A Greater Evil Read online

A grunt answered her. She took it to mean there would be time. David now gestured upwards. Trish slipped off her mucky shoes and left them by the door, saying more quietly: ‘Give me a yell if I’m needed.’

  ‘Sure.’

  She ruffled his hair and felt some comfort when he leaned towards her rather than pulling away.

  ‘I couldn’t do without you,’ she said and took herself off upstairs.

  Typical, she thought as she stripped off her clothes, that our tough times are coinciding.

  The nearest she and George ever came to quarrelling these days was when they’d both been too spiky with stress to read the other’s feelings or had exasperating clients at the same time. As a solicitor, George’s relationship with his clients was different from hers, but both could throw up problems. With luck tonight he would cook himself out of his bad mood and she’d see what drumming hot water would do for her.

  It had its usual helpful effect and, as she turned her face up to the jets, she worked herself back into the knowledge that this was her life. However awful Gina’s anguish, and Sam’s, whatever the pain and terror in which Cecilia had died, they were separate from the existence Trish had with George and David. It wouldn’t help Gina, Sam, or Cecilia’s baby to let their horrors damage this. When George was in a fit state to hear what she needed to tell him, he would provide all the care she could possibly want and almost certainly suggest ideas that would help her answer Gina’s question. In the meantime she would do what she could for him. All would be well.

  Stepping out of the shower onto the cold tiled floor, she reached for a scarlet towel and slipped. Her feet flew from under her and she fell, twisting, throwing out an arm to save herself. Her funny bone caught on the towel rail. With a wrench that felt as if it might pull the arm out of its socket, she stopped the fall. Awkward and hurting, she found a way to reverse the momentum and stood, feeling shock retreat in waves of prickling adrenaline.

  Minutes ticked by before she was free of it. She bent to pick up the thick red towel and felt her head swim again. Straightening, she wrapped the towel around her long thin body and picked her way across the condensation-slippery tiles with extra care.

  She hoped the dinner George was cooking wouldn’t be too elaborate. She could never eat much when she was worried, and the adrenaline hangover was making her feel sick. Dry once more, she pulled on a pair of loose wool trousers and a long sweater and padded downstairs in her socks.

  David had laid the table and there was an opened bottle of burgundy in the middle. Surprised by the choice of wine because they usually drank basic New World stuff during the week, she reached over to pour some into the two big glasses. A heavy footstep made her look up.

  George stood in the kitchen doorway, wearing a blue-and-white-striped apron over his clothes and carrying a tea towel slung over one shoulder. His firm-chinned face was tight, and the evening’s stubble looked dark against unusually pallid skin.

  ‘Hi. Good day?’ he asked, not meeting her eyes.

  ‘Not exactly. You?’

  ‘No. Are you ready to eat? It’s a cheat’s boeuf bourguignon. There wasn’t time to cook the real thing.’

  ‘Sounds great. I’ll call David.’

  ‘He’s on his way. Just washing. Sit down and I’ll bring it.’

  ‘D’you want to talk before he gets back?’

  ‘Too much to say. Too complicated. When he’s gone to bed. Okay?’

  ‘Sure.’

  They ate more or less in silence, but the atmosphere wasn’t too bad, and the well-cooked chunks of meat were fairly easy to swallow in their unctuous sauce. Trish managed to finish her plateful, and David asked for more and another baked potato. As he was splitting it, preparatory to ladling in some of the sauce, Trish asked him how his day had been at school.

  For once he told her in considerable detail and she recognized that his growing-up had good sides to it. He was much more articulate tonight than he’d been as a little boy, and able to talk about mistakes and fears as normal things anyone might have, instead of trying to make himself perfect to avoid disappointing her – or perhaps giving her an excuse to throw him out.

  Trish joined in with questions and laughed at all his jokes. Gradually George too put aside whatever was worrying him and the atmosphere brightened into something almost normal.

  ‘Any pudding?’ David asked.

  ‘Greedy pig,’ said George, who had only recently and with great difficulty shed four stone. He had all the zeal of the convert who could vividly remember his own hunger and didn’t see why the rest of the world should be let off. Or perhaps why they shouldn’t share in the rewards that now seemed to him to be worth all the pain. ‘There’s plenty of fruit.’

  ‘I’m a growing boy,’ said David in the pathetic voice of a starving Oliver Twist. ‘Unlike you, I need my calories.’

  ‘There’s three sorts of ice cream in the freezer. Help yourself.’ When he’d gone to fetch it, Trish added, ‘That was great, George. I wish stress made me a brilliant cook too.’

  He laughed, even though his eyes were still worried. ‘There wouldn’t be room for two of us in your titchy kitchen. Much better to have different angst-busting techniques. D’you want to talk about your day first?’

  While David was in the kitchen, she told George briefly about Cecilia. There was no point splurging out everything she felt or explaining the complications of her earlier connection with Sam Foundling.

  ‘I heard about her death in the office today. I’m sorry.’

  ‘What? Why? What connection did she have with your firm?’

  ‘Too much,’ he said, looking away. When he faced her again, she saw a mixture of worry and an unfamiliar hostility. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d been briefed on the London Arrow case, Trish?’

  ‘Because neither of us ever gossips about our clients,’ she said, silently asking herself why he’d asked such an obvious question. Then she saw what the answer must be and felt as though the ground beneath her was tilting. ‘Are you involved too?’

  As he nodded, she ran through the names of all the solicitors at the settlement meeting. None had been from his firm.

  ‘Who’s your client?’

  ‘QPXQ Holdings,’ he said, naming a conglomerate that owned property all over the world and making her heart sink. ‘A couple of months ago they bought out the company that owned the Arrow.’

  Trish already knew that, but Leviathan’s solicitor had assured her the change of ownership would make no difference to the case or to any of the professionals involved.

  ‘We handled the buy-out,’ George went on, ‘and since some disastrous negotiation last Friday, QPXQ have decided to sack the original solicitors and give us the insurance claim, along with all the rest of their work. Which means you and I are on opposing sides.’ He hesitated, then swallowed a mouthful of wine as though he couldn’t work out how to say the next bit.

  Some of his hostility had gone, but all the anxiety was still there, which wasn’t like him. Trish was supposed to be the mercurial, impulsive one, with an imagination that could show her terrors almost anywhere. George’s job was to provide solid foundations of unshakeable common sense.

  ‘We’ll have to declare the conflict of interest,’ he said, producing the words as though they hurt his mouth. ‘But even a formal declaration may not be enough to satisfy everyone.’

  ‘I’ll take this to my room,’ David said, emerging from the kitchen with a bowl the size of a baby’s bath, filled with ice cream. ‘That way I won’t disturb you.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Trish said, then caught sight of the quantity he’d given himself, ‘but put at least half that back first.’

  ‘Tyrant,’ he said, but he slouched back into the kitchen to do as she said.

  ‘Go on, George.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. Or mine,’ George went on with a dogged fairness that was much more his style. ‘But it’s a situation. QPXQ are our biggest corporate client.’

  ‘Need it matter?’ she s
aid, fighting everything he hadn’t put into words and beginning to understand Cecilia’s hatred of coincidence. ‘Can’t we just carry on operating Chinese walls and not talking to each other about our cases? I’m on opposite sides from fellow members of chambers all the time and it never bothers anyone.’

  ‘QPXQ don’t like it. So much so they’re threatening to remove their business. And I mean all their business, not just this one case. If they do, it would screw any chance of a profit this year. We could even make a loss. So no profit-share for the partners, no pay rises for the staff, and a lot of anxiety about the future for everyone.’

  The muscles in Trish’s face were tight enough to make her feel as though someone had slapped plaster of Paris all over her skin and it was setting hard. David walked past without a word, this time with a respectable quantity of ice cream in his bowl. She waited until he was safely in his room before turning back to George.

  ‘Have QPXQ specified the price of sticking with your firm?’

  He gazed helplessly at her, wanting her to be the one to say the unsayable. His brown eyes looked much softer now.

  ‘They can’t seriously be demanding I return the brief halfway through.’ The idea was ludicrous and she let her contempt for it show.

  ‘I got the impression today that the suggestion can’t be far off.’

  ‘Then I hope you’ll explain the cab-rank rule to everyone concerned.’ Her voice was crisp and clear.

  She was referring to the system by which members of the Bar had to take the next case offered to them, whatever they felt about it, provided they had the time and expertise necessary. There were ways round the rule, but it existed and she did her best to stick by it.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly withdraw,’ she said to make her position clear before his anxiety ran away with them both.

  ‘I know that. They may not.’

  ‘They’ll have to put up with it. And don’t tell me their next idea will be for you and me to split up to keep them happy,’ she said, trying to make him laugh with a complete absurdity. ‘Look, why have they only just started to worry about this? I got the brief nine months ago. They must have been aware of all the details from the moment they decided to buy the Arrow’s owners. Why now?’

  George shrugged, which wasn’t enough for Trish. The timing was too pat, with this protest cropping up only just after the abandonment of the settlement talks. Coincidence might be all around, knitting apparent strangers together in weird and dangerous patterns, but this was something else.

  ‘Could they have raised the conflict as a way of preparing the ground for an appeal if the judge finds against them when we do go to court?’

  All the softness was gone from George’s eyes. His face was clenched again into a frown that suggested four words he would never use to her: don’t be so silly.

  ‘Or is this more to do with your partners than the client? Is one of them trying to use it against you?’

  The grimace melted into a kind of apology that told her all she needed to know. Her imagination did the rest. She saw him flung out of the firm he’d done so much to build, and all because of her. She saw him diminished and fighting resentment and herself trying to make it right, trying to go on nurturing her own career without making him feel a failure. She saw disaster for them both.

  ‘It may never happen,’ he said at last.

  ‘Who’s behind it? Malcolm Jensen?’ she said, naming a young, thrusting lawyer who’d joined George’s firm only two years ago and had been causing him trouble ever since.

  He nodded. ‘He’s a prick of the first water, but he’s powerful because he brought a lot of big clients with him, and they love him. He goes right to the edge for them.’

  ‘Then we have to go further. You’ve got to fight this, George. We can’t let him beat you.’

  Chief Inspector Caroline Lyalt, facing the first murder enquiry for which she was wholly responsible, felt a passionate resentment that frightened her. Why did Trish of all people have to be the chief suspect’s alibi witness?

  Caro had already phoned home to tell her partner, Jess, that she had no idea when she’d be back. Jess had taken the news with all the philosophy she’d learned over their years together and merely wished Caro well, adding that she herself might nip out to see the latest Hamlet at the National, in which one of her friends from the Drama Centre was playing Claudius.

  ‘Good idea. I’ll see you when I see you,’ Caro had said, before putting down the phone.

  The report of one of the team’s phone call to Trish’s chambers lay on top of the pile in front of her. The rest were accounts of preliminary interviews with the victim’s family, close colleagues from her place of work, and tenants of the studio building where she’d been killed. Caro would have to talk to Trish herself, but there was another phone call she had to make first. It should be easier, too. Checking the time, she calculated that it would now be five in the afternoon in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  ‘Hi,’ she said when she’d got through to Harvard University, ‘I’m calling from London, England. May I speak to Professor Andrew Suvarov?’

  There was a pause before the operator returned to say: ‘Professor Suvarov is in Europe. Can I have him call you back?’

  ‘When did he fly out?’

  ‘I have no information on that. Would you like to speak with his assistant?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Hi,’ said another voice a moment later. ‘This is Professor Suvarov’s assistant. I understand you are calling from England?’

  ‘Yes. I’m Chief Inspector Caroline Lyalt of the Metropolitan Police. I am anxious to talk to Professor Suvarov, who may be able to help with some background to a case I’m working on. I gather he’s in Europe. Can you tell me when he left and where he might be now?’

  ‘He flew out last Friday to Paris, France. His schedule is busy, but I’m in contact with him. Would you like me to have him call you?’

  ‘That would be great. Or if you give me a phone number or email address, I can save you the trouble.’

  ‘I’ll have him call you.’

  Caro gave her own number, then put down the phone, thinking of the stilted conversation she’d had with Mrs Justice Mayford in her library-like room in the private part of the Royal Courts of Justice. It was the first time Caro had penetrated that far into the huge building, and she’d thought it was more like a university than anything to do with the reality of crime she saw every day. Maybe it was no wonder some judges came up with such impractical ideas and pathetic sentences.

  ‘I can assure you, Chief Inspector Lyalt,’ Mrs Mayford had said, gripping a pencil tightly between her hands, ‘my daughter’s father has never known of her existence. Ergo, he has never made any attempt to contact her. Nor could he possibly have had anything whatsoever to do with her death. He is a professor at Harvard and is based in the United States.’

  ‘I understand,’ Caro had said, not entirely truthfully. ‘But we have to look at everyone who could have been involved in her life, and I’m trying to eliminate as many as possible right away. All it would take is a simple phone call to confirm that he’s there and could not have been in London yesterday. If you would just give me his name, I can do the rest. You need have no contact with him.’

  At last the judge had released the pencil. She’d used it to write the name on a piece of scrap paper. ‘As I said, he doesn’t know he’s Cecilia’s father, and I would be grateful if you would merely confirm his presence in Cambridge and go no further. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes. If we need to ask anything else, I’ll let you know before I do it.’

  It had been a relief to get out of the high-ceilinged, oak-lined room and its atmosphere of sticky disdain.

  Just my luck, Caro thought, that my first case involves not only my best friend, but also a highly respected judge, and an internationally famous sculptor. She had already had Sam Foundling’s agent on the phone, as well as Frankie Amis, the solicitor Mrs Justice Mayford had found for
him.

  Both the callers knew Foundling must have done it, but they’d made it clear to Caro (as if it hadn’t been clear enough without either of them) that any leaks to the press, any infringement of his rights, any slip in the gathering, collating or storage of evidence, would make the case disappear in front of her eyes, and her reputation with it. Which was why she had to be seen to be looking for every other possible suspect, however far-fetched he might be.

  To make matters worse, Foundling had also refused to have anything to do with the family liaison officer Caro had chosen with such care. He didn’t need anyone, he’d said, and his tiny daughter, hanging on to life by her barely formed fingernails in the Special Care Baby Unit at Dowting’s Hospital, would have no use for anyone either. All he needed, he’d said with barely suppressed fury, was the right to return to his studio.

  Caro had secured the services of the best SOCOs, and they’d been through the long untidy room like voracious moray eels, sucking up everything they could find. Scrapings, hairs, strips of sticky tape with all kinds of fluff and dust clinging to them, and plenty of blood samples were now in the lab, awaiting analysis. There were the ashes of some kind of textile burned in the stove, the rug that had lain in front of the tatty old sofa, an oriental throw that had covered it and was also saturated with the victim’s blood, her clothes, her husband’s clothes, and a whole vacuum-cleaner bag full of dirt to be sieved and assessed.

  Every surface had been photographed before and after it had been searched; samples of every bit of the blood that had splashed all over the room had been taken and recorded.

  Sam Foundling had volunteered to strip and be photographed for any signs of defensive wounds inflicted by his wife. There hadn’t been anything except some deep scratches on his hands and wrists, which he claimed had been made while he was trying to stop her thrashing about and injuring herself still more. He’d let them take nail scrapings and he’d given reasons for the bruises on his hands before submitting to all the swabs the doctors had panted to rub in and over different bits of his body. In every way he had behaved like an innocent man.