The Ash Doll Page 2

  The ceremony had been mercifully short. Two tuneless hymns and a generic eulogy read to a modest gathering of family and well-wishers. Kenneth Ellinder’s life had been reduced to fifteen simple minutes before his remains were swallowed by the earth.

  When a bearer threw the first handful of dirt over the coffin, Priest turned to go. He had paid his respects and discharged what would have otherwise been a nagging burden. He had felt his phone vibrate several times in his inside pocket; no doubt Georgie trying to ascertain his whereabouts at Okoro’s request. The Priest & Co. in-house counsel would be furious, but the trial wasn’t starting for another hour and a half and Okoro always over-prepared. Besides, Priest’s job was done. Everything had been meticulously organised. All he had to do was wind Okoro up, put Ali on the stand and watch the media lap up the hype.

  He was halfway down the hill when he felt a hand on his arm.

  ‘Charlie,’ said a voice that was neither pleased to see him nor overtly hostile.

  Priest turned round and there she was. ‘Jessica.’

  She stood on the elevation at his level, the breeze gently playing with her hair, her eyes fixed on his. For a moment he just stared, searching. But he couldn’t read her. This mysterious woman who haunted his dreams stood so close that he could smell the sweetness of her skin, a sensation that was both familiar to him and, at the same time, despairingly alien.

  ‘Say something,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry for—’

  ‘Not that.’ She broke her gaze and let her eyes drift into the middle distance. ‘Where were you?’

  Priest didn’t know. So much had happened. He had first met Jessica Ellinder the previous year, at his office, with her father. Reluctantly, Priest had agreed to investigate the apparent murder of Jessica’s brother, Miles. The case had almost been the undoing of him and had ended with him exposing her family’s links with a secret neo-Nazi cult.

  Jessica was the only positive thing that had come out of that case. They had agreed to meet – Priest had wanted to meet. But he never turned up.

  ‘Charlie. Where were you?’ she repeated.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he offered, but he knew it wasn’t enough.

  She nodded. He didn’t need a psychology textbook to tell him that she was disappointed, and angry, but whether that was because she had wanted to see him again or because she wasn’t used to being stood up was beyond him.

  He looked down and pushed the earth around with the toe of his shoe, his inadequacy enveloping him. How could he explain it to her? Whenever he tried to sound out the reason in his head, it sounded pathetic, but the root cause was a mantra that had arisen from the ashes of his past: whenever I touch something special, it just seems to wither in my hands. In a world where nothing seemed real, Priest had found that people, especially lovers, eventually faded away. At least this way, Jessica would always stay real to him.

  ‘How are you?’ Priest asked, feebly.

  For a horrible moment, he thought she might do what he felt he deserved and slap him across the face, but instead she released her hand from his arm, as if she had just realised, with embarrassment, that she was still touching him.

  ‘I’m doing better than perhaps I should be,’ she conceded.

  ‘Maybe we could start again?’

  ‘From which point? The point at which I was shown a picture of my brother impaled on a spike, or before that?’

  He faltered, although he felt justified in doing so. ‘Starting again doesn’t necessarily have to mean going back to any particular point. Perhaps it’s about rebuilding what we have.’

  ‘Which is what exactly?’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

  At last, a statement he was sure of. He shouldn’t have stood her up, but maybe there was hope – maybe he could atone. He carried out a quick mental calculation. The trial started in ninety minutes. He had to travel halfway across London to the Strand and negotiate the plethora of cameramen lining the High Court entrance, which would take him to the point where the trial was scheduled to start, but Okoro’s patience would have worn thin way before then.

  Inside his jacket pocket, his phone resumed its familiar, angry buzz.

  ‘Meet me tomorrow night,’ he said, his heart in his mouth. ‘Come over to mine. We can shut ourselves away from the world for an evening. I’ll attempt to cook you something. Do you like lemon sole?’

  ‘You’re asking me out on a date? At my father’s funeral.’ There was no trace of humour in her voice.

  Priest shuffled his feet again. On reflection, he did seem to have set a record for inappropriate passes.

  For a full agonising minute, she said nothing, but continued to stare at some imperceptible spot behind him. For every excruciating moment that passed a feeling of hopelessness set in until, finally, she nodded.

  ‘You’d better be there, Priest. Or God have mercy.’

  Chapter 5

  Georgie Someday had never been one to panic. To her mind, she was more of a fretter. The difference was subtle but important. A panicker abandons logical thought in favour of irrational dread. A panicker assumes the worst, but fails to formulate any sensible strategy for dealing with it. A fretter, on the other hand, uses anxiety positively. A fretter calculates all possible outcomes and designs coping strategies for as many as conceivably possible.

  Having said that, standing in the Royal Courts of Justice Great Hall, clutching her phone, with half an hour to go before the trial was due to start and still no sign of Priest or the defence’s star witness, Georgie was experiencing a sensation she thought was, in truth, much closer to panic than fret.

  She put her phone away and removed her glasses to clean them for the eighth time before passing back through security and out onto the Strand. People bustled past, pulling coats tightly around them, ignoring the glare of television cameras lining the entranceway to the High Court. Close by, she overheard a solemn-faced presenter standing rigidly in front of a camera:

  ‘Operating globally with a combined turnover of over fifty-five million pounds, the Elias Children’s Foundation is one of the largest charities in the UK established for the benefit of child victims of war, domestic violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation. Its operations include an African education programme, disaster and emergency response schemes, HIV and AIDS prevention and care programmes, and programmes aimed at stopping the exploitation of child soldiers for terrorist purposes. It’s not for profit but don’t let that label fool you – this is big business.

  ‘I’m outside the High Court today because the charity’s founder and CEO, Alexia Elias, is suing small independent online magazine, The Real Byte, for libel following an article about her they published in 2014. You may remember that in 2009 a scandal broke out at the Elias Foundation when it was discovered that a small branch office had been funnelling charity funds to an organisation known as the Free People’s Army, a terrorist cell operating in northern Turkey.

  ‘Following extensive investigations by the Charities Commission, that office was closed down, with Turkish police arresting several Elias Foundation employees.’

  She decided to hang around. Although the way the reporter kept brushing her hair back vainly was beginning to grate on her, she was interested to know how accurate the reporting was. So far, not too bad.

  ‘In 2014, The Real Byte published an article alleging that not only was Alexia Elias fully aware of the Turkish scandal involving her charity, but she had received bribes from terrorists totalling four hundred thousand pounds to keep quiet about it. This is day one of a four-week trial here at the High Court in which Alexia Elias hopes to clear her name . . .’

  Georgie went back inside, nodding at the security guard on her way in. What might make more interesting reporting, she thought, was if The Real Byte solicitor, Charlie Priest, her employer, didn’t turn up in the next half an hour accompanied by the magazine’s main witness. It was this thought that was making her stomach churn.

  ‘Come on, Charlie,
’ she said to herself through gritted teeth. ‘Now’s not the time to be late.’

  Until 2012, Simeon Ali had been an Elias Children’s Foundation employee working at their Turkish branch. Georgie had never met him. As far as she was aware, Charlie had only met him a few times. He kept a very low profile and with good reason – Alexia Elias and her husband, Dominique, were powerful figures with powerful friends, and connections that went right the way to the top of government. There were plenty of images of Alexia sitting in conferences – a broad smile across her face – drinking tea with Cabinet ministers doing their rounds across social media. A lot of influential people had backed the Elias Foundation and its charismatic CEO. A lot of people had put their hands deeply into their wallets. In Georgie’s view, the charity had survived the Turkish scandal because of some very good spin. During the press conference in the immediate aftermath of the scandal, Alexia Elias, surrounded by PR managers and lawyers, had produced the performance of a lifetime:

  ‘We are hurt, and we are betrayed, but we will not succumb to evil, nor we will shrink in the face of oppression. We will rise up, in union, and remember why we are here, who we are and what we stand for.’ Then, with a tear in her eye: ‘We are the Elias Foundation, and we shall not be beaten by a tiny group of weak-minded traitors. I will use every resource available to me to right this wrong.’

  After assuring the press that the corruption had been isolated and contained, the weeping CEO had stepped down to embrace her husband in a moment of rehearsed solidarity before giving way to her press officer to mop up any question from the awe-struck crowd.

  The suggestion that Alexia had been lying when she said she knew nothing about the scandal until it was too late was unthinkable. The idea that she had been a part of it was heresy.

  Nonetheless, a trace of doubt remained, and Alexia Elias was not without her critics. So far, though, the voice of dissent was small, confined to people who had been labelled conspiracy theorists: dismissed as part of the same group who supposedly believed the Rothschild family controlled the world and Hillary Clinton was an alien. Although perhaps the non-believers weren’t as insignificant as some first thought: The Real Byte’s advertising revenue had doubled following the media’s coverage of the libel action.

  There were two things in Priest & Co.’s favour: the first was that the magazine’s insurers were funding the trial, albeit with considerable reluctance, and the second was that Alexia had openly taken the moral high ground and decided to only sue the magazine itself and not Tomas Jansen, its owner, personally, which would have complicated matters. Jansen might have even needed separate representation.

  But even with a third party paying the bills – for now – there was considerable risk. Insurers would always find a reason not to pay, or only partially pay out, if they backed the wrong horse. For The Real Byte and Priest & Co., the stakes were about as high as they could get.

  She tried ringing Charlie one more time, this time leaving a message. She hoped it made it clear she was anxious to hear from him without completely betraying the panic that had now gripped her.

  Damn, damn, damn!

  She glanced back to court thirteen but decided it would be best not to report back to Okoro until such time as she had some positive news. As she did, she saw an older gentleman lope across the lobby looking rather harassed. This, she surmised, must be Dominique Elias, Alexia’s husband. His witness statement had struck her as being rather curt. He loved his wife and regarded her as the very personification of integrity and professionalism and of course he would have known if she had received bribes of that level. All very businesslike and matter-of-fact.

  Her mind had wandered, and it took a few seconds to register the voice in her ear.

  ‘Miss Someday? Hello?’

  Georgie spun around and found her personal space had been filled by a young woman with long, blonde hair which looked bleached, beaming at her. She was tucked inside a black coat and was clutching an iPad. She was pretty. With such a sparkling smile, she might even be called striking were it not for a certain air of detachment visible through her eyes. Georgie groaned inwardly.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked.

  ‘Elinor Fox – independent. You’re with Priest & Co., aren’t you? Could I ask you about the trial?’

  ‘You mean you’re independent or you’re from the Independent?’ replied Georgie, folding her arms.

  The dazzling smile faltered slightly and Georgie rejoiced in its retreat. ‘The former.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t talk to journalists.’

  Fox continued, undeterred, ‘How are your clients bearing up?’

  Not too badly, was the honest answer, considering that the future of their magazine depends on winning this case. The Real Byte was a small outfit which had stumbled on a big exclusive and were paying the price. The magazine’s executive editor, Tomas Jansen, was born and graduated in Denmark and had started The Real Byte five years previously when the demand for quick, accessible online news was starting to increase exponentially. He had written the Elias article, with some input from his managing editor, Gail Woodbead. Their small team was completed by Karl Jones, the magazine’s technical director. Those three – and a handful of external contributors – comprised the entirety of the magazine’s human element.

  Elinor Fox was apparently still speaking. ‘Miss Someday?’

  ‘No comment,’ Georgie said.

  ‘Not even one little quote?’

  ‘Not one. Thank you.’

  Fox pinched her face together in what appeared to be a sympathetic gesture but which was obviously a manifestation of huge disappointment and utter contempt.

  Then Georgie saw something flit past her vision. She scanned the air around her, then saw a bee land behind Fox. She stiffened and moved around the reporter, who looked puzzled.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Georgie, motioning to the insect. ‘I’m allergic to bee stings. It’s called anaphylaxis.’

  A voice crackled over the PA system – ‘All parties in Elias v. The Real Byte Limited to court thirteen. That’s all parties in Elias v. The Real Byte Limited to court thirteen, please’ – and Georgie took the opportunity to go back inside, giving the bee and the reporter a wide berth.

  Once inside, she looked around, realising that she would have to explain to both Okoro and the clients that they would have to proceed without Charlie and Simeon for now. Just don’t shoot the messenger. Wait! Is that . . . ?

  A figure bounded up the court steps and threw his keys and a phone into the security box. He looked up and waved at her. She pointed to her watch and Charlie Priest waved her away, as if they had all the time in the world.

  He collected his things from the box once it had passed through the scanner then started to usher her across the lobby to court thirteen. ‘Did you miss me?’

  ‘Vincent will be very angry,’ Georgie advised.

  ‘No doubt. How’s Dickie looking?’

  ‘Richard Hagworth QC?’

  ‘Yes. Dickie.’

  ‘He looks OK, I guess.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Georgie. I’ve seen Ikea tables with more movement in their joints. Now, where’s Simeon?’

  Georgie stopped.

  ‘I thought he was with you?’

  Chapter 6

  Charlie Priest knew a lot about disaster management in litigation. Rule number one was to preserve the illusion that no disaster existed. Nothing was more fragile than the short period of time between parties shuffling into court and the moment the chambers door swung open and the judge manifested himself or, in this case, herself. Trials were made and broken in that vacuum where time stood still. The slightest breeze could be enough to dislodge the nerve of a witness or an advocate; a case that took years to prepare could be undone in seconds.

  So Priest ignored the burning sensation developing in the pit of his stomach and announced his entrance into the courtroom by letting the ancient wooden door deliberately crash against its frame, which drew a turning of heads from th
e occupants of the front bench. Even the journalists lowered their phones to see who had disturbed the calm.

  ‘Dickie.’ Priest nodded to the QC as he joined Okoro. Hagworth neither returned the gesture nor rejected it but stared curiously at him from behind a pair of round glasses perched on his crooked nose.

  Unimpressed, Okoro hadn’t moved other than to look up from behind the bundle he was holding. He gave Priest a look that suggested, in no uncertain terms, that he regarded his unpunctuality with considerable annoyance. When Priest reached across to place a file on the table Okoro whispered in his principal’s ear.

  ‘Where in the name of Jesus have you been, Priest?’

  ‘Funeral.’

  ‘A what?’

  He placed a reassuring hand on Okoro’s shoulder and turned to the three bemused faces sitting behind him. Shaking each hand in turn he addressed the oily-haired man sitting on the edge of the bench.

  ‘Tomas, how are you doing?’ Priest asked, smiling.

  ‘We were expecting you a little earlier but—’

  ‘Just checking a few things for you but all done now. Gail, hi. Karl, love that tie. Listen, Tomas, have you heard from Simeon?’

  ‘No.’

  Tomas shifted his weight while Gail leant across him anxiously. Priest had thought when he first met The Real Byte team that, despite the obvious discomfort Tomas felt in his own skin, he might have been having an affair with Gail Woodbead. She was a good foot taller than him and had the air of a retired headmistress but there was an obvious tension between them, the kind that lovers might share. So perhaps it was unsurprising that, in this critical moment, Tomas now exchanged a worried look with her. Karl Jones, The Real Byte technical director, was slumped back in his seat and might not even have been a noticeable occupant of the bench were he not taking up most of it. His frame was oversized, cumbersome, bulging in places that weren’t supposed to bulge. The fat pulled at his jowls, giving him a frog-like appearance. He also insisted on lugging an enormous holdall bag with him everywhere, which now sat at his feet, although goodness knows what was in it.