Sloane enters the room ahead of several members of nursing staff.
Charles goes to the corner of the room and, using Bricker’s pen, lifts the revolver by its trigger guard. ‘Got a bag?’ he asks Sloane.
‘Dear God, Charles, you don’t half push your luck! If we’d left five minutes earlier, we’d never have seen him coming in.’
‘How did you know who he was?’
‘We didn’t. But he was making a scene demanding your room number, and he looked a bit odd. He kept putting his hand into his jacket pocket and you could see the outline of that —’ he points at the revolver. ‘So we followed him up.’
Bricker has attached handcuffs to Kellett-Brown and is hauling him to his feet. ‘Come on, you,’ he says. He turns to Charles. ‘Does he always smell this bad?’
‘’Fraid so.’
Bricker speaks to one of the nurses. ‘Anywhere we can keep this bloke until the Met arrive? He’s not really our concern.’
‘Yes. Follow me. Shall we call 999?’
‘Yes, please. I’ll get one of the Met boys to take your statement, Charles.’
‘Sure. I’m not going anywhere.’
Bricker drags Kellett-Brown out of the room. Sloane is about to follow, his hand on the door handle, but he stops again. ‘Any more of your former colleagues want to kill you, do you suppose?’
‘I hope not,’ replies Charles, lightly. But then, with greater gravity: ‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘You might want to think about that, Charles, when considering your career options. See you.’ The door closes.
Charles resumes his place on the bed. He closes his eyes and waits until his thudding heartbeat slows to normal. He suddenly feels profoundly tired and wonders if he might be able to sleep, but he can’t calm his seething mind. DC Sloane’s final comment touches on something he’s been turning over incessantly for several days. Every component of his life has been shattered, like the shards of a smashed mirror, and he has no idea how to put them back together again. Could he really go back to Chancery Court after two of his colleagues have tried to murder him? And then there are the tattered remnants of his private life. He’s no longer married, so where’s he going to live? He knows he’ll have to return to Putt Green, at the very least to sort out Henrietta’s affairs. But to live there? No, what would be the point? It was never really his home. Henrietta chose it because it was close to her friends and her parents. It was she who lovingly restored it and created the garden. No, Charles doesn’t want it. So it has to be cleared of Henrietta’s belongings, which presumably should go to her parents, and then sold. But he can’t face that, not yet at least. And then there’s Rachel’s parting shot, and the unresolved business with his family.
He opens his eyes and gingerly reaches over to the bedside table where a slip of paper protrudes from underneath the fruit bowl. Written on it in Rachel’s firm angular hand is a telephone number, the number of his parents’ home somewhere in north London.
Charles turns the scrap of paper over and over in his hands, contemplating the ever-shifting grey clouds as they scud past his bedroom window. Then he reaches for the telephone. First things first.
***
Want to carry on the adventure with Charles Holborne? Read An Honest Man
— Book Two in the Charles Holborne legal thriller series.
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A NOTE TO THE READER
Dear Reader,
Thank you for taking the time to read the first Charles Holborne legal thriller. I hope you enjoyed it. I am following Charles’s story through the 1960s and although each novel in the series may be read as a stand-alone, the next in the series, An Honest Man, follows on directly in time from The Brief.
Those of you have been to my one-man show, “My Life in Crime”, will know that Charles and his history are based upon me and my own family. Mine was the first generation of Michaels to be born outside the sound of Bow Bells (as you will know, the test for being a “true Cockney”) since 1492, when they arrived in the Port of London as refugees from the Spanish Inquisition. Much of the series is autobiographical. Thus, Charles’s love of London and the Temple are mine; at the start of my career I experienced the class and religious prejudice faced by him; the plots are based to a greater or lesser extent on cases in which I was instructed as a criminal barrister; many of the strange and wonderful characters who populate the books are based upon witnesses, clients and barristers I have known, represented and admired respectively. I try to take no liberties at all with the operation of police procedure, the criminal justice system or the human heart; the books are as true to life as I can make them. If you find any mistakes, I shall be delighted to hear from you. I always reply, and if you’re right, I will make sure future editions are changed.
Nowadays, reviews by knowledgeable readers are essential to authors’ success, so if you enjoyed the novel I shall be in your debt if you would spare the few seconds required to post a review on Amazon and Goodreads. I love hearing from readers, and you can connect with me through my Facebook page via Twitter or through my website.
I hope we’ll meet again in the pages of the next Charles Holborne adventure.
Simon Michael
www.simonmichael.uk
HISTORICAL NOTES
The Charles Holborne series follows the political and social events of the 1960s, a time of enormous societal change and violent lawlessness in London. The Krays, the Richardsons brothers and other gangs fought for control of the fortunes to be made from pornography, prostitution, illegal gambling and protection money, often assisted by corrupt Metropolitan Police officers. Operation Countryman, the operation to draft in officers from provincial forces to weed out the barrel-load of rotten apples in the Met, started the very year that I was called to the Bar in 1978, and some corrupt Metropolitan police officers were still being investigated until the mid-1980s. Governments have repeatedly refused to publish the findings of Operation Countryman.
The books also trace the start of the celebrity culture which we “enjoy” today. As you will see from the later books in the series, the rise of the Kray twins led to them being feted for their connections with the stars of sport and entertainment. There are photographs of them taken, for example, with Sonny Liston, Henry Cooper, George Raft and Liza Minnelli. It was an intoxicating mix of celebrity and gangster violence, which I explore further in the series as the Krays’ star rose and then fell.
ALSO BY SIMON MICHAEL
An Honest Man
The Lighterman
Corrupted
The Waxwork Corpse
Published by Sapere Books.
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United Kingdom
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Copyright © Simon Michael, 2015
First published by Urbane Publications, 2015.
Simon Michael has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales are purely coincidental.
eBook ISBN: 9781913028527
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Simon Michael, The Brief: Crime and corruption in 1960s London (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers)
The Brief: Crime and corruption in 1960s London (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers) Page 24
