Keep Me Alive

by Natasha Cooper

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You’re a star.’

  Chapter 13

  Friday was another glorious day. Trish took her time walking through the Temple. There was still no one about and hardly any cars parked between the eighteenth-century buildings. She’d rarely seen the place look so good. Only the leprous bark of the plane trees held any ugliness and even that diminished as she thought of the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem about his delight in ‘dappled things’.

  In the old days, poetry hadn’t formed any part of her interior life. George often used the verses he’d learned in adolescence as a vehicle for thoughts he couldn’t otherwise express, much as some of her teenage clients used to tell her ‘it’s like in East-Enders, know what I mean?’ when explaining some otherwise incomprehensible emotion or relationship. For a long time she’d found George’s habit irritating, but lately she had started to read some of the poets he’d quoted most often, and she was beginning to understand what he took from them. His devotion to Hopkins alone told her that he, too, must once have had to climb up out of despair. She might wish that he’d told her directly, but it was better to find out this way than never to know it at all.

  What she still didn’t know was what had flung him into the depths and whether it was something more than the bizarre upper-middle-class way he’d been brought up. Sent away to boarding school at eight, beaten for poor exam results or breaking rules, taught that the most important thing in life was the suppression of tears and all obvious emotion, he hadn’t had much chance to learn to be at ease with himself and his feelings. Even so, there had to be more. But she’d never wanted to rip off his defences by probing for it.

  Pushing George to the back of her mind, along with all Hopkins’s dappled things, she wondered what there might have been in Will’s past to make him at once so needy and so angry; why he so often felt he had to hide his intelligence. And what was really driving him in this investigation of Smarden Meats.

  Why on earth hadn’t she asked more questions before she’d promised to lend him the money?

  She fumbled in her bag for the envelope to give her clerk, hearing Colin’s voice behind her.

  ‘You know you asked me about that abattoir?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Have you discovered something?’

  ‘A bit. It was run by a man called Thomas Flesker and his two sons, Robert and Ronald. They fought to keep it open as long they could, but they were badly stretched by funding all the improvements required by the new EU regulations. For some weird reason, the big so-called industrial abattoirs got government grants to subsidize the upgrading of their premises, but the smaller ones didn’t.’

  ‘What? Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. Policy. And pressure from the industrial ones, I think. Then, on top of making the improvements, they all had to pay for vets to invigilate what they were doing.’

  ‘That I did know,’ Trish said, thinking of the helpful one she’d met at Smarden.

  ‘It was a vet who caused Robert Flesker to explode. Because there weren’t enough British ones available at the time to do this kind of work, they were having to use a French one. He cost them ten times what the old local authority chap had charged to check their carcasses. And that pissed them off in itself.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Then he made a whole slew of demands for new practices in barely comprehensible English, couldn’t understand what they said in response or answer any of their questions. So he got angry and threatened to close them down there and then for non-compliance. Robert let fly with some racist insults about the vet’s compatriots’ attitude to food safety and hit him. Laid him out in fact; tore up all his forms and threw them over him.’

  ‘Was he was arrested?’

  ‘Yup. He did three months in prison.’ Colin grinned. ‘I can’t say I blame him, but it was a stupid thing to do. I’m afraid that’s all I’ve found out so far.’

  ‘It’s brilliant. I’m really grateful. How did you do it?’

  ‘A mixture of the Internet last night and a few phone calls this morning. Luckily everyone I needed was at work as early as me. You will let me know as soon as there’s anything else you want, won’t you? I’m enjoying this.’

  ‘I will,’ she said, impressed. If you’re really offering, I’d love to meet your mate with the press contacts. Maybe we could all get together for a drink in El Vino.’

  ‘Sure.’ Colin’s green eyes looked eager. ‘When?’

  Trish had taken him to the quintessential legal winebar for a drink when he’d first become her pupil. She’d watched him identifying the famous faces all round them, and revelling in the wild stories of amazing feats of advocacy, which anyone could overhear if he stopped talking for a moment. It wouldn’t be half as exciting this time, with all the famous faces sheltering from the rain abroad, but she needed information fast, and it sounded as though his friend had access to most of it.

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘I can try. But he lives with his girlfriend and she gets antsy if he’s out too often without her. Have you got more questions for him about that journalist who died?’

  Trish grinned. ‘You know me too well. I have, but we can’t stop to talk about them now or we’ll be late.’

  ‘Not that late,’ he said, glancing at the clock on the wall of her room. ‘And Antony hasn’t appeared yet. Why don’t you write me a list? That way I can get Angus on to checking them out straight away, so you’d get something tonight, even if he can’t get away from his girlfriend.’

  ‘Great. Thank you.’ She dropped into the chair by her desk and flipped open her laptop. After years of doing most of her work on computer, her handwriting had degenerated into something that looked as though a drunken spider had waded through an inkwell. Ten minutes later, the questions she wanted to ask were printing out.

  Colin caught the sheet as it was spat out. He looked up.

  ‘You’ve got a question here about the journalist’s next of kin. I told you: he didn’t have any family.’

  ‘I know you did, but I don’t believe it. No siblings, parents, cousins, uncles, girlfriends, boyfriends? Everyone has someone. A next of kin must be recorded somewhere.’

  ‘Fair enough. I’ll go and phone Angus now. If he wants the list emailed, can I use your laptop?’

  ‘Sure. That way he can email me straight back.’ She heard the familiar sliding strut that heralded their head of chambers. ‘Here’s Antony.’

  Colin moved fast to get to a phone where he could talk discreetly. She wondered how much he knew or had guessed about her interest in the journalist.

  Antony was moody on the walk between chambers and court. Trish thought about cajoling him out of the sullens, then decided he was a grown-up and ought to be able to manage it himself.

  ‘Have you heard from George recently?’ he asked as they hit Fleet Street.

  ‘Yes. They’re having a great time. What about your lot?’

  He hunched his shoulders. ‘There was a message from Liz when I got back last night. She’s furious that I didn’t have my mobile on. She’s furious that I’m not there to help amuse the children. She’s furious that it’s raining all the time in Italy, while London is hotter than it’s ever been. And she’s furious that I’m on the loose here, while she’s bored out of her skull with nothing to do and no one to talk to.’

  He grabbed Trish’s wrist to hold her back from the zebra crossing as a pair of motorcycles zoomed across it like maddened hornets. ‘She’s coming home on Saturday. It’s like the end of half term. I can’t bear it. Let me come and have dinner in your flat tonight, Trish.’

  ‘Antony, I …’

  Swinging round to face her, he said, ‘You must know that I won’t lay a finger on you. Just let me—’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve got things to do.’

  ‘Put them off. We’re never going to have this kind of opportunity again, with both Liz and George away. What could be more important than that?’

  She didn’t want to
tell him about Will Applewood or Jamie Maxden and his film, or even about the quest for the source of the meat that had half-killed Caro Lyalt. Nor did she particularly want Antony in her flat.

  ‘Why are you looking so worried, Trish?’

  ‘Because we’ve had fun flirting, but this sounds like something else. I told you, I can’t …’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so bloody sensible!’ He whirled away and was across the road before she’d moved, missing another motorbike by inches. When she caught up with him, he stalked on in silence for a while, then relented. ‘You may be right, but that doesn’t make it any better.’

  His smile did, though, and they walked up the stone steps side by side.

  *

  Will bought his ticket at Waterloo, wishing he’d asked Trish for more than two hundred quid. He hadn’t realized that the walk-on price of a seat on Eurostar in high season was so much more than a pre-booked special-offer day-return ticket in winter. The only other time he’d taken the train to France had been a trip to Paris with Fiona just after they’d got engaged. She’d told him what she wanted, so he’d phoned ahead to book a table at the Tour d’Argent as well as arranging the rail tickets. The fares had been a lot cheaper than the meal they’d eaten, but it had been worth it. Fiona had loved it. At that moment, her pleasure had been all that mattered.

  He thought of her as she’d been then, sleek and fascinatingly strange and hanging on his every word. Her life had been spent entirely in London, and she’d worked first at Christie’s, then for an art publisher. She’d never got up in the raw dawn to manhandle cows; the mention of silage didn’t conjure up for her the sweet, rotting smell he’d always hated; and slurry was just a word that sounded amusingly sloshy. She’d used it for all sorts of things, always with the gurgling laugh that had been the first thing he’d noticed about her when they were introduced at a party.

  It had been exciting to be with her, so smooth and different from all the women he’d grown up with. His mother and her friends had had faces reddened by wind and rain, and hair that was furry round the edges. Even Susannah’s had been like that before she’d become a Londoner. Now, with Rupert’s bonuses to spend and his status to protect, she had all the gloss anyone could want, in spite of living with the children all day.

  Trish Maguire had it too, although her version was more sober. He wondered whether Trish ever looked messy. Even in the loose trousers and crisp pink linen shirt she’d worn when they went to the abattoir, she had seemed unrufflable, unlike bubbly little Mandy.

  Will felt a smile untying the tension in his neck at the thought of Mandy. Her neat white bedroom, with its frilled muslin curtains and its flowery smells, was the nearest thing he knew to heaven. She seemed to think sex had been invented for fun. She laughed and twined herself around him and encouraged him until he laughed too. Fiona had had a tendency to shout and then weep, even in their better days, and some of her predecessors had behaved as though they were enduring a tough exercise session in a punitive gym, going for the burn. Only Mandy had fun, and gave it. Bundles of it.

  French and English voices broke into his memories, announcing that the train would be entering the Channel Tunnel any moment now. There was something so official in their tones that Will braced himself and tried to forget the uncomfortable little thought that kept insinuating itself into his memories of Mandy.

  He’d taken advantage of her; no question about it. When she was lying, half-asleep and happily post-orgasmic, he had asked her again about the origin of the sausages her company sold to retailers like the deli he’d found in Vauxhall. She had snuggled up even closer and told him cosily that she didn’t know where they were made, honestly, but that lots of Ivyleaf’s meat came from a farm near a little village in Normandy called Sainte Marie-le-Vair. It was owned by an Englishman and no one was supposed to know anything about it.

  Even then it might have been all right if Will hadn’t tensed and reached behind him, for pencil and paper to write down the name before he forgot it. Looking up from his note, he’d caught her watching him with so much disappointment, he could have cut out his tongue. Instead, he’d made jokes and tea and teased her back into cuddliness. But he couldn’t forget the look in her eye. It had made him push down all the other questions, about Smarden Meats and whether Jamie Maxden had ever come to Ivyleaf Packaging in search of the same information.

  A boy of about twelve slopped along the corridor, eating a croque monsieur, dropping crumbs and molten cheese on the carpet. Will bit down on his hunger. He had barely enough money left to hire the most basic of cars to get himself to Sainte Marie. There was nothing to spare for luxuries like food.

  Antony hogged the cross-examination all day. Trish sat behind him, tracking his every move, so that if he needed anything from the bundles she would be able to hand it to him without fumbling, but it was hard to keep her mind away from all her anxieties. Now that Kim was safe, they were mostly about Will. What on earth could he be doing with the money?

  Will found Sainte Marie-le-Vair without difficulty, parked his hired Deux Chevaux under the straggly trees in the square and decided he had just enough Euros for a cooling pression at one of the tables outside the bar. Waiting for someone to take his order, he looked around the scrubby village and wondered why it made him feel so glum.

  There were a few grey stone houses strung along the road, which divided around a dusty, gravelled oval, where the cafe-bar had its outdoor tables. A row of lime trees provided some shade, but they’d made the chairs and tables sticky. All there was to look at were rusting metal signs, advertising beer or soap, screwed to the walls of a few of the houses. Some thin pigeons pecked about in the gravel until a mangy cat slunk towards them, scattering them like dusty grey confetti.

  It could only be twenty-odd miles to the coast, and yet this place looked as though no tourist had ever been here. There was nothing to draw them. Not that there was all that much on the coast itself, as far as Will could remember.

  Years ago, the whole family had come to stay in a big white hotel not far from here, and it had been hell. His mother had been nagging for years about needing a proper foreign holiday but his father had always refused to contemplate the expense. No farmer could happily take two weeks off in high summer, but in the end he’d given in for the sake of peace and hauled them off to France for a week at the beginning of July. Everything that could have gone wrong had done: it had rained every single day; the food in the hotel hadn’t been excitingly foreign, just dull and tough; there’d been no one to talk to except each other, and nothing to do except go for rainy walks along the beach or play bar football in a leaky outhouse.

  Will would probably have been happy enough dreaming of the girl he’d chatted up at the school’s end of term dance, except that Susannah, bad tempered as ever, had spent the whole time telling him no girl with a working brain would ever fancy a lout like him.

  Someone crunched over the gravel. Will looked up, glad to be relieved of the memories, and smiled at the waiter who dumped his beer on the thin green table. He summoned up his schoolboy French to thank the man and ask whether there were many English people in the area. For extra verisimilitude, he added the usual excuse that he was thinking of moving over here himself.

  The waiter sneered, shrugged like the hammiest English amateur actor playing a French rake, then said, ‘Only at Jeannot le Fou’s farm off the Rouen road. They say some English fools bought it for gîtes. Even if they get planning permission, which they will not, Jeannot was a terrible farmer and the place is one vast pile of merde. Merde des cochons, des vaches, et des hommes. The smell that comes from there when the wind is from the south! Affreux!’ He shuddered with the artistry of long practice.

  That’s definitely the place I want, Will thought.

  He hadn’t understood all the waiter’s words, but the general drift was easy to grasp. He said clumsily in French that it sounded terrible and not at all the sort of place a man like him would want to go. Then he asked where it was, to
make sure he avoided finding himself in such a stinking heap of ordure. The waiter, no longer sneering, told him, then added that there were said to be some nice chateaux being built further along the coast. His mother-in-law’s cousin was the estate agent and could no doubt furnish monsieur with the necessary details.

  In the interests of cover, Will took down the address of the estate agency, paid for his beer and drank it slowly. It was the last he was going to get until he was on his way back to the train and sure that his funds would see him safely home, so he made the most of it.

  Not as good as the brew in the Smarden pub, he decided, and altogether too cold and too thin, but it slipped down easily enough. A quick trip to the gents came next, then he was back in his rattly little tortoise of a car, bucketing out of the village towards the piles of steaming merde the waiter had so graphically described.

  Could the story of Mad Jeannot’s legacy be no more than a cover to keep nosy locals and interested visitors out of the way?

  Trish half expected to have to fight Antony for time to go to El Vino with Colin and his friend, but he said nothing more about a final private dinner before his wife returned; he didn’t want even the usual post-mortem of the day’s evidence. When they emerged from court at half past four, he asked Colin to drop his wig and gown back in chambers with the documents, and said he’d see them both at eight o’clock on Monday morning. Trish felt surprisingly short-changed.

  ‘The treat’s well and truly over now, isn’t it, Trish?’

  She turned to see Ferdy Aldham leering at her from the shadows thrown by the pointed stone arch over the door to the street.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘So you should be, playing around with a man like Antony. I’d thought better of you.’

  ‘Oh, grow up,’ she said, forgetting that it had been Antony who had first thrown that insult at their opponent. ‘Coming, Colin?’