Damaged Goods (16 page)

Lilly hung her head, embarrassed to have said so much. ‘God, I am so pathetic.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, everyone thinks you’re dynamite,’ said Penny.

‘Do they?’

‘A single mum holding down a hugely demanding job, I should say so,’ she laughed. ‘In fact I’m quite relieved to see you in this state and know you’re human after all. No one likes a Percy Perfect, do they?’

Penny delved into her handbag and pulled out a packet of Marlboro Lights. She lit one and blew smoke contentedly into the air.

The two women sat in companionable silence, one drinking, one smoking. Eventually Penny took her last drag and ground out the end under her heel.

‘Look, Lilly, I’m no expert in the law – or anything else for that matter – but from what you’ve told me it’s pretty obvious that Grace was killed by a mad client and not her daughter.’

Lilly nodded without conviction.

‘And you can’t hand the letter over even if you wanted to,’ said Penny.

‘It’s protected by client confidentiality,’ said Lilly.

Penny smiled. ‘There you are then.’

‘I could breach it.’

‘That’s not an option, you’d be struck off and you have to think beyond this case.’

‘Do I?’ asked Lilly.

‘Absolutely. You can’t jeopardise your livelihood on the basis of what may or may not have happened to one prostitute.’

Lilly winced.

‘I’m sorry to sound harsh,’ Penny said, ‘but it’s a fact. As for this Jack, he’s a professional so he’ll understand. Business, as they say, is business. He wouldn’t really expect you to hand over information to the police, would he?’

Lilly shook her head. Of course he wouldn’t.

‘So that just leaves the ex and his new tart. Again, I’m going to be harsh and tell you to get on with your own life. You’re divorced and you shouldn’t be relying on him for anything. Obviously he has a responsibility to his son, but you should cut yourself off from him entirely, lead your own life.’

Lilly knew she was right. What the hell had she been doing allowing David and his silly girlfriend to sort out her car insurance?

Finally, Lilly walked Penny to her car, which was parked in the lane beyond Lilly’s gate.

‘Thank you so much.’

Penny shrugged, as if giving advice on murder cases was commonplace. ‘You can do me a favour.’

‘Name it,’ said Lilly.

‘Get me some information on how to become a foster carer.’

‘You want to apply?’

Penny shrugged again. ‘I’m thinking about it. Getting to know you has made me think about how privileged we all are and I’d like to spread a little good fortune if I can.’

Lilly was both shocked and impressed.

‘So wash your face,’ said Penny, ‘and be at my house for eight.’

‘Actually, you can do me another favour,’ added Penny.

‘Go on.’

‘For God’s sake don’t tell Luella that I smoke.’

William Barrows looked around the table and drank in the faces of his wife’s dinner guests. He hated each one of them, with their delusional self-importance. One of them made a joke and the braying of the others hurt his ears. He supposed he should pity their mundane lives, filled only with ego. Not one of them would ever know the beauty and the joy of the hobby.

The photograph was burning a hole in his pocket so he excused himself and made for the bathroom. The horrid black man had posted it through his letterbox earlier today with a letter demanding twice the usual amount, but written in his usual poorly educated slang ‘…
as things is tricky, what with the police and that
.’

Barrows’ first reaction had been to laugh in the other man’s face and tell him to keep his little bitch, but then he had seen the girl giggling into the camera in the way only children did and he knew he had to have her.

He locked the door and pulled out the Polaroid. Though unprofessional, the image was crisp and clear, the girl’s skin white and hairless against the grubby leather of the sofa on which she lay. He brought the photograph to his face and kissed the girl’s breast, which she clearly did not know was exposed.

He sighed, the soft hiss of a grass snake, and stroked his erection. How would she smell, this woodland elf? Would her laugh be the sea lapping pebbles? Would she smile as he penetrated her or would she cry like the rest?

‘Bill, have you fallen asleep in there?’ came a voice from outside.

Barrows cursed the interruption. ‘Just a second,’ he laughed through gritted teeth.

‘Hermione’s on the telly, you don’t want to miss it.’

Barrows placed the photograph safely in his wallet and rearranged his penis. When he opened the door he was surprised to see the woman who’d spoken was still there. Her name was Margaret and she was something or other to do with PR for the party. Her husband was a High Court judge, which made them a heavy-hitting couple, in Hermione’s eyes at least.

‘She’s been very clever to manoeuvre herself into this position.’ Margaret’s eyes glittered seductively and she took his arm. ‘I suspect your sticky fingers in it.’

Barrows thought for a moment. Apart from the initial introduction, he’d had no part to play. As strange as it seemed, Hermione had grasped the wheel in both hands and steered the ship exactly where she wanted it to go.

‘No,’ he said. ‘She’s her own woman.’

‘Then you’re a very lucky man, Bill. You don’t mind me calling you Bill, do you?’

Barrows loathed it. ‘Of course not.’

When he and Margaret entered the room, arm in arm, deep in private conversation, Hermione gave the beatific smile of a wife with nothing to fear.

Margaret feigned embarrassment. ‘We were just saying how clever you are, Hermione, weren’t we, Bill?’

Hermione raised an amused eyebrow.

Barrows knew the woman’s flirtations meant nothing to his wife. How could they? He opened his arms magnanimously. ‘My wife knows everything about everything.’

They had excluded Margaret so perfectly that Barrows could see she now felt genuine unease. He enjoyed her discomfort and imagined his wife did too.

‘Oh Hermione, you look wonderful,’ exclaimed Margaret, rescued by the sight of the politician on the television.

‘The television does make one look so fat,’ said Hermione.

‘You do not look fat,’ Margaret replied.

Next was a shot of Valentine, the daughter’s lawyer, standing in the torrential rain and sounding off at the police as her makeup slid down her face.

Margaret shrieked in delight. ‘My God, it’s the exorcist.’

‘Poor thing,’ said Hermione, but giggled all the same.

Barrows’ attention was brought back to the table by Margaret’s husband helping himself to his seventh glass of Burgundy. Glasses clanged and wine spilled onto the cream table linen.

‘Bloody hell,’ roared the man, and dabbed ineffectually at the stain.

‘Not a problem, Hugh,’ said Barrows. ‘This case has unnerved everyone.’

‘I’m sure it’s confidential,’ said the judge, ‘but I’ve been given the nod that this blasted affair is going to make it onto my list.’

Margaret wagged a chiding finger as if he were a child telling tales out of school. ‘Hugh.’

He waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’m sure Hermione knows more about this damned nonsense than I do.’

‘I owe it to those involved to be well-versed,’ she said.

‘Do you really believe that?’ asked the judge.

‘Passionately,’ she lied.

The judge slurped his wine. ‘I’m not sure I want to know anything about it.’

‘It’s good to have these high-profile cases,’ said Margaret.

‘Humph.’

‘Perhaps Hugh feels their responsibility too gravely,’ suggested Barrows.

The judge burped. ‘Not really, old boy, I just hate the press sniffing around, watching my every move. The case is bound to come up soon for a prelim and the defence are bound to make an application for bail. Lord knows what I’m going to do. I can release the girl and take the heat from the justice lobby or keep her inside and get it in the neck from the liberals. Can’t bloody win.’

He drained his glass and pointed unsteadily towards his host. ‘You’re a shrink, what would you do?’

Barrows looked thoughtful and uncorked a bottle of port. ‘Since I haven’t even met the girl I can’t give a reasoned view, only my own opinion.’

‘Of course,’ said the judge, and reached for his digestif.

Barrows dug a hole and planted the seed. ‘She’s damaged goods, a danger to herself and maybe to others. Either way, she can’t be unleashed on an unsuspecting public. You need to hear from a properly qualified person before you can be expected to make any decisions.’

The judge gratefully accepted his life-raft. ‘She needs a psychiatric assessment.’ 

‘Nice gaff,’ said the taxi driver.

‘Yes,’ said Lilly.

‘North of a mill, I’d say.’

Lilly shoved a ten-pound note into his hand and got out.

She’d forgotten all about the party at Penny’s house and had been deeply engrossed in Grace’s autopsy report when Penny rang to say the cab was on its way.

‘Just getting ready,’ said Lilly, and flung her work bag over her shoulder.

Now, standing at the electric gates, hurricane lamps lighting a winding drive in the dusk, Lilly wished to God she was a better liar.

‘Come in, come in,’ said Penny, relaxed and gorgeous in pristine white yoga pants and vest, and ushered Lilly through an entrance hall so vast Lilly’s cottage would have fitted inside it.

‘Pimms okay?’ Penny brandished a jug.

Lilly hadn’t drunk it since university when it was unleashed every summer, brown and herby, strawberries bobbing about or, worse still, cucumber.

‘Lovely,’ she said.

The sitting room was ablaze with more lamps and at least a dozen church candles burned in the fireplace. If anyone farted the place would go up like Pudding Lane.

‘You know everyone, of course,’ said Penny.

Lilly nodded and smiled at the women she had studiously avoided for four years.

There was Luella and her sidekick, Tanya, whose son Daniel had a nose that ran constantly and who attended learning support for his maths.

‘He’s really very bright,’ she’d once told Lilly. ‘Gifted, in fact. It’s just that he’s a kinsthetic learner and you know how they are.’

At the far side of the room, scrolling down her BlackBerry, was Christina. She managed hedge funds and drove a Porsche. Lilly only ever caught sight of her on sports day when she spent the day trying to get a signal in the playing fields. Her kids, two beautiful girls with honey-coloured hair, were looked after by a rather sullen nanny from Azerbaijan who picked her teeth with a match.

The other women were a blur. Abbey, or Annie someone, husband in banking. Oh, and Lauren, her house was on the common and she was extending it.

‘Don’t you already have seven bedrooms?’ asked Lilly and gulped down her drink.

When Penny finally stopped fussing and settled into a chair each woman reached into her handbag and produced a gift.

‘Just a little token,’ said Luella, and placed a Diptyque candle in her lap.

Just what the place needed, more candles.

The others showered Penny with a selection of essential oils, perfumed drawer liners and soaps shaped like roses. There was even a small gardening fork and trowel decorated with tiny white hearts.

Lilly was mortified. How was she to know that she had to bring something? She rummaged in the dark recess of her bag. Among the case notes and autopsy papers she found a Dairy Milk and a Creme Egg, which she placed with great ceremony among the other goodies.

Tanya and Luella exchanged a look.

‘I prefer truffles, myself,’ said Tanya.

‘Organic for preference,’ said Luella.

Lilly opened her mouth in mock horror. ‘But what about your carbon footprint?’

The two women exchanged a nervous glance. These were the sort of women who went through their trash like Peruvian litter pickers.

‘Imagine how many miles chocolate from Belgium has travelled. The CO2 emissions must be catastrophic. Whereas this’, Lilly opened the bar, ‘was made in the UK.’

She broke off a large chunk and handed it to Luella. ‘Think of it as an act of eco activism.’

She watched with pure joy as the thinnest woman she had ever met was forced to put at least four hundred calories into her mouth and swallow.

At last a thickly-set Australian with a train-track brace arrived and set down a vanity case full of swathes of coloured polyester.

Lilly poured herself another Pimms. ‘I’ll go first.’

The woman smiled and sat Lilly in front of a huge mirror, a pile of Mongolian shaggy cushions crowding round her like a herd of sheep.

‘Now, let’s pull back your hair,’ she said, and dragged Lilly’s curls into a band.

‘Instant face-lift,’ said Lilly.

The woman didn’t smile. ‘And we need to lose the scarf.’

There was a collective gasp as Lilly’s wound was revealed.

‘Cut myself shaving,’ said Lilly, and emptied her glass.

The Australian draped swathes of material around Lilly’s shoulders, the static crackling like popcorn.

‘Definitely not a winter,’ said the woman.

Several women shook their heads in sympathy.

‘I’m sensing a problem,’ said Lilly dryly.

‘No jewel colours,’ said Luella.

‘And worse,’ said Tanya, her eyes wide in horror. ‘No black.’

At last the Australian was ready.

‘Spring,’ she declared.

The women nodded their assent. Clearly they had suspected as much from the start.

‘So what happens now?’ asked Lilly, hoping she could go home.

The Australian looked grave. ‘You buy clothes only in your palette.’

Lilly laughed. It was obviously a joke.

‘In fact,’ said the colour-fascist, ‘I recommend going further and throwing away everything that is wrong for your season.’

‘Throw away perfectly good clothes?’ asked Lilly.

The woman picked up Lilly’s scarf. ‘This has to go.’

Lilly snatched it back like a small child. ‘I love that. My friend gave it to me.’

The Australian smiled at her audience. ‘I see this one needs the full treatment.’

Lilly held the scarf against her chest. ‘What do you mean?’