(2012) Evie Undercover (37 page)

His shoulders slumped in relief. Sometimes, if you got yourself into a mess, which was clearly what Jess and Rachel thought had happened, you needed someone who could stand back from it all and give you good advice, rather than a really close friend who might be too emotionally involved to think clearly. What could be more likely than that she’d turned to Gabriela in time of need? How stupid of him not to have thought of
that
sooner. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and rifled through an assortment of business cards. Ah, there it was: Gabriela’s card with her details.

The telephone rang only twice before someone picked it up, but the wait felt like an eternity.

‘Hello?’ a female voice said at the other end of the line.

‘Hello, is that you, Gabriela?’
             
‘Tom? It is Tom, isn’t it?’ She sounded surprised to hear his voice, but pleased. Maybe a little nervous, too, he thought.

‘Yes, it is. Look, Gabriela, can I skip everything else and come straight to the point? I’m trying to get hold of Evie as I’m desperate to speak to her. She’s not at her house and she won’t take my phone calls. Is she by any chance with you?’

‘I can’t help you, Tom, I’m afraid
. S
he’s not here.’

His momenta
ry hope sank into despair. ‘I kne
w it was a long shot, but I
just
thought she might be with you. I
don’t suppose she’s called you
or given you any idea where she is?’

‘I’m afraid that I really don’t know where she is.’ Her voice was full of regret. ‘If I did k
now, I would tell you at once. S
he seemed so mixed up when I spoke to her.’

‘Mixed up
?
What do you mean?’

The other end of the phone fell silent.

‘Gabriela, if you know anything, please tell me. What do you mean,
“
mixed up
”
?’

‘I don’t like to say.’ Her voice was hesitant with obvious reluctance. ‘Evie is my friend.’

‘And I’m sure you know what I think of her. You and I, we’re both her friends. If she’s done anything she shouldn’t,
or anything at all has happened to upset her,
please tell me where she is so that I can go and help her.’

‘I don’t know where she is.’ Her voice broke into a little sob. ‘But I
am
worried about her, Tom. She said that she had done something she really regretted, and that you’d hate her when you found out. I think that that might be why she has gone.’

‘But what could she have possibly done that I could ever hate her for doing? I don’t understand.’

‘I don’t
,
either. That’s why I don’t like saying this to you. I’m only repeating her words to you because I can hear how worried you are.’

‘
Of course you are, and I’m most grateful to you
for telling me what she said. I’m afraid that
I’m going to have to accept defeat for the moment
.
I can’t think of anywhere else to look, or anyone else to ask
. I shall have to try to put the whole thing out of my mind for the next few days and focus on the work I’ve got to do over the weekend. I’ll contact you when the case is over and we’ll get together – we may have a better idea of what Evie was talking about by then.’

They said goodbye and Tom put the phone down.

He stared at his desk. There was nothing more he could do about finding her until he’d spoken to the agency, and that
may not
be until Monday evening – his phone would be
switched off when he was in court
. Of course t
here was
still
a chance that
Evie
might make
contact with him, either directly or by sending him a message through someone else
, but that chance
seemed like
a slim one
. For the moment, he’d have to force himself to be patient
and to focus on his work
, and that was just about the hardest thing he’d ever asked himself to do.
On the plus side
, it would keep his mind off Evie. Or he fervently hoped it would.

He glanced at the phone on his desk. Thank God, Evie had friends like
her
two
housemates and
Gabriela
, he thought;
friends
who really cared about her
and who would do their best to help her if she finally turned to them
.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Black Monday!

Tom stepped out on to the top step in front of the
Royal
Court
s
of Justice, pulling his black leather wheelie bag full of files behind him.
He’d
not
had
a
single
moment
in which
to
check his messages
all
day
, but his
long
wait to see the agency
’s reply
was almost over
, and he felt a sense of mounting excitement
.

A
sudden
movement
in front of
him
caught his eye, and he
glanc
ed
down
as a
large crowd of people
surg
ed
forward
.
A barrage of flashbulbs went off in front of his face.

He stopped abruptly
and stared
in amazement
a
t
th
e
mass of
photographers
gathered on the pavement
behind the railings
. Pushing
forward in one heaving body,
they were
jostling each other to get as close as possible to the black iron gate that held them back
from the foot of the
shallow
stone steps.

Involuntarily, he took a step backwards and turned to his junior in surprise. ‘I knew it would be a fascinating case, but I rather thought the fascination would be for the lawyers, not for the public. However, this is manic. We’ll try to get out of here as fast as we can. We’re making no statements
,
not at this stage of the proceedings. Come on
. L
et’s go.’

He
took a step
forward and the cameras burst into action again.

Forced to stop, he blinked furiously at the fresh explosion of bright
lights that confronted him. His vision gradually clearing
, he saw some reporters
that
he recognised trying to elbow their way through the jumble of photographers to get to the front.

‘This way,
Mr
Hadleigh,’ a voice called from the body of the photographers. ‘Look this way.’

‘Have you
got
any comment to make?’ one of the reporters shouted.

‘What
is
this?’ he said under his breath, as much to himself as to his junior.

‘They can’t expect
you
to
make
a statement today
–
we’ve only just chosen the jury
,’
the
junior
replied.

‘
And what the hell do they want my photo for?’ He stared in bewilderment at the crowd, and the flashbulbs sparked off again. ‘This is abnormal. You’d expect this for big celebrity names, but not for a man libelled in business, no matter how important he is, nor how legally significant the case. What on earth can be going on!
We may well have to go back and leave through one of the rear exits.’

‘
Mr
Hadleigh, sir.’ The
voice ca
me
from behind him, from the inside of the
court building
. ‘A word, if you please,
Mr
Hadleigh,’ the voice said. It came closer.

He turned and saw one of the court officials coming towards him across the tiled foyer. He was waving his hand to attract Tom’s attention. Tom indicated that he’d seen him, and the official stopped where he was and beckoned him back into the building.

‘You get off home,’
he
told the junior. ‘I’m going
to see what the official wants.
Ho
pefull
y
, he’ll be able to
shed some light on
what’s going on. I’ve never seen such a madhouse as that lot outside
. You know the points I want you to research this evening – I’ll ring later if there’s anything else I need to tell you. Otherwise, I’ll see you in court tomorrow.’

‘
Good
luck with whatever it is
, sir,
’
the junior said
as
he
started to mak
e his way down the steps
.

Tom
watched
him
skirt the iron barrier and move away from the crowd
with difficulty
, then
Tom
t
urn
ed
back, went into the vast entrance hall and walked over to the
waiting
official. Together they went
across to
one of the benches running along the wall at the side of the hall and sat down.

‘We won’t be troubled here,
Mr
Hadleigh,’ the official said quietly. ‘I think that there’s something you should see before you
make another
attempt
at leaving
the building. I take it you haven’t had your phone on at all today, sir.’

‘That’s correct. I switched it off when I arrived at court,
just
as I always do. Anything you can show me that will make sense of the pandemonium outside will be more than welcome
, I assure you
. I’ve never
before
seen anything like it for this sort of case.’

‘I think that this may be of some help.’ The official pulled a rolled-up magazine out of his pocket, put it on the bench between them and unfurled it. ‘I think you’ll find that it’s not your case, sir, that has drawn the press hounds.’

‘It’s not
?
’ Tom started in surprise. ‘So what has?’

The official looked down at the magazine cover. Tom followed his gaze. His eyes flew to
large
r
ed letters written across the
photo of a bewigged barrister who was hurrying into the High Court:
‘
BONKING BARRISTER!! HORNY HADLEIGH – EXPOSÉ!
’
The
barrister
had put his ha
nd up in an
attempt to shield his face from the camera, but it was unmistakably
a photo of
him.

‘My God, that was taken a month or so ago!’ he exclaimed. ‘A photographer shoved a camera in front of my face as I was going into court. I remember it happening quite clearly. But looking at this, it’s made me appear quite furtive
,
as if I had something to hide. What’s this all about?’

As he asked the question, he realised that he knew the answer.

Unable to move, he watched the official flick through the pages until he came to the p
lace he was looking for
. He flattened the magazine on the bench and Tom saw a huge blow-up of his face splashed across the centre of a double page.
A
line of bright red words printed across his photograph swam before his eyes. All he was able to register was, ‘… exposé by Evie Shaw,
Pure
Dirt
’s
crack
new reporter.’

Fifteen minutes later, the magazine in his pocket and the
official’s
hushed words of sympathy ringing in his ears, he made his way out of the
court building
through a rear door and returned at speed to his car.

He needed to get home,
to get
back to peace and quiet and somewhere to think. He lifted his bag into the boot of the car, climbed into the driver’s seat,
left his mobile switched off
–
he couldn’t deal with anything
n
or speak to anyone; not yet – and drove back to Hampstead, his mind in a turmoil.

As soon as he reached his house, he disabled the alarm, left the wheelie bag of files at the foot of the stairs and went into the drawing room and over to the cocktail cabinet. He took out a glass and a bottle of single malt whisky, carried them upstairs to his study, sat down at his desk and poured himself a stiff drink.