‘Adam. What are you doing here?’
It was halfway through Wednesday afternoon. Of all the people who could have been knocking on my door unexpectedly at that time, Adam was just about the best option, but I was still surprised to find him there.
Are you involved with him? I’d said no, when Mark asked me that, but seeing Adam now made my heart flutter. His hands were shoved in his pockets and his eyes looked troubled.
‘I thought I’d come and see you.’
‘Okay,’ I said slowly. ‘Why?’
‘I wanted to see how you were.’
‘That’s kind.’
‘You’re letting all the warm air out,’ Adam observed after a pause.
‘If there was any to let out, I would be.’
His gaze slid past me. ‘Have I come at a bad time? Have you got company?’
‘Not really and no. But … well …’ I gave up on keeping him out and stepped back. ‘Come in and have a look.’
He came in and stopped to survey the table. It was covered in sheets of paper. ‘What’s all this?’
‘I’ve got some free time because a trial moved. I’ve been doing some research. Trying to sort out what I know about the Lisa Muller trial.’
‘This is basically a wall of mad, isn’t it? Except that you haven’t stuck it up yet.’
‘I don’t have enough spare wall to put it anywhere,’ I admitted. ‘I was just about to start again on the floor.’
‘Talk me through it.’ He was looking grim. ‘Tell me about this rape trial.’
‘Guy Lanesbury was our client. He was accused of raping a fellow student, Lisa Muller. She was nineteen and tiny. He was athletic, six foot, handsome, articulate – your classic public-school boy. He looked like an adult but in many ways he was young for his age. They had a night out to celebrate her birthday, along with a group of friends. They wound up back at his flat, in his bed, and at some point during the night there was sexual activity. He said she was fully consenting, she said he raped her. The jury decided there wasn’t enough evidence to prove rape, and he was acquitted, which was the right decision. It was impossible to prove.’ I paced up and down, circling the table. ‘But it took a terrible toll on Lisa. I spoke to the OIC and she told me Lisa killed herself six months later.’
Adam whistled. ‘Because of the trial?’
‘You’d have to assume that was part of it.’
‘And you think this is connected with your present difficulties? I’m not sure it is.’ Cold water, incoming. I braced myself. ‘The conviction rate is staggeringly low for rape. What you’re suggesting is an extreme reaction, to say the least. Why would anyone spend what – four years? – planning revenge? Wouldn’t they want to put it all behind them? Especially since she killed herself?’
‘You’d think. I read the transcript of her evidence again, and Belinda’s cross-examination. It was brutal, Adam. Belinda took her apart, question by question. It wasn’t just that she was able to prove she had lied in her initial statements. At the start of her evidence, Lisa looked vulnerable and sweet, and Belinda proved she was no innocent. She had slept with half of their friendship group – girls and boys, as it happened, though that didn’t come out at the trial.’
‘Not a crime, unless they weren’t consenting.’
‘No, of course not, but it did play a part in what happened that night. In the beginning, Guy wouldn’t tell us much about what went on. It took a long time for him to trust us enough to give us the details. Well, me. He trusted me.’
‘Did he?’
‘I suppose I was the youngest person on his team. The least threatening.’ I paused, remembering him sobbing in the conference room in Garter Buildings, a room that was significantly grander than the one in my chambers. He had sat with his elbows on the table, his hands covering his face, racked with pain and humiliation. It had taken him over an hour to give me his version of events, brief though it was. ‘He was a virgin. She wasn’t. They were both very drunk and she had her heart set on getting him to have sex with her. I think, for what it’s worth, she wanted a real relationship with him, and she’d decided this was the best way to persuade him to go out with her. Between the drunkenness and nerves, he couldn’t perform, and she was furious. She said he was weak and pathetic and she was going to tell everyone that he hadn’t been able to do it. He was devastated by it, at the time and afterwards. She sent a text message to a friend complaining about him not being able to get it up, so we were able to avoid putting Guy in the box to get that evidence in front of the jury. That was something that probably helped him deal with the trauma of the trial, but it was bad. We were seriously worried about him.’
‘So you worried about him. What about Lisa? There are two sides to the story, I should think.’
‘Of course, and if I had been putting her side of the case to you I would be telling you about how the events of that night traumatised her. She was genuinely devastated. She had been humiliated in every way. Their peers took sides, as they always do, and because Guy was popular, once she got him suspended from their university she became an outcast. People judged her hard for her behaviour that night and for reporting him to the police. I wonder if she thought about walking away without going through with the trial. I think she thought if he got convicted then everyone would have to accept that she’d done the right thing in getting him suspended. But it broke her.’
‘She’s still sounding like the victim to me.’
‘She was. No one came out of the trial unscathed, believe me. Her dad sat through the whole trial, every day. The evidence was hard for him to hear, but the verdict was worse. He collapsed.’ I remembered him, grey and panting as the first-aid-trained police officers hurried to his side and the judge ordered the court to be cleared. ‘We won, but I haven’t done a rape trial since.’
‘I don’t know how any of you can.’
‘They all deserve a defence.’
‘If you say so. But some people need to be locked up.’ Adam sighed. ‘You’ve told me this whole story about how he was traumatised and she was mean to him, but the facts of the case are that she was asleep, or passed out, and he screwed her. She simply could not have given consent to that, and you know it.’
‘The jury felt—’
‘Oh, the jury. I bet they didn’t know left from right by the time you’d finished confusing them.’
‘It wasn’t me for the most part, it was Belinda, and all she did was challenge the evidence. I just found the messages that made our defence. And I cross-examined a couple of the witnesses. There wasn’t enough evidence for the jury to convict him. It must have felt as if he won and she lost. I felt sorry for her then and I feel sorry for her now. But the trial, and how we handled it – that’s irrelevant. The key thing is that it has to be this, Adam. It just has to be. It’s the only connection between all of us who have been targeted – Belinda, the judge, me. And the reason no one has put it together before now is because I’m the only person who’s aware of all of these things. We have separate investigations into Belinda’s death, and the judge’s, and poor Vicki. No one would ever connect the three investigations unless they were standing in the centre, like me.’
‘You’re right.’ His face softened. He stepped forward and put his arms around me, drawing me against him. I resisted at first and then relaxed against him. He was whippy rather than muscular, and I could wrap my arms around him, holding him close. He smelled of cold winter air. ‘You’re not on your own in the centre, though. I’m here with you.’
‘Do you think I’m right about this?’
‘You might be. Or it could be John Webster trying to make you think it’s about this case. Either way, we need to keep you safe.’ He was tall enough to rest his chin on top of my head. I felt a sigh stir my hair. ‘I can follow it up for you. Would that help?’
I stepped back so I could see his face. ‘What would be helpful is if you could find out if the Lanesburys are still at the same address so that I can warn them about what’s been going on. And you could contact the Mullers to find out if they’re still angry.’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘But—’
‘No, Ingrid, listen to me. I don’t know what your plan is, but you can’t bother them about their daughter. This was the worst thing that ever happened to them and you mustn’t drag it up again. You could get in serious trouble, which I think is Webster’s plan. You know he’s quite capable of taking a trial and working his way through the people who were on your side, just to make you panic. He would set this kind of thing up in a heartbeat. They are real people with real feelings, and you are not going to blunder into their world with your own issues. You’ll upset them, or you’ll put yourself in danger and either is unacceptable.’
‘So what, then? Will you do anything?’
‘I’ll make some calls behind the scenes to find the Lanesburys. Warning them might actually be helpful.’
‘What else can I do?’
‘What else have you got?’ He was looking at the table.
‘This is a list of the court staff who were there – which is a long shot, because most of them are far more cynical than you or I could ever be, and I don’t think they would have got fussed about a particular rape trial. Whatever the evidence is, they’ve always heard worse.’
‘Right. Who else?’
‘Police.’ I tapped the sheaf of paper. ‘I spoke to Tara Jones who was the officer in the case. She told me about Lisa’s death. I could imagine that the court case and the fallout from it might have upset her.’
His eyebrows drew together. ‘And you think she’s involved in all of this? A police officer? In murder?’
‘If she is, she’s some actress. I didn’t sense any kind of hostility from her. Human nature being what it is, I think she took a certain amount of satisfaction out of being able to tell me what had happened to Lisa, but it didn’t feel personal. Anyway, she was in court so she’s on the list for now.’
‘Okay. And?’
‘The witnesses. Lisa had two friends, Tess and Umi. Tess was the one I cross-examined. She’d had text messages from Lisa during the evening and night that helped prove Lisa had intended to sleep with Guy.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘The CPS lawyer. The opposing barrister who is now Susie Allen QC, so I can’t say that losing this trial held her back in any meaningful way. She didn’t have a junior. The jury …’
‘You can’t have tracked them down.’
‘I haven’t and I won’t be able to. But they were there.’ I pushed my hair back, noticing that it was escaping from its ponytail. ‘It wasn’t a unanimous verdict, I remembered. It was eleven to one in the end. One of them held out.’
‘But you’ll never know which one it was.’
‘No. It’s just a possibility, that’s all. I’m putting all the possibilities together and seeing what comes of it.’
‘You should do my job.’
It was a joke but I didn’t feel like laughing. ‘I’m scared, Adam. Someone is trying to kill me – maybe someone on this table, maybe someone I haven’t even thought of yet. You can’t blame me for doing whatever I can to stay alive, including asking John Webster for help.’
‘Okay. Let me help you instead.’ He shuffled through the piles of paper. ‘You need to cut down on your collection of suspects. This is unmanageable. Get rid of the cops’ – Tara went on the floor – ‘and the court staff, and the jury, and the legal professionals. Leave the family, I suppose. Add in John Webster. I’d drop the friends – you have no way of tracing them and they’d hardly be able to find you and carry out this kind of sustained harassment and murder.’
‘You never know,’ I said, watching my stack of suspects dwindle. ‘You’d better leave me someone.’
‘I’m going to add one. You realise you’ve left someone else out.’
‘Who?’
‘Your ex.’
‘Mark? I don’t think …’ I trailed off. Did he know I’d met Mark for lunch?
Had Mark met me for lunch to find out what I knew?
‘You said yourself he was angry with you when you saw him. He had the ability to bug your flat and fake the phone call that brought Webster back to you. He hasn’t ever forgiven you for how his life fell apart.’
‘But none of that was my fault,’ I said. ‘It was John Webster who ruined everything.’
‘Was it?’ Adam had been leaning over the table, looking at my notes. He straightened up and looked at me, reluctance written all over his face. ‘I didn’t want to say this but after I heard John Webster’s account of what happened to your cat I realised I couldn’t take what you said at face value. Your version of events was almost true – maybe you even convinced yourself that it was accurate – but it cast him in the worst possible light and it made you look like a victim. He says he helped you and for once I believe him.’
‘Really? You believe John Webster and not me?’
‘I’ve been making some calls myself, Ingrid, and I know you’ve been lying to me. I keep wondering if this is just a huge con and I’m the one being fooled.’
The shock of it hit me like a vast, icy wave, knocking me off balance. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Flora Pole?’
‘You knew about Flora Pole,’ I managed to say.
‘I knew she died.’
‘What else is there to know?’
His mouth tightened. ‘What about the little detail that you were arrested for killing her?’