Corrupted: Murder and cover-up at the heart of government (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers Book 4)

by Simon Michael

  Charles sighs. ‘I’m not sure. I have this strong sense that something’s closing in on me. You know the twins have been after me for some time. I heard about the Krays’ sex parties a couple of days ago, and now a refugee from one has popped into my life, completely unexpectedly, asking for my help. Maybe my sixth sense is wrong, it’s just a coincidence and it’ll blow over. But my gut tells me otherwise. So I’m going to change my routine and keep my head down.’

  Another long pause. ‘All right. Leave it with me. I’ll get there as soon as I can.’

  ‘Thanks, Max.’

  ‘I’m not promising anything, Charles. I’ll go to the hospital and get the boy’s story, but I’m not saying I’ll represent him. I’ll make a decision on that later.’

  ‘Understood. I’ll be in touch. I’ve got some cash for you anyway.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Thursday, 2 July

  ‘Barbara? It’s Charles Holborne.’

  ‘Good morning, sir. Are you planning on coming into Chambers this morning?’

  ‘No, that’s why I’m calling. I have a conference in a new case.’

  Charles can hear Barbara leafing through the pages of the diary. ‘That’s news to me, sir. Why isn’t it in the diary?’

  There is a change in Barbara’s tone, not quite confrontation but definitely the sharp edge of irritation and a demand for an explanation. Barristers are not supposed to manage their own diaries; that would be to trespass on the duties of the clerks, which are jealously guarded. It always seems bizarre to people outside the profession that barristers are supposed to have no direct dealings with their source of work — solicitors — and cede so much authority to their clerks.

  In Charles’s opinion, the power balance needs to shift. He trusts Barbara and her team completely and has never had the slightest reason to doubt they have Charles’s professional interests at heart. Nonetheless, everyone at the Bar knows of at least one barrister whose practice failed because the clerks ‘took against him’. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, of one silk’s practice being ruined overnight following an inadvertent slight to the senior clerk’s wife at a Christmas party.

  It is certainly true that, without being present to answer the telephones or liaise directly with solicitors, a barrister is completely vulnerable to whatever his clerks might say when a solicitor calls with a new booking. I’m afraid Mr Smith is starting a six-week trial on that date. But I have Mr Brown available… effectively ends enquiries about Mr Smith’s availability for a minimum of six weeks and, habit being what it is, sometimes forever.

  ‘Max Wiseberg of Greengross, Wiseberg & Co. telephoned me yesterday evening,’ explains Charles. ‘He’s been instructed in a murder case involving a juvenile and wants me to meet the proposed client in conference this morning.’

  Charles’s explanation is partial, and he’s uncomfortable withholding information from Barbara but, were she to know the background, she’d certainly counsel him against taking any case that involved the Krays, however obliquely. More importantly, she’d be utterly appalled at the source of the instruction.

  ‘Then I think Mr Wiseberg should send formal instructions into Chambers in the normal way, don’t you? Why the hurry? I know you’re occasionally sounded out about new cases, but you really must direct enquiries to us, sir. Imagine the chaos if all forty of you were to start taking your own bookings.’

  ‘I understand that, and I agree. But this lad was arrested while in hospital. Mr Wiseberg doesn’t know his current condition. So it’s urgent.’

  ‘I see. Very well.’

  Barbara is still, as her Scottish mother would have put it, fash’t, but her ire has subsided a notch. ‘Let me get some details, then, and I’ll call Mr Wiseberg this afternoon. But please don’t make a habit of this.’

  Charles gives such scant detail as he possesses.

  ‘And if you could keep me out of court for a couple of days more, that’d be helpful,’ he says finally.

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Thank you. See you this afternoon,’ says Charles.

  ‘Oh, sir?’ interjects Barbara. ‘Before you go, I need a word with you about the next Chambers meeting.’

  But he has already hung up.

  Charles has held conferences with clients in prisons, in Chambers, in solicitors’ offices and occasionally at lay clients’ homes, but never before at a hospital. The cab journey eastwards towards the Albert Docks Seamen’s Hospital on Alnwick Road, just north of the Thames at Woolwich, is a journey into his past. The cabbie takes him along Commercial Road through Whitechapel and Limehouse, where Charles’s family lived for generations and where he spent most of his early years, and then down East India Dock Road and Victoria Dock Road, the area in which he spent the War as a teenage lighterman.

  Everyone who works on the river knows the Seamen’s Hospital; many have had their stomachs pumped out there after falling into the foul Thames water. Since the early nineteenth century, the hospital has cared for seafaring men, members of the merchant navy, fishing fleets and those working the docks, and despite the fact that it’s now old and cramped, it still constitutes an essential centre of acute medicine for the poor of the East End.

  Charles pays the cabbie outside the rambling redbrick building and enters the front doors. He’s surprised to find no obvious police presence. Max Wiseberg is waiting for him by the reception desk, as always wearing the piratical eye-patch over his empty left eye socket. He steps forward.

  ‘Morning, Charles,’ he says, offering his hand.

  ‘Hello, Max. Where are we going?’

  ‘It’s up here. Follow me.’

  Max, a tall good-looking man ten years older than Charles, was half-blinded on Gold Beach during the Normandy landings, and on discharge from hospital resumed his solicitors’ practice. He had qualified and practised as an immigration specialist and spoke fluent and accent-less German, so he found himself seconded to the SIS, where he spent the rest of the War behind a desk, investigating Jewish refugees from occupied Europe and weeding out the German spies hidden in their ranks.

  After the War, by then a colonel, he spent a lot of time flying in and out of West Berlin on government business. He spoke little about his job but Charles worked out that Max had been some sort of spy. By the mid Fifties, Max’s business with the government ended and he returned to his brother-in-law’s firm, where he was now senior partner. The area surrounding his missing left eye is badly scarred and still attracts glances, and the sight in his right eye is now so poor that he is forced to read using a large magnifying glass. He knows that his days as a solicitor are numbered.

  ‘Have you seen him?’ asks Charles.

  ‘Yes, yesterday after you called, as much good as it did me. He’s either catatonic or wilfully refusing to speak. This is going to be a very brief conference.’

  Max leads them along winding corridors, up flights of stairs, along further corridors and finally down some stairs at the back of the building. Charles sees a young police constable in the Met’s uniform sitting at a table outside a door. The constable stands from the chair he’s occupying.

  ‘Good morning, constable,’ says Max. ‘This is counsel to see your prisoner.’

  Charles notes with approval that Max doesn’t give Charles’s name.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ replies the constable, saluting awkwardly and standing out of the way to permit the two lawyers to enter the room. ‘Although he’s not my prisoner. I don’t know anything about him ’cept my sergeant’s doing his nut trying to get someone from the City of London or C11 to take him off our hands.’

  ‘I’ll go in and explain what’s happening,’ interrupts Max. ‘Give me a minute.’

  He enters the room, leaving Charles and the young copper alone. ‘City of London?’ asks Charles.

  ‘The crime supposedly occurred in the City,’ explains the young constable, ‘so not our jurisdiction. He just got himself arrested on our patch in Greenwich.’

  ‘And C11?�
�

  ‘Couldn’t tell you, sir. No idea how they’re involved. I’m just the nanny, till someone else turns up.’

  ‘Has anyone been to see him?’ asks Charles. ‘Parents, social workers?’

  The policeman shakes his head. ‘No one logged in or out, sir.’

  ‘Has he been interviewed yet?’ persists Charles.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank you,’ says Charles, and he pushes open the door through which Max has disappeared.

  Charles finds himself in a small room that must once have served as an office. Two metal filing cabinets stand in a corner with a small desk and two office chairs on castors next to them. In the centre of the room is a hospital bed on wheels with neatly tucked blankets and white sheets.

  The bed contains a still form, facing the wall and away from the door. The institutional green-blue linoleum covering the floor squeaks as Charles walks towards the bed. The room is hot and stuffy, and the large window above the bed is sealed shut with many years of paint.

  Max stands on the opposite side of the bed. ‘Teddy,’ he says softly. ‘This is the man I’ve been talking about.’

  There’s neither reply nor movement. Charles moves to the foot of the bed in an attempt to see his new client but the sheets are pulled so high that only the top of a blond curly head is visible.

  ‘Teddy, it’s very important that we get your instructions.’

  Still nothing. Max looks across at Charles and shakes his head silently.

  ‘Is there a canteen or café here?’ asks Charles.

  ‘There’s no café, but there is a staff canteen. They gave me a cup of tea yesterday while I was waiting.’

  ‘Would you mind going down and seeing if you can scare us up some tea?’ asks Charles, inclining his head towards the bed and signalling to Max that his request is made for Teddy’s ears. ‘I’ll stay here. Perhaps you can get Teddy a bottle of pop at the same time?’

  Max nods and leaves the room. Charles takes one of the office chairs and wheels it round to the side of the bed which Teddy is facing. He takes out his blue counsel’s notebook and a pen, sits facing the boy, crosses his legs and rests the notebook on his knee. He starts sketching.

  Charles is not a great artist, but he enjoyed drawing at school and when he worked as a lighterman with Izzy on the Thames he often filled the idle hours sketching the boats, cranes and jetties. Izzy’s disabled mother, Charles’s Aunt Bea, still has a few better examples of his work hanging on her walls.

  Charles produces a reasonable facsimile of the bed, the outline of the boy within it, the window behind him, and the tops of the warehouses in the distance. At first there is no response from the boy but as the seconds tick by into minutes, and all that can be heard in the room is the quiet scratch of Charles’s pen on his notebook, Charles senses an increased alertness from the bed; its occupant’s breathing pattern has changed.

  Charles bides his time, starting to shade in the shadows created around the boy by the light coming through the window. He wishes he has some charcoal or a pencil which would be more suitable for the task than a fountain pen, but he is doing quite well with cross-hatching when he notices that the bed covers have been pulled down an inch and brown eyes framed by long lashes are observing him. Still he says nothing, apparently lost in his task.

  After a further while Charles holds the notebook at arm’s length and considers it critically. ‘Not bad,’ he says quietly to himself, ‘if I say so myself. Would you like to see?’

  There’s a sudden increase in stillness and tension from the bed, and Charles knows that the boy is considering whether or not to break his silence. The door opens suddenly and Max backs into the room, holding a tray. Charles has to suppress the ‘tut’ he was about to utter, fearing that the slender link established between himself and Teddy has been lost again.

  ‘Sorry I was so long. I had to use considerable charm to persuade the canteen to give me anything.’ Max places the tray on the desk. ‘Here we are,’ he says, holding out a mug of tea to Charles. ‘There wasn’t a choice of soft drinks, but they gave me a glass of lemonade.’

  Charles ignores the mug of tea being held out to him and picks up the lemonade instead. He returns to the bedside and looks down on the curly head.

  ‘Would you like some lemonade, Teddy?’ No answer. ‘It’s very hot in here. I’ll bet you’re thirsty. No? Well, I’ll leave it here on the bedside table in case you change your mind.’ Charles does so, and then takes his tea from Max’s outstretched hand. ‘Do you want to bring that other chair over here, next to mine?’

  Max wheels the second office chair next to Charles’s. He looks over at Charles’s notebook and then bends forward until his nose is almost touching it. He straightens up. ‘I didn’t know you could draw. That’s really good,’ compliments Max.

  ‘I just doodle. I do find it very satisfying, though; restful. So, how’s the family?’

  Max and Charles chat while sipping their tea as if Teddy isn’t in the room. Every now and then Charles glances at the boy in the bed. A little more of his face is visible, and although his body hasn’t changed position, Charles sees that his eyes are locked on the lemonade just an arm’s reach away from him, the rising bubbles caught by the sunlight streaming through the window.

  Finally, a pyjamaed arm emerges from under the starched sheets heading towards the glass. Charles sees the bandages around the boy’s wrist for the first time. He stands.

  ‘Here, let me help you,’ he says, leaning forward and bringing the glass towards the bed. ‘I think you’re going to have to sit up a bit.’

  With difficulty, and by wriggling his hips rather than using his arms to lever himself, the boy gets himself into a seated position and takes the glass carefully with both hands. Both wrists are tightly bandaged and the boy holds his hands in an unnaturally stiff pose.

  Charles and Max are looking at a young man in hospital-issue blue and grey striped pyjamas several sizes too large for him, which emphasise his child-like appearance. Charles puts his age at mid-teens but he could easily pass for younger. The early signs of adolescence are only just discernible in the strengthening shape of his jaw and the down on his chin. The boy gulps down three quarters of the lemonade without pause. Then he stops and looks up from shy, lowered lids.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says politely.

  ‘Would you like to see my drawing?’ asks Charles.

  The boy nods as he downs the last of his drink and wipes his delicate mouth with the back of his hand. Charles hands over his notebook.

  The boy looks at it carefully. ‘You’ve left out the seagulls.’

  Charles looks up and through the window. Several of the birds are swooping and dipping in and out of his frame of view, their cries almost indiscernible through the thick glass.

  ‘Quite right,’ says Charles. ‘I’ll put them in now.’ He takes back the notebook and quickly sketches in some scattered flattened W’s to represent the wheeling gulls. ‘Better?’ he asks, handing the notebook back, and smiling.

  The boy looks again and nods, and the faintest trace of a smile curls the edges of his mouth.

  ‘Better,’ he confirms and he looks up and, for a fraction of a second, makes eye contact with Charles for the first time.

  ‘OK,’ says Charles, resuming his seat. ‘Now, listen carefully, Teddy. You don’t have to say anything at all to me, do you understand? But I’d like you just to listen to what I have to say. If, when I’ve finished, you still want to say nothing, well, fair enough. Mr Wiseberg and I will leave. Just nod if you understand what I’ve said.’

  The boy nods minutely.

  ‘Excellent. I understand that you’ve been arrested for murder. Now, I guess you’re more than fourteen but less than sixteen years of age, yes?’ Teddy nods. ‘Yes, I thought so. Which means that you’ll be treated as knowing the difference between right and wrong; in other words, you’ll be tried before a jury and you could be convicted. Now, I don’t know what the police say you did, and I don’t
know if you did it or not, understand? I don’t know anything about your case. I don’t know why you’re roughing it in London on your own. I don’t know where your parents are, or even if you have any.’

  Charles notices that the boy’s eyes widen in alarm at the mention of his parents.

  ‘What I do know is, you’re in a lot of trouble, and right now you need help. Pretty soon, probably later this morning, policemen are going to come to question you. If you were my son, I’d want someone with experience to be there, by your side, while you’re interviewed. Mr Wiseberg here has that experience. I’d want someone who’s seen all this before to advise you what to say and what not to say. Then, if the case is taken further, I’d want someone standing by your side in court to help you. That’s where I come in. I’ve been doing exactly that for fifteen years. I have represented lads in your position many times. And as Mr Wiseberg here will tell you, I’m pretty good at what I do. And I am prepared to help you. We will apply for legal aid for you, but if for any reason we don’t get it, I will represent you for free. No strings attached.’

  At this point Charles glances sideways at Max to find the solicitor’s eyebrows raised in surprise, but he ploughs on. ‘If you decide you’d like us to help you, our next job is to understand what happened. You’ll need to tell us the whole story. We’ll help you by asking questions, and we’ll go at your speed. But before that door opens and the police come in, we have to know what happened. If you say no, which you’re quite entitled to do, this is what’ll happen: Mr Wiseberg and I will leave. The police will come and interview you, probably alone in the first instance. After that they’ll probably move you to what’s called a place of safety, like a children’s home, where you’ll be locked up while they try to find your parents, if you have any.

  ‘A child or young person brought before a court has to have a parent or guardian with them, unless the court is satisfied it’s not necessary. The court will then appoint a lawyer to represent you, probably paid for under what is known as the Poor Prisoners’ Defence Act, in other words, legal aid. You’ll have no choice about that; you’ll have to accept whoever is chosen. That person may be very good or they may not. Now, you don’t have to say anything to me, but do you understand what I’ve said to you so far?’