by Gary Bell
‘You know it’s not conventional for silks to have pupils working under them, even if you are using Stein’s involvement as a loophole.’
‘Have I ever claimed to be conventional?’
Still no smile. ‘You are aware that it is customary for chambers to vote on pupillage?’
I must’ve groaned, judging by the look he gave me. Recollections of being a schoolboy waiting for the cane rushed to me unbidden. I had to remind myself that the cane had been outlawed long ago, and I was at least four times Rupert’s size; from experience, the latter didn’t lend me much comfort. ‘Do I get points for guessing who carped?’
‘Only the majority of our senior juniors this time, most of whom are still waiting for their own pupils.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s what I would’ve guessed.’
‘I’d appreciate it if you could refrain from undermining our clerk’s authority in future.’ He continued circling to the point where I felt dizzy. ‘I hear this’ll be her third six? Does that mean she’d be happy to take cases of her own?’
‘More than happy, I’m sure. You’ll like her, Rupert. She seems smart. Eager. Sharp.’
‘So were you,’ he said, running one hand over the driver in the set of clubs he kept by his desk, ‘and yet you’ve never had a pupil make it to the end of term without leaving chambers or requesting a new Pupil Supervisor. In fact, I believe one of your former pupils turned his back on the Bar altogether, did he not?’
I tried hard not to grin. ‘We didn’t have much in common, the young Master Ainsworth and me. Besides, she’s technically Stein’s pupil, not mine.’
He shook his head. ‘How far you’ve come from the young man I found on the street outside, and yet you’ll still play the fool of a class warrior at every opportunity.’
I was picking at the edges of my nails, I realised, a lifelong habit in his presence.
‘Were you ever ashamed of my background, Rupert?’
‘I never lied about you once,’ he said firmly, perching on the edge of his desk like a much younger man would do, flattening the lapels of his chequered sports jacket. ‘How has her first week been?’
‘It’s been great. Very insightful. Very productive.’
This wasn’t strictly true.
I’d been so consumed by the evidence of my ongoing case that we’d barely spoken during her first few days, and it had taken her most of the week to move her things from Nottingham into a shared house in the capital. There had already been several moments when I’d regretted my impulsive decision – having to share my office was a stark reminder of earlier days, and the tension of our silence had become borderline unbearable – but no moment had I regretted more than the previous afternoon.
While analysing his billing records, Zara had stumbled across one particular day when our client, Mr Kessler, had billed for a supposed thirty hours’ work – an especially careless move on the part of the suspected fraudster in our corner.
We invited him into chambers to discuss the issue, and instead of passing it off as a slip of the pen, as one might’ve expected him to do – as I had expected him to do – the client brought with him a home-made cardboard mask contraption, which he proceeded to slide over his head and secure with elastic bands.
The minute he slipped it out of his briefcase, this cereal box wonder, I knew it could only mean trouble. Zara must’ve thought it was all some sort of introductory prank.
It wasn’t.
The front of the mask had a long piece of card separating the client’s eyes, and it was this, he insisted, that gave him the power to simultaneously read two documents at once. He proudly announced that he had done fifteen hours’ reading with each eye, hence the thirty hours billed, and that was the moment, after months of exhaustive preparation, that I realised my case might be fucked.
‘Great,’ I repeated. ‘It’s all going really great.’
‘Good. It’s nice to see you playing well with others.’ Rupert paused, eyebrows knitting together, and sighed. ‘God knows you may need all the help you can get if you take this on …’ Until he picked it up, I hadn’t paid much attention to the fat courier envelope lying on his otherwise spotless desk, which he now brought up to his chest, refraining from handing it over just yet. ‘You have been briefed on a new case.’
‘And?’ There was nothing unusual about this. A legal aid order is first given for junior counsel and solicitor only but, in cases deemed serious enough, an application can be made for a silk and a junior. Once a legal aid order has been so amended, a silk is instructed. ‘Why isn’t this coming from Percy?’
Another sigh, deepening the folds already set around the cornflower of his eyes; the recent years of moderate luxury hadn’t been enough to iron the creases of his dogged youth, and every line was worthy of respect; here was a man who had truly earned his status. ‘Elliot, our fellowship demands I lend you some advice here, and it’s a suggestion I’ve rarely made in my career. Something I’ve never asked you to do before, in fact …’
He was still gripping the envelope close to his chest.
‘What is it?’
A flash in the eyes, dipping his chin. ‘Do not take this case.’
I thought I’d misheard him. ‘I beg your pardon? Why not?’
‘You know that we are never impartial advocates in the eyes of the public or the media. I’m not sure that having your name attached to this case would be a wise move so soon after taking silk, especially considering your connection to the area.’
‘My connection?’ I could feel my curiosity mounting. ‘What’s the brief, Rupert?’
‘It’s murder at the Old Bailey, fixed to start in two weeks.’
‘Two weeks?’
He nodded. ‘Did you hear about the body of the young woman found on a disused railway in Nottinghamshire several months ago?’
It sounded like the start of a bad joke. ‘I vaguely remember it, yes.’
Of course I did. It had happened within spitting distance of my childhood home, the secret I’d kept buried to everyone in law-land except for my mentor.
‘I’m up to my neck preparing for this fraud case anyway,’ I said. ‘Why would I be interested in taking that on?’
‘It’s the defendant.’
‘What about the defendant?’
He finally leaned forward to place the envelope into my waiting hand, and I was surprised to find it even heavier than it looked.
‘He says he knows you.’
I ripped back the card and slid the papers out into one hand while Rupert continued, his voice dropping to little more than a whisper.
‘The instructing solicitor has already organised a letter of introduction for a conference with the defendant at Belmarsh on Monday morning, if you decide to take the case. The way I’ve heard it, the client has fired his existing counsel in favour of you.’
‘Two weeks before the trial? Who the hell is this?’
I was looking down, through the white tape that held the brief together, and for one blissful moment I didn’t recognise the name on the paper. Somehow, I hadn’t registered it in the news at the time of his arrest.
I’d never known him as William, after all.
Then it all made sense.
To me, and all who’d known him, fought alongside him, and been utterly terrorised by him, he’d only ever been Billy, and now he’d hit the big time.
Murder at the Old Bailey. You silly son of a bitch.
5
Chancery Lane might well have been deserted.
It could’ve been filled with the charred remnants of a nuclear blast for all the attention I paid my surroundings upon rushing out of Took’s Court after leaving Rupert’s office. The pavement unravelled like film from a cassette tape, footsteps unsteady and briefcase hanging like a noose from my fist, the name inside as destructive as any weapon.
The secrets I’d kept, the lies I’d told, the things I’d done.
Here, in my hand, was the spark that would blow them to
pieces.
I paused opposite the Mexican restaurant at the north end of the road, fished my phone out from my pocket, and turned it off.
I wasn’t feeling well. My guts were rocking, ready to tip, unsound as a raft of refugees in the middle of a pitch-black ocean.
Checking back over one shoulder, pulling my hat down lower than usual, I collided with a man coming the opposite way along the path, inadvertently knocking him into the wall beside us.
‘Steady on, Rook!’
It was Ted Bowen, scrambling back to his feet, wrapped in the thin smoke of what was now a broken Embassy Number 1. I didn’t know he smoked; fewer people seemed to every year.
It was exactly one week since he’d lost his attempted murder, and the defeat that had stooped his shoulders in the pub now riddled his whole frame. I might’ve paid more attention to the sickly grey in his cheeks, had I not been feeling so ashen myself.
I mumbled an apology as I made to pass, eager to put some distance between chambers and myself, but he sidestepped directly into my route. His eyes, which were spread just a little too far apart under the brow, had a red quality to them as if he’d been crying, or drinking, or both.
There was a strained silence first, in which his thin mouth flapped open and closed a couple of times before he spoke. ‘My application was rejected today. Silk. I’m sure you heard. No interview offered. Thirty-one years since I passed the Bar. Thirty-one years.’
‘Shit.’ I hardly knew what else to say about it. ‘That’s shit, Ted.’
He’d certainly worked hard, much harder than some in more fortunate positions, and made no secret of his expectations. I knew he wanted to take silk, but beyond that I didn’t know much about him. Was he married? Was he happy? Was he kind? I couldn’t say. I barely cared. My own days – or rather long nights – of networking had mostly passed, my years of playing the game had all but settled, and perhaps that was where my mistakes began. I had no allegiances. All I had was my past.
I clutched the briefcase tighter at my hip.
‘Two grand it cost me just to apply,’ he went on. ‘That’s without those bullshit courses to help prepare my application. What a waste.’
‘Tough luck, old boy,’ I managed. ‘I’m sorry, but I really need to be off.’
I practically stepped over him in my haste and to my surprise he came along with me, staggering at my shoulder, too close, occasionally bumping into me.
‘But you did it last year, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘First time no less, after only twenty-two, twenty-three years? And that got me thinking: what makes Elliot Rook so damn special? What’s your secret, huh? You’ve had how many consecutive wins now?’
I’d stopped listening. It’s a vulgar move for a barrister to discuss winning streaks, and I’d come down with the strangest sensation, as if the briefcase was slipping open in my grasp, just a notch, and a great darkness was trickling out, seeping over my knuckles and up to my chest.
The shadow of Billy Barber, and all I’d left behind, was drawing ever nearer.
I was already turning the corner onto High Holborn when I felt a more substantial presence wrap itself around my right elbow, and looked down to find Bowen gripping it with both hands. ‘I’m talking to you!’
I stopped dead. Irritated pedestrians had to walk around us, chattering into earpieces or drinking coffee as they hurried for the Underground.
‘What?’ I snapped.
He laughed a petty laugh, a laugh I didn’t like at all, and I could smell the spirits on his breath. I needed a drink, but first I had to get far away from there.
‘How long’s it going to be before your name’s above the door?’ he sneered. ‘If I were Stubbs, I’d start checking over my shoulder on the staircase.’
While his tone suggested a joke, there was no humour in his flat eyes, and he was still holding on to my arm, even tighter now.
‘There’s something about you, Rook. Something I can’t quite put my finger on.’ He released his grip, but only to wag one skinny finger in my face, before resting it knowingly against his chin. ‘Remind me, what house were you in at Eton?’
I swallowed hard, the smirk on his lips, the briefcase in my hand.
He knew nothing. He couldn’t. Could he?
‘I reckon you should sleep it off, chum,’ I told him. ‘Start fresh on Monday. There’s always next year.’
Now it was he who was barely listening. ‘You’ve just forced Charles Stein to take on a pupil, ostensibly for you, haven’t you?’
‘The fraud case I’m working on requires three counsel,’ I explained irritably. ‘Stein is first junior, and his pupil, Miss Barnes, is now second.’
‘Never heard of a silk needing a pupil before, and what a pupil you’ve chosen! I’d heard the rumours about your marriage, but I didn’t realise you had such a thing for the rough stuff!’
What happened must have occurred at incredible speed, because the next thing I saw was Bowen’s face twisted up, eyes bulging, as I caught him by the collar and slammed his back into the wall of the building behind him.
‘Rough stuff, Ted? Rough stuff? You have no fucking idea!’
I let him slump to the floor, gasping for air, and barged through the staring pedestrians, storming in the direction of Soho and its bars, briefcase swinging a little lighter from my hand.
PART TWO
THE DEFENDANT
6
Sinatra said that when he was seventeen it was a very good year for small-town girls and soft summer nights. I’ve always liked that. It sounds so pleasant.
I turned seventeen in 1982, and for me, it was a very violent year.
I was unemployed, homeless for the first time, and a feared fighter in the tight-knit rankings of Cotgrave, my Nottinghamshire home.
Feared, but far from a champion. Such illustrious titles went to an entirely different breed of delinquent, and the Barber brothers cleaned up in every weight division.
The youngest, or featherweight, of the clan was Declan. Three years my junior, his own reputation was cemented one lunch break in primary school after being unceremoniously floored by Al Pickard, the school bully. Declan retaliated by breaking Pickard’s leg in the middle of the playground with the groundsman’s unguarded shovel. He was eleven years old at the time.
The second youngest, Caine, earned the lightweight title over years of scattered spontaneous violence, culminating in the arson of his ex-girlfriend’s Ford Sierra, while she was in the back seat with her new man.
The pair made it out alive at least.
Middleweight was Aidan Barber, the brightest of the family and one of my closest allies throughout secondary school. His screws were fixed somewhat tighter, but he was always ready to flatten anybody who came looking for trouble, as they so often did.
And the eldest of the four brothers – the undisputed heavyweight, ultraviolent embodiment of irrationality – was Billy.
My rare attempts to rationalise small-town, working-class mentality have been accepted with varying degrees of success by the occasional jury panel, and absolute refutation from our therapist in relationship counselling; the esteemed Dr Travers couldn’t quite get his PhD around the concept.
In the late seventies and early eighties, people didn’t have the money to go on holiday as they might do now. I knew four people who had ventured beyond the borders of the county, and all four went to Torremolinos with Pontinental. Ours was a community of coal – of dark winding shafts and the breaking of rock – and like an ecosystem preserved in a jar, Sea-Monkeys in a tank or bacteria in a spoiled carcass, we were all but sequestered from the bigger picture. Our world view started and ended with the rival teams in the football leagues, and, crucially, scrapping with their supporters.
I knew Billy by reputation, and as my best friend’s elder brother, but didn’t meet him properly until 6 October 1982. I remember the date for its two pivotal moments: first, Nottingham Forest put six goals past West Bromwich Albion, and a large group – more of a pack, includ
ing the Barber brethren and myself – had gone out looking for celebratory trouble around the City Ground; and, second, because trouble found us in very little time at all, Billy fractured a rival hooligan’s skull, and I spent my first night in prison.
I can even recall the shirt I was wearing through those endless, sobering hours, huddled alone in the unforgiving light of that cell; marking the recent release of The Clash’s ‘Know Your Rights’, it had an illustration of an open book on the front of it, the words The Future is Unwritten on one page, and a handgun printed on the other. I was perhaps too young to appreciate the irony at the time.
Watching Billy break another man’s head open was only the first of several incidents I’d go on to witness, and it wasn’t nearly the most aggressive.
He was the sort of trouble that even the local trouble avoided, a man whose unwanted company kept cropping up over the years, difficult to avoid in the pubs of such a small community.
He might not have been Jesse James, but I can guarantee that everybody who lived in Cotgrave through the seventies and eighties would still have a story about Billy Barber, and it certainly wouldn’t help in his defence.
My more immediate concern, however, was not the lasting legacy of the outlaw, but rather what the outlaw might have remembered about me.
It was coming up to midnight when I turned my phone back on and rang Percy. Any testiness he had about the untimely disruption to his weekend was exacerbated tenfold when I told him I was taking Billy Barber’s trial.
‘Are you drunk?’ he snapped, guessing rightly by the hour and the slur of a few beers in my voice. ‘You want to risk being ready for the most bankable fraud of the year for a murder on legal aid? What am I supposed to tell the client? That you’re taking a two-week sabbatical? Just tell the new solicitor that you have prior arrangements and pass it on to somebody else!’
