Law and Peace

by Tim Kevan

  Just this once indeed. I had hit gold at my first strike and was out of there in a flash, video camera still rolling in the pocket of my jacket.

  Tuesday 27 November 2007

  Year 2 (week 9): Counting the inches

  TheCreep was explaining tripping accidents caused by holes in the pavement to a couple of the pupils today.

  ‘It all boils down to whether it’s half an inch or an inch,’ he said in his usual patronising little squeak.

  Unfortunately for him TheVamp happened to be passing at just the wrong time. She smiled sweetly, patted him on the head and said, ‘Of course it does MrCrinchyPinchy. You’ve got to make the most of what you’ve got and in your case I guess an extra half inch might make all the difference.’

  Wednesday 28 November 2007

  Year 2 (week 9): Leverage

  Just because I was prepared to take the calculated risk in talking to RoundTheBlock, don’t think I was going to tell OldSmoothie about it. Instead, I edited the footage and, still in my disguise, posted it up on YouTube from an internet café in King’s Cross, before sending an anonymous email to myself with the link. I then forwarded it to OldSmoothie explaining that a ‘friend of mine’ who knew I was on this case had done some digging and come up with it.

  Well, OldSmoothie, as you might imagine, was more than a little pleased. He’d been obviously starting to worry about the case in the last couple of days, as denial began to turn into a realisation that he might have taken on a complete loser of a case in return for no fee and egg on his face.

  ‘This is great, BabyB. I don’t know who your friend is and I’m not sure I want to know. Anyway, I’ve spoken to BigMouth and told him that whatever is the truth of the matter, we need to settle if at all possible and that this might just provide us with enough leverage. He wasn’t happy but he said that he trusted my judgment.’

  So, SlipperySlope will negotiate.

  Friday 30 November 2007

  Year 2 (week 9): See you there

  Heard from TopFirst’s fiancée today. She accepted my request for friendship on Facebook and sent the following message:

  Hi BabyB. Really lovely to hear from you. I don’t know what went on between you and TopFirst but I’m glad that you and I can remain friends, at least. As it happens, I’m actually down your neck of the woods next Thursday. If you’re not in court do you fancy lunch?

  To which I of course replied simply:

  Look forward to it. See you there x

  Chapter 3

  December: ScandalMonger

  Monday 3 December 2007

  Year 2 (week 10): ScandalMonger

  BigMouth’s case rumbles on. Slippery wrote immediately to the other side giving them the evidence I had discreetly gathered on RoundTheBlock. This morning they replied, telling him where in particular he could stick his offer. No real surprise there given the bullish stance RedTop have been taking all along. But then Slippery asked to see me in his office this afternoon.

  As we sat down he said, ‘I need to have a serious talk, BabyB.’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied, a little nervously, wondering what on earth I had done wrong.

  ‘You and I haven’t worked together much in the past but it seems our paths are woven together at least for the foreseeable future, what with BigMouth’s case and then TheMoldies.’

  ‘Yes, I can’t pretend the thought hadn’t been worrying me, given what a lowlife, scum sucking, slime bucket we all know that you are.’ Thankfully those thoughts didn’t come out and I managed a diplomatic ‘I guess so’.

  ‘Well, I think now’s probably a good time to explain a few home truths about how we work.’

  Oh, here we go, I thought. You should be lucky for the work and all that. I’m in charge and you’d better not forget it. But instead he continued with, ‘Actually, there’s just one particular issue at this stage and it concerns bringing in a little outside, er, help for both of our cases.’

  ‘Like an expert witness?’ I asked innocently.

  ‘Exactly, BabyB. Just like an expert witness.’ He paused. ‘Though he’s not a witness.’

  ‘And don’t tell me – he’s not an expert either?’ I smiled.

  ‘Well, not in the traditional sense, at least.’

  ‘OK,’ I said hesitatingly, ‘you’d better tell me a little more.’

  ‘Better still,’ he said, ‘I’d like to introduce you.’ He then picked up the phone and asked his secretary to bring his other guest in.

  I was slightly taken aback at having someone else foisted into the mix but I tried not to show it. We both stood up as an odd-looking tall man in a brown suit with a mop of wavy brown hair and thick NHS glasses walked in. But above all, what hit me most was his disproportionately large hands, which seemed to be fizzing with energy down to the tips of his fingers.

  Slippery introduced him as a man I shall call ScandalMonger and as he went to shake my hand all I could think of were those huge hands that football fans hold aloft at matches. I gathered that he is one of those types whose day job is to buy and sell stories. Not any old stories, just those involving human misery in one form or another. If the misery isn’t in the story itself then it follows pretty soon afterwards. He is the kind of man who believes he can bring down anything from political parties, to star strikers, to the best that middle England has to offer: a larger than life impresario who’s so much of a fraud that he even believes his own lies. All in all, he is a horrible creature who would make even TopFirst seem like a modest sort of fellow. Well, that’s what I took from Slippery’s flattering thumbnail sketch anyway.

  ‘So how will all this help our cases?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, BabyB, that’s not all he does. What with all these clients, investigators and press contacts he also acts as a rather discreet . . . how shall I put it? Er, fixer. Or as we put it to the taxman, “corporate PR”.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ScandalMonger raised his eyebrows in a particularly smug way, as if to say, ‘Yes, I am the master of the universe and am able to fix anything. Little people, little problems. Easy.’

  ‘Yes,’ continued Slippery, ‘we can get a little help with the planting of stories and from time to time he can even assist with the odd witness.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So you can see why I might need to mention it?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘It’s just that I don’t want to get further down the line and then for, how shall I say, “scruples” to kick in.’

  ‘Well, quite.’

  ‘So I just wanted to make sure that you were all OK with his involvement from the outset?’

  Now the truth is that of course I wasn’t ‘OK’ with it. Not in a million years. Witness tampering for a start. Then there was contempt of court with the press. And these were just my initial thoughts. My guess was that Slippery wasn’t telling me even half of it and he was simply asking whether I was prepared to turn a blind eye. After my experience last year with TheBoss, my answer was simple. Sorry Slippery old boy, but go and slip and slide on someone else’s patch. I’m just not interested. Except that after I’d explained this in about ten different ways, he eventually said, ‘I’m disappointed, BabyB. Really I am. Believe it or not, you actually came on the highest recommendation from TheBoss himself. You might be surprised to hear that despite, or perhaps because of, what you did to him, he left with a very high regard for your abilities.’

  ‘Well that’s very generous of him and all but I’m afraid the answer’s still no.’

  ‘In which case, BabyB, let me sweeten the pill a little. What if I were to offer to pay off your loan shark and to refinance your mother’s loan for the next twelve months in return for your, er, cooperation?’

  My mouth must have dropped open since he added, ‘Don’t be surprised, BabyB. That’s the whole point. It’s our job,’ at which he looked across at ScandalMonger, cueing more smug face-pulling from him, ‘to know things. All things. Like the fact that a certain learned friend of yours called TopFi
rst is out to get you.’

  They both looked at me as if they knew rather more than they were letting on.

  Now I must decide.

  Tuesday 4 December 2007

  Year 2 (week 10): Deal on

  Last night I heard a noise downstairs and when I went to investigate I found my mother sorting through her jewellery which she had strewn across the living-room floor. As I entered the room she looked up and I could see that her make-up from the day before was smudged from crying. She knelt there, with a couple of earrings in her hand, and stared at me with a look of quiet desperation on her face. Then she said, ‘I just thought that perhaps these might be worth something.’ Her voice tailed off.

  I knelt down and hugged her and she started crying again.

  ‘I’m so sorry, BabyB. I really don’t know how I let it all get this out of hand.’

  Her whole body began to shake as she sobbed. I’ve seen her in a bad way over the years but never quite like this and all I felt able to do was to hold her in my arms. Then I took her by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

  ‘I promise you,’ I said, ‘that it’s going to be OK. You’ve put everything you have on the line to get me to where I am now and I’m not going to let you down. All I ask is that you trust me.’

  This seemed to calm her down and through her tears she said, ‘It’s not your responsibility, BabyB, but I do appreciate what you say. Thank you.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘You know, BabyB, you’ve grown up so much in the last year. If you’re even a fraction as reassuring to your clients as you are to me then you’re going to be an incredible barrister.’

  After I’d made her a cup of tea and she’d finally gone to bed, I tried to get a little sleep myself although I slept for only a few minutes before I was woken again by the worry of what was ahead. Slippery has me in a corner and I have little choice but to make the deal. I mean, he’s not asking me to actively participate in any shenanigans. Not that that would make any difference if it were to come before the Bar Standards Board. You see, that’s where he’s been clever. If he didn’t say anything then there was always a risk I’d start making my own discoveries and in some way upset the apple cart. But by disclosing it now, he has compromised me by the very fact that from here on in I won’t be able to plead ignorance. And behind all this I can’t help wondering whether the whole thing might be some protracted scheme of revenge by TheBoss.

  But on the other hand, I’m not going to be churlish. He’s also offering to solve what is currently the biggest problem in my life: keeping the loan sharks away from my mother and for that I am grateful. So this morning I made the call and told him he had a deal.

  ‘A wise choice, BabyB. Which means I can now speak to ScandalMonger and we can come up with a plan.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Oh, by the way, did I mention that he’s already representing RoundTheBlock in her negotiations with the press?’

  ‘Er, no.’ The penny dropped.

  ‘Oh. Must have slipped my mind. Should come in handy, though, wouldn’t you say?’

  I had no answer to make and then Slippery added, ‘BabyB, this could be the start of a bountiful friendship.’ Which as he said it made me suddenly realise exactly where one of his employees, a certain ClichéClanger, gets both his clichés and the habit of mangling them from.

  Once the deal was done I took the rest of the day off and collected my mother from work, let her go home and get changed and then took her out for a very expensive meal in Soho where I explained that I’d basically found someone who would take on the debt.

  ‘BabyB, that’s the best news you could ever have given me. I’ve been so very worried that by next month we’d both be out on the street.’

  I told her that that would never have happened but now there was absolutely no reason to worry. I obviously failed to mention the fact of yet another compromise I’ve had to make.

  Wednesday 5 December 2007

  Year 2 (week 10): Man with a plan

  ‘OK. So here’s the plan.’

  Slippery was on the phone again. ‘ScandalMonger fixes RoundTheBlock to become our witness. She decides to tell a new story about how someone from RedTop came to her and offered her cash in return for making a story up about BigMouth. He sells another front-page scoop and we win the case. He then packs her off to Brazil for a couple of years and RedTop will never get round to suing her for lying to them in the first place.’

  Thursday 6 December 2007

  Year 2 (week 10): TopFlirt

  With worries about TopFirst at the forefront of my mind, it was fitting that today was the day for my lunch with his fiancée. I figured that if she mentions it to TopFirst then at the very least it’ll raise the idea of my releasing the Ginny tape to her as well as causing him a certain amount of worry as to what I might be up to. If she doesn’t mention it to him then I still have the possibility of stumbling upon some useful information.

  Anyway, despite the contrived nature of our meeting, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the lunch, not least because, to my complete surprise, at one point I was fairly certain that she was beginning to flirt with me. Enough at least for me to give her the name TopFlirt. This not only came as a complete surprise but it has put me into all sorts of quandaries. First off, she’s extremely beautiful and bright and who wouldn’t be flattered by her attentions? Then there’s the fact that if anything were to happen it would be the ultimate way of getting one over on TopFirst, so to speak. On the other hand, she is my enemy’s fiancée and it’s at least possible she’s helping him to spring a trap. Also, if anything were to happen between her and I that might break up the engagement then even the tiniest hold I had over TopFirst with the Ginny tape would be gone. And finally, well, me I couldn’t help thinking about what Claire might say.

  ‘It’s so difficult at home, at the moment, BabyB,’ TopFlirt had confided. ‘TopFirst is so wrapped up in his work that he never seems to have any time for anything else.’

  I gave her a sympathetic look. What could be worse than being engaged to a monster like that?

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, I know what he’s like,’ she continued. ‘He’s always been ambitious. But there’s a fine line between hard-working and ambitious and completely losing sight of what’s important and he’s way, way over the other side of that line.’

  She looked upset as she said these words, as if this were the first time she’d dared to articulate them, even to herself, and then she added, ‘We used to take walks in the park and have day trips into the countryside, weekends at his parents’. These days it’s back to his flat and he’s straight in front of his laptop working away on whatever he works away on.’

  I just kept nodding gently and offering her my ear.

  ‘And what makes it worse, BabyB, is that he won’t even talk to me about his cases. “All confidential” apparently. I mean, let’s face it, you guys are hardly dealing in state secrets and I don’t see why he can’t share some of them with the person he supposedly wants to spend the rest of his life with. But hey, what do I know?’

  Then she touched my hand which was on the table next to the wine glass and said, ‘I’m sorry, BabyB. This is the last thing you want to hear, I’m sure.’

  Actually, nothing could have been further from the truth on so many different levels but I simply shrugged nonchalantly and said, ‘Hey, it’s good to chat about these things.’

  Despite all of my reservations, I am tempted to take her up on her offer of meeting up again in the new year.

  Friday 7 December 2007

  Year 2 (week 10): Billing clock

  I got an update from Slippery this morning. ScandalMonger did his job and the story is going out in Sunday’s newspapers. Meanwhile, RoundTheBlock has already booked her ticket out of the country. But that’s not quite the end of it.

  ‘I’d start working thirty hours a day on this for the next few days if I were you, BabyB. You know and I know that RedTop will fold and then we’ll both colle
ct 100 per cent uplifts. I have ten staff working round the clock on the case as we speak. You’ve probably got until Monday morning when if they have any sense they’ll stop the billing clock immediately. Oh, and although OldSmoothie and TheVamp don’t know about our friend MrScandalMonger I’ve indicated to both of them that settlement might be imminent so you might find that they’ll also be burning the midnight oil.’

  Monday 10 December 2007

  Year 2 (week 11): Case settled

  Having taken Slippery’s advice, I certainly billed for England over the weekend and I was not surprised that Slippery was right and both OldSmoothie and TheVamp were also to be spotted skulking around chambers trying to look busy. Research, working on documents and then more research. You never know, I would argue, RedTop may still decide to go ahead. Yeah, right.

  The only drawback about it was that I had to cancel a daytrip that Claire had organised to Brighton on the Saturday, after which she’d said she’d cook dinner for me at her flat. I did feel particularly bad when I rang her yesterday with the news but as she said herself, ‘Don’t worry, BabyB. Given that we’re both in the same job, I’m perhaps one of your few friends who fully understands the difficulties we face in organising anything beyond the end of our noses, never mind a normal social life. The joys of the Bar, huh?’

  Then she said with a chuckle, ‘Still, it’s great news that you have so much well-paid work. I mean, just think of all the dinners you’ll be able to buy me off the back of it.’

  Then after all the work was done, as if like clockwork at seven thirty this morning, we all received an email from RedTop telling us to stop billing immediately. We were not to add another penny to that big fat timesheet. The case was to be settled for half a million pounds plus costs. That’s a thousand times more than the £500 that BigMouth apparently paid RoundTheBlock in the first place, which is quite a return even for the litigation money machine.