Gagged & Bound

by Natasha Cooper

  ‘She died last year.’ Trish saw a smile lengthen Tick’s lips. He looked like a well-fed cat. She would have liked him better if he’d shown some signs of regret for the death of a woman he’d once loved. ‘But her brother, who shared rooms in Christ Church with Jeremy Marton, is very much alive and remembers the day of the row and its sequel very clearly indeed.’

  ‘Thirty years later?’ Susan laughed. ‘I take leave to doubt that.’

  ‘We do have a statement from him,’ Trish murmured, sounding deliberately sympathetic. She thought of Charlie’s first email:

  Got your jpeg, Trish. Recognised Gussie’s ghastly boyfriend at once. Partly the suit and partly the spots. Both drove my mother mad, but the suit was the worst of it. I can remember her shouting at Gussie that if her young man hadn’t the manners to dress properly, then he couldn’t expect to be invited to anything else. And Gussie, who always gave as good as she got, yelled back that if my mother wasn’t such a filthy snob, still living in the last century, she’d value the bloke for his brains and his social conscience. I think it was probably the first time any of us had heard the phrase. We were dinosaurs, you know. But that’s beside the point – which is that the young man in the photograph is definitely the one Gussie and I left behind in Christ Church with Jeremy when we went off to lunch. I hope it helps. Yrs, CP

  PS The relationship didn’t survive whatever the two of them had said to each other in the car on the way from London. Gussie didn’t give me any details, but she did say, ‘He’s history’, and I never saw him again. My mama was dead relieved when the penny dropped.

  Trish smiled at Tick again. ‘I can see the two of you so vividly, sitting in that panelled drawing room in Christ Church, with the chessboard between you, just as Charlie and his sister found you. You must have been the first person who’d listened seriously to Jeremy’s story about X8 Pharmaceuticals and the children who’d died in Africa. No wonder he trusted you.’

  Susan was looking as though she was fighting to keep her cool. Simon Tick merely had a faintly questioning expression.

  ‘I can also understand how welcome Jeremy’s gentleness must have been after the contempt with which the Poitiers family had treated you.’ Thinking of his taste for aristocratic women and the way Gussie had dismissed him, just as his wife had so many years later, Trish waited for a response. When Tick said nothing, she went on, ‘When did you first tell him that his idea of chaining himself to X8 Pharmaceuticals’ headquarters would never be enough?’

  ‘You’re inventing all this,’ he said, but he wouldn’t look at her.

  ‘Was it he who first mentioned the idea of a bomb? Or was that you, as he suggested in his diaries?’

  ‘This is absurd,’ he said at last, glancing up to meet her eyes for a second. As his slid sideways in their sockets, to focus on the blank wall beside her, he smiled and leaned back to cross one leg over the other. ‘I wouldn’t have had the first idea where to find a bomb. Then or now.’

  ‘Except that you were acquainted with several people who had been on the barricades in Paris in 1968,’ Trish said, smiling back at him, wishing that Jeremy had not killed himself, that he could have shared in this encounter. ‘Some of them have admitted to me that they were well aware of how to reach providers of plastic explosive. They also remember you vividly, even though none of them has yet connected you with the Baiborn of the diaries. You kept your nickname very quiet, didn’t you? From everyone except Jeremy Marton.’

  Susan was finding it increasingly hard to keep her anxiety out of her expression. Trish watched her fingers twitch as though she wanted to pull at Tick’s sleeve.

  ‘I can understand that as well,’ Trish said, pushing him. ‘Street fighters like Adrian Hartle and the others would have laughed even more loudly at the idea of the Baboon story that gave you the nickname than they did at some of your Parisian reminiscences. You must have liked Jeremy a great deal to trust him with it.’

  She watched his teeth clamp shut between his still-smiling lips. The blood was driven out of them, leaving them pale. She looked down at his hands.

  ‘No wonder you felt so betrayed when he told you he was going to the police,’ Trish added gently. ‘Was that what bounced you into making those threats against his parents? You must have been horrified when you learned his diaries still existed, and that they not only named you, but detailed everything you’d done.’

  ‘I do not believe for one moment that my client is named in Jeremy Marton’s diaries, whatever the coincidence of his nickname being the same as that of the terrorist,’ Susan said.

  ‘Why?’ barked Tughill, much to Trish’s fury. She kept her own smile on her face with difficulty and reached for the biscuit plate. Thrusting it at him gave her a chance to glare at him with the back of her head towards the others. He looked a little shamefaced and covered it by accepting a biscuit and chewing noisily.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ Trish said, reverting to her deliberately gentle, unthreatening voice. ‘But that’s because, as you will have read in the book, Baiborn – the Baiborn of the diary, I mean – threatened Jeremy with the murder of his parents if he ever told anyone the man’s true identity or even mentioned his existence to the police. In the circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that he did not dare to write down the real name, even in his private diary.’

  ‘Inconvenient for you, though,’ said Simon Tick, looking for the first time as though he thought he was winning.

  ‘Not necessarily. Before Jeremy gave himself up to the police,’ Trish went on, ‘he sent the diaries to his family’s solicitors, asking them to keep the parcel in the strong room, along with all the family documents. His instruction was that they be released to no one but himself or – after his death – his mother.’

  ‘To keep them out of the hands of the police, presumably,’ said Tick.

  ‘Precisely. If he had not left them to his mother, none of us would ever have known of their existence.’

  ‘So, Ms Maguire?’ said Susan Gottfriend, still looking worried.

  ‘So the question one would have to ask now is whether they were perhaps not the only thing he left in his solicitors’ strongroom.’

  Simon Tick was wiping something from his hand. Making an unnecessary performance of it allowed him to avoid looking at either Trish or his own solicitor.

  ‘What if there were also a letter?’ Trish said gently. ‘Sealed, and marked “To be opened after the death of my last surviving parent”? It’s clear from the diary that he wanted to set the record straight but couldn’t risk Baiborn’s having his parents killed. Wouldn’t this be a rational way for him to deal with that?’

  She paused, still watching Tick. He didn’t move, but his previously even breathing stopped for a second. When it started again, it was as ragged as a runner’s.

  Susan laughed without any humour whatsoever. ‘This is beneath contempt. Bully-boy tactics. If there really were any such letter you would have taken this all the way to court.’

  ‘Jeremy Marton’s mother is in her mid-eighties,’ Trish said, again giving them a pause in which to consider all the implications. ‘The strain of a case would be intolerable for her. I doubt if she could take it physically.’

  You always have to give them a way out, she thought. Let Tick tell us that his decision to withdraw is based only on his desire to protect an elderly woman from distress.

  Mrs Marton had said she’d do anything to have her son’s accomplice named, shamed and punished for what he’d done, but she was not Trish’s client. Those who were, the insurance company, the publisher and Bee Bowman, all wanted the claim to go away. Bee most of all.

  ‘And I fear,’ Trish added, as though she’d only just thought of it, ‘that the publicity would start the hate mail up again.’

  At last Tick moved. ‘Hate mail?’

  ‘Yes. Jeremy received a stream of abusive anonymous letters throughout his time in prison and for the rest of his life. But there were also signed letters from the parents o
f one of the children on the bus.’ Trish nodded to Susan, who was looking a lot more scared than she should have. ‘They weren’t all killed, as you’ll remember. Three of the survivors have appalling injuries: one has such bad brain damage that he can’t live without full-time nursing care.’

  Susan looked ill. Simon Tick was managing to keep whatever he felt out of his face.

  ‘The criminal injuries compensation in no way covers their costs,’ Trish added, ‘but their parents were advised there was no point trying to sue Jeremy because he had no money, and obviously no insurance that would pay out on such a claim. If they had someone else in their sights now, it’s hard to see how they would fail to pursue him for every penny he owned.’

  ‘I can see,’ Tick said slowly, ‘that if I allowed my claim against Beatrice Bowman to continue, the publicity could cause a great deal of distress to wholly innocent people like Jeremy Marton’s mother. I am, however, disturbed at the idea that any writer – or her publisher – should get away with unjustly impugning my reputation.’

  ‘How would it be,’ Trish said, noticing how carefully he was avoiding any admission, ‘if Motcomb and Winter undertook to remove the name Baiborn from any future editions of the book?’

  ‘You offered that right at the beginning of this discussion,’ Susan said in an attempt to get control of her client at last. Trish thought her frosty tone of voice had much to do with Lord Tick’s obvious refusal to warn her of what they might face in this room. ‘We would need more. Much more.’

  ‘In that case, perhaps we should withdraw for a quick discussion, Jennifer,’ Trish said, ‘leaving Lord Tick and his team here.’

  ‘Fine.’ Jennifer and Tughill got to their feet. Trish followed them out.

  As soon as they were safely in the room set aside for them, Jennifer hugged Trish. ‘We must tell Bee.’

  ‘Not yet. There’s still a way to go. And we have to get back to them with something else to help them agree to drop the claim.’

  ‘How about no reprints at all?’ Jennifer said, with the broadest smile Trish had ever seen on her face. ‘I mean, we’re never going to reprint the bloody book anyway. We only ever published it as a favour to Bee and it’s been a nightmare all along. I don’t want to see the title in our catalogue or on our computer ever again. It won’t have any more sales anyway. It’s a miracle we shifted five hundred and thirty-three copies.’

  ‘In which case, why don’t we start with offering no reprints at all, then if they still hold out, you can offer to withdraw the remaining stock altogether and have it pulped. At this stage that must be the cheapest option in any case. No warehousing costs to pay.’

  ‘Fine by me.’ Jennifer looked at the insurers’ solicitor. ‘What about you, Edward?’

  ‘Provided he signs a confidentiality agreement and an undertaking to withdraw the claim in its entirety, I’d be happy.’ He looked Trish up and down. ‘You ought to do this for a living.’

  ‘God forbid! My nerves wouldn’t stand it. We can’t go back yet; it’s too soon. And when we do, I want you both to look angry enough to give him more face. OK?’

  ‘Sure. You know, I still can’t quite get my head round it. OK, it’s thirty years ago, but he really doesn’t seem like the kind of person who could ever have run a terrorist network.’

  Trish had to laugh. ‘But he didn’t.’

  ‘What?’ It was Jennifer who produced the explosive syllable, but Edward Tughill shared her obvious anger. ‘But you told us he is Jeremy’s Baiborn. He provided the bomb.’

  ‘That’s right, but there was never any network. Come on! Haven’t you seen it yet?’ Trish said, surprised. If she’d known, she would have laid out the whole story for them both long before this.

  Jennifer shook her head, making her long hair fly around her head.

  ‘Explain, please,’ Tughill said, with the crispness of a teacher with a defaulting pupil.

  ‘All that talk of each terrorist cell having to be kept separate from the rest, and the stuff about “I have trained killers who will assassinate your parents”, was the same sort of stuff he produced for excitable girls wanting to know about his exploits in the Paris riots.’

  ‘Are you sure, Trish?’

  ‘Absolutely, Jenny. It was his way of making himself interesting to the kind of people who made him feel inadequate.’

  ‘But the threats to have the Marton parents killed? That’s …’

  ‘They must have been driven by Simon Tick’s absolute panic at the thought of being arrested. Bee was completely taken in by Jeremy’s diaries.’ Trish thought of some of the entries she’d read. ‘I’m not surprised, because he obviously believed every word he wrote, and she had never met Tick or heard anything about his fantasy life.’

  ‘All those deaths, and more than twenty years in prison for Jeremy Marton and then suicide, because of fantasy?’ Tughill said. ‘It’s grotesque.’

  ‘That’s the tragedy of it: the smallness, the triviality of the coincidence that started the whole thing.’ Trish saw they were still not convinced. ‘Look, what happened was that two angry, lonely young men got together, liked each other, found the first sympathetic audience they’d ever had and started to confide in each other.’

  ‘But how do you know?’ Tughill said. She thought he was looking more than a bit shaken.

  ‘It’s obvious. It all started over the chessboard in Christ Church that day when Simon was feeling even more bruised than usual and Jeremy had given up on ever finding anyone who’d listen to him. Their personalities and private stories dovetailed with devastating neatness. Neither Jeremy nor Simon would ever have thought of bombing anyone without the other, but once they’d started to talk about it they had to go on to keep face with each other. And then in the usual way of any folie à deux, the other one’s apparent belief in what they were doing would help to silence any doubts.’

  ‘So, Beatrice Bowman has actually libelled Lord Tick,’ Tughill said, looking around the windowless, book-lined room as though in search of a physical escape hatch.

  ‘Only if you think running a series of carefully separated terrorist cells is worse than conspiring to explode a bomb that destroyed a busload of children and their accompanying adults,’ she said. ‘No court is going to agree with that.’ Trish looked at the big clock on the wall. ‘I think we could go back now. Don’t forget: look cross.’

  ‘Please can I quickly tell Bee that it’s going reasonably well?’ Jennifer said. ‘It’s not fair to keep her on tenterhooks.’

  Both Tick and Susan Gottfriend put up a show of resistance to the new offer, but it didn’t take too long before they caved in. Trish carefully kept all signs of triumph out of her expression and was glad to see that Jenny and Edward Tughill were doing the same. Everyone shook hands and Tughill told Susan he would have the confidentiality statements drafted and sent round for signature first thing on Monday morning.

  ‘I doubt if our paths will cross again, Ms Maguire,’ Tick said, looking at Trish from the doorway. ‘Even if you ever do contemplate writing a book about the effects of homelessness on pre-criminal children.’

  She bowed her head, not prepared to risk saying anything that might enrage him into refusing to sign the documents. She was hoping no one would ever ask the Marton family solicitors for the imaginary letter she’d suggested might be waiting in their strong room.

  Jenny escorted him and his team out of the room and later returned with Bee and a glorious smile on her face.

  ‘They’ve gone. Phew! I never thought … Trish, you’ve been fantastic! And Bee, we’re both free of it all. I’d never expected that. Time to celebrate. I’ve got a bottle of fizz in the fridge down the hall. Will you all have some?’

  ‘Lovely,’ Bee said. ‘I think we deserve it. Trish most of all.’

  ‘Oops.’ Tughill’s voice made them all pause and look round at him. ‘Lord Tick’s left his phone.’

  He was pointing to the back of the chair Simon Tick had used. Trish looked and felt her thro
at close up. She couldn’t have spoken if she’d tried. Even from where she stood, she could see the red enamel paint on the side of the phone. Ignoring all the questions the others were throwing at her, she walked forwards, pushing against her own reluctance and flicked the phone over. There was a large, slightly straggly D.

  ‘The bastard!’ she said.

  Every scrap of triumph had gone from her mind. All she could feel now was colossal rage. If Simon Tick had been standing in front of her, she thought, she would have had difficulty stopping herself putting her hands around his throat and squeezing until he stopped breathing.

  With the others’ voices making a vague incomprehensible background noise, she thought of the destruction of David’s hard-won confidence, his tears on the day his phone had been stolen, the way he’d nearly died in the swimming pool and again riding his damaged bicycle over Blackfriars Bridge. Whether Tick had actually committed the thefts and malicious damage himself, or paid the school caretaker or someone else to do it, he was guilty. Trish was sure of that now. And she wanted him in the dock for it.

  She knew she would never get her wish. No one had seen him leave the phone in the chair today. Even if his fingerprints were on it, all he’d have to do was say he’d found it on the floor and put it on the chair as he was leaving. Anyone would believe that in preference to the elaborate story she was sure was the real one.

  ‘Trish! Trish, for heaven’s sake, what’s the matter?’

  Bee’s voice at last broke through to her conscious mind. She looked up and forced a smile.

  ‘Sorry. That’s not his phone; it’s my brother’s. I can’t think how it got there.’ She walked to the chair, picked it up by the edges and showed them the D. Then she slid it into her briefcase, hoping she wasn’t destroying all the fingerprints. Whatever her certainty of failure, she would hand it over to Caro with all the information and guesses she had, in the hope that she could see a way to bring Tick to justice.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Bee asked. ‘Do we tell the police about Simon Tick’s involvement in the bombing or what? Is there a statue of limitation for this kind of thing?’