The Darkness Around Her

by The Darkness Around Her (retail) (epub)

  Dan headed towards the robing room, accessible through a green door at the end of a long corridor lined with black-and-white tiles, part-worn by the nervous footsteps of the accused through the decades. The courtrooms on either side had seen all the county’s tragedies, with murderers sent to the gallows from them, and Dan could sense the weight of history whenever he entered.

  He passed a group of people on the way. Stern-faced, mouths etched in fine lines, tattoos running on to the backs of their hands from underneath their shirts, stretched tightly across their forearms. Large rings dominated their fingers, thick gold chains across broad tanned chests visible through the open shirt buttons. Lizzie’s friends and family. In the centre of the group were her parents, their washed-out complexions betrayed the devastation of the previous few months. They’d been at every pretrial hearing, silently supporting each other. He admired their dignity. He knew they didn’t admire him.

  As he passed them, Dan gave a small nod, just a gesture of politeness to say that they weren’t the enemy. The father went as if to move towards him, his lips pursed, but a hand on his arm stopped him.

  One of the court ushers looked as if she was about to say hello but Dan kept on walking. With the victim’s family so close by, cheery pleasantries weren’t appropriate. Soon, he was in the hush of the robing room, where thick carpets dulled the noise and the air was heavy with expensive perfume.

  There were a few barristers in there, emptying leather bags and thumping thick legal texts onto the tables. Some were in front of the mirrors, fixing their stiff white collars.

  Someone guffawed from the other side of the room. ‘Here he is, the latest star.’

  Dan wasn’t amused. It was a jibe, a lot of the older ones resenting his presence on an important case. Barristers had run a closed shop for a long time, with solicitors not allowed to appear in the higher courts. That had changed more than twenty years ago, but only recent funding cutbacks had made a real difference, and old prejudices died hard.

  ‘If you’re good enough, you’re old enough,’ Dan said, although he knew it was just a boast to make himself feel better.

  ‘A murder though. You’ve hit the big time.’ A smirk. ‘Or perhaps you’ll find out the opposite.’

  Dan found a quiet corner and ignored the snipe. They came often, and he’d trained himself to ignore them. Dan’s background was humbler than most of the barristers he came across, who bragged of their good education in their exaggerated vowels. Dan had been raised on a Highford estate, his father spending his spare hours fighting trade union battles, drilling into him that life was all about class war.

  Dan hadn’t taken on his father’s views – some people just got better starts than others – but that didn’t stop him bristling whenever some of the country set tried to put him in his place.

  The barrister was right, though: this case was different from the rest, because it was a murder case and he was defending it on his own, for the first time. In most murder cases, if Dan was part of the team in court, he was junior to a Queen’s Counsel, fielding the routine questions. This time, he had a client who had insisted on Dan doing it alone.

  It might work for him. The case was a good one, and if it looked like he was hiding behind an expensive legal team, even if it had been thrown together using government handouts, the jurors would take an instant to convict him. If Dan defended him alone, however, the jurors might see someone corralled through the system and feel sorry for him.

  Provided they were prepared to look past his silence, of course. Virtually no one gets to stay silent when facing a murder allegation and keep their freedom.

  Dan delved into his bag for his collar before sitting back, rolling the stiff piece of white cloth in his fingers.

  He was taking a risk and he needed it to pay off. His client had made his will clear. It was one of the few times Peter had said anything. He’d jabbed at the table in the prison interview room and told Dan that he had to conduct the trial. No help. No Queen’s Counsel. That wasn’t how Dan did it normally, but margins were tough in criminal law and that forced people into difficult choices. There was no reason why Dan couldn’t do the trial alone, although he knew the judge would give him a hard time. Judges liked fresh meat, and a solicitor-advocate conducting a murder trial would be just that. The Law Society might have its say too. His client was allowed to make bad choices. Dan wasn’t. If he lost the case through inexperience, he could be struck off, but he couldn’t afford to turn away a murder case just because of stage fright.

  He got to his feet and removed his normal shirt collar, held in place by a brass stud at the back and buttons at the front. He fastened the stiffened wing collar in its place, the tabs hanging from it, just two white cloth strips. He straightened his black waistcoat and took a deep breath, before slipping on his gown. He felt like he had when he first started out, a mixture of nerves and energy. Once the case started, it would be different, because the case was only ever going one way, and that was forward. It was this part, the anticipation, that made him crawl with nerves and question whether it was all worth it. The late nights, the worry, the way his life often felt like it was only ever about others, not him.

  He couldn’t think like that now. He had to do his job. He had to trust his own abilities.

  Dan collected his bag and left the robing room, preferring the echoes of the corridor to the sideways glances in there. He knew the chatter would turn to him, as they questioned his arrogance. Let them talk. The only way to shut them up was to win the case.

  Next door to the robing room was the entrance to the cells. He keyed in the combination for the locked door and made his way down the stairs, past the grubby tiles, until he reached the window at the bottom.

  Dan paused and closed his eyes. The whole case had been building up to this moment. The first day of the trial. His mouth felt dry and he had to take a few gulps of air to suppress the slight rise of panic. Be professional. He couldn’t show whatever nerves he felt.

  He pressed the buzzer and waited.

  A face appeared at the window. ‘Morning, Mr Grant.’ It was one of the security guards, whose job it was to ferry the prisoners to and from prison, making sure they weren’t let out in error. ‘You’ve got Mr Box, haven’t you?’

  ‘That’s right. How is he this morning?’

  ‘Calm.’

  The door buzzed as Dan opened it. He made his way to a small kiosk and waited for Peter Box to appear on the other side of the glass screen.

  They didn’t have to wait long.

  Peter slouched as he came through the door, slumping onto the seat on the other side of the screen. His left eye bore the marks of a fading bruise.

  Dan pointed. ‘What happened?’

  ‘A friend of Lizzie’s boyfriend was remanded last week. He couldn’t resist when he saw me.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘I’ve got dressed up for court, though,’ and he tugged at his tie, making the knot smaller. ‘What happens now?’

  ‘You could cut out this charade where you hope that staying silent will make the case go away.’

  ‘So you keep saying, but I’m not going to prison for the rest of my life. Your job is to get me out.’

  ‘Based on what you tell me, but you’re not telling me anything. You’re making it hard for yourself.’

  Peter scowled and folded his arms, a posture he’d adopted through most of Dan’s conversations with him, if they could be called that.

  Dan lowered his voice. ‘This is your last chance, Peter. The trial is here now, today. If you just want to shorten your prison stay, manslaughter is the way, but you’ve got to talk to me.’

  ‘Right to silence, I’ve told you. And I’m not staying in prison.’

  ‘You’ll stay in prison for longer if you don’t talk.’

  ‘You make it sound like I don’t have a chance. Why should I trust you?’

  ‘Because the judge won’t let you change lawyers today. You chose me, didn’t want anyone else.’

  Peter sla
mmed his fist on the desk. ‘Because if there’s a QC here, I’d get the same as I get from you. More jabber, more pressure. I’m not talking.’ He closed his eyes and took some deep breaths. When he opened them again, he said, ‘Just get me out. I can’t stay in prison. People spit in my food and bang on my cell door, telling me how they’re going to get me.’

  Dan stayed silent, hoping that Peter was about to have a change of heart, but Peter didn’t seem interested in talking. He thought about what Pat had told him about Peter trying to confess to Rosie’s murder all those years ago and decided to confront him.

  ‘You’re not talking about Lizzie’s murder, but you were happy to talk about Rosie Smith?’

  Peter looked up, his eyes clearer now, his gaze more intense. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Rosie Smith, a fourteen-year-old girl murdered on a canal bank twelve years ago. Sean Martin stood trial for the murder of Rosie Smith, and you went to see my boss about that and tried to confess to it, but you weren’t believed.’

  ‘Twelve years ago, whatever, it’s a long time.’ His voice was quieter.

  ‘It is, but it makes me wonder why you’d do that? And Rosie was murdered along the same stretch of canal?’

  ‘Was she? I can’t remember.’

  ‘Can’t, or won’t?’

  Peter folded his arms and scowled.

  Dan let him stay like that, hoping that Peter would blurt an answer out, give him something he could work with, but he kept his silence.

  ‘You say that you can’t stand it in prison because of the threats,’ Dan said, ‘but that won’t stop once you’re out. The press will write up the case, how you got off on some technicality, because that’s all I’ve got to work with, just some hope that a witness reveals an error in the paperwork that I can blow up to be something important. Everyone who meets you will know what you did, except you’ll be on your own out there. No guards to protect you when you walk out of a pub, snarling men watching you go.’

  ‘Stop it!’ Peter clamped his hands over his ears.

  ‘What was it about Rosie Smith? What did you do?’

  No response.

  ‘What do you know?’

  Peter stood up, knocking his chair back, and banged on the door. When it wasn’t answered straightaway, he thumped it.

  As the door opened, Peter took one last look back at Dan before rushing through.

  Dan closed his legal pad. As he looked at the closed door, he knew one thing: Peter was holding back, but about what? If he’d murdered Rosie, Dan owed it to Pat to show that Sean Martin’s taunt at the party was just talk, a sick joke, nothing more, except that he could only show that by revealing his own client as a murderer. Whatever loyalty he owed to Pat, his job was to protect Peter.

  There was another thought too that he wouldn’t allow to take proper form, because it was in the background of everything a criminal lawyer did, that acknowledged truth smuggled behind every comment about professional duty, and that was the fact that Peter was most likely Lizzie Barnsley’s murderer. If Peter really had killed her, a random victim in the dark, and he was acquitted, then he’d do it again, because it was possible he’d murdered Rosie too.

  Dan didn’t know how he would deal with that.

  Fifteen

  Jayne looked up at the building that housed Chase Walker, the law firm that had engaged her to spy on the cheating spouse. She was wearing jeans and pumps, her green army-style jacket showing its age with frayed cuffs and collar. She almost laughed at the contrast. There were men and women buzzing around the entrance to the office in pressed suits and shiny shoes. Her job gave her freedom but didn’t do a lot for her self-esteem.

  She’d stopped by her flat to get a change of clothes after her bath at Dan’s, her skin smelling of his foam bath and the freshness of his towels. She had to finish the job for this client before she could start properly on Dan’s.

  The building was grit-blasted stone, cleaned up once the mills had stopped belching smoke over the town, the firm’s name displayed on a large sign. It stood opposite a small park enclosed by black railings. This was what passed for Highford’s professional quarter, populated by dental surgeries and accountancy firms, with the law firms alongside, but not many did criminal law. They didn’t want thieves and drugs dealers, or worse, sharing the reception with company directors and farmers.

  She went inside and into the reception area, bright from the sun streaming in through large windows, the ceilings high and the internal walls replaced by glass partitions, every part of the layout designed to look minimalist and modern. She could see right through to the Mercedes and BMWs in the car park at the rear. She guessed that the parking spaces by the building were reserved for the people whose cars made the firm look good, the high-earning partners and solicitors. All the junior lawyers and support staff were probably forced to pay for parking further off in some urine-soaked piece of concrete in the town centre.

  The receptionist looked up as Jayne got closer. Her bright smile was fixed in place but had none of the deference she might have shown had Jayne walked in wearing a business suit.

  ‘I’m here to see Anna Ellis,’ she said. ‘I’m Jayne Brett.’

  ‘Take a seat please,’ she said, before she whispered into a phone, and then, ‘She’ll be down in a minute.’

  Jayne sat back and stared out of the window until the loud click of heels on the stairs announced Anna’s arrival. She strode across the reception area with that mix of grace and arrogance that was present in many of the lawyers Jayne met.

  Jayne stood. ‘I don’t know how happy your client will be, but I got some pictures of him leaving an apartment block, and a quick kiss from the woman waving him off.’

  ‘Let me look,’ Anna said, snapping her fingers as she held out her hand.

  Jayne handed over the envelope. As Anna flicked through the pictures, Jayne pulled a folded piece of paper from her inside jacket pocket. ‘I’ve got my invoice too.’

  ‘Hand it to her.’ Anna waved a hand towards the receptionist and set off up the stairs again. She hadn’t said thank you.

  Jayne rolled her eyes, but the receptionist wasn’t prepared to show any solidarity. She snatched the invoice and said, ‘Thank you,’ before going back to whatever had occupied her before Jayne had walked into the office.

  Jayne bit back an acerbic comment. They were her customers, after all.

  In the legal world, Dan’s office was a long way from Chase Walker. At times, it seemed even further from her own world, but at least Dan’s cases generated something interesting, rather than grubbing around in the debris of a broken marriage.

  She checked her watch. Just before ten. Now, it was time for some real work.

  * * *

  As Dan emerged onto the court corridor, the usher approached him. ‘Mr Grant, the judge wants to see you.’

  ‘Open court?’

  ‘Chambers.’

  Dan took a deep breath. He guessed what this was about.

  The Honourable Mr Justice Standage was a High Court judge drafted in from London because of a local shortage. He’d called Dan the week before, to check that he was ready. Dan had assured him that he was. The judge had done the same with the prosecution, but it wasn’t routine, and seemed to be just part of the judge’s picky ways.

  With those preliminaries out of the way, there could be only one other question: why was Dan defending his client alone, without a team?

  Dan followed the usher into the courtroom. There was no one else there. Just three rows of wooden desks with rigid wooden benches, in front of a raised dock protected by glass. Behind that were seats for the general public, so that the defendant sat like a specimen in a glass tank. The walls were lined with paintings of past judges, and the sunlight was blocked out by long green curtains.

  It was like entering a church; it seemed appropriate to whisper.

  Dan pointed to the space behind the judge’s bench. ‘Is it just me in there?’

  ‘The prosecutor as well.�
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  The usher went up the few steps to the space behind the judge’s bench and Dan followed her. She pushed one of the wooden panels that lined the wall, which was in fact a door. They walked through and immediately the reverence of the courtroom was replaced by the absolute hush of the judges’ corridor. The corridor was lined with thick carpets that deadened all noise. The doors on this corridor led to small, plush judges’ chambers.

  The usher knocked on the first door and waited until she heard a deep rumble: ‘Come in.’ She opened the door and went inside. Dan followed.

  The room was dim, the sunlight straining to get through frosted windows, there as a security measure. There was a bookcase along one wall and a large desk in the middle of the room, with a burgundy leather inlay.

  The prosecutor, Francesca McIntyre, was sitting in a chair opposite a man pale and creased by too much time spent indoors. Judge Standage.

  Dan hadn’t come across him before, although his demeanour hinted that he regarded his trip up north as slumming it. He was wearing his court robes, red and black silk, although his horsehair wig was on the desk. He looked like a man who moved slowly but Dan had been caught out by that before. He’d once taken a trip to the Court of Appeal and watched in astonishment as three old judges had almost dozed off as the barristers spoke, but then ripped into them with questions that showed that they knew every fact in the case. The judgment had already been made, but they had enjoyed toying with the junior counsel like a cat playing with a mouse before the kill.

  Francesca looked up and smiled politely, but there was a slight twinkle to her eye that told Dan that she had been exchanging pleasantries with the judge before he arrived, and regarded herself as one-nil up.

  Francesca was shrewd and confident and knew how to play the game. Always honest, like all good prosecutors are, because the bad ones get found out early on in their careers, she knew how to make the small plays. She was diminutive and understated in appearance, her hair pulled back into a black clasp, not too much make-up, but once in court she was bold and aggressive. Alongside her, Dan looked like exactly what he was: younger and less experienced.