Gareth Dawson Series Box Set

by Nathan Burrows

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Mr McLoughlin said, walking off to join one of his colleagues on the other side of the room.

  “Thanks,” I called after him before crossing the room to meet my unexpected visitor. As I approached him, I examined him in more detail. He had to be in his late fifties, early sixties perhaps. Grey hair swept straight across his head, with a sharply defined widow’s peak. He was wearing a suit. No surprise there. I’d never yet met a lawyer who didn’t wear one, but as I got closer, I could see that it was a fine suit. Since Andy had bought me one to wear for my trial, I’d become quite the expert, and one of my idle daydreams was how many tailored suits I would buy when I got out. This Paul Dewar chap had a three-piece, double-breasted, finely dotted pinstripes over a navy-blue material. Very nice. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

  The lawyer looked up as I pulled the chair out from under the table on my side. He got to his feet, extending a hand.

  “Mr Dawson, I presume?” he asked in a clipped South Coast accent. Not a local boy, then. I must have been mistaken about him being familiar as I didn’t recognise his voice at all. I shook his hand, figuring that as he was a lawyer the prison officers wouldn’t be too bothered about the rules.

  “Yes, that’s me,” I replied. He had a firm handshake, and I had to resist the urge to stroke the material of his suit with my other hand. “You’re Paul Dewar, I’m guessing?” He smiled at my reply, showing a row of perfect white teeth. They might have lived in a jar by his bed at night, I had no idea, but they gave him a reassuring smile. He was around my height, slightly less broad but still well built. As we sat down, I complimented him on his suit.

  “Thank you,” he replied. It was a retirement present to myself a few years ago. Holts of Saville Row.” I didn't know who Holts were, but I’d heard of Saville Row so nodded to show my appreciation. “Except I never really retired properly, of course,” he continued. If he had retired a couple of years ago, he had to be in his mid to late sixties, unless he had taken early retirement. I reassessed the man, impressed at the way he held himself. He looked like he could still pack a punch, that much was for sure.

  We sat opposite each other for a few minutes in silence, him smiling at me and me looking back at him.

  “So,” I said, curiosity getting the better of me as I ended the little game we seemed to be playing. “What can I do for you?” He smiled again, the skin around his brown eyes wrinkling. “I’ll be honest,” I continued, putting his business card on the table between us. “I’ve never heard of you or the Phoenix Trust.”

  “No,” he said, relaxing back in the chair and putting his hands flat on the table between us. I glanced down at what looked like a very expensive watch hiding under one of his cuffs. He splayed his hands on the table and I noticed a thick gold wedding band on his ring finger. I’d taken mine off to put in Jennifer’s coffin the day we’d buried her and had regretted it ever since. “You don’t know me, and very few people have heard of the Phoenix Trust.” He steepled his fingers on the desk, his cuffs sliding back a couple of centimetres. Was that a Rolex? “They’re rather, ah, what’s the best term? Secretive? Yes, that’ll do for the moment. They’re rather secretive.”

  “So, what do they do? And what do they want with me?” I asked.

  “We’re getting ahead of ourselves, Gareth. May I call you Gareth?” he replied.

  “Of course you can,” I said, smiling at the formality of his request. “It’s my name.”

  “Perhaps you could humour an old lawyer and talk me through where you are with your case? It’ll all become clear, I promise.” I looked at him, wondering where he was going with this. What the hell, I figured. It wasn’t as if I’d got much else planned for the afternoon, and there was something quite endearing about the chap.

  We spent the next thirty minutes going through my trial and the events leading up to it. Paul didn’t take any notes. In fact, he hardly spoke at all except to ask the odd question when something wasn’t clear to him. I opened up to him more than I had to anyone for a long time. I finished by telling him about the final stages of the trial, and about how my defence lawyer kind of fell apart and gave up at the end. Paul nodded as I said this.

  “Yes, I thought so too,” he said.

  “You were there?” I asked, surprised. The penny dropped. That’s where I knew him from. He’d been in the public gallery for the last couple of days of the trial. “You were there,” I repeated, this time not as a question. “Why?”

  “Call it professional curiosity, my old chap,” he replied. “One thing I do like about Norwich is that there aren’t many murder trials here. So when one came up,” he paused for a second. “When your trial came up, I listened in to a bit of it.”

  “What did you think?” I asked him.

  “About what? The trial, your defence lawyer, the verdict?”

  “Well, all of it?”

  “I didn’t see the full trial, but I know the judge of old. He’s a good man. Very wise.” Paul looked over my shoulder and beyond me. “Your defence? Not good, but public defenders often use cases such as yours to build their way to better things. Sad, but true.” He looked at me directly, frowning. “And the verdict? Yes, in the eyes of the law it was the correct verdict. Assuming you did kill him.”

  His last statement threw me. What did he mean by that? I’d been convicted of murder. I was just about to ask him what he meant when he looked at his watch, nodded, and reached down for the briefcase. Assuming he was about to leave, I put a hand on his arm.

  “Wait, please.” I could see Mr McLoughlin frowning at me from his position on the other side of the room, so I removed my hand. “Don’t go.” Paul looked at me, balancing the briefcase on his lap and unbuckling it.

  “Oh, I’m not going, my dear boy.” He opened the case and reached in for a single sheet of paper. “But we need to change tack. Do you sail? Or rather, did you sail?”

  “Er, no,” I replied, confused by the sudden change in the topic.

  “That’s a shame. The Broads are lovely at this time of year what with the trees turning and everything.” He put the piece of paper down on the table and returned his briefcase to its original position next to his leg. “Now, let’s talk about the Phoenix Trust.”

  I sat back, relieved that he wasn’t leaving. The truth was that I was enjoying talking to him. It wasn’t just that he listened, but I didn’t think he was judging me, either. Everyone else that I’d spoken to about my case in the last couple of months had judged me to one degree or another, but this rather odd man wasn’t.

  “The Phoenix Trust are, as I’ve said, rather reclusive. I’ll be honest, until they approached me about your case I’d never heard of them,” he said.

  “Why did they approach you about my case? Who are they?” I leaned forward, intrigued.

  “I can answer the first question, but I can’t answer the second I'm afraid. One of the conditions of my being retained by them is that I don’t try to find out who the people behind the Trust are, you see.” He smiled, showing off his straight white teeth again. “I’m quite happy with that arrangement given how generous the terms of the agreement are.” I frowned. I didn’t understand.

  “So why did they approach you about my case? You said you could answer that.” Paul slid the paper round so I could read it as I asked this question. I scanned it as he spoke.

  “They specialise in unusual cases, cases which are perhaps not as they seem. Such as yours.” The paper was a lawyer engagement form. I’d signed one for Toby’s firm to handle my appeal. Part of the form was a section releasing the lawyers handling the case. In the one I’d filled out before, this section was empty, but the piece of paper in front of me already had Toby’s firm’s details filled out.

  “Sorry, Paul. I don’t get this.”

  “It's a lawyer engagement form,” he replied. He pointed at the section of the form I was looking at with Toby’s firm’s details. “This part releases your current lawyers.” His finger mo
ved to another section. “And this part transfers your case to my firm, such as it is. I am a one-man band at the moment, but I will bring additional resources to bear.”

  I frowned, re-reading the form in front of me.

  “So, this form transfers my case to you?” I asked. His face lit up.

  “Yes, precisely dear boy. That’s exactly what it does. You sign that, and I am your new lawyer.” I sat back, deflated, and pushed the piece of paper back at him. His face fell, and he looked at me, his disappointment obvious.

  “Well it’s a nice offer, Mr Dewar,” I said, scraping my chair back a couple of inches. “But I’m going to have to refuse it. Thanks for coming to see me, and I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey.” I got to my feet.

  “Gareth, please, sit down,” he pleaded. “Hear me out.” I looked at him, trying to decide. This had to be some sort of scam. Taking on hopeless cases and fleecing people out of what little they had left. I was disappointed, not angry. I’d enjoyed talking to Paul, but I didn’t have a penny to my name. I sat down, crossing my arms.

  “Paul, I don’t have any money. Not a brass button,” I said. To my surprise, he laughed.

  “Oh really, how delightful! Is that what you’re worried about?” he asked. Now I was getting really confused. “You don’t have to pay anything. Here, read this bit.” He pointed at another block of text on the form that was in a much smaller font. I squinted as I tried to read it. The size and the language made it difficult to understand, but as I read it a couple of times, I realised that it said the Phoenix Trust would cover all expenses.

  “There’s a catch, right?” I asked Paul. “There has to be.”

  “No, no catch. The only stipulation is that you don’t try to find out anything about the Phoenix Trust. The same agreement I’ve signed. They value their privacy, so to speak.”

  “But I still don’t understand. Why my case?”

  “They believe there are, now what was the word they used? Anomalies, that was it. Yes, they believe there are anomalies in your case that could be very useful in an appeal.”

  I stared at Paul. I was starting to get an idea of what this was all about. The last time I’d spoken to Toby he was downbeat about the chances of even being able to mount an appeal, let alone have a chance of winning one. He’d even used the term ‘bang to rights’ at one point. If I hadn’t liked the guy, I’d have slapped him for saying that.

  “Gareth?” Paul said. I didn’t reply, still trying to process the last hour or so. “Gareth?” I looked at him.

  “They think you’re innocent. Not only that, but they think we can prove it.”

  23

  “David, it’s Gareth,” I said as soon as I heard the phone being answered. I wanted to keep the conversation short as I didn’t have many minutes left on my phone card, and it wouldn’t be topped up until next week. I pressed the earpiece hard against my ear to block out the ambient noise of the prison corridor.

  “Hello, mate,” David replied. His voice sounded gravelled as if he’d just woken up. It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon, so I guessed that this could be a possibility. “Everything okay? Me and Tommy are coming to see you this weekend.”

  “Oh, are you? Good stuff. Listen, David, could you do me a favour?”

  “Of course I can, mate. You know that.” His voice sounded brighter. “What can I do?”

  “Have you got a pen and paper?” I could hear him shuffling around.

  “Yep, I have,” he replied a few seconds later.

  “Could you have a look at something for me?” I didn’t wait for him to reply. “There’s a lawyer called Paul Dewar, lives in Norfolk somewhere I think but I don’t know for sure. Can you look into his background for me?”

  “Paul Dewar. Is that spelt D-E-W-A-R?” I looked at the card the lawyer gave me yesterday. The only thing that he had added to it was a mobile number on the reverse.

  “Yep, that’s right.” I gave him the mobile number as well just in case it was useful. I paused, wondering for a couple of seconds whether to ask him to look into the Phoenix Trust as well, but I remembered Paul’s warning and decided against it. Curious as I was, he’d been quite insistent. I listened as David repeated everything back to me.

  “Nice one, David. You happy with that?” I asked him.

  “No problem mate, leave it with me. I’ll bring you what I get on Saturday. We’re coming in the morning as Tommy’s got us tickets for Carrow Road in the afternoon. Norwich against Sheffield United. Should be a good game.”

  “Cheers David, I’ll speak to you then.” I couldn’t care less about Norwich City playing Sheffield United although there were many people on my wing who would care a lot. It was an unwritten rule that whenever Norwich was playing, the television in the recreation room was off and the radio was on. Withdrawal of radios when the football was on was perhaps the warder’s most drastic punishment, and it hadn’t happened in years apparently.

  I spent the next couple of days itching to know what David had found out about Paul Dewar. I’d kept a copy of the re-engagement form that Paul had left with me and read it countless times. A couple of the older lags who knew their way around legal documents, or at least they said they did, had said they couldn’t see anything wrong with it. Their reassurance didn’t stop me being unsure about the whole thing, but the more I thought about it the more I realised that I didn’t have anything to lose. Even so, it wouldn’t hurt to check out Paul as much as I could, or at least as much as David could.

  Saturday rolled around just like every other day in prison. Slowly. Very slowly. I was up early, keen to meet with David and Tommy even though getting up early wouldn’t make them get here any sooner. Visiting time started at ten, and I knew they’d be there pretty much bang on time so they could get the visit out of the way and get back to Norwich for as much time in the pub as possible before the football started. When it got to ten o’clock, I was waiting by the entrance to the visiting room as the door was opened from the other side.

  “Morning, Mr Dawson,” Mr McLoughlin said as he opened the door. “You’re keen this morning.” He had a clipboard in his hand which he looked down at. “Your visitors are just in processing.” I thanked him and followed him into the visitors’ room, fumbling my way into the orange vest Mr McLoughlin had given me. A couple of other prisoners entered the room behind me, so I made my way to the far end of the room. Not far away from the table I’d sat at with Paul.

  After a few minutes’ wait, the door on the other side of the room opened and Tommy walked through, followed by David who was holding a bunch of papers in his hand. Tommy looked around the room and when he saw me, waved and made his way over. They both sat down, David offering a hand for a handshake which I had to decline as Mr McLoughlin was watching us. David’s face fell as I shook my head at him, but it brightened back up when I pointed to the sign on the wall with its bright red, angry capital letters.

  “Not allowed mate, sorry,” I said.

  “I know, I know,” he replied. “Bloody forgot.” David leaned forward with an excited look on his face. I knew he’d found something and was desperate to find out what, but I didn’t want the prison officers to think I was planning something. We made small talk for a few minutes, caught up on some local gossip. Tommy gave me an update on the business, which to my surprise seemed to be doing well without me. I’d had to sign the whole thing over to him as I figured not many people would use a company whose CEO was inside for murder. Tommy promised me he’d keep my share of the profits separate for when I got out. Whether he’d keep them separate for fifteen years, I doubted somehow. I figured the first time things went south my share would be the first pot that got dipped into.

  Once I was sure that none of the guards were paying much attention, I turned to David.

  “So, David,” I said in a low voice. “What have you got, mate?” His face lit up with a broad smile as he put some papers on the table, spreading them out so I could read them. I leaned forward, my hands clasped
behind my back. It was probably overkill. I doubted that the guards would rush over if I picked up a piece of paper, but better safe than sorry. The first couple of sheets I looked at were a CV for Paul Dewar. He was indeed a lawyer, with a law degree from Oxford. I went there once, and it all looked a bit posh, so that was good enough for me. Paul had an impressive stack of letters after his name, a whole bunch of alphabet soup I couldn’t understand. They looked impressive, though. He’d worked in a bunch of firms in London, none of which I recognised, and had spent the last ten years of his career running his own firm called ‘Broadland Legal’ in Norwich before retiring two years ago. I’d heard of the firm but didn’t know anything about it until I read the next sheet.

  It summarised the business from start to finish, and it looked as though when he’d retired the company had wound up. There were six partners, including Paul, and their names were listed. My eyes were drawn to a section marked ‘Turnover’ towards the bottom of the page. I sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Six million pounds?” I said. “Is turnover the same as profit?”

  “Kind of,” David replied. “I looked it up,” he continued, looking pleased with himself. “That’s the amount of money they had coming in, but it doesn’t include money going out.” This confused me, so I asked David to explain. “For things like rent, electricity, stuff like that. But what’s left over would get split between them, wouldn’t it?” I did some rough sums in my head. The address of the office had been right in the middle of the city, so wouldn’t have been cheap, and they must have had more staff than just the partners, but even so. Paul must have been pulling in close to a million pounds a year. No wonder he had a nice suit on. I figured it must have been a Rolex on his wrist after all.