Free Gagged & Bound by Natasha Cooper

to anyone about something like that; not for a moment. And you could get yourself in real trouble.’ Caro looked worried enough to disarm Trish’s instinctive dislike of anyone who contradicted or criticised her unfairly. ‘If you must ask questions, you’d be safer going to people who remember the original investigation in 1972.’
    ‘I would if I had any way of getting to them, or even finding out who they were.’
    ‘I know I blocked you this morning,’ Caro said, with slight suspicion in her eyes, as though she thought Trish might have been angling for this all along, ‘but I’ve been thinking and maybe I could help. D’you remember Bill Femur? He was in charge of the case when you and I first met. He’s retired now,
but he’d have been around in 1972. If he can’t tell you anything, he’ll know who could. D’you want me to put you in touch?’
    ‘That would be great,’ Trish said, remembering the stolid, intelligent chief inspector with respect.
    ‘In return, promise me you won’t go wandering about Soho asking dangerous questions about the Slabbs?’
    Trish thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘OK. When could you talk to Femur? I want to get on with this while I’ve got time, I mean before my own work takes over again.’
    ‘I haven’t got his number here, but I’ll phone him as soon as I get home and let you know what happens. Will that do?’
    ‘Thank you.’ The phone rang. With an apologetic glance at Caro, Trish answered it.
    ‘Hi. It’s me,’ George said. ‘I should be through in time to get to you by about half past eight. Is that too late?’
    ‘No. It would be great to see you. I’ll put something in the oven. Bye.’
    ‘I ought to go,’ Caro said, pushing herself up from the spoon-backed chair. ‘Jess will be wondering what’s happened to me. You won’t tell anyone about this, will you? Not even George?’
    ‘Don’t worry, Caro. I know how to keep my lips zipped. Give Jess my love.’
     
    David was still hard at work when they went downstairs, so they didn’t interrupt him. When Caro had gone, Trish opened a bottle of cold New Zealand Sauvignon and took a glassful to the sofa, deciding to get started on Jeremy’s diaries before she did anything about dinner.
    She found no mention of Baiborn until the fifth volume, when Jeremy’s awed descriptions of his heroism in various underground movements within Europe made him sound powerful and charismatic. They also made him sound distinctly foreign, which might have explained his odd codename.
    Reaching for a pad and pencil, Trish jotted down a list of questions. Even though Bee had asked her to gut the diaries for evidence of the real Baiborn’s identity, she couldn’t help thinking that an easier way to persuade Lord Tick to withdraw his claim might be to find out more about his own life.
    Several famous libel trials had collapsed when juicy secrets from the claimants’ pasts were revealed by the defence teams’ questions. If the basis of Tick’s case was that being linked with a terrorist outrage would lower him in the eyes of right-thinking people, it would help to show that right-thinking people could have other reasons to look askance at him. There must be something. Hardly anyone reached middle age without doing anything embarrassing.
    As she walked into the kitchen to find something to cook for supper, Trish decided she’d better meet Tick. She already had a picture of him as a greedy exploiter. Chopping an onion with unusual vigour, she decided it must be the combination of his names that had created the picture. The surname made her think of biting insects swelling on their victims’ blood, while ‘Simon’ had overtones of medieval priests taking money from the poor for indulgences that would do them no good in this world or the next.
    Could she engineer an encounter with him in a way that wouldn’t betray her real interest?
     
    Simon was in his bath when the phone rang. He lay in the hot water, with his