Sounds echoed in the bubble. The rustle of his papers. The shuffle of his shoes. The tap of his pen on the desk. The footsteps along the corridor on the other side of the bubble and then the rattle of keys.
He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed deeply through his nose. Dan had been a defence lawyer for ten years and the nerves around murder cases had long since gone, but that didn’t mean he could relax: whatever advice Dan gave now would affect what happened once the case started going through the courts. Cases were often won and lost in these weary visits to the police station, advice doled out after a long day in the office, the eye on the clock more than on the evidence presented by the police.
Dan opened his eyes as he heard a lock turn. A civilian guard appeared in the far doorway, a chain hanging from her belt, and ushered Peter Box in. She locked the door behind him, leaving them alone together.
It was hard to reconcile Peter with the image of a murderer, someone who would brutally attack a woman on a dark towpath. He was scrawny, an oversized blue paper suit hanging from him, his own clothes seized for forensic examination. The neck gaped wide, his shoulders thin. He rustled as he moved. His eyes were wide and scared.
‘Sit down, Peter.’
He looked at Dan for a few seconds before he shook his head. ‘No, I’ll stay standing.’
‘Why?’
He stepped closer to the glass. ‘If I sit down, I’ll relax and slip up. No, I’ve got to stay alert. That’s why you’re here, to protect me, to stop them from getting inside here.’ He jabbed the side of his head, close to where some of his hair had been shaved away, revealing a small horseshoe of stiches.
There it was, the anger. Was that fury the last thing Lizzie Barnsley had seen?
Dan closed his folder and leaned back in his chair. Peter was framed against the light in the ceiling, a bright panel, so that he appeared almost in silhouette, dark and glowering, his hair high and lit up like a halo.
‘Tell me your side of it,’ Dan said. When Peter stayed silent, he held out his hands. ‘I’m not writing anything down and if you decide you want to tell me a different version later, we can pretend we’ve never had this conversation.’
‘You can’t do that.’
‘Who’s going to know? But if I’m staying up late for this, you’ve got to make it good.’
Peter shook his head and wagged his finger. ‘I knew you’d do this. It’s a trick to get me talking.’
‘If you don’t talk to me, I can’t give you proper advice.’
‘I’m not saying anything to you, to them, to anyone.’
‘So why the hell am I here?’
‘To protect me, to be my shield. Otherwise,’ he paused and closed his eyes and clenched his fist before continuing, ‘they’ll do anything to get me talking. I’m not doing that. Not ever.’
Dan looked down and thought of the evening he’d planned for himself: a bottle of wine and a film. ‘How did you get your injury?’ He pointed towards Peter’s head.
‘I don’t have to tell you. Nor them. They’ve got to prove everything, right?’
Dan shrugged his agreement. ‘But if you don’t explain away the obvious, like how your DNA ended up on Lizzie’s shoe and how your head looks like it once had a stiletto heel stuck into it, you’ll be found guilty.’ Dan watched him for a few seconds. ‘Is there an explanation?’
Peter leaned forward, his hands on the small desk in front of the screen between them, his mouth so close to the glass that he misted it up. ‘I’m not talking. Your job is to keep it that way. No tricks. No stunts. Just silence.’
‘What about some neutral questions, just for my sake?’
Peter thought about that before he nodded. ‘Try me.’
‘Do you know the part of the canal where Lizzie was murdered?’
Peter was about to say something when he stopped himself. ‘Very clever.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘They haven’t told me where she was murdered, so how can I know whether I go there?’
Dan sighed. ‘I’m not your enemy here. Whatever you tell me today stays between us. That’s how it works, the client-lawyer privilege.’
Peter considered that and sat down. He softened, and for a moment he looked scared, as if he’d just realised what lay ahead. ‘I go there sometimes, mostly at night. I like the darkness. It protects me. You can’t know if you’ve never truly felt the darkness around you, but the sound is clearer, every footstep, every drone of a car, every bit of birdsong.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘That surprised you, didn’t it, that birds sing at night too? But they do. I hear them, sharp calls from the trees.’
‘Why the canal though?’
‘It’s where the true darkness is. Don’t you know that? Go there during the day and what can you hear? Not much, that’s what. Then go later, past midnight, and listen again. To the ripples against the banks, where the water settles against the grass growing along the side, or the way it reacts against the moon shining across the surface, pulling the water towards it. You won’t be able to tell that, but I can, because I’m attuned to it. I’ve been in the darkness all my life.’
Dan had tried to remember all that Peter was saying, because he’d known he’d need to recount it later, to look for some clue as to what was driving him.
‘Did you know Lizzie? Were you meeting her there?’
‘No, I don’t know her. I saw her name in the papers, that’s all.’
‘Were you there on the night she died?’
He sat back in his chair and looked towards the ceiling. ‘I can’t talk about that. Not ever. Just get me out of here. I can’t go to prison. It wouldn’t be right, or fair.’
Dan let out a long breath. This was the worst part of the job, knowing something and trying to keep it from the police, but it was what he’d signed up for. He was a defence lawyer. He believed in the justice system, that everyone deserved a fair trial, because it was about fairness. Sometimes though, when his career choice helped to keep murderers or rapists or child molesters on the streets, things didn’t seem quite so noble. If Peter Box had murdered Lizzie Barnsley, and it was due to a compulsion he couldn’t control, any success Dan had defending him would always be clouded by the knowledge that he could kill again.
Sometimes, that weighed heavily.
‘You’ve got the right to silence,’ Dan said. ‘Let the police do their job and see if they can prove it against you. If you won’t talk to anyone, that’s the best we can do.’
‘Don’t let me talk. That’s all I ask.’ Peter turned to bang on the door.
‘Last chance to talk to me before the interviews start.’
‘I’m ready.’
He banged again until the same civilian guard appeared.
Peter bolted through the door and screeched when he got into the corridor, like the sound of a wounded and cornered animal. Someone else thumped on a cell door and shouted.
* * *
That had been four months ago. Peter had maintained his silence, even during Dan’s visits to the prison, which meant that it was up to Dan to find a defence.
He’d scoured his medical records, hoping to find a history of mental illness, an abnormality that could account for a random attack on an innocent stranger. It wouldn’t secure his release, but it could replace murder with manslaughter and get him transferred to a hospital rather than a prison.
The only entries he’d found were some periods of anxiety years before, and they were wide apart. The first one was around fifteen years ago, and then a few years later.
For reasons Dan couldn’t fathom, Peter Box wanted to go into his trial in the hope that saying nothing would save him. Dan knew that wouldn’t work, because jurors like to have a reason to free a murder suspect, and Peter wasn’t giving them one.
Dan was jolted from his thoughts by the sound of his door buzzer. He wasn’t expecting a visitor and he didn’t want any distractions. When he went to the security panel, he saw it was his boss, Pat Molloy.
Something wasn’t right.
Three
Jayne Brett sat in her old Fiat Punto. Pale blue, with a passenger door that was dented from a crash a long time ago and a passenger window that didn’t shut properly.
She was in a car park of a small supermarket. She’d been there for two hours and the rear seat was already covered in drinks cans and wrappers from a fast-food breakfast. She was too tired to laugh at her situation, the so-called glamour of the private investigator. It wasn’t how she’d imagined it would be when she first started out. It had been Dan Grant’s idea: stick around Highford and he’d feed her work, he’d said.
Yeah, he’d tried his best, but he couldn’t manufacture investigations for her. He’d given her work but it was often too far apart, and his scraps didn’t pay the rent. She’d touted herself around the other local law firms and it had led to work like this, spying on cheating spouses. It made a change from serving court summonses or injunctions to angry recipients, but she was becoming aware that she shouldn’t have drunk so much coffee. Her bladder was full but there was nowhere for her to go discreetly. There was a take-away cup somewhere; she might have to use that and tip it out of the window.
Jayne was helping a law firm in a divorce case, looking for evidence of the husband’s adultery, which the wife had started to suspect at the appearance of the usual unsubtle signs: sharper clothes, too much aftershave, an attempt to dye his hair. It was up to Jayne to complete the picture. She was intruding on someone else’s life but she had her own problems: she had no money left on her electricity card and her rent was two weeks overdue.
Jayne had been following the husband for a week, and the most useful information she’d gathered was that he didn’t like to go home and spent long hours walking in the park instead, staring straight ahead or gazing into the flowerbeds. Whatever else was going on in his private life, he wasn’t a happy man.
Then it came. Last night he was supposed to be travelling to a work conference, an overnight trip. Jayne had expected to merely follow him to a railway station, but instead he’d left his car in the supermarket car park and rushed into an apartment building opposite.
Jayne had got some pictures of him entering the building, but it was dark and she couldn’t risk her flash going off. She could have waited all night, but the thought of sitting in her car as the husband got warm and cosy on the other side of the bedroom curtains hadn’t appealed to her. She’d got up early and waited instead, except she had to keep on wiping her windscreen as she misted it up with her breath.
The early start was killing her, especially on a Sunday. The effects of the night before clung on to her though. She’d gone out for a drink after her brief vigil, just a few drinks at one of the pubs in town, sitting in a corner and watching the locals get more drunk as they danced and sang to the efforts of an eighties cover band. There were a few of her conquests among them, men who’d filled a need, some of whom she remembered, although she’d never sought a second date.
She sat up when the door of the apartment building opened and he emerged, checking around first. He was wearing different clothes and carrying a small bag. Jayne raised her camera and got some shots.
A woman emerged behind him, her dark hair tousled from bed, and they kissed, passionately and at length. She was wearing a silk dressing gown and his hand went behind her, to pull her close.
More clicks of the camera.
Jayne checked the images on the display screen. She had enough now. It was time to pass on the bad news. Or good news, depending on how it was received.
As she drove away, she checked her petrol gauge. Nearly empty. She hoped the firm would pay for her work promptly, because she was down to the dregs in her account and it was looking like food or petrol were her only choices.
Jayne sighed. Her life needed to amount to more than this. In her mid-twenties, she shouldn’t be scruffing around a small northern town. It had been partly her choice and partly circumstances, but she was starting to feel restless. She had once expected more from her life.
Her thoughts turned to Dan, as they often did.
He’d been there for her when she was at her worst point, so it was natural that her thoughts drifted to him when she was alone. She’d been a client once, accused of murdering a violent boyfriend. Somehow, they struck up a bond, but she wondered whether she should sever it. She was a different person now. Whatever had gone before was just that: gone.
She thought of Dan too often, when she felt aimless, or lonely, her flat cold and empty, her bed only ever filled with fleeting encounters, just flurries of limbs and false affection.
It wasn’t the brevity she minded, she had needs to fulfil as much as the men who passed through, but sometimes she missed having a companion. Someone to trust.
All that lay ahead for now was the report she had to write. The suspicious wife would want something to confront her wandering husband with when he returned home with tales of his non-trip out of town.
As she made her way home, she wished she had enough fuel to just drive and keep going. After all, what would she be leaving behind? A small apartment. Debts. A business that just about kept her afloat. She could drive over the hill and find a new life. Somewhere brighter, with more hope. Highford seemed to be strangling her somehow, the hills that surrounded it like a barrier. It kept the wider world from coming in, so that the residents knew only each other and too many had no thoughts of ever leaving.
She turned down the hill to begin her journey across town.
Jayne knew she wouldn’t leave. Not yet anyway. The insularity of the town was her protection, her sanctuary.
Damn you, Dan Grant.
Four
Dan pressed the buzzer and waited by the door for Pat Molloy to come up. He hadn’t seen his boss for a couple of weeks – he’d been caught up in his own cases and Pat had been working from home a lot more.
When the lift door opened, Pat stepped out slowly, coughing, a large brown envelope in his hand. He looked round, as if he wasn’t sure where to go, before he spotted Dan in his doorway. Outlined against the lights further along the corridor, Pat looked bent with age, his walk more of a shuffle.
‘This is a rare treat,’ Dan said, although there was no levity in his voice, shocked by the change in his boss.
He realised how little he’d seen of Pat recently. They’d both been busy, and whenever they came across each other, Pat was in a suit. On a Sunday morning, Pat was more casual, in corduroys and a cashmere v-neck, and his frame seemed more fragile.
‘Daniel, we need to talk.’
Dan showed Pat into the living room, still littered with papers from Peter Box’s case.
As he took them in, Pat said, ‘Are you all ready for tomorrow?’
‘As much as I’ll ever be.’
‘You’re not worried? Your first solo murder trial?’
Dan gave a small laugh. He didn’t need to be reminded of that.
He was a solicitor, normally found in the Magistrates Court, but he’d acquired the qualification to conduct trials in the Crown Court, once the sole preserve of barristers, the wig-and-gown brigade. It wasn’t Dan’s first murder trial, but it was the first without a Queen’s Counsel to handle the serious stuff. Peter had wanted Dan to do it alone, one of the few things he was specific about.
Dan tried to dismiss the pressure he felt. ‘What have you always said, that a murder is just an assault with one less witness? I’ve never forgotten it.’
‘This is different, though.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Pat? You all right?’
Pat didn’t respond straightaway. Instead, he looked towards the window and took some deep breaths.
Eventually, he turned back towards Dan. Gone was the usual gleam in his eye, the twinkle of mischief. In its place was a greyness. There were dark shadows under his eyes and his silver hair was dishevelled.
‘There’s only one way to say this, so I’m going to spit it out,’ he said. ‘I’ve got cancer.’
The shock hit Dan like a punch in the gut. He sat down, open-mouthed.
He’d worked for Pat his entire career. When he was still a young trainee, Pat had knocked the edges off his idealism, teaching him the realities of being a criminal lawyer, and all with a touch of panache. Once he qualified, Pat taught him his best tricks, the wise words of a seasoned professional. Pat had been more than a boss. He’d been his mentor, his teacher, a splash of colour in an increasingly drab world, with his exaggerated mannerisms and his attempts to play at being the small-town eccentric, in red braces and bright ties, his fedora keeping his head warm in winter. Dan knew it was fake, just a way of attracting attention to get the clients, or a way of distracting the local magistrates from the cold realities of the evidence, but after a while everyone becomes the person they pretended to be.
There was none of that extravagance now. Pat’s pallor was grey, his eyes heavy. Dan cursed himself for not noticing that perhaps his suits hung a little looser than normal, or that his shirt collars gaped too much.
Dan swallowed before he spoke. ‘How bad?’
‘Can it ever be good?’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve not been good for a while. You’ve heard me wheezing and getting out of breath.’
‘That might be just you getting old. Come on, Pat, it can’t be cancer.’
‘They’ve done all the tests. It’s lung cancer.’
The Darkness Around Her Page 2