Trust No One (5 page)

Chapter 3

Her head aching, her mind still in some other place, Marie Donovan sat at her large wooden desk, trying to smile at the young man opposite. She hadn't chosen the office furniture herself and it was all too imposing for her taste. Perched in the leather swivel chair, the young man looked like a mouse caught in a boxing glove.

‘It's still not right, is it, Darren?' she said at last, knowing that she had to go on with all this, despite everything. She glanced down again at the document. She was trying to find the right words. With Darren, she was always trying to find the right words. Simple ones, that he could follow.

‘Darren?' she prompted.

He blinked. ‘Miss?'

‘It's Marie,' she said. ‘You can call me Marie.' Christ, she thought, it's as if he's never left school. She imagined he'd been the same there – meek, compliant, fundamentally useless. ‘I was saying that we still haven't got the printing right here, have we?'

‘I did my best, miss.'

‘Marie,' she repeated. ‘I'm sure you did, Darren. But you need to concentrate. Let's have a look at this, shall we?' She held up the printed document. ‘What's wrong with it?'

Darren gazed at the handful of sheets, a brief shadow of panic crossing his face in response to the direct question. He leaned forwards and squinted. ‘It's a bit blurred,' he offered finally.

She nodded. ‘It's very blurred. You let the original move while it was printing. OK, what else?'

Darren looked dismayed that the inquisition was not yet finished. ‘Um. It's a bit, well, wonky.'

‘It's very wonky,' she agreed. ‘You didn't square up the originals. Anything else?'

He gazed silently at the document, then back up at her. The look of panic had returned. ‘Miss?'

She leaned forwards and picked up the paper again. ‘It's printed on both sides of an A3 sheet, right?' She paused. ‘A big sheet.' She stretched it out to show him exactly what a big sheet looked like when it was stretched out. ‘And each side is divided into two halves?'

Darren was staring at her now with an expression of abject misery. She'd lost him at the first mention of paper size.

‘OK,' she went on, ‘so it's a big sheet that's supposed to be folded in half to make a four-page A4 – that's a littler sheet – booklet.' She carefully folded the sheet to demonstrate. ‘Like that, see?'

Darren made no response. Knackered as she was, she was momentarily tempted to lean over the desk and give him a violent shake. She had a fear that she might actually hear what passed for a brain rattling around in his skull.

‘So that means,' she persisted, ‘that both sides need to be printed the same way up. Right?' She was determined not to be deflected now. ‘Otherwise some of the pages will be printed upside down. Right?'

A glimmer of light shone in Darren's eyes. ‘Right,' he said. ‘You don't want pages to be upside down.'

She unfolded the sheet and spread it carefully in front of him. ‘OK,' she said slowly, ‘so, now turn that sheet over and tell me what's wrong with it.'

She had expected him to turn the sheet over left to right, or possibly right to left. Instead, he grasped the sheet carefully between his finger and thumb and turned it over top to bottom. He stared at the upright print in front of him, and then looked up at her, his eyes bright with welling tears. ‘I'm sorry, miss,' he said at last. ‘I can't see anything wrong with it.'

She could think of nothing to say. She peered over Darren's shoulder through the glass partition that separated her office from the rest of the print room. Her assistant Joe was busily working at the large reprographic machine, his eyes determinedly fixed away from their direction.

‘Tell you what, Darren,' she said. ‘Why don't you speak to Joe? Get him to show you how it should be done.'

Darren nodded, his face brightening at the prospect of escape. ‘Thanks, miss. I will.' He rose, almost falling over the chair in his eagerness to leave the office.

‘Marie,' she said through gritted teeth, as the office door closed behind him. ‘It's Marie. Fucking Marie.'

She shouldn't drag it out. She should sack him now before it was too late, before he'd been working there long enough to have employment protection. She should sack him before she was tempted to kill him. She wasn't a social worker. She was a businesswoman.

Except, of course, that she wasn't. That was the whole trouble. She was only pretending to be a businesswoman. Doing a pretty good job of it, some would say, managing to expand the business in the face of a recession. But still only playing.

And if she was only playing, she might as well help out someone like Darren along the way. She knew Darren's type from her early days as a policewoman. Disadvantaged. In Darren's case, disadvantaged in virtually every possible way – socially, parentally, intellectually, physically. Without even the gumption to get himself into trouble. But that wouldn't stop someone else getting him into it. Someone a bit smarter, more confident, more streetwise. Which narrowed it down to almost anyone else in the world. Someone would take advantage of Darren, exploit him for their own purposes, set him up, and leave him swinging gently in the wind when things went wrong.

Maybe she could delay all that by a year or two if she kept him employed here. The only risk was that she might end up murdering him herself in the meantime. Particularly on a day like today. After everything that had happened.

She was distracted by the buzz of her mobile phone on the desk. A text, apparently a routine domestic message: Running a bit late. See you 6.30. Just to remind her, in case she might have forgotten, today of all days, that all this – the business, the print shop, Darren and the rest – wasn't really what it was all about.

She rose casually and fumbled in her jacket pocket for the other mobile phone. Not the one she'd used hours before, in her hopeless call to the emergency services. The customized one that was left switched off until she needed it. She switched it on now.

She dialled the familiar number and then, with the usual mild embarrassment, went through the authorization process – another anodyne code phrase. Salter's voice, at the end of the line, gave the appropriate coded response.

‘Good to hear your voice, sis.' Salter's little joke. They were supposed to converse as if in some non-intimate relationship. At some point, Salter had decided that he was going to be her brother. Somehow, even as cover, that felt intrusive, but there was little she could do about it now.

‘Hello there, Hugh,' she said. Strictly speaking, she wasn't supposed to use his real forename, but she'd done so as soon as he'd started to call her ‘sis'. With any luck, it would help the other side track the bugger down more easily.

‘Afraid it's bad news, sis.'

She felt an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. Up to now, she'd been living on hope, clutching at the pitifully thin straws she'd tried to conjure up in the dark hours of the morning. Waiting on a miracle. She hadn't dared return to Jake's flat, or even try his phone line. Partly because now she couldn't risk being linked to whatever might have happened there. But mainly because she knew, in her heart, that there would be no reply.

‘We've had a death in the family,' Salter went on. ‘Thought you ought to know.'

‘A death?' She held her breath for a moment, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘Whose death?'

‘It's J, I'm afraid,' Salter said. She could read nothing into his tone. ‘Out of the blue.'

Quite suddenly, she'd run out of words. She held the phone away from her face, breathing deeply, trying to hold herself together. ‘I don't understand, Hugh,' she said finally. ‘What do you mean?'

‘What I say, sis. Poor old J's dead. Dead as the proverbial fucking doornail, I'm afraid.'

She bit back her first response, feeling bile at the back of her throat. There was a note in his voice she'd never heard before, something that leaked through the veneer of cynicism.
He's pissed off, of course,
she thought,
that's part of it.
But there was something more.

She spoke slowly, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘Oh, for fuck's sake, Hugh, stop playing games. What's happened?'

‘What I say, sis. J's dead. Taken in the night. Unexpectedly. Not an easy death, from what I understand. He suffered before the end.'

She lowered herself slowly back down on her office chair, not entirely trusting her legs to support her. Her mind suddenly felt clear, as if she'd been dragged somewhere beyond emotion. ‘Suffered?'

‘Yeah, it's a bastard. A real bastard. Even that bugger didn't deserve it.'

She could feel herself clamming up, just wanting to get away from all this. This conversation. This job. This fucking life.

‘Yeah, it's a bastard, Hugh. So is there anything you want me to do about it?'

There was another pause. ‘He was one of yours, wasn't he, sis?'

She held her breath again, concentrating, trying to ensure that she gave nothing away. ‘I put his name forward, Hugh, that's all. Nobody forced him to be an informant.'

‘No, suppose not, sis. Sad to see him go.' There was no obvious sincerity in his tone. ‘Leaves us in a bloody hole as well. Anything you can do to help will be much appreciated, I'm sure.'

‘I'll bear that in mind, Hugh.' She cut off the call, aware she was in danger of losing control. She didn't know what her next reaction would have been – grief at Jake's death, at the fucking manner of his demise. Tears at her own guilt and impotence. Blind fury at Salter's smug irony. Whichever, it wouldn't have been pretty. Now, she sat in silence, staring through the glass partition to where Joe was still patiently taking Darren through the intricacies of the reprographics machine.

It wasn't her fault. Yes, she'd been the one who'd suggested Jake as a possible informant. But, like she'd said, no one had compelled him to go along with it. He'd had his own reasons. She knew he'd wanted out, that he was sick of the endless brown-nosing to Kerridge and Boyle and their crowd. That was the saddest thing – that Jake probably really thought he was doing a public duty by grassing up Boyle.

She'd known that. She'd judged it just right, known that when they came along with the offer he'd be ripe for the picking. That was what the job was about: spotting the talent. And it didn't always go right. Sometimes there were casualties.

And sometimes the casualties were lovers.

She knew that at any moment Joe or Darren would glance in this direction and that, when they did, she had to appear normal. A businesswoman struggling with nothing more traumatic than keeping this bloody enterprise afloat in the face of a howling recession.

Calmer now, her mind focused on the image she wanted to project, she opened the office door. Joe nodded and walked across to her, leaving Darren fumbling, apparently aimlessly, with the controls of the machine.

‘Kid's bloody useless,' he murmured under his breath. ‘You know that, don't you? We should cut our losses and sack him before it's too late.'

‘He's just a boy, Joe. Give him a chance.'

Joe shrugged. ‘You're the boss. But you can be too soft, you know?'

‘Take it from me, Joe,' she said, ‘that's not one of my failings.'

Chapter 4

From somewhere in the next room, Marie could hear the shrill sound of her mobile.

She eased her body down into the hot water and tried to ignore the insistent tone. She contemplated, just for a moment, allowing her head to dip below the surface to enjoy the underwater silence. She fought the temptation to stay down there, hold her breath, let the silence become permanent – though the truth was she could think of worse ways to end it all.

It was a strange bloody paradox, this. Here she was, supposedly out on her own, cut off from all contacts. And she still couldn't get any peace and quiet.

She closed her eyes and breathed out as the phone finally fell silent. It was a temporary respite, she knew. The call would have gone to voicemail. Liam would leave a message. And then the voicemail would begin its automatic callback, another three bloody blasts of that impossible-to-ignore sodding ringtone.

That was Liam as well, that bloody ringtone. He'd set it up as a supposed joke, a couple of months back during one of her weekends at home. Some pop hit that she hadn't recognized. She'd no idea what it was and hadn't taken the trouble to find out, but she assumed – based on previous experience – that it represented some private joke at her expense. Her more knowledgeable work colleagues – possibly even Darren in this instance – no doubt amused themselves whenever her phone rang.

Liam knew he wasn't supposed to call her on this number. That it wasn't secure and that his calls could compromise her position. But of course it had been Liam calling. It was always Liam at this time of the evening, and that was another problem.

Every evening, she shut the shop at six, spent half an hour or so catching up with the paperwork, or perhaps redoing whatever task had been allocated to Darren that afternoon. Then she headed back to her flat, getting in at around seven or so. Whatever else she might have planned for the evening – and that was generally work of one sort or another – she tried to create some space for herself, an hour or so without commitments.

Very often, as tonight, that involved running herself a very hot bath, pouring herself a large glass of red wine and digging out some not-too-demanding book or magazine in which she could briefly lose herself. And almost equally often, again as tonight, as soon as she lowered herself into the scalding, scented water, she heard the insistent sound of the mobile from the next room.

She closed her eyes as the ringtone sounded once more. Tonight, of all nights, Liam was the last person she wanted to speak to. She wanted to cut herself off, put the real world on hold. Forget what she was doing, what she was involved in.

What she had done to Jake.

She kept telling herself that Jake had known exactly what risks he was taking. And that, last night, she'd done what she could. If she'd tried to do more, she'd be dead herself.

Even so, as she'd told Salter, it didn't feel good. Just at the moment, it felt fucking awful. It wasn't even that she was overwhelmed with grief. She kept expecting that it would hit her – the real emotion, the full sense of loss. But it hadn't, not really. She felt horror at what must have happened to Jake. She felt fury at those who had done it, and even more, at those who had paid for it to be done. She felt anxiety about her own possible exposure.

But there was a numbness, a dead spot, at the heart of her response. When it came to Jake himself, when it came to the simple fact that Jake was gone, she felt – what? Sorrow. Regret. Loss. But nothing like the depth or strength of emotion she'd expected.

She knew all the emotional clichés. She could envisage exactly what Winsor or the counsellors back at the Agency would say if she were ever in a position to share her feelings. That she was in shock. That she hadn't yet accepted the reality of Jake's death. That she had to work through all the fucking stages of grieving. And maybe that was all true. But, for the moment, it didn't feel that way. It felt like Jake had been a good friend – good company, a good laugh, pretty good in bed – and that now he was gone. The world hadn't ended. But Jake had left town, and he wouldn't be coming back.

Christ, she didn't know what she felt. When she'd embarked on the affair, she knew she was putting both of them at risk. It had been a few months of madness. She'd have ended it soon, whatever happened. It had been a fling – fun, dangerous, exhilarating, doomed. Why should she be surprised that, in the end, such turbulent waters turned out to run shallow?

Beyond the door, the ringtone trilled on. Finally losing patience, she skimmed her magazine across the bathroom floor so that it crashed like a wounded bird against the white-tiled wall. Cursing Liam, she dragged herself out of the water and reached for a towel. Still naked, trying to dry her body as she hurried out of the bathroom into the living room, she picked up the phone. Inevitably, just as she touched it, it fell silent.

She threw the towel around her shoulders and looked at the display. Two missed calls. The first number, sure enough, was Liam's. The second, though, wasn't the voicemail service she'd expected, but another mobile number. The number wasn't one she recognized. If it was important, she thought, the caller would leave a message. Most likely, it would be a wrong number or a cold call. In any case, her instinct now was to let others do the running. If someone had a job, she could be found.

She was still holding the phone when it rang again. Liam's number. She thumbed on the phone and spoke before he could. ‘I've told you not to use this number.'

‘And a good evening to you,' Liam said. ‘You're answering now, are you?'

‘Yes, and I shouldn't be. I'll call you back.'

Before he could object, she disconnected and fumbled in her handbag for the other mobile. She ought to stop and put on some clothes, she thought. The bedroom was warm enough, but she preferred not to be at any disadvantage when talking to Liam. But if she delayed he'd just call back again on the original line.

It took her a moment to switch on the phone and dial Liam's number. She expected him to be irritated, but he sounded only resigned.

‘On the right phone now, then?' he asked. ‘Important to get these things straight.'

She paused, mentally counting to ten. ‘It's not a game, Liam. I don't do these things for fun.'

‘You can say that again,' he said. ‘Though Christ knows why else you do them.'

‘To make a bloody living, Liam,' she said patiently. Almost immediately, she regretted the words.

‘Because I don't, you mean?'

‘Oh, for Christ's sake, Liam . . .'

‘How much have I made this month? Sold two pictures. Hundred quid each. Not bad. Just remind me how much the mortgage is again?'

‘That's not the point. You know I've always been happy to support your painting. You've got real talent . . .'

‘Maybe. Maybe not. And what happens when I can't paint?'

This was a topic she always tried to steer away from. It was unproductive, pointless. And the last thing she needed today. ‘Don't be so bloody melodramatic, Liam.'

‘I'm not being melodramatic. I'm being realistic. It's a degenerative disease. I'm going to degenerate. Maybe later, maybe sooner. But eventually.'

And in the meantime you can wallow in the prospect
, she thought, though she knew how unfair she was being. They were very different people. Her instinct was to avoid trouble, not face it till she was compelled to. Liam's was to embrace it head-on. But she knew that he was pragmatic, not indulgent. And this was his trouble, not hers.

‘You don't know that,' she responded feebly. ‘You can't know that. And, anyway, eventually could mean decades . . .'

‘Yeah, thanks for that,' he said. ‘I feel much better now.'

‘Oh, Jesus, Liam . . .' She'd lost it, she knew that. It was stupid even to be having this conversation. She took a breath and tried to start again. ‘Anyway, how've you been?'

There was a hesitation which made her wonder what he wasn't saying. ‘OK. Not so bad.'

‘Are you all right?' she pushed him.

She could almost hear him mulling over his reply, wondering whether to make another semi-joking bid for martyrdom. ‘Yeah, I'm all right. I'm fine. Really.'

‘Have you been back to the doctor?'

‘Not yet. I will.' He was beginning to sound tetchy.

‘Liam, is it getting worse?'

‘Christ, Marie, how do I know? No, it's not, not obviously. But it's never been bloody obvious, has it? Not yet.' For a moment, she thought he'd ended the call. ‘I don't know,' he said finally. ‘I imagine all kinds of things. But that's probably all it is. There's no way of knowing till it happens.'

‘Go back to the doctor,' she said. ‘See what she says.'

‘You know what she'll say. Nothing. What can she say?'

It was true. They'd had the diagnosis, and that was unequivocal. Multiple sclerosis. He'd had the scan. They'd been shown the images, the lesions in his brain. Had it all carefully explained. There was no doubt. The only question was how far the disease had progressed. Was it still in the remitting stage, where the symptoms could still come and go? Or was it in the progressive phase, where the likelihood was an inexorable, if possibly slow, decline? The distinction, the neurologist had told them, was not always clear-cut, and Liam's condition seemed to be on the cusp. That was what she'd said, but Marie had suspected that her eyes, professionally expressionless, had intimated a different story.

‘She'll give you a view. About whether it's getting worse.'

‘I don't need a view. I'll know if it's getting worse.'

She couldn't tell whether the future tense was euphemistic. ‘At least get it checked out.'

‘If it keeps you happy.'

‘It'll reassure me, anyway,' she said.

‘Just as long as you care.' The tone was ambiguous. ‘Anyway, you've got better things to do than talk to me. I'll let you go.'

She knew he didn't mean it, that he wanted to keep talking, but she could feel her self-control draining away. ‘Look, I'll call you tomorrow. Same time?'

‘Whenever you've got a moment.'

‘Same time,' she confirmed. She began to mutter some half-hearted endearment, but he'd already ended the call. Dear God, why did she bother? They hadn't even made the effort to get married before they'd reached this state. She didn't know what she felt for Liam any more than she'd known what she felt for Jake. With Liam she really had believed, once, that it was love. Now, it just felt like an old habit, not quite abandoned, but increasingly buried under layers of semi-serious recrimination and bickering.

She shivered suddenly and realized that she was sitting with only a towel around her shoulders, her body still damp from the bath. The window blinds were open, and she'd probably brightened the day for some old man or pubescent teenager in the flats opposite. Either that, or traumatized some busy-body who'd be penning a shocked letter to the Residents' Association. The way things were going, she could guess which was more likely.

Welsby was out on the balcony, chain-smoking, watching the pale sun sinking over the quays and the industrial landscape of Trafford Park. He'd left Salter and Hodder inside, systematically working through the flat. Salter had obviously expected him to lend a hand, but Welsby reckoned that was one of the privileges of rank. Not having to spend any more time than necessary breathing in the stench of stale blood.

‘All right?' Salter said from behind him, the note of irony in his voice more or less concealed. ‘Sir?'

‘Not so bad,' Welsby acknowledged, without looking round. ‘Getting a bit parky out here, though.' He gestured towards the dominant bulk of Old Trafford on the far side of the canal. ‘And I could do without having to stare at the theatre of bloody dreams. Nearly finished?'

Salter sat himself down opposite Welsby. ‘Getting there. I've left the youngster to finish off.'

‘Aye, well, you deserve a break.' Welsby stretched out his legs and eased back against the chair. ‘Mind you, your arse'll get numb if you spend too long out here.' He waved a packet of cigarettes towards Salter.

Salter shook his head. ‘Giving up,' he explained.

‘Again? Your bloody trouble, Hugh – no willpower. Some of us are properly committed.'

‘Don't imagine my lapse will be too protracted,' Salter said. ‘Not if I have to deal with many more fuck-ups like this one.'

Welsby nodded, his eyes fixed on the last gleaming dregs of the setting sun. ‘That's the phrase I've been searching for,' he said. ‘Fuck-up. Trust you to find the mot juste.'

‘My literary background, sir. The real question, though, is who fucked up?'

‘That's the question, right enough. Suggests we're not quite as watertight as we'd like to think.' Welsby dropped his cigarette butt and ground it under his heavy black shoe. ‘Which is interesting.'

‘One word for it,' Salter said.

‘Ah, well. I lack your literary background. CSE in metalwork, that's my limit.'

‘Very practical, guv. I don't like the idea that we're not secure, though.'

Welsby was lighting up another cigarette, hand cupped around the guttering flame with practised skill.

‘Well, start getting used to it,' he said finally. ‘Or, better still, start finding out who's leaking.'

‘Not many of us knew about Morton,' Salter pointed out. ‘Not officially, anyway.'

Welsby shrugged. ‘Internally, we're a bloody sieve,' he said. ‘I reckon nearly everyone had wind of this. Not necessarily the details. But the fact that we'd got a key bloody witness. Talk of the building.'

‘You reckon?' Salter leaned forwards, his gangling limbs splayed awkwardly. ‘Whoever did this had more than office gossip.'

‘Too right they did.' Welsby took a deep final drag on his latest cigarette, then tossed it disdainfully in the approximate direction of the canal. ‘We couldn't organize a nun-shoot in a bloody nunnery.'