Gagged & Bound

by Natasha Cooper

  ‘Christ, I hope not.’ He had ripped the corner off a piece of thick, soft bread and dipped it in olive oil. Now he put the bread down, found a pen and said, ‘Can you see the registration plate?’

  Caro waited until the car was at the furthest end of its range and steadily read out the figures and letters from the reflection. John wrote them down.

  ‘Doesn’t look familiar,’ he said, before taking his mobile out of his pocket and phoning one of his staff to ask for a computer check on the number. He put his hand over the phone, saying to Caro, ‘This shouldn’t take too long.’

  She ate some of the bread herself, then a huge green olive, like the ones Trish always had in the flat. Several more tables were now full. She hoped the food would come soon.

  ‘Great. Thanks,’ John said at last, soon after the waiter had brought their main courses.

  ‘Well?’ she said when John had restored the phone to his pocket.

  ‘I’m told it belongs to a well-known local minicab firm, who’ve sent it to make a pickup from a building along the street. The driver must be waiting for his passenger. We can keep an eye on it. How’s your chicken?’

  ‘Very good. But that’s not why you brought me here, so let’s get back to business.’

  ‘I want your help.’

  Feeling as though she was walking alone down an unlit country lane and hearing heavy footsteps behind her, Caro nodded, waiting for more.

  ‘I want out, and neither side is going to let me go easily.’

  ‘Neither side? What do you mean?’

  ‘Haven’t you understood? My work for Jack Slabb is secondary to – although part of – my real work, which is, and always has been, for MI5.’

  Caro felt as though she’d just fallen down stairs. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me straight away?’

  ‘It never occurred to me that you’d believe the stories of corruption.’ His face twisted. She’d never seen him look so good, with the pain clear in his eyes and the tense muscles pulling his cheeks out of shape. Stephanie must have seen this vulnerability, Caro thought. There’s nothing else about him that could have appealed to her so much. What a mess! What a tragedy!

  ‘I wish I’d known. I wouldn’t have worried nearly so much,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know what to do, who to tell, or how to stop you getting anyone else killed.’ Now his face was back to the charming blankness that was so familiar. She had to get back in touch with the real man, so she added, ‘Like Stephanie. Did you know that was going to happen?’

  ‘Ah, Caro, don’t.’ He put both hands over his face. Then he let her see it again, clenched once more into an expression that could have meant anything.

  She couldn’t think what to say. There was no comfort she could offer. Stephanie had mattered, and it sounded horribly as though she’d been killed on the orders of criminals wanting to protect this man.

  ‘I suppose it was after she died I knew I couldn’t go on. The problem is getting out in one piece. With what I know, Jack would have me bagged and gagged the minute he suspected I’d been turned.’

  ‘His own son? Are you sure?’

  ‘Christ, yes! Being his son would make the betrayal worse. So the punishment would be worse too.’ A faint smile made his face look a little more ordinary. ‘Halfway through some of these weeks of sleepless nights, I’ve even thought I’d welcome it. At least I wouldn’t have to think any more.’

  Caro thought for a moment. ‘Was the whole job-interview stuff a charade to find a way of bringing you in out of the cold?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m not in their confidence. I just come and go as I have to.’

  I don’t believe you, Caro thought, looking back to all the agonising she’d done, the way she’d involved Trish in her dilemmas, and the danger it had brought down on the incredibly vulnerable, deeply loved head of David.

  ‘And it’s not just Jack who worries me. Even if my real employers let me go now – and they can hardly stop me – they’ll be on the lookout for ever. At best, they’ll resettle me with a new name and background thousands of miles away. But everything I do will be watched in case I’ve gone over to the Slabbs for real. Every letter and email I write will be read; every phone call monitored. I’m never going to be free.’

  He put down his knife and fork, having eaten almost nothing. ‘And you know what, Caro? Almost the worst of it is that I will never be able to tell Stephanie that I did care, that some part of the man she loved was real. That the only truly fake bit was the one that belonged to Jack Slabb.’

  She watched him, still not sure how much of what he was telling her was true. She felt as though she’d been playing games with him for far too long. Which side was he on? Did he even know himself?

  ‘She wouldn’t have loved you so much if she’d hadn’t had some idea of the real you,’ she said, talking directly to the man she hoped he was.

  His face looked as though someone was burning his feet or pulling out his toenails. ‘I don’t know what to say to that.’

  ‘You could tell me why it worries you so much.’

  ‘Early on, you know,’ he said looking over her head, perhaps towards the cruising car, ‘I thought the worst of it would be the fear of being with Jack and the rest of them, knowing how little it would take to make them suspect me and drag me off with a stick between my teeth and my head in a bag. But it hasn’t been.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘That’s hell enough on its own. It’s like being tied up to bare electric wires, knowing someone could flick the switch at any moment and fry you. But even that’s not as bad as watching the people I care about and knowing I can never tell them I’m not the slimebag they think me.’

  ‘People? Which people think you’re a slimebag? Apart from Stephanie, I mean. I thought you’d managed to cover your tracks brilliantly.’

  He was looking down at his fingernails now, picking something out from under one of them. Any excuse, Caro thought, to avoid facing me. What else is he trying to hide?

  ‘Have you finished your lunch?’ he said. ‘If so, I’ll get the bill.’

  ‘Hey, wait a minute. What is this? You said you wanted my help.’

  ‘Yes. But not if you’re going to look at me like that, as though you still don’t believe I’m on your side.’

  ‘Tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you if I can do it.’

  ‘I want to give you the evidence that will allow you to arrest Jack Slabb.’

  ‘You didn’t have to lush me up and reveal all your secrets to do that. Any officer would leap at the chance of putting him away. So what do you really want?’

  ‘That. No more and no less. But there are risks involved. Not least the fact that it could screw up any chance you’ve got of moving out of straight policing. That is what you want, isn’t it?’

  ‘I thought it was once. Now I’m not so sure. In any case, why would collaring one of the most notorious South London villains spoil my chances?’

  ‘Because he’s more use where he is,’ John said kindly, as though to someone with a pea-sized brain, ‘with a man like me reporting on who he sees, what he does, and what his plans are.’

  ‘So why do you want him banged up?’

  ‘Because I hate him. And I want him out of the way before anyone else is killed.’ He looked as though he was making a huge physical effort. ‘And because it’s the only way I can see that I’ll ever have a chance to get free.’

  She stared across the table silently asking: how could anyone believe you now? About anything?

  ‘So will you do it?’ Steve asked Trish over the phone. ‘I’ve got a Mr Tughill, the insurance company’s solicitor, on the other line, waiting. He says you already know all about the case. Can that be true?’

  Trish smiled at the sound of his suspicious voice, ready to refer him to Antony if he started to make a fuss about all the time she’d spent with Bee Bowman. ‘I do know a bit. I’ve been urging them to go to mediation.’

  ‘So Mr Tughill said. But he
also says his clients want to try to persuade the claimant to withdraw and, for some reason of his own, he thinks you’d be able to achieve that in a without prejudice meeting. If you’re happy to take it on, I’ll negotiate a fee.’

  ‘Great. Thanks, Steve,’ Trish said, far too wise these days to launch into any kind of explanation. She was glad to know she’d be paid something for all the time she’d devoted to rescuing Bee from her demons, and even more glad to have a recognised role in the case.

  Chapter 26

  Monday 23 April

  Trish had already been waiting for ten minutes on the sofa by the reception desk at the solicitors acting for Motcomb and Winters’ insurance company. She was keyed up for the first real confrontation with Simon Tick and his advisors. Eventually a young assistant arrived to escort her to the meeting room, where she found Jennifer and Edward Tughill on one side of the table and places set for three at the other.

  Both stood to shake Trish’s hand.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, smiling. ‘We’ve just been running through things with Bee and she’s retreated to Edward’s office. If you need her later, we can get her back.’

  ‘Great. But we should be OK without her and I’d rather not risk her breaking down. That wouldn’t do our case any good. How is she today?’

  ‘Not too bad,’ Jennifer said. ‘Chiefly because she has unalterable faith in you.’

  Which you don’t altogether share, Trish thought as she sat down to await the arrival of Lord Tick and his team. She knew more than enough by now to stop herself tearing at her own certainty. Doubts always cropped up before any kind of action. David was right: even now she was always scared before going into court, and this was nearly as bad.

  Tick might not be the real Baiborn, she told herself, but we won’t lose much even if he can prove he isn’t. It would be much better to find that out here than in front of a jury, who would probably be tempted to punish the suggestion with big damages against us.

  The glass door opened and an even younger woman appeared to say that Lord Tick was here.

  As she retreated, Tick himself blew in to the room, giving her a dazzling smile and a brief ‘thank you’. Behind him, like inefficient anchors trying to hold him back against the pull of wind and tide, came his advisers.

  Tughill stood to introduce his little army and Tick shook hands with each of them in turn, offering a less dazzling but still friendly smile. He looked exactly as he had that night on Newsnight, confident, competent, extremely well dressed and with newly cut hair. Trish wished she could think he might not recognise her as the woman he’d met in the park.

  ‘No Beatrice Bowman?’ He sounded only mildly curious.

  ‘No. We thought it might be simpler – and probably less emotional – if we managed things without her.’

  ‘I’m not sure how that will be possible,’ he said.

  ‘You may well be right. Happily, she’s close at hand and we can bring her in if we need her,’ Tughill said, man to man, putting himself and Tick above the flurry and inconsequence of the women.

  ‘There’ll be tea coming in a moment,’ said Jennifer, who hadn’t noticed the position in which he’d put her. She urged Tick to sit, adding, ‘Is tea all right, or would you prefer something else?’

  ‘If you’ve got mint tea, I’d rather have that, with no honey or anything else.’

  Tughill lifted the phone to arrange it.

  ‘Now,’ said Tick’s solicitor, a pleasant-looking woman called Susan Gottfriend, ‘my client has come here as a gesture of goodwill to see whether he can come to some kind of understanding with your client.’

  ‘I know,’ Trish said, having looked for permission from Tughill, who had agreed a relatively generous fee for her services. ‘And we’re grateful. It seems more sensible from all our points of view to keep this out of the courts.’

  ‘It’s interesting to see you again, Ms Maguire. Was our encounter in the park a prelude to this meeting?’ Tick said, with an unpleasant edge to his voice.

  ‘Purely coincidence.’ Trish smiled, trying for a breeziness she didn’t feel. ‘At that stage I had no idea I would ever be here on the other side of a table from you.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Tick said. As though sensing irritation in his lawyer, he turned to her. ‘It’s all right, Susan. I can handle this. I simply need you to be here to advise me on points of law, if they should arise, while Annie takes notes for us both.’

  The solicitor didn’t like it, but she could hardly start an argument with him in front of the enemy. Instead, as Jennifer returned to her place at the other end of the table, Susan said, ‘We may need to have a private conference. Is there somewhere available to us?’

  ‘Absolutely. There’s a room two doors down the corridor that we have cleared for you.’

  Good, thought Trish, who had insisted a room should be made ready when she had explained how she proposed to conduct the meeting.

  ‘Then I think we can begin,’ Tick said. ‘What is it you wish to discuss? You have the Letters of Claim Susan drafted. I cannot understand why you haven’t yet made an offer of settlement. You can’t want this to go to court.’

  Trish smiled and leaned forwards, with her elbows on the table, determined to make and keep proper eye contact with him.

  ‘We believe there could be a better way of resolving this.’

  ‘I am sure you do,’ he said with an unpleasant laugh, ‘but you’ll have to convince me.’

  ‘Fine. To begin with, there really doesn’t seem to be any cause for you to fear being identified with Jeremy Marton’s accomplice, despite the coincidence of the names.’

  ‘I cannot imagine where you got that idea. People have already mentioned it to me, and I understand there are also unpleasant whispers doing the rounds. Naturally everyone who knows me at all knows that I am not the man referred to in the diary, but the story is already the source of sniggering, and it will spread. These things always do. I really cannot have my reputation impugned in this way.’ He brushed his cheek with his left hand, either to deal with an itch or to stroke himself. ‘I am a public figure, you know.’

  ‘I understand that,’ Trish said, looking away from him towards Susan and then back again with a faint smile. ‘Motcomb and Winter are happy to undertake that they will remove the offending name from any future reprint of the book. Would that satisfy you?’

  ‘On its own?’ His voice lost some of its smoothness. ‘Certainly not. I have been monstrously libelled.’

  ‘What would satisfy you?’

  ‘At the very least, a public apology read out in court for the record.’ His tightening vocal chords made his voice higher and told her how close he was to anger. ‘And damages high enough to show the world that the apology has been made in earnest.’

  Jennifer winced.

  ‘My anxiety about that,’ said Trish, ‘would be that it could lead to unwelcome publicity.’

  A knock at the door was followed by one of the secretaries bringing in the tea. Trish saw there were no biscuits on the tray. A plentiful supply usually helped when tempers rose, as they almost certainly would. She reached down to her briefcase and took out two of the packets of chocolate digestives she’d brought with her in case Tughill’s firm did not provide any.

  ‘Do you think you could let me have a plate for these?’ she said. When everyone was settled again, she saw Lord Tick’s charming smile was back in place.

  ‘I can understand your fear, but I am afraid that is Beatrice Bowman’s problem. It is the price she’ll have to pay for her failure to carry out proper research.’

  ‘I didn’t actually mean publicity for her.’ Trish hoped her smile looked as worried and kindly as she intended. ‘You see, I’m concerned about the way it could spur journalists to start digging up details of your relationship with Jeremy Marton.’

  He frowned. There was no explosion of rage or defensive withdrawal, merely the frown. His solicitor was less well prepared and Trish caught a fleeting expression of real concern in her ey
es.

  ‘I had no relationship with Jeremy Marton,’ he said calmly.

  This is the crunch point, Trish thought. He must feel himself safe, knowing that both Jeremy and Gussie are dead.

  ‘Perhaps relationship is putting it a little high,’ she said, ‘but you did meet several times after that afternoon you spent together in his rooms in Christ Church. You know, after he’d bought you lunch and taken you back to play chess.’

  He didn’t respond. Susan was looking at him, waiting for reassurance. His deeper frown could have meant that he was scouring his memory for the occasion she’d described, but Trish thought he was calculating how much more she could possibly know.

  ‘The day you had that terrible row with Augusta Poitiers on the way from London to Oxford,’ she said casually, pushing him towards the admission she needed. ‘You know, the row that led her to dump you.’

  All he had to do now was say something like ‘Was that Jeremy Marton? I didn’t remember his name.’ But he didn’t.

  ‘Augusta Who? I’ve never heard of her.’

  Got you, Trish thought, as she shot an apologetic look at Susan. It was met with a deliberately blank stare. Trish bent to her briefcase again to pull out a photocopy of the Tatler photograph.

  ‘The Honourable Augusta Poitiers, with whom you had a relationship between Christmas 1971 and the day I’m talking about in May 1972, which you spent with Jeremy Marton, just five weeks before he planted the bomb at X8 Pharmaceuticals.’

  She pushed the photocopy across the table towards them. He opened his mouth to say something, but Susan hastily intervened.

  ‘You must know as well as I do, Ms Maguire, that this is not evidence of any kind of relationship between Lord Tick and the late Jeremy Marton. All you have done is posit a link between them. Even if my client knew the woman in this photograph as anything more than an acquaintance, that has nothing whatever to do with Jeremy Marton. Are you suggesting that she herself has linked them in some way?’