The Fall (33 page)

What kind of person would confess to a crime they hadn’t done, turn away all their friends and family? She thought about this for a while, standing on the dusty pavement. She cast a look behind her to the prison, then turned, and walked off. Tomorrow she had yet another difficult thing to do. She was losing track of them all.

Charlotte had only the vaguest idea where her brother worked. They’d not been close since she was nine and Jamie twelve, and he went off to boarding school. It was the year after their father left and just before their mother married Phil. She was remembering that as she stood on the marble steps of his office building, all twenty floors of glass and steel. She’d thought about calling in advance, but didn’t know what to say. Jamie had sent an email just after Dan’s arrest, asking would they get the deposits back on their hotel rooms for the wedding. After that she hadn’t really wanted to see him or his nervy wife Amy, who’d given up her own law career to achieve perfection in home and family instead. She didn’t even want to see Tilly, her four-year-old niece. So in the end she’d decided on a surprise attack; it had worked with Simon.

The lobby was empty, a cavern of shiny marble, and behind a desk an equally shiny receptionist. She didn’t have an appointment. She hadn’t considered that it might be hard to see her own brother without one. Eventually, after several phone calls upstairs and arguing that she really
was
his sister – even showing her driving licence – she was given a plastic visitor tag and allowed into the space-age lifts, all touch-screen buttons and computerised voices.

As another shiny girl showed her to Jamie’s office, Charlotte saw him through the glass walls. His hair was thinning on top and his face was going jowly. She watched him talk on the phone, tearing off lumps from a Prêt à Manger sandwich and stuffing them in his mouth. When they were very little, when they went on long car journeys to their grandparents’, he’d let her fall asleep on his shoulder. Later, when Phil appeared, they’d been briefly united against the bluff man and his bossy daughter. But that was a long time ago.

He saw her, and she went into the glass cubicle. ‘Nice office.’ She felt dizzied by the soaring views of the city.

Jamie wiped avocado off his hands. ‘I thought I might be seeing you. Sarah called.’

‘Yes. I heard you two were talking.’ She sat down, self-conscious in her jeans and vest top. You needed some kind of armour on, to walk into places like this.

‘So, you’re thinking of suing the bank.’

She felt embarrassed. ‘It’s just that money’s been so tight. And what they did, it wasn’t right. They stitched him up, Jamie. Right from the start, he hadn’t a chance.’

He twiddled a pen. ‘This is how I earn my crust, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. His HR record is a matter of public record now, so we can show he was stressed, and I’m sure there are experts to say his outburst was caused by work. Your trial lawyer will be looking at that angle, I suppose.’

She bit her lip. Did Jamie also think Dan was guilty? Like everyone, except her. She didn’t, did she? ‘I don’t know.’

Her brother was making notes. ‘I think there’s a good chance they’ll want to settle. From what I hear, Haussmann’s is under a lot of fire right now. And there’s a precedent for stress-related payouts.’

‘But what if he’s . . .’ She couldn’t say it.

‘Even if the claimant’s convicted of a crime, they sometimes pay out.’

It sounded too good to be true. ‘You think we should do it?’

He tapped his pen. ‘Is he on board?’

‘He will be.’ If she said it, maybe it would be true.

‘I heard he was going to plead Guilty.’

‘He’s not. He’s working with Kylie right now.’

‘Oh yes, Kylie.’

Charlotte’s hackles rose. ‘She’s very good. Dad recommended her.’

‘I heard about your little holiday out East. Enjoy it?’

Was he jealous? ‘I wished I’d gone sooner, to be honest. They’re happy. You should go sometime. He’d love to see the new baby.’

Jamie’s face changed. ‘Amy’s been very upset by all this, you know.’

‘All what?’

‘Knowing she had a killer round for Sunday roast, that sort of thing.’

‘Really? I was a bit upset myself when my wedding got cancelled. Hope you got the hotel deposit back, though.’ She started to stand up. ‘You know, you haven’t even said his name once. You remember Dan, don’t you? He was the one who drove your daughter to hospital when she fell off her bloody trampoline. I guess you don’t remember any of that.’

‘Wait.’ He spread his hands on the table. ‘It’s been hard for all of us. People know me in the City, they know he was engaged to you. And Mum can hardly hold her head up in the village. But I’m sure it’s been hardest on you.’

‘On Dan, actually. Seeing as he’s the one in prison.’

Jamie made a sort of face, as if to say Dan deserved what he got.

‘Look.’ She felt very tired. ‘I don’t need more hassle. I don’t really care if you think he did it or not. I don’t think he did, and I need to help him as much as I can. So, you can help, or I’ll just go away, and I’m sure I’ll see you at Christmas or whenever.’

Jamie looked sad. Maybe he also remembered the days before Phil, and divorce, and boarding school. ‘I want to help, if I can. But you do need to get Dan on board. And I’d need a complete deposition on what happened to him there. Will he see me?’

Charlotte said, ‘Probably. Anyone but me seems to be fine.’

The week before the trial, things went a bit mad. Dan’s folks arrived, a posh couple with pokers up their arses. Keisha was staying well away. Then the article about Charlotte appeared on page five of her step-sister’s paper, in full colour and beside one about Cheryl Cole. In the picture Charlotte looked like she was about to cry, all cold and alone with her fella’s picture outside the prison. It started,
Charlotte Miller should have been married by now. Instead she waits outside prison walls. Fiancé Daniel Stockbridge, 31, was a stockbroker with Haussmann’s Bank, recently besieged by rumours of dodgy deals and insider trading. In May, Daniel was arrested for the murder of nightclub owner
. . .

She didn’t read the rest, it was lots of guff about Charlotte being ‘fragile and pretty’ and having to sell her engagement ring, blah, blah. Then all this about the stress people were under in the City, poor diddums getting paid millions to fiddle about with computers, and the ‘culture of aggressive bullying and old school tie’. Keisha wasn’t sure what that meant. Some guy called Gary had sent a big photo print, same as the one in the paper, only Charlotte was laughing in it at something. It was nice – she looked happy.

‘Look,’ said Charlotte, turning over the papers. ‘Dan’s in
Private Eye
.’ By the sound of her voice, that must be a big deal. ‘Dan hates
Private Eye
. Says it reminds him of his old school newssheet.’ Charlotte laughed. ‘Jesus, he’s going to be so pissed off.’

Keisha couldn’t figure out what was so funny about it.

After the article appeared, things started to happen quite fast. There were phone calls from other journalists – Keisha learned to tell, because they were always women and they started out so friendly. ‘Hi there! Is that Charlotte?’

Charlotte would take the call and ask quick, short questions: What page? How many words? Picture or not? What was their angle? And with Charlotte buying just about every paper there was, Keisha noticed lots of new stuff about bankers was appearing, this time a bit different. Seemed now everyone was jumping on the bandwagon of, ‘Hey, maybe they weren’t all bastards after all!’

Also calling were Charlotte’s mates, the ones who’d dissed her at that party and not answered her emails. When Keisha answered these – Gemma or Holly or whoever, calling ‘just to see if I can help, I saw the paper’ – she would mouth the name to Charlotte, and nearly every time Charlotte just shook her head. ‘Say I’m out. Wasn’t much help when I needed her, was she?’ On top of this, Charlotte was fielding offers on the flat. She’d priced it low so it was sure to go, even in that market, she said, as if she knew what she was talking about.

Keisha was sort of impressed with this new Charlotte. She’d hardly cried once since she came back from Singapore, and in among all the newspapers and legal stuff, Keisha’d seen other things – printouts about studying, course booklets, that sort of thing. She was different.

Charlotte wasn’t the only one moving forward. A few days before the trial, Keisha went back to London University. That was where Ian Stone would be on a panel about his pet peeve – the ‘erosion of civil liberties’. Keisha thought this was something to do with being able to stop people on the street to see if they had knives or whatever. She agreed vaguely this was bad – she didn’t want some policeman being able to stop her when she was just minding her own business.

She tried not to be too stupidly early, and ended up hemmed in at the back with all these eager student types taking notes and nodding madly every time Ian Stone said something about ‘construction of a surveillance state’ or ‘destruction of centuries of liberty’. The other people on the panel were some stuffy man with a red face, who was an MP, and a black woman they’d chucked on to say things like ‘As an ethnic female . . .’ What a load of balls.

She tried to follow it. It was strange to be in such a packed room, everyone hanging on the words of the panel, nodding or shaking their heads like they were angry. They really cared! To her shock, right in the middle of it, she heard a name she recognised.

Ian Stone was saying, ‘If you look at many current cases going through the courts, the rush to conviction is worrying. Many of you will have seen in the papers about the case against Daniel Stockbridge – one of the so-called “Banker Butchers”. Despite the mostly circumstantial evidence, this case is still being pushed through to trial. We must ask ourselves why this is.’

Afterwards she waited for bloody hours, it seemed, while Ian Stone was grabbed by all these left-wing students. ‘Do you agree Tony Blair should be tried as a war criminal?’ ‘Wouldn’t you say kettling violates the Human Rights Act?’ God, they were sucking up to him so much it was embarrassing. Listening to his answers, she thought maybe Ian Stone felt the same.

Finally she was left. He gave her an irritated glance, saying, ‘I really must go, I’m sorry.’

‘You mentioned that Stockbridge case.’

‘Yes?’ He was fiddling with his iPhone. He had a knitted waistcoat, little ponytail, grey hair. Good Christ.

‘I might be in that case. I’m a witness, like.’

‘Oh?’ That made him look up.

‘You think I should I do it – testify, like? If I know something?’

‘I don’t know, er – what’s your name?’

‘Keisha.’

‘Well, I don’t know, Keisha. Why wouldn’t you?’

‘Say I knew something, but if I told, someone else might get hurt. Someone important to me, like.’

His eyes were flicking from her to the door. ‘It’s an ethics question, really. I don’t have the time, I’m afraid—’

‘Can they arrest me, if I don’t want to do it? Are they allowed?’

‘I’m sure they won’t arrest you.’ Fuck, this wasn’t working. He was edging to the door, still poking at his phone.

‘Did you know someone called Mercy Collins years ago?’

‘What? No, I don’t think so. I must go. There’s drinks . . .’

‘She was my mum. You taught her.’

‘Well, I teach a lot of people.’

What could she do? What could she say to make him not walk out of that door? She scrabbled round in the embroidered bag – Mercy’s bag. ‘Look!’ Her voice was too loud. She shoved her birth certificate at him. ‘Look, is that you?’

He took it, frowning, in a hurry. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. He folded it up and passed it back to her, carefully, like a bomb. ‘Come with me,’ he said.

The place he took her to was up on a deserted floor of classrooms. It was some kind of staffroom, where he switched on the kettle and made her coffee with old powdery Nescafé. ‘There’s only instant, I’m afraid.’

‘S’OK,’ she said, as if she ever drank coffee, yuck.

‘So. This Mercy is your mother?’

‘She died.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He blinked as if he really hoped she wouldn’t start crying.

‘Do you remember her?’ For some reason she really wanted him to say yes.

‘Er . . . I’m not sure. It was a long time ago, and I have so many students, you see.’

‘You shag your students a lot, then?’ She took a gulp and burned her tongue – how in the hell did people pay three pounds fifty for this stuff?

Ian Stone looked miserable. ‘I, er, no. Of course not.’

‘But you did with my mum.’

‘I don’t know. The thing is, er, Keisha, I’ve had a vasectomy. So I don’t know if I can be . . . You know, that means . . .’

‘Jesus, I know what it means, I’m not thick. When?’

‘Oh. Maybe twenty years ago?’

She took a tiny sip. ‘Why’d you do it?’

‘I suppose I felt the world was full enough, and it would be a selfish act, reproducing.’

He was the selfish one, she thought. ‘Thing is, I’m twenty-five, aren’t I?’

‘Oh. Are you?’

‘Yep. So you’d have taught me mum in what – like, 1984?’

He looked so depressed. ‘I don’t know. She was black, I take it?’

‘Er, yeah.’ Duh!

‘But you’re not, are you? Not really?’

He was looking at her pale skin, her flat hair. ‘Not really.’ God, and this dude was a professor.

He fiddled with his mug. ‘Ah, Keisha, this is a bit of a shock to me. I never – well, I had a vasectomy, so you can see, I never wanted children.’

‘S’OK. Never wanted a dad neither.’ Miss Cheeky! Was it even true?
Keisha, you bull-shitter
.

‘Did you really want to ask me about this trial?’

‘Sorta. I dunno if I can do it or not. They’ll ask me questions, won’t they? What if I don’t know the answer? Or like what if they make it look like I’m lying? People’d get hurt for no reason.’ She sighed. ‘See, I had a plan. I was saving money. I was gonna go . . . well, I was gonna try again. But now it’s all different. This trial – I don’t know what to do.’ Chris was in prison. Ruby maybe lost for ever, if she didn’t get her soon. But she couldn’t explain any of this to Ian bloody Stone.