Fault Lines (2 page)

Seeing Darlie’s white face and shaking arms, Trish got a grip on her temper. It wasn’t the client’s fault that Dave had got up her nose – or that she herself felt thick-headed and in dire need of caffeine. With luck Darlie wouldn’t notice and would see only a barrister: robed, wigged, calm and competent.

Thin and dark as she was, Trish was well aware that legal dress suited her, and that even the absurdity of the yellowing-grey horsehair wig perched on her own dark-brown spikes could not make her look as silly as some of the English roses of both sexes. She smiled. ‘Good morning, Darlie. I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier.’ The girl’s snatched shallow breaths began to slow as soon as Trish spoke in her steadiest, friendliest voice. ‘The traffic was terrible and I had to run. But I’m here now. How are you feeling this morning?’ Given Darlie’s appearance, the question was pretty much redundant, but it was the one Trish always used to greet her younger clients.

‘Where’s Kara?’ Darlie asked urgently. ‘She promised she’d be here early to be with me. But she’s not. I can’t see her anywhere. I’d never of said I’d come if she wasn’t going to be here.’

‘She’ll come.’ Trish patted Darlie’s thin shoulder, feeling a lot older than thirty-two. She could only just have been Darlie’s mother, but she felt like her great-grandmother. ‘She’d never let you down, and she knows how important the case is. As I say, the traffic’s terrible. I expect she’s just round the corner, sitting in the jam. She won’t be long now.’

‘She was coming on the train. Into Waterloo. That’s what she said. It’s the quickest way from Kingsford. She promised.’ Darlie’s full lips wobbled and her pale-green eyes filled. She sniffed as a large drop appeared at the end of her nose, wiped it on her hand and then rubbed that on her short skirt.

‘She’ll be here, Darlie. She cares about you very much, and she knows how important the case is. She’s been working really hard on it for weeks and weeks now. You don’t need to worry. Honestly.’

Trish was still smiling steadily, looking right into Darlie’s damp, restless eyes, trying to will confidence into her. She was never going to be the ideal witness, but if she lost what little bottle she had left she would either start stammering as she presented her carefully practised evidence, which would make her look shifty, or else resort to outrageous – and obvious – lies.

Her eyes focused on something behind Trish’s left shoulder and widened. She started hyperventilating again. Her freckled skin turned an ugly red under the makeup and the tears overflowed. A trail of diluted mascara melted the thin layer of foundation on her face.

Trish glanced over her shoulder and saw a squat, black-browed man dressed in a pale-grey suit. As she caught his eye, he looked up at the ceiling, his coarse skin flushing vividly. ‘He can’t do anything to you here,’ Trish said, putting a comforting hand on Darlie’s brittle wrist. ‘Now, soon we’re going to have to go into court. Can you remember everything I said about the procedure and how I’m going to deal with the case?’

‘Yes. At least I think so. But what if Kara doesn’t come? I won’t be able –’

‘She’ll come. I know she will. And you’ll be fine.’

Trish hoped she was right. It would be an ordeal for any girl of Darlie’s age to stand in the witness box and accuse a man of forty-five, a man who had once been the most powerful person in her entire world, of physically and emotionally abusing her. For a girl who had been in care, fostered and then moved from one home to another, for as long as she could remember, it was going to be almost unbearable. And the defence were pretty certain to give her a tough time.

Like so many of the children Trish encountered in her work, Darlie had a terrible record. Her temper was legendary in the social services department, and she had had several police cautions. She was also well known for the fantastic stories she invented to explain away the evidence of her various misdemeanours, and for her habit of flinging herself against walls and floors at the slightest hint of opposition. The defence would undoubtedly claim, as John Bract himself had always said, that the bruises seen by independent witnesses on Darlie’s body had been self-inflicted.

Trish was going to need Kara, who was was one of the few people who had always believed in Darlie. In fact it was largely Kara’s evidence that had made it possible to bring the case in the first place. Where the hell was she?

Eventually an usher appeared to summon them all into court. By then there was nothing for it but to admit that one of her chief witnesses had not arrived and ask for an adjournment. Trish walked into court with as much flamboyant confidence as she could muster. The Nurofen she had taken was softening her various aches, and adrenaline was beginning to sharpen her wits as it nearly always did when the time came to get to her feet and address the court.

‘M’lord,’ she began slowly, her mind racing to work out the best way of persuading the judge to postpone the case until Kara could be found to give her crucial corroborative and character evidence.

Why hasn’t she come? Trish asked herself, as she spoke so carefully to the judge. Has something happened? Or is it the sodding trains again? But why hasn’t she phoned?

Trish showed no anxiety as she finished her speech, hoping she had kept the tricky line between arrogance and creeping humility. She sat back to listen to her opponent explaining just why the whole case should be dismissed.

There had never been any satisfactory evidence, he claimed, and now that one of the principal witnesses had thought better of coming to court at all, there was very little point in his lordship wasting any more time. The proceedings should be dismissed forthwith and without any further waste of costs. He sounded righteously indignant.

To Trish’s relief, and considerable surprise, the judge came down in her favour and granted an adjournment. The court rose, he departed, and she forced herself to wait long enough for one more attempt to reassure Darlie.

Her eyes looked bruised and she seemed unable to hear anything Trish said to her. It was as though, having been betrayed by yet another adult she had trusted, she wasn’t prepared to believe anyone ever again, or even listen to them.

Trish could hardly blame her. She knew what Darlie’s life had been and how much Kara’s faith in her had meant. She also knew that Kara would never have stayed away from court voluntarily, but Darlie was much too wound up to accept that.

Later, as Trish hurried back to the Temple, she was frowning so ferociously that various acquaintances crossed the road to avoid her. She didn’t notice.

Dave called out something as she swished past the open door to the clerks’ room on her way to listen to her voice-mail. The words did not register, but his presence did. She looked over her shoulder to say; ‘Has Kara Huggate left any message for me?’

‘No, but –’

‘Not now,’ said Trish, her coat hissing against the walls as she ran down the long corridor to her small, dusty, book-lined room. There she stopped, staring at the two people sitting beside her desk, warming their feet at her tiny electric fire.

They were about her own age, or perhaps a little younger. Their clothes were too scruffy for them to be barristers, or even solicitors, and yet they didn’t look quite like clients either, or their social workers. They got to their feet.

‘Ms Patricia Maguire?’ said the woman, who had tousled, mouse-coloured hair and an unmemorable, very English kind of face. Her intonation alone was enough to tell Trish she was a police officer.

‘Yes.’ Wariness made Trish’s lively voice colder than usual.

‘I’m DC Sally Evans. This is DC David Watkins. We’re from Kingsford CID. We’d like to ask you some questions about your case this morning.’

‘Yes?’ Trish could feel the frown increasing her headache. She deliberately relaxed her eyebrows. Taking her gown out of the red brocade bag, she shook it and hung up both on the back of the door.

‘You were expecting a witness, Ms Kara Huggate. Isn’t that right?’

Trish turned back to watch them. The mixture of tension and sympathy in their expressions made her feel queasy. ‘What’s happened to her?’ she said, when she could speak.

‘Why d’you ask that?’ DC Evans said, her voice quick with suspicion.

‘Because she didn’t turn up at court. I expected to find a message from her, but there’s been nothing. Instead you’re here, asking questions. That adds up to something pretty bad. What is it?’

‘There’s been a serious assault,’ said DC Watkins reluctantly.

Trish wasn’t sure whether it was the idea of giving up any information that worried him or the possibility that he might upset her. The queasiness turned to gut-twisting fear. ‘How serious? Is she in hospital? In the nick? Is she dead? Come on…’ Trish read that answer in their faces, too, but she could not believe it. ‘She’s not dead, is she?’

‘Yes.’

Trish swung her chair round so that she didn’t have to look at them. Her mind kept throwing up memories of Kara: sitting frowning over some written evidence, running her hands through her thick, dark-blonde hair; looking up to laugh at a tension-busting joke with the amusement lightening her broad, serious face into something much livelier and more attractive than usual; sipping the extra-strong coffee they both used to see them through long evenings of work; enduring a ferocious set of arguments with steady grace; and talking, with unshed tears making her big grey eyes glisten, about the difficulty of living with Jed Thomplon and the impossible loneliness of being without him.

‘It would help, Ms Maguire,’ said Watkins from behind her, ‘if you could give us some idea of the evidence she was going to give in court today.’

Trish blew her nose and swung her chair back to face them. She gave a crisp, professional description of the morning’s case then added, ‘Presumably you’re trying to find out whether the defendant could have had anything to do with Kara’s death?’

Watkins nodded.

‘I can’t believe it. Darlie’s allegations were serious, but not that serious.’

Neither officer looked convinced.

‘Look, as it happened, John Bract had a pretty good defence.’

They still looked obstinately incredulous.

‘In any case, why would he do something to Kara so close to the trial? He’s not stupid – he’d have realised he’d be bound to be a suspect.’

‘Surely, doing work like yours, you’ve come across the concept of intimidation of witnesses,’ said DC Evans, looking surprised by such ignorance.

‘Murder would be a pretty exaggerated form of intimidation,’ Trish said mildly. There didn’t seem much point in challenging the woman, who probably meant well enough.

‘Perhaps it just got out of hand. Perhaps whoever did it was sent to frighten her but got carried away and went too far,’ she said, with an earnestness that reinforced Trish’s judgement of her brains. But that didn’t matter in the face of what she’d said.

‘“Carried away”? Are you telling me it was a sexual assault?’

‘That’s right.’

Oh, Kara, Trish thought, closing her eyes for a second. Oh, poor, poor Kara. ‘What exactly did he do to her?’

‘Take it from me, Ms Maguire,’ said Watkins, ‘you don’t want to know.’

He showed none of the relish Trish had occasionally seen in officers dealing with assaults against women.

‘Did you know her well?’ DC Evans asked, watching her with sympathy. Trish shrugged and nodded. ‘Then perhaps you can help us with something else.’

‘If I can I will. Of course I will.’

‘Great. So do you know Dr Jed Thomplon at all?’ Evans was flipping through her notebook, looking for something.

‘No, I’ve never met him. All I know about him is that he’s a GP in Middlesex and that he and Kara lived together until about six… no, nine months ago.’

‘Why’d they break up?’

‘Because she got the job with Kingsford Social Services and he refused to move there with her.’

The expressions on their faces suggested that this was news to them.

‘Why?’ It was Sally Evans who had asked the question, not Watkins, who appeared to think Jed’s refusal perfectly acceptable.

Trish remembered the day when Kara had begun to tell her about the quarrel. She’d been pretty sure that if it had been Jed who had been offered such a huge step up in his career, she would have been expected to follow meekly in his wake. ‘But then,’ Kara had said, with all the humour that had shone through her preoccupations, even when she was at her most miserable, ‘he probably thinks that a wake is a suitable place for an adoring woman. And in Jed’s life most women have been remarkably adoring. That was half the trouble.’

‘Why’d she agree to take the job, then?’ asked Constable Watkins, apparently reading something in his own notebook.

‘Refuse the challenge of reorganising Kingsford Social Services after the scandal and all those resignations?’ said Trish, amazed that anyone from Kingsford could ask. ‘How could she? It was a big promotion for her. Look, have you got any more questions for me? If not, I’ve a lot on today.’

‘Yes,’ said Evans firmly. ‘We have been told by Kara’s mother that Jed Thomplon resented the parting and that he was “angry and controlling”. Would that fit with what you know of him?’

Aha, thought Trish. So it was Kara’s ‘bloody mother’who told them about Jed. She took a moment to think, then said reluctantly, ‘I suppose so, but…

‘If you don’t know him, why’re you trying to defend him?’ demanded Watkins.

Trish raised her eyebrows at the first hint of hostility. She had been on the wrong end of police questioning before and did not want to go through anything like it again.

‘I’m not,’ she said, pacifically enough. ‘Look, anyone faced with the break-up of a relationship is likely to be angry. That doesn’t mean that months later he’s going to murder the woman who left him. If Jed Thomplon were ever going to get violent, he’d have done it months ago, when Kara first said she was leaving him.’

Something was nagging at Trish’s memory, something she’d read. One of the officers was talking to her, but she was concentrating so hard on retrieving the facts that she heard very little. Then she remembered. ‘Wasn’t there a string of sexual assaults in your area a few years ago? I’m sure I read about the Kingsford Rapist in the papers. Two years ago, or three; isn’t that right?’