade, also known as Chloe, from her home on North Hill, Kesterly-on-Sea and removed her to your own residence in the village of Mulgrove. You proceeded to keep her there for a period of five weeks until you removed her to New Zealand. Are you guilty or not guilty?’

The court was so still that Charlotte could hear herself breathing as she said, quietly but clearly, ‘Not guilty.’

A murmur of surprise, disapproval, burbled around the room.

What were the jury thinking now? How much did they already know about her and what had happened? She’d watched them file in and had noticed that not one had been able to meet her eyes. Did that mean their minds were already made up?

‘I’m bound to tell you this,’ Anthony had said when she’d arrived at the court earlier (he’d been wearing his wig and gown by then and had looked so official, so remote, that she’d felt utterly disconcerted). ‘I’ve spoken to the judge and she’ll give no more than a suspended sentence for a guilty plea.’ His dark eyes, seeming more intense than ever, had increased her shakiness and panic.

‘This means you won’t go to prison,’ Kim had explained unnecessarily. ‘There’ll be no trial, as such, and when it’s over you can be sure of going home.’

Home: the word itself had felt like a sanctuary.

Charlotte’s eyes had remained on Anthony’s. Was this what he wanted, for her to give up any chance of ever having Chloe back? She’d retain her freedom, they could be together, build a new life somewhere away from here, and eventually, one day, she could maybe put all this behind her.

She’d never be able to do that.

Drawing her aside, he’d told her, ‘The decision has to be yours, but whatever it is, I want you to know I’ll support you.’

Her response hadn’t been easy to get past the lump in her throat. ‘I have to know I tried,’ she’d said hoarsely. ‘For her sake as well as my own.’

His expression had softened, as though he’d known it was what she would say, and looking past her to Kim he’d given a brief shake of his head.

There was to be no guilty plea.

So now, here she was, alone in the dock with rows of black-robed and curled-wig lawyers in the well between her and the Honourable Mrs Justice Caroline Oswald. Justice Oswald’s assignment to the case had come out of the blue that morning; as yet no one was clear about what had happened to the judge who should have been sitting. It was hardly relevant, since Justice Oswald was there, in her red robes and ill-fitting horsehair, gazing over the court with a benign sort of severity. What was she thinking? She would surely already have had an opinion by now.

Everyone always brings their past to a party,
she remembered her adoptive father once telling her,
whether they intend to or not.

Even a judge? They weren’t supposed to.

Why was she thinking about the rector now? Because, she realised, if there was a God Douglas would certainly be with Him, and maybe he’d put in a word.

Anthony was seated in the front row with Jolyon Crane and someone she hadn’t seen before, also in robes. Behind them were Kim and the paralegal team, and behind them a handful of plain-clothed policemen. No sign of Terence Gould. Of course, there wouldn’t be. He was being called as a witness.

The press benches were full, as was the public gallery, though Charlotte couldn’t see either without turning around and she had no intention of doing that. Gabby, Martin, Maggie and Ron were seated along a side wall beneath the church-like windows, and Charlotte could almost feel their support coming across the room in waves. Her mother, Bob, Rick, Shelley and Tommy were outside in the corridor with the other witnesses waiting to be called.

Charlotte wondered how nervous her mother was, but knew it could never be measured against the turmoil churning inside her.

She wanted to look at the jury some more, but was afraid it would offend them. There were five women, only one of whom appeared around her own age; the seven males seemed mostly in their fifties or sixties, and the ethnic mix had been immediately evident.

She thought that was good, but on reflection how would she know?

Were they looking at her now, as court procedures were explained? If so, what were they seeing? A thirty-year-old woman who’d done the wrong thing for the right reasons? Or an arrogant ex-social worker who’d abused her position, broken the public’s trust, and stolen a child? They obviously knew something of her case already; it wasn’t possible to be alive in Britain, or New Zealand, and not know. She wished there was a way for them to see, or sense who she really was.