Out of the Dark (16 page)

He took one hand from Trish’s so that he could stick his thumb in his mouth.

‘And what about in the garden? Did you see anything? Any sign of this other cat?’ David’s eyes widened and he shook his head, still sucking his thumb.

‘What did you say when you answered the phone?’

‘Just the number, like she always told me.’ He plugged his thumb back in his mouth. Trish and Lakeshaw waited. Eventually, the glistening digit was removed again. ‘Then he said: “David, is that you?” And I said, “yes.” He said he wanted my mum. Then she took the phone and said, “hello, hello,” but there wasn’t anybody there.’

‘What did the man sound like?’

Tears spilled over his eyelashes, making them stick together. ‘Angry,’ he said as he began to sob, choking as the tears poured out faster and faster. ‘Angry like my mum.’

‘Get a nurse,’ Trish said, trying to stand up. David’s stiff, bent body lifted off the bed as he clung to her hand. She sat back, making him lie down again and stroking his dark hair with her free hand. ‘It’s all right, David, I’m here. I’ll stay while you need me.
Get a nurse,
Chief Inspector. Now, David, tell me about Mrs Tiggywinkle. How long had you had her?’

It was a long time before David was calm enough for Trish even to think of leaving him. By then he’d told her all about the cat and how they’d got her as a kitten and how she liked to sit on the garden wall and lick his mother’s nose. By that stage, he’d let the nurse hold one of his hands, even though he had his other round Trish’s. Lakeshaw urged her to get up and follow him out into the corridor.

‘No,’ said David, tightening his hand around hers again.

‘I won’t stay away long.’ Trish brushed the hair sideways along his forehead, and felt the wetness of his skin.

She couldn’t see how he would ever grow out of this. Whatever else had happened to him might, in time, be eased, but this terror would live with him for ever. Imagining what he was going through made her feel as though she’d been skinned.

‘And I won’t go further than the corridor. Then I’ll be back. I promise.’ She smiled but his face was stony.

‘She said that, too. My mum. She promised she’d come and c’llect me from your flat.’

‘Look, can you see those glass bits in the door?’ Trish said.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll stand so that you can always see my head in one of them. All right?’

He didn’t say anything.

‘Let me go, David. Just for a bit.’ Trish beckoned Caro, who came quickly across the squeaky floor. ‘Caro, this is David. You’ll be kind to him, won’t you?’

‘Of course. You told me he liked apple juice. I’ve brought some.’

Trish should have trusted Caro. She, too, might have no children of her own, but she knew what to do. ‘I’ll be back in a minute or two and I’ve promised I’ll stay by the glass bits of the doors.’

‘Good idea. Budge up, Trish. Now, love, shall I put the straw in the box for you?’

He shook his head and muttered that he wasn’t thirsty. Trish had to peel his fingers away from her hand and pull it free.

‘Are you all right?’ Lakeshaw asked when they got outside. Trish shook her head, unable for the moment to say anything. He produced a clean handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her.

‘Sorry,’ she said when she’d blown her nose. ‘I don’t usually do this. But he’s so brave, and he’s so lonely. And his mother’s dead. It just got to me for a moment.’

‘I can see that. You must find your work hard if you get this involved so quickly with total strangers.’ He himself sounded quite detached, only a little curious. Trish wondered how good an actor he was.

‘I try not to, but yes, it can be hard.’ She buried all thoughts of the child she might have had. ‘Now what do you want to ask me?’

‘What’s made you suddenly so cooperative?’

‘The realisation that if David’s mother really has been murdered, she can’t have been killed the day she sent him to me.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘You wouldn’t have wanted to know the names of everyone I’ve talked to about her if she had been. If Jeannie Nest had been killed on the day of the car crash, it would have been irrelevant who I’d talked to about her.’

‘Right.’

‘So when did she die?’

‘Some time on Tuesday night,’ he said. ‘We think. But, as you must know, timing of death is not an exact science, whatever it may look like on the telly.’

‘So are you suggesting that
my
questions might have triggered whatever happened to her?’ Trish thought of the Mull Estate and its threatening atmosphere and the frighteningly young baby-thugs playing there. And the blond young man. And her father.

Had someone on the estate heard of her questions and found them so threatening he’d had to kill Jeannie Nest? If so, what would he do now to anyone he thought might know too much? And why the hell, after everything that had happened, had Trish forgotten to activate the burglar alarm this evening? She must have been completely barking mad – or suffering some kind of death wish.

For God’s sake, stop it, she told herself. The man who came to the flat was probably an opportunist burglar, trying to con his way in past a cleaner who might not have spoken such good English as Maria. The midnight loiterer was probably a drunk who’d been peeing in the gutter and scarpered out of embarrassment. If you fantasise like this you’ll turn into one of those neurotic victims who’re too scared to leave their own front doors. Brace up.

‘Is that what all this is about, Chief Inspector?’ she asked in an impressively firm voice. ‘You think I caused this woman’s death by asking the wrong questions?’

‘It seems possible.’

Oh, God. Please no, she thought. It was hard to sound calm as she started to speak again, but she managed it. ‘Even though she was so scared on the Sunday that she sent David away? Isn’t it much more likely that whoever had been frightening her came back to kill her later? A boyfriend – or someone connected with the Handsome case who’s been looking for revenge ever since she testified?’

‘It’s possible, but I’m not convinced. I do think your questions triggered the violence.’

‘Well, I don’t believe it. There has to be more to this. What did Jeannie Nest say when she reported the harassment?’

‘What harassment?’

‘All that stalking stuff David described. His mother sounds completely terrified. I don’t believe anyone in the witness-protection programme would keep quiet about what happened. She’d have reported it straight away. So what
exactly
did she say?’

‘Very little,’ he said, giving no sign that he’d been trying to resist the suggestion that the victim had made a report.

‘I don’t believe you. If she was frightened enough to send David to me, she must have asked for protection.’ Trish waited, but Lakeshaw didn’t comment. ‘What happened
when she rang in? Or wasn’t there anyone there to take her call?’

‘Of course there was. It was logged and investigated,’ he said stiffly.

‘And?’

‘And nothing. No action was considered necessary. All the panic buttons in her house were checked and found to be working. There was one in every room and beside the front and back doors. She was considered to be safe.’

‘Ah, I see. No wonder you want to blame me and my questions for what happened then,’ Trish said, trying not to sound as relieved as she felt. For a minute she’d believed she might have been responsible for what had happened to Jeannie Nest. ‘It must be awful to realise that a woman died because no one took the trouble to listen properly.’

The flash of bitterness in Lakeshaw’s eyes made her add, ‘Or are you afraid one of your officers actually sold her new name and address to the Handsomes? If they’re moneylenders, they’d be able to afford a pretty crunchy bribe. Is that it?’

Lakeshaw moved a little way down the corridor as a nurse came towards the door of David’s room with a stainless-steel bowl in her hand. Trish stood her ground. ‘I’m not leaving the window here. I promised David.’

‘I think it’s about time you came clean about your father and his connection with Jeannie Nest, don’t you?’ Lakeshaw didn’t seem to be even trying to avoid sounding offensive.

So Caro doesn’t have any boundaries, Trish thought, battling with a sense of betrayal. She must have passed it all on.

‘It’s the most likely reason I’ve come up with to explain why I was chosen for David’s refuge,’ Trish said at last, deciding that anything less than the truth would only cause trouble. ‘My father was in a relationship of sorts with Jeannie Nest at about the time David must have been
conceived. But he can be of no interest to you over this because he hasn’t seen her since, and he had no idea she’d had a child.’

‘How can you be sure of that?’

‘Because he told me so,’ Trish said coldly. ‘There may be no evidence, but I have no reason not to believe him.’

‘I see.’

‘And I can assure you that he would not have taken my interest as a spur to go and beat the poor woman to death.’

‘Beat her to death? Who says … ?’

‘It was a figure of speech,’ Trish said, sighing. ‘Because I know that’s how Ron Handsome killed his victim six years ago. Surely his family must be your likeliest candidates for Jeannie’s murder.’

‘Possibly.’

Trish could feel her eyebrows pulling together, setting up the usual headache as she thought of the few streets that divided her own expensive building from the murderous estate.

‘What’s the matter? You’re shivering.’

Bleakly she repeated what she’d already told him about the man who’d tried to get past Maria and the one who might or might not have been intending to molest her on her way back from the Shelleys’. Lakeshaw didn’t seem very interested but he politely made a note and said he’d look into it.

‘Right. Well, I think that’s all we need from you now.’

Trish blinked at the dismissal. ‘Are you intending to interview my father?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’d like to be present when you talk to him.’

‘Why?’ Lakeshaw said.

‘Because he’s had a heart attack and a recent bypass. I don’t want him worried.’

‘Or risk giving himself away? It’s that, isn’t it? You lawyers are all the same.’

Turning away from his contempt, Trish realised that she’d broken her promise to David. She and Lakeshaw were nearly parallel with the staircase now, yards from the glass panel in the doorway. She moved back at once and waved at David through the glass. He’d been watching for her, obviously fretting, but he waved back.

‘I want to be there as my father’s daughter, not as his brief,’ she said, turning to face Lakeshaw again. ‘Any woman would.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’m going to Kensington now. I can give you a lift.’

Thinking that it was lucky Antony was now doing the bulk of the work on Nick Gurles’s case, Trish went back to David’s bedside to explain, stroking his head as she tried to comfort him. She left with the memory of his head filling her hollowed hand.

‘Trish, will you get the fuck out of here?’ Paddy spat out the words, but she didn’t mind that nearly as much as the hatred in his eyes. His chin was shaking and his lips were so harshly compressed that they made a thin line across his face.

Her throat tightened. She had to make a huge effort to speak at all and when she forced her voice it sounded as harsh as his.

‘This is DCI Lakeshaw. He needs—’

‘I know who he is. Will you get out of here? Now!’ Paddy’s face was the colour of borscht as the blood pounded in his veins. A muscle was beating under his left eye. Trish felt her knees weaken as the implications of his fury hit her. She gripped her hands behind her back and tried to fight off the ideas she couldn’t bear.

‘How do you know him?’ she asked.

‘None of your business. Now go.’

‘I only want to give you the kind of legal protection any—’

‘Bollocks! You’ve been sniffing around since last week, asking questions about Jeannie. And now you’ve joined this bunch of manipulative jokers who’ve been making my life hell. I won’t have it, Trish. Get out.’

The injustice of it hit her like a heavyweight’s fist. ‘But, I—’

‘So, may I take it, Mr Maguire,’ Lakeshaw interrupted,
sounding almost oily in his satisfaction, ‘that you waive your right to legal representation?’

‘You may take it that I have absolutely no intention of answering any questions about my past girlfriends with my daughter present. If I want legal help, I’ll call my solicitor.’

‘Ms Maguire, you have your answer.’ Lakeshaw was holding open the front door of Paddy’s flat, with the uniformed WPC who’d driven them from the hospital beside him as back-up. Trish hesitated.

‘I’m an adult of sound mind,’ her father said, sounding marginally calmer. ‘I do not have to answer to you. Do as you’re told for once in your life.’

‘Dad, Jeannie Nest is dead,’ Trish said, making herself look at him. His eyes bulged. ‘If this man charges you or cautions you, will you promise to phone your solicitor before you say anything whatsoever? You don’t have to have me, but you must have someone with you. It’s very important.’

‘I know she’s dead. Now get out.’

Trish went. Not until she’d reached the tube station and bought her ticket did she realise she must have left him thinking she was convinced he was a killer. There was no evidence for that; only Lakeshaw’s suspicions. Trish wouldn’t believe them – couldn’t – without hard and irrefutable evidence. Paddy had to know that now or they’d never have a chance to rebuild even the relationship they had had, let alone a better one. She stuffed the ticket in her pocket and trudged back to his flat.

The achingly slow lift took far too long. She ran up the eight flights of stairs, so that she was sweating and breathless as she put her finger on the bell.

The WPC opened the door. Seeing Trish, she shook her head.

‘I have to see him for one minute. Your boss can be there all the time. Come on. You know you’ve no right to stop me.’

The WPC stood aside at once. Trish walked past her to the living room, where Paddy was sitting with his head in his hands, staring at the floor between his knees. Lakeshaw looked almost happy.

‘Dad?’

He raised his head. His eyes looked dead, exactly like those of a man she’d once prosecuted for the vicious and calculated murder of his wife.

That doesn’t mean anything, she told herself.

‘What now?’ He sounded as though he couldn’t bear her. She stiffened herself.

‘I just came back to say I know you didn’t do it. I didn’t say so before, and it’s important that you know I’m absolutely certain of your innocence.’

She thought she heard a half-stifled snort from DCI Lakeshaw, but she wasn’t going to look away from her father to check on anyone else. He glared at her for a moment more, then twisted his lips into a small, chilly smile that did nothing to reassure her. His eyes did not change.

‘Thank you. That should make it possible to drink with you again.’

‘Mr Maguire, we haven’t finished yet,’ Lakeshaw said.

‘May I stay, Dad?’ Trish asked, needing to see the warmth in his eyes again. ‘Not because I think you’re in any danger of incriminating yourself, but just in case I can help. Please? And then we could have that drink.’

‘No.’ The monosyllable sounded less hostile, but still not very friendly. ‘I don’t want you involved in this nonsense. But it won’t be long now. Why don’t you wait in the kitchen while I finish with Lakeshaw?’

‘All right.’ She shut the door carefully behind her and crossed the narrow hall to his small grey-and-white kitchen.

It was pristine, apart from a mug that had obviously held coffee standing upright on the draining board. She
washed it up, dried it as though his innocence depended on her leaving no moisture at all, then opened all the cupboards until she found the one that held the rest of the set. The only sign of any kind of untidiness was an old-fashioned spike on top of the fridge, where she knew he kept his credit card receipts until he’d checked them off against the monthly statement. It had always amused her that a man like Paddy should be so meticulous. Now she realised it could come in useful.

A moment later, she walked into the living room with three receipts from an Indian takeaway restaurant in her hand.

‘When was Jeannie Nest killed?’ she asked Lakeshaw, ignoring her father.

‘The time of death has not been precisely established. As you should know, it’s not an exact science.’

‘But it was one night last week, wasn’t it? On Monday, my father was dining with me and one other person in an Italian restaurant. On Tuesday, he had a delivery from the local Indian restaurant, and on Wednesday …’

‘Ms Maguire, this is another charming display of daughterly loyalty, but these receipts merely establish your father’s whereabouts in the early part of each of those evenings. They are not relevant. And we know about them in any case. We’re finished now, for the moment. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr Maguire.’

Something in his expression made Trish turn to glance at her father. She was surprised to see gratitude in the way he was looking up at the tall police officer. When Lakeshaw had gone, she said, ‘What was all that about?’

‘What?’

‘That sycophantic little smile I wasn’t supposed to see.’

‘Sycophantic? Are you not getting a little over-imaginative now, Trish?’ The Irish jocularity sounded even more ludicrous than usual.

‘No.’ And even if I were afraid my suspicions were
imaginary, she added to herself, your accent would have alerted me. What the hell is going on here? ‘Why does Lakeshaw think you’re involved? You told me you hadn’t seen Jeannie Nest since you quarrelled over her refusal to leave Southwark. Wasn’t that true?’

‘Stop this, Trish.’ There was no hint of a brogue now. ‘I’ve had it up to here with the police and I’m damned if I’ll put up with an interrogation from my own daughter.’

‘Just tell me that one thing, then I’ll leave you in peace. You must know that I’ll find out from the police if you’ve told them.
Have
you ever seen her since?’ As he glared at her, Trish felt like a skewer that had been lying on the hob until it was red hot. Dangerous, yet unnaturally pliable. ‘You have seen her, haven’t you? When was it?’

‘It probably wasn’t her at all, Trish,’ he said, with a kind of spurious ease that made her feel as though she were back on the edge of the slipping cliff. ‘The hair colour and spectacles were quite different, but when I heard her speak, I had a feeling it was Jeannie.’

‘When was this?’

‘Oh, about two months ago at that conference when I was speaking about the effects of stress in the workplace. I was mingling with the delegates, like you have to while they have coffee midway through the morning, when I heard her voice. I looked round and didn’t recognise her until I saw the way she tossed her head when she got into an argument with someone. Then I knew … short dark hair and big specs or not, it was Jeannie.’

‘Did she see you?’

His eyes flashed, just as she knew hers did when she was particularly angry. She could hardly bear it. He’d tried to hide his connection with Jeannie Nest from the beginning. Now here he was being shifty about their most recent encounter.

‘I’ve no idea. Someone came up to talk to me, and when I looked for her later, she wasn’t there. When I asked to see the list of delegates, her name wasn’t on it.’

Oh God! Trish thought. He
has
been trying to find her. Is this all that Lakeshaw has, or is there more?

‘Of course not,’ she said aloud, watching him carefully. ‘She went into the witness-protection scheme after the Handsome case. You must have known that would involve a new name.’

‘Why would I? It’s the sort of thing you’d know. But it’s not my world.’

Trish just looked at him. His eyes were as hard as Lakeshaw’s and they didn’t shift.

‘But you must have known about the trial, and the evidence she gave. You’d known her well; you must at least have been curious enough to follow the reports.’

‘Of course I did. I read every word in the paper, and I thought it was typical of her. Brave and right and so pigheaded you could turn her into sausages as soon as look at her.’

Trish stared at him, appalled to think he could be so flippant about a woman who’d just been beaten to death, a woman he’d once loved.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said, his voice ripping through the air between them. ‘We were history by then. What she did then was nothing to do with me. And this is nothing to do with me either.’

‘But—’

‘Trish, I tell you, I won’t have it. I’m sorry the woman’s dead, of course I am. But that’s as far as it goes. Now I need a drink. Will you have some whiskey with me or am I still under suspicion?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ It had been a very long day, and she didn’t like Irish whiskey, but she couldn’t leave him like this. ‘Of course I’ll drink with you. But have you got any crisps or anything to have with it? I’m starving.
I haven’t had anything to eat since a bowl of yoghurt and muesli for breakfast.’

‘Olives, that’s all. They’re in a jar in the fridge. Bring the glasses when you come back, will you?’

She went to fetch them, feeling as though she had lead weights dragging at her ankles. It couldn’t have been as much as four hours since Caro and Lakeshaw had come to the flat, but it seemed like four days. She ached for George and for sleep and for certainty.

 

Next morning all her joints were stiff, as though she’d run the marathon instead of merely battling with her ideas about her father. The hot shower helped loosen her muscles, and so did the familiar walk across the river to the Temple. Antony hadn’t arrived in chambers by the time she got there. She tried to phone Caro for news, but she wasn’t answering. Trish left a message for her and dialled the number of Lakeshaw’s incident room. She had to leave a message there, too.

‘Trish, how are you this morning?’

She put down the phone and looked at Robert Anstey. He seemed revoltingly cheerful.

‘I gather you’ve already run into storms with Antony. Quicker even than I expected. How are you bearing up?’

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘He’s been great. Isn’t his house fantastic? I’d never been to dinner there before Monday.’

Robert scowled and turned away. It was a small victory and it did nothing to ease Trish’s mood. She wished Antony would hurry up and come into chambers and tell her what he wanted her to do about Nick Gurles. She wondered who had told Robert that there was a problem on the case and hoped it hadn’t been Antony himself.

‘So, Trish,’ he said as he walked into her room at last. It was just after half-past twelve. ‘I gather you did your usual effective job in Maidstone.’

‘Thank you. And thank you very much for dinner on Monday. I had a great time.’ It amazed her to remember it was only about thirty-six hours since she’d left his house.

‘Good. But now we need to talk seriously about Nick Gurles. I thought we might do it over lunch. Are you ready?’

‘Well, yes. OK. I mean, fine. I’ll just get my bag.’

‘You won’t need it,’ he said.

He walked exceedingly fast as they left Plough Court and headed towards Smithfield. Trish had to hurry to keep up, in spite of her long legs, but he wasn’t even breathless as he said casually, ‘What did you make of Henry Buxford?’

‘I liked him,’ she said truthfully, forcing her mind to ignore Paddy and the dead woman and her son. This was her own life and she had to concentrate on it. ‘And I could see both why he’d done so well at the Bar and why he’d detested being a judge.’

Antony laughed. ‘We all warned him at the time, but he thought it was his duty. He’d made more than anyone sane could spend in a lifetime and was bullied into believing he had a duty to do it. What a waste! Here we are.’

She knew there was a negotiation to come, but was not sure of the form it would take. She wished she were in better mental shape for it. When the waiter had brought menus and left them alone again, she thought of asking what he planned to discuss, then decided that would only underline her junior status. Instead, she read the menu carefully and chose a green-bean salad followed by calves’ liver.

‘You still look like hell, Trish. Haven’t you stopped tearing yourself apart over Nick’s note yet?’

‘Of course I have, although I’m not comfortable with the thought that you’re not going to disclose it. If it’s nothing to worry about, then there’s no reason not to let the rest of them have it.’

She tasted the wine the waiter had just poured into her
glass, which meant she didn’t have to catch Antony’s eye. The scent was intriguingly grassy, nothing like as rich or subtle as the Burgundy he’d given his guests on Monday, but pleasant.

‘Trish?’ The malicious edge had softened, and his voice sounded real and kind. She looked up in surprise and saw something like compassion in his gentle eyes. Then they sharpened enough to alert her to what he was doing.