by Gary Bell
‘I’ve already done the legwork for the fraud, and I’ve got piles of comprehensive notes for Stein to be working on. Wasn’t that the whole point of being shanghaied into taking a junior? All he has to do is find the missing clients. Besides, this murder case will be long past before the fraud trial ever starts.’
‘You’ll need a junior for this, too.’
He was right, but after years of carefully fabricating my past, there wasn’t a barrister in chambers I could introduce to Billy. ‘Barnes, the new girl. Brief her on the murder.’
‘The pupil? You want to take a pupil into a murder at the Old Bailey?’
The line was quiet, nothing but rattling breath from the other end, and I could tell he was pissed off. We hadn’t really spoken since I’d invited Zara into the building.
‘Rook, is there something I should know about this case?’
‘Just do your job and make it happen, Percy,’ I barked, and then hung up on what might well have been my only remaining ally in the city.
After that I stayed out on the town for most of the weekend, doing my utmost to avoid the gathering tempest I could sense on the horizon. It was the first weekend in maybe a dozen that I didn’t spend hunting for my alleged fraudster’s supposed clients, now that I’d surrendered the majority of the letters, bank statements and billing receipts to Stein and Zara, but I longed for the distraction. I hardly slept for going over Billy’s case, convinced that hour by hour, minute by minute, his unpredictability was drawing him ever closer to ending my career with whatever he might remember about my past, assuming that Ted Bowen and the Bar Standards Board didn’t get to me first.
It never occurred to me to simply apologise to Ted. I’ve always struggled saying sorry. Jenny used to say she could almost see the word clotting at the back of my throat, stubborn as phlegm or a fur ball, and I’d sooner choke than spit it out to draw breath. She might have had a point.
By Monday morning I was exhausted and edgy. October had come without my noticing, and I had to go into chambers to collect my letter of introduction for the prison conference.
That’s where I found Zara waiting, looking remarkably more refreshed than I felt in her usual suit, two coffee cups in her hands. In absolute honesty, I’d almost forgotten about her.
‘Morning, Mr Rook,’ she beamed as soon as I’d put one foot inside the room; she thrust one of the coffees into my grasp and offered her newly emptied hand. ‘Here’s to our first case together! Well, our first case from scratch, I mean. Percy emailed me the instructions through yesterday. He said you might need some help on this.’
I looked down at her outstretched hand and shook my head. ‘Barristers don’t shake hands with one another. Men originally shook hands to show they were unarmed, and it was considered a slight on the other barrister’s integrity. Don’t do it.’
‘Oh …’ The arm dropped like stone to her side.
I was being short and I knew it. Every word felt withered and tasted bitter on my lips. When I looked around, I noticed that the mouldy cups and litter had disappeared from my desk, the paperwork there had been arranged into a plastic in-tray I’d never seen before, and there was considerably more floor to be seen than usual.
‘This is only a quick stop for me,’ I grunted. ‘I have to collect the letter of introduction and visit the client at Belmarsh before noon. You keep working through the bank statements you were looking at last week, try to find those clients, and –’ I paused. ‘Something wrong?’
Her face was almost parallel to the floor, loose hair hanging over the shoulders of her off-black jacket. ‘No, I just … I thought I might get to come along with you. It’s Belmarsh, and for a murder that was committed almost on my doorstep! Percy said he’d ask the solicitor to add me to the conference and … I thought it could be, well, exciting.’
‘That’s one word for it.’
‘Well, educational then …’ She trailed off into disenchanted mumbles, something along the lines of, ‘It isn’t fraud, anyway …’ and then went quiet.
I hesitated, the warmth of the coffee cup softening autumn’s bite in my bare palm; it smelled like caramel and almonds, all the right sugars to subdue my growing headache, and I heard myself sigh.
I wasn’t sure what was going to happen when I came face-to-face with Billy after so many years, but I was certain that I didn’t want Zara anywhere near the man.
So how she ended up in the passenger seat on the drive south-east to Belmarsh, I really couldn’t say.
7
‘Your letter of introduction, sir?’
The warder at the visitors’ reception was superficially polite, but his body language reeked of Monday morning, not unlike my own, and when I handed the letter over he smoothed it out onto the desk with both hands and a grumble, leaning close to read it.
‘Stand on the blue cross and look into the camera, please.’
In turn, Zara and I had our photographs taken, printed, and clipped into plastic holders attached to badges, before the forefingers of both hands were scanned into the system through an infrared screen.
‘Wear these badges at all times on the premises,’ he told us as he passed them over, ‘and you can only take loose case papers, plain paper for writing, and two pens in with you. Everything else, including watches, piercings and the contents of your pockets, will have to be left in the lockers here.’
I dropped a pound coin into the largest locker they had, slipped my dulled wedding ring, wallet, watch and phone into my coat pockets along with my car keys, and hung the coat inside with my hat.
‘Two more weeks!’ the warder called from his spot behind the desk, and I turned back, frowning.
‘Pardon?’
‘Those pound coins,’ he said, resting his chin lazily on one fist. ‘Two weeks from now they cease to be legal tender, but you won’t be able to use the new ones in the lockers. They’re not being converted. We’re going to be keeping some of the old coins, though, and you’ll be able to buy them for two quid whenever you need to use them.’
‘Right,’ I said, ‘that’s very thoughtful of Her Majesty’s Prison Service, thanks.’
Fifteen gated doors and another fingerprint scanner safeguard the rest of the labyrinth into Belmarsh. The doors operate in such a way that no two can ever be unlocked or opened at the same time, like a series of consecutive airlocks leading into the abyss.
A stern, silent jailer led us through the maze, our footsteps echoing in unison against the clatter of shunting locks, tarnished hinges and rattling keys, then it was out and across a dull, caged yard under a darkening sky.
The High Security Unit is a separate, even more fortified jail within the heart of the larger prison, a concrete building opposite the inmates’ five-a-side football pitch. In a cramped inner reception area we were made to take off our belts and shoes – Zara nervously fumbling with the knots of her clunky Doc Martens – which were bundled together through an X-ray machine, while we were searched with a torch from the insides of our mouths down to the fabric of our socks.
The taste of the inspector’s latex glove was bitter when she lifted my tongue; my eyes drifted to the grey plastic chair with BOSS III stamped across its backboard, the Body Orifice Security Scanner, and I was relieved to be spared the further embarrassment.
She indicated the papers in Zara’s hands. ‘Could you place your papers and pens inside the tray as well?’
‘They’re confidential,’ Zara replied sheepishly.
‘I’m not going to read them,’ the inspector bit. ‘I just need to make sure there’s nothing concealed inside.’
We spent five more minutes staring into the dead eyes of cameras lined above a forbidding gate of red iron, while a distant control room used facial recognition technology to confirm our identities. Zara was unnervingly silent and statuesque, occasionally flexing her jaw to bite her lower lip, and I asked if she was all right. All I got in return was an edgy nod.
When the gate eventually opened, it did so with the
groan of a burial crypt left long undisturbed. Two men came briskly towards us from the opposite end of the corridor.
One was another warder, a tall black man dressed in a crisp white shirt and immaculate shiny shoes, who was presaged by the jangling of a hundred or more keys hanging from his waistband. The other was a small-eyed, freckled, mousy kid of about Zara’s age, dressed in a navy suit with his own visitor’s pass hanging from the lapel.
‘I’m Senior Officer Wilkins,’ the warder said first, steamrolling the other’s timid attempt at an introduction, then he turned on one polished heel and beckoned us all to follow him towards the visitors’ hall.
The kid squeezed in neatly between us, clutching loose papers to his chest, and bounced along in scuffed Clarks. ‘I’m Fraser Hayes from Lennox, Ross and Chapman Solicitors. I appreciate you coming down at such short notice.’
‘Our client is here on remand,’ I said, struggling to keep up with the senior officer. ‘Why is he being held in the High Security Unit?’
‘Have you seen your client?’ Wilkins replied without looking back, still some way ahead. ‘Special provisional conditions. This is where we hold the terrorists.’
‘But he isn’t on remand for terror offences.’
‘Not this time.’ Another corner, and he came to a halt outside a small conference room with floor-to-ceiling glass windows separating it from the visitors’ hall. ‘We’ve had more than a dozen racially aggravated attacks on the prison grounds in the last three months, and we don’t need men like your client spreading his backward ideology to the rest of the inmates. It’s for his own safety as much as for theirs, and was all discussed and arranged, at length, with his solicitor.’
‘He is quite a character,’ the solicitor agreed breathlessly; stationary at last, I could see just how young he was, how inexperienced, and suspected he’d been sold the dud that no one else in the firm wanted to touch. ‘The client was moved here after an altercation during his first week in general population. Now, he was very explicit about meeting you – and specifically you, Mr Rook – alone …’ His eyes drifted cautiously to Zara. ‘I’ll be waiting out here, and then we can go through the case in more detail, if that suits you?’
‘My junior will be joining me for the conference, Mr Hayes,’ I told him flatly, and saw a reassured swell in Zara’s chest. ‘Let’s get this over with, shall we?’
Officer Wilkins rapped on the door, and a final, much larger jailer opened it from the other side, stepping out to allow us to enter.
As we crossed the threshold, Wilkins leaned close to Zara with a wholly unfriendly, stony grin. ‘I suppose it would be somewhat redundant to warn you that your client isn’t a very pleasant man,’ he said, and then closed the door behind us, sealing the room.
Silence.
Off-white walls and off-white lights. A single video camera recording visuals.
A Formica table with chairs.
And Billy.
I wished he’d changed over the years. Grown up and softened in appearance, perhaps. He was approaching sixty, after all. If anything, he’d only hardened in the interim.
Baldness had finally finished the job where I recalled a younger man’s skinhead, and his expanse of faded tattoos started with a Celtic cross underneath his right eye, and went on to cover every centimetre of his throat and fists. I couldn’t take them all in without staring, but the general theme was clear enough from the red Templar cross that fanned out behind his left ear, to the letters stamped across his chestnut-sized knuckles, crooked from so many breakages over the years: PURE LAND.
What bare skin still remained between ink was hardly more appealing, and it clung to his muscles as if professionally upholstered by a specialist dealing in Scarred Oak, Weathered Leather or Killer’s Pelt; his burgundy jogging pants, and what must’ve been the largest grey T-shirt available, stretched thin over his massive limbs.
He was first to speak, as Zara and I took chairs on the opposite side of the table, which didn’t seem nearly distant enough.
‘Who’s the Jude?’
I didn’t deign to answer, but he took it upon himself to continue.
‘You know where they’re keeping me, don’t you?’
When he spoke, he did so without breath, words broken only by a recurring tic that jerked his head back over his left shoulder. It was the sort I’d encountered in many addicts before, skull kicking off to the side like a wounded mule.
‘They’ve only gone and stuck me in the same cell that Abu fucking Hook-Hands stayed in. I swear you can still smell him on the walls in there. Fucking stinks. Reeks. Treating me like I’m fucking ISIS or summat.’
Every one of his blinks came down hard, slamming over bottomless gloom with the conviction of a guillotine. His focus narrowed back in on Zara.
‘What you meant to be, anyhow? A solicitor? A barrister? You’re fucking joking.’
She didn’t respond. Billy’s head rolled again, lips back, jaw jutting defectively from one side to the other.
‘Mr Barber,’ I began, but he was on her again.
‘Can you even speak English, or did you just get off the boat this morning?’
Silence again. Tic, tic, tic went his massive, dented skull.
I desperately wanted to speak, but words were hard to find. All the murderers, molesters and rapists I’d come face-to-face with throughout the years, and here was something I hadn’t experienced in my profession. Here was a man who frightened me.
I couldn’t even bring myself to look at Zara when I asked her to step outside.
I was trying for a tone that might’ve suggested I was doing it for her sake, but the truth was I simply couldn’t stand the embarrassment of it any longer. She closed the door behind her, making barely a sound, and then we were alone.
Billy leaned forward across the table with a playful wink, as if it was all some sort of game. ‘You fucking her or what?’
His features seemed oddly misaligned, no doubt the result of frequent collisions, with one eye fixed slightly lower than the other, mouth hanging off to one side, like the pieces of an original Potato Head kit all pushed into an old vegetable by a heavy-handed toddler.
‘Course you’re not,’ he quickly decided. ‘Look at you, fat fuck. Not that you were ever skinny like, but fuck me. Bet you couldn’t see your cock now, even if you were King Dong.’
More of those unsettling skeletal spasms; he was practically convulsing in the chair. His hands landed like concrete on the Formica. ‘Last time I saw you would’ve been our Aidan’s funeral, wouldn’t it?’
‘Nice service,’ I managed in a dry voice. ‘Good lad, your brother.’
He leaned back, puffing the chest of a bear, and nodded pensively.
‘Like brothers, you and him were. Thick as thieves, Mam used to say. Thick as pig shit, sometimes, but family the same. What does that make us then?’
‘We’re not family, Mr Barber.’
‘Brother of my brother.’ He grinned, a rictus slash through granite, and kept on nodding to himself. ‘You’re gonna get me out of here.’
I shuffled my papers in front of me, steadying my hands. ‘If I was going to represent you, Billy –’
‘You are.’
‘Then we’re going to have to go through some of the basics. We’re going to need a defence we can run with. You’ve already had a psychiatric report, and the CPS is going to reject diminished responsibility, so there’s that. I can’t work with vague, whimsical allusions to intimidation. We need a defence.’
He considered it for a moment and cocked his skull. ‘That’s a new voice. Where’d you get it?’
I glanced up at the camera, reminded myself that, by law, it wasn’t listening, and told him straight.
‘Practice.’
It was true, my accent was no accident.
It had taken many months to break the habits of home, and that was all relatively easy compared to switching cutlery to the correct hands at mealtimes after twenty-odd years, studying my shoplifte
d copy of Debrett’s Handbook in a sleeping bag under the shelter of a multi-storey car park, and all the endless research into Eton.
‘You’re charged with murder, Billy. If you’re convicted, the sentence will be life. We can aim for a reduction on the minimum term to be served before you’re eligible to apply for parole, if you plead guilty. Do that before the trial starts, and you’re looking at a third off. On the first day of trial, it’s going to drop to ten per cent, and the window of opportunity will shrink by the day thereon.’
He shook his head, jerked it to the left. ‘I’ll tell you the same as I told the last wigged-up ponce the solicitor sent me. I’m not pleading to fuck all. I didn’t kill no one.’
‘You’ve got kids now, haven’t you?’ I asked, taking a stab in the dark. ‘Think about them.’
‘What do you reckon I’m thinking about?’
I flicked through the case papers as if I was reading them, keeping the pens safely in my grasp, and scratched my head.
‘Do you even remember the night of the murder? Witnesses say you were blackout drunk.’
‘Rat-arsed.’
‘So, what do you remember?’
His face held tight. ‘I remember I didn’t kill no one.’
‘Right. It’s the evening of Good Friday, and you disappear, drunk. The next morning, an unknown girl is found dead within walking distance of your home. Your phone’s GPS places you close to the scene of the crime, right up until you switched it to airplane mode. You have no explanation for that void of five hours, before you were seen burning bloody clothes in your back garden. You didn’t answer a single question in your police interview to explain your whereabouts or your side of the story.’
‘My right to stay quiet,’ he grunted.
‘It is, but what are we going to run with? You don’t want to plead guilty, but you have no answer as to why you aren’t guilty.’
‘Well, that’s not my job, is it? Burden of proof is on them, last time I checked.’
He was smarter than I’d given him credit for. I guess he’d picked up a lot in these situations over the years.
