by Gary Bell
‘And how did you react?’
Nazir scratched his left cheek, dampened his lips. ‘Well, I told him to get lost, didn’t I?’
‘In those words?’ Judge Pike had leaned forward, eyebrows raised. ‘We are looking for the facts, Mr Nazir.’
‘All right,’ he shrugged. ‘I told him to fuck right off, if you must know. Told him I work my arse off to earn my own money, and so does everybody in my family. We’ve never asked for any sort of handout. We’re good people. We’re British.’
‘And how did Mr Barber react to that?’ Garrick prodded.
‘Not well. He’s a big bloke, and the next thing I know is he’s coming straight for me. He pulls his fist back, but he’s slow, you know? Drunk. I can see it coming a mile off. I give him a quick parry, and drop him with my right –’ he imitated the swing in the air, a lightning-quick movement, and then, remembering his audience – ‘only to defend myself, of course.’
‘You maintain that your actions were in self-defence?’
‘One hundred per cent,’ he replied firmly. ‘I wasn’t taking no chances. The way he was carrying on, all them Nazi tattoos and that, I had no idea what he wanted to do, but he wasn’t looking to shake my hand, that’s for sure!’
‘What indeed?’ Garrick proposed, raising his eyebrows to the members of the jury, who were hanging on to every word. ‘What happened next?’
‘Nothing. He was rolling around on the pavement, seeing stars, so I got out of there quick.’ He tugged at his shirt, adjusted his belt, and lowered his head to the bench like a pauper doffing his hat. ‘I have a licence, M’Lord. British Boxing Board of Control. If they knew about all this, well … It could cause me a lot of grief, and, excuse my language, I wasn’t ready to have my licence suspended because of some pissed-up racist who’d come out looking for trouble.’
Pike nodded, scratching beneath his wig with one finger. ‘You’re certain that he’d come seeking violence?’
‘Absolutely. He’d never met me, he didn’t know me from Adam, but he wanted to hurt me from the minute he came round that corner and saw the colour of my skin. In a way, I’m glad it was me he found, and not somebody who couldn’t have defended himself. Course, whatever might’ve happened later, that’s on my mind a lot, and whether I should’ve done things differently …’
He trailed off, eyes dropping, and when I glanced to the side I caught Zara thumbing through her notebook.
‘Thank you, Mr Nazir,’ Garrick said, soft as he could manage, which wasn’t too soft at all. ‘The defence may have some questions.’
He cast me a flash of a leer as he sat, and I sighed as I got to my feet.
‘No, My Lord,’ I said once again.
‘Then I think that now would be a good time for a break,’ Pike said, checking the face of the clock on the wall. ‘I’ll rise now.’
‘Be upstanding!’ called the usher, and we were.
‘I still can’t believe that evidence was admissible,’ Zara whispered. ‘The witness is providing evidence for a supposed crime our client hasn’t even been indicted for, and one that has no relevance to this case! We ought to have his statement dismissed from the record.’
At her side, Garrick shared an especially condescending snort with his own junior and leaned intrusively into our huddle.
‘The relevance of Mr Nazir’s statement has already been ironed out in our bad character application,’ he said. ‘This isn’t America, my dear. We don’t just strike evidence from the record willy-nilly. Get at least one trial under your belt, and you might understand the basics.’
Her cheeks flushed, and though he was intentionally being a disdainful arsehole, he was correct, and there was little more I could say.
To further aggravate the moment, Bowen bent slyly across the back of our row, pretending to adjust his shoe, and hissed from the corner of his mouth. ‘Bad luck, Rook. I think you ought to tell the kid to leave the thinking to the grown-ups in future.’
Zara didn’t respond, but her eyes started to shine behind her glasses and she walked out of court with her hands in her pockets, face turned down to the ground. Bowen watched her shrink away, and then snidely clicked his tongue.
‘I’d say you’ve just lost your final hand, Rook. Now you don’t even have the race card left to play.’
Another relative trouncing, another lackadaisical lunch, and on to another witness on the stand.
It was the first time I’d seen Denise Dickinson, the Barbers’ upstairs neighbour.
The court dress she’d chosen consisted of a low-cut black cotton shirt, black jogging trousers, and black trainers. Her hair was a combination of peroxide kinks and woven extensions hanging down around a heart-shaped face, and her lips were painted a deep plum-purple.
She took the oath with her hands behind her back, pushing her chest outwards, and kept her face turned away from the public gallery at all times.
‘Mrs Dickinson,’ Garrick began.
‘That’s Ms Dickinson,’ she corrected, ‘thank God.’
‘Ms Dickinson,’ he managed through his tight, hatchet smile. ‘Please explain to the court what you witnessed on the morning of the fifteenth of April.’
‘All right. I woke up to smoke coming into the bedroom at just before six o’clock in the morning.’
‘You’re sure of the time? That is, after all, crucial to this case.’
‘First thing I did was reach out for my phone. I thought the downstairs flat had gone up in flames, to be honest.’
‘What made you think that?’
‘The smell. The thickness of the smoke. I couldn’t see it yet, but I could taste it, like burning nylon or something, and I thought it was coming up through the floor. My kids were asleep in the next room, so I was straight out of bed, phone in hand, and that’s when I realised it was coming in through the window.’
‘Your bedroom faces onto the back of the building?’
‘That’s right. I opened the curtains, and that’s when I saw him out there.’
‘The defendant?’
‘Yeah, Billy, down in the garden.’
‘And how did he appear to you?’
‘How’d he appear?’ She moved her hands forward, gripping the curves of her hips, and scrunched her nose. ‘Smashed, for want of a better word! Swaying back and forth, starkers, all except for a sock. He almost looked as if he’d been crying, tell you the truth, all red-eyed and just stuffing his clothes into the patio chimney they keep out there. I was so surprised, it was a couple more minutes before I took the photo.’
‘That’s this photograph?’ Garrick held up a copy, pivoting Billy’s naked form for all to see. Up in the gallery, I saw Sarah Barber bury her face into the crooks of her arms, and her brother-in-law – Caine or Declan, it was hard to differentiate these days – lumbered an awkward trunk of an arm around her narrow shoulders.
‘That’s it,’ the neighbour said. ‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.’
‘Nor would most, I’m sure.’ Garrick laid it back onto the piles before him. ‘Why did you post it online?’
She paused, clearly stumped, as if it was an action she hadn’t ever thought to question. ‘Because I was sick of it, that’s why! I wanted everyone to see what I have to put up with every weekend! If it isn’t him bringing his mates back to the flat in the early hours, all chanting and mouthing off through the floorboards, then it’s him treating his missus like muck! I’ve got kids trying to sleep, and all they get to hear is effing and blinding and God knows what else. That was the final straw. I’d had enough.’
Garrick mulled over the photograph, nodding to himself, and drummed his fingertips along the edge of the oak. ‘What did you think had happened?’
‘Well, he’s always out scrapping,’ she began. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time he’s come home covered in someone else’s blood. That’s what I thought it would’ve been. Everyone round our end knows what he’s like. Always been the case. Always kicking blokes’ heads in for something or other. Ha
ngs out with all these young, fit lads half his age –’
‘My Lord,’ I groaned, but Pike swiftly swatted away my objection.
‘I’ll allow it, Mr Rook. The prosecution’s bad character application still stands.’
Garrick nodded, grateful. ‘What happened after you took the photograph?’
‘He went inside. Couldn’t have been more than five minutes after that. Just left the fire dying. Must’ve woken his wife up when he did, because that’s around the time they started arguing.’
‘About anything specific?’
‘Couldn’t tell you. He was going wild, even by their standards. I could hear things breaking, thudding, and she was sobbing … Next thing I know, I’ve got my kids bursting into my room in tears, and that’s when I rang the police. It had all quietened down by the time the blue lights of the panda car got there, of course. It’s not right, how he behaves.’
‘Thank you, Ms Dickinson.’
As Garrick returned to his seat, Mr Justice leaned forward.
‘I don’t suppose the defence have any questions for this witness, do they?’
I got up wearily, a broken record in robes, and shook my head. ‘The defence have no questions, My Lord.’
‘Yeah they fucking do!’
Like a punch to the spine, it knocked the wind right out of me; every head in the room spun at once, and there was Billy, upright in the dock, pressing forward against the glass.
I pivoted completely, a full turn to the dock and then back to the bench, by which time the judge’s scarlet shoulders had bunched up around his wig.
‘Another outburst like that, Mr Barber, and I’ll hold you in contempt of court!’ he snarled. ‘Mr Rook, is there something you would like to discuss with your client before we continue?’
I held fast and swallowed a mouthful of air.
Dickinson might’ve been or done any number of things, but I knew she wasn’t lying.
‘No, My Lord. No questions.’
A terrific crunch was my reward, followed by an instant chorus of gasps, and I didn’t have to turn round to know that Billy had just slammed either his forehead or his fist into the glass.
‘Ask that lying slut about the fucking gang bang and her rape allegations, why don’t you?’
‘Get him out of my sight!’ Pike roared, and the prosecution positively bounced with delight; up in the gallery, the Barbers went off like dynamite, yelling, jeering and cursing, all except for Sarah, who had shrunk to the size of a small child.
Aghast, I looked back in time to catch the officers wrestling Billy by the shoulders, struggling to pin down King Kong, and then down he went, leaving an empty dock and absolute uproar in his wake.
28
The Viaduct Tavern was one of the original gin palaces of nineteenth-century London.
Directly across from Newgate Prison, it famously gathered lawyers, criminals, judges and government officials together through the years of citywide dipsomania, the reign of Mother’s Ruin.
Since the Old Bailey was built in Newgate’s place, the pub still tended to gather a similarly mixed bag of clientele under its round, blood-red ceiling, though now it was one of a nationwide chain, serving aubergine and red-pepper toasties along with its drams.
Less than half an hour after Billy had been dragged to the cells we were at a table behind a wooden screen to the left of the bar, fittingly close, I felt, to the lavatories. From the window, I could see the crowds of protesters dispersing once more for the evening; a rival group, mostly made up of white males, had recently begun to multiply across the road, occasionally throwing insults into the throng, while uniformed officers watched every move from nearby. All we needed now was a race riot, I thought. That’d finish the day off perfectly.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘that couldn’t have gone much fucking worse.’
I was gazing off into nothing, feeling thoroughly chewed up and spat out, following the light from the etched Victorian mirrors on the opposite wall as it splintered through hundreds of bottles behind the bar. People moved in those mirrors, smiling among friends, and I hoped they’d stay there, lest they be sucked up by the thundercloud in our corner.
Zara was swirling her fruit cider close to the rim of her glass, kicking a smell of sickly sweet berries up over the table. ‘He’s going to be convicted, isn’t he? Did you see the faces in the jury? Number 4’s jaw was practically in her lap.’
‘I saw.’
‘Is it wrong that I don’t want that to happen?’
Half my pint disappeared so fast that I missed the floral, hoppy notes advertised on the pump. ‘No, it isn’t wrong. It’s quite normal to build a relationship with the defendant, whatever they’re accused of. It should never be about whether you like them or not, and it doesn’t mean that you care any less about the indictment, but you are putting yourself in their position. Fighting for their freedom. Even the Devil’s advocate wouldn’t want to let Lucifer burn.’
She sighed, removed her glasses and folded them on the table. ‘It isn’t that. Whether he did it or not, I think that William Barber is an abysmal person, and if he’s sent down then his children might actually get a half-decent chance in life. He doesn’t seem to be a very positive presence …’
‘But?’
‘But if he does go down, and he really didn’t kill The Girl, then the murderer will still be out there. The case will be buried, apparently solved, the victim’s name might never be known, and the killer gets to go on with his life. It might even happen again one day, and that’s so, so much worse.’
‘Which is why it’s imperative that we never get bogged down on whether our client is good or bad by conventional standards,’ I told her. ‘We deal in evidence and have to ensure that the law is just, and the truth is found.’
This wasn’t entirely honest. Most barristers, in my experience, aren’t interested in the truth. We tell lies for money, but I couldn’t bring myself to say that to her. I finished the rest of my pint, and found my mind wandering back to one of Rupert’s favourite, most heavily recited quotes. ‘“Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”’
‘Keats,’ she nodded. ‘You know the client, don’t you, Mr Rook?’
‘Who, Barber?’ I must’ve hesitated then, long enough to give her the answer, and she pinched at the tiny indentations left by the glasses on the bridge of her nose.
‘Makes sense,’ she said. ‘It’s a small village, I doubt you would’ve missed him.’
‘Does that bother you?’
She shrugged, almost casual, as if she’d barely given it a thought. The way she avoided my eyes told me otherwise. ‘You told me to be friendly to defendants, but never to be their friend. You told me not to stick my neck out for them.’
‘That’s right.’ I put my empty glass firmly on the table. ‘And before you go on, I would like to make one thing perfectly crystal clear here. I am not, nor have I ever been, friends with William Barber. I knew his family, a lifetime ago, but I barely knew him.’
‘Then why you? Why this case? Why now?’
I leaned back, weighing the young woman with my gaze, and then rummaged in my coat pocket and slapped my wallet on the table.
‘If we’re going into this,’ I told her, ‘we’re going to need another couple of drinks over here.’
‘I’m all right for another,’ she said, finishing her cider and slipping her glasses back onto her nose, ‘but thanks.’
‘I meant for me.’
Four minutes later she was scratching her head, bewildered, looking as if she seriously regretted turning down the drink.
‘Aidan Barber?’ she repeated slowly. ‘That’s the one who died?’
‘Correct.’
‘You were mates?’
‘Best friends through school and beyond,’ I said, hearing genuine sadness in the words.
‘And you’re doing this because, what, you feel like you’re watching out for his family or something?’
; I shook my head and looked down at my bare hands on the table; the heavy, fidgeting thumbs, the yellow stain of nicotine along my middle fingers, and the permanent crack in the knuckle on the right. ‘We’d been out drinking in the city centre. We were only seventeen, but things were different then. Fewer ID checks. No mobile phones. We missed the last bus back to the village and had to take the half-hour service to Keyworth, get off in Plumtree, and walk the three miles east to Cotgrave. We’d done it before, so it shouldn’t have been a problem, except that there was this group of younger lads on the back seats of the bus, pressed up against the windows and making gestures down to the car behind us.
‘The car pulled up as soon as we got off at Plumtree, and the two blokes mistook us for the kids on the bus, I suppose. We knew how to handle ourselves, until one of them pulled a knife, and I ended up getting slashed from here –’ with one finger, I traced the permanent line across the breadth of my chest – ‘to here. Aidan had always been fitter than me. He was already halfway down the road when it happened, and he could’ve left me there, but he didn’t. He came at them like a wrecking ball.’
I felt the shiver of a faint, wretched smile at the memory of my friend, my hero, swinging his arms like windmills in the night, and then the smile withered away.
‘They cut the tendons in his leg so badly that he never walked right again. Six years after that, when he couldn’t manage the walk through the tunnels, he took a ride on the coal belt and went straight into the cutting machine. If he hadn’t come back for me …’
I shrugged, dragging myself out of a deep and treacherous reverie, and reached for my drink.
‘That’s really sad,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t –’
‘You should be getting off,’ I heard myself say, choking the heat from my face. ‘We’ll see how Judge Pike reacts after he’s had the night to cool off.’
‘Oh …’ Half a moment passed, and then she nodded the hint of a frown away, throwing both her blue and canvas bags over her shoulders. ‘I’m jumping on the Central Line at St Paul’s. You going that way?’