Keep Me Alive (25 page)

Trish could still see her mother now, sitting on a low stool by the kitchen fireplace, with her head buried in her hands and her shoulders heaving. It was the only time Trish had ever known her cry. Paddy was standing over her, nursing his knuckles.

For years Trish had buried the memory and later told herself it was shock that had made her refuse to think about it. Only now could she admit that she had triggered the violence that night. More questions nagged at her, keeping her stuck in the past she’d tried so hard to escape.

Was it always me who drove my father to hit my mother? Was it my fault he left and she had all the responsibility and all the bills and all the angst of my growing up? Is that why I’ve taken on David, to compensate them both? Or to show that I can do it and so prove it wasn’t such a monstrous burden for her?

Trish had walked tight round the flat twice already and it wasn’t helping. She took herself into the kitchen for the soothing ritual of making tea, but that couldn’t stop the internal interrogation either.

Is it the old shock of what I saw Paddy do to Meg that makes me so frightened of male violence now? Is that the real reason why life with George works when it never worked with any of my other boyfriends? Was everything I said to Antony just a cover story? George eats his anger with all the food he insists on cooking, instead of shouting at me or leaving as they did. Did I provoke them so that I could prove no man could ever be truly domesticated, so that it couldn’t be my fault Paddy left us? And did I head for family law for the same reason?

‘Stop it,’ Trish said aloud. ‘You’ll drive yourself mad.’

She thought of the landlord of the Black Eagle, providing a
kind of haven for men who couldn’t adjust to life outside the army, a place where they could go and be, certain no one would try to make them talk about the mess in their heads. That was what she needed now. Work had always provided it for her in the past.

If you always had too much to do, then you couldn’t think too hard about your wretched feelings. An empty evening like this one was a positive invitation to them to rise up and overwhelm you. Much better to get on and do something useful, like proving that Will Applewood was innocent, and get back a little confidence in your own judgement.

The best source of information had to be the news editor with enough moral courage to attend Jamie Maxden’s funeral. Trish had no way of finding his home phone number, but it wouldn’t be hard to find his email address.

Knowing how many emails he was likely to have when he got back to work on Monday morning, she headed hers: ‘Jamie Maxden didn’t kill himself’. In the body of the message, she added that she was looking for back-up information to add to her own and would like to talk. She gave her phone number in chambers, not wanting anyone who had anything to do with the
Daily Mercury
to know where she lived.

 

Will lay on the hospital bed with snuffling, grunting, snoring men all round him, trying to make sense of everything so that he’d be able to convince the hard-eyed old bag Antony Shelley had sent down. He wished it had been Trish who’d come to protect him from the police. She would have understood everything without having to be told. And she could have made the police believe her too. She could make anyone believe her. If only he hadn’t muddled her phone numbers and given the police the one for her chambers!

Even the police were more sympathetic than the solicitor. After their first ferocious charge up the stairs in Mandy’s house
and all the questions they’d shouted at him then, he’d never have believed they could be kind. But once they’d seen the carnage, and the state he was in himself, they’d turned amazingly gentle. They’d got him here into the doctors’ hands, for one thing, and the young one who’d been stationed in the corridor to keep him from running off popped in every so often to make sure he was OK. He also passed on what little news there was of the other bloke.

No one was worrying about
him
running off. He’d broken his neck when he caught his head on the open drawer of Mandy’s dressing table. They said he was still alive, but it didn’t sound as though he was in any position to talk, which was lucky.

Until Will knew exactly what had been going on at the abattoir, and how Mandy was involved, he didn’t want the police trampling about asking the wrong questions and giving any of the gang the chance to destroy the evidence. Let them think no one knew what they were up to for a little longer, at least until he was on his feet again and could get to Trish.

 

Bob wasn’t answering his phone. Tim had already left four messages at the flat and five on Bob’s mobile, and he still hadn’t phoned back. Ron wasn’t responding either. They were probably still furious about the damage to the plane. But they had to get over it and come up with the cash they owed him. It belonged to him and he needed it.

The bank manager had already said he wouldn’t provide any more credit. All Tim’s accounts with suppliers had been frozen. He couldn’t pay for fuel for the machines he needed to clean up the orchard or water the trees that were already shrivelling in the ghastly drought. Thank God, he’d still had enough to pay his casual pickers at the end of the harvest.

And thank God for his hens still laying their eggs for him, and for the veg in the garden, even if most of it had bolted or dried out. He wasn’t going to starve, and Boney was being truly
Napoleonic now, catching most of his own food. There was a bit of the all-purpose dried dog food left in the rat-protected bin in one of the outbuildings, but it wouldn’t last much longer.

Now that he’d deliberately crashed the plane, he wouldn’t even be able to earn a few pennies taking photographs for the estate agents. He wondered if he were mad to think of pointing out to Bob how much damage he could do to the brothers if he didn’t get his money soon.

Memories of the threats Bob had made in the pub outside Stubb’s Cross told him he was indeed entirely mad.

 

Later that evening, Trish leaned out of the kitchen window in the soft dusk, to look over the rooftops and pigeons towards the cathedral.

She wished she hadn’t wasted so much time excoriating herself for things she couldn’t change now, even if they had been as bad as she sometimes feared. Except when she let herself think about them, she was a functional human being these days.

More than functional, she thought, looking back around the flat she had bought and furnished and hung with magnificently bleak paintings, paid for out of resources she had earned without help from anyone else. Whatever she had done to her parents, whatever her motives for the work she had chosen or the man she loved, there was no problem with any of it now. Past failings ought to be nailed down under the carpet and ignored.

Fears should be put there, too, so that you could get on with your life. The only problem was they sometimes escaped round the edges.

She played Petra Knighton’s message again. As the solicitor’s voice scraped out into the flat, Trish realized she’d cut it off too soon. The message didn’t end with Petra’s announcement that the man Will had fought was still alive. She listened to the rest.

‘His name is Bob Flesker and he works at Smarden Meats. I
have, as you can imagine, enjoined my client to suppress all mention of his interest in that company when talking to the police. Whether this man’s occupation is merely an unhappy coincidence or something worse, I will leave to your imagination. Goodbye.’

‘Of course it’s not a coincidence,’ Trish shouted at the white-painted brick wall in front of her. ‘And it means Flesker must have been the killer.’

Unless, she thought, sliding back into a chair as her legs gave way, Will was going after him and the girl got in the way. Or maybe she was part of whatever Bob Flesker has been doing. If she was the woman who’d been making Will look sleek and happy and behave weirdly at home, discovering that she was part of the conspiracy could have made him flip.

Trish dialled Petra’s number and was surprised to be answered in person.

‘Thank you for your message.’

‘That’s all right. I’ve no more news to give you yet, or I would have phoned you.’

‘I know. I just wondered. You didn’t put a name to the victim; the woman, I mean. Have the police told you who she was?’

‘Yes.’ There was the sound of scuffling paper. ‘Her name was Amanda Turville, and she worked at a company called Ivyleaf Packaging.’

Trish had trouble getting out her thanks. A small voice in her head was muttering obscenities, over and over again.

Antony was already in chambers when Trish arrived on Monday morning. He was looking uncharacteristically tentative.

‘Hi,’ she said, sweeping past him into her room. She’d been up since six, worrying away at various versions of what might have been in Will’s mind when he’d spent the day in bed with a woman who worked for Ivyleaf and later found Bob Flesker in her bedroom. ‘Have you been waiting for me?’

‘Yes.’ Antony’s eyebrows had always been messy, with several extra-long, white hairs sprouting among the blond. Now he grabbed one and pulled it out with a vicious tug. Trish winced. ‘I wanted to say how sorry I am that Liz came round to your flat. She says she accused you of … all sorts of things.’

Antony was not known for his apologies. He took the Disraelian line that they could only be signs of guilt. Trish wasn’t sure how to respond to this one.

‘She said you were kind and very sensible. So, thank you, Trish. And I’m sorry I landed you in …’

‘It’s OK, Antony,’ she said, touched and touching his arm to prove her sincerity. ‘You and I had fun, and luckily that’s all we had, so I didn’t have to lie to her.’

‘Why are you so hung up on the idea of lies?’ he asked. ‘They ease so many things in life and do no one any harm.’

‘That’s just not true.’

‘Why not?’

A frown bunched Trish’s eyebrows. Was he trying to understand her or Liz?

‘Because the lied-to feel manipulated and stupid when they find out the truth, as they nearly always do. And that makes them mistrust everyone and everything else. Not trusting people is a horrible way to live.’

He hunched a shoulder. He hadn’t shaved carefully enough this morning and there were spots of blood on his collar. She hoped the oozing would have stopped before he changed in the robing room. You couldn’t go into court as a silk with blood-spattered bands. Nor could you go in looking unhappy and humbled.

‘I gather you were at Bar school with Ferdy Aldham,’ she said lightly.

‘So? Anyway, who told you?’ Antony’s dull eyes began to move, and the slackness in his face tightened a little.

‘Someone with my best interests at heart,’ she said. ‘I also gather that the two of you have been conducting a sniping war ever since, and that this case is part of it.’

The familiar smirk tweaked the corners of his mouth. She’d never expected to enjoy seeing it as much as this.

‘I thought you never cared who won or lost a case,’ Trish went on. ‘That’s what you said to me last year, anyway.’

He laughed. ‘It’s true I don’t usually. But I do hate being beaten by fucking Ferdy.’ He stretched his spine, looking at least two inches taller when he’d settled back into his familiar stance.

‘And what about the judge? Was Husking there with you both?’

‘No.’ Antony’s eyebrows lifted into triangles, and he began to look entirely happy again. ‘That would have been neat, but he’s a good three years ahead of us. He’s never been a rival either. When he saw he wasn’t going to make it as a silk, the bench was
pretty much his only option if he was to retire with any sensation of success. Why this interest, Trish?’

‘I like to know what’s going on. Tell me – truthfully this time – why you let Will Applewood run that day, when Ferdy was questioning him about his paranoia about the meat trade. I can’t see how that fits into your war.’

His smirk deepened, but he said nothing.

‘Come on, Antony. Was it because you wanted me to see how weird Will can be?’

He laughed. ‘Darling Trish, how sweet! I know both he and I had the hots for you, but I’m not that unprofessional. No, poor old Husking had a bad scare a few years ago when he started falling over and forgetting things. He thought he’d caught variant CJD from eating beef. Ferdy must have forgotten, or possibly he never knew. I thought the experience might make Husking sympathize with Will’s passions.’

‘We’ll see when we get the verdict, won’t we?’ Trish said, thinking there might not be all that much to choose between Ferdy and Antony as far as manipulation went. Maybe she’d drop the idea of reporting Ferdy to the Bar Council.

She heard someone walking along the corridor outside. Antony moved back and dusted down his suit.

‘It won’t be long now. We’ve only got Sally Trent’s line manager, the Great Panjandrum himself, and then closing speeches.’

‘D’you think we’ve got any chance?’

‘I bloody hope so, all the trouble this case has given us both, but I’m not as sanguine as I was at the beginning. If it hadn’t been for that sodding letter Will got from the Furbishers buyer, we could have had more confidence.’

‘I know. But it was pretty ambiguous, wasn’t it?’

‘Depends how you read it. Let’s hope Husking takes it our way. How is Will?’ Antony moved towards the door. Trish reached for her gown, briefcase and wig box and followed him.

‘I haven’t seen him since the fight. Petra Knighton told me to keep out of the way, so I know nothing.’

‘Good girl.’

‘Patronizing git,’ she said with all the affection it was now safe to show him, just as Colin appeared.

His eyes popped. Trish winked at him. Antony stalked past, well back into his usual all-conquering persona, paying no more attention to either of them.

As their little procession passed the door to the Clerks’ Room, Steve Clay, the head clerk called Colin back. He looked at Trish, as if asking for permission to dawdle.

‘It’s OK. He won’t keep you a second longer than you can spare, even if you have to run to catch us up. It’ll be a brief of your own. Good luck, Colin.’

 

Like every other witness, Sally Trent’s line manager, Martin Watson, confirmed that the statement in front of him was indeed his and reaffirmed its damning detail. Ferdy then handed him over to Antony for cross-examination.

‘You gave all my clients’ contracts to Ms Sally Trent for processing, did you not?’

‘You can’t expect me to keep the names of all your clients in my head,’ he said, much more cocky than anyone should be in court.

A list of the clients was produced, shown to the judge, then handed to Watson.

‘Looks fair enough,’ he said. ‘But if you needed me to swear, I’d have to check my files.’

‘Why of all the six people in your department did you choose the youngest and most newly promoted for this work?’

He shrugged, which made his over-fitted pale-grey suit ride up around his shoulders. He seemed to be aware of it and unbuttoned the jacket so that it hung more loosely around his body.

‘The contracts were straightforward and not particularly high value; a good bunch for her to start on.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t give them to her because she was the most malleable of your staff?’

‘Say again?’

Antony repeated his question, adding a gloss in the unlikely case that Watson really didn’t understand the word ‘malleable’.

‘No.’

‘Then can you explain your instruction to her to draw out the negotiations.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘She has already testified in this case.’ Antony turned to Trish, who had the relevant part of the transcript to offer him. He didn’t smile or thank her; it was her job to anticipate his needs. He read out the admission Trish had winkled out of Sally Trent in court.

Watson coloured and shrugged again. He was sweating and slicked back his hair with both hands.

‘She was a bit of a pushover, you see, my lord,’ he said. ‘And I was training her up. I thought she should get some proper experience of conflict before I let her loose on any big deals with important suppliers.’

And so it went on, with Watson showing himself to be just enough of a wide boy to explain his behaviour while still holding to the insistence that no one more senior at Furbishers had told him to do it. He was adamant that they had no policy of squeezing suppliers and would never have tried to sucker anyone into an unfavourable deal.

 

Antony’s head was cocked at its most taunting angle as he stood up to cross-examine Sir Matthew Grant-Furbisher in the next session. Trish couldn’t see Antony’s face, but she knew the smile he must be showing the judge and the defendant: confident, intelligent, and offering an irresistible challenge.

‘Now, Sir Matthew, as you know, the court has been told that Ms Sally Trent from your head-office contracts department was told by her line manager to spin out the negotiations on all small-supplier contracts she drew up. Why was this?’

‘As
you
have heard, Mr Shelley,’ Grant-Furbisher said, glaring, ‘this was entirely contrary to company policy. Martin Watson, the line manager in question, has admitted he told her to do so out of some ill-judged personal attempt to train her in dealing with conflict.’

‘Oh, yes? Are you expecting his lordship to believe that it was merely coincidence that this man’s private enterprise allowed your company to make infinitely greater profits out of the claimants in this case – all thirty of them – than you would have done had they known the terms you were about to offer before they committed themselves to costly expansion?’

‘Yes.’ Grant-Furbisher had probably been trained on Disraelian principles too.

‘I see.’ Antony was far too experienced to look for a reaction from the judge, even though he was taking great care to make the cross-examination into a three-way affair to avoid excluding Husking. ‘If Mr Watson’s intervention was so ill-judged, what have you done to him now?’

‘He has been disciplined.’

‘How?’

‘He has been demoted and moved to a less responsible position, where he can do no harm.’

‘So you admit that he has done harm to my clients?’

‘Certainly not.’ Grant-Furbisher bristled, but his hands were still clasped loosely on the ledge of the witness box.

Nothing Antony asked could shake Grant-Furbisher, although there were several moments when he scratched the side of his nose in just the way George had described. Unfortunately it didn’t help their case.

Throughout the session, Grant-Furbisher took the opportunity
to make the point again and again that someone of his eminence had no day-to-day knowledge of employment issues, or indeed contractual ones. The message that came over loud and strong was: I am much too important to be questioned in this fashion.

Trish thought she could see subtle signs that Husking didn’t like him any more than she did. That was encouraging in a case that was going to depend entirely on the judge’s assessment of the balance of probabilities. He
has
to come up with the right verdict, she told herself. Manipulative, lying businessmen can’t be allowed to get away with making huge profits by ruining people like Will.

But why hadn’t Will warned them about the oral protest he’d made to Arthur Chancer, the buyer? If they’d known about it in time, they could have countered Ferdy’s argument before they even heard it, which would have been far more effective than trailing along behind, trying to clean up the mess.

Oh, damn you, Will! she thought. Why couldn’t you have been straight with us? How many other lies have you told?

Grant-Furbisher was the defence’s last witness, and the judge decided to rise for the day before hearing the closing speeches. Once he had left the bench, Colin appeared at Trish’s side. He hadn’t come back to court for the afternoon session. Now he was looking almost as agitated as Will had on the day he’d discovered Jamie Maxden was dead.

‘What’s up?’ Trish said, noticing that Colin didn’t go straight to the heaps of folders on her bench to load them on to the trolley as he usually did. ‘Is it the brief Steve gave you?’

‘Yes. It’s an immigration case,’ he said, scratching his cheek nearly as savagely as Grant-Furbisher. ‘When he first told me, I was over the moon. Now I’ve read the papers, I can’t think why he gave it to me. I’m not nearly experienced enough for something so important. Why is he doing it, Trish?’

‘Because he has to find out whether you’re likely to crumple under pressure,’ she said, deeply sorry for him but trying to
inject some realism into his misery. Sharp memories of the fear she’d felt in her own first few cases made it hard not to show her sympathy. ‘Chambers doesn’t normally take immigration cases, so if you do screw this one up, you won’t do any serious damage to our reputation.’

‘What if I don’t manage to make them give him asylum?’ Colin clearly hadn’t heard a word she’d said. He looked like a man trapped in the path of an advancing tank. ‘He’d have to go back, and he was tortured, Trish. He’s a doctor, you see, and they arrested him when he spoke out against the brutality of his country’s regime.’

‘Colin, don’t look like that. However awful your client’s possible suffering, you have to put it right out of your mind; otherwise you’ll get bogged down in your own emotions, and won’t be able to do your job properly. It’s important for him that you keep your distance. OK?’

He wiped his lower lip with his teeth, as though he’d had to learn not to be dribbly as a child, looking almost as vulnerable and frightened as Kim. ‘I’ll try. Will you help me?’

‘Of course. That’s what I’m here for. Do what you can with the papers, work out how you’re going to manage the case, then come and run through it with me.’ What was it she’d wanted her pupil-master to say in those far-off days of quite nauseating terror? ‘You’ll be fine, Colin. You’re a bright chap, and you’ve watched enough trials to see how they’re done. Now, could you help me with the files? We need to haul them back.’

As they walked to Plough Court behind Antony, not talking of anything much, Trish thought of how Colin must be feeling. The brain-emptying terror had been all but unmanageable for her, too, and her client hadn’t been in anything like such danger as his. But she’d found a way to get over her fear. Colin would too. Or he’d leave the profession. There was no other option. She was surprised to find herself so ruthless, in spite of her
sympathy. Presumably all the tough senior juniors and silks who appeared so impervious had once felt like this too.