Keep Me Alive (31 page)

‘I’m glad you have.’

‘Was that all? Because I’ve a lot to do today.’

‘No. First I wanted to know if you’d come to dinner with me on Saturday. It’s my last night of freedom before George and David get back from Australia.’

‘Saturday is it? All right. Bella will be away, so it’d be just you and me.’

‘Great.’ That would definitely make it easier to have proper peace talks with him.

‘What’s the second?’

‘This is going to sound aggressive and it isn’t meant to.’ She waited for permission to continue, but he wasn’t going to give it. ‘I wanted to ask about an episode in the kitchen in Beaconsfield when I was a child.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

She tried again. ‘I’d made you furious with Meg and I think you hit her. I can see the aftermath and the prelude, but I can’t see the actual blow. Did you, Paddy?’

‘Why haven’t you asked her?’

‘Because that seemed cowardly. Tell me. Did you?’

‘I did.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You?
Trish what is all this breast-beating? It’s not like you.’

And it’s not like you to talk in perfect English without the synthetic Irish brogue you usually put on whenever I try to discuss anything that embarrasses you, she thought.

‘I’ve just been feeling guilty about that, too. Because it
was
my fault. I made you angry with each other. That’s why you left, wasn’t it?’

‘This is stupid. We’ve been here before and I’ve told you why I left. You were not responsible, Trish. Hasn’t all your work told you that it’s never the child’s fault? At three or four or whatever you were when I hit your mother in front of you, you were not of an age to be responsible for your parents. You know that. Stop wallowing. I’ll see you on Saturday.’

It’s never the child’s fault, she repeated to herself in Paddy’s voice. She hoped that Andrew Stane or someone from his team was going to be able to get that through to Kim soon, and to Daniel Crossman before he started putting his son in the space Kim had occupied in his mind.

On Friday morning Will fought for the sleep he’d always been able to pull over himself in the past like an extra pillow. But now that there was time, there was no sleep to be had. Susannah had knocked on his door an hour ago, wanting to cook him breakfast and make him talk and give him the benefit of her wise counsel before he went into court to hear the judge pronounce on whether or not he had a future. But she didn’t know what the judge was going to say any more than he did, and anything she could say was going to make it worse.

 

‘Andrew? It’s Trish here. Have you got any more out of Kim yet?’

‘Not a thing. Why?’

‘Because I’ve been thinking a lot about her and I want to talk to her again. Caro said no one else has been able to get anything out of her. I think I know now what must have been going on, and I’m sure I can help her tell us. Could you get her back to that interview room?’

There was a pause. ‘I could try. What have you found out? Have you been investigating Dan Crossman, Trish?’

‘No.’ She wiped her lips and picked up her coffee again. ‘But I think I know what’s been driving Kim.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t make me say it. If I’m wrong, it’ll muddy the waters
for ever. If I’m right, it’s better that you should hear it direct from her first, rather than worry about my having put words into her mouth. OK?’

After another pause he eventually said, ‘I’ll see if I can get her here today. What time? Four thirty again?’

‘That would be great. We’re due in court for the judgment this morning, but it won’t take that long.’

‘I’ll have to phone her foster mother.’

‘I know. You’ve got my mobile number. Just ring it and leave a message if there’s a problem.’

 

Caro lay against cool, white linen pillows, sipping the lemon-and-ginger tea Jess had made for her. This was no mass-produced teabag drink. Jess had pared the zest off a lemon and infused it in boiling water with a spoonful of grated fresh ginger. She was sitting on one of the window seats, looking out at the street, reporting anything interesting to Caro.

‘Is Cynthia coming round today?’ Caro asked. Jess turned her head and smiled.

‘I don’t think so. D’you want her? I could easily phone.’

‘No. It’s just that she hasn’t been round much since I got back. Is she angry about something?’

Jess’s smile widened. ‘I think she doesn’t want to get in the way. She knows how much we both depended on her in the crisis. She doesn’t want to make us feel we have to pay her back by including her in everything now.’

‘That doesn’t sound like Cyn.’ Caro frowned. ‘She doesn’t believe in tit for tat. Not in anything.’

The phone rang. Caro, still worrying, picked it up to hear Andrew Stane asking how she felt. She mouthed his name to Jess, who nodded and turned back to the street.

‘I’m much better. Thank you.’

‘Caro, Trish Maguire thinks she has an answer. I’ve fixed for Kim to come back for one more interview in the psychiatric
unit this afternoon. D’you want to be there? Are you up to it?’

‘When?’

‘This afternoon at four thirty.’

‘Sure. I’d love to come. Did Trish say … ?’

‘She wouldn’t say anything. Told me I ought to hear whatever it is straight from Kim.’

All Caro’s facial muscles softened. ‘So there’s no question of undue influence. That’s like her. Andrew, would there be room for Pete Hartland? He’s been so much involved, I think he ought to hear it, too.’

‘OK. D’you want me to summon him?’

‘Would you? Thanks.’ Caro put down the phone and set about explaining why she was going to leave the perfect lacy whiteness of the flat and the convalescence Jess had designed for her.

 

‘Well, Trish, this is it,’ Antony said, as they stood outside the court, in their gowns and wigs. ‘How d’you feel?’

‘Numb,’ she said, lying for once because to talk about how she felt would threaten her self-control. He looked so sceptical that she added, ‘Too much has happened in the last few weeks to be able to feel anything much.’

‘That’s my line,’ he said. ‘Cheer up. We’ve got a good chance. And you must look more confident for the clients, even if not for yourself.’

All thirty claimants were here today, most with their husbands or wives. Will had come alone. He’d already told Trish that Susannah had wanted to be with him, but he’d needed to do this on his own.

Trish knew he didn’t have much confidence in the outcome, and she wished he had someone to stop him taking failure too seriously. Without his sister, or any friends, she’d have to talk him down herself, however seriously he’d meant his warning to avoid him when he was angry.

Something spiked in her mind. How could she have let this case come to matter so much? It had started so lightheartedly. Looking back, she could hardly believe the casual teasing she and Antony had indulged in at the beginning.

‘It’s not that bad,’ he whispered. ‘Liz has decided she’s overreacted and has taken the kids back to Tuscany. I’m to join them next week. You and I can have a celebratory or consoling dinner tonight. It’s only a case, Trish.’

No, it isn’t, she thought. It’s Will’s life and my self-respect. She thought of her own advice to Colin and knew she’d fallen into a trap she should have been experienced enough to avoid.

The usher appeared and beckoned them in. The claimants formed an orderly procession and marched in behind their solicitor. Some looked as if they were facing a firing squad; others as though they were already in a victory parade. Trish and Antony followed them, side by side with Ferdy Aldham and his team.

Only Colin was absent, hard at work on the papers for his immigration case. It wouldn’t come to court until the beginning of next term, but he was determined to do everything he could to get the right verdict. Trish hoped he’d win, for his own sake as well as for the tortured doctor’s. After all, he had been completely law-abiding in his attempts to get into England, and he had suffered terribly.

The idea of them made her think of the guns Ron Flesker had been bringing into the country. She hoped Tim’s approach to the police meant they would go after Ron. They already had Bob Flesker, who would almost certainly be convicted for the two murders he’d committed, and he and Tim would probably have to answer charges for the meat smuggling, but that would be it. Responsibility for the most lucrative – and dangerous – kind of smuggling would dissolve.

Trish tried not to feel a failure for not having done anything to stop Ron getting away with it. That was the worst of crime:
the biggest criminals escaped with their profits and left the little scruffy ones to do the time.

Everyone in court stood as Mr Justice Husking swept in through the private door behind the throne-like bench. The lawyers bowed their bewigged heads to the notion of justice rather than to the man himself. After all, he’d been the failure, the one who was never going to make the millions Antony and Ferdy pulled in every year. They’d never liked him, but he wasn’t worth the kind of war they fought between themselves, so they found it easy to be polite to him.

Feeling bolshier than she had for years, Trish straightened the fronts of her gown and settled down to concentrate on the judgment.

‘ … and Furbishers Foods contended that the claimants had ignored the inescapable fact that the oral contracts were on terms that had nothing to do with the longer-term relationship they were intending to set up,’ Husking was saying, as he began to unravel the evidence he had heard.

Trish heard someone in the claimants’ bench gasp. She hoped it wasn’t Will. She’d tried to warn him of what this would be like. ‘It’ll be as bad for you,’ he’d said, but she knew he was wrong. Unlike her, he didn’t know the jargon or the reasons for the long-winded synopsis of everything that had happened in the past weeks.

‘While the claimants held that Furbishers had never mentioned the fact that there were two distinct and different contracts being discussed.’

She turned her head to see Grant-Furbisher glaring at the bench. His red face had a faint sheen of sweat, but that had to come from the heat rather than from fear. What would it matter to him, how the verdict went? If he lost, his business would have to pay damages to the suppliers who’d been ripped off and Furbishers’ share price would fall a point or two tomorrow. But he’d lose nothing personally. His fortune, and his family’s, was
so big that the dip in the value of their shares wouldn’t matter. He had so much that he gave millions to charity every year. Even if he’d had to pay the damages himself, he wouldn’t exactly go hungry. But he would lose face. Maybe, if you were as rich as he, and as ridiculous looking, that mattered.

‘This contention of the claimants would have carried more weight, had it not been for the alleged protest by Mr William Applewood after the first, oral, contract had been offered to him.’

Oh, shit, Trish thought. Here it comes. Husking is going with Furbishers.

She could only see the side of Ferdy Aldham’s face from where she sat, but she knew it would show neither fear nor excitement. Like Antony, he would be impassive. Husking began to speak again. Neither of the silks moved to recross their legs or arrange their gowns or wigs during the whole two hours of the painstaking assessment of the case for both sides.

Trish tried to keep her mind in the same kind of order, but she felt it swinging one way, then the other, with the judge’s summing up. She wasn’t used to feeling like this. She tried to hold on to her faith in the moments when Husking showed warmth towards the claimants, but there were all too many when his sympathies were clearly with the defendant.

At last he reached the end and allowed a small, grave smile to disturb the stiffness of his expression.

‘And so, I find in favour of the claimants.’

Trish couldn’t resist a quick look over her shoulder at Will. She wasn’t going to display unseemly triumph, but she wanted to share the moment with him. He beamed at her like a child on his birthday. Then he mouthed the words ‘thank you’.

She looked back towards the judge, quite satisfied.

Antony was on his feet as soon as Husking had awarded their clients every penny of the damages they’d claimed, with interest to be calculated from the date each had received his written
contract. Husking nodded to Antony, who then formally asked for costs to be awarded against Furbishers.

As Ferdy got to his feet to protest, Trish hoped Will would understand that if the judge didn’t award costs against Furbishers, some of the damages would have to go in settling the claimants’ legal bills. Quite a lot, in fact. It could come as a whole new blow if Will were faced with vast fees to pay just as he believed himself free of all his debts.

She waited, directing all her attention at him to wake him out of his stupor of delight. Eventually he saw her and she watched as awareness dawned. Satisfied, she turned back just in time to watch the judge as he gave costs against Furbishers, as easily as though he’d always intended to do it. And not just standard costs either, but the so-called indemnity costs, which were awarded only when the court considered there had been improper conduct on the part of the paying party. That must be punishment for the long, fruitless, and quite unjustified procedural argument they’d launched, which had made the case overrun in the first place.

The hardness of the bench helped Trish to hold on to her assumption of calm. Not for her and Antony the exuberance of some of the clients, who were hugging each other. It was a point of honour to remain unmoved, whatever happened to the case. But when the judge had retired, Antony did turn, elbow propped on the back of the bench, to nod briefly at her.

‘You did well, Trish. Thank you.’

She smiled. ‘It was fun. Not the last bit, but the rest.’

‘So, we have dinner tonight?’

‘I’m not sure. I ought to see Will.’

‘Be careful, Trish.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘He thought you were the only woman for him at the start of the case. Now we’ve won him the best part of three million
pounds plus costs, you’re going to seem like the answer to all his prayers. You’d better tell him you’re dining with me.’

‘I’ll let you know. I have to see someone else between now and then. I’ll phone you.’

He nodded and turned to face Ferdy. Neither of them spoke, but there was a tightness about Ferdy’s full lips that said everything.

 

Trish and Will were sitting on a bench in the Temple garden. She still had her red brocade bag with her, stuffed with her gown and wig, and her black linen suit felt much too formal for this part of the day, and much too hot. Will had dumped his jacket in a bundle on the bench and he’d pulled down his tie and undone the top two buttons of his shirt. His plastered leg was stretched out in front of him.

‘And so now I can tell you, Trish. I love you. I need you in my life.’

‘Will, I …’

‘No, listen. I know I didn’t help myself by sleeping with poor Mandy, but it was a kind of aberration. All part of the horror of what was going on. I didn’t believe I’d got a chance of winning the case, so I didn’t think I could ask you out.’

‘But …’

‘Wait, Trish. And listen. For once it’s me that’s got to talk. Like I said, I need you, and you don’t hate me, do you?’

‘Of course I don’t, Will.’ It was the truth. ‘But …’

‘In fact I think it’s more than that. You see, you’ve always been sweet to me, even that night when you were frightened because you thought I’d killed Mandy. That made me see you might need me as much as I need you. So I thought we ought to make plans to see each other.’

Trish put a hand on his good arm, as though only by touching him could she make him hear her.

‘Will, you must listen. I like you a lot. I think you’ve had a hell
of a time and borne up incredibly well. I think you’re kind and clever and brave. But I can’t go out with you.’