Out of the Dark (14 page)

‘That sounds as though you knew them well.’

‘Not well, but I was round there quite often.’ Waylant’s grin looked as if he was trying to seem confident, but it was a poor effort. ‘Had to be really, with all her barmy reports of people threatening her.’

‘But they were true, weren’t they? It’s the old story, isn’t it? Just because you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.’

Deep garnet-red colour flooded Waylant’s cheeks. He looked as though he was about to cry. ‘There’d never been anyone there when I checked, sir. Nor any evidence of anyone. I followed it all up, time after time, until that last one when we were so busy.’

‘I’ll need a full report of every call she made, and everything you did to check. OK?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Waylant turned to go.

‘Not yet,’ Lakeshaw said, watching the sag of Waylant’s shoulders. He turned back slowly, his face a mixture of sullen obstinacy and fear. ‘How did you know who she really was?’

Waylant’s face cleared, like a wiped table. ‘She told me herself, sir.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she was lonely?’ He let his voice rise at the end of the sentence. ‘She said she had to have someone to trust, and she elected me. Because of the job. She knew it would be safe.’

‘Did she though? OK, I see. And who did you tell?’

‘I’ve already told you, sir. I never passed on her name or
address to anyone. And I never discussed the reasons why she was in the protection scheme. I’m not stupid. Once she’d told me who she was, I knew what a risk she’d taken by testifying.’

Lakeshaw looked at him, wishing there were some physical signs that could tell you when someone was lying. For his money, Waylant was lying about something in all this. The question was, what?

‘Sir?’

‘Yes?’

‘I … oh, nothing. I just wish we hadn’t been so busy that night, that’s all.’

Lakeshaw looked away, concentrating on one of the notes in front of him. If Waylant couldn’t come up with something better than that, he was a hopeless liar as well as a professional failure. And if he was that pathetic, he’d soon confess whatever it was that was making him feel so guilty. He’d have to because he’d be longing to be told he wasn’t as bad as he feared. The less encouragement he got now, the quicker he’d talk.

Trish couldn’t obey Antony’s instructions to get some sleep. As soon as she closed her eyes, her brain started throwing up lurid pictures of what the small, clean man had wanted in her flat and what he might do now that he’d been frustrated. The only way to stop that was to work, so she got up again to sort out her papers for tomorrow’s case in Maidstone. Then she phoned the social worker who would be in court with her. When they’d discussed the few points Trish needed to clarify, she said, ‘Sally, I’ve just heard that a child has run away from the Brakelys in Staplehurst. Do you know if—’

‘It’s not Gavin, if that’s what’s worrying you,’ the social worker said quickly. ‘He’s doing really well, Trish.’

‘Oh, I am glad. But are you sure he’s not at risk there?’

‘Absolutely. You know, you’re almost the only lawyer I’ve ever come across who cares enough to remember a client like that after so long.’

‘To be honest, I’ve hardly given him a thought since the case. But I came across the news in a quite different context, and it reminded me.’

‘Ah, right. Well, either way you needn’t worry. The boy who ran away is impossible. The Brakelys were saints to take him on, and they did it only because of his younger brother. He’s doing all right there, too, but David, the runaway, has real problems. Attention Deficit Disorder and then some. He’s utterly uncontrollable and spends
whatever time is left after tormenting his brother, in torturing the cat or ripping up Mrs Brakely’s clothes. We’re doing everything we can to find him – of course we are – but his absence is giving everyone a much-needed break, particularly Gavin, I may say. How did you come across the story?’

‘There’s a small, dark-haired boy who turned up in London, looking for me, and—’

‘Not the one who was half-killed in a road accident? I had no idea you were involved in that.’

‘For my sins.’

‘Well, whoever he is, he’s not our David. Martha Weldon went up to London last Friday to identify him after everyone decided the photographs the police provided were too ambiguous. She said there was no real likeness at all. We’re still looking for our runaway.’

And the police didn’t bother to tell me? thought Trish. Bastards.

Sally’s story made her wonder how many people had come to stare at David while he lay in hospital, and how it must have felt. Like an animal in the zoo probably, or maybe the false Anastasia, who’d been poked and prodded by dozens of Romanov-lovers and -haters as she lay in a Berlin hospital. No wonder he wasn’t talking and preferred to lie with his eyes closed, shutting out everything and everyone.

‘I hope you find out who he is, Trish,’ Sally said comfortably. ‘I’m sure you will. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow. Must go. Bye now.’

Trish ate some cottage cheese and grapes for an early lunch, then fetched her car from under the railway. It was warm enough to have the roof down as she drove to the hospital, and she took her usual childish pleasure in pressing the button on the dashboard and feeling the mechanism lift and fold back the roof.

The hospital friends’ shop was just closing when she
got there, but she persuaded the volunteer to postpone her own break long enough to sell six individual cartons of apple juice.

Cradling them between her crooked arm and her ribs, Trish waited for the lift with a chattering family group, who were clearly on their way to visit a new baby. She felt the sharp corners of the cardboard digging into her arm and breast and stopped herself thinking of what might have been, shutting her ears to their excited discussion of possible names. She got out at the eighth floor and dropped half the juice cartons.

‘Hell!’

‘Hello,’ said one of the nurses who’d been particularly kind to David. ‘You again. Who are you here for this time?’

‘David.’

‘Didn’t they tell you? They’ve moved him. The police.’

Trish held in the much worse expletive that burst into her mind. Then all irritation disappeared in a wave of fear as she thought again of the small fair-haired man. Had he been here, too? Had she led him to David? Or had he been after David, seen her here and followed her home? Who the hell was he?

She saw the nurse looking curiously at her and quickly said, ‘Where have they taken him?’

‘I’ve no idea. It was done all of a hurry this morning, first thing. They should have told you.’

‘You’re damn right, they should. Could you use this juice for any of the others?’

‘I’m sure we could. Thank you.’

Trish left her, seething. Out in the car park, she tried to phone Caro to find out what could be going on, but her mobile was on divert to the message service. Trish dialled the number of Caro’s flat, only to be answered by her machine. Trish left a brisk message to say that she needed to talk urgently, then sat in the driving seat in the
middle of the car park adding up the scraps of evidence she had and trying to make sense of them.

Suddenly the idea of driving an open car didn’t seem such a good one. She switched on the ignition and pressed the button to close the roof. The drive home took less than ten minutes. As she reached the car park, she decided to sweep past the flat to make sure no one was hanging about, waiting for her.

The street was absolutely clear, so she made a U-turn and parked in her expensive space. The great vaulted tunnel echoed to her footsteps. A pigeon burst out from behind a pillar with a noise like a machine gun. The shock made her sweat. Footsteps sounded at the far end of the long tunnel full of expensive cars. She bleeped her locks down and hurried to the entrance. The steps quickened behind her; then she heard another car bleeping and risked a glance over her shoulder. A wholly respectable middle-aged man was opening the door of a large maroon Rover. He raised a hand and nodded. Trish thought he looked vaguely familiar, so she smiled in return, telling herself not to be so sodding paranoid. She’d go mad if she started to hear something sinister every time there was someone running or walking behind her.

Back in the flat, she decided coffee would make her even jumpier, so she boiled the kettle and made some camomile tea. Maybe it would help her get a bit of rest. She knew it was supposed to induce sleep. It tasted of wet hay, but she drank most of it, lying back with the mug balanced against her chest. Her eyes felt heavy. She ought to be using the time to read, but she hadn’t the energy to move. The mug wobbled suddenly against her chest and she woke enough to get it safely to the floor before she dropped it.

 

Re-emerging into consciousness felt like pulling herself out of a quicksand. When she was on her feet again, she couldn’t believe the clock, which told her that it was
already five-thirty. She’d been out for over three hours and she had to be at the Shelleys’, ready to charm and sparkle, by eight-fifteen. She phoned to book a mini-cab for seven-thirty. There was no point driving herself to a house where the wines were said to be sublime.

A hard, hot shower helped to drive the sleep out of her mind. Still dripping, she made some coffee. Jumpy or not, she had to wake up properly now. Taking it back upstairs, she picked up the hairdrier and thought about what she was going to wear. Some of the women at Antony’s dinners, so she’d heard, came in whatever they’d been wearing at work; others dressed in formal silk and sparkles. She gelled and dried her hair into its usual spiky style, which was the only one that didn’t make her look like a bird of prey pretending to be Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, and mentally flicked through her wardrobe.

By the time her hair was done, she’d decided on a compromise. There was a longish linen dress in a sludgy green that she’d bought at Monsoon a while ago, which would do. The subdued colour suited her skin, and she still had the kind of firm upper arms that made a sleeveless dress work. She’d add the barbaric necklace George had given her for her last birthday and hope that the mixture wouldn’t make her look too out of place, even if all the other women were dressed in suits or strapless silk. The necklace was made of chunks of dull gold and richly dark amber and it suited Trish far better than any of the delicate silver-wire-and-moonstone jewellery currently approved by the fashionistas.

She was not used to this kind of calculation and didn’t like having to make it. She was who she was and had never wanted to pretend to be anything else. But the Shelleys’ house was unfamiliar territory. To fix herself back into her own, she grabbed some time to plug in her modem and email a brief message to George. His name appeared
in her in-box. She checked her watch and saw she had five minutes before the mini-cab was due and opened the message.

Trish rarely let herself answer emails the moment she’d read them. The seductive ease of communication meant that you’d click on ‘send’, only to get ten more messages flooding in. By the time you’d sent your answers to those, the first lot would have written back and want something else. You could lose your mind that way. So she rationed herself. But this one from George had to be answered now, and honestly.

She deleted the last sentence, thinking it sounded far too clingy, then carried on, typing carelessly but fast:

She pressed ‘send’, switched off the computer, set the burglar alarm and was waiting at the bottom of the iron steps as her mini-cab drove up. As she sat in the back of the rattly old car, which smelled of the dressing-up box of her childhood, she tried to psych herself up for the entry into Antony’s princely world.

The mini-cab left the harshly lit commercial bustle of Kensington High Street and slowed down as the driver turned to ask Trish the way. Exasperated that he hadn’t bothered to look up the address she’d given when she booked the cab, she directed him through the cream-stucco oasis. Ahead of them a black cab going the same way reared up over innumerable speed bumps, like a giant tortoise bent on mating. The houses on either side were huge and the streets wide and quiet.

Checking off the numbers, she told the driver to stop outside the Shelleys’. Double-fronted, the great Victorian villa had a black iron canopy over the front path and black-and-white tiling on what would have been the front gardens. Trish thought it was the kind of house George would have liked. For herself she’d want something either much older or absolutely modern, and a lot less pompous-looking. She rang the bell.

The door was opened by a woman even taller than Trish, with the smoothest glossiest blonde hair Trish had ever seen. She was wearing a beautifully made, classically designed, cream-coloured wool dress. With its perfect neckline, short sleeves and neat waist, it had ‘designer-label’ written all over it.

She must have to have it dry-cleaned every time she takes it out of the wardrobe, Trish thought in horror.

‘Hi, I’m Liz, Antony’s wife,’ the woman said, standing aside. ‘You must be Trish Maguire. I’d recognise that hair anywhere.’

Trish only just managed to stop herself pressing down some of the spikes. She felt about fourteen and clumsier than she’d ever been as she tripped over the threshold.

Inside the house, her first impression was of delicious smells. They came partly from the cooking, she decided, and partly the flowers. There was a huge mixed pink-and-white bowlful on an oak chest to her right. She didn’t know much about flowers but recognised lilies, delphiniums, paeonies and roses among the rest. Their scents mixed with the furniture polish and something else teasingly light and hard to identify, which emanated from her hostess.

‘D’you want to leave anything?’ Liz asked, looking amused. Trish thought she must have been showing too much awe.

‘Nothing to leave except this,’ she said casually, holding out the small amber-coloured clutch bag in which she kept her keys and money. She dumped it on the chest beside the flowers. ‘Who told you about my hair? It’s hard to imagine Antony’s even noticing it.’

Liz’s carefully made-up face creased into a smile that made her look much too young for the expensively formal dress.

‘He’s not such a misogynist, you know. He’s like you – he only pretends. He thinks your hair’s a very good disguise, by the way. Even he was taken in for a while and believed in your famous ferocity until he found out how gentle you are. Come on in. We’re in the drawing room.’

Gentle? thought Trish. I’m not sodding gentle. And if he thinks I’m going to be a pushover for Nick Gurles, he can think again.

Liz floated ahead down the hall, while Trish stumped along behind, wishing she’d worn jeans and Doc Martens. Then she made herself behave. Tonight she was
Antony’s guest. Whatever he was up to could be confined to chambers. Liz opened the door into a large drawing room and waved Trish in.

The sparse but perfect furniture, the honey-coloured parquet floors and the ravishing silky rugs made her almost faint with envy. She loved her own echoing, sub-industrial flat, but walking into this glowing mini-palace was like wrapping herself in brightly coloured cashmere. The Old Masters on the walls looked like fakes because they were so familiar. But the thing that surprised her most was the quietness. The doors were so thick and so well-fitted that they muffled all sound, and no hint of traffic or passers-by leaked in.