Bridge of Sighs

by Priscilla Masters

‘Well, Martha, this is a nice surprise.’ He paused, waiting for her to explain why this break with the usual.

  She drew in a deep breath and plunged in. ‘I don’t suppose you could manage lunch?’

  ‘Today?’ He sounded only mildly surprised. And she felt a pricked balloon of relief.

  ‘To be honest, Simon, I need to talk.’

  His surprise intensified. ‘You need to talk?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘To me? I’m flattered.’ She could feel the warmth of his smile even over the phone line.

  ‘Surprised but flattered. OK.’ His slightly smarmy charm oozed out then, like whitening toothpaste out of a tube. ‘If you need to talk, Martha, however unlike you it is, then I need to listen.’

  Inwardly Martha groaned. Was there even a note of sincerity behind his words? But Miranda, her best friend and natural confidante, was currently away for six months on an exchange visit to Belize. Something to do with her job in public health, she’d said airily, so she was out of the picture too. And Martha did need to unburden herself. They arranged to meet at a pub overlooking the River Severn, off the beaten track, where it would be quiet.

  Knowing she would be meeting him later and at least have the opportunity to talk helped the morning to slip away.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Friday, 14 April, 11.30 a.m.

  Curtis Thatcher was much as she’d remembered from their brief encounter at the inquest. Smart, smooth and slick, slightly prone to stockiness, with Italian good looks, a hooked nose and very dark eyes. He had a sallow complexion and wore an excellently cut dark pinstriped suit which practically disguised his expanded waistline though not quite. And although he was probably only about forty he even had the greying temples to add silver fox gravitas to his charm. He oozed confidence and the odour of some sort of men’s aftershave sweet enough to pass as perfume.

  He arrived bang on time, which Martha appreciated. She hated being kept waiting, finding it an insult to her time and a subtle message of superiority. Jericho ushered him in, his face deliberately impassive. Thatcher’s dark eyes swept around the room before appraising her with sharp and penetrating intelligence, maybe wondering how far he could trust her. To face him from behind her large mahogany desk which stood in the centre of the room would have implied too much formality for this interview. She wanted Thatcher to feel at home, comfortable, relaxed and off his guard. So she settled him opposite her in one of the armchairs in the bay window. The implication was that in this part of the room everything was off the record. It was, actually, just an implication.

  Although she had the feeling that to Curtis Thatcher this attempt at informality would make no difference. She had the feeling that every word that came out of his mouth would already have been carefully edited. Initially he was silent, waiting for her to open the interview, ask the questions. For the briefest of minutes she held back, simply studying him, trying to read the emotion he was hiding below the surface. His appraisal of her continued after the niceties and introductions had been observed.

  So she picked up on something in his gaze, a frown which from his smooth and untroubled forehead she guessed was not habitually there, and when he did speak she had the impression he was selecting his words even more carefully than when he was in court, whether defending or prosecuting.

  She began with the easy questions. ‘How long were you and Gina partners?’

  ‘Seven years.’ He answered this easily enough, his hands – long, slim fingers, polished nails, bony knuckles – resting casually on the chair. No tension there.

  Martha waited and he filled her in, almost anticipating her questions before she voiced them.

  ‘I advertised for a partner and she applied. She was planning for Terence to attend Shrewsbury School when he was old enough so she was keen to move here. I think Mrs Shannon lived somewhere near Wrexham but was planning to move nearer so she could be around for Terence. That would make her work commitments possible.’ He frowned. ‘Anyway, when Gina responded to my advert she already had it all worked out.’ His smile was a tribute to her memory. ‘She was like that. She had a very tidy, organized mind, worked things out way into the future.’ Another smile, not at her directly, but again, in his partner’s memory. ‘She could see trouble when it was over the horizon and this made her a very good prosecutor and defender. When she responded to my advert I liked her immediately. She was a charismatic woman, wasn’t she?’

  Martha often had this problem. Coroners only meet the dead and their relatives. ‘I never really met her,’ she said, awkward at this half-truth. She had met her – or more literally seen her, noticed her, heard her, felt her presence, her extrovert personality at that party at the golf club two years ago – but she had not spoken to her or acknowledged her. Coincidentally she had attended that party with Simon, today’s lunch date. Only now was she catching up with her own mind. Had Simon known Gina? Had it been instinct that had led her to ask him out for lunch today?

  ‘Actually,’ she said to Gina’s partner, ‘I did – at least – see her.’ She conjured up the curvaceous figure, the large, wide mouth emitting a noisy, almost horsey laugh. The long, thick, dark hair being tossed around to dramatic effect. But the recall was overtaken by her current role in this and her mind swiftly made the connection to the extensive injuries Mark Sullivan had listed. However hard she tried to banish the images of the ruptures, fractures, impacted bone, haemorrhage and facial trauma, that wide, laughing mouth mashed into God knew what, they would not go. To try and replace them with the living woman, she added, ‘She was a really beautiful woman.’

  Curtis nodded. ‘Beautiful in soul as well as in character, Mrs Gunn. She was generous, truthful, honest, warm and as incisive in the court room as a newly sharpened rapier.’ He was smiling.

  Interesting word that. Rapier. Thin and sharp, used for thrusting.

  ‘So …?’ Martha was driving towards the point of this meeting.

  Curtis opened his mouth but nothing came out. He was struggling. Partly through emotion but also, Martha was realizing, through selective editing. He needed to decide what he should say. He was, like a computer, running quickly through numerous possibilities, leafing through a thesaurus, considering words, phrases, rejecting them, altering them, choosing, cutting and pasting until he found the right text. Martha needed to prompt him. ‘Tell me about Gina’s cases,’ she said, keeping her tone light and only mildly interested.

  ‘Fun,’ he said. ‘We had some really interesting work. Mosha Steventon’s case resulted in more work than we could handle. Sometimes criminals have unrealistic expectations of what a lawyer – even a brilliant lawyer – can do. But Steventon was a real cool customer. And very generous. We got him off on some quite complicated details of the law. Some of the police work was missing. And to be honest the Inland Revenue hadn’t been quite as meticulous as one would expect from a government agency. Steventon was so grateful he sent most of his villainous friends our way, convinced we would be able to get them all off.’

  ‘And did you?’ Martha asked curiously. This was an aspect of Gina’s life she hadn’t really considered enough. Maybe it was time to move outside the family circle, move away from Julius Zedanski and ask herself the real question: who could have wanted to destroy Gina Marconi? Or more truthfully: what sort of person could have wanted to drive Gina Marconi and possibly Patrick Elson to destroy themselves?

  Surely a disappointed criminal.

  ‘We got some of them off.’ Curtis grimaced. ‘Not all of them. Some of them should have gone behind bars and didn’t; others had lighter sentences because of extenuating circumstances we dug out of some dark hole or other. But others, Mrs Gunn, got their just deserts.’

  Which gave them a motive – for Gina’s destruction at least.

  ‘Were there any cases where Gina should have got a client off but failed?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, reluctantly dragging the words out. ‘I always felt she could have done a better job of defending Jack Silver.
’

  ‘His crime?’

  ‘Handling stolen goods. I mean, he was caught red-handed.’

  ‘With …?’

  ‘Some antique jewellery. The result of a violent robbery which resulted in life-changing injuries to the victim and his wife. It was such a nasty crime, made the headlines everywhere with allegations of torture, that Silver was bracketed with the actual perpetrators. I don’t think Gina did the best she could to defend him. Maybe she was distracted by her approaching wedding.’

  ‘What’s happened to Silver?’

  ‘He’s currently awaiting sentence. And of course now Gina won’t be around to mount an appeal.’

  ‘Would she have made a better job of it?’

  Thatcher shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ He was thoughtful for a moment before continuing. ‘He was fairly livid, as was his family.’

  ‘But he’s inside?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Martha was thoughtful. Could Silver have got to Gina? From inside? She didn’t think so. And Gina would have been wary of a client who held a grudge against her. ‘You like your job, Mr Thatcher?’

  Curtis Thatcher gave a long, heartfelt sigh and his dark eyes fixed on Martha’s face. ‘I could be cynical and say it pays the bills,’ he said with a small smile. ‘And that’s true. It does pay well. Or I could tell you the truth, that sometimes I enjoy my work, the challenge of presenting a case at court; at other times I hate it.’ And the note of bitterness that had crept into his voice told her this was the truth that had won through the other considerations.

  He turned the tables on her. ‘And you, Mrs Gunn? Do you enjoy your job?’

  ‘Like you,’ she said. ‘Sometimes.’

  Though she could have expanded on that. Her job too was sometimes distasteful – the death of a child; the demise of an alcoholic; the wrecked life of a victim of child rape; a wife murdered by a husband; the sordid tale of a drug addict; the final release of a child with a congenital abnormality who had suffered every day from birth; the suicides. But at other times, like Thatcher, she loved it.

  ‘Could Jack Silver have any bearing on Gina’s suicide?’

  The question patently startled Thatcher. ‘How? There can’t be any doubt that she drove her car into the wall deliberately. She wanted to die.’

  Martha kept her thoughts to herself and her voice deliberately dispassionate.

  ‘We don’t know everything, Mr Thatcher. She didn’t leave a note so we’re left with confusion and I have to explore every possibility to indicate her state of mind when she left the house. That includes examining the work which brought her into the circle of some fairly unpleasant and dangerous people. If a violent criminal has reason to hate her he might have wanted to wreak havoc on her life.’

  Thatcher looked even more startled. She caught the twitch of worry at the corner of his left eye and pressed on. ‘Tell me more about her.’

  ‘Gina had a brilliant brain,’ he said. ‘Almost intuitively she could spot chinks of light in the law and use them to her advantage. But she did have a strong moral sense.’ His frown deepened. ‘I think Zedanski brought that out in her.’

  Ah, so, back to Zedanski.

  ‘Do you like him?’

  Thatcher’s feet shuffled. He looked awkward. ‘I didn’t really know him that well.’

  Martha was not going to let this one go. She simply waited. Silence makes a good prompt.

  Again, Thatcher chose his words carefully. ‘He seems a really good fellow.’

  Seems? She would have to be content with that. Other people – mainly the general public – had a much higher opinion of him.

  Who would know him best? The general public believe they know someone just because they see his face almost every night on the television. They like them, they dislike them, because of something superficial: the wrong tie worn, the wrong word inserted, the wrong angle of the camera. The truth is they don’t know them at all. Only people close to them know the real man behind the television screen.

  ‘Because of Steventon she brought in a lot of business,’ Thatcher volunteered.

  ‘Does that mean you could pick and choose?’

  ‘To some extent, yes.’ Again, she was struck with the care he was taking over these words and their significance.

  She moved on. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Were there any …’ Like Thatcher, she too was choosing her words very carefully … ‘loopholes Gina might have employed that were … questionable?’

  Curtis Thatcher wasn’t even embarrassed. ‘We all do to some extent.’

  They both knew what she was asking. Which won – Gina’s integrity or her manipulation of the law?

  Martha was seeing Gina Marconi in a new light – an unfamiliar light – not with a halo, not as some beautiful, talented paragon but as a woman immoral, a woman not above using the gaps in the law to free criminals and feather her own nest. It was those two words he had used earlier when talking about Steventon.

  Very generous.

  She reminded him. ‘You said that Mosha Steventon was very generous.’

  Thatcher’s eyes were full on her.

  ‘Did you mean by that that there were backhanders? Bribes?’

  Curtis seemed unperturbed by her question. ‘Not as far as I know. I mean I don’t think so.’ He gave a small laugh. ‘Our fees are plenty high enough. No, what I meant was that he provided us with clients. In the beginning, when a new partner is taken on you can be a bit short on the briefs sent your way. After she got Mosha off we were never short of work again.’

  Time to use that rapier and thrust. ‘You must have made some assumptions about her suicide, Mr Thatcher?’

  Again Thatcher was unperturbed by the question. His body language didn’t change. Hands, feet, legs, eyes, mouth – all remained still. Except he nodded. Just the once. ‘I …’

  Martha waited. She would not prompt or lead. This must come purely from him.

  Photographs.

  Curtis shifted slightly then his eyes fixed on Martha’s face. Puzzled but honest. ‘Look,’ he said awkwardly, ‘Gina was good at not showing her emotion. Her talent was for hiding things.’

  Again Martha waited.

  And he continued, proceeding very slowly, testing the water as he spoke, measuring out each word. ‘In general,’ he said, ‘she was careful. Very careful. She was mixing with some dangerous people and she knew it. Some of them were psychopathic, sociopathic, malicious and cruel men – and women – who would not hesitate to use anything against her if they thought it might buy them freedom or a lighter sentence. These are people who are born twisting arms, manipulating people, using people merely to get their own way, using them like pawns in a chess match. They’ll do anything without regard to loyalty or friendship or what’s right and proper. What’s right and proper to them is what they want. Just that. The only language they speak is violence.’ He leaned forward, spoke with urgency. ‘You know the saying “honour among thieves”?’

  She nodded.

  ‘There’s no such thing. They will drop anyone in the shit if they think they can get away with it. They don’t have social values of loyalty. They don’t have those sorts of emotions.’

  Women. Martha almost breathed the word. He’d said men and women. He’d dropped that in to his rant deliberately. The subtlety of women to needle and goad is well known, like the ability and talent to push someone into a corner and wait. And with women Gina’s good looks might have counted against her rather than for her.

  Thatcher’s eyes were boring into hers as though he was trying to convey something else. Something beyond words, a phrase not to be found in any dictionary.

  She tried to pick up on it. ‘You mentioned women.’

  ‘The wives and partners of her clients.’ She knew again this sentence was deliberate. He was pointing her in a direction.

  ‘Anyone in particular?’ She kept her voice casual.

  And then he backed off. ‘Look,’ he said awkwardly, ‘I don’t want to point the finger. Gi
na recognized the danger of mixing – no – of getting too close to these people and was guarded, but like many strong people she had an Achilles heel. Peter Lewinski, the guy accused of road rage, seemed to have some sort of hold over her. He visited her once or twice at the office and seemed to bother her, threaten her, upset her. He’s a scary guy.’ He leaned forward slightly in his chair. ‘But this is pointless. I know and you know, Mrs Gunn, that Gina set out that night to destroy herself.’

  Martha kept her thoughts to herself and listened without responding.

  Curtis continued. ‘She knew she wasn’t going to come back. This was obviously not an accident.’ He settled back in his chair, certain of his facts. ‘Only a fool would even consider that option. So that means that she was leaving Julius, whom she adored. She really did. She was devoted to him and he to her. She loved … no, that’s not enough. She was proud of him and the work he did.’

  Again Martha was reminded of Sukey. That adoration. One way in her case. No sign of Pom returning the favour.

  ‘And Zedanski,’ she prompted. ‘Was he proud of the work she did?’

  Thatcher looked startled by the question and didn’t answer straight away. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’ve never really considered that angle. I suppose. I mean, I’m sure so. She would have made him a beautiful, lovely wife.’

  Trophy wife? Trophy wives must remain so – perfect – an asset. Perhaps, Martha thought, she was beginning to thread the black pearls together to make a necklace. Or the beads of a rosary.

  Thatcher seemed to think he needed to contribute more. ‘I’ve seen them together,’ he put in. ‘They would have been a perfect couple.’

  Martha smiled. Curtis sounded almost sentimental. She wondered about his own domestic arrangements. Married? Partner? Single?

  He continued. ‘Her suicide means she was abandoning Julius as well as Terence and her mother. Gina was a loving person. She would only have done that under the most dreadful threat.’ He paused again to let his words sink in. ‘A dreadful threat. And that means something …’ Again he couldn’t find the word.