by Gary Bell
‘OK. That’s fine.’ If I didn’t sigh on the outside, I must’ve kept it to myself. ‘Thank you, Miss – Barnes, was it? I really do wish you the best of luck in finding pupillage.’
I pushed the great red door of the old terraced town house and left her standing on the cobbles there, jumbling the pieces, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. I was most of the way across reception when I decided that Percy was right, there was a good reason I was no longer invited onto the interview panel.
The last thing I expected to hear was the quiet bump of a boot catching the closing door behind me, and the young woman’s voice shout a single word into the old building.
‘Galbraith!’
I stopped. When I turned back, I must’ve looked as if I’d been punched squarely in the face. ‘I beg your pardon?’
She was grinning, all the way from the boots up, and it suited her entirely.
‘There’s no case to answer!’ she blurted. ‘In the case of Galbraith, the Court of Appeal said that if there’s no evidence that the defendant committed the offence, then the court should throw the case out, right? The doorman is charged with assaulting a constable in execution of his duty, but the officer wasn’t acting in the execution of his duty. He didn’t have a warrant, and he wasn’t on the premises to stop a breach of the peace. He exercised his right to enter the premises for the purpose of arrest, under Section 17 1B of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, but he clearly said, on camera, that he was only there to question the man. Therefore, he had no right to enter, he wasn’t acting in execution of his duty, and so I submit that there’s no case to answer!’
A long silence followed, in which I gave up trying to count all the people who had failed that puzzle over the years; the Oxbridge elite, seasoned barristers and respected judges alike. It required much more than a textbook knowledge of the law. It took lateral thinking, a wholly different approach, something that wasn’t taught in any school, no matter how illustrious.
‘All right,’ I said, deciding that perhaps I ought to take my senior clerk’s advice on appointing a junior after all. ‘You want to come inside and discuss your application?’
And she did, grinning still, with no premonition of the danger she was getting herself into.
3
As soon as we reached my room on the third floor, I started snatching as much of the scattered paperwork up from the desk as I could manage, before resigning myself to the fact that there were too many sheets for it ever to be presentable, particularly alongside two empty cartons of cigarettes, the container of a takeaway I couldn’t remember eating, a half-completed Rubik’s cube with most of the stickers already peeled away, and four mouldy teacups.
I cleared my throat, clenching my shame between my teeth, and told her it had been a busy week.
‘Wasn’t expecting company.’
She waved it off politely, not quite masking her mien of mild horror, and gazed over the unsteady stacks of cardboard boxes, the unorganised, overcrowded bookshelves, and the battered upright wig box, known as a biscuit tin to barristers.
‘Nice fedora,’ she remarked as I chucked my hat onto the clutter. ‘Very Chinatown.’
‘Thanks,’ I mumbled, feeling a lot less Chinatown and much more Ironweed. ‘A little before your time?’
She shrugged and straightened her jacket, which was a couple of centimetres too large on the shoulders.
As I took a chair, two realisations came upon me at once: first, I was accustomed to a very different kind of interview, the sort involving solicitors and alleged crooks, and didn’t know what to say or where to start; second, I was embarrassed by the state of my room, like a Cabinet minister caught with pornography. I sat a little straighter, smoothing the bulge of the gut inside my tucked shirt. There are those in the legal profession – any profession, in fact – who prey on the hope of prospective young interns. I know, because I’ve defended such predators in my career, and I was hideously conscious of that before we began.
‘So,’ I said, twiddling my thumbs, ‘what do you –’
‘Holy shit!’
She literally tried to catch the words before they reached me, slamming a palm over her mouth. A silence followed in which we both must’ve looked as startled as the other.
‘I’m sorry! I’m proper sorry, but, is that real?’
I traced her gaze up to one book turned face out from the highest shelf, the illustration of the bough on the cover almost faded to nothing beneath the title. Of all the clients I’d had in the room, few had noticed it there, and I couldn’t recall a single one who’d recognised its worth.
She reached up – ‘Do you mind?’ – and took the book down from the shelf.
She stroked a couple of fingertips over the spine, over Truman Capote’s portrait of Harper Lee on the back, just as I’d done when I’d first removed the wrapping paper on the morning I passed the Bar, before replacing it carefully on the shelf.
‘You know they only ever printed, like, five thousand of these first editions?’
‘I heard.’
She whistled. ‘Must’ve been a serious effort to get hold of!’
A pang rattled my ribs. I felt my left thumb betray me as always, instinctively twisting the band of useless gold around its third neighbour. ‘What do you know about Miller and Stubbs, Miss Barnes?’
She sat slowly in the opposite chair, steeling herself, and gave her carefully rehearsed response.
‘It’s the pre-eminent criminal set in London. Four Queen’s Counsel – including yourself – and more than forty juniors. Clients all over the country. It’s about as good as it gets.’
‘You aimed high.’
‘Is there any point in aiming lower?’
She wasn’t rude, just sharp, and so I felt comfortable giving it back just as straight.
‘Well, for starters, it’d be easier to get your foot in almost any other set in the country. Cheaper overheads if you ended up with a tenancy. You join a set in the heart of the Inns like this, and you’ll be saying farewell to half your income on rent and overheads alone.’
She nodded attentively, cheeks aglow in the slanting light of the window.
‘I can only presume that you wish to become a trial advocate?’
Another nod. ‘I want to defend those who are powerless to defend themselves.’
‘As did I, but as I’m sure you know, barristers follow what we call the cab-rank principle. Like taxi drivers, we take the next case that comes our way, whatever the charge, and rarely get to pick and choose. This inevitably involves both defending and prosecuting. Briefs, or cases, are sent by solicitors through our clerks. Occasionally, a particular barrister is requested by a client, but mostly the solicitor will leave it to the clerks to make the decision. You can only turn down a case if you have a previous commitment, or if you consider it either too complex or not serious enough for a barrister of your call.’ I held out an open hand. ‘CV?’
I half expected the paper to be crumpled, it took her so long to fish it out from the clutter in her canvas shoulder bag, and was surprised to find it flattened in a hardback folder.
I leaned back and scanned the orderly typeface. ‘Law degree from Hull?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you’re originally from?’
‘Nottingham.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘St Ann’s,’ she muttered, a flash burning her cheeks. ‘It’s a suburb close to the centre. Gun capital of England apparently!’ A thin, watery laugh did nothing to flush the heat out from her face.
‘Along with the Meadows estate down the road, isn’t it?’
She cocked her head. ‘Um, yeah, exactly. Most people haven’t even heard of it …’
‘I’m not most people,’ I said, reading on.
It hadn’t always been the gun capital. Not when I was born there, and it had been a sprawling slum without hot running water.
‘Pretty average degree, but I see you have a good debating record. I d
idn’t even know they had a debating society at Hull.’
‘HUDS,’ she said proudly. ‘I won the Middle Temple Inter-varsity, too.’
‘So did I,’ I boasted, before noticing, with a sobering wrench, her written age of twenty-four; I won that before she was born. ‘This would be your second six, correct?’
‘Um,’ she pinched at the laddered nylon around her knees, ‘not exactly …’
‘Oh?’
Between passing Bar exams and calling oneself a junior barrister, there is a minimum requirement of a year’s pupillage divided into two six-month periods, at the end of which successful pupils are typically offered a tenancy in chambers.
‘This would, technically, be my third. For my first six I shadowed Roger Walsh at King Edward’s, and in my second, still with Walsh, I learned how to conduct my own hearings in the magistrates’ court, do basic bail applications and pleas-in-mitigation, and I defended and prosecuted in six summary trials.’
‘And you weren’t offered a tenancy?’
She shook her head. ‘The place went to another pupil from my year.’
‘Any idea why?’
She managed a wry smile. ‘I wasn’t clubbable, whereas he was. That was the word they used. I suppose it didn’t hurt that he was Judge Sudworth’s son, Monty.’
I nodded, rapping my fingertips on the paperwork on the desk; I wished I had a secretary to call for coffee on my non-existent intercom. ‘A levels in law, English, film studies, psychology and drama?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I know you’re gonna be looking for something more academic …’
‘Not at all,’ I said, knowing full well that Percy would’ve been revolted by such subjects. ‘I’d say they’re entirely relevant.’
Her bright eyes narrowed a touch. ‘How’s that?’
‘Well, some advocates get by on doctrine and formal procedure alone. They know Blackstone’s from cover to cover, case laws to fit every argument, but becoming a truly great barrister requires something more. The best advocates are, in essence, showmen. I’m not suggesting vaudeville, but enough of a performer to keep the jury hanging on every word can be crucial. Defending at the Criminal Bar might not be the walk-and-talk glamour of American television, we’ve still retained a great many of our traditions, but drama is, most certainly, relevant. Most trials are won and lost by the closing speech alone.’
‘Huh …’
I was glad to notice her sink more comfortably into the chair.
‘I’m currently taking instructions from major solicitors in cases involving the embezzlement of millions, which require exhaustive research and come with hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence.’ With one hand, I indicated the untidiness around us. ‘It is challenging work, but it can also be unbearably dull. I’d need somebody around who isn’t afraid of long hours and filing paperwork. That said, I also need somebody who is prepared to help defend some of the most abhorrent criminals and killers one might imagine.’
‘Don’t you mean alleged killers?’
‘No, I mean killers. Let’s not be naive about this. The fact of killing is often admitted, but murder, as a legal concept, is denied on grounds such as self-defence, provocation or diminished responsibility. Only a jury can determine whether or not a self-confessed killer who pleads not guilty is a murderer, but more often than not, it is killers with whom we conduct our business.’
I could hear my tone slipping, burrowing, nestling into the familiar accusatory rhythm of cross-examination. I wondered how long it had been since I’d had an ordinary discussion with a stranger, beyond the formal colloquies of the job. How long since I’d been alone with a young woman. It was more than a year since I’d had a drink or dinner with anybody outside of the legal circle. Somewhere inside, I worried about what social skills I’d retained since Jenny had left.
‘The unpleasant reality,’ I went on, ‘is that most of the clients I defend really have committed some of the most depraved acts imaginable. In order to construct a fair defence, emotional detachment is critical.’ I saw her eyes narrow and continued before she had chance to interject. ‘I took silk after defending a man accused of murdering two young women. One was seventeen years old, the other twenty-one.’
‘That’s terrible,’ she said quietly, ‘but everybody is entitled to a fair –’
‘He ate them.’
I watched the spark fall from her face.
‘He ate their flesh in various recipes, which he recorded and rated in a journal. I had the murder charges dropped on the grounds of diminished responsibility; the same defence I used for a young mother who boiled her infant alive inside the dishwasher.
‘These are the sorts of people you’ll be charged with defending, and to this day I’m positive that both were entirely compos mentis in their actions. Fortunately, it’s not for me to pass judgement. We barristers have to trust in the system to provide justice, but reconciling the verdicts with your own private opinion is something you must find a way to deal with, as well as the animosity that can come from all sides.’
She chewed her thumbnail in silence for a moment; cobalt varnish chipped away against white teeth.
‘What animosity?’
I picked up the Rubik’s cube and juggled it in my empty right hand.
‘Defence barristers may well be among the most reviled professionals in the working world, third only to traffic wardens and tax collectors. As far as the papers are concerned, we’re the ones who come along after the case is solved, once the Mystery Machine has driven off into the credits, to set the ghoul loose inside the theme park again. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you are aspiring to join what is largely regarded as the bottom-feeding scum of the justice system.’
She dried her palms on her tights and blew out a mouthful of air. ‘Jinkies.’
I laughed out loud; it was entirely inappropriate, but warm and natural, right from the belly up, and something I hadn’t done in chambers for as long as I could remember. She laughed back, and in the sound, as in her accent, I was reminded of a life almost forgotten. Easy as that, I was sold.
‘They didn’t mention any of that over at King Edward’s,’ she said. ‘You got any advice on dealing with it?’
‘Only this …’ I stopped juggling, rolled the puzzle away over the desk. ‘When you prosecute, always remember that you’re acting as a minister of justice, and it’s your duty to see that justice is done. When you defend, do so fearlessly, but honestly. Try and win your cases, but don’t ever cheat. Be friendly to defendants, but never, ever forget one crucial point. They are not your friends. Don’t ever stick your neck out for them, no matter what you do.’
‘All right,’ she said slowly, straightening her glasses, ‘I can do that.’
I smiled again. ‘Then I think you’ll fit in well here.’
The final point of this conversation was one that would come back to me again and again, in moments of great regret and shame, when my neck was well and truly on the line for the client that was about to change everything.
4
One room filled the top floor of our building.
It belonged to Rupert Stubbs QC, who sat four storeys above the sign over the front door that bore his name. Aston Miller QC, his former partner, had been dead for seven years, leaving Rupert the sole head of chambers at seventy-one, but Miller’s name remained.
After meeting Zara, memories of my own first days in the building had resurfaced, and, despite the decades passed, Rupert remained ever the pragmatist and almost indistinguishable from the man who had first invited me into chambers. It was as if he’d acquired the physicality of a gentleman well beyond his years early on, to get the ageing process swiftly out of the way. He’d been grey and crisp in appearance as long as I’d known him, yet the physical bulk of my stature was slight compared to the magnitude of his character and intellect. He could’ve been a genius in any profession, but as an officer of the court he was both fierce and fair, one of the finest lawyers I’d se
en beneath the wig, and the privilege of being his personal pupil had been mine alone.
I still remember his inaugural words when I, floppy-haired envy of every failed Etonian applicant among the Inner Temple, had taken a seat in that illustrious room on the highest floor.
‘Never sit with your jacket fastened, boy. It ruins the cut of the cloth.’
I’d laughed about that afterwards, my pinstripe blazer having been so oversized and absurd, purchased for less than two pounds from the Oxfam on Drury Lane. My clothes hadn’t seemed to bother him in the slightest.
His room remained a physical paean to old-world silk; where my shelves were cluttered and punctuated by the likes of Kafka, Dostoevsky and Dickens, his were organised and imposing, with rows of academic leather-bound spines etched in the green glow of an original Emeralite banker’s lamp, even when sunlight illuminated the rooftop cityscape beyond the spotless windows. For many years he had smoked a pipe up in that room, and the woody smell of its tobacco still permeated the leather of the wingback chairs, the walnut of his grand desk.
He was pacing back and forth in front of the windows when I walked in a week after Zara’s impromptu interview, moving with the precision of a grey pendulum between the standard barrister’s horsehair wig on its plinth in one corner – the same he’d had when we first met – and the full-bottomed ceremonial wig on the opposite side, which he’d had since turning to judging.
‘You wanted to see me, Rupert?’
He beckoned me into one of the wingbacks without a smile and shut the door behind me.
‘Hat,’ he scolded, and off it came. ‘It has come to my attention that you’ve appointed Mr Charles Stein as junior on this fraud case of yours, on the condition that he takes on a pupil who will effectively be working for you.’
‘That’s right,’ I said, slumping back into the smoky stretched hide. I could’ve picked Stein’s name from a hat, for all the thought I’d given it; rules dictated that I couldn’t mentor Zara myself – silks aren’t given pupils – so I chose the first junior barrister in chambers I could think of and convinced him to take her on by offering him a slice of the gargantuan fraud case.