Gagged & Bound Read online

  ‘He says the Slabbs are nothing to worry about these days. Twenty years ago might have been different. But not now.’

  Trish smiled. ‘He sounds like a really sensible bloke.’

  David’s face lightened a little more, but he said he didn’t want a toasted sandwich for tea. Trish knew what that meant: they both dealt with anxiety by not eating.

  ‘OK,’ she said lightly, determined not to make a fuss. ‘We’re having chicken for supper, so I’d better go and make a start on that. Have you finished your prep?’

  His soft black hair flew around his face as he shook his head, staring at the floor again. She knew he hadn’t even started it. She let one hand rest on the top of his head for a moment.

  ‘In that case, I’ll get out of your way and get supper going. It should be ready by the time you’re finished.’

  Heavy footsteps on the iron staircase outside made them both look at each other in surprise. The sound of a key in the lock turned it to astonishment. George had rarely appeared before eight o’clock in the evening. But it was him.

  ‘Hi, guys!’ he said, dropping his briefcase by the door and unwinding the blue checked scarf David had given him for his birthday.

  ‘How come you’re here so early?’ Trish asked.

  ‘The deal came through today. We won.’

  ‘Hey, fantastic!’ David said. Trish saw a real smile making him look happier than he had all evening.

  ‘It’s only chicken for supper,’ she said. ‘I’d have got something much more glamorous if I’d known we were in for a celebration.’

  ‘Chicken will be fine.’ George kissed her. ‘So long as you let me make the gravy.’

  ‘What’s wrong with my gravy?’

  George looked at David, then they chanted in unison, ‘What isn’t wrong with it?’

  ‘Chauvinist swine,’ Trish said, enchanted to see David’s pleasure. Maybe there wasn’t anything too bad going on at school after all. ‘OK, I’ll hand over the kitchen to the pair of you at gravy time. But David hasn’t finished his homework yet, so we mustn’t distract him.’

  George raised his eyebrows and gestured towards the spiral staircase. Trish nodded. ‘You go on up and I’ll bring the bottle when I’ve dealt with the oven.’

  He had taken off his shoes by the time she got to her bedroom, and was lying comfortably on his side on the bed. Trish put the opened bottle on the chest of drawers beside the glasses, and walked round the bed to kiss him properly.

  ‘You look a lot more human,’ she said. ‘It must have been a stinker of a deal.’

  ‘It was. I’m not surprised Katey couldn’t cope. But winning has given her a lot of oomph, so she’ll do better next time.’ He watched Trish return to the chest of drawers to pour the wine. ‘It’s also reminded me why I liked client work so much, even when the clients are difficult. I’ve missed concentrating on it.’

  ‘I know you have. But the kudos of being senior partner …’

  ‘Isn’t worth the boredom. I’ve been thinking that I might step down at the end of this financial year and go back to real work.

  Trish thought of his exhaustion on Friday and wondered if that was wise. To have been senior partner in your early forties, then step back and watch a younger colleague take the leading role could be hard. But George would have thought of all that and would hate to be nannied with her warnings, so she decided to say nothing.

  ‘It’s partly David,’ he said, as though he understood her doubts.

  ‘That’s too cryptic for me.’ She brought his glass and put it on the table at his side of the bed. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Rushing about with him has reminded me that I’d forgotten how to play.’ He looked at her with an expression that seemed to mix teasing with wistfulness. ‘You and I have got awfully grown-up these last few years, Trish.’

  ‘I suppose we have. It seemed an important thing to do,’ she said slowly, looking back over her struggles to make herself secure in every possible way. She tried to work out what he was really telling her. ‘But does half-killing yourself on deals like this last one constitute playing?’

  ‘In a way.’ He pushed his fingers through his hair, which made him look years younger. ‘I suppose it’s because David’s reopened bits of me I sealed up years and years ago. I’m not really as old as I seem. Humour me, Trish.’

  ‘You’re not feeling ill, are you?’

  ‘Certainly not. Have a drink. This is jolly good vino.’

  The old-fashioned slang told her that his confidences were at an end – for the moment anyway.

  Later, they sat companionably either side of the big open fireplace, reading the newspapers and desultorily chatting whenever anything occurred to them.

  ‘Can we watch Newsnight?’ George said at half past ten. ‘There may be something on my deal.’

  Trish turned on the television, only to realise they’d missed the introduction and so had no idea whether his clients would feature or not. It didn’t worry her much; she was always happy to listen to politicians and businessmen being made to squirm as they explained their actions.

  One item centred on the government’s new housing bill. Trish was delighted to be told that Lord Tick would be putting the government’s point of view, while someone called Serena Markley would be speaking on behalf of one of the big charities. The camera panned first to one side, then the other, showing the two speakers.

  Tick looked as sleek and smiling as a dolphin. His voice was richer than it had been when they’d met in the park, and he used it well. At one moment she felt as though he was talking directly to her, sharing her emotional response to the injustices of the world.

  Any jury would love him, she told herself. And with Bee so nervous and weepy, he could wipe the floor with her in court. We can’t let it get that far.

  ‘That’s all very well,’ Serena Markley said on screen, her acerbic tone making Lord Tick seem even smoother but less genuine, ‘but words cost nothing, and they protect no one. There is less public housing built now than at any time since the war. Waiting lists are getting longer, and people are suffering.’

  ‘Of course people are suffering. But that’s mostly the result of the right-to-buy legislation. It will take decades to rebuild what was squandered then.’ He looked more than pleased with his response. Was he imagining the party whips’ congratulations on his performance?

  ‘It’s good to know how much you care for the disadvantaged,’ he went on. ‘I shall look forward to your support as I work to minimise suffering caused by poor housing all over the country.’

  A familiar humming noise issued from between George’s closed lips. Trish saw he’d fallen asleep again. She pulled at his shoulder.

  ‘Wake up and come to bed, George. You will stay tonight, won’t you? You’re far too tired to go back to Fulham.’

  ‘Must just wait in case there’s a bit about the deal.’

  ‘You won’t even notice if there is; you’ll be asleep.’

  ‘I always wake up when a familiar name is mentioned. You go on up; I’ll follow. Ah, here were are.’ He sat up, instantly alert, looking at the screen. ‘Off with you, Trish.’

  She left him, to shower under water as hot as she could bear, thinking about Simon Tick and what Antony had told her, and how she might uncover more of the man behind the image.

  Sam came round in the dark. For a second she thought she’d dreamed it all, then she moved and felt pain screaming down her back and arms again. Something warm and wet oozed over her hand as the plastic ties they’d used on her wrists cut deeper into her flesh. She’d told them everything as soon as they asked, so why hadn’t they let her go?

  Barely breathing, she listened to the silence all round her. When she was sure there was no one else anywhere near her, she had one more go at trying to get free, pushing against the pain that clawed at her every time she moved. All that happened was the plastic ties cut even deeper into the wounds in her wrists and ankles. More blood seeped over her skin. How
could you hurt this much and still be alive?

  She used her sore, swollen tongue to stroke the bits of her mouth that were hurting the most. It didn’t help. Just like it hadn’t helped to tell them how she and DC Taft had met. They’d hit her every time she said anything and every time she refused to speak.

  ‘You think you can make us believe that Johnnie gossiped to you in a pub so loud an off-duty copper heard? Don’t make me laugh.’ That’s what one of them had said. ‘Don’t make me laugh.’ Over and over again, while the other one was hitting her in the face.

  ‘You won’t be able to work again if you go on making us do this. Bruises heal up. But it’ll get worse, you know, if you don’t tell the truth. No more modelling. No telly.’

  ‘I am telling the truth.’ She’d screamed it then, and that had made them hit her all the harder. So she’d told the whole story all over again, right from the beginning, as if they were all in it together.

  ‘So Johnnie’s bullying me in this pub, see, because I said I wouldn’t take no more messages for him. He says I’m in too deep now to stop working for him. And I say he can’t make me. And he looks at me like you’re doing and just says, “Wanna bet?”

  ‘I think I’m going to throw up, so I run for the toilet. I’ve just stopped heaving when this woman walks in and asks if she can help. I don’t know she’s part of the filth then, do I? Only that she’s kind. And safe.’

  ‘When did she tell you she was DC Stephanie Taft?’ shouted one of the men while the other one hit her across the mouth again.

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’ Crack. His hand landed across her cheekbone and her head jerked back so hard she hit the back of it on the chair.

  ‘She said she could help me. That working with her was the only way I’d ever get out from under Johnnie and the others. Then she wanted evidence.’

  ‘Slag.’

  She tensed for the fist in her mouth. When she could speak again, she hurried on, ‘At first I said I couldn’t get her anything. But she said it was the only way of getting free. So I went back to Johnnie and asked him to forgive me for what I’d said. He slapped me about a bit, then he said he’d see how well I behaved before he decided if he’d take me back.

  ‘It was months before he trusted me enough to give me anything DC Taft could use. But one day he sent me to his dad again, who gave me a note, see, and told me to deliver it, just like DC Taft hoped he would. So I took it. And when he’d read it and given it back to me, like the rules are, instead of burning it, I put it in a paper bag, like DC Taft said, and took it to her.’

  ‘So where is it now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whimpered as the other one hit her again. ‘All I know is she said it would be safe, no one would ever find it.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She saw the fist coming and felt it crunching into her face. That must have been when she passed out.

  A sound outside made her jump, pulling against the knife-like plastic. She gasped. She couldn’t help it.

  The door opened, letting in some light from outside. A man came in, then others followed. It was just bright enough to see there were five of them. The last one shut the door carefully.

  Sam didn’t know if any of them were the men who’d been hitting her because they were wearing the same white all-in-ones with hoods and masks. The man in front was carrying something. She couldn’t quite see what it was. Then the ceiling lights came on. She saw he had a reel of wire in his hands and a stick and a bag.

  ‘Know what these are, then, Sam?’ he said, sounding exactly like Johnnie.

  Chapter 13

  Wednesday 28 March

  It was a small boy who found the body. His mother had kept him home from nursery because he’d been sniffly and fractious at breakfast and there were rumours of a chickenpox outbreak in the neighbourhood. She’d wanted him to stay indoors, but he’d become unbearable, flinging himself around the house, refusing to play with any of his toys and getting under her feet in the kitchen, so she’d put on his boots and duffel coat and taken him to the common.

  Miraculously he’d cheered up as soon as he had open space all round him and was off chasing pigeons as if he’d never spent the last hour trying to make her pick him up and read to him. She idled along behind him, revelling in the spring sunshine and the cheerful smiles of most of the dog walkers.

  ‘Mummy!’ he shouted from out of sight, sounding as though he was about fifty yards away. She could hear him easily, despite all the other human and mechanical noises, like a bat picking out the squeak of her offspring from a thousand others. ‘Mummy! Come and look.’

  ‘I’m coming, Tommy,’ she said, expecting some interesting beetle or other. He was always presenting her with strange natural history specimens, usually dead and sometimes smelly. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve found a lady. She’s got her head in a bag.’

  ‘We mustn’t disturb her, Tommy,’ she said as she got nearer, wanting to remove him fast from any strange care-in-the-community case. ‘Come along now.’

  ‘No, come and see.’ He towed her towards a clump of bushes at the edge of the path. ‘Round here. She’s just sitting there on the ground with her head in the bag. I said hello, but she didn’t move.’

  ‘Wait here. On the path. I’ll go and look.’

  A minute later, her hands fumbling for the phone in her pocket, she was trying to breathe normally. Through her head was running huge gratitude to the Fates that had made her son see an interesting curiosity instead of a terrifying corpse.

  Knowing how many false emergency calls were made by people who hadn’t learned to lock the keyboard of their mobile phones, she thought she’d do better calling the local police station. She’d programmed the number into her phone as soon as Tommy had been born, determined to have every possible protection ready in case anything should threaten him.

  She explained what she’d found on the common, and precisely where, repeating herself when she was asked to confirm everything she’d said. After a minute or two, she was told to wait while she was put through to someone else.

  ‘I understand you have found what you believe is a dead body,’ said the new female voice.

  ‘That’s right. At least my son found it. He’s three. So I came to look.’ She took a deep breath to steady herself, rather proud of the way she was keeping her thoughts in order. ‘She’s in a sitting position, with her head in a polythene bag. It’s kind of like a freezer bag: pale-blue plastic.’

  ‘Is there anyone else there?’ The officer’s voice was sharp, urgent.

  ‘No. She’s behind a stand of bushes on the right of the main path near the tree stumps where the children play. About a hundred yards probably from the railway bridge.’

  ‘OK. Some officers are on their way to you. What’s your name?’

  ‘Maggie. Maggie Sullivan.’ She looked round for Tommy and was glad to see him happily fiddling with something at the edge of the path. He glanced over his shoulder, as though he could feel her gaze, and shouted something about a worm. ‘Lovely, Tommy. That’s really good. You stay there and watch the worm.’

  ‘Great, Maggie,’ said the policewoman’s voice in her ear. ‘You’re doing exactly the right thing. The officers will be with you very soon. Don’t go near the body, and try not to let anyone else.’

  ‘You mean there could be evidence on the ground?’

  ‘That’s right.’ There was a new warmth in the voice, as though its owner had smiled. ‘You said it was a woman’s corpse.’

  ‘Yes.’ Maggie realised the officer at the other end of the phone was keeping her talking to try to stop her running off or interfering with the body. She hadn’t planned to do either. ‘Or a transvestite. But I think it’s a woman. Small feet and glamorous shoes, and a pink-leather mini-skirt. She’s black, by the way. Oh, no!’

  ‘What’s the matter? Come on, Maggie, what’s happened?�
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  ‘There’s a dog, a Labrador, sniffing all round her. What about the evidence? I’ll go and—’

  ‘No! Don’t do anything. If the owner is in sight, get him or her to call the dog off, but don’t approach the body. OK, Maggie? You’re doing really well.’

  ‘I’m not giving birth, you know,’ she said crossly, waving at an ineffectual-looking woman with a dog’s lead dangling from her hand. ‘Get your dog away from here. I’m on the phone to the police. They want it out of the way. Now. No, don’t come any closer. Call it off, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘Labby! Labby!’ shouted the woman, but Labby was much too interested in the body. ‘Labby! Oh, please, Labby. Please. Come on. Come on!’

  ‘People who can’t control dogs shouldn’t have them,’ Maggie said quietly into the phone. ‘In case something happens, you ought to know that it looked as though there was something in the woman’s mouth.’

  ‘Something?’ The officer’s voice was even more urgent. ‘Like what?’

  ‘A pencil or a stick or something. I didn’t see clearly enough to say what, but definitely something.’

  ‘Good for you, Maggie.’ The urgency had softened again, but echoes of it remained. ‘Now, if you look up towards the main road, you should be able to see my officers. Are they there?’

  ‘Yes. Two, in uniform. Coming fast.’

  ‘Good. We’ll need to talk to you and to Tommy. Stay with the officers and I’ll send a car for you. I’ll see you very soon. My name’s Inspector Lyalt.’

  Twenty minutes later, Caro watched the sensible woman walk beside her prancing child towards the police car. There wasn’t much more either of them could say, but they would have to be officially interviewed and a statement taken from the woman. In the meantime, she herself would wait here at the crime scene, until the tent had been erected, the police surgeon had pronounced the body dead, and the whole scientific team assembled.