by Nick Stone
‘Because Vernon James did not kill Evelyn Bates. And you can go on about the law all you bloody well want, but our client is innocent. And Janet knows it. Don’t you?’
I looked to her for support. But her shoes still had her hypnotised. What the hell was wrong with her?
Kopf sighed.
‘In a way, I should thank you for your candour. It’s quite obvious to me you don’t care about yourself any more than you do this firm. You haven’t even tried to pretend otherwise,’ he said. ‘Ambition is all very well and it’s nourished and cherished here, but it has its limits. What you did was reckless, foolhardy and completely wrong. A lawyer must be cold, rational and detached. They must also look before they leap. You’re obviously completely wrong for this firm, but also, I think, for this profession. So I want you to get your things and leave. If you’re not out in five minutes, I’ll call security.’
Now I couldn’t meet his eye. I’d been expecting this from Janet when I was released from Southend nick. But then, on the train back, seeing her reaction to what I told her, I thought I’d be OK, that we’d be devoting our energies to proving Fabia’s story. Funny how it was turning out here. When I expected to be fired, I wasn’t. When I didn’t…
I looked over the photographs on the wall behind him, hanging off the wood panelling like flaking monochromatic scales, all except for the larger one in the middle; the centrepiece, that big sunstruck building with the black Morris Minor parked close by.
Then I walked out.
I only had three personal effects in the office: a birthday card Amy had painted me, and an essay Ray had written for school a couple of years ago. It was called ‘My Hero: My Dad’. I kept them there as a kind of talisman, something to look at and remind myself why I was putting up with all the crap Adolf threw my way. The last was my lunchbox in the fridge, and the sandwiches and apple I’d brought to work yesterday.
As I sat at the desk, with my wet coat still on, I almost laughed. My lunchbox was empty. Adolf hadn’t just eaten the sandwiches, but the apple too, which was a first. All she’d left me was a crumpled, lipstick-stained napkin and a few crumbs.
I put everything in my bag.
‘Bella?’
Adolf stopped typing and glowered at me, irritated.
‘This is goodbye,’ I said.
Surprise.
‘But, before I go, there’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for the longest time.’
The others had heard. Keyboards stopped chattering. Iain peered over his cubicle.
‘You’re a sad, pathetic, mean-spirited little squirt. If you put half as much effort into your work as you do into protecting the trivial pisspot Reich you run here, you’d probably do quite well for yourself. But you don’t, so you won’t. This is the best it’ll ever get for you. Enjoy.’
She was incredulous, open-mouthed, crimson.
I slung my bag strap over my shoulder and stood up.
‘Oh, and by the way – you know that sandwich you helped yourself to? I spat in it when I made it yesterday morning. Just like I have in every one of the sandwiches you’ve helped yourself to. Bon appetit and fuck you very much.’
And, head held uncommonly high, I walked out of the office.
I didn’t get far.
‘Terry!’
It was Edwina, hailing me from the stairs.
‘Can you come up, please?’
They had to give me my P45.
I followed her upstairs.
Kopf’s door was open. Janet was still sitting there, but no longer watching her feet. It was Kopf’s turn to ignore me. He was leaning back in his chair, arms folded, staring off into space.
‘Close the door,’ Janet said.
I did as asked and took a couple of steps in, staying out of their immediate radius.
‘I personally think you did the right thing yesterday. You just went about it the wrong way,’ she said. ‘The truth of the matter is, I wouldn’t have come to Southend based on your hunch. You had no way of being sure it was Fabia. And there’s no way you could have verified her identity without talking to her. Firing you, in that respect, is completely unfair. Besides, if things hadn’t gone so wrong, you would’ve been a hero.’
I didn’t look at Kopf.
‘We’re also far too close to the trial to lose you, frankly. We’re a good team. Christine likes you. And Vernon will want to have familiar faces around him. It’ll be bad for his morale if a key member disappears. So Sid and I have talked this over, and he’s prepared to withdraw your dismissal – on one condition.’
I glanced at him. The old bastard was inscrutable.
‘You can only leave the office during working hours accompanied by me, Liam or Christine. No more unsupervised field trips. That includes doing the rounds with Andy Swayne. And strictly no investigating Fabia’s murder. That’s the police’s job. Ours is to prepare for trial.’
Grounded, like a disobedient kid.
‘Are you prepared to accept those conditions?’
So ‘safe’ for three more months. Time to get my CV together and start looking for another job.
‘Yes, I am,’ I said.
‘All right then. Go back to work.’
It’s one thing to despise people you have to work with every day, and quite another to tell them. They should never know.
When I walked back to the office, freshly reinstated, the three of them all stared at me in silence and with predictable surprise. Yet there was also something else in their looks – wariness. The last time I’d provoked that particular collective reaction was in Stevenage, back in the Dark Ages, when I used to walk into pubs, binge-primed.
I took off my coat and jacket and rolled up my sleeves.
It was going to be a long few months.
56
As a rule, I don’t cry. It’s in my genes. I come from undemonstrative stock. The Flynts are born pessimists and stoic with it. We were weaned on spilled milk. But when I walked into the living room that night and saw my family sitting around the dinner table, the tear dam almost ruptured. Knowing I’d come so close to losing them, to never seeing them like this, doing something as simple as eating together, almost overwhelmed me.
‘Where’ve you been, Dad?’ Ray asked, stern-faced.
‘Occasionally, in this job, you have to work overnight,’ I said, helping myself to dinner. Karen had made spaghetti Bolognese.
‘Mum was worried,’ he said, reproachfully. In his dark eyes, I saw the adult he was becoming; the stern parent too.
I looked at Karen. I’d phoned her an hour ago. I hadn’t told her much, except that I was coming home and would explain everything. She’d sounded equal parts relieved and pissed off.
‘I know. I’m sorry. I really am,’ I said.
I took Karen’s hand and squeezed it, gently. Amy beamed at us. All was right in her world. Her dad was home. Her family was together. And she was eating her favourite dish. It didn’t get any better than that for her.
‘It’s all right,’ Ray shrugged. ‘Just this once.’
Amy laughed.
And I did too.
Then Karen, and, lastly, Ray.
Thank God I was home.
Later, Karen made coffee and we sat alone at the table. I hadn’t slept in over thirty-six hours. I was drained. But we had to talk.
So, for the sixth and final time that day I reeled out what had happened at Southend nick. Except now I was barely conscious of what I was saying. I felt my mouth moving and heard sounds coming out, and saw it all apparently making perfect sense to my wife, but I might as well have been talking in my sleep.
‘Un-believable…’ she said at the end.
‘Yeah… I know I —’
‘You used the one and only phone call you had to call that copper.’
‘What was I supposed to do?’
‘You could’ve called me,’ she said. ‘You should’ve called me.’
‘I had one phone call,’ I said.
‘I was worried ou
t of my mind when you didn’t come home last night. And then, this morning, when I got up and you weren’t there… I was scared, Terry. I didn’t know what had happened to you!’
‘Look, I know, I —’
‘Why didn’t you call me?’
‘I —’
‘You didn’t even call me from Southend when you were waiting for Janet,’ she said, getting angrier and redder, and fighting to keep her voice down so the kids wouldn’t wake up.
‘I called you as soon as I could, but —’
‘You should’ve called me from the fuckin’ station!’
‘What could you’ve done?’
‘I could’ve got you a lawyer and called DCI Reid. That’s what I could’ve done, Terry.’
‘Yeah, but…’
‘Did you even think about us? Your family? Your kids asking where you were? You didn’t, did you?’
‘Of course I did, Karen.’
‘Bollocks.’
She was cutting me off at every corner. We both knew she was right. Despite my tiredness I was sticking to the rules of domestic combat.
‘You care more about this bloody case, don’t you?’ she said, bitterly, tearing up.
‘No. That’s not it.’
‘One phone call you get. One! And you don’t even call me.’
What could I say to that?
I hadn’t. Janet had been locked up, and I wanted DCI Reid to hear Fabia’s confession.
‘You don’t understand, Karen. This was… This wasn’t… Look, I didn’t want to involve you, all right?’
She gawped at me, stalk-eyed with amazement.
‘But I am involved, you daft twat! We all are. All of us here. We’re your family for Chrissakes! You got locked up on a murder charge! What if you were still locked up?’
I was too knackered to think.
I looked at the digital photoframe on the mantelpiece. Our marriage seemed to be flashing before my eyes in slow motion. Us on our wedding day at Wandsworth Registery Office, Ray in-between; us on our honeymoon, Ray wearing my sunglasses; us with Amy in hospital, Ray cradling her with a proud smile on his face; Amy’s christening at St Mary’s Church on Battersea Embankment; the four of us celebrating our first Christmas in Manchester.
Then I yawned. I couldn’t help it. The reflex kicked in before I had time to catch it.
‘You know what, Terry? I’d call you selfish, but selfish people only put themselves first. You don’t even do that much. You put that bloody case before everything.’
I could barely form coherent thoughts, let alone muster up the words to answer.
‘What are you going to do when this is all over, eh? Have you thought that far? When they kick you out of that firm? When there’s no more trial and no more Vernon James? What are you going to do then?’ she asked.
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘I’ve never seen you so motivated in your life. I’ve never seen you chase anything with this kind of… passion before. Not even me. This case is the first thing I’ve ever seen you really care about. It’s all that matters to you. All you think about. And it’s scary. And you’re scary. ’Cause you can’t see what it’s doing to you, to us.’
‘And what would that be?’
‘I rest my case,’ she said. ‘You can sleep on the fuckin’ couch.’
57
May
Back at the office the next day, my colleagues arrived together, which they’d never done before. Adolf and The Other Two. All smiles and jokes, extra-friendly with each other. They didn’t look at me. Not so much as a glance in my general direction.
Michaela announced a tea-making rota. They picked their slots. She wrote it down and it went up on the corkboard. I wasn’t asked.
The message was simple: I no longer existed.
Nothing I could do about it, but ignore it by staying busy.
I called Swayne. I wanted to talk to him about the Wingroves and the White Ghosts. He’d brought them up for a specific reason. He knew more than he was letting on – a lot more.
He didn’t answer. I left a message.
Then Janet emailed and asked me to write a full report about Fabia and run off four copies. We had a client meeting at Belmarsh to go to.
‘Well, at least it proves my defence, doesn’t it?’ VJ said.
I’d been spared regurgitating the Southend nick debacle. Janet played narrator this time. Because she told it chronologically, VJ’s face went through a time-lapsed sequence of hopes raised and dashed expressions – exhilaration to disappointment to sick, quaking shock at the conclusion.
It took him a few moments to regain his composure. He got up and paced and took deep breaths. He’d lost so much weight, his clothes were barely staying on him; his sweatshirt slipped and slid towards his shoulders, his tracksuit billowed about his legs like oversized sails.
‘To us, yes,’ Christine said.
‘Can’t you put Terry on the stand?’ VJ asked.
Christine shook her head.
‘That’s a minefield. Legally, Terry is a “Bad Character” – a witness who committed an offence in obtaining evidence. Franco Carnavale would destroy him.’
It was a good call on her part. Besides the pitfalls she’d mentioned, I would have to admit my past relationship with VJ, and that would make what I’d done look even worse than just some overeager underling getting in over his head. None of the defence team – nor anyone at KRP – knew about us. If the truth came out reputations would take a hit.
‘What about the police? They know the truth.’
‘They know what Terry said, but there’s no one to back it up.’
‘How’s their investigation going? Are they close to catching someone?’
‘We don’t know. They’re under no legal obligation to tell us, unless it directly affects you and the trial. For now, to them, it’s a separate matter,’ Christine said. ‘And I wouldn’t get your hopes up that they’ll catch Fabia’s killer. It was a professional hit. Professionals don’t get caught.’
VJ groaned and rubbed his temples. I saw new greys there.
‘But you will bring Fabia’s murder up in court, right?’
Christine and Janet exchanged a look that told me they’d already discussed this and agreed what they were going to tell him in advance. Janet gave her a nod.
‘We can’t so much as hint at it,’ Christine said.
‘Why?’
‘Without a signed statement from Fabia it’s inadmissible. Hearsay.’
‘Doesn’t the prosecution know what happened?’
‘Probably. But that’s not the point, because, legally – so far – it doesn’t affect the case. As I said, we cannot enter Fabia’s conversation with Terry into evidence. Therefore it’s not part of our defence, and not part of the trial,’ Christine explained.
‘The bottom line is that unless the police catch Fabia’s killer and get a confession out of her, the fundamentals are unchanged. Evelyn Bates was murdered in your room. Even if Fabia was still alive and talking to us, it wouldn’t prove you didn’t kill Evelyn. You’d still have a case to answer. The trial would still go ahead.’
The following morning, Redpath came down to the office with his and Janet’s Belmarsh notes and asked me to type them up, run off three copies, email another to Christine, and put the spare in filing.
No problem there, exactly, but him and Janet both had PAs for that, and I wasn’t a trained typist. I was a one-finger seek and peck keyboardist. But all I said was:
‘Sure.’
‘Looks like you’re coming full circle,’ Redpath said as he left.
And that pretty much set the pace for the rest of the month.
Overnight, my job became simple and undemanding. Basic clerical work – typing and filing.
I’d arrive in the mornings to find a small heap of badly scrawled notes and dog-eared legal pads in my in-tray. By late afternoon I’d have turned them all into typescripts. They also got me covering for the receptionist when she too
k her lunchbreak.
Demotion did have its upsides. The pressure was suddenly off. I didn’t have to come up with anything that might turn the trial around.
I stopped spitting in my sandwiches.
I started taking all my lunchbreaks. And I also got to leave the office dead on six, so I saw much more of my family. I was home well in time for dinner every night and my weekends were free again. I made up for the last few weeks, by helping the kids with their homework and hanging on their every word. I read to them at night.
I mended things with Karen in a big way. One Friday we got a babysitter and had our first date in God knows how long. We went to dinner on Battersea Embankment and spent most of the night holding hands across the table and looking into each other’s eyes, me apologising for ever putting the case before them, vowing it wouldn’t happen again.
Unfortunately, I didn’t mean it.
Really, I was bored stiff. The prospect of going to work and knowing exactly what I was going to be doing from day to day began to gnaw at me after the second week.
I tried to look on the bright side. I hadn’t been fired. I’d been given a three-month grace period to get my act together and have a job to go to when this one ended. And I was luckier still. It could have been even worse. I could have gone to prison. Yet that’s the thing about luck: you never know you’ve had it till it’s run out.
But mostly, I couldn’t stop thinking about the case.
I didn’t have a clue what was happening because I was shut out. Janet and Redpath weren’t keeping me in the loop at all – and I knew better than to ask them.
I kept trying to reach Swayne. The first two weeks, straight to voicemail. Then, on the third week, an automated voice told me I couldn’t leave a message because his inbox was full. By the end of the month his number was no longer in service.
I called DCI Reid to find out how the investigation was going. Her response was predictable: ‘I can’t discuss ongoing police affairs. If anything relevant to you or your client comes up, we’ll be in touch.’
There’d been nothing on the news about Fabia’s murder. Nothing at all. Even on the internet. Like it had never happened. Maybe it was too embarrassing, or maybe there was something else afoot, something bigger than a dead prostitute.
