He shrugs. ‘You can’t help everyone, Lily. She’s not our child.’
It’s amazing how an artist can take such care and compassion over a piece of work, while ignoring his subject’s well-being.
Yet isn’t that the same as the relationship between lawyer and client ? You’re together for hours, talking endlessly about a case. But when it’s over, your relationship is finished. Just like that. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to be.
To be honest, I can’t help wondering where Joe Thomas is. What he’s doing. Whether he’s made it to Italy.
And then, one evening, he’s there. Hovering by the entrance to the office as I emerge after a long day’s work. How incredible that someone can change so much in a few weeks! Gone is the beard. Gone are the prison scrubs. Gone too are the brogues and shirt. This clean-shaven man in a moss-green tweed jacket (light-brown suede collar turned up) looks more like an estate manager than an insurance salesman.
‘I came to say goodbye.’
We fall into step beside each other, just as we did after the drink when we won the case. Even steps.
I don’t know where we’re going and I don’t care. In some ways, this man is more real to me than Ed. Haven’t I spent over half a year of my life trying to save him?
‘You’ve got a job?’
‘Yes.’ He speaks briskly. ‘I took your advice. Remember you talked about working in Italy? Well, I’ve gone for France instead.’
His arm brushes mine as we cross the road together.
‘A friend in Corsica wants me to help out with a renovation.’ He looks down at his hands. ‘I’m quite good with these. And it’ll be a change.’
‘Will there be a problem with the language?’
There’s a grin. ‘No, thanks to the prison library. I taught myself to speak French and Spanish.’
It doesn’t surprise me.
We’re going into a restaurant now. A smart one. ‘This is a thank you.’ He speaks as though this has all been arranged beforehand. Doesn’t he realize that I’m expected home? The presumption both irritates and thrills me. Yet I go along with it, allowing the waiter to take my coat.
‘You did a lot for me,’ he adds, handing me the menu. I use it to hide my blush.
‘I did my job.’ Then my questions pour out as though he is an old friend I haven’t seen for years. ‘How are you? What are you doing? Where are you living?’
‘The same friend in France has a place in Richmond. It’s rather nice.’
Richmond? I compare it in my mind with Clapham. The tiny kitchen where Ed is still drawing, unpaid, with job application forms around him.
‘What about you?’ His voice is direct. ‘How is married life?’
‘OK.’
I’m tempted to tell him about Ed and Davina, but I said too much the last time we met. I’m no longer drunk on too much G&T and that excited flush of having won the case. I have to remind myself that I have a position of responsibility here. Confidences are not appropriate.
‘Only OK?’
I manage a smile. ‘It’s great. We might be moving actually.’ I made that last bit up, but perhaps we will.
‘Sounds lovely.’ Joe Thomas sits forward in enthusiasm. ‘I can see it now, Lily. A country cottage. A horse like Merlin …’
‘Merlin?’ I say slowly. ‘I never told you the name of Daniel’s horse.’
‘Didn’t you?’
His smile is less certain now.
I go cold.
‘You had something to do with it, didn’t you?’
I expect him to deny it. Despite my question, I don’t believe it. There has to be some kind of plausible reason.
‘I had to.’ He rearranges his cutlery neatly around him. ‘I needed to keep you onside. If a lawyer doesn’t believe the client, he or she won’t try hard enough.’
Bile is flooding my mouth. ‘You poisoned Daniel’s old horse to get me “onside”? How?’
There’s a shrug. I’ve never seen him like this before – not with me. ‘I arranged for someone to slip something into his feed when your parents were out. I wanted to make you angry enough to believe my story.’
I stagger to my feet. His cunning is unbelievable. His honesty is breathtaking. Sickening.
‘And my bag? The one that was taken on Westminster Bridge?’ I am beginning to see it now. How stupid I’ve been! ‘You got someone to do that too so everyone in court thought someone in the boiler industry was trying to bully us?’
He shrugs. ‘It was the courts that messed up. The water was too hot. If they’re going to play dirty tricks, they have to expect the same.’
Tony Gordon, I suspect, might just agree. But not me. One wrong does not justify another.
Another thought strikes me. ‘Who helped you?’
A smug grin. ‘When I was in prison, I advised a lot of people on their financial affairs. Gave them advice on insurance and other stuff. I didn’t take any money. But they knew I’d call in favours.’
‘But if they were inside, how could they help you?’
‘Some have been released. Others have contacts on the outside to do things for them. Prison life is like that. Not that I’d recommend it, mind you.’
This is unbelievable. Yet at the same time my mind goes back to the time when Joe agreed to meet a man for ‘table football’ in the prison. ‘Three p.m. on the dot,’ he said. ‘In the community lounge.’ At the time I thought it friendly, albeit a bit out of character. Was this really a business appointment?
‘I could report you.’
‘Really? If you do, I’ll have to say what happened the last time we met.’
‘What do you mean?’ I stammer.
‘Come on, Lily. Don’t play games. Not with me. Those sticker books you gave me in prison are nothing compared with the last present.’
His voice might sound firm but his hands are shaking.
A sickening thought hits me like a sledgehammer. ‘You did it, didn’t you? You did kill Sarah. You murdered your girlfriend.’
An older woman with large emerald-green drop earrings is looking at us now from the neighbouring table. Joe’s eyes grow hard. ‘Be careful what you say.’
‘But you did.’ My instinct is certain.
Joe is now talking in a low voice. ‘Why do you think I arranged to bump into you this evening? To tell you what happened. But remember. When you’ve been cleared of something, you can’t be re-tried for the same crime. I felt you deserved the truth, Lily.’
My heart starts to beat really fast. He seems tense as well. Beating his fists against his knees as though playing a drum.
‘She came in pissed, like I said. Late, too. Then she was sick, but she didn’t want me in the bathroom. I knew she was trying to hide something. When she was shutting the door, I noticed a mark on her neck.’
I have a flash of that mark on Tony’s neck from earlier. ‘A love bite?’
‘Love?’ He seems to weigh this up. ‘That depends on how you define love, doesn’t it? A bite can also be made in anger.’
I’m losing patience at Joe’s constant questioning of non-literal language. ‘How did she get this mark?’
‘Now that’s more relevant.’ He nods as though I’m a child in class who has finally asked the right question. ‘When I accused her, she said the mark was mine. But she was lying. I don’t do that sort of thing.’ More drumming of the knees. ‘I said we’d talk when she was clean, but she wouldn’t let me run her bath like I usually did. Kept calling me a weirdo. So I went and turned the boiler up. Thought I’d teach her a lesson. But she was still screaming at me. Said she’d found someone else, someone normal. That’s when I lost it. How could I let Sarah leave me for someone else? I pushed her. She was so drunk that I hardly needed to touch her. So simple, really. She just fell into the water.’
There’s a shocked silence. On my part. He doesn’t seem fazed at all.