Betrayal (45 page)

‘Don’t tell me they’re likely to drop it!’ I said, by now so thoroughly unsettled that I took a harsh satisfaction in arguing against my own interests.

‘No, but . . .’ An inner debate flickered over Tingwall’s face. Finally he ventured, ‘We’d have to take advice, of course –
plenty
of advice – but it’s
possible
we might want to go for an old-style committal in front of a stipendiary, and try to get the case thrown out altogether. But, look,’ he cautioned hastily, ‘don’t take it from me. I mean, I may be way off the mark!’

Two things struck me: that while Tingwall might be meeting the challenge of the case, he was also feeling the full responsibility of it, and that, for all his dedication and tenacity, he was not as confident as he made himself out to be.

Tingwall hurried on, ‘I thought that as soon as we have Benyon’s fingerprint report and the prosecution’s statements, which should come through any day now, we should have a conference with Grainger, sound him out, see if he thinks an old-style committal’s a starter. What do you think?’

I looked out into the black November night, aware of how long Ginny had been alone and the time it would take me to get back to her. ‘Can I phone my wife?’

Tingwall looked dubious. ‘Do you think it’s wise to tell her?’

‘I’m not going to tell her over the phone, Charles, if that’s what you mean.’ It wasn’t what he meant, of course. He meant that it might not be wise or fair to tell her anything at all. But it occurred to me as I went to make the call in the outer office that raising her hopes might be no bad thing, that hope was a fairly harmless commodity when you didn’t have much else to hold on to.

I could never speak to Ginny on the phone these days without listening for sounds of strain in her voice, for some sign that her self-control was wearing thin, and hearing her now I knew with a small lurch of alarm that something had happened. ‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re upset. Was it Jones?’

She exhaled fiercely into the phone. ‘He
refuses
to believe me. He just won’t
listen
. He’s treating me like an idiot!’

I cursed my weakness for staying at the Hartford meeting for longer than I had meant to. ‘Okay,’ I said soothingly, ‘we’ll sort it out. Somehow we’ll sort it out, I promise.’

‘He’s trying to wear me down, just like I said he would. He undermines everything I say –
everything
. Even you and me – he tries to make me say that I’m angry with you, that I was out for some sort of revenge, that I was really trying to get my own back at you and – oh, I don’t know – lunatic things!’

‘I’ll tell him to lay off.’

‘Will you?’

‘Of course. I’ll tell him to lay off or we’ll take our business elsewhere.’

‘Oh, will you? Will you really? He makes me feel so dreadful. He makes me want to crawl under a stone.’

‘Ginny – rise above it, ignore it. Believe in yourself.’

‘But I’m so angry, Hugh, I’m so
angry
.’

I searched for words that might have some meaning for her but could only plead impotently: ‘I promise I’ll sort it out, darling. Just hold on. Please – don’t get upset.
Please
.’

‘I’m all right,’ she said in a calmer voice. ‘I’m always better after I’ve talked to you.’

Tingwall walked me out to my car. ‘It must be a hard time for Ginny,’ he said as though he had divined something of my conversation. ‘It’s always so much harder for innocent people. They feel they’re battling against the assumption of guilt. I had one chap up on a rape charge and even when he got off he never stopped feeling hounded. It’s an awful lot easier being guilty.’

‘I’ll take your word for it.’

Climbing into the car, I remembered what I had meant to tell him and opened the door again. ‘I forgot – your man Pike needn’t bother with Sylvie’s friend Joe. I found him.’

‘Don’t we want to talk to him?’ Tingwall asked.

‘No.’

‘No?’ Catching some hint of what had been going on behind his back, he shot me a look in which curiosity, disapproval and the sense to ask no more were neatly fused.

‘Has Pike made any progress with Hayden?’ I asked.

‘Nothing yet.’

‘Could you let me know the moment he finds anything?’

‘Sure.’

He was still giving me a speculative narrow-eyed look as I drove away.

I had a picture of what I would find on my arrival home. Rooms in semi-darkness, Ginny by an unlit fire picking the skin at the edges of her nails – she had already made them raw – and an air of anxiety which she would expect me to alleviate; the rest of the evening bolstering her confidence, a tricky chat with Jones and finally to bed, to find peace of a sort for a few hours. Another day survived.

The lights were on in the drive, the floodlights around the front of the house too. As I parked, Ginny came out to meet me. She was dressed in a simple black dress with a heavy gold necklace and matching earrings. When I kissed her I caught a waft of
Je Reviens
.

‘Did I forget something? Are we having a party?’

‘Absolutely,’ she smiled, taking me into the house.

‘Who’s coming?’

‘Just you and me.’

‘Sounds all right to me.’

Passing the kitchen I caught the smell of wonderful things cooking and saw that she had laid the small circular breakfast table with a white cloth and candles and flowers. She led the way into the sitting room and poured me a glass of champagne.

‘You look uncertain,’ she said.

‘No,’ I said rather too quickly. ‘No, just – surprised.’

‘I wanted us to have a jolly evening for a change. You must get fed up with all my moaning.’ She flung me a bright smile. ‘I want you to feel you’ve got something to look forward to when you get home. To know that you’re going to be spoilt a bit.’

‘But I do. I am.’

‘Liar,’ she smiled. There was a glow in her face which I hadn’t seen in a long time. Part of it, I realised, was makeup, a clever mix of colour and shading that lifted her features and intensified her eyes, and which she hadn’t bothered to put on for weeks; but there was an inner spark, too, some new resolve.

I gave up with a laugh and raised my drink. ‘Here’s to jolly evenings.’

As we drank she caught me watching her over my glass. Some of the doubt must have shown in my eyes because she said, ‘What
did
Jones tell you? Did he say I was going off my head? Is that what you’ve been thinking all this time?’ Her voice managed to be brittle and fluid at the same time. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I wouldn’t blame you if you had. He’s very persuasive. God – sometimes he’s had
me
wondering if I’m going barmy.
But
’ – she gave me a conspiratorial grin – ‘I’ve finally done what I should have done ages ago. I plucked up all my courage and half an hour ago I called him! I told him what I thought of him!’

I had paused in the act of drinking. ‘What did you say to him?’ I asked nervously.

‘Say?’ Her eyes gave a dark triumphant flash. ‘I told him that he’d been out of line. That he’d been intimidating me – well,
bullying
me, really. That he’d been making assumptions that weren’t his to make.
Undermining
me. That I didn’t deserve that. That no one did.’ Reliving her own temerity, she gave a strange high-pitched laugh. ‘I can be so much braver on the phone – no eye contact, none of those awful silences that he uses to make me feel guilty!’

I was still immobile, the glass just short of my lips. ‘And what did he say to that?’

‘Well, he didn’t want to admit he was wrong, did he? He said he’d never disbelieved anything I’d said, never made up his mind about anything. But he had – he knew he had. He didn’t want to admit he’d been . . .
pressuring
me. I made him promise that in future he’d listen without
deciding
, that he’d listen and accept what I had to say. Just
accept
.’ And her jaw hardened, she spoke with a sudden vehemence that made her shudder visibly.

I sat down and said, ‘Gosh.’

Finding her mood again, she tipped up her chin. ‘I felt so much better afterwards, I can’t tell you! I felt as though I’d got a little bit of my life back. Oh, I know you would have waded in for me,’ she remarked affectionately. ‘You always do. But for once I needed to say it for myself, I needed to feel I was fighting my own battles. And I’m glad I did,
glad
. It’s done me so much good!’ And she sparkled at me, all shaky confidence and new determination.

‘There’s something else.’ She came and knelt on the floor at my feet and rested her arm on my knee. ‘I’ve been thinking that I really must be much more positive! Things are far more likely to go right if one thinks positive, aren’t they? And misery’s such a bore. So wearing. I should be remembering all the good things and making the most of what I have!’ She gave an excited laugh and – a pang of disloyalty – I couldn’t help wondering what she’d been taking. ‘I want us to plan like mad,’ she declared. ‘Everything, all the way through to our old age. Every house and holiday and job and – oh, I don’t know! But as though I’m going to be around. I need that, I need to believe it’s all going to happen.’

‘Ginny . . .’ I put my drink down. ‘Something came up today.’ And I told her about the fingerprint expert, how nothing was definite yet, but if all went well and the two experts agreed then her chances would significantly improve.

She listened attentively, she asked a couple of questions then shrugged carelessly, ‘There you are. See what a bit of positive thinking can do!’ In her sparky optimism I saw the Ginny of years gone by, the Ginny I had fallen in love with, and in apparent awareness of this, she looked up and we exchanged a glance of shared memory.

I was leaning forward to kiss her when the phone rang.

David’s voice said, ‘Not interrupting dinner?’ Without waiting for a reply, he reported, ‘The chemists look as though they’re going to be a dead loss, I’m afraid. I got four or five to look back through their registers but nothing out of the ordinary in the way of diamorphine scripts. Without asking them for chapter and verse there’s not a lot more I can do, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh well.’

‘Anyway, I was thinking – she’s far more likely to have got her stuff on the open market, isn’t she? Bristol’s seething with drugs. Buy them on every corner. It’s not far, after all.’

Bristol made me think of Jean-Paul. Time had not lent him credibility, and I found myself wondering if he had told me anything approaching the truth. ‘No, it’s not far,’ I agreed. ‘Thanks anyway.’ I hesitated. ‘There was one other thing. The woman who worked in the pottery shop with Sylvie. Liz something. Fiftyish, ethnic clothes, beads. You wouldn’t have any idea who she was?’

He made a doubtful sound. ‘I know who you might mean. Seen her once or twice. Retired hippy type. Long gypsy skirts. But no – not a patient of mine, not someone I know. Useless again, I’m afraid.’

‘Thanks anyway. And thanks for lunch yesterday.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ David regarded social niceties as superfluous at the best of times and positively ridiculous within the family. He rang off with a sharp admonitory grunt.

I took the champagne bottle into the kitchen and found Ginny at the table, doing last minute things to some beef that smelled of wine and garlic and herbs. She nodded enthusiastically when I offered to refill her glass. ‘Heaven.’ And she smiled in such a way that I wasn’t quite sure what she was referring to. I was trying another kiss when the phone rang.

‘Doomed by the bell,’ I muttered.

‘Caressus interruptus.’

I snatched the receiver off the hook and was met by the howl of a child. ‘Sorry to bother you, Hugh,’ Tingwall said over the din, ‘but it’s Pike. He’s found this chap Hayden.’

‘Where?’

The screaming reached a terrifying pitch. ‘Nothing I can do about this, I’m afraid,’ he shouted, sounding harassed. ‘In sole charge. Wife at a girls’ night. Well, that’s what she tells me.’ He laughed to show it was a joke. ‘No, when I say
found
, it’s not quite as good as that. Apparently Hayden’s on his way to Heathrow at this moment, heading for the Far East. Pike just missed him in London.’

‘Damn. Can he catch him at the airport?’ I shouted back.

‘He’s going to try. He’s on his way there now.’ Tingwall made some cooing noises off-stage and for a moment the screaming subsided to a succession of wails and sobs. ‘At best he might only get a few minutes with Hayden. I’ve given him some questions to ask, but I wanted to check with you to make sure I hadn’t missed anything obvious.’

‘Can I speak to Pike direct?’

‘What? Sure. He’s got a mobile.’

I took down the number and repeated it back to him through the renewed caterwauling.

‘Won’t be a minute,’ I called to Ginny as I rang off and disappeared in the direction of the study.

The number didn’t answer first time. When I tried again two minutes later an expressionless voice announced itself as Pike. I explained who I was and Pike told me he was on the motorway, just minutes from the airport.

‘If you do manage to find him,’ I said, ‘try to stop him leaving, will you? Any way you can.’

‘I’m not sure I understand you.’

‘Offer him whatever it takes to delay his flight.’

‘What’s your limit?’

‘I don’t know – five hundred? Two thousand? Whatever it takes.’

‘Some people won’t be bought at any price.’

‘This one will,’ I said, though I couldn’t have said what gave me such confidence.

‘Right. I’ll keep in touch.’

I gave Pike my number and went through to dinner. I tried to enter into the spirit of Ginny’s evening but I must have been a poor actor because Ginny’s intuition soon caught me out.

‘The phone. Something’s happened,’ she said.

‘I may have to go out later. If I do, will you be all right?’

‘Of course.’ But she didn’t sound at all convinced.

‘I may be late. Well – very late.’

That unnerved her. She didn’t like being alone in the house at night. The animation fell from her face. ‘How late?’

‘I don’t know. I might have to go to the airport to talk to someone. I could try to get Mrs Hoskins to come over if you like.’