Gagged & Bound Read online

Trying to keep the distracting thought out of her head, she pulled a fresh pad of paper out of her desk drawer and wrote the script she had mentally drafted, putting numbered stars by the danger points. She pencilled the same numbers on the relevant parts of the witness statement she was planning to reveal as the fiction she now believed it to be.

  ‘You look happy,’ Nessa said as Trish put down her antique pencil at last. It was a sleek affair of black lacquer and eighteen-carat gold, which Antony had given her at the start of their last big case together because, he said, he was sick of seeing her write with a well-chewed stub.

  ‘I’ve just seen the flaw my garagistes were trying to hide. It’s always a seventh-day kind of satisfaction when that happens.’

  ‘May I see?’

  ‘Sure.’ Trish handed the statement and her notes over to Nessa and watched as she worked her way systematically through both.

  At one moment, her lips began to move, and a challenging expression narrowed her brown eyes. Trish knew she was imagining herself in court, putting the questions. It would soon be time to get her a case to try. Something simple in the magistrate’s court so her confidence wouldn’t take too much of a knock if she lost it. Trish made a mental note to ask Steve to find something suitable.

  The phone on her desk rang. Antony wanted to know why she’d taken so long to respond to his request for a moment or two of her incredibly valuable time.

  ‘Coming,’ she said, ignoring the sarcasm in the same way that she ignored his extravagant compliments these days. ‘Nessa, I won’t be long. Can you put those back in my drawer when you’ve finished with them?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said, not raising her gaze from the papers.

  Antony was lying back in his chair with his well-shod feet resting on the edge of the desk. Good, thought Trish as she sat down in the visitor’s chair, this isn’t a reprimand.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked. The sight of his creamy smile reassured her even more. He never looked as satisfied as this when he was about to shout at her.

  ‘Ask not what you can do for your head of chambers,’ he said, ‘but what he can do for you.’

  ‘I hadn’t realised you’d caught Steve’s habit of misquoting great men. What’s up?’

  ‘I?’ he said, in fake outrage. ‘I catch something from my clerk? Don’t be ridiculous! What can you mean?’

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t do it to you any more,’ she said, for once impatient with his playfulness. ‘He’s always lecturing me with adapted Churchillian sayings. Now, here you are doing it with Kennedy’s most famous line.’

  ‘Not as famous as the one about being a doughnut.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Dumbo, why are you so slow today? Ich bin ein Berliner actually means I am a cream bun, or something like that. Listen, I was at the Garrick for lunch today, chatting to old Simpkins. Know who I mean?’

  ‘“Old” Peter Simpkins, who’s a good six years younger than you – that one?’

  ‘That’s the one. He used to do a fair bit of local authority stuff in the early eighties, before he switched chambers, and he remembers all sorts of stories about your Simon Tick.’

  ‘Great.’ Trish’s irritation melted like butter on a corncob. She leaned forwards, wanting anything he could give her now, however dressed up in misquotation and childish teasing it might be. ‘Tell.’

  ‘There was a potential scandal that was hushed up at the time and never allowed to reach the press. Members of Tick’s staff in the housing department were thought to be selling the keys of newly vacated council properties to illegal tenants – and sometimes in large numbers to illegal landlords.’

  So that’s why he was so aggressive, she thought. No wonder he’s afraid of muckrakers. And he managed to make me feel guilty for it, too. Bastard!

  ‘And then, presumably,’ she said aloud, ‘making it look as though the refurbishment of the properties was taking a long time to hide the fact that they were making money out of illegal rents?’

  ‘Exactly. Glad to see your mind’s speeding up at last. Tick was approached first by a social worker, who realised something was wrong when she tried to investigate reports of a child wailing night after night in a flat that was officially being redecorated for the next family on the waiting list. Then a caretaker on another estate tried to warn him. Then someone within the council offices got to hear about their suspicions and tried to make Tick investigate properly.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Tick got on a very high horse, and said he wasn’t going to destroy the morale of his department with internal investigations designed to make them all look dishonest at worst or inefficient at best. He was known to have some extraordinarily doctrinaire views about never criticising or making people feel like failures. He’d come under the sway of one of those batty educational reformers who caused such trouble in the sixties. His view was that even real dishonesty – provided it wasn’t too blatant – was a cheap price to pay for showing faith in staff doing a very tough job for very poor wages.’

  ‘It’s a point of view,’ Trish said, holding in the burst of rage that made her want to scream and throw things.

  This was yet another example of ‘everyone’s knowing’ some important story and never publicising it or seeing that the offenders were punished. Maybe George was right and her rage was personal and self-indulgent. She certainly did hate these widely known secrets that made her feel like an outsider all over again.

  But there was more to this fury than any emotion of her own. As she’d told Tick in the park, bed-and-breakfast accommodation put an appalling strain on families and had lasting effects on children. Some never recovered.

  ‘It’s interesting,’ she said at last, when she’d found enough self-control to sound cool again, ‘even though it doesn’t have any bearing on the people involved in the bombing of X8 Pharmaceuticals.’

  ‘True. But it’s a sign that Tick may not be entirely straight. More to the point, there are said to be those who are outraged that a whole lot of ferocious gagging orders meant he got away with it with his public standing unaffected.’

  ‘So they should be outraged. It’s monstrous.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Antony’s smile suggested he knew all about her struggle to hold in her feelings. ‘The scandal turned out to be even bigger than the social worker and the caretaker believed.’

  Now we’re getting somewhere, she thought. This isn’t digging for sleaze; this is a legitimate enquiry into the motives of someone bent on destroying a vulnerable woman, who is almost a client, and definitely a friend now.

  ‘Why?’ she asked aloud. ‘Was he on the take, himself?’

  ‘Nothing was ever proved,’ Antony said, making her excitement shrivel. ‘Even this government wouldn’t have given him his peerage if it had been. But Bee Bowman might well find someone willing to pass on all kinds of useful gossip if she dug about a bit. I thought you’d like to let her know.’

  ‘I will. Thanks.’

  ‘And, Trish, it would be better if it were she asking that sort of question, not you. It’s hardly suitable for a member of the Bar to go round muckraking.’

  That horrible word again, she thought.

  Her determination to beat Simon Tick rose another notch. It wasn’t only Bee he was threatening; it was her own self-respect. She’d fought too hard for that to let it go lightly. He had to be persuaded to withdraw his claim, even if that did involve some shit shovelling.

  ‘How is Bee?’ Antony went on, swinging his legs off the desk and reaching for a pile of papers.

  ‘Stressed,’ Trish said, using the mildest word available.

  ‘To breaking point?’

  ‘Not quite. Not yet, anyway, but if this business drags on much longer she could be. She told me about her sister’s death and her husband’s illness. No wonder she waits for the next disaster to happen.’

  ‘There was her mother too,’ he said idly.

  ‘What? What happened to her mother?’

>   ‘Didn’t she tell you? Ah. Still trying to protect the old besom, I suppose, even though she’s been dead for years. But you ought to know. Not long after the crash, she retreated into a mad fantasy world, leaving Bee to pick up the pieces and look after the family. Bee was still only in her teens, and it screwed up her education.’

  ‘What kind of fantasy world?’

  ‘The old girl convinced herself she was an aristocrat, slumming it with her despised husband and children. She forced him to sell his machine-tool factory in Coventry and buy that house Bee now struggles to keep up. For the rest of her life, she sat in her chair in the drawing room, ploughing through Queen and Tatler, and later Hello – any magazine with photographs of the rich and famous – and pretending to be one of them.’

  ‘Weird!’

  ‘You’re telling me. That barn of theirs in the garden is stuffed to the roof with decades’ worth of her mags. Presumably Bee can’t face the effort of lugging them out and burning them.’

  ‘Antony, why didn’t you tell me all this before you dumped her on me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He managed to look a little ashamed of himself. But only a little. ‘Perhaps I wanted you to like her before you realised how bizarre she can be. Was I unfair?’

  ‘Yes, you were,’ she said. ‘As if I haven’t got enough to worry about.’

  ‘You’ll sort her out. You always do. Now, I must get on. I’ve a lot to do.’

  What about me? she thought. Fighting her outrage, she was about to turn into her own room when she saw Steve, the head clerk, signalling from the end of the passage.

  ‘This was delivered by hand about five minutes ago,’ he said, offering her a stiffened brown envelope of the kind that usually contains photographs. The words ‘Strictly Private and Confidential. Addressee Only’ were written on it in thick black marker pen. ‘The man who brought it wanted to wait until he could put it into your hands himself. I explained to him that in this world of sin and woe we are accustomed to dealing with highly confidential paperwork and that he need have no qualms whatsoever about entrusting this packet to me.’

  ‘Thanks, Steve.’ She didn’t smile at his mangled Churchillian quotation. ‘I’ll deal with it.’

  He looked disappointed at her dull response, then a vulpine smile creased his thin features. ‘Ah, here’s Mr Anstey, just back from court. I hear from the solicitors that he’s doing spectacular work on Maltravers v. Atkins. You should look in while you’re not too busy and watch him. You might learn a thing or two.’

  ‘Thanks, Steve.’ Trish managed to smile. Robert Anstey always enjoyed trailing his supposed superiority in front of her. ‘I learned all that Robert can teach me long since.’

  ‘Sure about that, are you, Trish?’ said the man himself from just behind her.

  She turned to see him with his gown bunched over his arm and a triumphant smile on his face.

  ‘Absolutely certain, dear boy. Not that there ever was much you could do that I couldn’t.’ She patted his cheek in as patronising fashion as she could manage, then said in her own voice and idiom, ‘See, I’m a good student.’

  He laughed, for which Trish gave him another tick of approval in her mental inventory. These days she even quite liked him. Most of the time anyway. In fact, his privileged past often came in useful when she needed information about the world in which he had grown up.

  Now she came to think of it, he might be able to tell her something useful about Jeremy Marton’s background. Robert was too young to have known Jeremy himself, but he probably had godfathers or uncles who had. Trish wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of a public request for help now, but she’d have a go later.

  Back in her room, Nessa had replaced the garage case papers on Trish’s desk and was ploughing through the preliminary documents she was cross-referencing for Clotwell v. Markham. Trish ripped open the envelope to see a red plastic computer disk, a bundle of press cuttings, and a note.

  Dear Trish,

  Thanks for lunch. Here’s a duplicate disk. Will you wipe it as soon as you’ve finished with it? Safer than trying to return it to me.

  I thought you might be interested in the cuttings. There aren’t many that show the faces of the people who interest you, but I did find a few. Habit’s made me go on clipping them whenever I see one. Here they are.

  Oh, and you ought to be careful. While I was doing the research, I was once marched out of a pub with two large men on either side of me and given a warning-off. A physical warning off. I’d hate that to happen to you. A couple of ribs went, and it was six weeks before my face was fit to be seen in public. BW

  ‘Shit,’ she said aloud, then quickly added, ‘Sorry, Nessa. I was just surprised by something.’

  She leafed through the small pile of cuttings, most of which showed pictures of groups of people at things like race meetings, boxing matches or the opening of a new club. There were no records of private parties, only public occasions to which anyone with money could get access. The captions beneath the photographs all included at least one person called Slabb, along with celebrated names from the worlds of sport, politics and show business.

  The Slabb women were all glamorously dressed – in clothes that tended towards the tight and sparkly – and distinctly beautiful. The men were less noticeable. Trish looked with interest at one picture of Jack Slabb at a boxing match, seeing from the date at the bottom of the page that it was only four years old.

  A glossy 8 × 10 print slipped out from between the cuttings. It showed a ravishingly beautiful short-haired black woman, who was vaguely familiar. Trish turned it over to see the name Samantha Lock printed on the back, above the logo of a well-known model agency. Puzzled, thinking that Benedict must have included the photograph by mistake, Trish went back to the cuttings.

  The last one explained the glossy print. The newspaper photograph, which was dated only two months ago, showed the same woman. This time, looking less dramatic but equally beautiful, she stood beside a man captioned as Johnnie Slabb. He was the right age to be Jack’s son or nephew and looked like him, in a longer, thinner kind of way. In the accompanying text, Trish read that Sam Lock, who had been a middle-ranked model for most of her life since starring in a couple of nappy commercials as a baby, was now heading for the big time; she was up for a part in a long-running soap opera.

  Still looking down at the model’s face, Trish reached for her phone to call Caro.

  Chapter 12

  Tuesday 27 March

  Back home, Trish found David in a panic because he’d lost his rugby boots and he was supposed to be playing tomorrow to practise for the match on Saturday.

  ‘How come you didn’t know before?’ she said, in a voice kept deliberately calm to avoid adding to his frenzy, but she was worried. First the phone, now this. Was the head teacher wrong about what was going on in his year? Was he the subject of a deliberate hate campaign? Or was this just pre-pubescent carelessness?

  ‘I stuffed everything in my bag after last week’s game, Trish, and I forgot to give you the shirt and shorts to wash. So I was going to do that now, and when I got them out of my bag, I felt it was too light. The boots weren’t there.’

  ‘They must be somewhere in your room. Let’s go and look. There are usually enough piles of stuff to hide ten pairs of giants’ boots.’

  ‘I’ve already looked,’ he shouted. ‘I tell you, they’re not there. I won’t be able to play, and Mr Jackson’ll be angry because of the match.’ His voice dropped and his eyes slid sideways. ‘And I’m frightened of him.’

  ‘We can get you more by Saturday, if they are really lost,’ Trish said, storing the important information about Mr Jackson to deal with when this particular panic had been sorted. ‘But are you sure you didn’t leave them in your locker? They could have been very muddy after the last game.’

  ‘I always put them in my bag, even when they’re muddy. You know I do. You shouted at me once because you couldn’t get the mud out of the shirt seams.’


  Stricken with the knowledge that a tiny moment’s irritation could loom so large in David’s memory, Trish tried to hug him. He evaded her grasp. She was left with her arms outstretched, feeling a fool.

  ‘I’ll write a note for you to give to Mr Jackson,’ she said, ‘which will stop him shouting at you. And we’ll buy you some more boots on Thursday or Friday. You mustn’t worry so much, David.’

  He kicked the rug. Still staring down at it, looking as though he hated it, he said, ‘Boots cost a lot. Like my phone did.’

  ‘I know. Don’t worry too much about that either.’ She thought of the head’s assurance that there was no bullying, and knew she’d have to phone again. ‘David, is there anyone at school who might have taken them – deliberately I mean?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You would tell me, wouldn’t you, if you were worried about something?’

  He kicked the kilim again. ‘I did. I’m worried about what Mr Jackson is going to say when I can’t play because I haven’t got any boots.’

  ‘I know. And I’ll sort that. Trust me, David.’

  A faint smile lightened the gloom in his eyes, and hints of the confidence she loved showed in his emerging smile and in the squaring of his shoulders.

  ‘Trish?’

  ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘Mr Thompson says that even though the Slabbs were once powerful criminals in South London, they don’t exist any more, and so you’re not to worry about them.’

  She squatted on her heels so that she could look up into David’s face, searching it for signs of what was going on in his mind.

  ‘What do you know about the Slabbs?’

  ‘Nothing.’ His dark eyes looked straight into hers, which was reassuring. ‘But I heard you asking George about them. Mr Thompson knows everything, so I asked him when he was doing break duty last week.’

  ‘He’s the history teacher, isn’t he?’ Trish said, trying to think of a way of telling David why he mustn’t repeat anything she and George said in private, without frightening him. She wondered whether he was offering her this bit of information to make up for his carelessness with the boots and phone.