Someone Out There (18 page)

Anna summoned up her courage and rang the doorbell. A boy she didn’t know let her in. She pushed her way down the packed hallway searching for a place to get a drink. Someone cannoned into her, spilling lager over the too tight blouse. It clung forlornly to her stomach. She was painfully conscious of her size. With dismay she spotted the gang of girls clustered round the kitchen doorway: the usual suspects. In their midst, Maria Burns.

Maria had recently made great strides in the popularity stakes and was holding court. Maria saw her, stopped talking for a moment, and then began again. The gang of girls turned towards her. To her surprise they began waving, beckoning her over, and although the music was too loud for her to hear what they were saying, they were clearly being friendly.

She moved nervously towards them. They welcomed her, put their arms round her, and somebody shoved a glass into her hand.

‘You look fab,’ shouted Jennifer Fleming.

Anna wasn’t sure, it might have been ‘flab’ and Maria Burns might have sniggered. On the other hand she might simply be paranoid. She took a gulp from the glass. She wasn’t used to alcohol and the cheap red wine relaxed her almost at once. Michelle Cullen asked her where she got her ‘fantastic’ blouse and a glow of happiness inside her fed the glow from the wine.

‘Come on you lot. Why aren’t you dancing? It’s our birthday!’ Lisa Handley was bellowing at them. She was standing with her brother Luke, arms around each other’s waists, looking out from the living room where the DJ and the dancing were. The crowd parted to let the pair through and they marched down the hall, scooped up the girls, Anna among them, and, shouting and laughing, they headed for the dance floor.

It was not something that Anna would ever have done. Dancing. She just didn’t – couldn’t. It was way out of her comfort zone. But the wine made her brave, the apparent friendliness of the other girls buoyed her up and she decided it could be done and she would do it.

No-one was more surprised than Anna by the result. For all her bulk she turned out to be a good dancer. There was nothing clumsy about her and if Maria and her friends had looked forward to a good laugh, they didn’t get it.

Anna was doing something right for a change, doing it so that she couldn’t be mocked or criticized. She closed her eyes, lost in the music and the dance. When she opened them again he was standing there. The boy from the beach. The saviour.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Laura was worried by Anna’s breakdown and wondered if it meant she was going to cave in to Harry, give him everything he wanted, just to try to get some peace. Of course, it wouldn’t mean peace, Laura thought, it would only encourage her husband, make him think she would come crawling back in the end and he could continue abusing her just where he left off.

A voice message from Jeff Ingham had arrived while Laura was talking to Anna. He’d already called early that morning to say that Valentine had spent another restless night. He wasn’t eating properly either.

‘We’ll keep trying, little and often, with the things you told us he likes, but he needs to pick up soon … ’ the vet had said.

Laura listened to the new message with a thumping heart, trying to brace herself. Valentine just would not calm down, Jeff said, they were going to have to sedate him. He wanted her to be prepared for that when she came in later to visit.

It left her in an agony over whether to take the awful decision to put Valentine out of his misery. Wouldn’t that be better than making him fight for his life, and putting him through all this extra suffering?

Her gloomy thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door and when she called out ‘come in’, she was surprised to see Morrison appear. She couldn’t remember him ever knocking before, let alone waiting for an answer.

‘Laura, could we have a little chat.’

He was smiling and for once it didn’t look patronising. He was being friendly.

‘Wednesday night,’ he said, handing her a white printed card, ‘you should approve of the venue: Greene’s hotel.’

It was the Law Society dinner. Inwardly, she groaned.

‘Good to see they’re supporting the family firm. Thank you. I’ll look forward to it.’

Perhaps he would go away now, she hoped. But, no, he wasn’t going, he wanted a chat. He sat down in the chair opposite, silent, considering what to say. If she hadn’t known it was an absurd idea, she would have said he was nervous.

‘I’ve had a call from the Legal Ombudsman,’ he began, ‘one of their case workers. A Mrs Asha Patel. It seems there’s been a complaint about our handling of the Hakimi case.’ He told her that Mrs Patel had been informed by the complainant that Laura Maxwell had put forward a scheme to forge the letter but it had been vetoed by Sarah Cole. Laura started to protest but Morrison held up his hand. He continued, ‘She said, bearing in mind the serious nature of the allegation, she might have to bring in the SRA.’ His lip curled as he said the initials.

Laura was well aware of his opinion of the Ombudsman and especially of the SRA, the Solicitors Regulatory Authority, which would investigate any possible misconduct. He hated them both, but he also feared them, for they had extensive powers to investigate and their decisions could not be easily challenged. He regularly complained that they were unaccountable to anyone.

There was also the original mistake to consider, Mrs Patel had said. Of course, any resulting negligence claim was a civil matter and nothing to do with the Ombudsman, but they did have a duty to investigate whether there had been inadequate professional service to the client and they would be doing just that. She had faxed over a copy of the complaint and given Morrison fourteen days to put in a response.

In true Morrison fashion he had told Mrs Patel that he knew very little of the matter but he would look into it fully, right away, and get straight back to her.

He studied Laura. ‘Of course, I realize it was not your idea to write the letter, in fact, it was because of your good sense that no such letter was handed over but you’ll understand I couldn’t correct Mrs Patel’s version without admitting the initial fault. Better not to comment at this stage.’

He paused, as if he was expecting her to agree or approve the fact that he had not immediately cleared her name.

‘I would like it made crystal clear to Mrs Patel that I had nothing to do with it,’ said Laura hotly.

‘Absolutely. No question of that,’ he said then coughed awkwardly. ‘Could I have the Hakimi file, please?’

She opened a drawer, took it out, and handed it to him. He flipped it open, read through Sarah’s letter, which was pinned to the top of the pile of correspondence.

‘I’ve spoken to Sarah Cole this morning and left her in no doubt about the very serious position she’s in. Her name is on this and whatever she may say about being ordered to write it, she has signed it and is accountable.’

He stared hard at Laura, all trace of a smile gone from his face.

‘We agreed that it’s best for all of us that this never happened, that no such letter was ever written.’

He unpinned the letter from the file. ‘As far as the file is concerned this letter never existed. But I won’t destroy it just yet in case Sarah becomes unhelpful. I’ll keep it somewhere safe.’ He folded the letter and put it in his jacket pocket, ‘I trust you have no problem with that?’ Unusually, it was a question, not a statement. He badly wanted her cooperation.

‘But surely Sarah must have supplied the information on which the complaint is based so it’s going to be pretty difficult now for her to say it never happened,’ Laura said, confused.

‘She says not. She says she hasn’t told anybody. She says she was so traumatized by losing her job that she spent the whole weekend in bed. She hasn’t felt up to talking to anyone. Not even her mother. Must say, I felt rather sorry for her.’

A small part of Laura found time to be astonished at the nerve of the man. He spoke as if he were an innocent bystander in no way responsible for what had happened. The rest of her was struggling to understand the implications of what he’d said.

‘You believed her?’

‘Of course not. She’s lying. How else would Clive Walters have known if she hadn’t told him? But the good news is she now realizes she needs to save her own skin and cooperate.’

‘Clive Walters made the complaint?’ Laura asked.

‘Yes and I know you’re going to say he’s not the client so technically he’s got no right to complain, but he seems to have got round that by saying it’s on behalf of his sister who is too upset to do it herself.’

Laura hadn’t been going to say any such thing; her mind was running in quite a different direction. She was puzzled by Morrison’s account of what Sarah had said. It sounded authentic. Sarah would be shattered by what had happened and she wasn’t stupid. She knew Clive Walters was trouble; if she wanted revenge she’d realize that involving him was not the way to get it. Any formal complaint was bound to backfire on her. Morrison had dismissed what she’d said as lies but Laura found it hard to do so. But then, she told herself, he must be right. There could be no other explanation.

‘So are we agreed on the best way to proceed?’ He was still there wanting a commitment.

‘I’ll be very happy to say that I never suggested, or took part in, the forging of any letter,’ she said, hating herself for even half colluding with him. It was not the wholehearted rebuttal of the complaint that he wanted but he would have to be satisfied with it. She was not going to tell any outright lies though neither would she volunteer information. But if Mrs Patel pressed further she would only answer truthfully.

The expression on his face was an odd mixture of relief and resentment. She had not displayed the total dedication to the well-being of Morrison Kemp that he would have wished for. Her commitment was lukewarm.

‘We need to stick together over this, there’s no ‘I’ in team,’ he said, waspishly, ‘And there’s still the original error to be dealt with. A very serious one, Laura.’

He was rapidly returning to his old intimidating manner. He stopped short of trying to blame her outright for the mess, but, she thought, only because he needed her support over the forgery complaint.

‘We have to accept there was no letter advising Mrs Hakimi it was her responsibility to tell us to renew the order. Clearly we can’t produce one now. It’s an oversight that could cost us one hell of a lot of money.’

‘I’m doing my best to get the boy back. I don’t think Mrs Hakimi wants to pursue a claim anyway, certainly not at the moment when she believes we can help her. It’s her brother’s idea. He’s after a pay-out.’

“And he’s very likely to get one,” Morrison snapped, “Let’s hope you can persuade his sister that we’ll do a better job for her if she gets her brother off our back.”

“I’ll speak to her.”

He stood up to go, looked down at her coldly. ‘This will be a challenge for you Laura. How you handle it will help me decide what sort of contribution you can make to this firm in the future.’

The superior smile was back on his lips: ‘I have every confidence you’ll be able to deal with this in your usual competent manner.’

‘Good of you to say so,’ she murmured, but Morrison was immune to irony.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

After Morrison had gone, Laura rang Mary Hakimi on the excuse that she wanted to update her on the search for her missing son. It was not much of an update and Laura was honest enough not to exaggerate it. She said that she’d called a contact in Tunisia, given him details of the boy and his father, and he had agreed to alert the immigration people there. She didn’t say any more, didn’t try to explain what she hoped might come of it, but if she had single-handedly rescued Ahmed from the jaws of death, Mary Hakimi couldn’t have been more grateful. Clutching at straws had nothing on this, Laura thought unhappily.

Mrs Hakimi sounded her usual stressed and dazed self and when Laura gently raised the subject of the complaint there was no reaction at all. She tried again, saying they would deal with it as quickly as they could and they understood her concern. Laura was careful to keep away from any mention of the actual allegation but she needn’t have worried.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t made any complaint,’ said Mrs Hakimi.

Laura explained that the Legal Ombudsman had been contacted about the handling of her case and was now conducting an investigation.

Silence from the other end of the phone, then an intake of breath that sounded like a sob.

‘Oh my God. It’ll be Clive. It must be. He’ll have done it.’

‘I see.’ It was all Laura could think of to say.

‘It’ll only make things worse, won’t it?’ She was trying hard to hold back the tears.

Morrison would have pounced. He would have subtly but assuredly left the woman in no doubt that, yes, the complaint would make things a whole lot worse, especially her chances of ever seeing her boy again. He would have made it clear that the smart thing for her to do would be to get on to the Ombudsman at once and withdraw it.

‘It won’t make any difference to the search for Ahmed,’ Laura told her.

At the mention of the boy’s name Mary Hakimi began to cry. ‘Clive talked about it, but I never thought he’d do it. Not without my agreement.’

‘I’ll let you know when there’s any news. We’ll talk again soon.’

There was no answer, just sobbing.

It was not a performance Morrison would have approved of, she thought as she put down the phone, not the sort of ‘contribution’ he was after. She could imagine him hissing at her, telling her it had been an opportunity to save their skin and she had let it slip away.

She picked up her mobile to text Joe and tell him how she was. He’d wanted her to stay at home to rest for another day, at least. He’d told her he had nothing much on at work and could probably get away soon after lunch and come back to look after her. They would talk everything through – he knew she wanted to and he would listen and try to be constructive. Then they would visit Valentine together. It had been a sweet interlude after the harsh words and it reminded her of old times.