by D. B. Martin
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s one of the charities the Wemmicks set up – or rather one the trust fund set up after he died.’
‘Lord Justice Wemmick again?’
‘The one and same.’ Not just twice – bloody regular monotony now!
‘Why didn’t I know that?’
‘I don’t know, Lawrence. You seem to have been walking around with your eyes closed these days.’ She got up and walked elegantly to the door before I could reply. ‘Let me know what you find out, eh? I’ve a feeling there’s more Margaret manipulation here, and I don’t like it. Talk about power extending beyond the grave – this is becoming like a bloody strangle-hold and I don’t like being strangled. I spent far too much on getting my neck done.’ She stroked it lovingly and I had to admit the surgery was exceptional. Heather Trinder was at least my age, going on thirty-five. ‘Don’t forget that.’ I wasn’t being let off the hook – just dangled a little.
Kat rang me back less than five minutes after Heather went. This time I positioned myself in front of the window and tried to see what was written all over my face in the reflection. I couldn’t see anything but irritation.
‘Do you want company?’
‘I’m in Chambers.’
‘I meant when you go and have a poke around FFF.’
‘Ah, I see.’ I knew she’d bite. That much at least I was getting right about human nature. The trouble was the urge to produce a reaction in her hadn’t resolved what I wanted to do about it. There was something sweetly addictive about her that I couldn’t pass up, even though too much addiction can be dangerous. No, I didn’t particularly want her company under these specific circumstances, but how could I say that without offending? It would be less tricky than interviewing Kimberley Hewson, though. I still had a brief to work through and the ice had to be broken between us again somehow, not that I was entirely sure ice had formed, and if it had – why. I went for the safest option. ‘If you’re free, a not so independent witness is always useful.’ It was done. God help the addict needing his fix.
She met me outside an hour later but I had at least done a bit of homework by then. Heather’s revelation about the link to the old judge had shown me exactly how far I’d sunk into myself and my problems. Normally I’d be on top of every twist and turn in the evidence. I’d have been telling Heather what the FFF trustees had for breakfast under other circumstances. Instead I hadn’t even known who they were until she’d prompted me with her sharp little stiletto kick. My edge was not merely blunted, it was virtually non-existent. It was time to smarten up.
The charity had been set up with monies allocated for ‘charitable works’ from Wemmick’s estate and via a convoluted will trust – the one I’d also benefitted from. I made a mental note to obtain a full copy of it and see what else he was connected to at some point. A number of charities had popped up this way over the last five or six years; FFF, MADU, Children without Boundaries and Casualties of War being amongst them. The trustees varied overall, but had an identical core: John Arthur Wemmick, Molly Anne Wemmick and George Edward Wemmick Snr – younger brother, it seemed, to my old judge. National Archives helpfully provided me with a list of them and their trustees. So the judge’s family had control.
George Edward Wemmick was in banking, and mainly abroad – Dubai it seemed. Elderly but still active. John Arthur Wemmick seemed to have multiple financial and property interests, but to the seasoned eye, it was clear that ‘diverse financial interests’ implied some that one couldn’t delve too deeply into without meeting resistance. Probably nightclubs and the like. There the trail went cold though, apart from the fact that his was the name on the post-it note in the case folder Win wanted to get his hands on. There was nothing more about him or Molly in public records, which was odd. In fact the Wemmick family tree seemed to end there in its entirety, like a door slammed shut. These charitable trustee types usually liked their name in lights for all their good works. In fact a little digging around Molly seemed to arrive at more than a complete dead end – as if she didn’t even exist. I set Louise the task of locating a birth certificate whilst I was out, suggesting a birth year range somewhere between mine and Margaret’s initially. It was unlikely she’d be much younger than Margaret if she were a trustee.
The cat had taken up residence under her desk. As soon as it saw me it greeted me like a long-lost friend.
‘Oh, it likes you Mr Juste. Are you a cat-lover?’
‘Hmm,’ I said nothing and tried to surreptitiously shoo it away from my legs. ‘I didn’t know we were developing Chambers into an animal sanctuary – did I miss something at the last staff meeting?’
‘Oh, no. It was Mr Gregory’s idea. To combat the mice. It’s only temporary.’
‘Where will it go when it’s completed its brief then?’
‘Home with me, I hope,’ she grinned infectiously. ‘I like waifs and strays and it came from the RSPCA originally. It’s not all that good at its job though, so that may be sooner than I anticipated originally. Mr Gregory says it’s disturbed some of the archives and he’s had to sort out the mess himself. Right old state in the old filing racks.’
‘Oh, really? Which ones?’ My gut twisted uncomfortably.
‘Last year and the year before.’ I almost sighed aloud with relief. Nowhere near the 1988 archives I’d raided then. She waved the slip of paper with Molly Wemmick’s name and possible dates of birth on it. ‘I’ll see what I can get hold of for you, but you might have to go there yourself if they don’t find anything specific.’
‘Thanks.’ The thought of Gregory on his hands and knees refiling his minion’s dismembered work because of his own mistake amused me sufficiently to arrive in Hammersmith at the offices of FFF still smiling. Kat was waiting by the main entrance.
‘You look very happy – something nice happened?’ There didn’t seem to be any ice at all. Maybe it had just been her phone manner. I relaxed and allowed her calm to invade me too.
‘Just Gregory on his knees in front of the god of the filing cabinet,’ I grinned with satisfaction. She shook her head, not getting the joke. ‘Never mind, it’s not important.’ Steering her through the outsized double plate glass doors, I caught a waft of her perfume and my head spun with giddy thoughts of her lying supine and golden brown against the stark white sheet, warm and sleepily curled into me. I didn’t need Heather to remind me of the stupid expression probably spread all over my face. I sternly banished the thoughts and concentrated on FFF and its triumvirate of power.
I outlined what I’d found out so far to Kat. ‘So where did Margaret and her patronage fit into that?’
‘I never met any of the trustees – or not any male ones, anyway. All the events and meetings I went to were headed up by women.’
‘Well there would appear to be two pretty powerful men and a woman somewhere in the background. Let’s find out a bit more about how this set-up works.’
My appointment was with a non-specific ‘manager’. The Trustees weren’t available – indeed rarely ever there according to the receptionist.
‘I guess they have busy lives to lead in industry and the like, sir. We were very lucky your wife had time on her hands to help us. She was such a natural leader and a power for change. And so unassuming.’ I wondered if we were talking about the same woman, but said nothing. Kat threw me an amused glance which I tried to ignore. If she knew what I did, she wouldn’t have thought it funny either.
We sat in the sleek office; wall to wall glass, minimalistic furniture, chic bespoke artwork on the walls and a claustrophobically stuffy atmosphere despite the air conditioning. The amount of glass magnified the heat, turning the room into a mini hot-house. Kat and the office manager seemed to be unaffected by it. I felt light-headed and weak. My diet of alcohol and fresh air for the last few days didn’t help.
The manager was noncommittal and uninformative. The soft fuzziness Kat had wrought in me started to give way to irritation and then the jitters. I didn’t wan
t to be confined to this stuffy little glass oven, bandying pleasantries when the meat was obviously elsewhere. With the excuse of my recent stomach upset back in play, I left Kat to the social niceties whilst I went into the central courtyard off the atrium for some fresh air. There was nothing much to see on the way there – other than the fact that the offices were far too impressive for a charity. Surely all the money they had coming in would go straight out on expenses, and for all its grandeur, it seemed to be working on a skeleton staff. The admin office was made up of two desks, and the filing was piled up by the door without having been touched in what looked like days. I nodded at the solitary clerk as I peered round the door and spotted her water cooler. I introduced myself and was met with more enthusiastic praise for Margaret and over-done expressions of sympathy for me. I asked for a glass of water and she bustled off to find a glass.
It had been a genuine request. I did want water – cool, clear – in fact a whole blue lagoon of it to wallow in and sink under to dispel this fug of heat shrivelling my brain, but her absence was too good an opportunity to miss. I flipped the cover of the top folder open. It was a set of adoption papers, identical to the ones Margaret had gleaned, but this set had an official looking seal stamped across them, ‘completed’. The next folder was the same, and the one below that. There were close to fifty folders in the pile – all similar. Christ, how many children were there in this world to farm out? They were like a commodity here, not a person in need of help. And then it all became clear. The fug, the light-headedness, the bewilderment, the swanky offices – it all merged into a mêlée of understanding. It was a business, not a charity. A baby business. The girl came back with a glass of crystal cool water and I downed it in one, thanking her profusely before leaving. As I exited, I popped my head back in briefly as she settled behind her pile of paperwork again.
‘Oh by the way – sorry – I’ve rather lost my bearings. I was meant to be heading back to Mr Wemmick’s office but I’ve lost my way!’ I shrugged and tried to look as helpless as possible. I thought of Kat and hoped the resulting expression would be suitably moon-faced. Whether it was or not, I’ll never know, but the girl seemed convinced. Armed with detailed directions, I set off for the third floor. Walking around with my eyes closed, am I, Heather? We’ll see.
Unsure of what to expect of the third floor, I was relieved to find it virtually in darkness apart from some intermittent mood lighting – enough to find my way along the corridor and read the names on the door plates. My three targets lived at the far end, next to the Boardroom. All three doors opened when pushed gently so I slipped inside the larger of them. George Edward Wemmick wasn’t at home, but a portrait of him was. Hung imposingly on the back wall so as soon as you entered the room, the man pierced his visitor with a steely eye. The blinds were drawn and the room was cool and dark – a blessing compared to the airless oppression downstairs – nevertheless the power of the man was obvious. He was well into his seventies in the portrait, but commanding – an ex-soldier perhaps? He had the bearing for it – and something else. I moved closer and was transfixed. I probably stood there for several minutes, just staring. I knew exactly where I’d seen that face before, but it wasn’t possible. The age was wrong.
I debated trying the desk drawers, but guessed they’d be locked. Better to use the time left checking out the other two. The woman’s door was also unlocked, but the room was covered with a fine layer of dust, as if it had been unused for weeks. Plainly a woman busier elsewhere. There were no identifying features for her at all. I went next door to the last of the power players, and there he was. The room was as empty as the other two – of personage – but not of atmosphere. I could feel him in the very walls, the sense of sickening menace and in the photo on the desk. The man himself – the one I’d seen in the face of the older generation next door: Jaggers.
I made my way over to the desk, still reeling as connections clicked into place like the parts of a machine being assembled. If Jaggers belonged in here that made him John Arthur Wemmick. So why had he been John Arthur Green in the children’s home? Or had he been John Arthur Green? Perhaps it was merely an alias? There’d always been something artificial about his rough accent – as if he was acting it rather than speaking it. And if George Edward was his father, that made my old judge his uncle. I tried to remember the judge’s features in detail but it was difficult after all the years of absence, and compounded by his general aura of sickliness for most of the time I’d known him. The gaunt sparseness of chronic ill-health had robbed him of any similarity to the rude vigour of his nephew. The eyes, I supposed – yes, the eyes and mouth were the same, although the judge’s curling lip had been in sardonic amusement. Jaggers’ was cruel. The photo was of Jaggers and a woman, probably fifteen years his junior when it was taken, and it was at least ten years old because it was taken in front of a Wimbledon theatre which I knew had been demolished now. And now it wasn’t mere gut feeling and surmise. It was fact, confirmed by the photograph on his desk and the letter opener beside it. My letter opener. And my wife in the photograph, blonde and more bold-faced, definitely my wife.
The fugue in my head returned – a war between incredulity and fact battling to the death. I sat down at the desk and studied the photograph, disbelieving. I must be mistaken. This was crazy. Worse, how could Margaret be connected to the maniac who’d terrorised my teenage years? And how could that maniac be the privileged and powerful businessman fronting this charity? I put my head in my hands. Think man, think.
Margaret had come out of nowhere – the bright, confident twenty-something, joining Chambers as an intern and rapidly making herself indispensable. Gregory himself had championed her, and there could be no greater pathway to success than that. It was inevitable that she would become a fixture, but she’d chosen me to be the fixing for the fixture. She’d shadowed me on some insignificant case that I was fitting in between more lucrative work because by then we were trying to build a reputation of being ‘the good guys’ – playing on my surname. I remembered the case well, ironically, even though I’d forgotten details of more important ones, it seemed. It had been a pain. Nothing much in it for us; a widow looking for compensation for a life assurance policy gone bad. She’d got it – more because of Margaret’s attention to detail than mine, but I’d received the praise for the success and fairness had dictated I share it. Margaret and I had our first informal drink together and never looked back. Engineered, I wondered now?
The case had been more Francis’s style than mine, but Francis was already unhappily married with two kids and a divorce settlement potential that far outweighed any proclivity to dalliance. Jeremy had just acquired a glamorous and very expensive new girlfriend, not unlike the current model, and Heather wasn’t gay. It only left me. Content with my private life, my private sins and my private past; so private I welcomed no-one into my present until Margaret put herself there. Was that why I’d been allocated the intern – I, who’d least needed or wanted one at the time? Or had I been specifically chosen? It was far too circumstantial, this ill-defined but very apparent link, otherwise.
Yet, how the hell could they know each other? Margaret had only known I was ‘orphaned’, no other details. I’d kept them to myself. She’d known I’d been bullied once and that I’d had a patron of sorts who’d helped me get my start in life, but not the man’s name. The terms of the will had specified secrecy and I’d been happy to go along with them, but if she was this friendly with Jaggers, and he was so closely related to the old judge, then she probably knew all that and more, long before she met me.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! What the hell was going on here? Had she targeted me right from the start – the bright young thing ostensibly looking for a career and then abandoning it to be the wife of the coldest fish at the Bar? I’d always viewed her choice of me with a mixture of mild disbelief and impersonal relief that I was now officially respectable and could stop trying so hard. She took care of it all with a maturity beyond her years – e
ven accepting my unreasonable strictures about no children. And what woman in her right mind would normally accept all of that unless she was completely, utterly and crazily in love with the man dishing out the demands? Whatever else Margaret had been, she hadn’t been in love with me – ever. I didn’t know that then – I knew nothing of love, but I did now. I recognised the passion and insanity in myself for Kat that I couldn’t even have begun to imagine then. It was the explanation I’d been missing all my life – of emotion in general. Heather’s summation of Margaret as a supreme manipulator had been perfect – and I’d missed it completely.
So was this liaison with Jaggers intimate or business? The photo gave no clue, other than that they seemed perfectly at ease with each other. If it was intimate it was betrayal. If it was business, it seemed it was also almost without exception, betrayal too. So what did that mean? That I knew nothing of what was really going on, for a start. I now had a mêlée of concealed identities, ambiguous connections and illusory activities all in full swing around me.
I’d supposedly been wandering the courtyards for over fifteen minutes. Even the most light-headed of barristers would have got their thoughts sufficiently in order by now and there were only so many pleasantries Kat could be expected to think of to keep the posse from forming to track my wandering mind down. I ducked downstairs and found the gents just in time to appear to be leaving it as the manager and Kat appeared. Kat was big-eyed and clearly relieved at the sight of me. The manager was politely irritated.
‘Mr Juste, we thought we’d lost you!’
‘Sorry, I thought I was feeling better than I was. One of your office staff kindly found me a glass of water and then inevitably ...’ I gestured to the toilets.
‘Oh dear. Are you all right now?’
‘Yes, thank you, but maybe I would be better off at home after all.’
‘Of course, of course. I hope it has helped to see where your wife made such a difference. Miss Roumelia has been telling me how you wanted to include some details in the eulogy. I hope you can use what I’ve given her.’ Kat waved a sheaf of notes at me and smiled over-enthusiastically.
