Barry Maitiland - Spider Trap

‘Mm, that smells nice. Is it new? I ordered you this. It’s Arnold’s trademark.’ He pointed to a green drink on the table.

‘Lovely.’ She slid in at right angles to him.

He raised his glass. ‘Great to see you. And you’re looking so good! You’ve done your hair differently.’

‘Well, I had to do something. Everyone’s going around with such long faces.’

He gave a little smile.‘I wasn’t sure you’d call.’

‘Nor was I. It took a little courage.’

‘Courage?’

‘Well, you know . . . History.’

‘Ah, history. But we’re all different now, aren’t we?’

‘Are we? Sometimes I think so, but then something happens and I feel just as vulnerable as I ever did.’ She guessed vulnerable was a word he’d like, a turn-on word.

‘I know what you mean,’ he nodded sagely. ‘Something happens and suddenly you’re back in short trousers, trying to hold back the tears.’

Tears? Martin? ‘Your brother, you mean? Yes, of course. Are your parents still alive?’

‘Mum is. She was devastated, of course. He was her favourite. Oh, I don’t mean that in a resentful way. It was just a fact of life. Doted on him.’

‘What did he do? I’ve forgotten.’

‘Academic, earned a pittance, wrote incomprehensible books about philosophy that were reviewed at inordinate length in the TLS and sold about a dozen copies.’

‘A philosopher?’

‘Yuh. I told him, ages ago, he should get onto the popularising bandwagon, get on the box, write some bestsellers- The Hegel Diet , Kiss me Kant , that kind of thing.’

She smiled.‘He scorned your advice, then?’

‘Of course, like always. But time has proved me right, hasn’t it? They’re all at it now. Daniel Connell could have been a household name. Never mind, what does it matter-money, fame-when you’re gone?’

A moment’s silence,then Kathy raised her glass.‘To Daniel.’

‘Yeah, yeah. To Daniel. Poor old sod.’

‘But it could have been confusing, having two household names in the one family.’

He gave his modestly roguish grin. ‘Now you’re being outrageously flattering, Kathy. I’m hardly that, hovering behind my notorious clients, a nameless legal functionary in the crowd.’

She laughed a little too much to show how absurd that idea was, and he ordered another round.

Finally he picked up the juicy little bait she’d offered at the start.‘So they’re all going around with long faces, are they?’

‘Oh God, yes! You should see the place. Brock’s been suspended, and Tom Reeves, of course.’

‘Mm, I had heard that. How do you feel?’

‘Well, it always hurts to realise you’ve been beaten.’

‘Sure.’

‘But I suppose I wasn’t altogether surprised. After we were so completely outmanoeuvred the first time, when we tried to arrest Ricky Roach,it just seemed too easy to snatch some incriminating documents from Ivor’s study and hope to make it stick.’

‘Did you try to tell them that?’

‘Yes, but Tom was so desperate to believe in what he’d done, and Brock too, being obsessed with trapping Roach. It was psychologically perfect, wasn’t it, offering something so completely over the top to people who couldn’t stop themselves from swallowing it? I had seen the warning signs, but I still didn’t see how they’d pull it off. They’re rather brilliant, aren’t they, in their way, the Roaches?’

‘You’re joking,’ Martin snorted. ‘They’re a bunch of thugs. They’ve made it in business through stubborn bullying. They couldn’t finesse a trick in a million years. It’s not their style.’

‘So they had great advice?’

‘You could say that.’ Martin was poker-faced, the playfulness gone from his manner. This was business, and Kathy sensed herself being led along a carefully selected route.

‘But . . .’ She looked thoughtful. ‘You know, there was a moment, when I saw Nigel Hadden-Vane pull his handkerchief out of his pocket, that I remembered that funny story you told me about the MP, and I thought, Martin anticipated all this. But of course that was impossible.’

He gave an enigmatic little smile.‘Was it?’

‘Well, yes.You told me the story days before Tom stole those papers, and long before Michael Grant and his committee got involved.You couldn’t possibly have known that would happen.’

‘Hm.’Still the mystery smile.‘You know what I think?’

‘What?’

‘I think we should have dinner.’

‘Aren’t you expected somewhere?’

‘Nothing important.What about you?’

‘Nothing special.’

‘Good. I’ll just make a couple of calls.’

‘I’ll powder my nose.’ She got to her feet and left him to tell his lies.

In the taxi across the West End, and in the restaurant, Martin spoke of other things, things that touched upon their mutual lives but indirectly, like the increasingly erratic mental condition of his father-in-law,the former judge,and the state of the housing market in Finchley and Kathy’s chances of getting a better place. Kathy suspected this was part of a test, and didn’t attempt to steer things back to work.

Then, much later, ruminating over the last of the excellent red that had accompanied the main course, Martin returned to their earlier conversation.

‘You know, I couldn’t help noticing a subtle change in your way of talking about your boss,’ he said.

‘Really?’ Kathy had always sensed Martin’s antagonism towards her relationship with Brock.‘In what way?’

‘More objective, more independent-minded. Am I right?’

He raised a challenging eyebrow, his grin suggesting the effects of drink, but Kathy remembered that ploy too, his way of luring people into confidences under the impression that he’d switched off. Martin never switched off.

‘You may be right.Yes, I’m sure you are. I mean, it’s been a long time.You get to know people’s ways.’

‘Do you remember that old Carly Simon song we were both crazy about, “You’re So Vain”? And I was thinking about Brock, that he probably thinks this song was about him. Am I right?’

It took Kathy a moment to catch on.‘You mean the Dragon Stout business?’

Martin gave a sly nod.

‘Well, yes, but it was a trap for him originally, wasn’t it? Only he didn’t fall for it, and Tom took it to Grant instead. I mean, the Roaches, or their very clever advisors, could hardly have anticipated that, could they? But they recovered so quickly, that’s what amazed me. All that information, all those witnesses lined up.’ She leaned forward to stare into his eyes.‘It was amazing, Martin.You must have had a hair-raising weekend.’

He smiled expansively.‘Pretty relaxing,actually.Feet up,game of golf …’

‘Well, how did you do it?’

‘Couldn’t tell you that now, could I? Like the magician, if he explains how he does it, nobody’s interested any more.’

Kathy sat back, nodding, knowing not to push.‘You are a bit of a magician, aren’t you, Martin?’

He narrowed his dark eyes and spoke more forcefully. ‘You mentioned information. How right you are. That’s what we’re both about, information. It’s our lifeblood. People have this odd picture of the cops, like anglers sitting around the edge of the water, keeping their feet dry, dipping their lines in and hoping to catch a big fish. But it isn’t like that, is it? You have to go down into the dark water, both you and I, and swim with the sharks. It’s the only way we get our information. Brock used to know that, in the old days. I think it’s what you’ve come to understand now.’

Kathy wasn’t sure she’d followed the switching metaphors. She smiled neutrally.‘Maybe so.’