In ordinary circumstances I would never have wanted to meet Hugh Hardwick for a drink. There were solicitors I got on with as friends and solicitors I viewed purely as a means to the end of getting work, and Hugh was in the second category. He was tall and thin, with hawkish good looks, but the puffy bags under his eyes made him look mildly dissolute. He had a perpetually jaded expression that was an accurate reflection of his personality. I knew lots of women thought him attractive, that he was good at his job, and that his clients found his aggression and cynicism to be reassuring, but I didn’t enjoy his company and I worried that he was well aware of that. Still, he had agreed to see me once he was finished in court, and I found him waiting for me in the Viaduct Tavern near the Old Bailey. I felt my stress levels rise as I stepped into the ornate pub, shaking the rain off my coat, and saw him hunched over a pint like a heron by a pond. I would have preferred to get there first.
The Viaduct was a classic Victorian drinkery, gilded and embossed to within an inch of its life, with a bar as solid as an altar and small booths around the walls. That was why I had chosen it. I wanted as much privacy as I could get for this conversation.
I hurried across to the booth where he was sitting. He looked up at the sound of my heels on the worn wooden floorboards, and treated me to a heavy-lidded glower.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ I said, knowing I wasn’t.
‘I was early.’ He gestured across the table. ‘You know Niall Hyde, don’t you?’
Fuck. I hadn’t noticed the big Scottish solicitor was there, leaning back in the corner of the booth. He raised a shovel of a hand in a salute.
‘Good to see you, Ingrid. How are things?’
‘Fine.’ I said it a shade too brightly and he laughed.
‘Don’t worry. I’m not staying. If you want a private word with Hugh here’ – he broke off to wink – ‘I’m not going to get in the way.’
Niall was a huge gossip and if I looked as if I wanted to get rid of him, he would be even more intrigued.
‘Not at all,’ I said briskly. ‘Can I get you both a drink?’
‘Another of these please.’ Hugh looked past me and waved his glass at the barman, who set about pulling him a pint of bitter.
‘Nothing for me, thanks, Ingrid. I’m supposed to be cutting down.’ Niall looked ruefully at the empty pint glass in front of him, the inside lacy with froth. ‘Easy for the doctor to tell you to stop but you need to unwind, don’t you?’
‘They try to ban everything that’s fun.’ Hugh tipped the remainder of his pint down his throat.
‘Anyway, I can’t stay.’ Niall began to heave himself along the bench. ‘I do need to get home. I won’t play gooseberry.’
‘It’s work-related,’ I said thinly.
Hugh looked pained and not a little bored, though I couldn’t tell if it was because of Niall’s heavy banter, or what I’d said, or just because that was his default setting. Why couldn’t it have been Niall I needed to talk to? It would have been so much easier.
I went to the bar to order a glass of wine for myself and pay for Hugh’s pint. The barman had been staring out at the street, waiting for customers. The bar was still quiet, the post-work crowd not yet unleashed. Court finished a long time before everyone else’s working day ended, and it was something I’d counted on so I could talk to Hugh in peace.
Niall barrelled out of the pub with a cheerful wave to me and I wondered what he and Hugh had talked about before I arrived. The legal world wasn’t exactly on message about equality and sexism. There was also the fact, I recalled, that Hugh had just been divorced for the third time. Suspicion and embarrassment prickled my skin like heat rash. As if I would swoop in as soon as he was technically single … As if I would even be interested … He was far too old for me and he and Niall should both know that … I straightened my back and reached for court-level composure. I was here because it was important to warn Hugh, and to find out what he knew at the same time, and if I incurred a little embarrassment along the way, that was the price I had to pay.
‘So what’s this thing you can’t talk about over the phone?’ Hugh asked as soon as I returned with the drinks. He had taken Niall’s place in the booth, leaving me to perch on the stool on the other side of the small table.
‘Do you remember Guy Lanesbury?’
His eyes went opaque for a moment as he thought about it. ‘The student.’
‘That’s the one.’
‘When was that?’
‘Four years ago.’ I gulped some wine and managed not to wince as it scoured the surface of my tongue. ‘I was the junior.’
‘The joys of privately paid work.’ He frowned at his pint as if it displeased him. ‘I can’t remember now why we needed a junior for a three-day trial.’
‘There was a lot of disclosure to work through. Phone records and emails and text messages. Social media posts.’
The frown cleared. ‘That’s right. You did a good job, I remember. The jury didn’t take long to acquit him, quite rightly in my view. If you want a reference—’
‘That’s not why I’m here.’
His eyebrows went up again – really, he had a most expressive face, I thought, and maybe that was part of his charm. ‘Do go on.’
‘My leader on that trial was Belinda Grey.’
‘Ah, poor Belinda.’
‘You know what happened to her.’
He shrugged. ‘Of course. It was a dreadful shock. I knew her well. She was a favourite of mine. Always prepared, never slapdash, good with clients and families.’
‘She was an excellent barrister. A good example.’
He adjusted the coaster under his glass, not looking at me. ‘And you are interested in taking on some of her work?’
‘No. No, that’s not it. Not at all.’ My face was hot; he really had a low opinion of me. Moreover, he was busy assuming I didn’t have anything important to say. Well, persuading people to listen to me was my actual job. I leaned forward, my elbows on the table, and said, ‘Have you noticed anything weird in the last couple of months?’
‘Define weird.’
‘Have you had any accidents? Or come close to having an accident? Have you felt as if you were being followed?’
He looked surprised and then, to my despair, amused. ‘Ingrid, I don’t think—’
‘I was in the Old Bailey the day that Belinda died. I don’t think that what happened to her was an accident.’
Hugh took a moment before he answered, tapping out a rhythm on the small table with his long fingers. He had beautiful hands, straight out of a Renaissance portrait. ‘What do the police think?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘They were inclined to agree with me, but then they changed their minds. Her death was ruled to be accidental at the inquest. I think everyone thought I was paranoid.’
Hugh took a long, slow swallow from his glass to avoid making any kind of comment but I could read his thoughts quite clearly: I’m inclined to think the same.
‘The police had wound up the investigation into Belinda’s death, and then someone broke into my flat and killed a friend of mine. She wasn’t supposed to be there.’ I remembered Webster’s comment on the empty knife rack. ‘It might have been a spur-of-the-moment thing. They panicked. Or they might have been planning to kill me, just like they killed Belinda. I mean, I thought that maybe Belinda had been killed in my place because she had my umbrella and it was pouring rain and you know, we all look alike in our court suits, don’t we? And I’ve had my share of problems with a client stalking me. But then Vicki died, and then I saw about Judge Canterville, and I realised what the connection was—’ I was aware that my words had been getting faster and faster, tumbling out. I managed to stop myself as Hugh held up a hand.
‘Hold on. I’m lost. How does Ron Canterville fit into this?’
‘Guy Lanesbury’s trial. He was the judge – he sat at Isleworth before he moved to Guildford full-time. Belinda was my leader, defending Guy. You were the solicitor. Two of us are dead, one of us is terrified. So I want to know if anything has happened to you.’
He shook his head. ‘Go back to the beginning, please. I’m not following.’
With an effort, and with the help of another gulp of the oily, harsh-edged wine, I went back to the beginning and led Hugh through what had happened over the previous weeks as if he was a particularly thick juror. He listened with intense concentration, probing at the weak points of the story, pushing me for evidence that there was anything sinister going on – anything beyond a series of tragic coincidences.
‘I can’t prove it,’ I said at last. ‘If I had proof of what was going on, I would know who had done it. As it is, I’m watching the street behind you in case I can spot a threat. I’m scared, all the time.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘You’re not?’ I felt jolted that he believed me. I would almost have preferred a pat on the head for making up stories. But Hugh looked serious.
‘I’ll pay more attention to what’s going on around me, I promise.’
‘You think it’s worth being worried.’
‘Of course.’ He frowned. ‘That Lanesbury case. I know we won, but it was unpleasant, wasn’t it?’
‘At times,’ I admitted.
‘It’s possible that the verdict didn’t satisfy everyone.’
‘I’m sure it didn’t.’ I took a deep breath. ‘That’s why I have a favour to ask.’
‘How can I help?’
‘Names. I don’t have a detailed record of that case. I didn’t keep my notes – Belinda did. I can’t ask her widower if he’d mind digging through her papers. I know you’ll have records.’
‘Of what?’
‘The case. The people who were involved in it. Witnesses. Police. The families.’ I glanced up with a start as the door swung open and a couple came in, laughing. They looked as if they didn’t have a worry between them. ‘I don’t know what I’m looking for, Hugh. If it is connected with Guy’s trial, I should probably warn him and his family that someone is picking us off one by one.’
He was watching me. ‘And if it’s not?’
‘Then I have to keep looking.’