A Greater Evil (17 page)

‘Thanks, Susie,’ Trish said and kissed her.

Watching them drive off in the hired car left Trish feeling surprisingly deflated. In the mad rush to get everything done before Christmas, she’d looked forward to having time to herself with David away and George already back at work. Now she wondered what she’d expected to do with all the free hours.

London was still and cold, and apparently empty except for a few gulls shrieking on the river, and the usual scavenging pigeons. A big dog fox sauntered down the road towards her, looking far cockier than he should and sleekly plump from raids on well-filled dustbins. Trish had never seen a fox out in the open like this in broad daylight. They usually confined their excursions to what passed for darkness in the city. He walked so close his pungent smell filled the air between them.

A mile or so away in Oxford Street, she knew there would be crowds of shoppers, hoping to take advantage of huge reductions in the sales. Some of her friends were probably available too, although the best of them, Caro, had barricaded herself behind her certainty of Sam’s guilt. There was still clearing up to do in the flat and plenty to read. Trish could write her thank-you letters, or even see how Sam was.

None of it appealed, and the empty spaces of the flat she’d only just left felt threatening in a way she’d never known. Chambers was probably the best place to be. There might be some company to be found there, refugees from too much family, just as she was trying to escape too little. And she could always work. She’d never known a time in the last eighteen years when there’d been nothing to do in preparation for one case or another. In fact this would be the perfect moment to have another crack at the engineering principles behind the erection of revolutionary buildings on slippery London clay.

Turning east, she walked along the Embankment towards the Temple. It was impossible to forget everything Meg had said or to ignore everything she hadn’t said. Last night, waking in the early hours, Trish had been aware of the answer to a question that had been nagging at the back of her mind: why had the wife-beating man Meg had described gone to the surgery in the first place?

Somewhere in his subconscious he must have known he was guilty. Unable to bear the knowledge, he’d invented the story of his wife as aggressor. When it had stopped convincing him, he’d taken it to an independent audience, pretending to ask for help. The same hidden intelligence must have known the doctors would uncover the truth. Which had to mean he’d wanted to be found out.

Had Sam’s description of his own jealousy been the same kind of coded confession?

‘Lovely day, innit?’

The cockney voice made Trish’s head flick up. She was surprised to see the newspaper seller at his usual stand on the corner of Arundel Street. He couldn’t have much custom on a day like this. No wonder he’d wanted to tell her he was there. She smiled and put a hand in her pocket for change, only to see her own face glaring at her from the
Daily Mercury
. The newspaper man didn’t seem to have recognized her, but she hurried through her purchase of all the papers she hadn’t already read in case he noticed the likeness. He tried to keep her by asking if she’d had a good Christmas, but she said it was too cold to stay and chat. She wished him well and tucked the bundle of newsprint under her arm.

Chambers was still double-locked and the alarm beeped its warning as soon as she pushed the door open. Once she’d punched in the disabling code, she shook out the
Mercury
, keeping the rest of the papers jammed between her left elbow and her ribs, and turned on the passage light with her right shoulder.

The front page had two photographs side by side. One was of Gina Mayford, looking distraught; the other, of Trish, glaring over Sam Foundling’s shoulder. His face showed nothing but shock, while hers was a mask of undiluted rage. She’d rarely seen any picture for which the term harpy was better suited. The headline made her tighten her hands so hard that one fingernail broke right through the page.

Barrister and Judge at War over Murder Suspect

But we’re not, she thought, walking into her room and sinking into the chair behind her desk. All I said was that Mrs Mayford was far too professional to let any personal consideration affect her in any way whatsoever. How
could
they print this?

She let the other papers drop and read every word of the article below the photograph. There was hardly anything in it about Sam, beyond the fact that his late wife was the daughter of Mrs Justice Mayford and the police had him on their list of suspects. The editor’s legal advisers had clearly filleted the piece to remove any libellous allegations, but the impression given was that the
Mercury
agreed with the police. Not that there was anything odd in that. The editorial line had always been that the police were perfect and incorruptible and anyone they suspected must be scum.

Today the paper had also provided a potted history of Trish’s career, including the time when she briefly came under suspicion in a case of child abduction and her later private involvement in a notorious case of a woman unjustly convicted of the murder of her father. Trish’s domestic arrangements were described in the kind of detail that made them seem bizarre.

Once again she could see evidence of the lawyers’ involvement. David wasn’t mentioned by name, but there was a general reference to her fostering the child of a murder victim. Even worse was a trailer for a feature on ‘The Passion for Justice’ by the paper’s tame psychiatrist. With a hollow feeling in her head, Trish turned the pages until she found it.

A frantic skimming sweep told her that her name didn’t figure in the article, which allowed her to read it more calmly. The tone was cooler than usual in the
Daily Mercury
and the sentences considerably longer. She was mildly interested until she came upon the last two paragraphs.

Ambulance-chasers are driven by profit, and ghoulish sightseers by an addiction to adrenaline thrill, but there are plenty of people whose altruistic involvement in the aftermath of violent crime is the product of childhood experiences. For some, the motivating factor is a sense of rage at injustice done to them. Their identification with anyone accused of crime is that of a fellow sufferer, determined to punish the parental accuser. For others, it is a sense of guilt, sometimes misplaced.

Children who believe themselves to be the cause of parental unhappiness, or who witness violence at an age when they’re powerless to intervene, are particularly prey to such feelings.

‘How
dare
he?’ Trish said aloud. Her jaw tightened and her teeth clamped against each other as though someone was trying to force-feed her. She was well used to journalistic conjecture, but this insinuation was too acute to take easily. She needed coffee.

Ten minutes later she was back at her desk with a covered cardboard cup holding four shots of espresso. She swallowed some. The caffeine hit at once and she let the pumping sensation in her head and heart banish everything else for a while. She could almost feel the drug pushing the walls of her arteries apart, opening them, making them work better and so feed her brain with all the blood it needed. Her thoughts moved faster. She felt more intelligent. More powerful. Then she caught sight of the headline again and took another gulp of coffee. This time she didn’t get the same rush, and she was left with a whole lot of unanswerable questions.

Why was she of interest to any journalist? She’d assumed it was Sam the pack had been after. But this malice was directed at her, merely hung on his story. Who had known he was to be with her for Christmas?

She tried to collect her scattered thoughts as she pushed the sleazy paper along the desk with one shaking finger. Gina had known about her Christmas plans, but she wouldn’t have gone to the papers. George knew too, but he had never been leaky. And it couldn’t have been Sam himself. Which left Caro.

Had she taken advantage of Trish’s attempt to safeguard the shreds of their friendship with that one warning phone call? Had she told the press where her main suspect would be eating his turkey and plum pudding on Christmas Day? Did she think publicity would put so much pressure on Sam that he’d confess?

It was hard to believe. But then Caro’s appearance in his studio on such a lame excuse had been pretty hard to believe, and that had definitely happened. So maybe this was down to her too.

Trish thought of David and how he might react to these articles at a time when he was already dealing with emotional problems no child of his age should have to face. With luck Susie and Phil wouldn’t bother to buy British newspapers, but it was ludicrously over-optimistic to assume David would never know what had been written about his sister.

She stared down at the loathsome photograph of her scowling face and hated it.

Chapter Eleven

The first thing Antony Shelley said to Trish when he phoned later that day was, ‘You must reschedule whatever it was you were supposed to be doing on Twelfth Night and come to my party after all.’

‘I can’t,’ she said automatically. ‘It’s George’s firm’s annual do. I have to be there for the duration. Ordinarily it wouldn’t matter if I left early, but there’s stuff going on that makes him need support just now.’

‘Whose career is more important?’

Trish hadn’t heard Antony’s voice as steely and precise for a long time. She couldn’t answer.

‘Come on. Be honest, Trish. Whatever you feel for him, you’ve got to look after yourself. If your practice is to survive, let alone thrive, you need to be seen to be untouched by all this publicity. Gina Mayford has promised to play, so you get yourself into your best frock and be on my doorstep no later than eight o’clock on the sixth of January. Is that understood?’

‘Mrs Mayford?’

‘Luckily she’s on your side. I phoned her to ask for help and she was generous enough to agree at once. She’s going to get the
Mercury
to print a retraction tomorrow, so you don’t need to do anything about that, and she’ll show everyone at the party how much she trusts you. You have more friends than you realize, Trish, and you need to use them all now before any real damage is done.’

‘I don’t suppose she feels much like partying with her daughter’s body stuck in the mortuary.’

‘Of course not. But she’s coming anyway. So the least you can do is tell George you can’t be his arm candy for once.’

‘It’s kind of you – and her – but I’d rather fight my own battles.’

‘Don’t be silly. This isn’t only yours. It’s mine and the whole of chambers’ too. What you do affects the rest of us. No excuses, Trish. Be here promptly on the sixth, stay until at least half the other guests have gone, and smile for God’s sake. Gina and I will do the rest.’

‘Okay,’ she said with unexpected meekness. ‘It’s very kind of you both.’

‘Yes, it is. I’m sticking my neck out for you. I hope you won’t be so damn silly as to get yourself publicly involved with a murder suspect again. And particularly not at this time of year when the editors of the legal directories are scouting around for gossip on all of us for their nasty little paragraphs.’

He put down the phone, as though he had no interest in anything she might offer to excuse herself. Everything he said made sense. But it wasn’t going to be fun explaining to George that she wanted to renege on her promise to help him face down the sharks in his office.

Unless she could at least put in an appearance at his party. He hadn’t sent her a formal invitation and she’d never asked what time she was expected to appear. The party would go on half the night, of course; they always did. But if there were any chance that she could look in for an hour or so before fighting for her own future, she’d do it.

She picked up the phone to speak to George’s secretary. Only when she’d had the assurance that the Henton, Maltravers party was due to start at seven did she ask to be put through to George himself. He listened without interrupting until she’d finished her explanation, then merely said how generous of Antony and Mrs Mayford to be so concerned to help.

‘See you tonight,’ he added in a brisk tone that told her he must have clients or colleagues in the room with him.

‘Work,’ she said into the empty room, when she’d put down the phone. ‘It’s the only thing.’

She pushed the pile of papers to one side and switched on the computer, opening the file of notes on the Leviathan case.

Sam heard the letter-box flap, which released him from the trap of staring at his clay head to try to see what was so wrong with it. He flung the damp cloths back over its ugly proportions and staring eyes and went to see what the postie had brought. There was only one letter. The writing on the envelope made even the thought of more work on the head alluring.

For a while he couldn’t make himself bend to pick up the letter, then, cursing his own cowardice, he did, ripping the envelope open before thoughts of its author made him freeze again.

Deere Sam,

I di’nt know yore wife had been kiled. I’m sory. It must be terable for you. Speshly with the police thingink yore guilty. I hope yo’ur baby wil live.

No wander you dont’ want to have the DNA. Do’nt worry now. You have to much too put up with. I unnerstand. I can wait.

With love from yore muther,

Maria-Teresa Jackson

PS The preest here sais God cees not what you are nor what you bin but what you want two bee. Remembre, son.

Sam shouted and punched the wall so hard he broke the skin over his knuckles. There was a heavy stamping from the floor above: Marisa Heering wanted him to know how much she disliked the noise. Well sod her.

Sucking the blood from one of his knuckles to look at the wound, he saw it wasn’t nearly bad enough. He stuffed the letter into his pocket with his other hand and sucked again.

How could the woman in prison do this to him? After all those years of longing for a mother, of needing someone to protect him from all the bastards around him, it was vile to be offered the kind of comfort he’d never had and didn’t need. Not any more. He’d grown a skin tough enough to deal with anything, even Chief Inspector Caroline Lyalt.