A Place of Safety (21 page)

But she couldn’t leave the cheque here on the wine-bar table, so she folded it and slid it into her wallet. She ought to get home and do something to make up for neglecting her family. She remembered promising David a trip to the Imperial War Museum. If she didn’t take him soon, he’d have finished his war project before they ever saw the exhibits.

 

After the last Garrick dinner, Toby had known better than to accept another invitation to eat there. But that meant he’d had to let Henry into the flat. Now, here they were sipping some thin sour white wine he’d found at the back of the fridge and picking at the mouldy end of the cheddar truckle he’d been hacking at every night, while Henry asked him questions.

Thank God, he wasn’t still going on about Peter. This time he wanted to know about Margaret and the state of their marriage, and why she’d moved out. Which was outrageous. It was none of his business.

Still, Toby answered as freely as he could and thought that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t. As soon as he’d persuaded Henry that marriage to Margaret was the most important thing in his life, the bloody man started banging on about drugs again.

At least those questions were easy to answer. Drugs had never held out any lure for Toby. At Cambridge, when every room he’d entered had been sweet and foggy with the smoke of a
dozen spliffs, the idea of losing himself in dope had seemed horrible. Even now, when he longed for oblivion, he couldn’t have risked it. Ben might phone when he was stoned and trick him into saying or doing something fatal.

‘Good. Let’s have another bottle,’ Henry said. ‘I saw you had one in the fridge.’

Toby couldn’t understand why anyone would want to drink more of the filthy stuff, but he obediently drove in the corkscrew, thinking of Ben’s face while he did it. His hands tightened as he imagined the crack of Ben’s cheekbones and a moment later, when he heard the slosh of the wine, he thought of blood pouring out from a vast wound. He sneaked a glance at Henry and saw frightening suspicion in his expression.

‘I keep hearing about the shadier side of the art world,’ Henry said, holding out his glass, which still looked nearly full. ‘Is there really as much forgery and price-rigging as people suggest?’

With the sour fluid prickling against his tongue and his skin pouring sweat, Toby thought of all the spy novels he’d ever read. He tried to remember what they’d said about the best way to resist interrogation.

Ten minutes later, he was giggling at his own jokes about the Russian icon scam of the early 1980s, while Henry sat like a judge in front of him, pouring more and more wine into his glass and waiting for him to break.

Sam Makins was sitting, staring at the floor, in Trish’s room when she got into chambers after lunch next day. He didn’t move, even when she greeted him, so she laid a hand on his shoulder.

‘Hey, what’s up?’

‘Tamara O’Connor got the maximum sentence,’ he said, still staring at the floor. ‘I tried to make them believe she was a victim rather than a villain, but I screwed up. It would probably have been better if I had just made the usual contrition speech.’

Trish squeezed his shoulder, then let him go. ‘It’s not your fault. Come on, Sam, she was found with twenty-two condoms of cocaine in her gut. There’s no getting away from the fact that she was guilty.’

‘I know. But she was crying when I went down to see her in the cells afterwards.’ At last he looked up at Trish. ‘Her face was grey. Her eyes were all over the place and she had no nails left.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘And she gave me a message for you.’

‘Oh?’ Trish did not want to hear this, but Sam looked anguished enough to make her do whatever she could for him.

‘She said: “Tell Trish Maguire that if I don’t get my kids back, I’ll kill myself. I don’t want to live if I can’t have them. Tell her that.”’

Trish rubbed both hands through her hair. There wasn’t anything to say. Even if Tamara had had a hope of getting them back before she became a mule, she’d blown it now.

‘How do you bear it?’ Sam asked.

‘You don’t,’ she said. ‘You shut yourself off. It’s the only way. And then, when you stop being able to do that, you switch to commercial law. Once you’ve done that, you put all your energies into forgetting all the women like Tamara and all the brutalized and miserable children you’ve ever represented. Instead you involve yourself in dreary little arguments about exactly what a contract did or didn’t mean and which company owes which other company damages.’

‘That’s awful.’

‘Better than cracking up.’

 

Toby had just about got his hangover under control by three o’clock in the afternoon. He’d drunk litres and litres of water and eaten several cheese sandwiches. Even so, the ringing phone spiked into his residual headache and he rushed to silence it. Then he saw the number of Margaret’s mobile on the screen.

‘Darling! Thank God! How’s Mer?’

‘Silent. The doctor says his arm is healing as it should, but he still won’t tell us how it happened. All we know is that he had a row with Tim over whose turn it was to choose the TV programme, let himself out into the garden, and came back half an hour later with his arm broken in two places, a lot of bruises and a silly story about a giant grabbing him in the garden. You know what a fantasist he’s always been.’

‘A giant? Oh, God!’ How was he ever going to forgive himself for this? And how was he ever going to forgive himself for hating what he’d once seen as his own father’s cowardice? Now that he knew how much courage it took to kill yourself, all his ideas about his father had changed. He sniffed and swallowed.

‘Oh, Toby,’ said his wife, sounding kinder than usual. ‘Don’t be silly. You know Mer always makes up stories like that when he’s done something he knows is wrong. He’ll be fine. It doesn’t hurt any more, and the doctor says it’ll heal cleanly. You really don’t have to worry so much.’

Of course, I do, he thought. Then he coughed and found his voice again: ‘Margaret, why haven’t you rung before? I’ve left dozens of messages.’

‘I know. It’s driving me mad. But it wasn’t until today that you sounded like you. I wasn’t prepared to talk to you while you were still behaving like a lunatic. I had enough to deal with over Mer and his arm and Tim’s nightmares.’

‘When am I going to see you?’

‘If you can promise me that you really have sorted yourself out,’ Margaret said, ‘we can talk about a day to come home soon. Will you be at Mer’s school play next Thursday? I thought we might discuss it then.’

‘Thursday,’ he said, feeling shivery with dread and hope, as though someone had run an ice cube across his burning skin. Thursday was D-day.

Ben had promised that if he bought the next fake successfully, whatever it cost, that would be the end of it. Afterwards, so long as Toby kept his mouth shut, Ben had said, the boys would be safe, and no one would come back to him for more favours. By the time the play began on Thursday afternoon, he would know if he had a future.

‘Of course, I’m coming to the play,’ he said, as his mental picture of Cézanne’s hellish landscape melted into his favourite sunny Monet. ‘There’s nothing in the diary. Nothing else, I mean. I’ll be there.’

‘OK. How’s Jo?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Exactly what I asked. When I phoned her the other day to ask her to stop you leaving me all these messages, she
started crying and told me you’ve been bullying her. Is that true?’

‘Of course not.’ Toby thought of everything Jo had done and felt his blood pressure rising. ‘But I can’t bear her sloppiness or refusal to take proper messages. An old friend of mine came round twice a few weeks ago and because she wouldn’t take his phone number or address I’ve had no way of finding him. And it’s important that I do. I have to know why he wanted to get in touch after so long.’

‘That doesn’t sound bad enough to justify terrorizing Jo. You need to be careful of her. She’s a lot more sensitive than you think and you of all people ought to know what that means. She’s also exceptionally efficient under normal conditions, and she does a very good job with the visitors. You’d have difficulty getting anyone else as good for twice the salary the trust pays her. I’ve told Henry he ought to pay her more. The least you can do is be kind to her.’

‘You’ve seen Henry?’ Toby said, wishing he hadn’t sounded so sharp. But it was hard not to, now that he knew why his godfather had been asking all those questions yesterday. His face burned as he realized Margaret must have told Henry about their fight and her black eye.

‘No,’ she said, sounding quite kind. ‘But he phones me at intervals to check that we’re all right and not needing anything.
He
cares about us.’

‘That’s not fair.’ Toby thought of all the lonely evenings when he’d longed for her. ‘You’ve just told me you hated getting all my messages.’

‘True.’ That edge was still there in her voice. ‘And I suppose the fact that you didn’t try to find us physically does at least tell me you’re not a wife beater after all. They
always
come after you.’

‘What are you talking about? Wife beater? Margaret, you know I’m not.’

‘What’s that bleeping? It sounds like your other phone. You’d better answer, and I must go anyway. See you at the play. Don’t be late.’

She’d gone before he could say anything more. He waited for the answering machine to pick up the call. The sound of Ben’s voice made him back against the wall.

‘Hi, Toby! I couldn’t get through on your mobile, so I thought I’d just remind you that there must be no mistakes at next week’s sale. If you’re listening to this, pick it up.’

Toby lunged for the receiver: ‘Did you break Mer’s arm, you bastard?’

‘Of course,’ Ben said, sounding surprised. ‘I told you we’d give you a taster of the kind of punishment you could expect for letting us down. Be thankful you weren’t made to watch it. You will be next time. So think about that when you go into the auction next week. And it won’t just be an arm, either.’

Toby couldn’t speak, and Ben didn’t say anything else. When Toby heard the click of Ben’s phone, he rewound the answering machine tape and wiped it. He didn’t want Jo hearing anything Ben had said.

‘What’s the matter now?’ she asked from behind him. His hands slipped off the controls of the machine as dizziness made him reel.

‘Toby, what’s going on? Who were you talking to about me hearing something?’ She sounded frightened.

He turned to see her staring at him. One of her hands was almost touching his elbow, as though she thought he might fall over.

‘You need help,’ she said, peering even closer into his face. For once she sounded almost gentle. ‘Let me get you a doctor.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘I’m not. You look awful. And I know you’re cracking up. You hear voices from people who aren’t here. You talk to
yourself all the time. You’re obviously not sleeping. You’re scaring me, Toby. Please let me call your doctor.
Please.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m fine, except for having to deal with the mess you’re making of your job. Haven’t you finished typing today’s letters yet?’

‘Of course.’ The sympathy in her expression closed in until it was as mean and spiteful as usual. He felt his hands curling into fists.

‘They’re on your desk, waiting for your signature,’ Jo went on as though she was rubbing salt into a deep cut in his flesh. ‘But you’ll have to post them yourself. I’m going home. I’ve got a migraine.’

Once she had gone, Toby sat beside the phone. He couldn’t think what to do. His skin itched, as though microscopic creatures were crawling all over it, and his eyes kept watering. He wondered if he was suffering from lack of fresh air. Or perhaps it was just the constipation that had made his insides set like concrete.

Sunlight, broken by the bare branches of the garden’s trees, was dappling the mossy paving of the garden. It seemed months, years even, since he’d walked anywhere for pleasure. Maybe that was partly why everything seemed so awful. A bit of ordinary exercise in the fresh air might put things in perspective. And it might help his digestion, too. Yes, in a while he’d lock up the gallery and walk across the river.

He was just beginning to feel a faint memory of enjoyment from stretching his legs as he strode across the Millennium Bridge’s so-called streak of light when he saw ahead of him Ben’s thin, dark woman, walking beside a small boy. At first the child distracted him; then he realized the woman must have brought him with her for cover. They were leaning against the parapet, and she was peering back at the Gregory Bequest Gallery, pointing to it and saying something Toby couldn’t hear.

Hanging back, glad of the concealing crowd, Toby waited to
see what she would do next. Had she been there when Ben had broken Mer’s arm? Toby began to comfort himself with ideas of what he would like to do to her.

 

Trish pushed open the corrugated-iron door at the front of the trench exhibit and looked back.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

‘Yes.’ David’s black eyes were showing a lot more energy than usual. ‘Jamie says it’s great. Really lifelike. And Mr Thompson thinks we should all see it. For the project, you know.’

‘Good. On we go, then.’

The museum was still full, even though it was only about half an hour until closing time. Trish had been amused as they wove their way through the crowds upstairs, between the tanks and the submersibles, to see that there were very few girls in the various family parties and those there were had all been dressed in combat clothes.

The trench door clattered behind them. The darkness seemed almost complete, although there was a small flickering red lamp high up on the trench wall to their right. Guns crashed and voices shouted. Bodies seemed to be all round them. Trish couldn’t distinguish which belonged to the crowd and which to the exhibit’s figures until she brushed against them.

‘Of course, the real thing would have been wet, David,’ she said. ‘Our feet would be squelching through the mud, and there would be rats running around.’ She suppressed all the descriptions she had read of body parts and excrement.

They passed a lens-like glass square in the wall. Trish peered into it and found that it was a periscope, giving her a view of the bleak emptiness of no man’s land. David couldn’t reach up to it, but they found a child’s-eye version a little further on.

Trish’s eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness and she could see a large group ahead of them. Maybe a school party; maybe just a big family. She didn’t want to push her
way through, so she slowed down as she rounded the next dogleg.

 

Toby grabbed the boy by the arm and hissed: ‘Don’t say a word.’

Rather to his surprise, the boy kept his mouth tightly closed. He did pull against Toby’s grip, but he made no sound. Toby held on and dragged his captive with him, against the flow of people, till they got to the corrugated-iron entry door.

‘We must get to the toilets,’ Toby murmured whenever someone protested. Toilet wasn’t one of his words, but he assumed it would sound normal to these sightseers, and probably to the dark-haired woman’s child as well. ‘Can’t risk an accident.’

The boy glared up at him with so much hatred that Toby nearly hit him there and then. But he managed not to. Instead, he dragged him down the corridor towards the gents and pushed open the door with his shoulder. He wasn’t going to risk letting go. Luckily there was no one at any of the urinals and the doors to all the loos were open. Thank God for that. He dragged the boy into one cubicle and locked the door.

‘Don’t look so scared,’ he said, contemptuous of his quarry’s white face and shaking body. What a loathsome little wimp! ‘I’m not going to touch you. Not this time anyway. But I want you to give your mother a message.’

‘My mother’s dead,’ the boy said viciously. His black eyes looked enormous, but there were no tears in them. That surprised Toby more than the lie or the spite.

‘Rubbish. She brought you here.’

‘No, she didn’t. I’m on my own.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m talking about the woman who came in with you: tall, thin and dark. She called you David. I heard you both talking, so there’s no point lying.’

‘Only because we met in the queue for the security check.’ The piping voice was breathless. And no wonder, producing
such a load of rubbish. ‘She asked me what my name was and what I’d come to look at. I don’t know her. I’ve never seen her before in my life.’