Trick of the Dark (5 page)

Reading on, I came across a photo of Magda - who has grown into a drop-dead gorgeous beauty in the Princess Diana mould. And standing behind her was somebody else I recognised. She used to be plain Jay Stewart but now the world knows her as Jay Macallan Stewart. Dotcom millionaire and bestselling misery memoir author. Now she's the boss of 24/7, the web-based personalised travel guides. You might have seen her on
White Knight
, she appears sometimes in the guest investor slot. She was a couple of years behind me at Schollie's, but her notoriety was sufficient to overcome that handicap. Even among the dykes of Brighton, the stories about Jay Stewart galloped along the grapevine.

I remember her as ruthlessly ambitious, one of those working-class heroes who are determined to exploit every opportunity to the hilt and don't care whose faces they trample on in the scramble to the top of the heap. She was elected JCR president the year after I went down. Only after she'd secured the position did she come out, very spectacularly and stylishly, as the lover of a senior commissioning editor on one of the glossy fashion mags. Some of the college fellows wanted to throw her out, but she was always very careful never actually to break the rules.

So, I figure that if I was Corinna Newsam, and Jay Stewart was hanging round my daughter, I'd be looking to dig some dirt that could consign Stewart to the history bin. But she wouldn't want to approach me directly in case my lesbian solidarity was stronger than a very old loyalty to her and Maggot.

Now, having worked it all out, I'm not sure what to do. Do I want to get involved? Do I care? And doesn't lesbian solidarity count for something? All suggestions gratefully received.

Hope your clients didn't drive you to drink.

Love, Charlie

Subject: Re: More Questions Than Answers
Date: 23 March 2010 19:57:32 GMT
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Hi, Charlie,

If you were a dog, you'd be a Lakeland terrier, all dogged persistence, solidly reliable and wearing a grin that could melt an iceberg. Your discoveries are fascinating. Whatever the subtext here is, you're right, it's clear that it has something to do with Magda Newsam and Jay Stewart, and that the linkage to you is via Schollie's.

Your Corinna seems remarkably unsure of you, considering how well she appears once to have known you. In her shoes, I would have turned up on your doorstep and told you I needed you. You'd never have refused. Would you?

On the other hand, it may simply be that because she does know you, and understands how impossible you would find it to say no to her, she's asking for your help in the only way she can imagine that would allow you the possibility of refusal.

Or is it a test? Along the lines of, if you're not smart enough to work this out, you are no use to me.

Which is it, do you think?

I know you, Charlie. You need answers. You defined your options with that first decision to investigate the clippings; whether you acknowledged it or not, it tugged at your deep-seated affection for your old college. Now, it seems to me that you will not be able to rest until you have confronted Corinna and discovered what she wants from you.

Look on the bright side. Maybe you can wangle a trip to Oxford and we can spend some time together. It would be good to have some face time that isn't at a conference, don't you think?

Clients drove me to a delicious claret. If you were here, I would take the opportunity to wean you off those New World heavyweights you're so wedded to. I promise you'd enjoy the journey.

LKx

No doubt about that, thought Charlie. Lisa had chased thoughts of Magda and Corinna from her head with the suggestion of turning up on her doorstep and demanding her help. That was enough to set Charlie's thoughts flickering over the possibilities, both delicious and dreadful. The thought of Lisa and Maria face to face made her want to bury her face in her hands and weep with the impossibility of it all. She couldn't believe Lisa was unconscious of the effect her words would have; after all, the woman spent her days dealing with the innermost recesses of other people's minds.

'Grow up,' Charlie muttered. She forced herself to stop indulging in adolescent fantasies and to focus on the practical content of the message. Lisa clearly understood her well enough to know she could no more leave the cuttings alone than she could the charged communications between them. Corinna did seem the obvious candidate. There seemed no option other than to call her and settle the matter.

Charlie sighed. Finally she'd managed to find something even more daunting than the General Medical Council. Somehow, she didn't think it was going to be any easier to deal with.

6

'
Y
ou can't argue with that,' Catherine Newsam said, ushering her sister out of the courtroom and down a narrow side passage towards the room the Crown Prosecution solicitor had arranged for them. 'The judge nailed it. I don't see how anybody could have any doubt that Barker and Sanderson did it.' She neatly interposed her body between her sister and a woman she'd seen on the press benches. 'Fuck off,' Catherine said sweetly over her shoulder as she followed Magda inside the room marked 'Private'. Being the youngest of the Newsam children had granted Catherine licence that sometimes made her siblings wince.

Two weeks since her first retreat there, and still Magda found herself surprised by the lack of comfort. Four not-quite-matching chairs with the tweedy upholstery worn smooth in patches, a table that was too large for the space and a metal bin that hadn't been emptied since they'd first dumped their used coffee cups in it. Someone had tried to lift the room's spirits by taping a couple of Spanish holiday posters to the wall, but the brilliant blue of the sky only made the grubby walls more dispiriting. But none of that mattered to Magda. What she cared about was having a refuge from the stares and whispers. 'You really think so? I don't know, Wheelie. Just because we want it to be that way doesn't mean you're right,' she said, tucking one leg beneath her as she perched on a chair.

Catherine nodded vehemently. She looked like a child's doll with her curly blonde hair, round face, bright blue eyes and pink cheeks. There was no physical resemblance between the sisters. Where Magda was tall, slender and effortlessly graceful, Catherine was average in every respect. What made her memorable was not her looks but her irrepressible bounce, currently pressed into service in defence of her big sister. Others might have resented Magda's beauty, but Catherine was proud of her sister and delighted that, for once, she could offer Magda the support and help that had always been at her own back. 'Trust me, Magda,' she said, adamant in her confidence. 'Especially after the way the prosecuting barrister rubbished the defence. They've had their last taste of freedom for a while.' She still gripped the door handle. 'Do you need something to eat? Or drink? Coffee? Muffins?'

It was amazing how often Catherine's eagerness to please manifested itself in food and drink. 'In spite of your conviction that it's all open and shut, I suspect the jury will be out long enough for you to do a commando coffee raid.'

Catherine checked the pocket of her jeans for change. 'I'll be back,' she said in a passable Terminator impersonation. Magda couldn't help smiling, and Catherine's eyes lit up with gratification as she headed out the door.

For the first time since she'd arrived at court that morning, no other eyes were on Magda. The absence of attention was as tangible as the lifting of a physical weight. Being on show was exhausting. She wondered how Jay coped with being the focus of so much attention. Thanks to her appearances on
White Knight
, she was often recognised in the most unlikely of situations, stripping her of her privacy. 'I was so naive about it,' she'd once said ruefully to Magda. 'I never appreciated how people assume possession of you simply because you appear on their TV screens.'

Magda wished they were together now; she never minded Jay's admiring scrutiny. But if Jay were here, the attention from the press and the public gallery would be even more oppressive. The attitude of the media would shift dramatically. From being the object of sympathy she'd become the subject of lurid speculation and diary-column gossip. Jay was right. They needed to avoid their relationship becoming public knowledge till the trial had slipped out of people's immediate consciousness. The one time they'd been photographed together, after Philip's memorial service, Jay had managed to put out the potential fire, making sure she was described as an old friend of the family. Having been taught by Corinna had turned out to be useful after all.

'We need to keep our private life private for now. You don't want them thinking of you as the merry widow,' Jay had said. 'Even though we haven't done anything wrong, there are plenty of people who would be only too ready to insinuate the opposite.'

She was right. Nothing they had done had been wrong. Quite the opposite. The more evidence Magda had heard in the courtroom, the more she understood how right Jay had been. If they hadn't done what needed to be done, justice would never have been served. But now Paul and Joanna were going to jail, where they deserved to be. And she was proud of the part she'd played in that process.

Magda clung tightly to that feeling of pride. She didn't have many unmixed feelings about Philip's death. It had been a terrible blow, no denying that. To lose your husband to sudden violent death on your wedding day was never going to be less than shattering. Even if you'd been tamping down your doubts about the marriage for weeks. But if it hadn't happened the way it did, she and Jay might never have found each other again. And that was a notion that filled Magda with horror. She hated herself for the thought, but in her heart she knew that losing Philip to gain Jay was a trade she'd settle for all over again. It shamed and appalled her in equal measure that she could even let such a thought cross her mind. Harbouring ideas like that made her cradle Catholic guilt kick in and left her feeling that her present happiness was not only undeserved but on the brink of being snatched from her.

Catherine shouldered the door open, a cardboard cup of latte in each hand, saving Magda from the darkness of her thoughts. 'That was quick,' Magda said.

Catherine grinned. 'I told you tipping the coffee-stall girl on day one would pay dividends. I don't even have to queue any more.' She passed a coffee over and perched on a chair, tucking one leg under her. 'I bet you're relieved it's nearly over.'

'Yeah.' Magda sighed. 'I'm just hoping that I'll feel some sense of closure.' She shrugged. 'A way to draw a line and move on.'

'Isn't that what Jay's about?' Catherine said. Magda searched for hostility in her tone and, finding none, decided her sister was only curious.

'Jay feels like a parallel universe,' Magda said. 'Not connected to my life with Philip at all.'

'But she is,' Catherine said. 'I mean, that's when you ran into her again. The day of the wedding.'

Her words sent an electric jolt through Magda's chest. 'No,' she said. 'It was after that. Remember? We met at a dinner party.'

Catherine looked puzzled. 'But she was there. At St Scholastika's. On your wedding day. I saw her.'

Magda gave a little laugh that sounded artificial to her. 'Well, she was there, it's true. She was speaking at a conference in college. But she wasn't at the wedding. I never saw her. I never even knew she'd been there till ages afterwards. It didn't come up.'

Catherine frowned. 'Oh. OK. I knew you didn't get together till later but I guess I just sort of assumed that you'd run into her. When I saw her, she was coming out of Magnusson Hall. Since we were using the loos there, and Mummy's office, I thought you must have seen her or something.' She gave Magda a tentative smile. Her big sister might have been protective of her, but when she thought Catherine needed slapping down, Magda had never held back.

But Magda had no intention of making an issue out of this particular conversation. 'Bloody social scientists, always leaping to conclusions,' she teased. It was familiar territory, the hard scientists in the family grousing that the others had it easy, coming up with theories without the inconvenience of having to prove them empirically.

'That's not fair,' Catherine pouted. 'I try to keep an open mind. For example, I could have come up with all sorts of twisted reasons why you didn't tell the exact truth on the witness stand.'

There it was. Out in the open. What Magda had been afraid of for months. The milky coffee turned cloying and sour in her mouth.
It's OK
, she told herself. This wasn't some hard-faced cop or journalist. This was Catherine, the person who always wanted to think the best of her. Magda frowned, hoping it didn't look as fake as it felt. 'What are you talking about? Of course I told the truth.'

Catherine screwed up her face. She'd never been good at hiding her emotions, and Magda could see the progression of reactions on her face. Finally, she found the right form of words. 'I'm not saying you lied as such. Just that you said something that couldn't have been quite the case.'

Time to go on the attack. 'What on earth are you talking about?' Her forcefulness provoked the response she'd wanted. Catherine was embarrassed and apprehensive. But not so much as to back off completely. 'Well, you said you'd seen Barker and Sanderson leave the main wedding party and disappear round the far side of the Armstrong building.'