Courting Trouble (33 page)

‘Hard to believe I’m at another fundraiser. Since taking the post of Senior Treasury Counsel, all I bloody well seem to do is attend charity functions so Third World people can learn to sauté tsetse flies or knit their own wells, or whatever. I can’t imagine there’s anything left to save . . . Except my love life, of course.’

It was quite a vertiginous experience, unexpectedly bumping into the man I had once thought I loved, leaning nonchalantly against a wall in an elegantly tailored tux.

Every time I thought of Jack’s betrayal it was as if a slathering wolverine were trying to claw its way out of my abdomen via my oesophagus . . . Which is why it took me a moment to kickstart my vocal cords. ‘How can you just stand there, bantering inanely, after what you did to me and my client? Why don’t you listen to your conscience for once? But then again . . . why take advice from strangers?’ I bristled.

Jack shrugged with his eyebrows and drew back on his cigar. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘The only person who knew that Chantelle left the hospital to go with her granny to point out the rapists was that redheaded nurse . . . The one you were dating. The one I saw semi-naked in your house. She obviously told you – and you told the defence team.’

‘The nurse with red hair? . . .’ I could see him mentally flicking through his romantic Rolodex. ‘From the Royal Free? That was nothing more than a fling. I was on the rebound from your rejection, as I recall.’

I had been hoping to conclude our conversation with a minimum of broken bones, but that was looking highly unlikely. ‘Why should I ever believe anything you say to me, Jack? You lied to me at uni and you’re lying to me now.’

Jack looked at me as though I were a non-alcoholic organic beetroot juice instead of the pint of Guinness he’d ordered. ‘Hey, I may sometimes sink low, but I’m not a complete snake.’

‘You’re lower than a snake’s prostate!’

‘I am not lying.’ His stare bored into me like a drill.

‘What I can’t forgive is that you acted out of revenge. Revenge for me winning the case against you. To satisfy your pathetic male ego, you’d let two rapists go free. I mean, what kind of monster are you?’

Jack’s fury was tight and monumental. ‘The kind who doesn’t have to stand here and be character assassinated.’ He stubbed out his half-smoked cigar, but he was still smouldering. ‘I know you so well, Matilda. And this is the side of you I like least. Don’t bother talking to me again until you’ve taken off your spurs and dismounted from that ridiculous high horse of yours. Till then, it’s probably best if you just gallop off into the sanctimonious sunset and leave me the hell alone.’ He turned on his designer heels and strode into the Middle Temple Hall. I fumed silently for a moment. I then felt an overwhelming urge to demand a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Aretha Franklin style.

The ornately carved, cavernous banquet hall has seen a lot of drama. Literally. Shakespeare’s
Twelfth Night
was first performed here and The War of the Roses kicked off in the pretty gardens below. The little theatrics which were about to unfold were minuscule by comparison, but massive to me. Following Jack into the grand hall, I watched him sidle up to a statuesque woman who was clearly waiting for him. She had honey-blond hair and no discernible underwear. Just as she was poised to take a nibble of her goat’s cheese crostini and mainline a Caipirinha, I seized her arm.

‘Be careful when he pats you on the back, lady, because he’s actually drawing a bull’s eye.’

A passing waiter with a rictus smile proffered a tray of wobbling drinks. Again channelling my inner Roxy, I took a full glass of red wine and hurled it at my nemesis. It stained Jack’s white shirt like blood.

‘You see? You obviously don’t know me so well, otherwise you would have seen that coming.’

I obviously held the World Indoor Record for Bad Bloke Selection. But those days were over. I hurried to find Nathaniel in the tuxedoed throng. As Roxy always said, the only way to find heaven is to back as fast as you can away from hell.

‘Do you ever wonder why people take an instant dislike to you, Danny? . . . Because it saves time.’ This is what I said to my biological father when I found him loitering outside Portia’s school the following afternoon. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Apparently, your ex-wanker-banker mate Nathaniel’s not all he seems.’ Danny said this gravely, as though he were disclosing that he had a brain tumour and two weeks to live.

‘Oh, like
you
, you mean?’ An awkward membrane had grown between us. He looked at his feet and clenched his jaw.

Much to Portia’s fury, I’d decided to collect her from school every day, to make sure she came straight home and didn’t end up on an unscheduled Danny detour. Portia called this arrangement ‘house arrest’. She’d threatened to contact Human Rights Watch to complain of inhumane treatment. Needless to say, since Danny had come on the scene, mother–daughter relations were rivalling the hostilities of two Balkan republics.

‘I’ve been checking up on this Nathaniel of yours. He got the sack from his bank over suspicions of insider trading. Did he tell you that?’

‘Wait. You’re spying on my boyfriend?!’ I asked, aghast. ‘Tell me, with a lobotomy, is there pain afterwards?’ Sarcasm seemed the only appropriate response – or perhaps beating him senseless with a tome entitled ‘Privacy Law for Dummies’.

‘There’s more . . . I fed his licence-plate information to a cop mate. He ran a country-wide computer check and found one – and only one – sea-green Ducati Desmosedici motorbike.’

‘How do you know what kind of bike Nathaniel rides? Oh my God! You’ve been stalking him as well? . . . I’ve got a good idea. Why don’t you go and test the resilience of his motorbike wheel
with your head
! Roxy was so right about you.’

‘The bike belongs to some jerk who’s doing time for drug dealing.’

‘His name’s Chris Grayling. Nathaniel’s told me all about him,’ I replied coldly. ‘He’s an ex-colleague. Nate’s minding his house while he’s inside. Not that it’s any of your business. A lot of his banking friends went to the dark side. That’s what triggered Nathaniel’s epiphany.’

‘An unexplained lavish lifestyle is the key to identifying criminality, kiddo. Yachts, Porsches, holiday houses . . . coupled with no legitimate source of income. Where does your lover boy’s money come from, do you reckon? How does he have enough dosh to set up this charity of his? I’ve done a bit of snooping and—’

‘Snooping?! You have no right to snoop on me or any of my friends! Um, I don’t know how to break it to you, but you’re not an undercover agent any more, remember? What you
are
is a senile delinquent!’

‘We’re talking exotic holidays, a home in the Caribbean, expensive artworks, a luxury car . . . How does he afford all that, this do-gooder of yours?’ Danny produced an iPad and tried to show me the pictures and photos he’d sourced and filed.

‘Listen, Sherlock, you can put away your Holmes hat. Nathaniel worked in the city, for a decade. Have you heard of banker bonuses? Not just that, but his family’s wealthy.’

‘Yeah, well, his accent does make him a cut above your average criminal. At least he’ll say “excuse me” before he mugs you. And “thank you” when he steals all your bling.’

‘Okay, I’ve had enough of your innuendos. I’ve got to pick up my daughter now. And stop harassing us. Or I’ll call the police. The
real
police.’

‘. . . Oh, yeah. Which reminds me. I checked with my mates down at Scotland Yard. Lover boy didn’t hand in any drug money.’

I remembered what Nathaniel had told me about police corruption and felt a swift shudder of revulsion. ‘Really? Is that so? Nate warned me that his honesty has made him a lot of enemies. Enemies who are trying to set him up.’

Danny looked at me coyly. ‘I – um – I also took the liberty of “borrowing” his house keys.’ He dangled them in front of my face. ‘He’s getting a security alarm installed. The security engineer happens to be an ex-cop mate of mine.’

‘Jesus! Is there anyone who
isn’t?
’

‘. . . So, I – ah – got the keys copied. I thought I’d go in today and take a look around . . . Just to be sure.’

I gawped at him in disgust. No wonder Nate didn’t trust the police. ‘I’m beginning to think it’s time to have you sectioned under the Insane Fathers Act.’

‘I know how you feel about taking the law into your own hands, Matilda. But there’s something about that guy I just don’t trust.’

‘Funny, he said exactly the same thing about you. Can’t you
hear
yourself, Danny?’ I snatched Nathaniel’s keys from his hand and stomped off to find my daughter.

‘I just felt like I had to speak my mind . . .’ Danny called out after me.

‘Why not?’ I called back. ‘It’s not as though you’ve got anything to lose!’

Nate’s security firm was fraudulent and I was desperate to let him know. I attempted to call him so many times, I practically wore off a fingerprint. Concerned, I handed over Portia into Roxy’s custody at the office, then drove through the congestion zone to his house on the river. I leant on the bell for a good ten minutes. The keys were too bulky to slide under the door, so I let myself in. I was simply intending to leave them on the table with a note to sack his alarm people and phone me immediately. But warm, enticing rays of afternoon sunlight were warming up the living room.

The light drew my eye outside through the double sliding glass doors into an emerald-green garden which led down to the Thames, twinkling and sparkling below. There was barely a cloud in the sky. The one cloud that was visible looked as if it had wandered off from the herd merely to emphasize how blue the sky was. Bees hummed vacuously in the fruity air. A few stunned themselves against the clear glass pane. I slid open the door. Perhaps I would wait for him? Especially as, for a change, I wasn’t dressed like Iris Murdoch and was sporting a short, flowery frock and pretty pink heels. A giant bumblebee stooged through the wildflowers, its furry underbelly grazing leaves and petals. I followed it to the wooden apiary at the bottom of the garden. I knew quite a lot about beekeeping from my mother. I’d been helping her collect honey since I was young. September is the time bees are given sugary drinks for the oncoming winter. A small jar of syrup sat on the grass by the hive. On a whim, I lit the smoker and took the lid off the hive. After smoking the bees into a stupor, the way my mother had taught me, I raised the vertical grille to taste the honey with a finger. It was tangy and delicious. I then dripped some sugary syrup on to the grille, raising it higher for better access . . . And that was when I saw the box.

Matters, like pimples, have a habit of coming to a head. And this was one of those moments. The box secreted at the bottom of the hive was black, metal and encased in plastic. Why would there be a box hidden in the bottom of a beehive? Curious, I lifted it out, placed it on the grass, peeled back the plastic covering and opened the lid. Disturbed, sleepy bees took flight, hitting the windowpane and falling to earth, fatly baffled.

But not as baffled as me. Because there, lying on top of a pile of DVDs was a disk with Chantelle’s name on it. I rubbed my temples, dazed, as though I’d been in a car accident. Then I shook my head furiously, like a dog tormented by wasps. I rummaged deeper into the box and extracted a leather book. I flicked through it. It looked like some kind of ledger, meticulously detailing drop-offs and percentages paid to people who had nicknames and codes. There were references to ‘little fellas’ and ‘ticket men’. Under the book were about twenty DVDs with girls’ names felt-tipped across their covers. A sudden awakening of instinct strung my veins together.

And then, just when the ground was already buckling beneath my feet, I saw the mask. My mild fear morphed into something solid and terrifying. It was the vampire mask worn by the ghoulish tweeting troll
@killchantellenow
when sending us death threats. I stood rooted in disbelief, my mind rejecting what my eyes so plainly saw.

I attempted to assume the crash position, even though I was earthbound and nowhere near an airport. One thing became startlingly clear to me. I should never consider psychology as a career choice, because I had no bloody idea whatsoever about people. Was someone setting Nathaniel up? Or had I been duped by a man in the same way my mother had been duped? We obviously shared a dupe gene. The macabre image of the man in a mask flashed back into my psyche – it had been a constant screengrab in my mind.
‘Drink bleach.’ ‘Go get cancer, slut.’
Yet whenever we blocked his Twitter profile, he’d reappear, like some indestructible cyborg.

‘Drop the case or you die . . . slowly.’

‘It’s great to be back after 30 seconds. Lol.’

‘After strangulation, which organ in the female body remains warm after death? My cock.’

No, no. It must be a set-up. A true honey-trap, I thought. But then pieces of a sinister jigsaw began to fall into place. I thought back to the time on the estate, when I’d ‘bumped into’ Nathaniel. Only
I
had known where Chantelle was hiding. Yet, later that very night, she’d mysteriously received the doctored DVD of her own rape.
‘Would you like me to escort you?’
Nathaniel had said, and I’d given him the exact address. My mind snapper-clicked on to the night Nathaniel had slept at my house, after the court victory. That monumental hangover . . . The realization that Nathaniel was not who he appeared to be pierced my skull. I felt like one of those cruise-line passengers who has talked all the way through the ‘muster drill’ and now has no idea where her lifeboat station is. ‘Woman overboard!’

I was deep in shocked reverie when I heard the front door slam. I felt my organs clench and thought my legs would buckle. My only instinct was to run. High heels are okay in a controlled environment – teamed with fishnet stockings while you’re lying down on your lover’s bed, perhaps. But not so ideal when you’re say, scuba-diving, climbing the Himalayas or . . . fleeing from a ruthless criminal. This is what I realized as I lumbered towards Nathaniel’s side gate, encumbered by six-inch pumps.