Gagged & Bound (21 page)

‘Great. Thanks. Bye.’

Trish clicked off the phone and relieved her feelings with a string of swearwords she’d forbidden David ever to use on pain of some dreadful but unspecified punishment, before descending the spiral staircase to become his respectable elder sister again.

All she could think of throughout the rest of the film was Benedict’s news and the inescapable implication that Stephanie had been killed on the orders of one of the Slabbs. Caro’s old question came back to her: how could they have known Stephanie would be the first police officer through the door of the house?

The answer to that seemed pretty obvious in the light of Bill Femur’s warning. Someone involved in allocating jobs and responsibilities in the police station where Stephanie worked was in the pay of the Slabbs.

Or maybe it doesn’t actually have to be someone directly involved, Trish thought. If the story doing the rounds of the Metropolitan Police really is that the shooting was an internal punishment that went horribly wrong, then it could have been one of any number of people who persuaded the officer in charge of the operation that day to put Stephanie in the front line. Has anyone interviewed him yet? I must ask Caro.

The Royal Courts of Justice were bustling like a termite tower, with counsel, solicitors, claimants, witnesses, tourists and hangers-on jostling each other as they made their way about the stony, church-like halls of the building. Trish and Nessa emerged into the crowd when their judge rose for the short adjournment, otherwise known as lunch, at 12.45. Because the contract case was a relatively simple one, now that Trish had found the flaw in her opponent’s argument, there was no need to tear through the morning’s evidence and thrash out a plan of campaign for the afternoon. She and Nessa could take their time in the coffee shop.

All round them were barristers, some still wearing their wigs, others carrying them jammed under an arm or clutched with a handful of papers. Solicitors and clients followed in the wake of their exotically floating gowns. Trish could see Nessa loving every minute of it. She joined the queue to buy the sandwiches, while Trish grabbed a table with two free chairs.

Sitting down, with her papers piled neatly by one table leg, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and saw four missed calls and a text message. Caro’s number still wasn’t there. Why hadn’t she answered the call for help? However busy she was, she’d never ignored an urgent message before. What was going on?

The text was from David’s new phone, asking whether he could have permission to stay late at school this afternoon to help Mr Thompson with the preparations for tomorrow’s end-of-term party. It would only be an hour, he said.

Trish longed to keep him under close watch until she knew who had stolen his old phone and what they were planning to do next, but she couldn’t unless she told him why, and anything she said could only frighten him. He wouldn’t come to any harm with Mr Thompson. She tapped in a message giving him permission.

 

Caro looked at the young thug opposite her. He was sprawled in his chair to show how little he cared for her authority or for his victim. At his side sat his social worker and the duty solicitor, both keeping the impatience off their faces with difficulty. They’d seen as many clones of this particular individual as Caro had. This time it wasn’t arson or joyriding or burglary, but rape. His age had been given as fourteen and his victim was a year older.

‘She wanted it, I tell you,’ he said. ‘She was gagging for it. Taunted me, like, when I said no. So I had to give her one.’

Upstairs in the rape suite, the girl had choked out her story to two specially trained officers, who’d done their best to restore her confidence after the essential indignities of the medical examination and the wholly inessential viciousness she’d suffered at the hands of this boy. Even at her most charitable, Caro would never be able to believe that any male, however alienated and ignorant, could begin to imagine that any female could wish to be battered, cut and bitten during sex as his victim had been.

Maybe this does matter more, she thought, than being part of any strategy to defeat people like the Slabbs. She caught the social worker’s eye, read sympathy and urgency in it, and bent her mind to thinking up the right questions.

They didn’t help. The rapist clung to his certainties about his victim’s panting desire for him, and his solicitor interrupted each time he appeared to be about to say anything useful. The boy’s paper jumpsuit whispered around his thin body and his ragged nails made a repellent raw scraping noise every time he scratched his scalp.

Eventually Caro gave up, terminating the interview and seeing him taken back to his cell. The physical evidence was overwhelming. Even with the law in its current state, they ought to get a conviction for this one. But she was too experienced to risk giving the victim any assurances.

 

Trish spent most of the adjournment answering Nessa’s questions and felt so fired up by her enthusiasm that she went back into court to fight for her clients with even more zest than usual. No one had expected them to reach the end of the proceedings today, but it was a fast-track case and had to finish tomorrow. As Trish asked the last question of her main witness, she saw the judge looking at his watch and stole a glance at her own. It was already quarter past four. She nodded to him to show she was almost done and saw his face relax. He turned courteously to the witness to listen to her response.

And then it was over for the day. They all rose, the judge retreated, and the handful of people in court were free to go. Trish felt her mobile vibrating in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw the number of David’s new phone on the screen. Thrusting her papers into Nessa’s hands she hurried out of court. Even though the judge had gone, ingrained discipline meant she would never use her phone in court.

‘David?’ she said the moment she was outside in the hall.

‘Can you come, Trish?’ His voice was faint and urgent at the same time, constrained, too, as though something was gripping his throat. There were traffic noises and other voices in the background.

‘Where are you?’

‘I’ve crashed the bike. I’m on the bridge. There are people wanting to take me to hospital. But I need
you.’

‘I’m on my way. Hang on. And give your phone to the nearest grown-up.’

She turned to Nessa, saying, ‘I’ve got to go. Take the stuff back to chambers. I’ll see you in the morning.’

As she ran across the Strand, with the phone clamped to her ear, an efficient-sounding male voice said, ‘Hello? I gather you’re David’s sister.’

‘That’s right. I’m on my way. How badly is he hurt?’

‘I think it’s shock more than actual damage, but he’s bleeding a lot from a cut on the scalp, and he’s bumped and bruised. Brave lad, though. He was on his feet when I got here and planning to walk home, but the bike defeated him because the front wheel’s buckled. How long will you be?’

‘Eight minutes.’ Trish was already panting, but she was nearly halfway down through the Temple. Once she was out on to the Embankment, she might even be able to see them. ‘You’ll see me in a minute: a mad figure in a barrister’s gown, waving a wig.’

‘It’s me again,’ he said, when she answered her phone again a few minutes later. ‘I see you. I’ll give the phone back to David now. But I’ll wait with him till you get here.’

Her heart couldn’t beat any faster or her lungs ache more, but she forced herself on, whooping for breath. Seeing the little group round David from the end of the bridge was like being in a nightmare. Hard as she pushed herself, she seemed to make no progress, and the slope of the bridge felt like an alp.

When she did reach them, she fell to her knees on the pavement beside David. He was sitting on the ground with his back against the side of the bridge. Someone had rolled up a jacket and put it behind his bleeding head. Someone else had folded a clean handkerchief and told him to hold it against the
cut. His face was as white as it had been the night she’d first seen him, lying under the bonnet of the car that had run him down. Once again it was marked with grey streaks, mixed in with clotting blood.

‘I’m sorry about the bike,’ he said and closed his eyes.

Trish knew what that meant: now she was here, he could let go and leave her to sort everything out. Her breathing was getting back into its normal rhythm, although her throat and lungs still hurt. She glanced up to thank the adults for their help. One of them, a pinched-looking brown-haired woman, told her she was irresponsible to allow such a young child to bicycle along a busy road, but the only man there, presumably the one who’d spoken on the phone, said, ‘Nonsense. Children shouldn’t be coddled. Would you like me to call an ambulance? David didn’t want anything done till you’d got here.’

‘I don’t think we need one,’ she said. Ambulances had been part of his nightmares for years. ‘David, how do your legs feel?’

‘They’re OK,’ he said, his eyes still shut against the world. ‘One of my knees is bleeding and it’s a bit sore, but I can walk.’

‘Great. Then let’s get you up and see.’ She caught sight of the disapproving woman’s expression. ‘There’s no need to look like that. I’m not going to make him walk all the way home. We’ll get a cab.’

‘And the bicycle? If you leave it here someone will trip over it.’

Focusing on the bicycle, Trish felt herself sway. The front wheel was bent in half, almost at right angles. That hadn’t happened without a serious impact. Was David more seriously hurt than he’d let on? And where was his helmet? He’d promised never to leave it off.

Then she saw it a few feet away. She got up to fetch it and saw that one side of the nylon strap had pulled right away from the lining of the helmet. Why hadn’t either of them noticed the stitching was so weakened?

‘Did anyone see the accident?’

‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘There was a lot of traffic, much too close to all the cyclists. It was David’s bad luck that he hit a particularly large drain cover at a moment when there was no space to swing round it.’

‘Did it catch your wheel?’

‘Yes. I tried to slow down, so I wouldn’t hit it so hard, but the brakes didn’t work and I got sort of rammed into the kerb. I’m sorry, Trish.’

She brushed his hand, knowing he’d hate any more obvious emotion to be displayed in public.

‘That head wound needs stitches.’ Inevitably it was the pinched woman who’d spoken.

David clutched Trish’s hand. She knew he hated needles even more than ambulances.

‘We’ll know more when I’ve had a chance to clean it. Please don’t worry about us. If it needs stitches, I’ll get them put in. Thank you for your help. It was very good of you to stop. Oh, there’s a free taxi. Could you hail it for me before it goes past? Please!’

 

The Dettol turned the water cloudy and the smell whisked Trish back to her own childhood. David braced himself.

‘Don’t worry too much,’ Trish said, ‘it shouldn’t do more than sting. There aren’t all that many nerves on the scalp.’

She dabbed gently at the outer edges of the wound with the soaked cotton wool, cleaning the surrounding area and the parted hair until she could see the cut itself.

‘It’s not too bad,’ she said, reaching for another swab. ‘Only about half an inch long and maybe a millimetre deep.’ She felt David relaxing under her hands. ‘I don’t think we need put you through any stitching ordeal.’

‘That’s OK then.’ His voice was still high and quivery.

When she was sure the scalp wound was clean, she turned her
attention to all the other scrapes. The nastiest was the one on his left knee, which had fibres from his trousers embedded in it. Tweezers, more Dettol, and eventually a large, comfortingly tight piece of plaster dealt with that. David’s eyes were wet by the time she’d finished, but he made no complaint. Hers weren’t much better; she hoped he hadn’t noticed.

‘Well done, David. Now, you lie on the sofa, and I’ll just go and have a look at the bike. Then I’ll make you some hot chocolate.’

‘It’ll be even more expensive to mend than the phone and the boots I lost.’ His eyes were wide and very dark, as they always were when he was scared.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said automatically, even as her mind flinched from the implications of what he’d said. She thought of the anonymous text message she’d had from his old phone. You’re asking too many questions. Had it been the first shot in a campaign to force her to keep quiet?

Pictures of what David had been through since babyhood flashed through her mind, the ones she hadn’t seen even more vivid than the ones she had. Quivering with the effort of holding them in, she went down the iron staircase to where they’d left the twisted bike. She was no expert, but it wasn’t hard to see that one of the brake cables had been cut.

Leaning against the railings, she thought she might be sick. Saliva gathered in her mouth and sweat slicked her face at the thought of what she’d done. For the moment he was safe, but anything could happen now.

She sat heavily on the bottom step, her fingers still tangled up with the severed brake cable. The football boots could have been stolen in an ordinary, if nasty, bit of school bullying, but deliberately cut brake cables and helmet straps, even without the text message, spelled more serious trouble. Probably adult.

The pinched woman on the bridge was right: she’d been appallingly irresponsible. Somehow she would have to rearrange
their lives so that David was never alone, without letting him guess how much danger he was in, until she’d discovered who was threatening him and found a way to stop it. In the meantime, term finished tomorrow, which was lucky.

‘Trish?’ His voice only just reached her. She ran up the stairs, fighting her impulse to hide him in a hospital somewhere no one could get at him.

Whatever else she did, she had to make sure she didn’t frighten him. Fixing a smile on her face, she carefully locked the front door behind her and went to squat beside the sofa on which he lay, wrapped in an old tartan rug she’d had as a child.

‘The wheel’s badly bent,’ she said breezily, ‘but we can probably get a new one fitted. I’ll talk to the bike shop next week.’

‘What about getting to school tomorrow?’

‘You may not feel up to that. If you do, we’ll just have to revert to the old system of walking,’ she said, silently making plans for the rest of the day. She might be held up in court by the judge’s determination to get the case finished before the weekend. ‘I’ll have plenty of time to go with you in the morning, because court doesn’t start till ten. I think I’ll phone Julian’s mum and see if you could go back with him. I’ll come and pick you up from there.’

‘Why?’

Trish was reassured by the burst of indignation that propelled the single word. He sounded a lot more like himself.

‘I can walk on my own. I’m not a baby.’

‘You’ve had a bang on the head. Even people as old as me are made to have someone with them for at least twenty-four hours after something like that. You know – just in case they keel over.’