Out of the Dark Page 2

  The thinner officer was demanding the driver’s documents. She looked terrified now, as well as shivering and ill, and hardly seemed to understand what he wanted.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Trish said, impatience adding a rasp to her voice. ‘You know perfectly well that hardly anyone carries insurance details, or even a driving licence. The law requires a driver to present her documents to a police station within seven days of being asked to do so. She’s got plenty of time. You have breathalysed her and found her clear of alcohol. She can’t have been driving anywhere near the speed limit or there would have been a lot more damage to the car as well as the child. You haven’t any reason to detain or bully her like this. And she should be in hospital.’

  The officer’s face looked as though all the life had been washed out of it. Trish knew she’d blown her cover and could have sworn in irritation. She’d been so careful to avoid telling these two that she was a barrister, knowing how much most of them loathed ‘briefs’ for the way they were assumed to use legal technicalities to protect the guilty.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of trying to bully anyone, Ms … What’s your name?’

  ‘Maguire. I told you that before. Trish Maguire.’

  ‘OK.’ He turned back to the driver to give her instructions about taking her documents to the police station, before reminding her that they had her name and address and would be contacting her when a decision had been taken on whether to charge her. He hoped for her sake that the victim survived. Penalties for killing by means of dangerous driving were increasing with every case. Then he and his colleague exchanged glances and moved towards their car.

  ‘Are you just going to leave her here?’ Trish demanded, following them.

  It appeared they were. They were not going to arrest her at this moment. Her smashed car was not causing an obstruction, and the wall had not been damaged. In due course, after their investigation was finished, she would be able to get the car towed to a garage. She wasn’t injured. She wasn’t their responsibility.

  ‘But she needs medical care.’

  ‘There’s no sign of injury. If you think she should be in hospital, I’m sure you can make the arrangements for her.’

  Trish wished she’d kept her mouth shut. This, she was sure, was punishment for her profession and her intervention on the driver’s behalf. But she was too worried about the woman’s condition to play games now. The rigors were shaking the driver so violently that Trish was afraid she might break her teeth.

  The officers drove away. Trish felt panicky and powerless and quite unlike herself. All she could think of was the sight of the bloody, broken body that had been huddled at the foot of the wall. Hearing the sound of deep gulping sobs, she turned. The driver was bent double over the bonnet of her car, howling.

  ‘He’s going to die. I know he is.’

  ‘Come on,’ Trish said, trying not to join in. ‘I’ll drive you to hospital. Get you checked over. You’ll be all right then. And don’t worry too much about the child. He was still alive when they put him in the ambulance.’

  ‘Oh, God!’

  Trish was still conscious of her own lack of clothes and the clumsy great boots, but the need to get her protégée into someone else’s hands was too urgent to waste time dressing. The T-shirt and coat would have to do. And she could probably drive such a short distance in the ridiculous boots. She helped the driver fetch her handbag from the car and lock the doors before they set off towards the car park that preserved Trish’s soft-top Audi from the attentions of the local car thieves and graffiti artists.

  She kept thinking about them as she urged the woman on towards the car park. It could have been no more than a reaction to the police officer’s prejudice about her neighbourhood, but for the first time Trish felt uncomfortably aware of loitering figures at each road junction. Some were black, some white, but they were all youngish men. Most of them looked either shifty or aggressive. She kept her eyes down and walked as quickly as her boots and companion would let her.

  Later, driving to the hospital, she thought the grim streets had never looked more desolate; high, flat-fronted buildings with blank windows made them seem like chasms. Under one of the railway bridges, splattered with pigeon shit and strewn with rubbish, she saw the sad lumps of two rough sleepers. They were guarded by a scrawny mongrel, whose eyes flashed as the headlights hit home.

  By the time she was helping the driver through the puddles towards the Accident and Emergency entrance to the hospital, Trish could feel a huge blister on her right heel. She delivered her burden to the receptionist, who took the few details the driver could provide, including her name: Sarah Middlewich. The receptionist told her she’d be seen by the triage nurse as soon as possible. Trish couldn’t stop herself asking for news of the boy.

  ‘Are you a relative?’

  Trish explained.

  ‘Well, I can’t tell you anything, but if you’d just wait there, next to your friend, I’ll find someone who can.’

  Sarah Middlewich clutched Trish’s arm as she sat down, gasping that she’d left her mobile in her car.

  ‘That’s OK. You’re not allowed to use them in hospitals anyway. There are payphones over there. Have you got any change?’

  Tears poured out of the woman’s eyes again. ‘I need to ring Charles. He’ll be worrying.’

  ‘Your husband?’

  ‘Yes. Look at the time. He’ll be so worried.’

  She looked so out of it that Trish tried to be gentle as she pointed to the bank of public phones about six feet away. When Sarah reached them, Trish let herself slump back in her chair, shutting her eyes.

  ‘This is the lady who was asking about the boy,’ said the receptionist, making Trish pay attention. There was yet another angry-looking police officer in front of her.

  ‘I’m Constable Hill,’ he said. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Trish Maguire.’

  His eyes sparkled and his unsmiling lips stretched into a tight band across his teeth. She couldn’t imagine what he was thinking to make him look so accusing, or why he was peering so beadily into her face. She leaned back. ‘I think you’d better come along with me,’ he told her.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just come. You wanted to know about the boy. I’ll show you.’

  Feeling as though she might be about to wake up in her chair with her mind buzzing after a nightmare, Trish accompanied Constable Hill to a large, dimly lit room full of machines, people in pale-blue scrubs, and an atmosphere of pumping excitement.

  Between the blue backs, Trish saw the boy lying flat. His head was taped down and tubes sprouted from various parts of his body.

  ‘Get her out of here,’ said a tall man with a stethoscope around his neck.

  ‘This is Trish Maguire,’ said her policeman with an extraordinary mixture of satisfaction and portentousness in his voice.

  They all stopped what they were doing for a moment and there was absolute stillness. Then two of them turned to stare at Trish. They had blood down the front of their scrubs and on their gloved hands. She was conscious of a row of gaping faces before everyone went back to work.

  ‘What?’ she asked. A hand on her back pushed her towards the bed. Two nurses moved a little way apart to clear her view of the boy’s face. She couldn’t see anything to justify all this drama, so she glanced at the doctor, then at Constable Hill, then at each of the nurses. All those who caught her eye had the same expectant look on their faces.

  ‘What?’ Trish asked again.

  ‘Don’t you recognise him?’ said the policeman.

  Trish peered between the tapes and bandages and tubes. ‘No. Who is he?’

  ‘That’s what we want you to tell us,’ he said, pulling her back, out of the way of the medical team. His gripping hand hurt her.

  Patiently Trish explained yet again about her role in the accident’s aftermath.

  ‘You’re really telling us you’ve never seen him before in your life? That you don’t know who he is?’

&
nbsp; ‘How many more times? Yes, that is what I’m telling you.’

  ‘Even though he was coming to find you? And he looks just like you?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You can hardly see his face with all those scrapes and bruises, let alone the dressings. And what makes you think he was coming to me?’

  ‘Well, he had your name and address sewn into the seam of his fleece, didn’t he? What other explanation could there be?’

  With the walls closing in on her and the floor bursting up to meet her face, Trish tried to protest. As she was losing consciousness, she heard the voice say:

  ‘I bet you anything he’s her son.’

  Chapter 2

  ‘God, you look terrible, Trish!’

  Her old friend, Anna Grayling, sounded so shocked that Trish hastily said she was fine. ‘I didn’t sleep much,’ she added as she sat down at the wine-bar table.

  If this lunch had been with anyone other than Anna she’d have cancelled, but the two of them were both so busy that they rarely managed to find a day when they could meet, and it had been months since their last encounter. Trish had hoped the coral T-shirt she was wearing with her black jeans and natural linen jacket would have given her some colour – and a disguise. She should have known better. Although Anna was an independent television producer these days, she’d started her career as an investigative journalist and she still saw far too much.

  Trish put up a hand to make sure her spiky hair hadn’t mysteriously flattened itself and was reassured. ‘There was a car crash outside my flat last night, and I got embroiled with the police and the hospital. I fainted, too, and then they asked all sorts of questions. It took hours.’

  ‘Poor you. But even so …’ Anna sounded genuinely sympathetic, but her eyes were full of the old professional curiosity.

  Trish buried all thought of her miscarriage. ‘When I eventually got home, I was too revved up to sleep, so I took a pill. And that’s given me the mother of all hangovers.’

  Anna pushed a menu towards her. ‘Food’s the thing for that. Without George to cook for you, you’re probably malnourished, which will be why you fainted. Choose a lot. I’m paying.’

  A smile fought through, as Trish thought of her perennially cash-strapped friend volunteering to buy lunch.

  ‘Don’t look so sceptical. I want to feed you up. In any case, I owe you.’

  That was true enough, but Trish wasn’t convinced. They’d been friends for years, but she’d learned to be wary of Anna’s machinations.

  ‘Then thank you. I … Oh, I’d like the fishcakes, I think, with some spinach instead of chips.’

  ‘Great. And what about a bottle of Sancerre?’

  ‘Only if you can manage five glasses. I’ve loads of work this afternoon, so I can’t have more than one.’

  ‘I thought barristers slacked off all summer.’

  ‘Not these days – at least not at my level. All the big silks are off in their Tuscan palaces and French chateaux, but the rest of us are hard at it. I’m not in court at the moment, but that doesn’t mean there’s no work. I’ve got a big commercial case to prepare.’

  Anna’s face fattened in satisfaction. ‘So I hear. You’ve got the fascinating Nick Gurles, haven’t you?’

  So this is why I’m getting a free lunch, Trish thought. Oh, well. It could be worse. ‘You must know I don’t talk about my cases or my clients.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Anna managed to attract the waiter’s attention and ordered their lunch with two glasses of house white wine. ‘But I did hear your head of chambers was acting for him and that you were to be the junior. Fraud’s quite a change from all those damaged children, isn’t it? Why did he pick you?’

  I wish I knew, Trish thought, worried all over again. But she put on her most confident smile and said, ‘I needed a break from family law – to let the aquifers refill and all that.’

  ‘Yes. I can see how fifteen years of marital distress and child abuse could drain one’s compassion.’ Anna had always been able to pick up Trish’s allusions. It was one of the reasons why her occasional bouts of complete self-absorption had never irritated Trish quite as much as they did some of her other friends. ‘But it must have been hard for you getting to grips with the City and people like Nick Gurles. I don’t suppose there could be two more different worlds.’

  ‘It’s certainly been interesting.’ And that’s an understatement, Trish thought. She’d struggled for weeks with the evidence, jargon and personalities in the case – and the maths – longing for a Ladybird Book of Finance to guide her through.

  The waiter brought their wine and Anna tasted hers. ‘Not too bad. But Trish, I hope you’re going to be OK. I mean, this case isn’t your sort of thing at all, and Nick Gurles is said to be a nasty piece of work behind all that suave charm.’

  Trish was far too experienced to rush into defending him. Instead, she raised an eyebrow and merely said, ‘I didn’t know you knew him.’

  ‘I don’t. But I was having lunch with my venture capitalists the other day, and they were full of the case, which is how I heard you were involved, and why I thought we ought to talk.’

  Anna waited for Trish to add to her store of knowledge – or gossip. Trish smiled, sipped her wine, and kept everything she knew about Nick Gurles to herself.

  He’d started his professional life as an analyst in a merchant bank in the City and gone on to spectacular success in fund management there. Having a talent for PR, he’d also built up a reputation in the outside world and had become a bit of a hero to the personal finance journalists. Some years later, he’d been headhunted by one of the retail banks, the Domestic and Overseas.

  The DOB, as it was nearly always known, had lost its pre-eminent position on the high street, and the directors had decided that the only way to regain it was to revamp their savings products. They’d had to pay way over the odds to lure Nick Gurles to do it for them, and to compensate him for the humiliation of moving so far downmarket, but it had been a dream appointment for them. Their shareholders, both institutional and private, were so excited that the share price boomed, the directors’ share options began to look good again after years under water, and the atmosphere within the bank lightened at once.

  He’d done well for them, bringing back a lot of their old customers and building up new loyalties. He’d been feted and lushed up, given the biggest, lightest office and the best-looking of the leggy graduate secretaries. Then, just before the board had got round to offering him the directorship everyone knew he’d earned, he’d decided to return to the City. The DOB’s share price dropped instantly, and the directors’ share options looked more out of the money every day.

  Things had got worse once it was discovered that he’d left a ticking timebomb behind. His last big project had been the launch of the MegaPerformance Bond Fund, which had guaranteed to pay savers 5 per cent more each year than Treasury bonds yielded. Unfortunately the fund had failed to generate the expected high returns and the investors’ capital had diminished. Some of the disgruntled punters, who had assumed that they would get back all their original investment as well as the extra high yield, irrespective of what happened to the markets, had sued the bank and its directors for fraudulent misrepresentation. The directors had joined Nick Gurles into the action as a third party.

  ‘How does it feel, Trish,’ Anna asked gleefully, ‘to be responsible for the man’s future like this? You know that if you lose, Grunschwig’s will kick Gurles out, and he’ll never get another job in banking, don’t you? Serve him right, of course. Greedy slimeball.’

  ‘I’ve been responsible for much more serious outcomes than anyone’s career.’ Trish thought of some of the children whose lives had probably been saved by care proceedings in the past, and of the others who’d died because neither social services nor the police had picked up danger signals or been able to protect them. But she didn’t want to talk about any of them now.

  ‘What were you doing lunching with your backers?’ she sa
id quickly. ‘They’re not being difficult again, are they?’

  ‘God no. Business is fantastic,’ Anna said, happy as ever to be diverted back to her own interests. ‘We’ve got five new films in production and stacks of ideas.’

  She tucked into her fishcakes, picking up the chips in her fingers and dipping them alternately into bowls of ketchup and tartare sauce, muddling the red and white into a sludgy mess. ‘And it’s all thanks to you, Trish. If we hadn’t made the Deb Gibbert film, I’d probably be bankrupt by now. You’ve earned your fishcakes, even if you won’t help me with City dirt.’

  Trish smiled, although her memories of the unhappy woman who’d been the subject of Anna’s campaigning television film were anything but amusing. ‘How are the Gibberts? It must be so tough for them both.’

  ‘Tough? Being released from a life sentence after only four years? You must be joking, Trish. Deb ought to be radiantly happy as well as slavishly grateful to us. And that weedy husband of hers, too.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound as though you’ve seen them recently.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Anna said through a mouthful of sauce-dripping chips. ‘You don’t keep up with your old clients; I don’t make friends with the subjects of my films. I did everything I could for Deb while we were in production, and we got her out of prison. I don’t see how I could be expected to do more. I mean, you haven’t seen her, have you?’

  ‘No, but I’m in touch with her daughter. She wants to be a barrister.’

  ‘That’s different. She adored you from the word go.’ Anna drank again. When she put down her glass, she looked different, less defensive. ‘Actually, watching you with Kate made me see what a fantastic mother you’d make. You won’t leave it too late to get pregnant, will you?’

  The half-eaten fishcake suddenly looked fleshy and disgusting, and the pool of tomato salsa like blood. Saliva rushed into Trish’s mouth. She hoped she wasn’t going to be sick. Another sip of wine helped.