Once safely inside, with no witnesses and no one likely to burst in, Martha drew a spider’s web on a sheet of paper. In the centre she put Gina and Patrick. The victims.
And the spider? The olive-skinned man who had reduced Gina Marconi to a whore. How had he done it? More importantly, who had introduced her to him? How? And why? Was he a criminal she had defended or failed to defend? And, Martha thought, why me? What do I have to do with this man? Those photos of her and Alex looking like lovers had been taken last summer. Long before these two suicides. So who else was in his sights, apart from her?
She recalled the man who had been with Gina on that night when their planets had brushed together. And that was it. He had been her escort. A handsome, suave man whose olive skin showed well against the white of his shirt. So Gina had paid for a male escort to the ball because Julius Zedanski was probably halfway across the world. Was it possible that Gina had mentioned her name, joked with her escort? The lady with the red hair. That’s the coroner.
And that had been it? Enough to make her a person of interest? Or was it something else? Maybe he or one of his associates had had indirect dealings with her?
And now she knew a little more she wanted to understand the rest. Victor Stanley had been Gina’s escort that night. And without realizing who she was tangling with, she had walked right in to what was so obviously a trap.
Martha frowned as she recalled the pictures.
What had they given her to make her like this? Cocaine? Rohypnol? The pictures could not have been more damning. She could never have worked as a barrister again.
Work was a welcome diversion and calmed her down, finding the rhythmic groove of more routine cases. Not all coroners’ work is so dramatic.
She’d almost forgotten about the conflict when, at six o’clock, her mobile pinged with a message. Enjoyed the other night. A friend of mine would love to meet up with you. Ivor D.
She stared at her phone screen. Will you walk into my parlour, said the spider to the fly. It was an invitation to sup with the Devil.
She felt the sour taste of fear even as she tapped out her response. It was dangerous. It made no sense. It was stupid. She knew exactly who the friend was, knew she was putting herself at risk. Did she think she was cleverer than Ms Marconi? Did she think she had less to lose? Position, family et cetera, et cetera. As Gina had had a position, so did she. As Gina’s had been destroyed, so could hers. She was no better, no wiser, no more in control than Gina Marconi had been and yet she knew her own nature. Blame half-Irish, half-Welsh. She was a risk taker, a rule breaker. She liked adventure and she liked the truth. And so she would do it. Find out how all this had happened. More than ever she wished she had Alex Randall to watch her back. But she didn’t because paradoxically, now he was free, now they could be open about a friendship, he was further away from her than ever. And the photos could always be aired to indicate a relationship between them while his poor, damaged wife was still alive. And then she’d died. Of natural causes, they’d said.
Oh, Alex.
She responded to the text message with just the one word.
Saturday?
So the trap was set. She knew exactly what she was doing. Or did she? She sure as hell knew why she was going. This persistent search for the truth behind the obfuscation. And to find that out she was walking not just into the lions’ den but right into the lion’s mouth close enough to pick between his teeth. And she had no one to look out for her – just as Patrick’s mother had been at work blissfully unaware of her son’s intent, Terence and Bridget had been asleep and Gina’s fiancé halfway round the world reporting on others’ desperate situations. She was similarly alone. If she got it wrong she knew what the consequences could be.
The image of the boy’s face as described by the witnesses loomed in front of her, determined as he had stood on the rail of the A5 bridge looking at the traffic. Gina’s face would have been similarly determined. And now, in the gilded mirror hanging on the wall near the door, she caught sight of her own face with that same look, gritty determination. That was where she was heading. To hell? Surely not. Not if she was on her guard. Forewarned. Forearmed.
Friends and relatives had painted the pictures but there was something she did not understand. While Gina had made enemies through her work, what interest could Victor Stanley possibly have had in one twelve-year-old boy? She was still missing some connection. Was it because he preyed sexually on young lads as well as available women? Or was there something else?
Before she could speculate further her mobile phone buzzed again. Great. The Armoury? 8 p.m.
She tapped out Fine.
The Armoury was an unusual choice for an intimate meeting. Almost a student pub, it wasn’t particularly private but open plan and noisy. The food was great but the atmosphere was not exactly conducive to winkling out secrets. But … and when Martha realized this her feet went cold. It was somewhere where people could easily watch you, take photographs without being noticed because, being open plan, lots of people were taking pictures and selfies with their mobile phones ready to display to all their Facebook friends what a great life they were having. It was, in other words, public. Not intimate but jolly, reminding her of the student pubs she and Martin had frequented all those years ago, places in Birmingham, which fairly buzzed with the excitement of the young and which they had invented new names for: The White Swan became The Mucky Duck. The Gun Barrels became The Beer Barrels and so on. Silly student jokes.
But there was a difference. Geographically The Armoury was on the banks of the River Severn, its level currently high following heavy rain but held back by flood defences. As coroner she presided over about three drownings a year in that wicked old river. A friend on summer days when the folk of Shrewsbury strolled along its banks or sculled over its surface, but like a dog that bites its owner a river is wild, untamed. However picturesque, tempting artists and trippers, a river is still a river. Water can drown you. You can sink or swim. She had another thought that chilled her even further: if she had ever planned her own suicide it was possible this would have been the route she would have chosen. Not an overdose or a slash of the wrists, not a hanging or the suffocation of carbon monoxide poisoning from a car exhaust. It would be a dive into the river. Welcome water dragging her down, closing over her head.
And then rationale took over.
That, she thought, is not how he works. He needs time for his punishments to mature. To prolong and extract the suffering. She was supping with the Devil. She could do with back-up.
But she couldn’t call on Simon Pendlebury again. Friendship was as far as they would go. She’d seen him out with his new secretary a year or so ago and knew his predilection for beautiful young women would always prove to be his weak spot. Seeing his attractiveness only too clearly through their eyes, rich, polished, handsome, they would succumb. But unlike poor little flawed Christabel who had been his previous squeeze, naive and blinded by love for him, in contrast Cerys Watkins, his secretary, could probably look after herself. She was a Welsh beauty with the loveliest hair Martha had ever seen, long, straight and black falling to her waist. Combined with the scarlet lipstick Cerys wore she had reminded her of a witch queen. But Cerys had an extra quality that made all the difference. She was clever and when Simon introduced her into the conversation he brought her name up with respect.
The real question was whether Cerys was strong enough to withstand the onslaught of Simon’s two daughters.
So Simon was out and so was Alex.
‘Martha,’ she spoke aloud, ‘this time you really are on your own.’