The pain was excruciating and I collapsed in a heap on the landing.
After that things got confused. As I was half dragged, half carried out of the house, I screamed at Imogen, who’d appeared fully dressed on the stairs, ‘Ring Toby!’
She looked very calm, very much in control. Princesses don’t panic. The thought was a comfort to me.
Cameras clicked and journalists yelled inanities as I was thrust into a car. As it sped away, I twisted round to look back. Cops were already coming down the steps carrying loaded bin bags that they tossed into the back of a van. The house, gleaming in the morning sunlight, seemed to look down on them with disdain. Then we turned a corner and it vanished from sight.
I did not realize – how could I? – that I was never to enter it again.
ii
My arrival at the police station seemed to take them by surprise. My arrest at that stage can’t have been anticipated. Once the pain in my leg subsided and my brain started functioning again, I’d worked out that I must be the subject of a Fraud Office investigation. Personal equity companies rise on the back of other companies’ failures and Woodcutter Enterprises had left a lot of unhappy people in its wake. Also the atmosphere on the markets was full of foreboding and when nerves are on edge, malicious tongues soon start wagging.
So being banged up was my own fault. If I hadn’t lost my temper, I would probably be sitting in my own drawing room, refusing to answer any of Medler’s impertinent questions till Toby Estover, my solicitor, arrived. I would have liked to see Medler’s expression when he heard the name. Mr Itsover his colleagues call him, because that’s what the prosecution says when they hear Toby’s acting for the defence. Barristers may get the glory but there are many dodgy characters walking free because they were wise enough and rich enough to hire Toby Estover when the law came calling.
I was treated courteously – I even thought I detected the ghost of a smile on the custody sergeant’s lips when told I’d been arrested for thumping Medler – then put in a cell. Pretty minimalist, but stick a couple of Vettriano prints on the wall and it could have passed for a standard single in a lot of boutique hotels.
I don’t know how long I sat there. I hadn’t been wearing my watch when they arrested me. In fact I hadn’t been wearing anything but my dressing gown. They’d taken that and given me an off-white cotton overall and a pair of plastic flip-flops.
I was just wondering whether to start banging on the door and making a fuss when it opened and Toby came in. It was good to see him, in every sense. As well as having one of the smartest minds I’ve ever known, he dresses to match. Same age as me but slim and elegant. Me, I can make a Savile Row three-piece look like a boiler suit in twenty minutes; Toby would look good in army fatigues. In his Henry Poole threads and John Lobb shoes he looked smooth enough to talk Jesus off the Cross which, had he been in Jerusalem at the time, I daresay he would have done.
I said, ‘Toby, thank God. Have you brought me some clothes?’
He looked surprised and said, ‘No, sorry, old boy. Never crossed my mind.’
‘Damn,’ I said. ‘I thought Imo might have chucked a few things together.’
‘I think she may have other things to occupy her,’ he observed. ‘Let’s sit down and have a chat.’
‘Here?’ I said.
‘Here,’ he said firmly, sitting on the narrow bed. ‘Less chance of being overheard than in an interview room.’
The idea that the police might try to eavesdrop on a client/lawyer conversation troubled me less than the implication that it could contain something damaging to me.
I said, ‘Frankly, I don’t give a damn what they hear. I’ve got nothing to hide.’
‘It’s certainly true that by now you’re unlikely to have anything you think may be hidden,’ he said sardonically. ‘I understand they are still searching the house. But it’s your computers we need to concentrate on. Wolf, we won’t have much time so let’s cut to the chase. I’ve had a word with DI Medler…is it true you hit him, by the way?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said with some satisfaction. ‘You’ll probably see the picture in the tabloids. I’d like to buy the negative and have it blown up for my office wall, if you can fix that. Did Imogen tell you the media were all over the place? There must have been a tip-off from the police. I want you to chase that up vigorously, Toby. There’s been far too much of that kind of thing recently and no one’s ever called to account…’
‘Wolf, for fuck’s sake, shut up.’
I stopped talking. Toby was normally the most courteous of men. OK, he’d heard me on one of my favourite hobby horses before, but there was an urgency in his tone that went far beyond mere exasperation. For the first time I started to feel worried.
I said, ‘Toby, what’s going on? What are the bastards looking for? For God’s sake, I may have cut a few corners in my time, but the business is sound, believe me. Does Johnny Nutbrown know about this? I think we ought to give him a call…’
Nutbrown was my closest friend and finance director at Woodcutter. He was mathematically eidetic. If Johnny and a computer calculation differed, I’d back Johnny every time.
Toby said, ‘Johnny’s not going to be any use here. Medler’s not Fraud. He’s on what used to be called the Vice Squad. Specifically his area is paedophilia. Kiddy porn.’
I laughed in relief. I really did.
I said, ‘In that case, the only reason I’m banged up here is because I hit the smarmy bastard. They’ve had plenty of time to realize they’ve made a huge booboo, and they’re just hoping the media will get tired and go away before I emerge. No chance! I’ll have my say if I’ve got to rent space on TV!’
I stopped talking again, not because of anything Toby said to me but because of the way he was looking at me. Assessingly. That was the word for it. Like a man looking for reassurance and not being convinced he’d found it.
He said, ‘From what Medler said, they feel they have enough evidence to proceed.’
I shook my head in exasperation.
I said, ‘But they’ll have squeezed my hard drive dry by now. What’s the problem? Some encryptions they haven’t been able to break? God, I’m happy to let them in for a quick glance at anything, so long as I’m there…’
Toby said, ‘He spoke as if they’d found…stuff.’
That stopped me in my tracks.
‘Stuff?’ I echoed. ‘You mean kiddy porn? Impossible!’
He just looked at me for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice had taken on its forensic colouring.
‘Wolf, I need to be clear so that I know how to proceed. You are assuring me there is nothing of this nature, no images involving paedophilia, to be found on any computer belonging to you?’
I felt a surge of anger but quickly controlled it. A friend wouldn’t have needed to ask, but Toby was more than my friend, he was my solicitor, and that was how I had to regard him now, in the same way that he was clearly looking at me purely as a client.
I said, ‘Nothing.’
He said, ‘OK,’ stood up and went to the door.
‘So let’s go and see what DI Medler has to say,’ he said.
So hell begins.
iii
I’ll say this for Medler, he didn’t mess around.
He showed me some credit-card statements covering the past year, asked me to confirm they were mine.