Gagged & Bound Read online

  ‘I just want to know how your lot would go about investigating a terrorist outrage if the bomber-in-chief confessed,’ Trish said, bounced into organising her ideas as she spoke. ‘Would you leave it at that and be happy to see him convicted on his own, or would you try to find out everything about him, his antecedents and his friends and so on?’

  ‘The latter, of course. I’m surprised you even need to ask. What kind of bombing are you talking about? And how are you involved? A client?’

  ‘Not exactly. Don’t look at me like that, Caro. I have no contact with any kind of terrorist. I’m only asking because of a possible defamation case. My bombing happened more than thirty years ago, but I don’t suppose police methods have changed that much. Say it was being investigated now, would your lot do the digging themselves, or would they hand it over to the security services?’

  Caro’s shoulders twitched. She didn’t quite glance behind her to check for eavesdroppers, but she looked as if she wanted to.

  ‘Why are you asking me? Why haven’t you just looked up the trial transcript?’

  ‘There won’t be anything useful there because the bomber pleaded guilty, so the only way I’m going to find out how the investigation went – or even might have gone – is to talk to someone involved. You’re my only friend in the Met, and you’ve always helped when I’ve needed you. That’s why.’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you anything this time, even if I knew what went on thirty years ago. Which I don’t. I was barely at primary school then. And things will have changed, believe me.’

  ‘Primary school,’ Trish repeated, remembering the dead and maimed children on the bombed bus. ‘Let me tell you why I’m asking.’

  ‘You can tell me, but it won’t make me answer.’ Caro sipped her espresso, watching Trish over the top of her cup as she listened to the story.

  ‘I vaguely remember reading something about it after he killed himself,’ she said at the end, looking a little more like her usual affectionate self. ‘I can see that this biographer of yours has had very bad luck, but I still can’t help you.’

  Trish felt a frown tugging at her forehead. Caro had never refused her before. Not outright like this.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Caro bit the edge of her thumb, then wiped it with her other hand and looked over her shoulder.

  ‘There’s a job I’m after,’ she said at last, much more quietly than usual. ‘I can’t say much because it’s all …’

  ‘Secret?’ Trish suggested, itching with curiosity.

  ‘Confidential,’ Caro said firmly. ‘So if the selectors got to hear I’d been talking about interaction between the police and security services, I’d be off the shortlist at once. And I want it, Trish. More than I’ve wanted anything for years.’

  ‘I never thought you’d leave the police. You’ve fought so hard to get where you are. Why chuck it all in now?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be leaving. The job involves liaison with … well, with other agencies. It’s nothing to do with bombs or terrorists but, even so, I can’t talk about our interaction with the security services. Not even to you.’

  ‘Pity.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Trish. And you won’t …?’

  ‘Gossip about your hopes? Of course I won’t, Caro.’ Trish was hurt.

  Chapter 3

  Tuesday 13 March

  Caro walked briskly back to the police station, hoping she hadn’t blown her chances. She didn’t really have any doubts about Trish, who had never been leaky in the past, unlike some other barristers whose love of a good story meant they couldn’t keep their mouths shut for a second. But this was so important she was edgier than she’d been for years.

  She was glad Trish had asked no questions about why she wanted the job because it would have been hard to answer without sounding self-important. Pausing at a zebra crossing for the traffic to notice her and stop, Caro tried to think of an acceptable way to explain why she had to move on.

  The trouble was she’d become disillusioned with ordinary policing and wanted to do something more. She’d begun to feel as though all her strength went into a forlorn attempt to control the unending stream of disaffected young men that poured into the police station. Angry, bored out of their skulls, usually drunk, they were neither helped nor chastened by anything she could do.

  Watching them on their way to clog up the courts and prisons, she could understand why so many of her colleagues longed to be confronted with more dramatic villains, like the horrific psychopaths of gory fiction. Chillingly picking out their victims and subjecting them to unspeakable torment before they killed them, such men did exist, but only in tiny numbers. Most police officers would go through their entire careers without encountering one.

  Caro wasn’t interested in hunting sick individuals like that. She wanted to go after the gangs of organised criminals, who had poisoned whole areas of London with their drugs and their lesson that greed and violence would always pay, destroying generations of children as they did so. These criminals had to be eradicated like any other pollutant, but it was going to be hard. If the new Serious Organised Crime Agency really took off, all would be well, but it was going to be a while before that happened. In the meantime, only the combined efforts of all the relevant agencies and police forces could make a difference. And the efforts never would be effectively combined without brilliant liaison.

  I could do it, she thought. I know I could.

  ‘How’s it going, Guv?’ said the desk sergeant by way of greeting as she pushed her way through the double doors at the nick.

  There was the familiar crowd of vulnerable people sitting on the uncomfortable chairs in front of him. As usual one or two of them looked in dire need of psychiatric care, muttering and twitching. They all shared the resigned expression of people for whom waiting was a fact of life. Hoping they’d find some help here, but glad it wasn’t her responsibility to provide it, Caro ignored the lift and ran upstairs to her office, barely panting.

  She thought of her first interview with the selection board. There’d been two men and a woman and none had been introduced. They’d subjected her to a gruelling forty-five-minute session, but she’d acquitted herself well, and the chairman’s eventual friendliness had given her the impression that she had a good chance. Leaving the big, sombre room with more excitement than she’d let herself feel for a long time, she’d come face to face with the next candidate waiting to be questioned and lost most of her confidence.

  It was John Crayley. They’d worked together briefly about six years ago, and she’d known at once that he was a winner, who would go all the way. Clever, well liked by both men and women, and a good thief-taker, he’d quickly become an excellent manager. Now he’d been promoted to chief inspector ahead of her and was working in an important policy-making job at Scotland Yard. He’d even done some time undercover in between. He would have to be anyone’s first choice for the liaison job.

  ‘Hi, Caro.’ He had smiled at her, but there had been an odd, calculating look in his eyes. ‘I didn’t realise I was up against you, or I’d have retreated straight away.’

  ‘Come off it, John.’

  ‘I’m serious. At any other moment in history, I might have expected to walk into a job like this,’ he’d said, with no more arrogance than she would have had if she’d been in his shoes. ‘But I’ve been told they’re keen on the idea of a woman this time.’

  ‘D’you know who else is on the shortlist?’

  ‘Nope. I didn’t even know about you. But if it’s going to a woman, you must have a damn good chance.’

  ‘Thanks. Good luck,’ she’d said, hoping she’d managed to hide her frustration.

  Now, alone in her office and facing a desk piled high with paper, she could let it show and stretched her face into a childish expression of loathing and disgust.

  The very smell of the room seemed to spell uselessness: dusty, chalky, stale, it seeped into all her clothes. Sometimes when she woke, she could smell it in her
hair. Last week she’d dreamed of finding herself walled up in the new extension that was being built on the old car park. She had to get out of here.

  Sitting down at her desk, she reached for the top folder in the pile and forced herself to work.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you, Inspector.’ The tremulous voice made Caro look up. One of the newest of the civilian clerks was cringing in the doorway.

  ‘That’s OK.’ Caro forced a smile. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Nothing. You just looked very angry. I only came to bring your messages. I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Caro held out her hand for the clutch of notes.

  ‘The top three are the urgent ones,’ the clerk said, before she scuttled away like a startled insect.

  Caro riffled through the notes, picking out the first three and putting the rest aside for later. One made her frown all over again.

  ‘Stephanie phoned. She needs your advice on a delicate personal matter. Can you call her back as soon as possible?’

  Caro couldn’t think who ‘Stephanie’ could be and she didn’t recognise the mobile number scribbled below the message.

  ‘Guv?’

  She looked up to see Fred Walley, one of her most stalwart CID sergeants.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We picked up a suspect for the Cranley depot robbery this morning. You know, the one when—’

  ‘They set the security guard on fire. I know. Good for you.’

  ‘He’s not one of the main men, but he knows something. I can’t get him to talk. Will you give me a hand in the interview room?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. Anything was better than dealing with more forms.

  The first person Trish saw when she climbed the stone stairs at 1 Plough Court was Robert Anstey, her greatest rival in chambers.

  ‘Morning, Trish,’ he said. ‘What have you done to your pupil?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘She was running about asking for you an hour ago, looking even more dishevelled than usual. I thought you must have stolen her hairbrush again.’

  ‘Idiot,’ Trish said and was disarmed when he laughed. ‘I’d better see what she wants.’

  For once Nessa wasn’t working, and she looked unusually nervous.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Trish asked, stripping off her coat and hanging it on the hook at the back of the door.

  ‘It’s the messages. The light on your phone was already winking when I got in at eight this morning. I thought there might be something urgent, but then again I thought it might be private, so I didn’t know whether to listen or not. And you’ve been such a long time. I … wasn’t sure what to do.’

  ‘Ah. Thanks. Don’t worry.’ Trish was already reaching for the phone. ‘I’ll deal with it, whatever it is.’

  There was only one message, delivered at gasping speed.

  ‘Trish? I’m sorry to bother you so early. This is Bee. Bee Bowman. You said you’d be prepared to talk about what happened at yesterday’s meeting. The one good thing is that my publishers don’t want to try to whip up a profitable scandal. Apparently one or two others have tried that in the past and come a cropper. Each time sales have failed to outweigh the legal costs involved. But they do want to make a stand. I passed on what you said about unintentional defamation and token damages and making the claim go away, but they’ve said it’s getting too tempting for all sorts of people to raise frivolous claims and walk off with a few thousand, so they’d like to dig their toes in this time. But they say they need more information from me before they and their insurance company can decide for sure. As things stand, they say they can’t see any way for Lord Tick to win against us, so they don’t want to back down. Like Antony, they think he’s unlikely to take this any further. But in case he does, I’m supposed to provide all the background information I used for the book and anything else I can find. You said we could talk this morning and that would be great. I need to talk. But only when you’ve got time. I know how busy you must be.’

  What have I done? Trish thought. No wonder the rules required clients to come through solicitors. Memories of George’s warning returned to mock her. The phone rang.

  ‘Trish?’ Beatrice’s voice sounded a little calmer, which was encouraging.

  ‘Yes. I had a meeting so I’ve only just got in and heard your message. I’m glad you haven’t got to worry about being the centre of a media circus. I haven’t yet had time to get the names of the best defamation specialists, but I will. Then you can get some separate advice. I’m sure your contract will entitle you to that.’

  ‘It’s not formal professional help I need.’

  ‘Then what?’

  There was a pause before Bee said: ‘Partly someone – like you – who’s used to gutting documents for the crucial bit of evidence that will swing a case. You see, the only documents about the bombing are Jeremy’s diaries, and I’ve been through them already – obviously – and found nothing to identify the real Baiborn. But you – someone like you – might be able to see clues that would help.’

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose.’

  ‘But, you know, even more than that I need a friend. A sensible friend, who understands the way the law works and can tell me when I’m worrying unnecessarily – or when I’m not as hysterical as I ought to be. You see, I’ve got to the stage where I just can’t tell any more.’ ‘A kind of legal agony aunt?’ Trish suggested, to lighten the doomy atmosphere.

  ‘That’s right. I know I’ll go mad if I can’t talk about the case, and I’ve got to keep it from my husband. He has MS, you see. He’s already in a wheelchair and he mustn’t know how worried I am. It could trigger another relapse.’ Bee gulped audibly down the phone, then spoke more firmly, ‘You were so kind to me yesterday. If I had you to talk to when it gets too bad, I could probably hold on. I’d find a way to pay you your hourly rate, I promise. Whatever it took, I’d find a way to pay you.’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that. There are rules and codes for briefing barristers.’

  ‘I know. But I’m not asking you to be my barrister, just my legally knowledgeable friend. I can’t tell you how much I need that.’

  However much Trish might want to help, she couldn’t take on an open-ended commitment like this.

  ‘Look,’ she said after a moment, ‘I’ll certainly read the full diaries for you – on the same friendly basis that we’re having this chat – and tell you if there’s anything I think you could follow up.’

  ‘That would be wonderful,’ Beatrice said, sounding as though she was trying to force enthusiasm into her voice. ‘But could you? I mean, have you got time?’

  ‘For the diaries, yes,’ Trish said, weighing up the possibility of Steve’s bringing her a really crunchy new brief in the next few days. She couldn’t refuse that, however desperate Beatrice might be. ‘For the rest, let’s take it as it comes. I’ll help whenever I can.’

  ‘You are kind.’

  ‘You do understand, don’t you, that I wouldn’t be offering what we call counsel’s opinion on the diaries or your chances if Lord Tick does take the claim to court? You’d need a defamation specialist for that.’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ll get the diaries packed up and sent to you as soon as I can.’

  Trish put her head round the door of Antony’s room a few minutes later. He looked up and beckoned her in.

  She told him what she’d done and was intrigued to see the changing expressions on his face. He looked irritated at first, then almost amused, and finally resigned.

  ‘It’s good of you to agree to help her out, but I’m not sure I understand why she wants you so badly.’

  ‘Thanks for the compliment, Antony.’

  He laughed. ‘She’s barely met you, and you know even less about libel than I do. Don’t get too involved, Trish, and don’t let it compromise your own work. Now, what about some lunch? There’s a new Japanese restaurant I want to try.’

  ‘So long as I can have my food cook
ed. I can’t be doing with all that raw fish, however pretty it looks,’ she said, remembering the slipperiness of the sushi he’d once made her eat, and the sticky sharpness of the vinegar-flavoured rice.

  ‘Coward! All right: for the pleasure of your company, I’ll put up with your unsophisticated tastes.’

  It’s obviously my day for discreet meetings in out-of-the-way coffee bars, Caro thought as she waited for Stephanie Taft at the end of the day.

  This steamy, sticky place was a lot less welcoming than the Café Rigoletto, but it was already full. Caro knew she’d have to buy something else to eat or drink if she wanted to keep possession of the grubby table. Already there were dozens of people crowded around the bar, casting resentful looks at the spare chair, and there was still no sign of Stephanie.

  They had never been friends, which was why Caro hadn’t recognised either the name or the mobile number, and they hadn’t worked in the same nick for at least nine years. But any delicate matter Stephanie wanted to raise had to be taken seriously.

  Like Caro she was in her thirties, but a series of whistle-blowing campaigns had made her unpopular, and she was still a constable. Her finest hour had been the dismissal of an even longer-serving constable last year. He had been notorious for terrorising recruits of both sexes for years. Stephanie had come upon him laughing at a young man he’d reduced to tears and had decided to go after him. She’d stuck with it, too, in spite of threats from his mates and warnings from various senior officers that she was doing herself no good with the vigour of her campaign. Everyone was better off for the man’s departure, but the fallout had been bad and a lot of innocent people had suffered from it.

  The last thing Caro wanted was to become involved in any campaign like that, however worthy, but she couldn’t ignore the call for help. She looked down at her watch again, irritated to be kept waiting by someone for whom she was doing a favour.

  At last the street door opened and a woman wearing dark glasses and a rain hat paused on the threshold, looking around. Caro wasn’t sure enough of her identification of this apparition to wave, but she looked straight ahead, knowing that her face would be visible from the door. The new arrival nodded and moved towards her.