Gagged & Bound

by Natasha Cooper

  She’d never be able to hang her paintings anywhere smaller. The pride of her collection, an early Nina Murdoch, would look absurd in George’s kind of house, even if there were a wall big enough to contain it. His decoration could take ancestral portraits and gentle landscapes, but not much else.

  This isn’t the time for the battle of the styles, she thought. Not with Caro looking like hell.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I need your advice, Trish. When will David get home?’

  ‘He’s in the kitchen, making himself a sandwich. I’ll tell him you’re here in a minute, but first give me the gist of the problem.’

  ‘I’ve been told that my chief rival for the job I told you about is taking bribes, and I’ve got to decide what to do about it. I know I said I couldn’t talk about the job, but you always have good ideas, and you’re the only person I can trust with this.’

  ‘It’s going to take time, isn’t it?’ Trish said, touched by the admission. ‘We’d better have tea with David first; then you and I can go upstairs and thrash it out. OK?’

  Caro nodded just as David emerged from the kitchen, carrying a large plate.

  ‘Ham and cheese, with tomato between the layers so it doesn’t make the bread go squishy,’ he said, looking down at his wobbling load, ‘and a bit of pesto for extra taste. Who was it at the door?’

  ‘Me,’ Caro said.

  ‘Hey!’ His smile was nearly as big as the one with which he’d announced his triumph. ‘I didn’t know you were coming. Have this and I’ll go and make another one.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Caro said. ‘I’m not really hungry.’

  Upstairs in her bedroom under the eaves, while David was getting on with his prep, Trish listened to a long explanation of the background to the allegation against Caro’s chief rival for the new liaison job.

  ‘Why are you so angry, Caro?’ she asked at the end.

  ‘Am I angry?’

  ‘I think so. You’re certainly showing all the signs.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Your jaw’s so tight it’s affecting your voice; the little muscles under your eyes are clenched, which makes it look as though something’s pulling at the eyes themselves from inside your skull, and the edges of your nostrils are dragged down halfway to your mouth.’

  ‘Charming! I suppose you learn to look for this sort of thing when you’re trying to trick witnesses into telling you their secrets in court.’

  ‘I’m not sure I like the word “trick”,’ Trish said lightly. ‘You’re furious, and I don’t understand why. Is it because you think this woman is lying to you?’

  Caro shook her head. Her neat hair stayed tucked behind her ears, but the gold anchor earrings danced like sycamore seeds in a gale.

  ‘She’s put me in an impossible position.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘If I report the allegation, it’ll look as if I’d stoop to anything to rubbish a rival who might get the job I want, which obviously means I wouldn’t get it. But if I say nothing, I risk the selectors putting a Slabb crony at the heart of the fight against them.’

  ‘Tricky.’

  Caro tugged at a piece of hair. ‘But what’s really bugging me is the idea that the selectors could have set this up and be using it to find out what I’m made of; how I’d handle the conflicts that are bound to arise in this sort of job. In which case, if I don’t say anything, they’ll decide I’m not ruthless enough to do it.’

  ‘Would they do something like that?’ Trish could feel she was frowning and deliberately loosened her facial muscles.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Caro said, still fiddling with her hair. ‘I don’t know anything any more.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you so dithery. What makes you think the selectors could be involved?’

  ‘Because my source said plenty of people know that both this man and I are on the shortlist, and that’s not possible. I was told I had to keep it secret, so I’m sure he was too. I haven’t talked to anyone. Except you.’

  ‘I certainly haven’t passed it on,’ Trish said. ‘Are you suggesting these unnamed selectors fed your source a piece of disinformation and asked her to make sure you got it too?’

  ‘Possibly. If it’s true she’s used the whistleblower’s phoneline at Scotland Yard and talked to senior officers as she claimed, then they have to be aware of what she’s been saying. They could easily have got someone to tell her I’m in the running, in the hope she’d talk to me, so they could watch what I’d do.’

  ‘Would you want to work with an organisation that could be so manipulative?’

  Caro gave the question thought, then said slowly, ‘The job they have to do is important enough to justify anything – almost anything.’ Suddenly she smiled, looking more like herself. ‘I knew talking to you would clear my brain a bit, Trish. Any minute now, I’ll even see my way. Thank you.’

  ‘It would obviously help if you could find out whether this man has ever had any links with the Slabbs, innocent or otherwise,’ Trish said without thinking.

  ‘I’m not stupid.’ Caro laughed. ‘Even at my most panicky I could see that. But there’s no way I could dig into his background without letting everyone know what I’m up to. It would get back to him – and them – in no time. There has to be some other way of dealing with this.’

  Trish had more than enough confidence in Caro to know that if there were another way she would find it. She never gave up on anything or anyone she thought was important.

  ‘Why don’t I know anything about these Slabbs? Who are they?’

  ‘One of the families who run organised crime in South London. They’ve been under surveillance of all kinds – us, MI5, the Revenue, Customs and Excise – so we know a lot about them. We know a lot about what they do, too, but most of the information comes from phone tapping and, as you know perfectly well, we’re still not allowed to use that as evidence in court. Your wretched colleagues can get almost any evidence thrown out these days.’

  Trish was tempted to protest, but this wasn’t the time, and there was no point trotting out the ethics of the criminal Bar all over again. Anyone who took the trouble to think knew that every defendant had to have the right to have his or her case put as well as it could be. No one could be assumed to be guilty until the defence had tested every scrap of evidence and a jury had pronounced its verdict.

  ‘I can see why you couldn’t ask questions about Crayley and the Slabbs, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t,’ she said.

  Caro moved suddenly in the big spoon-backed chair in the corner. ‘Don’t even think about it. That’s not why I came tonight. I only wanted to talk it through, to see whether you could spot a loophole anywhere, and to clear my own mind.’

  ‘I know, but I’m planning to ask a few questions about a Soho drug dealer anyway. I could always be frightfully naive and ask about your Slabbs at the same time. I might pick up something you could use. People tell you the most extraordinary things if you ask direct questions.’

  ‘No doubt. But it’s not your job to be investigating drug dealers in Soho or anywhere else.’ Caro’s voice was full of the authority that came naturally to her. ‘What are you thinking of, Trish?’

  ‘I’m only after background for the defamation case I told you about. Jeremy Marton killed himself after your lot found drugs being sold on his premises in Soho.’

  ‘But you said the libel was to do with the bombing, not his suicide.’

  ‘I thought I might work backwards, talking to people who knew him and might have been in his confidence. He must have had some friends while he was working with the homeless, and he might have told one of them something about who this Baiborn character is. That’s all I want.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he’d have talked to anyone about something like that; not for a moment. And you could get yourself in real trouble.’ Caro looked worried enough to disarm Trish’s instinctive dislike of anyone who contradicted or criticised her unfairly. ‘If you must ask questions, you�
�d be safer going to people who remember the original investigation in 1972.’

  ‘I would if I had any way of getting to them, or even finding out who they were.’

  ‘I know I blocked you this morning,’ Caro said, with slight suspicion in her eyes, as though she thought Trish might have been angling for this all along, ‘but I’ve been thinking and maybe I could help. D’you remember Bill Femur? He was in charge of the case when you and I first met. He’s retired now, but he’d have been around in 1972. If he can’t tell you anything, he’ll know who could. D’you want me to put you in touch?’

  ‘That would be great,’ Trish said, remembering the stolid, intelligent chief inspector with respect.

  ‘In return, promise me you won’t go wandering about Soho asking dangerous questions about the Slabbs?’

  Trish thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘OK. When could you talk to Femur? I want to get on with this while I’ve got time, I mean before my own work takes over again.’

  ‘I haven’t got his number here, but I’ll phone him as soon as I get home and let you know what happens. Will that do?’

  ‘Thank you.’ The phone rang. With an apologetic glance at Caro, Trish answered it.

  ‘Hi. It’s me,’ George said. ‘I should be through in time to get to you by about half past eight. Is that too late?’

  ‘No. It would be great to see you. I’ll put something in the oven. Bye.’

  ‘I ought to go,’ Caro said, pushing herself up from the spoon-backed chair. ‘Jess will be wondering what’s happened to me. You won’t tell anyone about this, will you? Not even George?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Caro. I know how to keep my lips zipped. Give Jess my love.’

  David was still hard at work when they went downstairs, so they didn’t interrupt him. When Caro had gone, Trish opened a bottle of cold New Zealand Sauvignon and took a glassful to the sofa, deciding to get started on Jeremy’s diaries before she did anything about dinner.

  She found no mention of Baiborn until the fifth volume, when Jeremy’s awed descriptions of his heroism in various underground movements within Europe made him sound powerful and charismatic. They also made him sound distinctly foreign, which might have explained his odd codename.

  Reaching for a pad and pencil, Trish jotted down a list of questions. Even though Bee had asked her to gut the diaries for evidence of the real Baiborn’s identity, she couldn’t help thinking that an easier way to persuade Lord Tick to withdraw his claim might be to find out more about his own life.

  Several famous libel trials had collapsed when juicy secrets from the claimants’ pasts were revealed by the defence teams’ questions. If the basis of Tick’s case was that being linked with a terrorist outrage would lower him in the eyes of right-thinking people, it would help to show that right-thinking people could have other reasons to look askance at him. There must be something. Hardly anyone reached middle age without doing anything embarrassing.

  As she walked into the kitchen to find something to cook for supper, Trish decided she’d better meet Tick. She already had a picture of him as a greedy exploiter. Chopping an onion with unusual vigour, she decided it must be the combination of his names that had created the picture. The surname made her think of biting insects swelling on their victims’ blood, while ‘Simon’ had overtones of medieval priests taking money from the poor for indulgences that would do them no good in this world or the next.

  Could she engineer an encounter with him in a way that wouldn’t betray her real interest?

  Simon was in his bath when the phone rang. He lay in the hot water, with his head cradled on the big natural sponge Camilla had given him when she came back from a holiday in the Greek islands, and waited to hear who wanted him. Only when her voice rang out from the answering machine did he find the energy to get out and wrap himself in a towel.

  ‘Hi! I was in the bath. How are you?’

  ‘OK, Daddy. But what about you? What has Beatrice Bowman said about the libel?’

  ‘Nothing so far.’

  ‘Haven’t your solicitors done their stuff yet? You need to put a bomb under them. Bugger! Sorry. I didn’t mean that. But you do need to keep after them. We all know what lawyers are like. It’s too important to let them dilly-dally around, taking—’

  ‘They’ve done everything they can at this stage. These things always take time. We’ve already issued what’s called Letters of Claim. Now we’ve just got to wait to see what Bowman and her publishers offer me. Then we decide whether it’s enough.’

  ‘And if they don’t offer anything? What’ll you do then? You can’t just leave it here, Daddy. It’s too dangerous. Think of your reputation.’

  ‘Camilla, you’ve got to learn a little patience. There are more important things to worry about than this.’

  ‘But we have to find a way to make the world see that it wasn’t you who killed those children.’

  Simon laughed. ‘Apart from you and Dan and whoever else you may have told, no one does think it refers to me. No journalist has been asking questions, and none of the papers have even referred to the book. Each time I pass a shop I go in to see if there are any copies on sale, and there never are. You’re exaggerating the risk, sweetheart.’

  He suddenly thought how that would sound in court, if the claim ever got that far. ‘But whatever you do, Camilla, don’t tell anyone I said so or it would ruin our whole case. OK, sweetheart?’

  ‘Of course, Daddy. And I haven’t said anything to anyone else. Nor has Dan. But you must promise you won’t let that bitch get away with it.’

  ‘I promise. Now go to bed. Sleep well and forget it. Have you decided whether you’re in love with Dan Stamford yet? That’s much more important.’

  Her breathless giggle reassured him a little. ‘Not yet. He is rather gorgeous, though, isn’t he?’

  ‘Doesn’t do it for me, but then I suppose he wouldn’t. Goodnight, Camilla.’

  Chapter 5

  Thursday 15 March

  ‘Come on, Steph,’ called the sergeant. ‘Aren’t you ready yet? You’re holding up the whole squad.’

  ‘I hate these vests,’ Stephanie Taft said, bending round awkwardly to do up the straps of her bullet-proof chest protector. It didn’t help that her breasts were bigger than the designers had expected. They hurt already, but she wasn’t going to complain too loudly. It was a long time since she’d been out on a raid. Even though her firearms training had been topped-up last year, she hadn’t been allowed near a gun on duty until today. Being picked for the team showed that at last she’d served her time in Coventry for getting the bully pushed out of the force.

  ‘I’m not surprised, with tits on you like a she-elephant’s,’ said young Mac Fraser, raising a whooping laugh from the rest of the pumped-up mob in the squad room.

  The blokes revelled in these early morning outings. Better even than a screaming car chase, one had said only yesterday. Crashing into a house full of sleeping villains, yelling, ‘Go, go, go’ while the telly cameras recorded your heroics was a real turn-on. And sometimes you got to loose off a shot or two, which made it even better.

  Suddenly Stephanie forgot her loathing of the way this lot insulted women and just enjoyed their excitement, and liked them for letting her back in. They were on the side of the angels, after all, even if they could be sexist pigs when they were trying to wind her up. Today, she’d show them she had a sense of humour, too, and could join in with the best of them. She flashed a grin at Mac, who was a good lad, even if he did have red hair and freckles.

  ‘At least I don’t have my crown jewels dangling so dangerously outside my body that they have to be nestled up into a bullet-proof jockstrap.’

  ‘Way to go, Steph!’ shouted one of the others.

  ‘Settle down,’ said the sergeant. ‘You all done up now, Steph?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Come on then into the vans.’

  In winter the raids were even more exciting because it would be inky dark and the frosty ai
r would turn your breath into vapour trails like a top gun’s war plane. Now, in spring, it was already getting light at five in the morning. Still, the driver was slinging the van round corners as if he was at le Mans, and the squad were sitting on the benches, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, psyching each other up. This was a good raid to be on, much better than the usual sort on any old crack house full of maddened boys spiralling off into space. The intelligence people had pinpointed the target house as the nerve centre of a very nasty bunch of thugs, who’d been roughing up other dealers as well as the punters who owed them. They were thought to be holed up together, all four of them, ready to be taken by a determined team.

  Stephanie wasn’t the only woman today, she was glad to see. There were two others, both younger than her, but no fitter. It was part of her creed that if you were going to take on the dinosaurs in the job, you couldn’t trade on your physical difference. Some of the women couldn’t compete, of course, the little thin ones with bird bones, who could be picked up and thrown bodily across a room; they had to go about things differently. But for anyone like her with good big shoulders and long legs, it was wimping out not to keep trained and tough.

  The driver pulled up, resisting the temptation to squeal his brakes and burn the tyres. All the jokes stopped. They were still three streets away from the target house, but quietness was crucial. Stephanie could see the TV lads, almost as pumped-up as the squad, jiggling in the background, desperate to get going. The sergeant beckoned her and Mac and gave them the plum jobs. Mac would bash open the door, and she’d be the first one in and up the stairs. Mac gave her a thumbs-up and a friendly grin, then they set off side by side at the head of the silent, jogging squad.