A Question of Guilt Read online

  ‘Don’t joke like that. I’m too impressionable. Every time I see somewhere I like as much as this, it makes me discontented with my own. At the moment, you see, I’m under the influence of yours, toying with the idea of spending the weekend painting all my coloured walls white, throwing things out although I’m quite happy with it. There; now you have some idea of my inconsistency.’

  ‘But you won’t go home and paint it all again?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’m not quite so fickle. I like it really. Homes matter far more if you live on your own, I think. You have no excuse not to like it because you can’t blame anyone else. I found I was tired of waking up in places which made me depressed. Hence the poverty of a huge mortgage, and all those colours.’

  ‘Well, I agree with you, but I keep my domestic enthusiasms close to the chest. The details of my life would be difficult to share since I can’t have the same view of necessities as most I know. I’d rather have the draughts, the incomplete kitchen, and go out and buy something absolutely useless. Don’t entertain colleagues because I can imagine what they’d say on their way home. They’d try and sort me out a suitable companion for a new life in a house the way I lived once. They could be right. I just don’t want to measure the opinions.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you think you misjudge them? Anyone would like it here.’

  ‘Like it? Yes. Approve? No.’

  ‘Why did you choose it then? Most people, including me, choose their places with some thought of approval in mind.’

  ‘Not me. I’m more of a fish out of water than you think.’

  She was tickling the balcony cat which had adopted her: he noticed that she seemed neither to mind nor notice the sooty fur greying a once white blouse.

  ‘How does a fish become so far removed from its element?’

  ‘Ah, that begs a life story. It’s late, and there isn’t time.’ He wished it otherwise. Relaxed into his battered armchair, Helen curled into its companion sofa a few feet away, he knew he had already talked too much, and did not care, or at least cared only enough to be concerned not to bore her, indifferent, for once, as to what he might reveal. She looked at her watch, sensed the nature of the real concern, compromised.

  ‘Oh no, don’t throw me out. There’s time for wool-gathering, surely? Tell me something I’d like to know, a really cliched question. Why a policeman?’

  Now his own silence had been broken so recklessly, he could not resist such a question and she could tell he could not.

  ‘Oh, a long progress away from respectability. Dad was a drinker, my mother the ladylike one of the whole arrangement. I can’t find it in me to like her, even now, long after they’re both dead. She compensated for the downward spiral of circumstances by always pretending to be above it, which, to be fair to her I suppose she was. That meant doing good, always visiting those she called the poor, though most of them were scarcely different from us. Me, as a kind of boy-bodyguard, not that you needed one then, not in Mile End. It disgusted me, all of it; I wanted nothing to do with it.’

  He paused, sipped from his glass, lost for a moment.

  ‘But you adopted it, all those needs and miseries, or the symptoms of them. How?’

  ‘By accident. I was allowed to be idle, you see, preferred to be known as daft Bailey’s son than good Mrs Bailey’s boy, and apart from that, didn’t know what the hell I wanted, finding most things a joke, like my father, who always saved his best ones for policemen and vicars. Still like the booze a bit, not as much as him, still like talking too much when I can get away with it.’

  He grinned ruefully, ashamed at the length of speech.

  ‘Not too much. That’s your mother talking. Worried about the impression you make.’

  The grin returned.

  ‘Right. Anyway, at sixteen I’m loafing around with my dad full of artistic dreams, a contemptuous little sod. Then one evening, mother collared me to go with her on one of her wretched errands of mercy to see some nice old boy in a tenement. Respectable poor, bombed out. We found him dead. Hit once over the head with a piece of pipe, sitting in an old chair, reading his paper. My mother behaved better than me.’

  ‘Why? What did you do?’

  ‘Cried. Touched him, and cried. For the picture he made with his whole life around him. A few good sticks of furniture, old rugs, but good: photos of his dead wife and children, reasonable books. Dressed properly each day, you know the way people did, some still do, cavalry twills, sports jacket, very worn, made to last forever, always a tie even if he wasn’t going out, keeping up standards even for his own company. Dignity, I suppose. And some drunk lout had killed him for tuppence, hit him when there was no need. That’s when I decided to be a policeman. My mother was furious. She wasn’t really that public-spirited at all, she was a snob. My father thought it was hilarious.’

  ‘You became a policeman because of him, the old man?’

  ‘Yes. Nothing to do with idealism. More a determination that if anything could be done to prevent such a death, I should do it. Hence police cadet, aged seventeen. No one could stop me. I must have been easily moved.’

  ‘But you don’t regret it, do you?’

  ‘Only for the reasons which make me so deficient, too insular; hopeless as a member of any club, and worse than that, I’m not at all interested in the good of the public, only individuals. It’s easy to distinguish the two, I find.’

  ‘Very easy. Even though there isn’t any difference, not when you think of it. Only in practice.’ Helen smiled. ‘You can only serve the public one by one. Go on.’

  But it was enough without reciprocal secrets and there was no time for those.

  ‘No. I promised you an early night. I’m taking you home now, or you won’t be protecting any interests tomorrow. Least of all your own.’ She knew better than to prompt.

  ‘I’ll take one last look at your river before I go. Come on cat, get off. Find another warm place.’

  Bailey noticed that the grey of the once pristine blouse was more apparent than ever: could not suppress a feeling of satisfied pleasure in the fact that she had clearly known from the start how dirty was his borrowed cat, and had not cared. What strange judgements he was imposing on her, and if she realised, she failed to resent. She was unaware, but wary of his observation, not knowing how shy he was of hers.

  ‘There are a few small privileges left in being a policeman,’ Bailey remarked as his car rolled through the lurid lights of the Black wall Tunnel. ‘One of them is knowing my way round in the dark.’

  ‘I’m afraid of the dark. Even more than when I was a child.’

  ‘That, Miss West, is entirely sensible. So am I.’

  They were still free, and she was yawning nicely from the car. ‘Thank you. I’ve enjoyed it.’ Awkwardly formal again, as they were most of the time. ‘I owe you a better meal than scrambled eggs.’

  ‘You mean the shelves are still standing?’

  ‘I mean I’d like to repay. Perhaps we could try the local auction sometime? Woodworm, followed by antique cooking?’

  ‘I’d like that. I’ll phone. Goodnight.’

  He drove home, faster than he should, homing pigeon to base, to sit on the balcony, watching the sluggish river, listening for all the calming sound of the night. So unusual for him to feel dissatisfied with solitude that even the cat, suspicious of his restlessness, moved to another squat for the hours of his wakefulness.

  He had told her he was interested only in the fate of individuals, and wondered with all the nagging doubts of his own honesty, how much of that was still true. For the moment he thought nothing at all, and considered himself a fool to imagine he missed her.

  Helen opened her window to the warm air of the garden, stung by the silence of the place, grateful for the muted sound of traffic, the distant rumble of a train, the comforting presence of humanity at arm’s length. She was not always afraid of the dark. Only most of the time.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A warm morning, but not warm enough
to explain the temperature in the offices of Daintrey and Partners, solicitors these days to E. Cartwright and many others less capable of paying the fees. It was Cyril Lawrence, junior partner, who looked after the lady’s interests in particular, and he had reached the conclusion that asking the advice of his senior, Paul Daintrey had been ill-advised, judging from the reaction reverberating round his room.

  ‘I really think we should tell them. I mean, it’s ridiculous. Where the hell did she get this information, how did she get it, and what’s she trying to do? I don’t understand. I’ve only met the woman once before she latched on to you, couldn’t handle me, and said so very abruptly I seem to remember, but at least she didn’t want to leave the firm. That apart, I wouldn’t have said she was a philanthropist, not by any stretch of the imagination, and yet here she is sending money for the Jaskowski family. The family of the man telling lies about her, whose word’ll put her inside for the rest of her natural … and she’s sending money for his kids, for Christ’s sake. Fishy? It stinks.’

  ‘But it isn’t only the Jaskowskis. She’s asked us to provide for her two friends, the ones who’ve been running the shop we haven’t managed to sell; she’s asked for other generous bequests with her cash. Perhaps it isn’t odd at all. Perhaps she’s just got a conscience.’

  ‘Oh come on, Lawrence, what colour are my eyes? Green as grass? I mean, listen to this, listen to this crap,’ he picked up the piece of closely written, closely lined, exercise-book paper, embossed with its prison crest, ‘… I would like you to deliver the sum of five thousand pounds to Edward Jaskowski. I believe he is the eldest son of the family, and must be in charge of it in the permanent absence of his father. His father is telling lies about what it was I asked him to do, but I am nevertheless, as a Christian, sorry for any family which has been broken apart by such wicked fantasising, and although their position is not my fault, I should not like them corrupted by their father’s lies. I would like them to know that I do not bear them a grudge …’ He stopped himself tearing the paper, threw it down instead. ‘I mean, can you credit it, I never heard such rubbish. She’s trying to buy them off.’

  ‘But why? I don’t believe she could be as stupid. She isn’t a stupid woman. And anyway, even if she sent the Jaskowskis money, how would that help her? Short of them telling their old man what a kind soul she was, how would that help? It’s no particular incentive to him to withhold evidence.’

  ‘Of course it is, Lawrence, don’t you see, you great idiot? He’d think keeping quiet was a condition of support for his family; and she’ll have bought him off by providing for them.’

  Lawrence rubbed his wide brow nervously. He ached to believe well of human nature, especially the samples of it who were his clients. He did not like Eileen Cartwright: he did not fully believe Eileen Cartwright or even half believe, but he needed to convince himself she had some goodness in her and it pleased him that the letter, fulsome and suspicious though it was, gave him some good grounds for doing so. He tried again.

  ‘If you’d only take the trouble to read the rest of the letter, you’ll see she’s doing her best to take it out of the realm of bribery.’

  The older man was exasperated as usual with Lawrence’s wilful naïveté. ‘I can scarcely read her writing,’ he growled. ‘You read it to me.’

  Lawrence was happy to oblige. He cleared his throat, insensitive to the anger of his companion who found his very presence an irritant and was wondering why it was that all the calculating, complicated clients were drawn to Lawrence, who was least equipped to deal with them. Do Lawrence good to be mugged, he thought savagely. Might make him less of a sucker for lying, bleeding, hearts, and all the vicious pretenders who conned him.

  ‘… I do not wish it to be thought that this gift of money is designed to influence the trial in any way.’ Lawrence looked at his senior partner with significant triumph. The reward was a snort of contempt. ‘… It is made from altruistic motives. I would suggest therefore, that no payment is fulfilled until the end of my hearing in order to make it clear that it is not dependent on the outcome. In the meantime, I want Edward Jaskowski to be informed that he is to receive the sum for the benefit of the family, and also that it will not be paid until my fate has been decided; not at all if he breathes a single word to his father in the meantime. He must promise not to do so: that is the only condition, but he must know of it as soon as possible, since I know the family are in straitened circumstances. He can then plan for them accordingly.’

  ‘Straitened circumstances? How the hell does she know?’ demanded Daintrey. Lawrence blushed.

  ‘She asked me to find out, so I did.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘The prosecution. Nice woman. Very helpful. I asked her, and since I suppose there was no harm in my knowing, she told me.’

  ‘Well. Doesn’t the bloody Cartwright woman have her letters read?’

  ‘She’s on remand, not under sentence. Letters to her solicitor aren’t read. Nor ours to her. You must know that.’ Lawrence was smug in scoring a point, and Daintrey’s irritation became more obvious.

  ‘But it’s monstrous, the whole thing. Obscene. Bent.’

  ‘I don’t see why. A little unusual, perhaps.’

  ‘Unusual? Is that all you can say? A little odd? Putting us in the dock for attempting to pervert the course of justice? Interference with witnesses, promising money? God, I don’t know, I really don’t. We’ve got far too much on with that woman already, what with a Power of Attorney to sell her shops, her house mortgaged to pay for Quinn’s fees, and Christ knows what else. Bloody woman.’

  Lawrence was riled. Correct, in the limited book of his mind, to think ill of your client, indeed it was difficult to avoid it most of the time, but incorrect to say so, preferable by far to speak of them with the respect you would at least give to the dead, and besides, they were occasionally innocent. In his own cases they were always innocent: the best complexion must be painted upon their requests, however bizarre, and in Daintrey this morning he scented the naked dislike of himself which normally went clothed. Attack became preferable to defence.

  ‘She’s not that bloody woman. She’s our client. Our paying client, not even legal aid, and one way or another, giving us plenty of business, all that stuff she used to give to Michael Bernard’s firm included. We’ve got to do what she wants.’

  ‘Tell the prosecution about that letter,’ Daintrey interrupted.

  ‘Why should I? Give them the chance to cross-examine her at trial about something she’s written in confidence? Lose Edward Jaskowski five thousand pounds which he probably doesn’t deserve, but that’s not for us to judge, is it? No, I won’t, I damn well won’t. Why shouldn’t I just obey her instructions? How can it be interfering with witnesses when none of the Jaskowskis are witnesses, except the father and he’s in prison already? She’s not offering him money, and she’s covered the possibilities of the payment being treated as corrupt. Why the hell shouldn’t I just do as she says?’ Rage turned his voice into a shrill and aggressive whine. He tried to calm it. ‘Anyway I should point out, I was only asking your advice. As I see it, the interests of the client come first and foremost. I’m hired to protect those interests, nothing else. If she wants me to do something which isn’t blatantly illegal, I should do it. For God’s sake, Paul, you’ve banked money for robbers before, and while this is certainly more eccentric, it isn’t nearly as below board. At least we know this time whose money it is.’

  The general division of labour in the firm was something of which Paul Daintrey disliked reminders. By and large, he dealt with the professional criminals, while Lawrence dealt with those loosely described as amateurs. Daintrey did not doubt which he preferred, and although he was a man of selective conscience rather than no conscience at all, to the extent that he was almost, certainly occasionally, trusted by the police, especially when he had done their conveyancing, there were several areas of his work where he would have preferred the finer details to remain
unknown. Quite unwittingly, since he was not overendowed with either wit or judgement, Lawrence had hit upon the weakest of many Achilles’ heels, and the senior partner’s insistence deflated as suddenly as it had arisen.

  ‘Oh, do as you think best, whatever that is. Write to her first, though. Ask her if she thinks it’s a good idea to mention it to the boy before the trial. Point out she might think differently afterwards, might be sorry. I mean, why should this kid keep quiet?’

  ‘Because they won’t get the money if he doesn’t.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know that, but it’s a test for him all the same. How old is he, seventeen? Christ. At least ask her to wait. She’ll quarrel about the bill if we do something she regrets later.’

  ‘I thought of that,’ said Lawrence coldly, stung by the insinuation he had not covered all the angles. ‘I’ll write, if you insist, but I doubt it’ll make much difference. She seems to have considered it carefully already.’

  ‘But you’ll write? Before you act? Not after?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And for God’s sake, at least tell counsel. He’ll have to know.’

  Honour was satisfied. Daintrey had given his advice and obtained at least the one concession. Smiling affably, he changed the subject. Other cases, other dilemmas emerged for ten soothing minutes, leaving Lawrence convinced he had won not only the point but a renewal of esteem. As his clients had found even more often than his peers, Lawrence was easy to placate and easier to fool. They may have needed drugs, violence, theft and forgiveness: he had an equal craving to be liked.

  Not inclined to think at speed, he was still capable of it, so that the moment Paul left, he was thinking hard before lapsing into reverie. He was given to monumental thoughts, imagining how he would explain his reasoning aloud at the same time as formulating the reasoning itself, a sort of speechless thinking on his feet which encouraged him to walk around his room casting himself in an Oscar role as advocate for the exclusive audience of himself. Unfortunately a role for which he was otherwise unsuited, not for lack of words: more for lack of presence or any element of humour, and a complete insensitivity to the character of those addressed. There was only one style in his repertoire, a kind of elaborate pomposity, heavy Dickensian condescension which had failed to earn either the respect of the local magistrates or local villains, and the failure pained him still. Broad hints from an ungrateful audience would not have forced him to retire from the stage without the single court appearance which had scarred him for life, although it had been the one which most endeared him to his public.