A Greater Evil (6 page)

Passing one of the newsstands that punctuated her route home, she stopped to buy an
Evening Standard
, expecting to see headlines about Cecilia’s murder. There was nothing, not even a paragraph inside. Instead the front page had twin photographs of the Lord Chief Justice and the Assistant Commissioner of the Met, beneath a headline that read:

Violent Crime Up Again

Who’s to blame?

She felt something soft under her shoe and looked down to see she’d trodden in fresh dogshit. Swearing under her breath, she walked to the kerb to scrape her shoe as clean as possible. She paused there to scan the article under a street light as the rush-hour traffic coughed its way past. The latest crime figures had shown a worrying increase in unsolved violent crime. The Lord Chief Justice had blamed this on the police’s failure to collect enough evidence to secure convictions. The Assistant Commissioner was now hitting back.

Painstaking police work ends in evidence rubbished by unscrupulous lawyers, treating the legal system as a game to win at any cost. But the cost isn’t theirs. It’s paid by other people in ruined lives.

Even when we secure convictions, woolly-minded judges hand out pathetic punishments. Dangerous criminals are back on the streets in no time, laughing at us as they reoffend. Soft sentencing sends out all the wrong messages. It’s a bad example for children. It’s bad for police morale. And it’s bad for London. If the judiciary doesn’t get its act together, Parliament will have to reform the legal system and train a whole new generation of lawyers. We can’t go on much longer with the ones we’ve got. The risks are too great, like their obscene fees:

Wow! Trish thought as she folded the paper and tucked it under her arm. That’s a declaration of war. And it’s not going to go down well in the Temple.

Four minutes later she opened her front door on to complete silence. Delicious scents of onions and bacon frying in olive oil reached her from the kitchen. She was about to call out when she noticed David sitting tidily at one end of the huge black sofa nearest the door. He was reading and there were trainers on both his feet. Looking round, he put a finger to his lips.

Combined with the smells of cooking, the gesture warned Trish she wasn’t going to get the solace she needed. She cocked her head in the direction of the kitchen and David drew his forefinger across his neck in a gesture of disaster. She nodded her thanks, then, raising her voice only a pitch or two above its normal strength, she called out: ‘George? I’m back. Smells wonderful. Have I time for a shower?’

A grunt answered her. She took it to mean there would be time. David now gestured upwards. Trish slipped off her mucky shoes and left them by the door, saying more quietly: ‘Give me a yell if I’m needed.’

‘Sure.’

She ruffled his hair and felt some comfort when he leaned towards her rather than pulling away.

‘I couldn’t do without you,’ she said and took herself off upstairs.

Typical, she thought as she stripped off her clothes, that our tough times are coinciding.

The nearest she and George ever came to quarrelling these days was when they’d both been too spiky with stress to read the other’s feelings or had exasperating clients at the same time. As a solicitor, George’s relationship with his clients was different from hers, but both could throw up problems. With luck tonight he would cook himself out of his bad mood and she’d see what drumming hot water would do for her.

It had its usual helpful effect and, as she turned her face up to the jets, she worked herself back into the knowledge that this was her life. However awful Gina’s anguish, and Sam’s, whatever the pain and terror in which Cecilia had died, they were separate from the existence Trish had with George and David. It wouldn’t help Gina, Sam, or Cecilia’s baby to let their horrors damage this. When George was in a fit state to hear what she needed to tell him, he would provide all the care she could possibly want and almost certainly suggest ideas that would help her answer Gina’s question. In the meantime she would do what she could for him. All would be well.

Stepping out of the shower onto the cold tiled floor, she reached for a scarlet towel and slipped. Her feet flew from under her and she fell, twisting, throwing out an arm to save herself. Her funny bone caught on the towel rail. With a wrench that felt as if it might pull the arm out of its socket, she stopped the fall. Awkward and hurting, she found a way to reverse the momentum and stood, feeling shock retreat in waves of prickling adrenaline.

Minutes ticked by before she was free of it. She bent to pick up the thick red towel and felt her head swim again. Straightening, she wrapped the towel around her long thin body and picked her way across the condensation-slippery tiles with extra care.

She hoped the dinner George was cooking wouldn’t be too elaborate. She could never eat much when she was worried, and the adrenaline hangover was making her feel sick. Dry once more, she pulled on a pair of loose wool trousers and a long sweater and padded downstairs in her socks.

David had laid the table and there was an opened bottle of burgundy in the middle. Surprised by the choice of wine because they usually drank basic New World stuff during the week, she reached over to pour some into the two big glasses. A heavy footstep made her look up.

George stood in the kitchen doorway, wearing a blue-and-white-striped apron over his clothes and carrying a tea towel slung over one shoulder. His firm-chinned face was tight, and the evening’s stubble looked dark against unusually pallid skin.

‘Hi. Good day?’ he asked, not meeting her eyes.

‘Not exactly. You?’

‘No. Are you ready to eat? It’s a cheat’s
boeuf bourguignon
. There wasn’t time to cook the real thing.’

‘Sounds great. I’ll call David.’

‘He’s on his way. Just washing. Sit down and I’ll bring it.’

‘D’you want to talk before he gets back?’

‘Too much to say. Too complicated. When he’s gone to bed. Okay?’

‘Sure.’

They ate more or less in silence, but the atmosphere wasn’t too bad, and the well-cooked chunks of meat were fairly easy to swallow in their unctuous sauce. Trish managed to finish her plateful, and David asked for more and another baked potato. As he was splitting it, preparatory to ladling in some of the sauce, Trish asked him how his day had been at school.

For once he told her in considerable detail and she recognized that his growing-up had good sides to it. He was much more articulate tonight than he’d been as a little boy, and able to talk about mistakes and fears as normal things anyone might have, instead of trying to make himself perfect to avoid disappointing her – or perhaps giving her an excuse to throw him out.

Trish joined in with questions and laughed at all his jokes. Gradually George too put aside whatever was worrying him and the atmosphere brightened into something almost normal.

‘Any pudding?’ David asked.

‘Greedy pig,’ said George, who had only recently and with great difficulty shed four stone. He had all the zeal of the convert who could vividly remember his own hunger and didn’t see why the rest of the world should be let off. Or perhaps why they shouldn’t share in the rewards that now seemed to him to be worth all the pain. ‘There’s plenty of fruit.’

‘I’m a growing boy,’ said David in the pathetic voice of a starving Oliver Twist. ‘Unlike you, I need my calories.’

‘There’s three sorts of ice cream in the freezer. Help yourself.’ When he’d gone to fetch it, Trish added, ‘That was great, George. I wish stress made me a brilliant cook too.’

He laughed, even though his eyes were still worried. ‘There wouldn’t be room for two of us in your titchy kitchen. Much better to have different angst-busting techniques. D’you want to talk about your day first?’

While David was in the kitchen, she told George briefly about Cecilia. There was no point splurging out everything she felt or explaining the complications of her earlier connection with Sam Foundling.

‘I heard about her death in the office today. I’m sorry.’

‘What? Why? What connection did she have with your firm?’

‘Too much,’ he said, looking away. When he faced her again, she saw a mixture of worry and an unfamiliar hostility. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d been briefed on the London Arrow case, Trish?’

‘Because neither of us ever gossips about our clients,’ she said, silently asking herself why he’d asked such an obvious question. Then she saw what the answer must be and felt as though the ground beneath her was tilting. ‘Are you involved too?’

As he nodded, she ran through the names of all the solicitors at the settlement meeting. None had been from his firm.

‘Who’s your client?’

‘QPXQ Holdings,’ he said, naming a conglomerate that owned property all over the world and making her heart sink. ‘A couple of months ago they bought out the company that owned the Arrow.’

Trish already knew that, but Leviathan’s solicitor had assured her the change of ownership would make no difference to the case or to any of the professionals involved.

‘We handled the buy-out,’ George went on, ‘and since some disastrous negotiation last Friday, QPXQ have decided to sack the original solicitors and give us the insurance claim, along with all the rest of their work. Which means you and I are on opposing sides.’ He hesitated, then swallowed a mouthful of wine as though he couldn’t work out how to say the next bit.

Some of his hostility had gone, but all the anxiety was still there, which wasn’t like him. Trish was supposed to be the mercurial, impulsive one, with an imagination that could show her terrors almost anywhere. George’s job was to provide solid foundations of unshakeable common sense.

‘We’ll have to declare the conflict of interest,’ he said, producing the words as though they hurt his mouth. ‘But even a formal declaration may not be enough to satisfy everyone.’

‘I’ll take this to my room,’ David said, emerging from the kitchen with a bowl the size of a baby’s bath, filled with ice cream. ‘That way I won’t disturb you.’

‘Good idea,’ Trish said, then caught sight of the quantity he’d given himself, ‘but put at least half that back first.’

‘Tyrant,’ he said, but he slouched back into the kitchen to do as she said.

‘Go on, George.’

‘It’s not your fault. Or mine,’ George went on with a dogged fairness that was much more his style. ‘But it’s a situation. QPXQ are our biggest corporate client.’

‘Need it matter?’ she said, fighting everything he hadn’t put into words and beginning to understand Cecilia’s hatred of coincidence. ‘Can’t we just carry on operating Chinese walls and not talking to each other about our cases? I’m on opposite sides from fellow members of chambers all the time and it never bothers anyone.’

‘QPXQ don’t like it. So much so they’re threatening to remove their business. And I mean
all
their business, not just this one case. If they do, it would screw any chance of a profit this year. We could even make a loss. So no profit-share for the partners, no pay rises for the staff, and a lot of anxiety about the future for everyone.’

The muscles in Trish’s face were tight enough to make her feel as though someone had slapped plaster of Paris all over her skin and it was setting hard. David walked past without a word, this time with a respectable quantity of ice cream in his bowl. She waited until he was safely in his room before turning back to George.

‘Have QPXQ specified the price of sticking with your firm?’

He gazed helplessly at her, wanting her to be the one to say the unsayable. His brown eyes looked much softer now.

‘They can’t seriously be demanding I return the brief halfway through.’ The idea was ludicrous and she let her contempt for it show.

‘I got the impression today that the suggestion can’t be far off.’

‘Then I hope you’ll explain the cab-rank rule to everyone concerned.’ Her voice was crisp and clear.

She was referring to the system by which members of the Bar had to take the next case offered to them, whatever they felt about it, provided they had the time and expertise necessary. There were ways round the rule, but it existed and she did her best to stick by it.

‘I couldn’t possibly withdraw,’ she said to make her position clear before his anxiety ran away with them both.

‘
I
know that. They may not.’

‘They’ll have to put up with it. And don’t tell me their next idea will be for you and me to split up to keep them happy,’ she said, trying to make him laugh with a complete absurdity. ‘Look, why have they only just started to worry about this? I got the brief nine months ago. They must have been aware of all the details from the moment they decided to buy the Arrow’s owners. Why now?’

George shrugged, which wasn’t enough for Trish. The timing was too pat, with this protest cropping up only just after the abandonment of the settlement talks. Coincidence might be all around, knitting apparent strangers together in weird and dangerous patterns, but this was something else.

‘Could they have raised the conflict as a way of preparing the ground for an appeal if the judge finds against them when we do go to court?’

All the softness was gone from George’s eyes. His face was clenched again into a frown that suggested four words he would never use to her: don’t be so silly.

‘Or is this more to do with your partners than the client? Is one of them trying to use it against you?’

The grimace melted into a kind of apology that told her all she needed to know. Her imagination did the rest. She saw him flung out of the firm he’d done so much to build, and all because of her. She saw him diminished and fighting resentment and herself trying to make it right, trying to go on nurturing her own career without making him feel a failure. She saw disaster for them both.

‘It may never happen,’ he said at last.

‘Who’s behind it? Malcolm Jensen?’ she said, naming a young, thrusting lawyer who’d joined George’s firm only two years ago and had been causing him trouble ever since.

He nodded. ‘He’s a prick of the first water, but he’s powerful because he brought a lot of big clients with him, and they love him. He goes right to the edge for them.’