(2012) Evie Undercover

by Liz Harris

  ‘But what could she have possibly done that I could ever hate her for doing? I don’t understand.’

  ‘I don’t, either. That’s why I don’t like saying this to you. I’m only repeating her words to you because I can hear how worried you are.’

  ‘Of course you are, and I’m most grateful to you for telling me what she said. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to accept defeat for the moment. I can’t think of anywhere else to look, or anyone else to ask. I shall have to try to put the whole thing out of my mind for the next few days and focus on the work I’ve got to do over the weekend. I’ll contact you when the case is over and we’ll get together – we may have a better idea of what Evie was talking about by then.’

  They said goodbye and Tom put the phone down.

  He stared at his desk. There was nothing more he could do about finding her until he’d spoken to the agency, and that may not be until Monday evening – his phone would be switched off when he was in court. Of course there was still a chance that Evie might make contact with him, either directly or by sending him a message through someone else, but that chance seemed like a slim one. For the moment, he’d have to force himself to be patient and to focus on his work, and that was just about the hardest thing he’d ever asked himself to do. On the plus side, it would keep his mind off Evie. Or he fervently hoped it would.

  He glanced at the phone on his desk. Thank God, Evie had friends like her two housemates and Gabriela, he thought; friends who really cared about her and who would do their best to help her if she finally turned to them.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Black Monday!

  Tom stepped out on to the top step in front of the Royal Courts of Justice, pulling his black leather wheelie bag full of files behind him. He’d not had a single moment in which to check his messages all day, but his long wait to see the agency’s reply was almost over, and he felt a sense of mounting excitement.

  A sudden movement in front of him caught his eye, and he glanced down as a large crowd of people surged forward. A barrage of flashbulbs went off in front of his face.

  He stopped abruptly and stared in amazement at the mass of photographers gathered on the pavement behind the railings. Pushing forward in one heaving body, they were jostling each other to get as close as possible to the black iron gate that held them back from the foot of the shallow stone steps.

  Involuntarily, he took a step backwards and turned to his junior in surprise. ‘I knew it would be a fascinating case, but I rather thought the fascination would be for the lawyers, not for the public. However, this is manic. We’ll try to get out of here as fast as we can. We’re making no statements, not at this stage of the proceedings. Come on. Let’s go.’

  He took a step forward and the cameras burst into action again.

  Forced to stop, he blinked furiously at the fresh explosion of bright lights that confronted him. His vision gradually clearing, he saw some reporters that he recognised trying to elbow their way through the jumble of photographers to get to the front.

  ‘This way, Mr Hadleigh,’ a voice called from the body of the photographers. ‘Look this way.’

  ‘Have you got any comment to make?’ one of the reporters shouted.

  ‘What is this?’ he said under his breath, as much to himself as to his junior.

  ‘They can’t expect you to make a statement today – we’ve only just chosen the jury,’ the junior replied.

  ‘And what the hell do they want my photo for?’ He stared in bewilderment at the crowd, and the flashbulbs sparked off again. ‘This is abnormal. You’d expect this for big celebrity names, but not for a man libelled in business, no matter how important he is, nor how legally significant the case. What on earth can be going on! We may well have to go back and leave through one of the rear exits.’

  ‘Mr Hadleigh, sir.’ The voice came from behind him, from the inside of the court building. ‘A word, if you please, Mr Hadleigh,’ the voice said. It came closer.

  He turned and saw one of the court officials coming towards him across the tiled foyer. He was waving his hand to attract Tom’s attention. Tom indicated that he’d seen him, and the official stopped where he was and beckoned him back into the building.

  ‘You get off home,’ he told the junior. ‘I’m going to see what the official wants. Hopefully, he’ll be able to shed some light on what’s going on. I’ve never seen such a madhouse as that lot outside. You know the points I want you to research this evening – I’ll ring later if there’s anything else I need to tell you. Otherwise, I’ll see you in court tomorrow.’

  ‘Good luck with whatever it is, sir,’ the junior said as he started to make his way down the steps.

  Tom watched him skirt the iron barrier and move away from the crowd with difficulty, then Tom turned back, went into the vast entrance hall and walked over to the waiting official. Together they went across to one of the benches running along the wall at the side of the hall and sat down.

  ‘We won’t be troubled here, Mr Hadleigh,’ the official said quietly. ‘I think that there’s something you should see before you make another attempt at leaving the building. I take it you haven’t had your phone on at all today, sir.’

  ‘That’s correct. I switched it off when I arrived at court, just as I always do. Anything you can show me that will make sense of the pandemonium outside will be more than welcome, I assure you. I’ve never before seen anything like it for this sort of case.’

  ‘I think that this may be of some help.’ The official pulled a rolled-up magazine out of his pocket, put it on the bench between them and unfurled it. ‘I think you’ll find that it’s not your case, sir, that has drawn the press hounds.’

  ‘It’s not?’ Tom started in surprise. ‘So what has?’

  The official looked down at the magazine cover. Tom followed his gaze. His eyes flew to large red letters written across the photo of a bewigged barrister who was hurrying into the High Court: ‘BONKING BARRISTER!! HORNY HADLEIGH – EXPOSÉ!’ The barrister had put his hand up in an attempt to shield his face from the camera, but it was unmistakably a photo of him.

  ‘My God, that was taken a month or so ago!’ he exclaimed. ‘A photographer shoved a camera in front of my face as I was going into court. I remember it happening quite clearly. But looking at this, it’s made me appear quite furtive, as if I had something to hide. What’s this all about?’

  As he asked the question, he realised that he knew the answer.

  Unable to move, he watched the official flick through the pages until he came to the place he was looking for. He flattened the magazine on the bench and Tom saw a huge blow-up of his face splashed across the centre of a double page. A line of bright red words printed across his photograph swam before his eyes. All he was able to register was, ‘… exposé by Evie Shaw, Pure Dirt’s crack new reporter.’

  Fifteen minutes later, the magazine in his pocket and the official’s hushed words of sympathy ringing in his ears, he made his way out of the court building through a rear door and returned at speed to his car.

  He needed to get home, to get back to peace and quiet and somewhere to think. He lifted his bag into the boot of the car, climbed into the driver’s seat, left his mobile switched off – he couldn’t deal with anything nor speak to anyone; not yet – and drove back to Hampstead, his mind in a turmoil.

  As soon as he reached his house, he disabled the alarm, left the wheelie bag of files at the foot of the stairs and went into the drawing room and over to the cocktail cabinet. He took out a glass and a bottle of single malt whisky, carried them upstairs to his study, sat down at his desk and poured himself a stiff drink.

  As the whisky hit the back of his throat, he leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes for a few minutes. Then he poured another shot of whisky, took the magazine out of his jacket pocket, opened it and started to read slowly through the article.

  When he’d read every single word of the report for a second time, he sat back and stared ahead o
f him. In his mind’s eye, he and Evie were lying in bed, laughing and chatting together. He saw himself telling her about his friendship with Zizi and about breaching the Bar Code when he was very young. Some time after that, she must have told someone what he’d said.

  He pushed back a rising sense of hurt and betrayal as he pictured Evie passing on to another person the words he’d spoken to her in a moment of intimacy. He glanced again at the magazine.

  So this was what Evie had been talking about when she’d said in her note to him that she didn’t do it, also when she’d told Jess that somebody had done the dirty on her. On the phone, Gabriela said that Evie had told her that she’d done something she very much regretted doing, and that he would hate her for doing it. It was a slightly different take on things, and Gabriela may have misunderstood what Evie was saying, but whatever she said or didn’t say, it was clear that she hadn’t expected him to believe that she was innocent, and she hadn’t expected Jess and Rachel to believe her either.

  He picked up the note she’d left him and reread it, then he looked down at the exposé in Pure Dirt. It was all one huge mess. One thing, however, stood out way above everything else – was heads and shoulders above everything else – and that was his absolute conviction that Evie didn’t write that article.

  Even at the very moment that he’d seen her name beneath the article, he’d known that she would never have written such a story. Someone had written about him and Zizi in a way that suggested a sexual relationship, and along with a photo they’d managed to find of the two of them, plus a sensationalised account of him reading legal material he shouldn’t have done, they’d made him look morally reprehensible as well as in breach of the Bar Code.

  But that someone wasn’t Evie.

  At that moment, in a blinding flash of self-realisation that almost knocked him over with its force, he’d known that he loved her with every inch of his being, and that she loved him just as strongly. It had taken that filthy rag to make him see a truth that had been staring him in the face since that first day in Umbria.

  Of course Evie didn’t write that report. People who loved each other didn’t act like that; they couldn’t.

  He pushed his drink to one side, threw the magazine across his study and stood up.

  Panting slightly from the speed with which he’d rushed from his car, he knocked on the door to Evie’s house, stepped back and waited. Footsteps could be heard coming to the door, and a moment later, it opened a crack.

  ‘Since you’re not Jess, and you’re certainly not Evie, you must be Rachel,’ he told the girl with long, brown hair who stood peering through the narrow opening. The door closed slightly. He heard the sound of a chain being undone, then the door opened wider again.

  ‘And since you’re obviously not here to sell us double glazing or to save our souls, you must be Tom,’ the girl said cheerfully. ‘And yes, I’m Rachel. Come on in. Jess warned that you might call or even come round.’

  ‘Well, as you can see, I picked the “or even come round” option.’ He gave her a slight smile and went into the house. ‘It’s good to meet you, Rachel, although I’d have preferred to do so under different circumstances.’

  ‘Likewise,’ she called over her shoulder as she went ahead of him into the sitting room.

  Jess was on the sofa, reading a magazine. She looked up as Tom came into the sitting room and hastily made a move to stuff the magazine under a cushion.

  ‘Don’t bother, Jess. I’ve already seen it,’ he said, and he sat down in the armchair. Rachel went and sat on the sofa next to Jess.

  Jess leaned forward, an expression of sympathy on her face. ‘I’m so sorry about the article, Tom.’

  ‘Why, Jess? Did you write it?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she retorted indignantly.

  ‘Then you’ve nothing to be sorry about, have you? What about you, Rachel? Did you write the article?’

  ‘No, I most certainly did not. The first time I heard about your naughty past was when I read the story over someone’s shoulder on the tube this morning.’

  ‘So I’ve forestalled any more apologies from anyone here, I hope. And that goes for Evie, too, should she suddenly appear.’

  Rachel and Jess exchanged glances. ‘I don’t follow,’ Jess said.

  ‘Be honest. In your heart of hearts, do either of you think that Evie could ever have sent that story to Pure Dirt?’

  ‘Of course, we don’t. She wouldn’t do such a thing,’ Rachel said at once. ‘But as you’ve probably guessed by now, Pure Dirt did send Evie to work for you – the editor thought you’d been at it with a client and he wanted to see you struck off as payback for all the money you’ve cost them in the past. He hates you.’

  ‘Then they’ll be out of luck. It’s not an offence for which I could be struck off – a barrister’s self employed and can rather do what he likes. But any suggestion that he’s having a relationship with a client obviously looks bad if that client’s claiming that she’s morally blameless and has been defamed. They’ll be trying to claw back some of the money that the original case cost them.’ He paused. ‘And Evie’s role in all this?’

  ‘She’d only just started working for Pure Dirt when she was given the task of digging up some dirt on you,’ Jess said. ‘She was desperate to work for a magazine and that was all she could get. And she’d still got an idealised view of the job and thought she could do it without being nasty. Rachel and I really went on at her for not thinking it through, but happily she soon came to her senses. She was going to quit the job last Friday and tell you the truth that evening.’

  So, he’d been nothing but an assignment in the beginning. It hurt, but it didn’t change things. He knew Evie, and he knew their connection was real.

  ‘Where does the agency come in?’

  ‘Nowhere really,’ Rachel said. ‘Her editor’s got a contact at the agency, and he told the editor that you wanted an Italian speaker. The contact was paid to recommend Evie for the job. The rest is history, as they say.’

  ‘I think I get the picture now. You can be sure that I’ll sort out the agency in the fullness of time, but for the moment, my focus is finding Evie.’

  ‘What I don’t get, Tom,’ Rachel said, ‘is why you’re so certain that Evie didn’t write the story. Jess and I know her really well, and we know that she could never do anything malicious to anyone – she’s just not wired like that. But how can you be so sure that she wasn’t involved, assuming that you told her everything that was in the article? They had to get it from somewhere.’

  ‘I’ve known her for long enough to know she couldn’t do that. You don’t necessarily have to be with someone for years to know them. A day can be sufficient. And as for what you indirectly asked, reading a fax that I shouldn’t have read was true, and that I’m friends with Zizi is true, but our friendship is platonic and has never been anything else, which Evie knows. That part of the article is a lie, and the whole thing has been made to sound ultra sensational.’

  ‘You don’t have to explain to us,’ Jess cut in quickly. ‘It’s your business.’

  ‘Not any longer, unfortunately. There’s only one glaring omission in the article, and that’s to do with the material faxed to me by mistake. Evie knows that I was very young at the time and that it was my first solo case, but they left out any reference to my youth and inexperience. I guess it would have made everything sound much less serious – after all, a young barrister making a mistake doesn’t sound as bad as an experienced barrister doing what he knows to be wrong.’

  ‘They’re such pigs at Pure Dirt,’ Rachel said indignantly.

  ‘Anyway, to move on – we’re all agreed that Evie didn’t write that story, aren’t we?’ he said.

  Jess sighed. ‘I wish she’d been here to hear you say that. I bet it would have stopped her from running away like she’s done.’

  ‘I wish she was here, too.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve had any more thoughts about where sh
e might have gone, have you?’

  Jess gestured helplessly with her hands. ‘We haven’t a clue. Believe me, we’d tell you if we had, but we’ve absolutely no idea at all. She’s not even responding to my text messages.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who dropped you in the shit, Tom?’ Rachel asked. ‘It’s definitely not Evie, so it must be someone else.’

  ‘Funnily enough, I’m less bothered about that than I am about finding Evie. But yes, I do have a pretty good idea who it must have been.’

  ‘So, who do you think it was, then? Jess and I were talking about it just before you got here. We can only think of one person.’

  ‘I don’t like to accuse anyone without being sure, but I, too, can think of only one other person it could realistically be. It’s probably the same person that you’ve come up with.’

  ‘Accuse away,’ Rachel said with a giggle. ‘You’re among friends. We think it must have been Gabriela – she and Evie have spent a lot of time together since Gabriela came to London. Too much, if you ask me – Gabriela was all over Evie like a rash.’

  ‘But we can’t see why she would do something that would hurt you,’ Jess cut in. ‘From what Evie said, Gabriela really likes you. In fact, when you first met Gabriela, Evie was a bit jealous about how well you two seemed to hit it off. So why would Gabriela do that?’

  Tom shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s hard to explain, I know, but it must have been her. When I spoke to her just after Evie had disappeared, she emphasised that Evie had told her that she’d done something she regretted doing. That’s significantly different from the messages the three of us got. There’s no reason why Evie would have said two such different things.’

  ‘No, there isn’t,’ Rachel agreed.

  ‘As for why Gabriela did it,’ Tom went on, ‘I can only guess that she must have been very against Evie for some reason known only to herself, and she didn’t want to see her happy. She must have thought that by breaking us up, she’d make her unhappy. She may well have overlooked the fact that she’d be hurting me in the process.’