Cut-Throat Defence: The dramatic, twist-filled legal thriller

by Olly Jarvis

  He was alone in the robing room when Lionel Katterman walked in. Neither man spoke as they took off their bands. The great Katterman had been silenced.

  Jack felt uncomfortable not mentioning his change of mind about withdrawing. ‘Lionel, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was staying in the case. I didn’t know myself until the last minute.’

  Katterman waited a few seconds before answering. ‘You did the right thing, boy, because you’d be a bloody fool if you thought we’d ever take someone like you at Paramount. Enjoy your moment in the spotlight.’ He put his coat and made to leave.

  ‘And the written offer?’

  Stopping momentarily at the door, Katterman laughed. ‘Consider it rescinded.’

  Jack chastized himself for his naivety.

  Hurrying across Crown Square on his way to meet Lara back at chambers, Jack suddenly felt a barrage of raindrops pummeling his head, then the heavens opened. He hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella. He joined Windbag, who had taken shelter in a doorway.

  ‘Hello, Kowalski, hope you enjoyed call night? That ditty was very vulgar. I totally disapprove of that sort of thing.’ Windbag was a slimy little man, bringing up the subject not because he was concerned about Jack’s feelings, but because he wanted to see him cringe at the very mention of it.

  ‘Oh don’t worry, Giles. I thought nothing of it.’

  ‘Really? Well, still, I thought Katterman overstepped the mark. Apparently Rutherford told him so.’

  ‘Katterman wrote that?’

  ‘Yes, didn’t you know?’

  Jack was dumbfounded. Had Katterman deliberately humiliated him at Mess so that the offer of Paramount would seem even more attractive?

  Chapter 41

  It was getting late. Jack and Lara had spent the last few hours in the library going through the papers again. Jack was sure they were missing something. He was also distracted by something he wanted to ask Lara, but had been losing his nerve all day. He took the plunge. ‘I’ve got to see my father tonight. Would you like to come? He’s very keen to meet you.’

  ‘Meet me?’ said Lara with surprise.

  Jack blushed. ‘Romek’s told him all about you. You know what family are like.’ Jack immediately wished he could have taken back that last comment. ‘I am so sorry, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Oh, I know you didn’t, Jack. I’d love to come. Thanks for inviting me – I’m honoured.’

  He felt a rush of affection.

  Jack gathered up his essential papers. ‘Have you seen my Archbold?’ A large red volume ‒ the Bible for all criminal practitioners in the Crown Court.

  ‘You had it at court.’

  ‘I thought I did. Couldn’t find it after. Must have left it somewhere. It’ll turn up,’ he said, disguising his anxiety at losing his security blanket.

  * * *

  Mariusz, Jack’s father, greeted him with a hug. He took a step backwards and carefully surveyed Jack’s suit, then stepped forward again and pulled down the sleeves to check the length. Content, he turned to his attention to Lara. ‘Bardzo piekna!’ He took her hand and clasped it with both of his. ‘Come, come,’ he beckoned as they went upstairs to the flat.

  ‘What did he say?’ she whispered.

  ‘He said you’re very beautiful.’

  She blushed. She felt a strange sensation.

  The flat that Jack had grown up in was small but full of gigantic memories. He noticed how unusually clean and tidy everything was. It certainly couldn’t have been his father’s work. Jack commented on it.

  Mariusz was embarrassed.

  ‘Lara, Pani Mila comes to clean and cook for him. She’s in love with him, but Dad isn’t interested.’

  Mariusz chastised his son. ‘Don’t tease. You know I not like.’ His English worse even than Romek’s. His contact with the outside world was minimal, and usually concerned no more than sleeves or trousers. He had hardly left the flat since Jack’s mother died eight years ago.

  Mariusz was Manchester’s best alteration tailor. His skills were traditional and learnt in Poland. Few tailors still used his methods. He could transform a suit from one shape to another, leaving no trace of his work. Everybody who was anybody sent their clothes to him to be altered.

  He was older and of a slighter build than his brother; Jack towered over him. Mariusz walked with a stoop from years of hunching over a sewing machine and concentrating on a needle. The lounge was full of rows of suits and jackets, trousers and shirts. All menswear. He pointed out a suit to Lara, eager to joke about his work.

  ‘You can tell this suit for banker.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘The right arm always longer because use to reach for the money.’

  They all laughed, including Jack, even though he’d heard it a thousand times.

  Mariusz hobbled into the kitchen and brought back some Polish beer and cake. ‘Prosze,’ he said, gesturing to Lara to sit at the little table at the side of the lounge. It only allowed for three seats. Jack had sat there many times when he was a boy, doing his homework or eating meals with his parents.

  Lara ran her fingers over the lid of the old piano she’d seen crammed against the wall.

  Mariusz followed her eyes. ‘Janusz, you play for me tonight?’

  ‘Not tonight, Tata, I’m too preoccupied with the trial. If we don’t strike gold tomorrow, we are finished.’

  Mariusz winked at Lara. ‘Big trial. I wish his mother could see.’ His eyes moistened.

  Lara tried to distract his melancholy thoughts. ‘Tell me, how did your son come to be a barrister?’

  ‘Oh, I wish you hadn’t asked that,’ said Jack. ‘It’s his favourite story.’

  His father explained how he had done the alterations for all the barristers in Manchester when Jack was growing up. Barristers could only wear tunic shirts, where the collar was detachable, to allow for their wing collars when in court. Tunic shirts were hard to come by and often needed to be altered before they would fit. Until recently, barristers could only wear double-breasted suits in court, or a single-breasted suit if worn with a waistcoat. All these particular clothing requirements meant that a barrister frequently needed the services of a tailor. When Jack was eight, he told his father that he wanted to be a tailor when he grew up – be just like him, altering suits and shirts. Mariusz recounted with great solemnity how he took little Janusz into his workroom and said, ‘My son, if you want to make me happy, do not be the man that works on these clothes, be the man that wears them. Become a barrister.’ Mariusz explained that from that day on, his son wanted to be a barrister.

  ‘Now you see, my son barrister!’

  Lara was only now appreciating what Jack had given up by rejecting Katterman’s offer. Jack was a little embarrassed and keen to change the subject, but Lara was fascinated. ‘It sounds like you knew – know – everybody,’ she said.

  Before his father could reply Jack interrupted. ‘Lara, don’t encourage him, please. He is a walking encyclopedia of the tailoring requirements of not only the Manchester Bar, but the judiciary as well.’

  ‘Maybe you knew my father?’

  It hadn’t occurred to Jack that she was thinking about whether the men had ever met. ‘Maybe,’ said Mariusz, enjoying the test. ‘What his name?’

  ‘He died a long time ago. He was a barrister called Michael Panassai.’

  Mariusz looked surprised. ‘Michael Panassai. I knew him. Very kind man, and funny man.’ Mariusz chuckled. ‘And wife, Mary. Of course, so beautiful, like you.’

  Lara looked at Jack, then back to his father, her eyes watering, yet wide with excitement at the joy of talking to someone who had actually known her parents.

  Jack was deeply moved by it.

  Mariusz was recalling more, ‘Michael only man from Indonesia I ever know.’

  ‘Indonesia!’ said Jack in surprise.

  ‘Yes, he was,’ said Lara. ‘He came to England as a young diplomat working at the Indonesian Embassy in London, in the seventies.
He met my mum who was studying medicine, and they fell in love. When his posting was over, instead of returning to Indonesia he left the service. They decided to get married and live in England. He studied law and then for the Bar. They moved up to Manchester because that was where my mother had grown up.’

  Mariusz told Lara how Michael had been a very poor man when he started out at the Bar. She knew that already. He had come to Mariusz with a second-hand suit he had bought from Oxfam to be altered. Mariusz had agreed to alter the suit for free, if Michael promised to come to him with all his alterations throughout his career, which he did, until his death. ‘Hoc. Come,’ beckoned Mariusz.

  He led them down into the main workroom. Two sewing machines and rows of clothes on rails were crammed into a tiny space. Every inch of wall space, even the ceiling, was covered in framed letters, pictures, photographs, signed football shirts, all from grateful customers.

  Mariusz hacked his way through the clothes to a corner of the workroom. He peeked over his spectacles at a framed photograph, covering only a small piece of wall space. He waved Lara over to the photograph. She peered at it. It was her father, smiling, standing in the very room she was in now, his arm round Mariusz. Written across the bottom of the photograph was, ‘Forever in your trousers, Mike xx’.

  ‘We took photo after I do first pair trousers. It’s joke but I don’t get?’

  This made Jack and Lara giggle.

  Lara gave Mariusz a hug. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  Lara thought for a moment. It was a difficult question to answer. ‘The trousers, of course!’

  Mariusz took one of Lara’s hands in both of his and held it tightly.

  She noticed his bracelet. Gleaming gold, with a thimble hanging from it. Again, a flicker of recognition. A memory, lost deep inside. What was it?

  Mariusz fixed her with a solemn stare, as was his way. He told her how sorry he was that she had lost both parents so young.

  Lara tried to give a philosophical response. ‘It’s just one of those things. They were coming back from a party and Dad was driving. He skidded. It was a narrow country lane. They crashed into a tree.’ She thought for a moment then revealed something more, something that was clearly very painful for her. ‘He was drunk. They tested his blood at the hospital.’

  ‘I know. I know,’ said Mariusz.

  Jack knew his father better than anybody and could see he was uncomfortable talking about it. He wondered why.

  ‘Hoc.’ Mariusz led them back upstairs. Lara seemed lost in thought. Jack knew it was time to go.

  Lara thanked Mariusz for the cake.

  ‘Wait. I have your book. You need, yes?’ He handed Jack his copy of Archbold.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ asked Jack in surprise. ‘Did I leave it here?’

  ‘No, your friend find. He bring into workshop today.’

  ‘What friend?’

  ‘He not give name. Say know you from work. Very nice man.’

  ‘Tata, what did he look like?’

  ‘I don’t know. Normal. Suit. He have scar on face. Down cheek.’

  It didn’t feel right. ‘I don’t know anyone like that. And why bring it here, rather than chambers? Someone is trying to intimidate me, through you.’

  ‘No. You worry too much, Janusz,’ replied his father.

  Lara wasn’t so sure.

  Jack felt an intense rush of foreboding. ‘Tata, anything like that happens again, call me immediately. OK?’

  ‘OK, OK, now go.’

  They walked back downstairs to the street.

  Lara waited in a shop doorway out of the drizzle while Jack hailed a passing cab.

  ‘That has really freaked me out,’ Jack said, once they were in the back of the taxi.

  ‘Me too,’ replied Lara. ‘It’s the same modus operandi.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They get at Marpit through his daughter. Now you, through your dad.’

  Jack’s head was crammed: Katterman, the case, his dad. Exhaustion. Without Lara, he would be in pieces. She was holding him together.

  ‘I’m sorry about Paramount, Jack. I really am.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ Jack replied. ‘From what Katterman said to me in the robing room this afternoon, he was bullshitting anyway.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘I reckon,’ said Jack. ‘It never ceases to amaze me how people like that can go so far.’

  They travelled much of the way in silence, both lost in thought.

  They turned on to Deansgate.

  ‘I hate the rain,’ said Lara, as they watched the windscreen wipers move back and forth.

  ‘You picked the wrong city to live in, then,’ Jack replied.

  ‘I think it chose me.’

  Silence again.

  Their eyes locked.

  He needed her. To kiss her, now. He leaned in.

  She pulled away.

  Humiliation. ‘I’m sorry, Lara.’

  ‘It’s OK. I can’t.’

  Jack nodded.

  Awkward silence.

  Lara alighted from the cab outside her apartment block. ‘Try and get some sleep, Jack. You’ve got Finch tomorrow.’

  He nodded, still embarrassed. He watched her walk to the door. The cab started to pull off. ‘Hold on a sec,’ said Jack. He had noticed a figure in the shadows. A man standing near the entrance. Jack almost got out but stopped when he saw him greet Lara. He kissed her. Much older – in his fifties, or even sixties. Lara glanced at the cab before they disappeared into the flats.

  The light was poor, but something about the man seemed familiar.

  Chapter 42

  Jack stood on his tiny balcony watching the sun’s rays bounce off the windows of the buildings, waking up the city. The tram tracks glistened as they wove around the streets. The crisp, clear day uplifted Jack, if only momentarily.

  The last day of the prosecution case. Without a client, if Jack couldn’t find some evidence of Marpit’s status as a participating informant through the remaining witnesses, he had no case. Everything would rest on his cross of Officer Finch.

  The robing room was buzzing. Counsel in Jack’s case were all discussing whether they would be making for submissions of no case to answer, at the close of the prosecution case. It was a big day for everyone.

  Otterwood patted Jack on the back as he and Aston scurried past, already robed.

  ‘Hang in there, old chap. You’re holding your own.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jack.

  They were already through the door. Aston turned and gave a friendly wink, just before they disappeared.

  The morning was spent much like the day before: NCA officers describing observations during examination-in-chief. Bingham and Katterman continued to highlight, through the witnesses, the lack of any direct evidence against their clients.

  Jack fought on, asking aimless questions about Marpit. The jury had come to know in advance what his questions would be. They also knew the answers, watching Jack’s humiliation time and time again. Not only the jury, but most of the people in the courtroom were now willing him to get somewhere.

  The next witness was Graham Saunders, the officer who arrested Marpit. As Saunders was young and inexperienced, Otterwood was careful to lead him gently through his evidence.

  Jack whispered to Lara, ‘I’ve got to put to him that Marpit and Finch met at the airfield. I’ll never get it from Finch.’

  ‘Unless Saunders admits it, then Finch would be stuck with it. This guy’s an idiot. You can tease it out.’

  ‘If it actually happened,’ Jack reminded her.

  At last, Jack’s turn. ‘Officer Saunders, I’m just looking at the surveillance log for the arrests at the airfield on the thirteenth of March,’ he said warmly, handing a copy up. ‘Could you clarify one matter, officer?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘We can see you arrested a man at twenty-one fifty-five. Male six, IC1, that means white?’
/>   ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Male six, we now know, was Carl Marpit.’

  ‘That’s right. He was trying to escape by crawling under a fence.’

  ‘Officer, it’s very difficult for every little thing to be entered on the log in the heat of the moment ‒ but you do your best?’

  ‘No, we radio through everything. If we do miss something, we add it to the log at the debrief.’

  ‘I see. Now, officer, you didn’t put Marpit in the van after he was arrested, did you?’

  Saunders was thrown. Had another officer given evidence about it? He didn’t want to contradict him. He looked down at the log, remaining silent on the matter. ‘Didn’t I?’ A safe response.

  ‘We have your entry at twenty-one fifty-five and then Officer Finch’s entry at twenty-one fifty-eight – all suspects successfully arrested, detained and put into vehicles.’

  Saunders jumped in: ‘That’s just his observation. Officer Finch didn’t put Marpit into a vehicle himself.’

  ‘I didn’t say he did, officer,’ responded Jack with a wry smile. ‘You don’t know what evidence other officers have given about the arrests, do you, officer?’

  ‘No, of course not. We can’t discuss our evidence.’

  ‘You didn’t put Marpit on a vehicle yourself, did you?’

  A pause. Tentatively, ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘After you arrested Marpit who did you hand him over to?’

  Another pause. ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘How many arrests have you been involved in, officer, prior to this one?’

  ‘This was my first.’

  ‘And how many arrests did you make that night?’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Memorable, then?’

  No reply.

  ‘Now I’m going to give you a little time to think about it. After you’d made that one and only arrest in your career, who did you hand Marpit over to?’

  ‘I honestly can’t remember.’

  ‘Can’t remember? Have you got something to hide, officer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you know Marpit was an informant?’