Keep Me Alive (7 page)

‘Sure,’ he said, taking the rectangle of cream cardboard and sliding it into the back pocket of his jeans. They had such sharp creases down the front he must have been keeping them in a trouser press. ‘If it’s OK with Trish.’

‘Of course,’ she said, to forestall any protest. ‘Look, Jess, we ought to be going. Will you be OK?’

Jess nodded. ‘I’ll be fine. Cynthia’s staying with me at the moment.’

Trish told her hackles to calm down. Just because Cynthia was ravishing, her presence in the flat did not mean that she and Jess were having an affair. Surely even Jess wouldn’t do that while Caro was so ill.

Outside the flat, Will thrust a hand through his hair, scratching his scalp.

‘What’s up?’ Trish asked.

‘I can’t take all those intense female emotions.’ He shuddered. ‘You could’ve cut the atmosphere in there with a knife. Give me a rotten sausage hunt any day. I’ll phone you as soon as I get anywhere. How was it in court today?’

‘Dullish. They just brought witness after witness to testify to Furbishers’ probity, good business and fair contracts. There wasn’t anything for us to do, no point trying to shake them. You didn’t miss anything.’

 

Trish heard no more of him until she dialled her voicemail for messages during the lunch adjournment on Friday. First there was one from Andrew Stane, telling her he had got permission for her to interview Kim Bowlby and would therefore like to make arrangements to drop off the files that evening. Then came Will’s voice, sounding much more cautious than usual.

‘Ivyleaf don’t actually make anything. They’re just a kind of packaging operation in Kent, and fairly new, which must
explain why I didn’t find them in my trawl for Furbisher victims. I haven’t been able to get hold of my journalist yet, but I asked a mate of mine in the business who Ivyleaf are and where they buy their meat. He didn’t know much, but said he was fairly sure they get some direct from the nearest abattoir, which is called Smarden Meats. They’re only about twenty miles away, so it makes sense. Anyway, I thought I’d go and talk to the Smarden people, find out what they know about Ivyleaf. We’re more likely to get useful information from someone a bit detached than if we go baldheaded into the place itself. Will you come with me? They work on Saturdays.’

Trish phoned him back, concerned that he might be spending more than he could afford on the hunt for the sausages that had made her and Caro ill. She wondered what he would say if she offered to pay his expenses.

‘I don’t think I can come with you,’ she said, thinking of her professional ethics as much as all the work she had to do. ‘In any case, wouldn’t you do better just phoning the abattoir to ask for information?’

‘You don’t know the meat trade, Trish. It’s so wrapped up in secrecy that getting anything out of anyone involved is like cutting through ten strands of razor wire. The only way to get anything is to trick it out of them. We’ll need to go there on a good pretext and get pally with whoever is showing us around, then slip in the important question when we’ve lulled them.’

‘I know nothing about meat in the raw. There’s no way I’m going to be able to get pally with anyone involved. Will, I really don’t think I can help here.’

‘Please come.’ He sounded desperate enough to remind her of his frequent jokes about jumping out of windows. ‘I can do all the meat-talk bit. But I need you as a witness to anything I see – or hear. No one ever believes anything I tell them, but everyone accepts whatever you say. You’d be ideal, even if you weren’t a lawyer. You can spot a bullshitter a mile off. Plus, you
know how to ask questions in a way that makes people talk. I need you, Trish.’

Andrew Stane had already used that lever to persuade her to involve herself with Kim Bowlby. She had the case against Furbishers, too. Even without George and David to keep happy, she had nothing to spare for anyone else’s needs, and she wanted some time to herself. The prospect of having much of that was dwindling.

‘Please, Trish.’

‘How far is it from London? I’ve a lot of work to do over the weekend, and I’ve promised to see someone on Sunday.’

‘Only about an hour and a half’s drive. I’m sure I can borrow Susannah’s car to take you. You will come, won’t you?’

‘I’ve got a car. If you’ll map read, I can drive.’

‘Oh. All right.’ He didn’t sound too pleased at the prospect of being a passenger, but for Trish the thought of borrowing someone else’s car was absurd when her own soft-top Audi was sitting quietly in its expensive parking space near her flat. ‘I hope you don’t share my ex-wife’s habit of redoing her makeup whenever she gets bored with looking at the road.’

‘I can promise you that,’ Trish said, surprised he hadn’t noticed how rarely she put anything on her face. ‘Could we start quite early? That way I can get back to my files in good time.’

‘Sure. If you give me your address, I’ll be there at six.’

‘Not quite as early as that,’ she said, laughing. ‘I keep forgetting you were once a farmer. Make it eight, and I’ll be ready for you.’

Trish wasn’t sure how Antony would react to the idea that she would be cavorting around the countryside with one of their clients, but there was something about Will that made it impossible to disappoint him. Maybe it was just that he’d had a tough enough time already.

Colin had already finished his sandwiches and gone, but
Antony was still in the café when she got there. His eyes popped as he glanced at her tray, which held a yoghurt and a packet of shortbread, as well as the usual cheese-salad sandwich and raspberry smoothie.

‘Your brush with E. coli seems to have transformed you,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen you eat so much. You’ll get delectably plump if you go on like this.’

‘Plump? Yuk!’

‘Oh, I don’t know. George would love it, and I’ve always rather fancied a few gentle curves myself. A little bit of padding improves sex no end. Grating hipbones are such a turn-off. Heard anything from him lately?’

She felt her whole face easing, as if a tight rubber mask had been pulled off. ‘Yes. He phoned last night. The flight was OK, though boringly long, and now they’re having a whale of a time. There’s a huge pool, three dogs, and every possible kind of bicycle, Rollerblades and so on. David and his cousins spend the whole day charging about outside. And apparently his aunt’s a real charmer.’

‘Sounds as though you haven’t drawn such a short straw, after all,’ Antony said with a grimace. ‘I know that kind of family holiday. Wonderful for the children, but a nightmare for any adult who wants to relax. How’s George bearing up?’

Trish peeled the top off her yoghurt. ‘D’you know, it sounded to me as though he was enjoying himself almost as much as David. No clients, no colleagues, no worries about his practice. I think he’s letting go for once.’

‘But no you either.’ The skin around Antony’s greeny-blue eyes crinkled as he smiled his best smile. ‘In his place, I’d dump the boy with his perfect relations and come haring straight back to Southwark. How much are you missing him?’

‘A lot,’ Trish said, scraping out the yoghurt from the bottom of the pot. She licked the spoon and watched Antony’s face over it. ‘But I quite like it, too.’

He laughed. ‘You always were too honest for your own good, let alone his. But you make me—’

She never heard what she did for him, because Ferdinand Aldham pulled back one of the other chairs just then, dumping a cup of coffee on the table.

‘You don’t mind if I join you, Antony, do you? This place is like a morgue.’

Trish put down her spoon. When she looked up again, she saw Antony still watching her. He forced his gaze away.

‘Not at all, Ferdy,’ he said, drawling so much it was clear he meant the opposite. ‘You know you’re going to have to speed up a bit with your witnesses or else bore Husking into finding against you.’

Trish murmured something about having a look at her papers and pushed herself up from her chair.

‘Was I interrupting something?’ Ferdy asked with a lascivious smile, looking from Antony to Trish and back again. ‘Sorry about that, old boy. While the cat’s away and all that. What
is
the news from Tuscany?’

‘Oh, grow up!’ Antony said, sounding seriously put out.

That afternoon, he punished his adversary by making the last of Ferdy’s witnesses look weak and ignorant enough to be manipulated into doing almost anything to anyone his bosses might target.

 

Trish was only just ready when Will banged on her door on Saturday morning. She had slept better than she had for years and hadn’t woken until after seven. It was a relief, too, to be able to ignore all the black suits in her wardrobe and put on cotton trousers and a loose pink shirt.

Will looked as though he’d had a better night too. The red moleskin trousers and checked shirt he was wearing made him look like a City banker on holiday, instead of the conventional countryman up in town for the day she’d been expecting. His
eyes were lighter and happier than she’d yet seen them. He kissed her cheek, as though they were setting off on a date.

‘Would you like some coffee before we start?’ she asked, pulling away. ‘I’m sure there’s time for that.’

‘I’ve had some, thanks. If we go now, we’ll miss the traffic. Come on, Trish. I thought you wanted to be there and back in time to work this afternoon.’

The car nosed through the narrow, crowded streets towards the South Circular and on out of London, as Trish followed Will’s efficient directions. As the suburbs were beginning to give way to country and the green patches grew bigger with every mile, he said, ‘You’re not scared, are you?’

‘I’m not scared of anything,’ Trish said, lying. ‘Although I must say I’m not too keen on the idea of watching screaming animals have their heads chopped off.’

‘It’s not like that. And it’s not like you to be so silly. You sound nearly as idiotic as that Jess-woman. Go right here.’

Trish checked her mirror and braked sharply, just in time to position herself for the turn across the oncoming traffic.

‘God, isn’t England gorgeous at this time of year?’ Will said, his voice luxuriously warm.

Trish, who rarely drove out into the countryside, had to agree with him. If anyone had asked her what was most beautiful about England, she would have talked of the view east along the Thames from the south side of Lambeth Bridge. She loved the look of the pale stacked-up buildings of the City when they were dyed pink by the evening sun against a steel-blue sky, with the grey river between them. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Here the hedges looked very green against the golden fields, and the sky was the blue of an old-fashioned striped milk jug. Every so often the excessively brilliant yellow of another crop shrieked against the subtler tapestry of barley, hedge and grass, but nothing could destroy the glory all round them.

A sigh like an explosion distracted her. She looked at Will and saw a glimpse of something quite different from his usual misery.

‘I hate living in London,’ he said. ‘Grubby streets, filthy air and slutty crowds. How do you bear it?’

‘Easily. I love it. But I have lots of space and work I like and my own place. I can see how hard it is for you, having to be a lodger in someone else’s house.’

‘It’s not that. I’m lucky to be a lodger. It’s knowing that if I hadn’t screwed up, I’d still be living in the most ravishing bit of the British Isles, on land that fed my family for generations. Instead of that, I’m hanging about doing nothing but breathe air so polluted it leaves black marks on everything. I mean, do you ever blow your nose, Trish?’

‘Only when I have to,’ she said crisply, not wanting to explore the subject in any detail.

‘And it’s not just that. The filth gets everywhere: into all my clothes and my skin, and under my nails. I can’t keep them clean for more than two minutes before the grime oozes back. It’s like my mind. The black thoughts seep in, however hard I try to keep them out.’

‘Will …’ she began, her voice soft.

‘Don’t be kind to me, Trish. It’ll only make me feel like snivelling. I screwed up. Nothing you can say will change that. I thought I could do better than my father, but I couldn’t, so I lost the lot. Even the house. His ghost is probably fulminating at me right now. I’d have been able to hang on if I hadn’t trusted sodding Furbishers. But I did. So that’s my fault, too. Everything’s my fault. Just like he always said it was.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Trish could see him squaring his shoulders, as he tried to force himself out of the slump into which he’d sagged. He glanced at her.

‘Don’t look so worried,’ he said. ‘I’m fighting back in every way I can. And I don’t believe in ghosts anyway.’

‘Good for you, Will. Look, there’s a roundabout coming up. Which way?’

‘Second exit,’ he said, like a driving instructor.

As they swung out of the roundabout, he told her what she could expect to see in the abattoir, which had once supplied some of the pork he had used in his famous terrines.

‘But you were right on the far side of Sussex, weren’t you, almost into Hampshire?’ Trish said. ‘That’s miles away’

‘I know. Part of the typical sodding mess the last few sodding governments have made of food production in this country.’ His anger reminded her of the kind of sticky foam hairdressers had used in the days before gel, expanding to fill all the available space as soon as it was let out of its pressurized container.

‘There used to be neighbourhood slaughterhouses all over the country, producing really good, tender meat,’ he went on. ‘Most have gone out of business now, so instead of having animals gently moved across a few fields and despatched by someone familiar, you have them loaded into vast lorries. They thunder down the motorways, with the animals getting more and more stressed with every mile, until they can be unloaded to join queues of other poor beasts, squealing and terrified, in some ghastly big impersonal killing factory. Not surprisingly the meat is so tough it’s barely edible and it often tastes vile, too.’