Guilty Page 2

  ‘Oooh! Is that an Ella Fitzgerald CD I can see? Could we put it on? I just adore jazz?’

  Anything for some peace. Reaching over, he slid the CD into the slot and the car filled with Ella’s hauntingly beautiful voice. Claire loved jazz too.

  His mind went back again to the evening he had met this lovely woman with a gentle smile and beautiful auburn hair curling softly on her shoulders like that model in the pre-Raphaelite paintings; the one who was married to one painter but in love with another. Fed up with girlfriends over the years who had been obsessed with their appearances, he had been entranced by this vision who walked and spoke and laughed in a way that suggested she simply didn’t realise how lovely she was.

  Later, when he learned more about her life, he wanted to beat up her ex and, at the same time, sink to his knees and thank him for having left this beautiful woman free for him.

  Amazingly, it had been incredibly easy to transfer to the Exeter office which was keen to have a defence lawyer having his experience. And although he didn’t really like moving into a house which Claire’s ex-husband had bought her after the divorce, he could also see her argument that moving again, would disrupt the boy.

  Beech Cottage was in one of those hamlets which, Simon, soon discovered, were common in this part of the country. The pub and shop had recently gone (something which it could have done with, in his view) and the main social hub was a tennis club a few miles down the road which you had to drive to.

  Most of Claire’s friends either came from there or from the neighbouring houses which were studded in clusters around them; each with their own sizeable garden and driveway with farm-style gates that were difficult to open. In London, they would have gone for a fortune, but the prices here perhaps reflected the fact that it took a good three hours to get to Paddington.

  Still, the scenery was beautiful with those rolling hills – clearly visible from the back of Beech Cottage – and thick woods where Claire loved to walk. ‘Come on,’ she would say, laughingly taking him by the hand. ‘Breathe in the fresh air.’

  Simon had to admit that it did smell different from London air. It was fresher with a dampness that tickled his nose. He just couldn’t work out if he actually preferred it or not.

  There was, however, something rather nice about living just twenty minutes from the sea. On the other hand, it was taking him some time to adjust to the slower pace in Devon and the way people said ‘good morning’ when they passed even if they didn’t know you. If you did that in London, they’d have you down as a nutter.

  Talking of whom …

  ‘Lovely car, by the way!’ Joanna was twittering on again. ‘Amazing how roomy it is in the back, even though it’s a convertible. Have you had it long?’

  At least two years. He used to change his car every year before he’d got married. Porsches. Audis. Jags. He’d had them all. But it didn’t seem so important now he had Claire and of course, Ben.

  ‘Think you take a sharp left here.’ Joanna’s voice took on a slightly tighter edge, ‘although it might just be the next one. Hard to work it out in the dark, isn’t it?’

  ‘Work it out?’ snorted Hugh, waking up suddenly. A spray of spit flew out and landed on Simon’s arm. Disgusting. ‘Stupid woman! Since when were you ever able to work anything out?’

  How rude. Simon was about to intervene but she got there first.

  ‘Darling,’ said Joanna in a plaintive tone. ‘That’s not very nice. I think someone’s had a teeny-weeny bit too much to drink.’ Simon glanced in the mirror to see her undoing her safety belt so she could lean over the front seat, sliding her hand under her husband’s shirt. ‘Don’t be cross, darling. I can’t bear it when you get angry. Whoops. I think we should have taken a right there.’

  ‘Left, you silly bitch!’ roared Hugh. ‘It’s left.’

  Simon began to sweat despite the cold. ‘Joanna, please put your belt back on. And Hugo, if you don’t mind me saying, it’s deeply offensive to call your wife a bitch.’

  ‘I’ll call her what I bloody like!’

  ‘Fuck! Hugo! Leave the steering wheel alone!’

  Then everything happened fast. The mobile phone ringing from the flesh of his gear stick. Ben. Simon’s reluctance to pick it up because he hadn’t got his ear piece in and then that uneasy feeling when it stopped in case the boy had needed him.

  ‘He wants to be a child one minute and an adult the next,’ Claire had said. ‘Please try to understand.’

  The grip on his left arm from the brute in the passenger seat who was leaning over him now with heavy beery fumes and shouting ‘Take a left,’ against Joanna’s tinkly ‘Take a right’.

  The phone again. Ben once more. The car parked on the left of the lane. Only just time to swerve to the right and …

  Oh my God.

  The first thing that struck Simon was the cold, dark eerie silence. He tried to turn round to see if Joanna was all right in the back but his safety belt was twisted in a way that meant he could only just glance sideways. Hugh wasn’t there.

  It was freezing as though there weren’t any windows. He could feel the night air sinking down into his lungs.

  ‘Joanna,’ he tried to say. ‘Hugh?’

  His fingers began to shake. Slightly at first and then in huge juddering motions as though they belonged to someone else. It was a terrible effort to make them pick up the phone. Thank God. He could see a bit now by its faint light. Appalled, he took in the huge hole in the windscreen, stretched out like a glass cobweb.

  Forcing his fingers to work, he tried dialling 999 but they hit Home instead.

  ‘Hi! Please leave a message for Claire, Simon or Ben …’

  ‘Claire.’ Her name spilled out of his mouth in a giant sob. ‘For God’s sake pick up. Something awful’s happened. Something awful.’

  And then he heard a scream. So loud that it almost drowned the noise of the siren. A scream that was coming out of his own mouth.

  Chapter Three

  As Claire cleared up the post-dinner party mess, she kept imagining Simon sitting next to Joanna. She was just the kind of person who would automatically assume rights in the passenger seat. Her husband’s hand would brush her knee accidentally as he changed gear and Joanna – whose ethereal beauty had entranced every man at the table – would give a gay flirtatious laugh.

  Simon, Claire told herself, dumping the pudding plates down by the dishwasher, might contrast this with her own tetchiness before the party when they’d quarrelled over Ben.

  Talking of her son, why hadn’t he texted to say he’d got to his party safely or that he needed picking up? Claire began to wipe down the dining room table with angry circular motions. How she hated it when his friends drove! It had all been so much simpler when he’d been little and she knew exactly where he was.

  The phone! It would be Ben – at last – ringing to say he was safe. But someone had moved the handset! Claire’s eyes skimmed the kitchen. Where was the wretched thing?

  Ah. There it was, hiding under the parish magazine. Picking it up, she heard the two-tone ring, indicating a message.

  ‘Claire. For God’s sake pick up. Something awful’s happened.’

  Simon? What was wrong? Was he hurt? An electric shock of panic shot through her as she pressed the shortcut button to Simon’s mobile. It went straight through to answerphone.

  And then, wondering if she was over-reacting but not knowing what else to do, she dialled 999.

  An hour later, Claire sat numbly on a metal-framed chair, shivering in her thin green dressy evening top. Thoughts were flying round her head. Stupid irrelevant thoughts like whether she’d remembered to turn off the Aga fan. Glancing up at the wall in front of her, Claire saw a cartoon figure on a poster demanding to know whether she’d purchased a current television licence. Its normality seemed cruel.

  All that mattered was Simon. And Ben too, of course. But it was Simon she needed to feel. Simon who would hold her close and tell her that it was all right.


  Her mind went back to when she’d been put through to the police surprisingly quickly. She’d tried to talk but fear had blurred her words as though she was drunk or simple.

  ‘Can you give me your husband’s registration number?’ a sympathetic voice had said. And then she was kept holding on until a different voice asked her to come down to the police station without giving a reason, even though she’d tried to explain she needed to be at home for her teenage son.

  ‘Please!’ she felt her eyes filling with tears as she stood at the counter. ‘Have you had any reports of an accident? I just want to find out why my husband was so upset.’

  ‘We’re still making enquiries,’ soothed the kindly grandfatherly police officer on the desk, glancing at her thin top. ‘Take a seat, dear.’

  His calm tone made her feel that maybe Simon had just had a puncture or a bit of a prang. His panicky answerphone message might merely have been an overreaction. Maybe …

  Yes! Her mobile. Simon! Delving into her bag to find it – quickly before it rang off! – she felt a pang of acute disappointment at the name ‘Ben’ flashing up.

  ‘Where’ve you been, Mum? I tried to ring Simon but he didn’t pick up either. I’m staying over at Jack’s. OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ she managed to say.

  ‘What’s wrong, Mum?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She glanced up at the grandfatherly police officer whose face was now worryingly solemn. ‘I’ll pick you up in the morning, shall I? About 11?’

  ‘My son’, she started to explain but stopped at the sound of voices. Raised voices. Arguing.

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong!’

  That was definitely Simon! A balloon of relief rose up in her chest.

  ‘I’ve told you God knows how many times!’

  The shouting grew louder. What was going on?

  ‘It wasn’t the phone.’ Simon’s voice was getting louder. Nearer. ‘It was because Hugh grabbed my arm.’

  Then he came into view; dishevelled with a torn shirt, sweaty hair and a face pinched with fear. ‘Simon!’ she called out, running up to him. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Claire,’ he called out as the officer steered him towards another door off the corridor. ‘Ring Patrick, for God’s sake.’ And then the door slammed shut, with him on the other side.

  Frantically, she raced back to the desk. The grandfatherly police officer had gone. In his place stood a pretty young woman whose blonde hair was tied back severely from her forehead. ‘If someone doesn’t tell me what’s happened,’ she gasped, ‘I’m going to go mad.’

  The young police officer eyed her as though she’d jumped a bank queue. ‘Mrs Mills? I’m afraid I must ask you to sit down.’

  ‘No. Please. You don’t understand.’ The words were pouring out of her mouth in desperation. ‘I need to ring someone but I don’t have any reception here.’

  Reluctantly, or so it seemed, the woman passed over a handset. ‘One call. That’s all.’

  Patrick was one of the partners in Simon’s office, Claire reminded herself as she fumbled through the telephone directory to find the emergency out of hours number. He was younger than Simon and, as her husband had frequently commented, rather too competitive for comfort. He hadn’t, in Simon’s opinion, taken kindly to a new, more experienced lawyer coming on board. So Simon had gone to some pains to show that he wasn’t a threat and that there was plenty of room for them all. But he would help. He had to! Both he and Simon specialised in ‘getting people off the hook’.

  Sometimes, she wondered about the ethics of it all. The other month, her husband had come back from court, pleased that his client had escaped a driving ban on the grounds that it would have meant he couldn’t have driven his wife to hospital for her dialysis treatment. It seemed to her that if someone had broken the law, they should be punished. But if Simon wanted her to call Patrick, that meant he needed defending himself. So what on earth had happened?

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she repeated, wondering if she was just being obtuse or whether it was because it was now gone 5 a.m. and she was too tired to take anything in.

  Patrick shuffled uncomfortably in front of her in the police interview room. His narrow hips barely held up his dark navy-blue suit trousers. Did her husband’s future really rest on this gawky twenty-something with a prematurely receding hairline?

  ‘I know this is traumatic for you,’ repeated Patrick, in a glib tone that made her want to yell at him, even though she wasn’t a yelling kind of person. ‘Your husband has told me exactly what happened and I have no reason not to believe him.’

  There was a slight pause which made Claire feel sick. Until he’d arrived, she’d expected Patrick to sort out this whole confusing business. But one look at his creased forehead indicated it was more serious than that. Her mouth was dry. ‘And what did happen?’

  ‘As you know, your husband was driving the Goodman-Browns home.’ Patrick’s voice was flat as though reciting lines in a school play. ’They got lost. Hugh Goodman-Brown was drunk and verbally abusive towards his wife which distracted Simon. Then the phone rang. It was your son, Ben, but your husband didn’t pick it up the first time because he wasn’t hands-free. When it rang again for the second time, however, he panicked, thinking it was an emergency. He chose to answer.’

  ‘Go on,’ she said urgently.

  ‘At the same time, Hugh grabbed his arm telling him he had taken a wrong turning. The red car which had been parked on the left had broken down only an hour before. The driver had just abandoned it without reporting it which he shouldn’t have done. That might work in our favour. Then, because the lane was narrow, your husband had to swerve to overtake it. Unfortunately, he thought something was coming in the opposite direction.’

  ‘Fuck’. She heard the word – one which she never used – fall out of her mouth and Patrick’s mouth creased disapprovingly. ‘Was … was anyone … killed?’

  ‘No.’

  Thank God!

  Patrick was shaking his head, solemnly. ‘But Mrs Goodman-Brown is in Intensive Care. For some reason, she wasn’t wearing her safety belt. Her husband, who was in the passenger seat, has suffered fractures and cuts. He was knocked out for a short time so they’re still doing tests. ’

  Claire’s mind raced. Intensive care? Relief mixed with shock. At least Joanna wasn’t dead. ‘And the car coming in the opposite direction?’

  Patrick’s face was scarily impassive. ‘There wasn’t one. It was the wall.’

  ‘But if Hugh grabbed his arm, surely Simon wasn’t to blame?’ She sensed a glimmer of hope.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that. Your husband broke the law in answering his mobile. He was also over the limit.’

  ‘He’d had one glass of wine. That’s all. That’s why he suggested driving them back.’

  Patrick tilted his head questioningly. ‘Was there any possibility that someone could have laced his drink?’

  The suggestion was almost laughable. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Simon said you did the cooking. What did you make?’

  Goats cheese tartlets. Rack of lamb. Cheese and red onion quiche. I was going to make pavlova but it was too crisp so I did rum syllabub instead. Rum syllabub. A cold shaft of fear went through her.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said, suddenly remembering how she’d handed the rum bottle to Ben earlier that afternoon in the kitchen with the instruction to ‘add a slosh or two’.

  ‘Oh my God.’

  Chapter Four

  Once, years ago, Simon had nearly been arrested. It had been in a Czechoslovakian jail during a boozy lads’ holiday. They’d had too much to drink and there’d been a scuffle with the locals. Even though he hadn’t actually aimed a punch, he’d been thrown into the town’s fleapit of a cell and forced to spend the night there before being chucked out in the morning with a bucket of water thrown over their heads and a warning, made up of gestures and broken English, that they were lucky to get off so lightly.

  Truth be
told, this was one of the reasons why Simon, after law school, had chosen to be a defence lawyer. He’d rather enjoyed the thrill of arguing his way out in a language that wasn’t his own. How much more satisfying to do it for other people too.

  Since then, he’d built up quite a reputation for himself in the large London city firm, with practices throughout the country. Well-heeled clients who had been caught for speeding, and were now in danger of breaching their nine points, were tipped off by others in the know that Simon Mills was the man to go to.

  It wasn’t just driving, either. Last year, he’d had a case which had been featured heavily in several papers about a wealthy woman who insisted her nanny had stolen a necklace. The woman’s ex-husband, who was said to ‘take a paternal interest in the young girl’, asked Simon to take her on. He’d conducted the case himself because it was in the magistrates’ courts and they’d won the case. It had given him a buzz, both professionally and personally.

  It was almost like acting. Simon was secretly proud of his reputation for ‘treading the boards’ in court; waving his hands around somewhat flamboyantly to make the point. He nearly always got his clients off.

  If his clients had already been arrested, he usually saw them in the Visitors’ Room at a police station. But he had never before been on the receiving end in a British cell. It was, observed Simon, looking around, pretty Spartan. A hard blue plastic mattress on the floor. A thin grey scratchy blanket. No window. And no mobile phone to contact Claire or Patrick or anyone else who might be able to get him out of this hell-hole at lunchtime on Sunday when everyone else was having a normal life.

  Still, at least Joanna and Hugh were alive, thank God! They’d told him that much after arresting him at the scene for ‘dangerous driving’ and the relief had swept through him as though someone had pulled a plug out of his stomach and cleared his sinuses in so doing. He couldn’t have coped if he’d killed someone. How could anyone?