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 moved 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.”
“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.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s lottery money wages, that is.” Both Tommy and David laughed.
“Bet you wish you’d studied more at school now, don’t you?” Tommy chuckled. “Well you and me both, mate.”
“Okay, ready for the next lot?” David said. I nodded, and he gathered up the pieces of paper before replacing them with different sheets. I leaned forward again and examined them.
“What have we got here then?” I asked.
“I’ve called it a ‘Character Assessment’,” David said, the pride obvious in his voice. Sure enough, the first piece of paper I looked at had those words in capital letters on the top of it. Underneath it was a list of websites. “They’re the websites he visits the most. Nothing naughty there, all quite boring. It looks like he enjoys keeping fish and football. He’s a Norwich fan as well. Had a season ticket there for years, but in the Jarrold Stand.” Tommy laughed as David said this.
“Yeah, well,” Tommy said. “I couldn’t see him in the Snakepit, somehow. Slagging off the opposition in a posh voice.” The Snakepit was a small corner of the Carrow Road Stadium which was particularly vocal, and not shy about language. David pointed at the next sheet of paper.
“They’re his financials. He’s got a cracking credit score, and the best part of half a million quid floating about in various accounts.”
“You hacked into his bank record?” I asked, looking up at David.
“No, they’re screen grabs from when he was doing his banking online,” he replied. “He’s got more than one offshore account, but I couldn’t get any information on them. They’re in the Canary Islands or something like that.”
“Cayman Islands, mate.” Tommy leaned into the conversation. “Not the Canary Islands, they’re off the coast of Spain.” The two of them bickered about whether the Canary Islands were closer to Spain or Portugal, but I tuned them out as I turned my attention to the next sheet of paper.
As I read a whole bunch of text with a load of medical sounding words, I started to get a sinking feeling about what I was reading.
“David, please tell me these aren’t his medical records?”
“Er, well, yeah. Of course they are,” he said. “He’s in good nick for his age, though. Not about to drop dead if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I hope I’m half as fit at his age,” Tommy added. “If I get to his age, that is.” David glanced at him, uncertain for a second, before breaking into laughter. I ignored him, looking at a list of medication that Paul was taking. I recognised a few of the names, but most of them might as well have been in Greek. It wasn’t a long list of tablets, though.
“What’s this one?” I asked David, pointing at the next sheet across. It had tiny writing on it, no chance of me being able to read it properly without a magnifying glass. David reached across and swivelled the paper round.
“That’s his will, that one,” he replied, stabbing his index finger at the paper. “But you’re not in it, so you’ve lucked out there. Whatever’s left is getting split among his nieces and nephews.” I stared at him, incredulous. He prodded the last bit of paper. “That’s a summary. It’s all I’ve got.” Apart from his medical and financial records, I thought as I looked at the last sheet. It was a printout of a spreadsheet, and not much more than a list of columns.
“What is this?” I asked.
“That’s the title.” He pointed at the first column. “That’s the username or login.” His finger moved across the columns before coming to rest on the last one. “And that’s the password.”
“For what?” I asked, scanning the list. David didn’t reply, and I looked up at him. He stared back at me for a few seconds.
“Er,” he replied. “For everything. Whatever he does on the internet, they’re the logins and passwords for it. I’ve not gone as far as looking into his shopping history, but I can if you want me to?”
“Jesus, David,” I said. “I asked you to have a look at him, not hack his entire life.” David’s face fell, and he looked like a disappointed spaniel. I caught the look on his face and felt bad. “But this, my friend.” I pointed at the paperwork in front of us with my index finger. “This is absolute gold. You are a star.” His expression returned to where it had been a few minutes before, and a smile split his face.
“I did a good job, did I?” he asked, grinning.
“Oh yes, you did,” I replied, returning the smile.
“Cool. Great. Need a piss.” He got to his feet without another word and wandered back toward the visitors’ door.
Tommy looked at me, also smiling.
“Man, he’s something else,” he said. “He was chuffed to bit with being asked to look into that lawyer, you know that?” I didn’t know that but thought I knew why he was pleased. It would have felt, to David, as if he was doing something for Jennifer. Which he was, even if it was indirectly.
“I wasn’t expecting that much information. How the hell did he get all of that?” I asked Tommy.
“Yeah, like he’d tell me that,” he replied with a laugh. “Even if he told me, I wouldn't bloody understand it, anyway.” I smiled. Tommy was right. The few times I had spoken to David about technological stuff he’d lost me in jargon within seconds. Tommy was telling me about a new client he was working on when David came back to the table.
“Those toilets are bleak, aren’t they?” he said as he sat down.
“Have they run out of potpourri again?” I said. “I’ll have a word with the maitre’d, get him to sort it out.” David looked at me, confused until he realised I was joking.
“Yeah, they have. It ruins the ambience,” he said, looking at us with an expectant face that both Tommy and I recognised. We both laughed, which was exactly what David was hoping for.
Tommy and David didn’t stop for long. As I suspected, they were keen to get away for the football match. Or rather, to get away to the pub to prepare for the football match. Knowing Tommy, this would involve a large amount of lager and a burger of some description. I’d given the paperwork back to David to take away with him. Not the sort of thing I wanted the prison officers to find, really. I left the visitors’ room after they had gone and went back to my cell for a while to think about what David had uncovered.
As I stood in line for the phone about half an hour later, I thought I had four or maybe five minutes left on my phone card. Plenty of time to speak to Paul Dewar and ask him a few pointed questions. He answered the phone even before the second ring had finished.
“Hello? Is that Gareth?” his voice was muffled, and he sounded almost out of breath. I wondered for a second what he’d been doing before realising that he could have no idea it was me on the phone. I was calling from a prison pay phone, which I knew for a fact would have come up as an ‘unknown number’.
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