Gagged & Bound

by Natasha Cooper

  I said, I will take heed to my way: that I offend not in my tongue.

  I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle: while the ungodly is in my sight.

  Trish felt Caro wince at her side and couldn’t resist a quick glance at the prayer book she had been given on her way into the church. The words were there, unmistakable, and apparently taken from Psalm 39. How extraordinary! Caro was standing rigidly beside her and there was a susurrus of whispered voices all around, as though they weren’t the only ones to have reacted to the psalm. On it went:

  I held my tongue, and spake nothing: I kept silence, yea, even from good words; but it was pain and grief to me.

  My heart was hot within me, and while I was thus musing the fire kindled: and at the last I spake with my tongue …’

  Poor Stephanie, Trish thought. Was that why she was shot?

  For I am a stranger with thee: and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.

  O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength: before I go hence, and be no more seen.

  Soon the powerful words took over Trish’s attention, so she forgot her mission to look for anyone who might have been in Stephanie’s confidence, until the congregation stood for the first hymn. ‘The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended’ had a dirge-like tune Trish didn’t know, so she felt released and able to look around her. Standing at the outer edge of a pew about halfway down the church, she had as good a view as any.

  People who must have belonged to Stephanie’s family were in the first few pews on either side of the aisle, then came half a dozen distinguished-looking senior officers, followed by a bunch of younger ones, also in uniform, then about thirty other people, all dressed in civilian clothes. They, too, could have been police officers, or they could have been politicians with an interest in law and order, or journalists, come to write up the funeral of another heroine slain in the course of duty. Or even sightseers. There was no sign of either John Crayley or Lulu.

  After a while, as the organ wheezed into silence again at the end of the hymn, Trish decided that, apart from the family, there were only four people who showed signs of personal distress as opposed to official regret or professional curiosity: three women and one slightly built man. They would be the ones to approach for information about who might have been nourishing Stephanie’s outrage. As they kneeled for prayers, Trish whispered as much to Caro, who nodded, but whispered back, ‘There’s nothing we can do if they leave quickly. We can’t go charging out before the coffin or the family.’

  ‘I’ll slip out round the side,’ Trish said. Seeing the withdrawal in Caro’s eyes, she added, still quietly but much more firmly, ‘It’ll do Stephanie much more good if we find out who might have known her well, than if we abide by conventional good manners. You stay here while you have to. I’ll leave just before the end of the service.’

  The funeral continued its sonorous way, sobering and yet curiously uplifting. Trish gave herself up to it until the moment when the bearers moved purposefully back up the nave towards the coffin. Then she coughed, put a handkerchief over her mouth and hurried, as quietly as possible, down the outer aisle to reach the front door just as the men were hoisting the coffin onto their shoulders.

  Outside, she took an unobtrusive position just beyond the churchyard gates, well away from the television cameras, their attendant journalists and the three gleaming black cars drawn up behind the hearse at the roadside. Clearly Trish was not going to be the only person wanting to talk to Stephanie’s friends and relations. There would have been more journalists if public interest hadn’t been diverted to the killing of Samantha Lock.

  A police heroine was exciting, but a ravishing twenty-year-old model, who might have become a household name if she’d had the chance to take up her part in the nation’s favourite soap opera, was better. So far there had been no press suggestion of any connection between the deaths of Stephanie Taft and Samantha Lock.

  Trish wondered whether that existed only in her own mind. To her, it seemed so obvious she couldn’t understand why Caro was sceptical. Sam Lock had been killed in a way that advertised her status as an informer. No one within the police had admitted to getting any information from her. Stephanie had claimed to have been given a piece of physical evidence to prove John Crayley’s involvement with the Slabbs and she had refused to release it to Caro without ferocious vows of secrecy because it could compromise her source.

  A solemn piece of music rolled out of the church. Trish thought it might have been ‘The Dead March’ from Saul, but she wasn’t sure. The bearers, sweating slightly and red in the face, climbed down the three shallow steps out of the church and speeded up a little as they headed for the hearse. She watched them swing round, then bend at the knees to load the coffin into the car.

  After them came a couple, who could have been Stephanie’s parents. Maybe the idea that Stephanie could have been born a Slabb was too wild to be true. Both these mourners were dry-eyed, but their mouths were tight with control, and the woman shook continuously. They got into the first of the cars waiting behind the hearse. More relatives followed, then the slight man Trish had noticed as one of the few people who had shown distress inside the church. He emerged, apparently part of a surprisingly cheerful-sounding group, but peeled away and left the church at a fast walk without looking back.

  Trish headed off after him, catching up only as he was crossing the main road to a clutch of bus stops.

  ‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Please stop for a minute.’

  He looked back, then hurried on. She too glanced over her shoulder, but there was no one else following them.

  ‘Please,’ she said, a little breathless. ‘I saw you at the funeral. I only wanted to talk to you about Stephanie. You knew her, didn’t you?’

  Sighing, the man stopped and turned. ‘Who are you?’

  Trish introduced herself. ‘I have no identification on me, but you can look me up, or I can give you the phone number of my chambers.’

  ‘What do you want to say about Steph?’

  ‘Tell me first why you were rushing away.’

  ‘Because I’ve got to get back to work,’ he said in a voice scratchy with irritation. ‘I couldn’t have missed her funeral, but my boss wasn’t happy. I have to go.’

  ‘What d’you do that’s so urgent on a Friday afternoon?’

  ‘I’m a legal exec. Now let me go.’

  ‘Which firm?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ He shoved his hand into his inside pocket and brought out a card, which he thrust at her, before swinging round and hailing a taxi.

  Trish nodded and watched him leave. She could have handled the encounter much more subtly, but at least she had his card. Brian Walker it said, above an address in Lincoln’s Inn. If it were genuine, she’d be able to get hold of him without trouble.

  Caro would be wondering what had happened to her. Trish phoned to explain, but was diverted to Caro’s voicemail. With luck that might mean she was talking to someone helpful. Of course, it could simply be that she’d forgotten to switch the phone on again after the service.

  ‘Forgotten,’ Trish said aloud. ‘What have I forgotten? Oh, sod it! David’s rugby boots.’ She looked at her watch. There might just be time to get to the only sports shop she knew before they closed.

  Chapter 15

  Friday 30 March to Sunday 1 April

  By the time Trish got back to chambers, still panting, Nessa had gone, leaving her a note to say that Bee Bowman had phoned again. Trish stood with the bag of boots dangling from her hand, re-reading the message and grateful for Bee’s continuing tactful refusal to use her mobile. She dumped the boots under her chair and hurried down the long passage to the room where Robert Anstey had his lair.

  He often left early on Fridays to drive to some big country house or other for the weekend, but this evening he was still at work, bowed over a pile of papers. The sound of her step made him look up. Trish watched a momentary spasm of irritation turn into a supposedly placid smile.


  ‘Well, Trish? What can I do for you this fine evening? Antony gone and abandoned you again? How he makes you suffer!’

  ‘I came because I wanted to ask for your help, Robert.’

  At the sound of her submissive tones, he looked like a cat about to purr.

  ‘As you know, coming from “a ghastly red-brick university”,’ she said, using his favourite insult, ‘I have no experience of the glamorous life you and your relations lived at Oxford. D’you think you could help me find out about someone who was there – at your college, in fact – but about fifteen years before you?’

  ‘My dear, Trish, I’m sure I can help. What is his name?’

  ‘Jeremy Marton, who was at Christ Church in the early seventies. Were any of your manifold relations there then?’

  Robert allowed his face to harden into a thoughtful frown. Trish had to admit that he was in fact rather good-looking, certainly more so than Antony, or even George. He had a kind of old-fashioned, very English, handsomeness. You could imagine him leading a charge in some desperate battle miles from any known civilisation, or taking the rope up the nastiest pitch on some unspeakable rock face.

  ‘My godfather’s stepbrother is about the right age. He might have known your bloke. I can certainly find out. Is it terribly urgent, or would Monday do you?’

  ‘The sooner the better.’ It was typical of the world Robert inhabited that he would be in touch with – and aware of everything about – such a tenuous connection.

  ‘I’ll have to tell him what it’s about,’ he said, unable to disguise his curiosity.

  ‘Antony asked me to help a friend of his who needs to find out more about this man. He died a year or two ago.’

  Trish could see Robert pining to ask why Antony had chosen to confide in a woman of whose social resources he himself had such a low opinion.

  ‘So you’re still doing unpaid little errands for the great man, are you?’ he said to make himself feel better.

  ‘Luckily I can afford it now that my practice is booming.’

  ‘Pride goeth before a fall,’ Robert intoned, like an old-fashioned parson, ‘and …’

  ‘Actually, old boy, I think you’ll find it’s “Pride goeth before destruction; and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Have a good weekend.’

  At the door, she glanced back and gave him a cheery wave. He was looking seriously put out.

  To celebrate David’s success in Saturday’s rugby match, Trish took him and Julian out for lunch at the French pancake restaurant, then drove both boys to Julian’s house in Holland Park, before going on to Fulham, to spend the rest of the weekend with George.

  It felt surprisingly good to let herself into his cosy house and know she could forget responsibility for everything and everyone for the next twenty-four hours. She even liked the powdery, dressing-up-box smell of the pot pourri his mother made him every summer from her own rose petals.

  He’d bought all the papers, rather than simply his usual Times, and they sat in his celadon-green drawing room taking their time with the news, reading out particularly funny or intriguing paragraphs in the way that had once surprised her but now seemed natural.

  In the evening he cooked a simple dish of guinea-fowl and lemon, with no cream or wodges of butter to weigh it down. They ate it by candlelight in the kitchen, with a sharply bitter salad. There was no pudding, except a bowl of imported raspberries.

  They had even more to talk about than usual. None of it was of much consequence: just more snippets of news that had caught their imagination, idle discussions of where they might take their summer holiday, and what they’d both been reading. Trish told him about the biography of Aldous Huxley she’d bought after Bee Bowman had talked enthusiastically about him one day. She’d begun it on Monday and had been entranced by the first volume, with its evocation of a highly cultivated life in the south of France between the wars.

  ‘I don’t know whether it’s that,’ George said, smiling at her over the candles, ‘but something is making you look a lot better than you did last week.’

  ‘It’s probably these,’ Trish reached out to touch one of the flames, letting her finger stay in it just long enough to feel the heat, ‘their light flatters. And I must say it’s good to be just us for a change.’

  He nodded. ‘David’s a great kid. I like him more and more, but I’m glad we can still have this too. D’you want some music?’

  ‘Why not? Something gentle with strings.’

  She didn’t recognise the violin concerto that flowed out into the room a moment later, but it suited her mood. He moved away from the CD player and stood behind her chair, lightly stroking her head and the back of her neck. She let her head droop forwards and felt his thumbs strengthen as he began to rub the tension out of her neck.

  ‘Mmm. Lovely,’ she said after a while, raising her head and letting it rest against him.

  They hadn’t made love for so long that she didn’t want to put him off by seeming too keen – or not interested enough. It was too soon to sigh or groan with pleasure, and hard to express her enthusiasm any other way while she was sitting on the hard chair with him behind her. She raised her arm to stroke his and felt him bend to kiss her hair.

  ‘George?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘I feel like a contortionist. Shall we go upstairs?’

  ‘Why not? You go on up. I’ll lock the doors.’

  His bed was like an enormous white cloud. She shivered a little as she slid between the linen sheets, then slowly warmed up as they talked, only to shiver again when George trailed his fingers along the sides of her body.

  Later, in the few seconds before all ideas merged into physical sensation, she thought of old unhappy relationships, when sex had been a poor substitute for communication. When George slid slowly into her and began to move, matching her rhythm with his, she knew this was only the next part of their long, long conversation.

  Trish collected David on Sunday evening, driving in a loop from Fulham to Holland Park and on to Southwark. She could tell he’d had a good time, and she was still basking in glorious physical ease. She’d almost forgotten the way her skin could feel as though it had been buffed all over and her joints seem to be attached to each other with silk rather than tough old leather.

  The traffic wasn’t too bad, and they were home only forty minutes after she’d left George, feeling a little as though half-term had just ended. In the flat the message light was winking on the answering machine. She sent David to unpack his weekend bag and sort out his dirty clothes for washing, while she listened to the messages.

  ‘Hi,’ said a vaguely familiar voice. ‘This is Lulu Crayley. My mother-in-law said you’d been in touch to talk about her brilliantly successful adoption. If you’d like another view of how she brought John up, just call me. My mobile number is …’

  Trish reached for a pencil, then had to play the message again to write down the number. She looked over her shoulder and saw through the open door of David’s bedroom that he was still scuffling in his bag. She hoped he hadn’t lost another pair of boots. He looked up, saw her watching him and gave her his most brilliant smile. She blew him a kiss and loved the way he made a gagging face, as though he were saying his favourite, ‘Gross, Trish!’

  He was all right for a while, so she decided to phone Lulu Crayley before listening to the rest of the tape.

  ‘Hi!’ Lulu said when they were connected. ‘You got my message, then.’

  ‘Yes, is this a bad time or can you talk?’

  ‘John’s out for at least the next two hours, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘More or less,’ Trish said. ‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’

  There was a bitter-sounding laugh down the phone. ‘I thought it could be important for you to know that not everything the sainted Gillian Crayley did was perfect. Just in case you really are going to write a book encouraging young mothers to give their babies over for adoption. John thinks you are.’ She let her voice trail upwa
rds at the end of the sentence, as though asking for confirmation.

  ‘Quite right,’ Trish said. ‘What did she do to him?’

  ‘Apart from pouring so much adoration over him that he thinks he’s perfect, she’s also made him terrified of intimacy.’

  At the so-familiar complaint, Trish scooped her chair forwards by hooking one foot under it and dragging it across the floor. She sat down. This could take some time.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Every possible way. He’s intensely secretive. He won’t ever answer questions. And he can’t share anything.’

  Which would fit perfectly with Stephanie’s allegations, Trish thought, and my sense that he had a firewall to protect his real thoughts and feelings from marauders like me. Could it have come from no more than the way he was brought up?

  ‘I used to feel so guilty about Stephanie,’ Lulu went on, ‘but now I don’t think it was all my fault. It’s as though John has to have a secret life, to kind of protect him against too much emotion. D’you see what I mean?’

  ‘Did Stephanie ever talk to you about him when they were still together?’ Trish asked, determined not to waste the opportunity.

  ‘She didn’t,’ Lulu said. ‘But he did. That’s how it happened, really. They were having more and more rows till one night it got so bad that he came round to my flat for comfort. I gave him a drink and listened to how awful it was living with someone who was permanently angry. You could say he never left me again. Not really. Physically he went back to her for a bit, but emotionally he stayed with me.’

  ‘Did you and she ever talk about it? Later on, I mean.’

  There was a long pause, then Lulu snuffled and said, ‘John didn’t want to tell her it was me he was coming to, but I thought it was only fair she should know from us before she heard gossip about it. So I went round to tell her. I thought she’d be angry, or throw me out or something, but she didn’t. She wasn’t cross at all; she just went very quiet and very cold, and said she wished me joy of him.’