Keep Me Alive (6 page)

‘That’s ludicrous. And unbelievably offensive. Caro is far too self-aware and experienced to do anything like that. She’d never be so irresponsible,’ Trish said, adding silently to herself: or make the people who care about her go through this kind of terror.

‘Misreading what goes on in families and relationships does happen. To all of us. You know that. But this is another reason why I’d do anything to get Kim to talk. She’s important – any child in that kind of state would be – but Caro matters more. She’s in a position to save a hundred Kims, so long as she doesn’t lose her confidence and standing over this. You
have
to help.’

Blackmail, Trish thought. Sodding blackmail. ‘How do you know that’s what her colleagues are saying?’

‘There’s a young PC there, Pete Hartland, who’s devoted to Caro and passionately determined that Kim should be saved from her stepfather. Hartland has been keeping me up to speed. It was he who told me Caro was better, which is why I rushed straight round to Dowting’s this evening. I told you: we’ve got less than fourteen days to deal with this. You know what I found. She’s not in a position to help anyone now.’

‘Look,’ Trish said, feeling her resolution crack, ‘whatever happens, however urgent it is, I couldn’t do anything until the weekend. I have to be in chambers for pre-court preparation by seven every morning; we’re in court all day; then there’s the post-mortem conference and plenty more after that.’

‘The weekend may be the best we could do. But if I got permission, would you talk to Kim then? Please, Trish. The child needs you. We all need you.’

She thought of her empty flat and the sense of freedom that
rushed towards her each time she opened the door now, knowing there would be no one else there. Usually at the end of the day, she’d find George in her kitchen, cooking an elaborate and terribly filling dinner as a way of dealing with the frustrations of his day, while David would want help with his homework and then a chance to talk or play Scrabble. Shuttling between the two of them, she sometimes felt as though she’d never had any time to herself since she’d taken David to live with her. She didn’t regret that decision, but it seemed hard to have to sacrifice the rare luxury of being on her own. Then she thought of the child Caro had described. Anything could happen if Kim were sent back home. Trish knew she’d never forgive herself for refusing help if the child were hurt – or killed.

‘Oh, all right,’ she said. ‘But make it Sunday so that I can read the files first. I’ll need all the background you’ve got, if I’m to have any hope of getting through to her in such a short time.’

‘Great. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.’

When they’d said goodbye, Trish tried to remember what she knew about Caro’s own childhood that might explain Andrew’s comments about projection. It was a familiar enough syndrome, in which adults who had themselves been damaged in childhood assumed they could see evidence of their own suffering in the children with whom they worked. Every adult Trish had ever met had shown some signs of unresolved pain left over from a family trauma. Most admitted to it when questioned; she’d often thought the rest were liars. But she couldn’t remember Caro’s saying anything except that she had never known her father. Jess might know more.

Trish rang Jess’s number. It was clear from the hoarseness of Jess’s voice that she had been crying.

‘She is getting better,’ Trish said. ‘I heard at the hospital today that she’d come round for a while this afternoon.’

‘Yes, but it didn’t last, so she’s not getting better. Don’t try and comfort me, Trish. She looks terrible. She didn’t even
recognize me when she opened her eyes. The staff won’t talk to me. Or even look straight at me. That’s because they think she’s going to die. I know it is.’

‘Jess, don’t. She’s running a high temperature because of the infection. It happens. And that’s what leads to the confusion. But they’re working to lower the fever. Now, listen, how much has she told you about this child she’s working to protect?’

‘Trish, I’ve got to go.’ Jess sounded unlike herself: efficient to the point of brusqueness. ‘I’ve got someone here.’

She cut the connection. Trish tried to work out what could be going on. In that last comment Jess had sounded completely different from the hoarse, tearful woman who had answered the phone. Who could be there in the flat to make her sound so different, so tough? And why hadn’t Jess mentioned the presence of a third party straight away? What the hell was going on?

Disliking her suspicions, Trish put the receiver back on its cradle. Her mobile started to ring almost at once.

‘Trish Maguire,’ she said coolly, knowing it couldn’t be George. He’d never call her mobile from Australia.

‘Trish. It’s me. Will Applewood.’

‘Oh, hello,’ she said. Now that he had finished giving his evidence, there was no reason why she couldn’t talk to him, but she’d have preferred to get on with the case without any more personal contact than she had to have. She wasn’t going to encourage him.

‘I say, are you all right, Trish? You didn’t look as awful in court today as you did yesterday, but you’re still not yourself. I had to phone to find out what’s the matter. I thought yesterday might have been a hangover, but they don’t last this long. Are you ill?’

She suppressed a sigh. It was kind of him to bother, but she could have done without the interruption. She explained.

‘E. coli 0157?’ he said. ‘God, you must be careful. It can be really dangerous. Have you seen the quack?’

‘No need. I stopped throwing up twenty-four hours ago, and I’ve even managed to eat some cottage cheese today.’ She looked at the bowl and saw that she hadn’t made much of a hole in the mound of soft white particles.

‘Even so, you ought to get checked out. It can go for the kidneys, you know. How did you get it?’

Trish told him the story of the sausages and the disappearance of their packaging, adding, ‘And I was so angry at the idea that anyone could sell such dangerous food that I thought for a mad moment I might go chasing off after Caro’s dustbin men. I wanted to find the wrappings so that I could identify the suppliers and get something done about them. Then I remembered all those TV news shots of landfill sites, you know with tractors flattening the stuff and wild dogs eating it and seagulls pecking at it.’

‘I know what you mean. The kind of place where you could lose a dozen bodies. You’d never be able to find and identify one bit of packaging. But someone should find out where the sausages came from and get wherever it is cleaned up,’ Will said, his voice positively throbbing with sincerity.

Trish forgot about not encouraging him and asked why he was so het up. After all, he hadn’t been poisoned.

‘Because I hate the bastards who peddle filthy meat products. Have you really no idea where these came from?’

‘None,’ Trish said, thinking of a way Andrew Stane might give her a quid pro quo for her help with his case. ‘Although I’m told my hostess used to pick up food for supper when she was out visiting people she had to interview. I could probably find out where she was on Monday afternoon, and then go into all the nearest shops to—Except that I haven’t got time.’

‘But I have. More time than I can fill.’ Will sounded eager. ‘If you find out roughly where she was, I can do the legwork.’

‘D’you really mean that?’

‘Sure. I haven’t got anything else to do now I’ve given my
evidence. And it’ll stop me trying to decide whether it would be better to jump out of the window now or wait till we’ve lost the case.’ He laughed to show that he wasn’t serious.

‘Oh, Will,’ Trish said, knowing that he was and longing to comfort him. ‘Whatever happens, it’s not going to be that bad. You’ll get back on your feet again, and …’

‘If you tell me what the sausages tasted like,’ he said briskly, as though he hated overt sympathy as much as he wanted it, ‘I’ll have a fair chance of identifying them when I see them.’

‘They were spicy; really spicy, I mean, not that over-peppery nastiness you get in some mass-produced ones. And the meat was chunky not smooth. I thought they were good, and I don’t usually like sausages at all. Especially not when the weather’s boiling like this.’

‘Spice can be used to cover every kind of disgustingness,’ he said. ‘Get me the relevant routes your friend might have walked and I’ll see what I can find.’

If he were out hunting for contaminated sausages, he couldn’t be sitting in court, listening to evidence designed to show him up as a greedy fool. That had to be a good thing.

‘Would you?’ Trish said. ‘That would be terrific, Will. I know I could never do it on my own even if I had time.’

She heard him breathe more deeply, as though he was already expanding into a bigger space than the one he’d been inhabiting for the past few months.

 

Tim Hayleigh was sitting in his pyjamas, with Boney in his lap and an opened bottle of wine by his side, trying to concentrate on the sitcom he was watching. A character in it shouted at someone and threw a glass against the wall. With the crash ringing in his ears, Tim was whisked back to the night Bob had smashed the snooper’s face with his boot.

At first he’d been terrified of the police coming to arrest him. Now he thought it might not be so bad. After all, if he were
convicted he could forget about his financial disaster for as long as the sentence lasted. He’d be fed and housed in prison. But then he might not survive long enough to be sent there. Bob would definitely try to kill him long before either of them got to court.

‘So why are you even thinking of going back to work for him?’ he asked himself out loud.

Boney winced at the sound of his voice, then moved closer to provide a little comfort. Boney was the only one he could talk to now, apart from Ron, who didn’t count.

Tim’s teeth chattered, even though it was so hot. Boney looked up, as if to say something useful, but there was nothing anyone could say. If he wasn’t going to prison, Tim had to get some money fast. Flying for Bob was the only way he knew. Somehow he had to find the courage to go back.

He rubbed his shoulder, where Bob had gripped it as he’d made his threats. Could he do it? Could he go back, knowing how much he risked?

Five grey concrete tower blocks reared up from a space the architect had intended to be a spirit-nurturing garden. Now it was a mixture of rubbish-strewn tarmac and straggling grass decorated with condoms and drug addicts’ leavings. Wind tore through it, making the swings jangle at the end of their rusty chains. A young woman with rough peroxided hair was desultorily pushing a toddler in one of them. Three other preschool children were kicking a ball towards the apology for a lawn.

Will watched one of them trip and smack down on the tarmac. That was probably safer than the grass. At least it couldn’t conceal dirty syringes or dog shit. The boy lifted himself a little off the ground to reveal a forehead pouring with blood. He screamed. The woman at the swing ignored him. Will moved forwards; someone had to help. He picked up the child, who looked and felt the same size as his nephew and must have been no more than about four. Will stood him on his feet and squatted down to ask where he lived.

‘You leave him alone.’ The hoarse shriek made him turn. Another woman was running towards him, black hair flying behind her. ‘Let him go or I’ll have the law on you.’

Will stood up to explain. The woman grabbed the boy and hurried him off. The other children who’d been playing with him looked after her but didn’t move. Squeaking chains told
him that the mother at the swing was still pushing her toddler. No one said anything. When Will looked around, none of them would meet his gaze.

That’s what you get for trying to help, he thought, wanting to shout out that any parent should be grateful a stranger bothered to pick up her bleeding child, and that if the law were to be used against anyone it should be her.

She’d meant the police, of course. Once Will would have agreed. These days he knew that ‘the law’ was something quite different, a matter of interminable arguments over minutiae fought out between two clever barristers hoping to please a third. None of the triumvirate would have any direct experience of the lives they debated, and none would care a toss about what happened to the people concerned.

That’s not fair, he told himself. Trish cares.

A nasty little imaginary voice he hadn’t heard for a long time asked him if he was sure of that. He smothered it and set about what he had come to do.

He was here to walk in the steps of her friend so that he could identify the source of the poison that might yet kill her. He abandoned the children and headed off towards the block he needed. There were so many exits from this estate that he wanted to know exactly where this Inspector Caroline Lyalt had been, in order to match her journey. It probably wasn’t necessary to go to the very flat, but he’d made Trish get the full address, so he’d do it anyway. He’d found out the hard way that detail mattered.

Ten minutes later he was standing with his back to the shining front door of flat 36B, nine floors up from the ground in South Tower, and trying to decide whether his guide would have taken the lift or the stairs. Trish had said her friend was very fit, and the lift was absolutely disgusting, so the stairs were a distinct possibility. He looked left towards them, then right again to where the lift was creaking towards a stop.

Its doors jerked open to reveal a man about Will’s height but a few years older, dressed in tight blue jeans and a pristine white T-shirt. He was carrying two Furbishers plastic bags. When he saw Will, he dumped them both on the ground.

‘What’re you looking at?’ he barked.

‘Nothing,’ Will said. ‘I was just trying to decide whether to take the lift or the stairs.’

The man’s arms didn’t move, but all the muscles in his chest rippled. Will could see them bunching and flattening under his shirt.

‘You must think I was born yesterday,’ he said, so wired he didn’t even notice he was spitting with every word. ‘I don’t like people hanging around my flat. I want you out of here. Now. Or else …’

Will had had enough of threats so he turned his back and went for the stairs. When he heard the grating of a key as it turned inside its lock, he risked a look back. The man was letting himself into 36B, so he must have been the target of Trish’s friend. Running down flight after flight, Will sympathized with her. No woman should have to face a man like that, even if she was a police officer. He hoped she’d had plenty of back-up. He wondered what the man had done, and who was dealing with him now.

On the ground floor, Will pushed his way out of the swing doors and had to make another decision about where to go. He picked the nearest exit and walked out between broken concrete bollards into the main road, where juggernauts and buses jostled the bicycles and little cars into all the biggest potholes. The pavements were cracked, there was litter blowing everywhere in the humid wind, and there wasn’t a single food shop in sight.

How do they bear it? he wondered, then shivered. Soon it might not be a question of ‘they’ but ‘we’. If Furbishers won the case, Will thought he’d probably be lucky to end up in a place
like this. He wouldn’t be able to go on living with his sister and her husband much longer, and he’d never be able to get a job that would fund a mortgage, or even much rent. In fact, he couldn’t think of a single job he was qualified to do, except farming or running a food business. No one was going to employ him for either now. Since he’d rather die than work for a supermarket, his only option would be unskilled labouring somewhere. A building site probably.

‘At least that’d be in the open air,’ he muttered.

There was a newsagent’s down the road. They might know where the nearest food shop could be found. This was going to take a long time.

 

‘So, Trish,’ Antony said as they left court at lunchtime, ‘you must be feeling better.’

‘I am. How did you know?’

He narrowed his eyes into the seducer’s glint and whispered, ‘Because you look divine, dearest.’

Usually she’d have been as likely to spit as to giggle in the august corridors of the Royal Courts of Justice, but she couldn’t help it now. She wondered what their disapproving clerk would say if he could hear her, or witness the great man’s frivolity.

‘Antony, for heaven’s sake! I think I’d rather be a slimy fish-eating cormorant than “divine, dearest”.’

He laughed. ‘You’re such a monster of rectitude, Trish, you can’t blame me for trying every technique that might just conceivably work.’

‘Maybe not, but you’d better put a cork in it now, or you’ll shock poor Colin when he brings the sandwiches, and he’s got enough to put up with. Oh, did you give him any money for our lunch today?’

‘Sod it. I forgot. And I haven’t any cash on me.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Trish said, glad to see Antony was back on
track as her pupil brought the laden tray to their usual corner table. ‘I have.’

She leaned down for the handbag she’d dumped on the floor and fished out a twenty-pound note. Colin looked relieved, even though he made a whole string of polite protests about taking her money.

 

‘I don’t remember,’ Jess said, keeping well away from the three plastic trays of sausages. She sounded sullen.

Will thought he’d like to take her for a forced march, pretty and fragile though she was, down all the miserable streets he’d trodden today.

‘Come on, Jess,’ Trish said. ‘You did see the packet Caro brought, didn’t you? I’m sure she said you’d helped her cook dinner.’

Jess looked towards the friend who had been with her when Trish and Will arrived. She had a sad, elegant face and strands of dark-gold hair falling in sexy dishevelment from a loose knot at the back of her head. She was leaning against the Smeg fridge-freezer Jess had bought after her last television series was repeated. Was this the person who’d been in the flat when Jess had sounded so unlike herself on the phone?

‘Could it be those ones with the leaves on the label, Jess?’ she said. She had a remarkable voice, very deep for someone as slight as she, and beautiful. ‘They do look familiar.’

The sausages to which she was pointing weren’t the plain pink sort, detestable for their smoothness and claggy taste, but a speckled mixture of dark-red meat and white fat, with dots of spice and flecks of herbs. Will ripped off the shrink-wrapping. A strong smell of gamy meat, mace, bayleaves and allspice was familiar enough to make Trish recoil. Jess backed right against the wall to get away from the contamination of her nostrils.

‘I suppose so,’ Jess said, sounding like a child forced to tell the truth after a long struggle. Her gaze slid away.

‘Sure?’ Will Applewood asked, tempting Jess with the other two brands he had brought with him.

All three were attractively packaged and, Trish saw from their labels, almost equally expensive.

‘Yes. The box-thing was green. And Cynthia’s right: I do remember the leaves on the label.’

Above the price, weight and sell-by date was a charming watercolour of a typically English country scene, with the word ‘Ivyleaf’ in elegantly austere roman lettering, and a border of dark-green ivy leaves around the edge.

‘Do you know anything about the makers, Will?’ Trish asked.

‘Not a thing. And that’s interesting in itself. I thought I knew all the meat processors in the country.’

‘How could you possibly?’ asked Jess’s friend from her refuge between the sink and the fridge.

She was wearing a close-fitting cotton cardigan in a harebell blue that matched her eyes. It had a deep V-neck, which showed off her well-tanned cleavage, but she kept her arms tightly crossed over her body in an extraordinary mixture of come-on and defence.

Will launched in with a resume of his case, adding, ‘So I phoned every single meat processor I could track down to find out whether they’d been screwed by Furbishers too.’

A tingle of alarm kept Trish silent. She’d always known Will had been the originator of the action, but this was evidence of an obsession she hadn’t quite understood. She thought of the exchange of glares she’d seen in the hall of the Royal Courts of Justice. What could there be between him and Matthew Grant-Furbisher to explain such hatred?

‘I’ve known the other two makers for years,’ he went on, jabbing at one of the packages, ‘but not these people. I’ll look into it. How’s your friend doing?’

Jess’s big eyes filled with tears. Her visitor moved away from
the fridge to offer support. Jess swayed so that her shoulder just touched the other woman’s.

‘They’ve taken her into Intensive Care.’

‘Why?’

‘The infection’s in her blood now. You know – septicaemia. And both kidneys are affected. And they can’t control her temperature. She’s been catheterized, she’s being fed with drips, and they’re giving her intravenous antibiotics, but the infection isn’t responding.’

Trish winced. She wanted to ask a question, but Jess was still talking.

‘And you know what they say about penicillin-resistant bacteria and hospital-acquired infections. There are more and more of them all the time. In the state she’s in, she could pick up any one of them. And even if she doesn’t, her kidneys could be destroyed. The infection could infect her heart valves, too. And if she gets necrotizing fasciitis or MRSA as well as septicaemia, she’ll—’

‘Stop it, Jess.’ Her friend’s voice had the effect of a slap. Jess gasped and fell silent, moving away so that the two of them were no longer touching. ‘It always takes time for them to find the right antibiotic. They have to give each one time to work before they give up and try a different one. You won’t help Caro by panicking. But your friends are right: they may be able to give the hospital useful information if they can work out exactly what food carried the infection.’

‘I don’t think it was the sausages at all,’ Jess said, looking resentfully at Trish. ‘You weren’t nearly so ill.’

‘Maybe I was just lucky or have some kind of partial immunity. Will, what do we do now?’

He was putting the sausages back into the bag the delicatessen had provided. ‘I get them tested for E. coli. And I find out more about this Ivyleaf company.’

‘Just like that?’

‘I’ve still got a lot of friends in the business,’ Will said, very much on his dignity. ‘And there’s a writer I know who specializes in every aspect of the meat trade. If there’s anything iffy about Ivyleaf, he’ll know all about it.’

‘Who is he?’ Trish asked, surprised by Will’s unusual certainty.

‘Jamie Maxden. He’s an investigative journalist. We haven’t been in touch for a while, but I’m sure I can get hold of him. Here, Jess, you keep the other sausages, put them in your fridge,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to waste them. They cost a fortune.’

She shuddered, closing her eyes and spreading her lips in disgust. Trish quickly explained that Jess was a vegetarian, frowning at Will to stop him making any unsuitable meat processor’s jokes about lentil-wearing sandal-eating freaks.

‘Why don’t you take them to your sister?’ Trish added. ‘I’m sure she could use them.’

‘Good idea. It’s time I made a contribution to the housekeeping.’

‘It’s a perfectly sensible life choice, you know,’ Jess’s friend said from the far end of the kitchen.

All three of the others looked up. There was an expression of relief on Jess’s face, as though she’d expected to have to fight this battle on her own. But Will was puzzled.

‘What is?’

‘Vegetarianism,’ said the friend. ‘There are all kinds of health benefits, quite apart from the moral objection of rearing sentient animals simply in order to kill and eat them.’

Will opened his mouth, then looked sideways at Trish, and shut it again. After a moment, he shrugged. ‘Each to his own. We’ll never agree, so there’s not much point making each other angry.’

‘You’re right there.’ The woman smiled and crossed the room to shake his hand. ‘My name’s Cynthia Flag. I’ve got a card
somewhere. Will you let me know if you do find the source of the contamination?’