Gagged & Bound Page 24

  Then she told him about the text messages and saw his expression change to one she’d hoped never to see again: hard, unrelenting fury. Trying to keep her voice from betraying her, she finished the story with her attempts to identify the real Baiborn of Jeremy’s diaries.

  ‘Have you gone completely mad?’

  ‘I know it must seem like that,’ she said, trying, as always, to defuse the anger she dreaded. ‘But taken step by step, everything I’ve done has seemed safe, logical and unthreatening. It’s only when you get it all in a wodge like this, that it seems so …’ She searched for the right word.

  ‘Irresponsible,’ he said, finding it for her. ‘How could you, Trish? How could you take a boy as vulnerable as David, make him trust you and then put him at this much risk?’

  She might have been asking herself the same question, but that didn’t stop her flinching at the horror in his voice, and at what she thought she could see in his eyes. He looked as though he hated her.

  ‘You’ve drawn the attention of some of the most brutal men in London to a fragile eleven year old for whom I am responsible, and you didn’t even warn me?’

  ‘George …’

  ‘When I took him and Julian swimming the other day, he was almost drowned,’ George said in a matter-of-fact voice that chilled her more than any ranting. ‘I thought he’d simply panicked and choked himself, but Julian claimed it was deliberate action on the part of a man we couldn’t trace. I thought he was fantasising.’

  Trish put a hand over her banging heart. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because David didn’t want you worried, and because I didn’t take Julian seriously. Which I would have if I’d known what you were doing. Trish, for God’s sake! David could have died. And I wasn’t looking out for him because I didn’t know he was at risk.’

  ‘I …’

  ‘Has everything I’ve done for you in the past seven years counted for nothing? What more d’you want? Why the fuck can’t you trust me, Trish?’

  ‘Of course I trust you,’ she said at last, thinking of the night she’d found him asleep on the sofa. ‘But Caro—’

  ‘Don’t hide behind Caro. This isn’t about her. This is about you and your obsession with trying to sort out other people’s problems to satisfy your own wholly unnecessary guilt about what your parents did to each other.’

  ‘I don’t—’

  George wasn’t going to listen to any protests now. It was as though a rocket had been launched and was hurtling towards its target. Nothing could stop it. She braced herself.

  ‘Hasn’t David had enough suffering for a lifetime, without you flinging him in the path of the sodding Slabbs to make yourself feel better? You should’ve grown out of this kind of psychotic behaviour decades ago.’

  Gritting her teeth to cope with a pain sharper than she had ever felt before, she said, ‘I am not psychotic.’

  He didn’t even hear her. He was already in orbit. ‘And what has this madness been doing to your practice? You can’t have been in chambers for more than an hour a day for weeks. So, not content with what you’ve done to David, you’ve also been gambling with your livelihood. How long do you suppose your clerk will go on giving you briefs, if you waste your days investigating things that are none of your business? You’re not so bloody clever – or so well thought of – that you can afford to mess about, you know.’

  Trish stood in front of him, quivering with a terrifying mixture of hurt and rage. She didn’t know what to say.

  Was this the end of the life that had made her so happy? Could anyone say such things to someone he loved? She couldn’t have. Whatever George had done to her, she could never have picked his greatest fear and taunted him with it like this. She said his name again, trying to reach the man she’d thought he was, the man she had trusted. Then she couldn’t go on. After a minute, she licked her lips and tried once more.

  ‘George, I can’t answer you now. If I do, I’ll say things I don’t mean. I bitterly regret putting David at risk. If you weren’t so angry, you’d know I would never do that deliberately.’

  ‘You’d have done better to leave him lonely, to take his chances as an orphan in care, than adopt him, teach him to trust you, and then do this to him. I can’t begin to … Sod it. I’ve got to go.’

  He didn’t wait for her answer, but plunged down the spiral staircase. She waited at the top, listening as he collected his coat and keys. She heard the rattle as he lifted them from the bowl by the front door. Was he going to detach hers and leave them behind?

  Chapter 20

  Monday 9 April

  Even though she was driving against the traffic, it took Trish three quarters of an hour to get to Catford on Monday morning. She was still feeling battered by the things George had said on Saturday, and the coldness between them that had lasted right through Sunday and the drive to her mother’s house in Beaconsfield.

  George hadn’t left her keys behind, but he’d made it clear on Sunday morning that he’d returned only to protect David and make sure he was safely delivered to his haven. George had chatted cheerfully on the way out, but on the way back, without David, he’d hardly said a thing. He’d dropped Trish in Southwark and hadn’t even waited until she’d let herself in before driving off.

  She had spent the evening feeling as though someone had kicked her hard in the gut. The thought of food had made her feel sick. With her mind all over the place, she’d even resorted to Lord of the Rings to try to blank reality out of her mind, but it hadn’t worked. Every year of her life with George had passed in front of her eyes, as though she’d been drowning. All the mistakes she’d made, all the clumsiness that must have hurt him had come back to haunt her. If she’d been more clever or more generous, maybe he would have known her better and been able to understand why she’d done the things she had.

  It was clear he was planning to stick by David, which was good, but Trish couldn’t see how their life would ever get back to normal. Nothing could exceed her guilt for putting the child in danger, but she was haunted by the thought that she might also have thrown away the very thing that had made her life seem almost perfect.

  This hellish journey in miserable grey drizzle made it worse. She knew she had to stop thinking about her guilt and her fears. If she didn’t, she’d lose what little brain and self-control she had left, and with them all chance of doing what she had to do now to keep David safe. She might even be thrown back into the state that had once sent her skittering away from chambers, a state she’d sworn long ago that she was never going to inhabit again.

  ‘Stop it!’ she said aloud, banging a fist on the steering wheel. ‘Concentrate on what you’ve got to do now.’

  The first thing she saw when she reached the house was Gillian Crayley, dressed in a neat blue pleated skirt and matching cardigan, putting three empty, well-washed milk bottles on her front step.

  Was it possible? Could this intelligent but prissily suburban woman really be what Trish suspected?

  ‘Hello,’ she said from the garden gate.

  Gillian looked up and her eyes dilated. Trish looked quickly over her shoulder in case there was someone following her, but the street was empty. A second later Gillian smiled and came down the step to greet her.

  ‘Miss Maguire isn’t it? Would you like to come in?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Monday was clearly wash day. The whole house smelled of detergent and wet fabric. From the hall, Trish could see a plastic basket full of damp clothes, presumably awaiting the end of the drizzle, while a machine swished and ground through another load of laundry.

  ‘Coffee?’ Gillian said, smoothing down the pleats of her skirt.

  ‘No, thank you. I came out straight after breakfast because there is something else I have to ask you.’

  ‘I realise that. Come into the lounge.’

  She held open the door for Trish, who sat down once again on the dark-red velvet sofa, with her back to the pristine net curtains. Gillian, hands loos
ely clasped in front of her, took a hard-seated chair beside the fireplace.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘This is a difficult matter to broach, but I have to do it.’

  ‘I understand, and I will, of course, answer everything you ask me. Neither John nor I have anything to hide, I can promise you that.’

  Trish felt her eyebrows twitch. Who on earth did Gillian think she was?

  ‘Last time I was here,’ Trish said, ‘you said very little about John’s natural father.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  Trish put a confident smile on her face the better to hide her uncertainty. The only way she was going to get the information was to trick it out of Gillian by appearing to know it already.

  ‘I wondered whether you would now confirm that he is in fact your brother, Jack Slabb.’

  Gillian got to her feet so fast that Trish recoiled. But all she did was stand facing the mantelpiece with her hands gripping the edge.

  ‘I should have known this would come up. He did his best to ruin my life before it had even started; now he’s threatening to ruin my son’s.’ Her voice was very quiet, but there was no mistaking its bitterness. ‘I realise you have to look deeply into the background of anyone applying for a job like John’s.’ She swung round and looked beseechingly at Trish. ‘But you can’t let this affect his positive vetting status. That would be the greatest injustice. He has never met his father. He doesn’t even know Jack’s identity. Please don’t tell him.’

  Vetting, Trish thought, understanding at last. She wondered whether there were any laws about impersonating an intelligence officer, but she couldn’t ignore the opportunity opening up in front of her.

  ‘Are you sure he doesn’t know?’

  ‘Absolutely certain. And it could never be fair that he should be penalised for things his father has done, none of which has anything to do with him.’

  ‘It’s not for me to say how the information will be used,’ Trish said truthfully. ‘I’m here merely to collect it.’

  ‘I realise that. Only I don’t understand how you found out about Jack and me.’

  Trish opened her mouth, but she had no need to tell any more lies.

  ‘Obviously you can’t tell me. I’m sorry to have asked.’ Gillian put a hand to her forehead, closing her eyes. ‘And I suppose all anyone would have to do is check my birth certificate. I just never thought anyone would bother.’

  Trish smiled, unable to say anything useful.

  ‘What can I say that will make a difference? John deserves this job. He’s worked so hard all his life and he’s never strayed from the path of absolute rectitude. Even if some people inherit criminal genes, John hasn’t. As I told you last time you were here, he’s never been in trouble for dishonesty or violence or breaking any rules, let alone laws. It would be monstrous if he were not to get the job for this reason.’

  And what about Caro? Trish thought, saying aloud, ‘I realise you must have cut loose from your family before John was born.’

  ‘Long before.’ Her face was cold now, and set in lines of unshakeable determination.

  Trish watched her, wishing she had a better memory. All she could recall of Jack Slabb in the photograph was a big jaw and grey hair, and a short, solid figure. In that at least Gillian was entirely different. She must have been nearly six foot and very thin.

  ‘When I was little, I thought Jack was the most wonderful being in the world, so wonderful that it wasn’t surprising he had no time for me. Then, when I saw what he was really like, and discovered what my family did and everything they stood for, I learned to hate him,’ she said, with a quietness that added weight to the statement. ‘Marrying Sid was my ticket out. He was the first truly good man I’d ever met.’

  ‘Did you see much of Jack after you married?’

  ‘Nothing at all until he needed a home for the baby. He’d tried once or twice to see me, and make me take money from him. I wouldn’t do that; I knew where it had come from. And I couldn’t risk getting dragged back into the old life. Jack was always clever at finding ways to make people do what he wanted. I thought he’d given up even trying with me by the time he appeared on my doorstep that day. Even so, I shut the door in his face.’

  Trish waited and heard a heavy sigh.

  ‘Then he pushed open the flap of the letter box and called, very softly, “Gillie, Gillie, I need your help.” I’ve never forgotten that. At first I thought he wanted an alibi or somewhere to hide, then he said it was nothing to do with his business. The neighbours were beginning to twitch their nets, so I had to let him in, and he told me what he needed. I’m sorry I pretended it was Sally who came, but I thought …’

  ‘Did he really pay for the baby’s care?’

  ‘I told you I wouldn’t take money from him. He paid to rent the house where I took Sally during her pregnancy and for the food she needed. Oh, and for the doctor’s bills, of course. But I don’t suppose they were much; the doctor owed him. I thought at the time that he’d probably been struck off for carrying out abortions, but he was a good obstetrician and looked after Sally well enough.’

  ‘And Jack really never tried to have contact with his son?’

  Gillian shook her head. There were tears in her eyes. ‘He said he didn’t want to see the baby or know what sex it was or what I was going to call it. He just said to me when I agreed to help, “I want him or her brought up decent, Gillie. Maybe it’ll give me a foothold in heaven when the time comes.”’

  Trish thought that didn’t sound remotely like the Jack Slabb anyone else had described, and she wondered how much of the story had been embellished by Gillian’s own needs and feelings in the years since she had taken on his baby.

  ‘And you called him after his father because …?’

  ‘Because I needed to believe that somewhere in Jack was the brother I’d always wanted. His asking to have the child brought up decently made it seem possible there was.’

  ‘I see,’ Trish said, aching with sympathy.

  The harshness had gone from Gillian’s voice. She looked like any mother pleading for her child. ‘You won’t penalise John just because his father’s a well-known face, will you, Miss Maguire?’

  ‘As I said, that’s not down to me. But you’ve been very cooperative; I’m sure that’ll help. Thank you. I hope I won’t need to trouble you again.’

  Gillian just nodded, apparently beyond speech.

  Trish drove back to London, as fast as the remnants of the rush-hour traffic into the city would allow, turning over in her mind everything that might have happened to put John Crayley’s adopted identity at risk.

  There were two possibilities. Something about the way he looked or behaved when he lived with Stephanie Taft could have made her suspicious of his real origins. If she had investigated those and discovered that Gillian had been born a Slabb, it wouldn’t have been hard to uncover the rest of the story. Or else Gillian was deluded and John knew precisely who his father was and had had enough contact with him to leave some kind of evidence that Stephanie had picked up.

  ‘I think he always knew,’ Trish said aloud, staring through the windscreen. ‘No wonder he’s got that firewall to stop anyone guessing what goes on in his head.’

  But there was still no evidence. Without it, there was nothing she could do. David might never be safe. Something in what she and George had talked about before the row had given her a clue she’d planned to follow up. Then she’d told him about the threats to David and he’d turned on her. The things he’d said had blocked the recent past out of her mind. What was it they had been talking about?

  She was afraid to go back into all that pain to get through to the other side. But she’d have to do it. She felt as though the fight and the cracking of the trust between them had wiped the surface of her mind as completely as a computer disk passed across a strong magnet, but there must be something left.

  They’d been talking about Jeremy Marton and his diaries and George had asked where they’d been
hidden. If Trish could concentrate on that part of the evening, she’d be all right. Forcing herself back into it, recreating the sensation of eating the huge green olives she’d put out to go with the sharp Sauvignon in their glasses, she finally put herself back there.

  ‘So where had Jeremy hidden his diaries?’ George was asking.

  ‘I haven’t found out yet. All I know is that they were with the clothes and pathetically few other possessions his mother inherited after his death. It’s all been rather difficult because Bee won’t allow me to tell Mrs Marton why we need information. The diaries could have been anywhere. Jeremy might even have wrapped them in thick polythene and buried them somewhere inconspicuous in his parents’ original garden, only to dig them up when he got out of prison.’

  ‘That’s a bit dramatic. Given the kind of people you’ve described, I should think he probably left them with the family solicitor. That’s what I’d have done.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they have handed them on to the police?’

  ‘In 1972? Of course not. If a client gave his solicitors an unidentified wrapped package and asked him to keep it along with his will and any other documents, it wouldn’t have been handed over to anyone without a court order. And no one would have got a court order; it would have been a matter between client and solicitor. Privileged. You know that, Trish, as well as I do. What’s happened to your wits?’

  Now, waiting for a red traffic light to change at the junction of New Cross Road and the Old Kent Road, she wondered why a solicitor’s strong room had never occurred to her as a likely hiding place for the diaries – or any other dangerous document. Too obvious, perhaps, like the hiding place of Edgar Allan Poe’s purloined letter. But perhaps Stephanie Taft had been more wide awake to the possibilities than she had. The lights changed and Trish drove across the junction.