Out of the Dark

by Natasha Cooper

  She pressed ‘send’, switched off the computer, set the burglar alarm and was waiting at the bottom of the iron steps as her mini-cab drove up. As she sat in the back of the rattly old car, which smelled of the dressing-up box of her childhood, she tried to psych herself up for the entry into Antony’s princely world.

  The mini-cab left the harshly lit commercial bustle of Kensington High Street and slowed down as the driver turned to ask Trish the way. Exasperated that he hadn’t bothered to look up the address she’d given when she booked the cab, she directed him through the cream-stucco oasis. Ahead of them a black cab going the same way reared up over innumerable speed bumps, like a giant tortoise bent on mating. The houses on either side were huge and the streets wide and quiet.

  Checking off the numbers, she told the driver to stop outside the Shelleys’. Double-fronted, the great Victorian villa had a black iron canopy over the front path and black-and-white tiling on what would have been the front gardens. Trish thought it was the kind of house George would have liked. For herself she’d want something either much older or absolutely modern, and a lot less pompous-looking. She rang the bell.

  The door was opened by a woman even taller than Trish, with the smoothest glossiest blonde hair Trish had ever seen. She was wearing a beautifully made, classically designed, cream-coloured wool dress. With its perfect neckline, short sleeves and neat waist, it had ‘designer-label’ written all over it.

  She must have to have it dry-cleaned every time she takes it out of the wardrobe, Trish thought in horror.

  ‘Hi, I’m Liz, Antony’s wife,’ the woman said, standing aside. ‘You must be Trish Maguire. I’d recognise that hair anywhere.’

  Trish only just managed to stop herself pressing down some of the spikes. She felt about fourteen and clumsier than she’d ever been as she tripped over the threshold.

  Inside the house, her first impression was of delicious smells. They came partly from the cooking, she decided, and partly the flowers. There was a huge mixed pink-and-white bowlful on an oak chest to her right. She didn’t know much about flowers but recognised lilies, delphiniums, paeonies and roses among the rest. Their scents mixed with the furniture polish and something else teasingly light and hard to identify, which emanated from her hostess.

  ‘D’you want to leave anything?’ Liz asked, looking amused. Trish thought she must have been showing too much awe.

  ‘Nothing to leave except this,’ she said casually, holding out the small amber-coloured clutch bag in which she kept her keys and money. She dumped it on the chest beside the flowers. ‘Who told you about my hair? It’s hard to imagine Antony’s even noticing it.’

  Liz’s carefully made-up face creased into a smile that made her look much too young for the expensively formal dress.

  ‘He’s not such a misogynist, you know. He’s like you – he only pretends. He thinks your hair’s a very good disguise, by the way. Even he was taken in for a while and believed in your famous ferocity until he found out how gentle you are. Come on in. We’re in the drawing room.’

  Gentle? thought Trish. I’m not sodding gentle. And if he thinks I’m going to be a pushover for Nick Gurles, he can think again.

  Liz floated ahead down the hall, while Trish stumped along behind, wishing she’d worn jeans and Doc Martens. Then she made herself behave. Tonight she was Antony’s guest. Whatever he was up to could be confined to chambers. Liz opened the door into a large drawing room and waved Trish in.

  The sparse but perfect furniture, the honey-coloured parquet floors and the ravishing silky rugs made her almost faint with envy. She loved her own echoing, sub-industrial flat, but walking into this glowing mini-palace was like wrapping herself in brightly coloured cashmere. The Old Masters on the walls looked like fakes because they were so familiar. But the thing that surprised her most was the quietness. The doors were so thick and so well-fitted that they muffled all sound, and no hint of traffic or passers-by leaked in.

  You could really rest in a place like this, she thought, as her jaw relaxed for the first time in days.

  ‘Come on in, Trish.’ Antony’s familiar voice, with its edge of slightly malicious amusement, woke her to reality and she moved forwards. He was holding a bottle of champagne. ‘You look a lot better for the sleep. Will you have some of this, or something else?’

  ‘That looks great,’ she said, looking round for his wife. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Liz has gone to oversee the kitchen. Come in.’

  She followed him into the back half of the drawing room, which overlooked a large garden. There were yet more astonishing paintings, and a blur of cream warmed with dull gold and apricot colours. Later she would notice the patterns of old brocade and faded tapestry beside the admirable simplicity of plain card lampshades and coarse linen covers. Now all she saw was ease and warmth and comfort, and a small crowd of other people, some of whom looked nearly as familiar as the paintings. Antony poured her a glass of champagne and introduced her to Sir Henry Buxford, the Chairman of Grunschwig’s.

  Surprised to see him there, Trish reminded herself that he was not their client, even though he was underwriting their fees. She wondered whether he was going to grill her about her plans for Nick Gurles or lean on her to collude in the suppression of the disastrous manuscript note, but he was far too sophisticated to do either. He behaved as though he’d never heard of her, but was interested in everything she had to say, offering stories of his own past at the Bar to amuse her.

  Watching his bright brown eyes, which she suspected saw far more than he ever let on, and his sensual mouth, she decided she liked him but would have difficulty trusting him without a lot more evidence. She began to let bits of herself show through the careful politeness she’d assumed. By the time they’d both finished their champagne, she thought she knew him well enough to ask whether he ever missed the Bar.

  ‘Why?’ he asked, the light in his eyes dimming a little. ‘D’you think you would?’

  ‘I know I would. I love what I do, even the painful cases. And all the stories everyone tells suggest you did, too. It must have been a real sacrifice to go on the bench.’

  ‘It certainly wasn’t a life that suited me. Unfortunately the one thing you can’t do if you stop being a judge is revert to the profession in which you excelled. But I’m interested in your enthusiasm. I’d understood from Antony that you were becoming disillusioned.’

  ‘Not disillusioned exactly,’ she said, hardly noticing that Antony was refilling her glass. ‘Just keen to work with commercial cases that might let my sore heart mend a little. Sorry, that sounds disgustingly sentimental.’

  ‘Yes. But as expressive a misquotation as I’ve ever heard.’

  She enjoyed the momentary eye-meeting of shared amusement. How interesting that a man like Henry Buxford should know such schmaltzy songs.

  ‘You must beware of caring too much, Trish. I …’

  ‘You?’ she prompted.

  ‘I was once, long ago, a junior in a big matrimonial-finance case. We were for the wife and it was my big chance to show how sharply I could cross-examine. I really went for the husband, wanting to show my leader – and my clerk – that I could be a man-eating shark, too.’ He looked down at his glass, drank, then looked back at Trish. His eyes reminded her of David’s for a micro-second. ‘The husband hanged himself that night.’

  ‘God, how awful,’ she said, putting a hand on his forearm. ‘You must have … It must have taken you ages to get over that.’

  ‘A while. I …’

  ‘Dinner, everyone,’ Liz Shelley called from the double doors at the far end of the big room. She opened them, revealing a mass of candles in glass sticks and more flowers, this time scentless, Trish noticed. No wonder, if they took their wine as seriously as George’s email had suggested.

  ‘I’m glad to have had this chance to talk to you,’ Buxford said. ‘I know now that Antony was right all along. My boy Nick is in good hands.’

  Oh shit, Trish thought, but she
kept a polite smile on her face as they all went into dinner.

  She didn’t get home until nearly one and knew she was lucky to have got a cab so easily. All the way back to Southwark she’d been mentally drafting a mouth watering account of the food and wine to send to George. He’d have appreciated the foie gras in Sauternes much more than she did, but she’d liked the simple, beautifully cooked partridge that came next and the astonishingly fresh-tasting Burgundy. She could happily have stopped there, but the cheeses looked and smelled so amazing that even she couldn’t resist, and after that there was a hot apricot tart with crème fraiche.

  As she was paying off the black cab, wondering whether she would ever need to eat again, rain started to fall. She shivered as the drops trickled down her bare arms and the cabbie fumbled for her change. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man getting out of a beige car that had been parked just ahead of the taxi. The man looked very small. In the glow of the streetlight, his hair looked very fair.

  Trish gripped the pound coins she was about to give back to the cabbie, afraid they might slip out of her wet hand.

  ‘Look,’ she said, hating her own breathlessness, ‘my flat’s at the top of those iron stairs there. Could you wait until you’ve seen me inside the door? Here.’ She handed him not only the coins, but also a ten-pound note.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, sounding puzzled. He looked around and saw the other man. Hauling on the handbrake, he turned off his ignition then got out of the cab. ‘I’ll come up with you. Who is he? Boyfriend?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ Trish said, glad of the cabbie’s broad shoulders and powerful muscles. ‘He’s probably nothing to do with me, but in a lonely street like this …’

  ‘And an area like this. Come on, love.’

  Prepared to trust any man who was licensed to drive a black cab around London, Trish let him put a burly arm around her back and usher her up the iron staircase towards her own front door. He waited patiently while she found her keys and unlocked her door. Then he handed her back the ten-pound note.

  ‘Why? I meant you to have it.’

  ‘It’s fine. You were right about him. Look.’

  Trish looked after his pointing finger and saw the taillights of the beige car moving towards the end of the street. There was no bulb over the numberplate. Even so, she could see that there was mud all over the plate, hiding the figures. She shivered.

  ‘Yeah,’ said the cabbie. ‘Whatever he wanted, he was up to no good. Lock your doors tonight, love.’

  ‘I will. Thank you very much. But look, do take this.’ She gave him back the tenner. He raised a finger to his forehead, then pocketed the money, clumping down the iron stairs in the rain.

  Late as it was, Trish went round the flat, checking all the window locks even before she did anything about her wet arms and shivering body. But when she was sure there was no way anyone could get in, she stood under a boiling shower for ten minutes. Warm at last, she hoped she’d sleep.

  Itching with tiredness next morning, she knew she must have big black bruises under her eyes, but she didn’t waste time looking at them. Having burned her mouth on a mug of instant coffee, she soothed it with an overripe banana that had been nestling in a bowl of gently rotting apples, then ran to get the car for her trip to Maidstone.

  The case was even more painful than she’d expected, but at least it kept her mind from her own troubles. The hopeless mother was a fat, white-faced lump with sparse, greasy hair and ugly clothes, who gave her evidence in a voice that combined a whining edge with blankly obstinate incomprehension. Trish could see her counsel’s despair and sympathised. But almost anyone would have been a safer custodian of a child than this woman and so Trish couldn’t let sympathy get in her way.

  The other barrister was a lot younger than Trish and patently nervous. Going up against her, Trish felt like a fully armed paratrooper exchanging fire with a toddler holding an airgun. But she had a job to do and a child to protect, so she gave the case all the disciplined passion at her disposal. She couldn’t bear to watch either the young barrister or the woman she was representing, so she looked alternately at the judge and at Sally, the social worker, who was providing most of the evidence.

  When it was all over, and Trish had predictably won, she glanced at her opposing counsel. She was biting her lip and sniffing to hold in tears, while trying to explain to her barely literate client what it was the judge had just told them. Trish wondered whether there was anything she might say in the robing room to console her defeated colleague without sounding as patronising as Robert Anstey.

  ‘Thanks, Trish, you were great,’ the social worker said.

  ‘I’m glad you’re pleased, Sally. I must say there didn’t seem any doubt at all. She couldn’t look after one child safely, let alone four.’

  ‘I know. But it doesn’t stop it being hard on her. Poor thing. And you know what’ll happen?’

  ‘Yup,’ Trish said. ‘She’ll go and have another baby with the next abusive man she finds and, after this, you’ll probably have to take it from her the minute they’ve cut the cord.’

  ‘Probably. It breaks your heart – or it would if there was anything left to break.’

  Chapter 12

  The phone was ringing as Trish was making herself yet another mug of coffee the following day. Dumping the coffee jar on the worktop, she grabbed the receiver and recited her number.

  ‘Ah. This is Caroline Lyalt.’

  Not ‘Caro’, Trish noticed, but her name in full. This must be official. So who else was with her?

  ‘Oh, good. You got the message. I need to ask why David was—’

  ‘They said in chambers that you were working at home today,’ Caro said, as smooth and obliterating as a steamroller. ‘I’d like to bring someone round to talk to you.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘We’ll explain when we see you. Would twenty minutes’ time be OK?’

  Trish heard the muffled sound of another voice in the background. Caro must have put her hand over the phone while someone else talked to her.

  ‘Twenty minutes’ time would be fine,’ Trish said crisply. ‘Is this about David?’

  ‘We’ll see you then.’

  The phone buzzed in Trish’s hand until a recorded voice reminded her to hang up. She tidied up all the papers she’d brought home from chambers, once more pushing Nick Gurles to the back of her mind. By the time she heard a knock on the front door, she was ready.

  Caro stood at the top of the iron staircase beside a grim-faced man, whom she introduced as DCI Simon Lakeshaw. Trish nodded to him, then stood aside to let them in. Caro led the way straight to the black sofas and sat down on the one nearest the empty fireplace. Her colleague stood beside her until Trish had taken the other sofa. Then he, too, subsided on to the low, squashy cushions.

  Probably about forty, she thought, he had bleak grey eyes, badly pitted skin and a thatch of mousey hair falling into his eyes. He also had a very short neck and an expression that suggested smiling came hard to him. For once Caro wasn’t looking much better, quite different from the vulnerable, affectionate friend who had clung to Trish on the doorstep only last Thursday.

  ‘You’ve spoken to Sergeant Lyalt about a woman called Jeannie Nest,’ said DCI Lakeshaw abruptly. ‘I understand you’ve been looking for her. Why?’

  ‘May I know what your interest is?’ Trish hoped that Caro still had some boundaries between work and friendship. The thought of everything Trish had told her about Paddy being passed on to this aggressive stranger was awful.

  ‘Don’t play games, Ms Maguire. This is important.’

  ‘I’m sure it is, but I want to know what I’m dealing with, and why you’re asking me.’

  ‘I understand you believe that the child who was run over outside this building might be her son. I want to know what led you to that idea, and I want the names of everyone to whom you made the suggestion or from whom you have sought information.’

  ‘Where is he now? I tried
to visit him yesterday and they told me he’s been moved. But no one will tell me where.’

  ‘I must ask again: who did you talk to about Jeannie Nest?’

  ‘Is she connected with the boy in hospital?’

  ‘Ms Maguire, this is a very serious matter. I shall answer your questions – if I can – when you have given me the information I need.’

  Trish could recognise an obstinacy even greater than her own. Battling with her instinct to avoid answering any police questions blind, she decided that cooperation was probably the only way of getting what she wanted. She told Lakeshaw about her visit to the Mull Estate, the young man who’d denied all knowledge of Jeannie Nest and the scary children; she described her calls to all the local schools, and her discovery of Jeannie’s part in the six-year-old murder case, adding that she assumed the case had led to a new name under the witness-protection scheme. She talked slowly and very clearly, as though dictating, which she’d learned long ago soothed the angry police soul.

  Lakeshaw didn’t react, but Caro leaned forwards as though the five-foot space between the two sofas was too wide to cross with words alone.

  ‘Trish, did any of the people you talked to – and I mean any of them – give you any idea of her new name or where she might be living now?’

  ‘Sergeant Lyalt,’ Lakeshaw said sharply, as Trish tried to decode the weird stress Caro had put on ‘any’, ‘will you please leave this to me? Now, Ms Maguire, you haven’t answered the question of why you believed David might be Jeannie Nest’s son.’

  Trish wasn’t going to drop Paddy in it until she knew more. ‘I neither know nor care what name Jeannie Nest took or where she lived. My only concern is the boy. Someone sent him to me, which makes me feel responsible for him. You’ve moved him from the hospital, which suggests you think he’s under threat. Things have been happening round here that suggest that I too may be at risk. So, it’s time for you to be frank. What exactly do you know?’