A Poisoned Mind

by Natasha Cooper

  ‘When was it, Polly?’ she whispered eventually. ‘I mean exactly.’

  ‘I can’t remember the actual date, but it’ll be in the visitors’ book. As I said, it wasn’t long before John died.’ There was a silence, broken only by Bill’s snores. ‘I’ve been sad ever since that they didn’t talk. A man shouldn’t die thinking he’s lost his only son when he hasn’t.’

  The tears Angie had been so keen to avoid were slipping down her cheeks, making her need to sniff. Fran would have been full of strokings and murmurs of comfort and clean handkerchieves and special herbal remedies for distress. Polly’s sympathy was expressed in silence and by keeping her back to Angie while she got herself under control.

  Wind rattled the windowpanes and boomed in the chimney. Bill’s snores built up towards a shattering climax, then stopped.

  ‘Wha … What’s going on?’ His voice was thickened and hoarse.

  ‘You woke yourself up,’ Polly said. Angie could hear that she was smiling from the way her voice lilted just a little. It was full of affection. ‘Just in time for a cup of tea before bed.’

  ‘I’ll make it,’ Angie said, shaking the greasy water off her hands and wondering how she was ever going to walk back into court to fight for damages from Clean World Waste Management now.

  ‘There’s a hand-delivered letter for you.’ Steve’s voice caught Trish as she passed the clerks’ room on Friday morning.

  Still feeling sleek and sorted from last night, she stopped and took four steps backwards to look through the open door.

  ‘In your pigeonhole.’

  ‘But no brief yet?’ she said. Seeing him smile, she braced herself for a sententious quotation from his latest hero.

  ‘“Our patience will achieve more than our force.”’

  ‘Oh, very good! Burke again, I take it?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder how you ever sleep with all this learning by heart you make yourself do, Steve. See you later.’ She scooped her letters from the pigeonhole and took them to open in private.

  The handwritten letter proved to be from Jeremy Black, once more sent tactfully to chambers so that the sight of it wouldn’t worry David.

  Dear Trish,

  I thought you should know the general feeling at the governors’ meeting last night was that we should accept your generous offer to fund half of Jay Smith’s school fees for the next four years. We have not yet said anything to him because we still haven’t seen enough evidence of sustained good behaviour, but we have all been impressed with the increasing quality of his homework. The latest essay, written the night before the unfortunate incident involving his mother, has real quality about it.

  So much improved was it, in style, content and general thoughtfulness that his history teacher was worried that David might have had a hand in it, but comparison of the two pieces of work has shown no similarities at all. We are as grateful to you and David as Jay’s family must be.

  I should, of course, be glad if you would keep this development to yourself until we can be sure that Jay can keep up the improvement.

  With best wishes,

  Jeremy Black

  Trish refolded the single sheet and tucked it into her handbag. There had been many times since she’d made the offer when she’d regretted it, but the principle still stood. Offering Jay a chance of escaping his miserable background and then ripping it away would have been cruelly unfair.

  Walking into the British Library’s courtyard twenty minutes later on her way to meet Carl Bianchini, Trish took a moment to look around. This was her first visit. After all the grim press reports she’d read as she grew up about the great building’s construction and ugliness, she hadn’t expected anything like this airy space with its monumental Paolozzi bronze and spindly trees, or the satisfying proportions of the unusual red-brick terraced building ahead of her.

  There was a helpful map just inside the door and she had no trouble finding the café, but she couldn’t see anyone who looked like her quarry. She was reaching for a salad from the counter when she heard a tentative voice saying her name. Looking round, she recognised Bianchini at once from the Pathfinder photograph.

  She could see exactly why his Law College friends had described him as ‘sad’. There was something old-fashioned about his spectacles and the way he’d brushed back his dry, receding hair. His eyes held a defeated look, too, as though he were readying himself to endure the next practical joke in a long and brutal series.

  Trish ignored her tray in order to shake hands. Selecting their food and then arguing politely about who would pay for it helped build the first bridge between them. She won the argument easily.

  ‘So, how is it you think I can help you?’ he asked when they were sitting opposite each other.

  She told him about Jay and what she hoped to make Blackfriars School do for him, seeing Bianchini nod at intervals, as though the story fitted with what he already knew of troubled, dangerous boys. Then out of nowhere came a confession that surprised her as much as him.

  ‘And I so hate the thought of what he goes through at home,’ she said, ‘that I’ve been wondering whether I ought to offer to foster him as well. What do you think?’

  ‘Why on earth should you?’ Bianchini’s impatience shocked her into letting out more of the ideas she’d been ignoring.

  ‘Because I’ve interfered,’ she said, facing some of them at last. ‘And made him trust us. How can I go on sending him back to his ghastly brother and useless mother?’

  He took a moment to consider, forking bean salad into his mouth. When he’d swallowed, he said:

  ‘There aren’t many people who’d even help pay for a decent education. There’s no reason why you should worry …’ He paused. ‘No, that’s not what I mean: everyone should worry. But you’re not responsible for his home life. Quite frankly you’d be mad to take him in.’

  Trish nodded. She knew that. But it didn’t help.

  ‘Have you any idea of the risk?’ he went on in spite of her agreement.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With a background like his, he’s always going have issues, always be challenging. With a job as demanding as yours, you couldn’t begin to give him what he needs.’

  Trish ignored the remains of her salad. She couldn’t eat with all this going on. The café was filling up as the time edged towards one o’clock. There’d soon be far too many eavesdroppers to make any of her other questions safe.

  ‘Isn’t the mind weird?’ she said, moving towards them fast. ‘I thought I was perfectly happy with what I’ve been doing for Jay. Now I find my subconscious telling me it’s not nearly enough. I suppose you must have been through the same sort of thing.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘According to the papers you gave up a lot of money to work in the charity sector. There must have been a pretty good reason.’

  Bianchini’s smile died away to nothing, and his forehead corrugated in a frown even more intense than any of hers.

  ‘There was. I told you on the phone: my wife’s ill. We have two children. I had to have more time at home.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Is it serious?’

  ‘She has some form of ME. Completely debilitating. I couldn’t go on working in a job that demands 24/7 commitment. That’s all. There’s no mystery about it.’

  Now she understood his air of waiting for another blow. She’d seen it before in carers who spent their lives fighting their own resentments as hard as the hatred they received in return for the care they gave.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated, meaning it.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But in the circumstances it must have been very hard to leave just before your company went public.’ Trish watched his changing expressions and almost gave in. This was no Ben Givens, ready to respond to a difficult question with a threat. This was a man who looked as if the next practical joke had now been played on him.

  ‘I mean, you must have been in line for a consid
erable profit,’ she said, driving on only because she had no choice. ‘Or do you have options you can still exercise?’

  He drained his water glass and looked around for an excuse to leave. She began to eat again, as slowly as she dared, assuming he wouldn’t go while she was actually chewing.

  He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t move either. When she risked another glance, she saw him jiggling in his chair as though longing to leave but kept there by something even more important.

  ‘I suppose I’ve been more than usually interested in the GlobWasMan IPO,’ she said, ‘because I remember hearing about the libel case last year, when Ben Givens did so incredibly well for you.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me, any longer. I have nothing to do with anyone in that company,’ he said with enough passion to make himself sound a little tougher and her to feel less like a bully.

  ‘Then there was a diary item about you only yesterday,’ she added, ‘suggesting that someone – you or one of the directors – had ulterior motives for your departure.’

  Suspicion made his dark eyes harden. She thought she’d better add a distraction.

  ‘What was Givens like to work with? I’ve always thought he sounded very tough.’

  Consulting his watch, Bianchini muttered something about having to get going. Time to gamble, Trish thought.

  ‘You look to me like a man who wants to talk,’ she said in her cosiest voice.

  ‘I can’t think what gave you that impression. I want nothing less.’ He no longer looked at all defenceless. ‘I must get back to work. Thank you for lunch. I’ll talk to my colleagues about your protégé. If any of them come up with anything, I’ll be in touch. Assuming you really are looking for help for him.’

  ‘I really am. Here’s my mobile number,’ she said, scribbling it on a paper napkin. Rather to her surprise, he took it.

  Back in chambers, she stood in her usual place at the window, thinking through her suspicions as she watched the branches criss-crossing and tangling, before the wind freed them again. She couldn’t approach Greg Waverly because of her role in Angie’s case, and Ben Givens had made it clear she’d get nothing but threats from him, so she’d have to try the people she was sure they’d used as their tools.

  She found Hal’s digest of Peterthewalk’s blog and then the prospectuses for the defunct climbing school and the Victorian walks in Kensington and reread them.

  Ten minutes later she put her head round the clerks’ room door to make sure Steve wasn’t about to give her news of the forthcoming brief, then left chambers for the tube.

  Chapter 16

  Trish stood with her back to the great red oval of the Albert Hall, which she’d always rather liked, and looked straight at Queen Victoria’s chief monument to her dead husband, which she’d always loathed. Ugly, with its wildly over-ornamented pinnacles and gaudy mosaics, and completely out of place in its garden setting, the memorial was surrounded by massive stone statues representing four continents.

  Crossing the road at the traffic lights, Trish saw the group she wanted almost at once. Maryan Fleming, also known as Sally Bowles, was standing in the shadow cast by the figures of Asia and looking tiny in comparison. One step below her, their upturned faces gazing more admiringly at her than at any of the statues, were her customers.

  Trish waited until the lecture was over and the last of the tourists had torn himself away. By then Maryan was sorting the tips she’d been given, pouring the change into a purse, which looked surprisingly like the betraying chalk bag in Peterthewalk’s photograph, and straightening the ten and twenty pound notes. It seemed like a good haul.

  ‘Hi,’ Trish said.

  Maryan glanced up, then felt in the pocket of her jacket. She pulled out a slim packet of leaflets and handed one to Trish.

  ‘There won’t be another walk here till next week,’ she said, with an apologetic smile. Her voice was very sweet, and quite unthreatening. ‘But there are lots of others; one every day somewhere in London.’

  ‘Thank you. But that’s not what I wanted. I wondered if you had a moment to talk about a different kind of walk.’

  The gentle face, fringed with shaggy blonde hair, looked surprised, but not at all worried.

  ‘In Northumberland?’ Trish said. ‘When you were with Barry Stuart on the edge of the national park there in April last year. Do you remember?’

  Maryan stuffed the leaflets back into her pocket. ‘Why would I? We did lots of walking in those days.’

  Trish smiled widely to make herself look reassuring and said casually:

  ‘It was the time you and Barry were paid to block the vents of the chemical-waste tanks. I should’ve thought that would be pretty memorable. Unless you did that kind of thing often.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘But you did do it that once, didn’t you?’

  Maryan looked as though she might cry.

  ‘I’ve got timed and dated photographs that put the two of you in the right place on the day the tanks were blocked,’ Trish went on as though there was no doubt about anything she said. ‘So there’s not much point pretending. And I’m not after you in any case. All I want to know is who paid you to do it.’

  ‘But I don’t know who they were.’ Maryan looked and sounded convincingly helpless. ‘Barry never told me.’

  Trish wanted to swear. Having tracked down one of the saboteurs it would be excruciating to find that she knew nothing useful. Had Barry taken her along as cover? Or as someone to blame if they were spotted hanging around the tanks? Unless she’d changed since then it seemed unlikely he’d have wanted her for anything more active.

  ‘I didn’t know anything about it. Honestly,’ Maryan said, blinking the tears away. ‘He said he was going up north on his own, that he needed space to think things through. But I didn’t believe him. I thought he was seeing someone. So I said I was going too, whatever he said. In the end he said I could if I wanted, but if I couldn’t keep up he wasn’t going to wait for me.’

  ‘When did he tell you why he was really there?’

  ‘Only at the last minute, when he saw I wouldn’t let him leave me behind in the b&b like he wanted that day.’

  ‘Did he say why he was doing it?’

  ‘Only that there were people who didn’t think it right that dangerous waste was being stored up there so near the national park.’ Now Maryan was staring at the tops of the trees and letting her eyes move only in the direction of the clouds of birds that wheeled around the bare branches.

  ‘Did you agree?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Maryan said in a little-girl voice. ‘I said we couldn’t. It’d be wrong. Then he told me how much they were paying him and how bad things really were with the bank, and how we’d lose the climbing school if we didn’t get more money from somewhere. And so … And so—’

  ‘And so you agreed.’

  ‘I had to. But I wish I hadn’t.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Trish said, thinking of the appalling consequences and wondering why Maryan hadn’t denied all knowledge of the plan. ‘But why, in particular?’

  ‘Because we lost the school anyway, and everything else went wrong as well. And it wasn’t even necessary. There’d been something wrong with the tanks all along.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Didn’t you read about it in the papers? They were really dangerous. Quite soon after we were there, they blew up. We needn’t have ever gone anywhere near them. I wish we hadn’t.’

  Could she really not have made the connection between the blocking of the vents and the explosion? Looking at her charming face, Trish didn’t see a lot of intelligence, but even so she was doubtful. And the little-girl voice was definitely assumed. She’d sounded perfectly normal when they’d started to talk.

  ‘Where’s Barry now?’ Trish asked.

  ‘We split up. The money he got from the tanks wasn’t enough to save the school.’ Maryan wiped away the tears with both hands, but they went on oozing out of her eyes. ‘S
o we shut it down. We tried to go on together for a bit after, but he got so restless. And the people he’d been to for loans and stuff were harassing him, threatening him that if he didn’t pay up they’d … they’d … you know.’

  ‘Break his legs?’

  Maryan shuddered. ‘Something like that. So he said we had to get away.’

  She’d found a handkerchief at last and mopped her face more effectively, and blew her nose.

  ‘Why New Zealand?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Maryan sniffed. ‘He hadn’t told me he was keen to go there or ever bothered to ask if I wanted to, so I said I wouldn’t. And he said, OK, was he bothered? I was just a millstone round his neck. And if I wanted to stay and take my chance with Ken Shankley that was OK by him. Which was stupid because I never fancied Ken at all. I mean, I always liked him. But I never fancied him.’

  Trish heard a whirring sound and someone shouted ‘Look out’ just as a heavy weight hit her in the small of the back. Shock stopped her breathing. Then came sharp pain.

  A sensation of small warm hands clinging to her legs banished most of the shock. She twisted round to see a child of about nine, wearing enormous roller blades, jeans and a crash helmet, howling at her feet. She couldn’t tell from above whether it was a boy or girl. An adult woman came running up, panting.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said casually in the kind of voice Robert used when he wanted to be annoying, then bent down to the child. ‘Barbie, I told you to be careful. You’re lucky you didn’t fall right down the steps and break something.’

  Trish waited for a more fervent apology, a question about whether she was hurt, or a suggestion from the woman that her child might say something to excuse what had happened. Nothing came. The pair of them moved away.

  ‘Well, I think that’s outrageous,’ Maryan said, sounding less sorry for herself and considerably older. ‘Her kid really hurt you. I could see. People are so irresponsible! You need to sit down. There’s a bench there. Can you manage? Take my arm.’

  Trish, whose back was genuinely aching, accepted her help.