by Simon Booker
Morgan’s gaze is unflinching.
‘It’s not the past for Anjelica Fry,’ she says. ‘Or her baby.’
*
Outside, the meter has expired and the Mini has been clamped. Leaning against the bonnet, Morgan starts to roll a cigarette, wondering how this day could possibly get worse.
‘You OK?’ says Lissa.
‘Terrific.’
‘Me neither.’
Morgan raises a foot and nudges an empty Coke can into the gutter.
‘You do believe me?’ she says. ‘That I saw Karl in the van?’
Her daughter’s hesitation is telling.
‘I guess so.’
Morgan frowns.
‘But you’re not sure?’
Lissa sighs.
‘It just doesn’t make sense, Mum. Are you saying he escaped a massive inferno then reinvented himself as a whole new person called Pablo?’
‘Got a better explanation?’
Lissa sighs and shakes her head.
‘So whose was the body in Karl’s flat?’ she says. ‘And what did Pablo make you smuggle into prison?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
They fall silent. It starts to drizzle. Morgan snatches the parking ticket from the windscreen and stuffs it into her pocket. She zaps the fob then gets into the car. Lissa follows suit, chewing on her lip, the way she does when feeling antsy. Morgan knows her daughter. Tears are not far away.
‘Want to talk about it?’ she says, settling behind the wheel and fumbling for her lighter.
‘About what?’
‘The whole Pablo thing.’
A sigh.
‘Are you going to tell me I’ve got crap taste in men? If so: pot meet kettle.’
Morgan opens the window and lights her cigarette.
‘Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.’
‘Einstein?’ Lissa is incredulous. ‘A philandering egomaniac who dumped wife number one so he could marry his cousin? He’s your go-to guy for advice on relationships?’
‘All I’m suggesting is—’
‘I know what you’re suggesting,’ says Lissa. ‘I screwed up again, and I’m sorry. But he seemed like a nice guy, and he said stuff it was nice to hear.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as, meeting me was the best thing ever, a sign he was on the right path, doing the right thing.’
Morgan plucks a strand of tobacco from her tongue.
‘What did he mean by “on the right path”?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Lissa. ‘But if all men are like my last couple of picks, I give up.’
Morgan opens her mouth to speak but her daughter holds up a hand.
‘Don’t say it.’
She reaches for Morgan’s pouch of tobacco and points to the lettering on the side. ‘What does that say?’
‘Smoking Kills.’
‘Exactly,’ says Lissa. ‘We all mess up in our own way. And when it comes to self-destructive behaviour – smoking, driving fast, falling in love with the wrong sort of people – all advice is useless.’
Morgan puts her cigarette between her lips, wondering how her daughter can be so wise one minute, so idiotic the next.
‘I’m starving,’ says Lissa.
‘There’s a bagel place down the road.’
‘You promised proper lunch.’
‘That was before we got clamped.’ Morgan drags on her cigarette. ‘And before the world went bat-shit crazy.’
Eight
After settling the extortionate fee to get the clamp removed, ‘proper lunch’ feels like an extravagance, but a visit to an upmarket hair salon on Stoke Newington Church Street is essential. Lissa has been stoical about the attack on the cliffs. Time to help her feel better.
The ache in Morgan’s ribs is easing but she hasn’t discounted the possibility of delayed shock striking out of nowhere. Sitting next to Lissa, trying to tune out the hairdresser’s cheerful banter, her phone vibrates. An email from D.I. Tucker.
Subject: Anjelica Fry/Karl Savage
The message contains email addresses for fire scene investigator Ben Gaminara and forensic odontologist Jatinder Singh Dip. F. Od. No greeting, no sign-off. Tucker has kept his word, but will cooperate no further.
The hairdresser goes to make coffee.
‘So,’ says Lissa, ‘now what?’
‘I need to find enough evidence to submit Anjelica’s case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.’
Her daughter studies her new fringe in the mirror.
‘You keep saying “I”. How about “we”? Pablo was my boyfriend.’
‘This isn’t a “we” kind of thing.’
Lissa plucks the phone from Morgan’s hand, her fingers dancing over the keyboard.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Checking out this Criminal Cases Review thing.’
She logs on to the Commission’s website and reads aloud.
‘In order for the Commission to refer a case back to the appeal court we must be able to present a new piece of evidence or legal argument, not identified at the time of the trial, that might have changed the outcome if the jury had been given a chance to consider it. We look into all cases thoroughly, independently and objectively but legal rules governing the work of the Commission mean we can only refer a case if we find there is a real possibility that an appeal court would quash the conviction.’
She looks at her mother.
‘A real possibility? How about, Karl is still alive?’
Morgan raises an eyebrow.
‘So you do believe me?’
Lissa thinks for a moment.
‘I believe you believe you saw him.’
Her fingers tap at the phone.
‘Now what are you doing?’
‘Finding the name of Anjelica’s lawyer.’
*
The barrister who conducted Anjelica Fry’s defence turns out to have died five months ago: a heart attack while playing squash. The next best thing is the legal aid solicitor saddled with a case way above his pay grade. His office is above a Turkish restaurant on bustling Green Lanes in north London. The aroma of roasting lamb wafting up the gloomy staircase is making Morgan hungry, but the smell of whisky on the man’s breath is causing her to feel queasy. She can see the bottle of Bell’s on the floor behind a stack of files, out of sight – or so Grahame Millar thinks. Finishing a greasy bacon roll, he leans back in a creaky chair that threatens to give way under his weight.
‘You went to see Anjelica in prison?’
Morgan nods.
‘She sent me a letter. Powerful. Persuasive.’
The man casts a doubtful look in her direction, adjusting his girth in the chair. His shirt is missing a button; a tuft of gingery chest hair pokes through the gap.
‘She’s good at pushing the “poor little me” button,’ he says, using a fingernail to prise a morsel of bacon from his teeth. ‘Much good it did her.’
‘Is there anything you can tell us?’ says Morgan. ‘Something overlooked during the trial? A piece of evidence that’s come to light since? A technicality that might get her case to the appeal court?’
Millar frowns.
‘Not that I can think of.’
‘Why did she choose you as her solicitor?’ says Lissa.
‘She didn’t. I get a call from the local nick and deal with whatever comes in. Or should I say, “dealt”.’
Lissa frowns.
‘Why “dealt”?’
‘They’ve slashed legal aid budgets, sweetheart. From now on, people like Anjelica will be lucky to get people like me.’
Morgan takes stock of the shabby office with its stained ceiling, ancient computer and teetering stacks of files. She wonders just how lucky Anjelica felt, finding herself on a murder charge, her fate in the hands of Grahame Millar. His mobile beeps. He glances at the text.
‘Two more minutes, then I need to go and bail out the third toerag of th
e day.’
Morgan wonders if Anjelica was written off as another ‘toerag’, but manages to keep her smile in place.
‘I’ve read the case reports,’ she says. ‘I spoke to Anjelica about her defence. She says you told her that the evidence against her was purely circumstantial, that no jury would convict, that the CPS should never have brought the case to trial.’
A shrug.
‘I say a lot of things. Makes people feel better.’
‘Wow,’ says Lissa. ‘Cynical much?’
Morgan shoots her daughter a glare but the man behind the desk doesn’t seem to notice the jibe, rifling through a pile of papers, looking for a file.
‘What if I said you were right?’ says Morgan, trying to strike an emollient tone. ‘That the case should never have gone to trial.’
A shrug.
‘I’d say, win some, lose some.’
Lissa narrows her eyes.
‘So, you give, like, zero fucks?’
‘Did I say that?’
‘Doesn’t it bother you that she’s banged up?’ says Lissa.
‘I do my job. I sleep like a baby.’
‘Because you think she was guilty?’
Millar is getting testy.
‘I try not to have opinions about my clients, sweetheart. They get in the way. And it doesn’t matter what I think.’
‘It matters to us,’ says Morgan. ‘And Anjelica.’
She watches his eyes flicker towards the whisky bottle. She can see him working out how to get rid of them so he can have a drink before he leaves.
‘Gun to my head,’ he says, sucking bacon grease from his fingers, ‘I’d say the jury got it right.’
Lissa’s eyes widen, her voice brimming with indignation.
‘I don’t understand,’ she says. ‘If you thought she was guilty of murdering the father of her child how could you help with her defence?’
Millar’s look is laden with disdain.
‘It’s not my job to teach you how the legal system works. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .’
Finding the file he’s been looking for, he gets to his feet. Morgan follows suit, making a last bid for the solicitor’s attention.
‘What would you say if I told you that Karl Savage is still alive?’
A smile spreads across the man’s pasty face as he ushers Morgan and her daughter towards the door.
‘That’s easy, sweetheart.’ He opens the door. ‘I’d say you were out of your tiny mind.’
*
Darkness is falling as they near Dungeness, Lissa driving as Morgan dials the editor of Pro Bono. The new webzine was announced months ago, launched on an ocean of champagne at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Knightsbridge. Its mission: ‘to lift the rock of the British legal system and shine a light on the miscarriages of justice festering beneath’. The party was a glitzy affair, filled with sharp-suited lawyers and dead-eyed ladies who lunch, but the venture has yet to appear online. A year ago, editor/publisher/proprietor Jocelyn de Freitas (Lissa calls her Cruella de Vil) received a gazillion-pound divorce settlement from her philandering husband, a lawyer specialising in mer-gers and acquisitions. In a Tatler profile, she promised to plough some of the spoils into what Morgan worries may prove no more than an expensive form of revenge, a vanity project of the worst kind. What’s bad for the image of her much-hated ex-husband and his profession is good for Jocelyn de Freitas.
But things are worse than Morgan feared. Her potential patron’s number is unobtainable and a Google search confirms that the Pro Bono website has been taken down. A search for Jocelyn’s name unearths recent photos of her at a fancy dress party on a billionaire’s yacht. She’s dressed as a Nazi, complete with Hitler moustache, and accompanied by a brace of dwarves.
It’s true what they say: the rich are different.
Morgan pockets her mobile, breaks the news to her daughter and peers out into the darkness. Drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, Lissa sighs and steers the Mini off the main road, onto the tarmac path that leads towards the beach and the hotel that is their temporary sanctuary.
‘This just keeps getting better,’ she says. ‘No help from the only media outlet that might put resources into the case, or from the lawyer or the police.’
‘In a nutshell, nope.’
‘So it’s you and me against the world?’
Morgan turns to look at her daughter, taking stock of her new pixie-ish hairstyle. Eighteen months ago Lissa was a spoilt brat, interested only in hanging out at her father’s Malibu house or developing a ‘career’ as a celebutante. A brief dalliance with her mother’s old flame ended in disaster, the leaking of a sex tape leading to a brush with the wrong sort of fame. Now she’s a lost soul – one day brimming with enthusiasm for training as a nurse (never going to happen), or a barista (more likely), the next enthusing about becoming a YouTuber. Whatever that is. On the plus side, she seems to have stopped talking about getting breast implants.
Morgan is trying not to meddle. Her own choices have never been the smartest. Besides, Lissa is right: Pablo was her boyfriend. Whatever the truth about Karl, like it or not, Lissa is involved.
‘Yes,’ says Morgan. ‘You and me against the world.’
Her daughter sounds pleased.
‘At least you’re OK for cash.’
Morgan decides not to mention her dwindling resources. Her status as a bestselling author sounds impressive, but it will be some time before her book earns out its advance, and the money is long gone.
Meanwhile, a young mother is in prison for a murder she didn’t commit.
‘So now what?’ says Lissa.
Morgan makes a decision. It’s time to commit. Take things to the next level. She scrolls to the email from DI Brett Tucker.
‘Now we track down the arson investigator. If Anjelica didn’t start the fire, we need to find out who did. And if Karl didn’t die, whose was the body in his flat?’
Lissa pulls up outside the Dungeness Beach Inn, a Y-shape of three clapboard shacks linking to a central hub. Judging by shafts of light spilling from the windows, at least four of the twelve rooms are occupied. Stepping out of the car, Morgan listens to the waves on the shoreline. Then comes another sound in the distance – barely audible.
‘Can you hear that?’ says Morgan.
‘Hear what?’
‘The baby, crying.’
‘What baby?’
‘Shhh. Listen.’
They stand still, straining to hear, but there is nothing except the whoosh of the waves. Lissa heads inside, muttering under her breath.
‘Perfect. Now she’s hearing things.’
*
Waking just after 3 a.m., a groggy Morgan wonders if she’s hearing things again: the distant cries of the baby?
Or maybe she’s dreaming. The two Zopiclone she washed down with wine make it hard to tell. Within minutes, the powerful sleeping pills are dragging her back to sleep and she’s drifting off to the sound of waves crashing on the shore.
Nine
The sun is high in the sky as Morgan braves the icy waves, swimming against the current while keeping the inn in sight. According to Sawday’s guide, ‘this quirky new boutique hotel is comprised of twelve individually themed rooms, each named after the wildlife for which Dungeness Nature Reserve is justly famous around the world’. Lissa is in ‘Dragonfly’, Morgan is in ‘Falcon’. ‘Wheatear’ is across the corridor, between ‘Badger’ and ‘Stoat’.
The inn opened too late to catch the summer trade and is seldom more than half-full. Its owner-manager is Eric Sweet, a shy, pony-tailed giant in his fifties. Softly spoken, he reminds Morgan of someone you might see at a party, pretending to browse bookshelves while trying not to look lonely. Needing sanctuary after glimpsing Karl Savage outside her house, widower Eric was the first person Morgan thought of. His offer of a reduced room rate was irresistible. ‘Mate’s rates’, he called it, even though he had met Morgan just once, at the inn’s launch party. Morgan was the only loca
l to attend, apart from a rowdy gang of lads lured by the promise of free alcohol.
Returning from her swim, there’s no sign of life at the polished refectory table that serves as the reception desk. A posh candle flickers, infusing the air with the dense musk of wild fig and cassis. Clad in bathrobe and flip-flops, hair wet from her swim, Morgan reaches for her key, brushing past a set of wind chimes, then freezing as she hears the sound of a crying baby. Following the noise, padding down the corridor, she pauses outside Lissa’s room. The wailing is coming from inside. She raps on the door.
‘Hold on.’
The crying intensifies as the door is opened by Lissa, looking harassed. On the bed is a baby boy, kicking his chubby legs in the air, face contorted with fury. Morgan feels a flicker of relief.
‘So I wasn’t hearing things.’
‘No,’ says Lissa. ‘Remember how to change a nappy?’
Morgan nods. ‘It’s like riding a bike.’
‘Maybe that’s where I’m going wrong.’
Stepping into the room, Morgan closes the door then deftly tends to the soiled nappy. The crying subsides, dwindling to a contented gurgle.
‘His mum’s the new cleaner,’ says Lissa, wrinkling her nose at the sight of the nappy’s contents. ‘Eric felt sorry for her and gave her a job. She’s got nowhere to leave the sprog so I’m babysitting.’
‘All day?’
‘Maybe. It’s not a permanent job; he’s just being nice to her. Poor man’ll be broke by Christmas.’
‘Why is he so sorry for her?’
‘She just got out of prison,’ says Lissa. ‘Her hostel chucked her out for smoking a spliff so she’s got nowhere to go. Eric found her scavenging for food. She’d turned a wheelie bin on its side and was trying to kip inside, with the baby, so he gave her a room and a job.’
Morgan has come perilously close to skid row but she’s never been reduced to sleeping in a wheelie bin.
‘Why was she in prison?’
‘I googled her,’ says Lissa. ‘Her name’s Kiki McNeil. She served three and a half years for texting while driving.’
‘They put you behind bars for that?’
‘They do if the car’s stolen and you kill a sixteen-year-old kid by knocking him off his bike.’
Morgan blows out her cheeks.
