Prey to All

by Cooper, Natasha

  Trish was fascinated by his passion, so much hotter than anything he’d shown for Deb.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said after a while, once more smiling at Trish with all the deliberate charm of a thirties film star. Any minute now he was going to tell her he didn’t give a damn. ‘I detest the thought of her being exposed to that kind of filthy danger. In her own cell, too!’

  Trish wished she could see his eyes more clearly, but the low sun was right behind him. That might have been chance, but she decided it was unlikely. With no light falling on the lines around his mouth and eyes, and his hand elegantly propping up his head, coincidentally hiding any double-chin, he could have been her own age. And he was a good-looking man.

  ‘May I ask a very impertinent question?’

  As he looked at her, his full mouth thinned. He took away his hand. Trish saw he didn’t actually have a double chin and felt mean.

  ‘Debbie and I did have a brief affair,’ he said, as though admitting he’d once shaken her hand. ‘If that’s what you wanted to know.’

  ‘It was, in fact.’

  ‘I thought so.’ He laughed lightly, unconvincingly. ‘I’d be glad if you could keep it under your chapeau. Not that it’s particularly important. I mean, it was donkey’s years ago, neither of us was married or even attached at the time, so there’s no scandal.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Trish said at once. ‘I’m not about to leak your past to the tabloids. Why would I? I just want to know where I am.’ She smiled a little. ‘It helps when assessing evidence.’

  ‘I’ll bet. Debbie was lovely then – not beautiful, mind, and a bit, well …’ He laughed. ‘Stocky is the word that comes to mind. But kind and very gentle. I’d been going through a tough time, and she did a lot for me.’

  What could the woman he’d described have offered a man like him, Trish wondered, other than the obvious sexual satisfaction?

  ‘I’ve always known I owed her for that. If I can help her now, it’ll do something to settle my debt.’ His smile was even better this time, more grown-up and less yearning. ‘Hence this meeting with one of the sharpest lawyers of her generation.’

  ‘Tell me what she was like then,’ Trish said, discounting the flattery.

  She watched him as he talked, liking him better as he forgot to pose, losing himself in a description of a warm, friendly woman, not obviously attractive and clearly rather lonely. Trish wondered if Deb’s appeal for him could have had anything to do with the way her uncertainties boosted his own confidence. It seemed pretty unassailable these days, but there was something about him, something about the way he obviously liked to collect admiration, that made her suspicious.

  ‘What do you know about her family?’ Trish asked, when he paused.

  ‘Not a lot. I never met the parents. It wasn’t that kind of affair. They were stuck in the depths of wherever it was – Suffolk?’

  ‘Norfolk.’

  ‘Of course. And they never came to London. Her awful father didn’t approve of the expense or something like that. But I did meet the sister once or twice.’

  ‘The perfect Cordelia? Good. I want to know about her. How did she strike you?’

  ‘A hard-faced cow, to be frank. But rather beautiful.’

  ‘Not an Ugly Sister, then?’

  ‘No. But, if you ask me, Goneril or Regan would have suited her better than Cordelia. I’ve always thought it was she, rather than the father, who was the cause of most of Debbie’s problems.’

  Trish wasn’t sure she agreed. Deb’s own account of her father made him sound unbearable to live with, and she’d been surprisingly unvitriolic about her sister, considering what Cordelia had said about her in court.

  Even her name had caused Deb problems there, Trish was sure. Deb herself probably hadn’t realised it, but Trish was well aware of the way the lawyers and the judge would have reacted to the thought of a father-loving woman called Cordelia. Everything in their subconscious minds would have made them long to believe her.

  ‘It sounds to me,’ she said, teasing him to see how he reacted, ‘as though Cordelia didn’t succumb to your charm.’

  ‘You could say that. She had a lot of offers then, of course. Even so, it was a blow.’ Chaze’s laugh was friendly and it sounded honest. It smoothed away the edges of Trish’s earlier dislike.

  She wasn’t surprised that Deb had fallen for him. Bruised by her father’s contempt, she must have been wonderfully reassured by the discovery that she could attract a university tutor, and a philosopher at that.

  ‘And what about her husband? Did you ever come across him?’

  ‘One or twice. Not an enormously prepossessing bloke, I thought.’ Chaze’s voice had a seasoning of bitterness now. ‘But then I would say that, wouldn’t I? He took her off me.’

  Good for him! thought Trish.

  ‘He’s an engineer of some kind, I believe. She met him when he came to lecture to one of our post-graduate courses. Malheureusement for Debbie, I’d have said. I mean, you know how badly engineers are paid.’ Chaze laughed again. ‘The poor girl has had a very hard time, trying to bring up four children on just about what I pay my current secretary. I’ve often wondered if that’s what soured her.’

  Ah, thought Trish, catching a glimpse of nasty pleasure. So perhaps her first reaction to him hadn’t been as unfair as she’d thought, and perhaps Deb’s preference for her engineer was understandable.

  ‘Soured?’ Trish lifted her eyebrows to invite more detail.

  ‘Yes. A lot of witnesses at her trial gave evidence about her verbal violence. When I knew her, she was never even impatient, let alone violent. Now, would you like another drink?’ Chaze pulled back the sleeve of his immaculate suit to check his watch: a gold Rolex. ‘I’ll have to go in a minute or two – I need to get down to the constituency for dinner – but there’s time to order you another drink if you’d like one.’

  ‘It’s sweet of you, but no thanks. Before you go, are you saying you think she was unhappy in her marriage?’

  He shrugged. ‘D’you know anyone who isn’t?’

  Cynic though she was, Trish still believed it was possible for two people to be happy together, if they tried hard enough and were kind to each other. She told him she had several married friends, all of whom were an excellent advertisement for the state.

  ‘I’m not sure I have,’ Chaze said bleakly, getting to his feet.

  ‘One last thing,’ Trish said. He waited. ‘Is there anyone you think might have killed the old man in a way they’d know would implicate Deb?’

  As he shook his head, his hair hardly moved. Trish tried not to let the thought of gel and spray add to her prejudice against him. MPs had to take care of their image.

  ‘I take the Phil Redstone line myself,’ he said. ‘It must have been the mother, at the end of her tether and wanting her husband to be free of pain. After all, that’s what she confessed to.’

  ‘But what about the pillow and bag discrepancy?’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy. I should think when she told them she’d smothered him, they said something like, “What, with a pillow?” and she would have agreed at once. I expect she was a great agree-er,’ Chaze said, looking wisely tolerant. ‘Everyone says Debbie’s exactly like her, and darling Debbie always did her very best to agree with anything anyone said, however difficult it was for her.’

  Trish didn’t believe him and knew he saw it in her face. He looked enormously tall as she squinted up at him, the sun making her screw up her eyes. It burst out from behind him, glittering all round his elegant silhouette.

  ‘Now, I’m afraid I really do have to go. It’s been such a pleasure meeting you.’

  Trish didn’t get up, but she smiled at him as she thanked him for the drink and the information.

  ‘I feel more optimistic about Debbie’s chances than I have for some time,’ he said. ‘Let me know as soon as there’s anything I can do.’

  ‘I will. Thank you.’

  As Trish sipped the last of her s
pritzer, weak and warm now that the ice had melted, she thought about her next move.

  The terrace was pleasant with the faint wind off the river, and Trish never minded sitting alone in a public place, even in the middle of a self-conscious crowd like this one. Several of the other drinkers glanced at her every now and then to make sure she recognised them. A few were clearly wondering whether they should have known who she was. It amused her to meet their half-doubtful smiles with a broad grin and see them rack their brains for her name.

  She got bored eventually and walked home along the south side of the river to collect her car for the drive to George’s house in Fulham.

  By eleven on Saturday morning they were sitting in their matching dark blue towelling dressing-gowns, having breakfast in the garden. There weren’t many flowers among the low-maintenance evergreens, but pots of pink and white lilies pumped their richly spicy scent into the air, a few late roses flopped at the end of thin spiky stalks. Daisy-like flowers spread like pools over the hand-made Suffolk bricks, which George had had laid in place of the original scrubby lawn.

  A bumble-bee was hovering between flowers, buzzing like mad, and a few sparrows quarrelled at the far end of the garden. Broken snail shells lay in a pile on the bricks, smashed by a hungry thrush, and silvery trails veining several routes to the lace-like hosta leaves showed where slugs had been.

  George leaned down to reach for his cup, without looking away from the newspaper. Trish watched him, a slow, contented smile lengthening her mouth. The smell of the coffee reached her, strong and fragrant, and she picked up her own cup to drink again. She did not run to Jamaican Blue Mountain in Southwark, but if that was how George chose to spend his money, that was his business. For herself, the thought of spending thirty-five pounds on a pound of coffee beans that tasted hardly different from any others seemed bizarre, as did the incredible weight of newsprint he had delivered to the house.

  He liked to have all four broadsheets and sometimes two or three tabloids as well each weekend. It entailed buying a vast number of recycling bags in which to get rid of them, and hours spent reading them, but why not? It was an innocent pleasure and a tiny extravagance compared to some she’d known.

  He sneezed explosively as he opened a magazine, allergic probably to the ink on the coloured pages. Trish got up to refill her cup and collect another croissant from the basket by the pots. The fat bee droned past her, its fur laden now with gold pollen, and settled in one of the regale lilies. She brushed one of the flowers, releasing an extra strong puff of scent, lucky not to have to worry about hay fever or asthma.

  A moment later all the happy, self-indulgent peace was driven out of her.

  ‘Did you see this?’ she demanded.

  ‘Snoutrage,’ George said, looking up to grin at her. ‘What is it this time, Trish?’

  She knew he didn’t like being distracted by snippets from particularly interesting articles, but he’d given up pointing out that he’d be reading the paper himself any time now and didn’t need her to tell him what was in it.

  ‘This story here about the parents of some junkie who died in his squalid flat, while he was looking after his two-year-old son.’

  ‘Yes, I saw that. It’s in all the papers. Awful for the child, of course. But at least it survived.’

  ‘But now, after all that horror, they’re trying to find a reason to repudiate him. It’s unspeakable.’

  George turned in his chair. His expression was benevolent, but she knew what it hid. It wasn’t only uncontrolled anger he disliked; it was vehemence of any kind, especially in her. She was coming to believe that it frightened him. Once she would have forced him to accept her as she was, but, watching him moderate habits and ways of talking that upset her, she had learned to give a little. And, after all, it wasn’t the vehemence of her thoughts he minded, just its expression.

  ‘You mean you’re angry that they’re having a DNA test done to find out if it’s their grandchild before they’ll take it into their home?’ he suggested casually, much too casually for her current state of mind.

  ‘Him not “it”,’ she said, as sharply as she ever spoke to George. ‘Exactly. How could they?’

  ‘Be fair, Trish.’

  ‘Think about the child, for God’s sake. He’s been brought up by the junkie since birth, and it says here that no one can trace the mother; he was a child of the family. He belonged. And now he may end up in care just because the grandparents … Oh, people do make me angry.’

  ‘I know they do.’ George put down his paper and cradled the big white cup of coffee in both hands.

  His strong, hairy legs were planted square on the stone flags about a foot apart, the dressing gown just covering his knees. He looked what he was: a clever, well-off man in his mid-forties, certain of his place in the world and his opinions, not trying to be young or glamorous. To her he was infinitely more attractive than a smoothie like Malcolm Chaze.

  George must have seen the change in her, for his voice was lighter as he said, ‘The junkie was in his late forties, wasn’t he?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Then his parents must be getting on, in their sixties at least, probably seventies. They must have been to hell and back already with a heroin addict for a son.’

  Trish scowled, in spite of herself, and drank some more coffee. The fact that you could be besotted with someone didn’t stop you feeling furious with some of their views.

  ‘Trish, be reasonable,’ he said again. ‘A drug-addicted child is a torment to any parent. I had some clients once who had to take out an injunction to keep their own twenty-six-year-old daughter away from the house.’

  ‘But that’s …’

  ‘No.’ George was firm. He knew where she was coming from, and he wasn’t afraid of disagreeing with her. ‘It wasn’t outrageous.’

  Trish shrugged.

  ‘The girl had been an addict for eight years by then. She’d been on the streets; she’d had gonorrhoea. She was sharing a flat with a low-life for whom she went out thieving. She’d had pretty much everything portable from her parents’ house. And this was a girl with a good brain, a good education, a supportive family, and no problems with her parents until she got hooked. They did every single thing they could, paid for cure after cure in all the best places. Nothing worked. She was back on drugs within weeks each time.’

  ‘And now?’

  George shook his head. A flutter of pink petals from the climbing rose above his head floated down and settled on his hair. Feeling something, he put up his hand to brush them off, looking like a bridegroom embarrassed by confetti. ‘I don’t know. She’s probably dead. They never speak of her. But they’re still suffering. They always will. Parents do, you know, Trish. It’s not only the children who are made unhappy in families.’

  ‘I know, George.’ Trish got up and went to pick the last few pink petals out of his hair. He put his coffee cup on the ground again and put both arms around her waist. She kissed the top of his head. ‘Even so, I do think it’s an outrage that these particular parents aren’t taking the child in. Whatever he’s like, whatever he’s seen, he’d be reclaimable with proper care.’

  George hugged her more tightly. ‘You know, I love the way you refuse to back down, but this passion on behalf of stray babies is a bit worrying. Are you about to go broody on me?’

  She was surprised he’d noticed and put both hands on his head to tip it up so that she could see his face properly. His eyes were softer than usual.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said honestly. ‘I do keep thinking about it, but it would …’

  ‘Change the way we live?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘No more hanging about with the papers at midday on Saturdays? It would mean charging off to football and ballet.’

  ‘And all sorts of other things. Hormone upheavals that might send my brain into outer space and stop me being who I am. I might never get myself back. And we’d have disagreements – quarrels even – about upbringing. You
know we would.’

  ‘And school fees,’ he said, ‘and exam nerves. And worrying that they’re out late and might be taking E when they go clubbing. And who they want to marry, and whether they’re paying enough into their pension schemes, and—’

  ‘Oh, stop it,’ she said, laughing. ‘I know I’d worry too much. But it’s a thought that does keep cropping up.’

  ‘I know.’

  Something in his voice made her say carefully, ‘You too?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Then we will have to think about it,’ she said, breathing carefully. It was all rather alarming.

  ‘But we’ve plenty of time,’ he said, picking up her doubts.

  ‘A bit, anyway.’ She took her hands away from his head and moved back out of his grasp. ‘I must dress. May I have first bath?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  She took The Times Metro section with her, so she could read the book reviews in the bath. She wished George had two bathrooms and that one of them had a proper shower. She’d lost the habit of baths years earlier. Still, they spent all the week at her place; it was his turn from Friday to Sunday. Wallowing like a mudfish was a small price to pay.

  Chapter 6

  ‘Ms Maguire?’ said the stringy-looking man, who bent down to the open window.

  ‘Yes. And you must be Adam Gibbert. Do, please, call me Trish.’

  ‘Thank you, and thank you for coming all this way. It means a lot to us all that you’ve taken Deb on like this. D’you want to park over there, behind the Volvo? There’s just about space, and you’ll be safer off the road with a car like that.’

  ‘Great.’

  Trish waited until he’d moved out of her way, then manoeuvred her big soft-top Audi behind his battered estate car. The gravel crunched under her wheels and slipped as she turned the tyres.

  Adam Gibbert shut the gate at the bottom of his garden and she watched in the mirror as he came back to the car. He was tall and walked painfully, which made him look much older than Deb. Trish knew the age difference was only four years, which made him younger than Malcolm Chaze, his one-time rival. He didn’t look it.