The Lighterman: The Kray Twins are out for revenge... (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers Book 3)

by Simon Michael

  Reggie pulls out the remaining chair from the table and sits down. ‘Sorry I’m late, Mum,’ he says.

  Violet gets up. She is in her mid-fifties, short and stocky with brittle blond hair cut fairly short. ‘That’s all right dear. We kept yours warm.’

  Violet takes a kitchen towel and removes a covered plate from the oven. She places it in front of Reggie and goes to collect some cutlery. Reggie nods towards a cardboard box of pills on the table next to the bottle of spirits.

  ‘Not feeling too good, Ron?’

  If Ronnie Kray hears the enquiry, he doesn’t answer.

  ‘We’ve been trying to persuade him to take them,’ says Charlie. ‘It’s the pills the shrink gave him last month.’

  ‘Don’t wanna fuckin’ take them,’ mumbles Ronnie, head down and staring unseeing at the table top. ‘I ain’t fuckin’ mad.’

  His voice is slurred and Reggie guesses that his brother has drunk almost the entire bottle of spirits since the early afternoon, when he stood up without a word and walked out of the billiard hall. His mood has been on the wane for several days.

  ‘No one said you are,’ reassures Reggie. ‘They’re just to help you stay calm.’

  ‘Well I ain’t fuckin’ taking ’em.’

  Violet places a knife and fork and another empty tumbler in front of Reggie and resumes her seat. ‘There’s a brown ale left if you want it,’ she offers.

  Reggie reaches for the bottle of spirits — brandy, he now sees. Ronnie’s hand moves towards the bottle as if to grab it but he doesn’t complete the movement.

  ‘Can’t I have one?’ asks Reggie.

  Ronnie shrugs. ‘Help yourself,’ he slurs.

  ‘I’ve sent for Rose,’ says Violet. ‘She should be here soon.’

  Reggie pours himself a slug of the brandy, picks up the knife and fork and starts eating the meat loaf, gravy and boiled potatoes on the plate in front of him. The room descends into an uncomfortable silence. Reggie chews for a moment and then points at his twin brother with his fork.

  ‘I got something that’ll cheer you up,’ he announces. Ronnie doesn’t answer. ‘Did you hear me, Ron?’

  Ronnie Kray lifts his head slowly, as if struggling against the gravity pulling it towards the table. It takes a moment for his eyes to focus on Reggie. ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘That brief we was talking about. The one you’re anxious to sort out. The word from the Temple is he’s starting a week-long trial at the Bailey next week. You might want to have a word with that chap at the prison; get transport arranged. Wednesday or Thursday maybe, late afternoon.’

  It takes a few moments for the words to percolate through Ronnie’s alcohol-fuddled brain. Then he nods slowly. ‘Yeah, that is a bit of good news,’ he says, an uncertain smile just touching the corners of his mouth.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘I shall remain in court, gentlemen, but please feel free to leave.’

  Charles and his opponent bow to Mr Justice Fletcher and start gathering together their papers. The movement causes Charles to wince slightly. The stitches in his back are due to be taken out that afternoon, and they pull. Today is the third day he has managed without painkillers, and he hopes to start training again at the weekend.

  The usual courtesy requires that the judge should never be left in court without barristers present, and so counsel whose cases have finished will wait patiently in their seats until the next case is called on, or the barristers in that case arrive to take their places. Fletcher however, a straightforward Yorkshireman with few airs and graces is not such a stickler for protocol, and if he has paperwork to do will frequently do it at the bench rather than retiring to his chambers in the bowels of the court. He often excuses any members of the Bar whose cases have finished.

  That, however, is the extent of Fletcher’s humanity. He is known throughout the legal profession as the most prosecution-minded judge on the South-Eastern Circuit. When one prosecutes for the Crown before Mr Justice Fletcher it’s like sailing with a flood tide and the wind in your sails. He agrees with every point made for the Crown, praises the police officers for their professionalism and makes frequent asides to the jury as to the manifest credibility of the prosecution witnesses.

  On the other hand, defending before him is like wading thigh-deep through a swamp into the teeth of a gale. Every Defence point is met with scoffing or barely concealed irritation; cross-examinations are interrupted frequently to prevent Defence counsel building up a head of steam and to afford hapless prosecution witnesses time to think; responses are even suggested to witnesses otherwise lost for an answer; Defence witnesses are mocked and undermined from the bench, and Defence points prompt frequent looks of sarcastic disbelief, shared knowingly with the jury. His summing up of the evidence, instead of an unbiased reminder of the evidence, is a speech in favour of conviction.

  Defence lawyers are often heard in robing rooms and Bar Messes bemoaning their fate when listed before Fletcher, wondering out loud when the old bastard will retire or, better still, die. Now well into his seventies, he’s the most long-serving judge to sit at the Central Criminal Court and, with no formal retirement age imposed by the Lord Chancellor’s department, there seems to be no end in sight.

  As to the cause of his partisanship, he is reputed to be a member of the same Masonic Lodge as many senior police officers but, in Charles’s opinion, the explanation is much simpler. Fletcher is old-school, an integral part of the establishment. He views the police as the bulwark against the disgusting tide of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll sweeping the country; he categorically refuses to believe that any police officer could be as corrupt as most defence advocates know to be the case.

  Charles has watched with detached amusement the discomfiture this trial has caused his Lordship. Charles’s client faces indictment of two counts of false accounting in a position of trust, a charge which would normally guarantee Fletcher’s ire, notwithstanding the modest sum allegedly appropriated, sixteen shillings and sixpence.

  Unfortunately for the judge, the accused is a senior official in the Colonial Office, a lay magistrate and the treasurer of his golf club. He went to the right schools and university, has an excellent war record and an unimpeachable reputation. He is himself the very definition of “Establishment.”

  As a result, Fletcher’s wish to “put the boot in” to someone facing charges of this type appears to be equal and opposite to his wish to defend someone who is clearly a very decent fellow. Extraordinarily, he has been conflicted into relative silence and has let the advocates get on with their respective jobs with barely a word for the last four days.

  Charles’s case is not quite complete — the final Defence witness, a character witness from the accused’s Army days — has been delayed, but at quarter to four on the fifth day of an interminably dull trial in Court 4 of the Old Bailey everyone present is pleased to be offered an early adjournment until the following morning.

  The jury having already been excused for the rest of the day, the other occupants of the already half-empty courtroom rise. A handful of journalists attended for the first half-day, hoping to hear tales of corruption by high government officials but, having listened to the prosecution opening, they decided the case was of no great interest to anyone. One by one they slipped out to find something more interesting for their editors. Except for the accused’s wife and people sheltering from the sporadic rain, the benches reserved for the public have been largely empty.

  Charles’s opponent, a dour but not unpleasant northern Irishman named McKenzie, stacks his books and puts them under his arm. As he sidles out of the barristers’ bench he leans towards Charles.

  ‘Finish tomorrow?’ he asks under his breath.

  ‘God, I certainly hope so!’ whispers Charles with feeling. ‘My speech’ll take ten minutes at most.’

  ‘Same here,’ confirms McKenzie as he starts towards the courtroom doors.

  There is a sudden commotion from the dock. The accused, on bail
throughout, has already left the courtroom, and Charles turns to see what’s happening.

  A tall uniformed guard with thinning grey hair stands in the dock, having come up the steep stone stairs from the cells below.

  ‘Application for a dock brief, My Lord!’ he shouts. A handsome young man wearing a flat cap appears behind him, manacled to the guard’s wrist.

  Charles whirls round as McKenzie disappears through the court doors with a regretful and rather guilty backward glance at Charles. Charles has been caught. As the only barrister left in court and still in full robes, professional etiquette requires him to take the case and represent the unfortunate prisoner, whatever the charge may be and whatever other commitments he might have.

  Mr Justice Fletcher puts his pen down and leans forward, a mock sympathetic smile on his thin features. ‘Bad luck, Mr Holborne,’ he says with malice. ‘You appear to have acquired a new client.’

  Charles’s heart sinks; a docker!

  The institution of the dock brief is centuries old and, for a barrister with a busy practice like Charles, it’s a thorough nuisance. Barristers can normally only be instructed by solicitors but, in rare cases where an accused is brought to trial without representation, he can choose from any of the robed barristers in court to defend him, for the princely sum of one pound three shillings and sixpence, to be paid in advance by the prisoner.

  ‘What’s the charge on the indictment?’ asks Fletcher of the gaoler.

  ‘Murder,’ replies the gaoler. ‘Of a Waterguard,’ he adds, ‘and while resisting arrest.’

  This further information is all-important. Since the Homicide Act 1957 came into force, most types of murder are no longer punishable by hanging but murder of a police officer and while resisting arrest remain two of the exceptions. So, this unfortunate prisoner faces the rope; not something to attempt without legal representation.

  The thought flashes through part of Charles’s mind that it’s surprising for the gaoler to be so well-informed about this particular remand prisoner’s case, or for him to be so apparently gleeful about the possible death penalty, but he pushes the thought aside as he reaches for his Archbold, the criminal practitioner’s Bible, to look up the legal aid provisions applying to prisoners without means.

  ‘Then why wasn’t the prisoner given a Defence Certificate under The Poor Prisoners’ Defence Act?’ asks Fletcher, clearly thinking along the same lines as Charles. ‘He’ll be on trial for his life.’

  ‘Sufficient means, I understand, my Lord. And a full confession.’

  ‘But Your Honour —’ shouts the accused man from the dock.

  ‘Be quiet, you,’ says the judge. ‘You’ll have your chance to be heard. What about legal aid?’

  ‘If I can assist, my Lord,’ offers Charles. ‘You may find some help at paragraph 409 of Archbold, the 1962 edition.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Holborne. Just give me a minute.’

  Judge and barrister each read the relevant paragraphs in silence. After a couple of minutes the judge looks up at Charles again. ‘It appears that the examining justices had a discretion which, one must suppose, they exercised against the prisoner.’

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  ‘Very well. I’m not disposed to overturn their exercise of discretion. I won’t start hearing the case this afternoon, but be prepared by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘My Lord, this man is on trial for his life! How can I possibly —’

  ‘You’ve heard my ruling, Mr Holborne. That’s enough. I expect to have this man arraigned tomorrow afternoon, Monday morning at the latest. Who’s for the Crown?’

  At that very moment the court doors burst open with a bang, and a dishevelled barrister almost runs down the aisle. Charles knows him well: Collin Montgomery QC, a charming and pathologically absentminded barrister who is forever misplacing his wig, his place in the depositions and his notes. It makes little difference: he is brilliant, with or without notes, and one of the foremost silks favoured by the Crown in heavyweight cases. He is also fun to work with and completely straight; he doesn’t believe in the cunning employed by many prosecutors: no gamesmanship, no withholding of evidence, no taking of bad legal points and no sleights of hand; he needs no such trickery.

  ‘Ah, Mr Montgomery,’ says the judge. ‘Are you for the Crown?’

  ‘Please forgive me, my Lord,’ gasps Montgomery. ‘We were in another court and were only given a couple of minutes’ notice that the prisoner was being brought up for arraignment. My junior —’ he looks around desperately to the back of the court — ‘is apparently on the penultimate lap. I thought he was behind me.’

  ‘Not to worry Mr Montgomery. Mr Holborne will put you in the picture. Now…’ Mr Justice Fletcher looks across at the dock. ‘Stand up young man. You’ve heard my decision. Mr Holborne is an extremely experienced and, if I may say so, talented advocate, and you couldn’t have chosen better had you the choice of the entire Bar.’

  Charles knows that this hyperbole is not to be taken seriously and is entirely disingenuous. Fletcher’s only purpose is to justify his decision not to grant legal aid or allow greater time for the accused’s defence. If the prisoner has confessed to killing a Waterguard, that’s enough for Fletcher; a short trial followed by sentence of death are all that justice requires.

  ‘What’s your name?’ demands Fletcher.

  ‘Me birth certificate says Isaac Conway. But I’m generally known on the River as Merlin.’

  Charles whirls round, looking at the prisoner in the dock for the first time. ‘Good God!’ he exclaims, not entirely under his breath.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Holborne? Is there a problem?’ asks Fletcher.

  For a moment Charles is utterly speechless but when, after a few seconds, he has gathered his thoughts and closed his mouth, his first impulse is to tell the judge that he can’t possibly represent this accused. He even draws breath to say the words. But then he registers Merlin’s eyes: wide-open with shock, hope and overflowing with an eloquent, intense plea directed at Charles. In that split-second Charles makes a decision which will affect the rest of his life. He turns, and by the time he faces Fletcher again his face is calm and composed.

  ‘Not at all, my Lord. If your Lordship will give me permission, I’ll go down with the prisoner immediately and start work.’

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  1940

  Charlie Horowitz is forcing himself to think, despite the cold, his chattering teeth and the waves of dizziness. For the first few days after he crept back into the East End under cover of the blackout, he’d lived in what was left of the family home on British Street. The scullery still stood, although roofless, and cautious rummaging through the timber, dust and rubble revealed his mother’s stock of tinned of food.

  Astonishingly, there were also two intact glass jars of her favourite pickled herring. They’d been blown off their shelf clear through the larder door and landed on what had been his mother’s favourite armchair. The thick green glass of one was cracked but otherwise both were undamaged except for a coating of fine powdery dust. They looked so comical sitting side-by-side in his mother’s accustomed seat — a sign that her spirit still ruled the house — that on discovering them by the light of a flaring match Charlie had to suppress first a shiver of shock and then a spasm of laughter.

  A roof beam from the living room had come down at one end but it remained propped at an angle, creating a triangular hole through which an agile boy could crawl into a small recess formed of the rear wall and the crushed sideboard. With a blanket and pillow recovered from the roof of next door’s outside lavatory, where they apparently landed after the bomb struck, Charlie constructed a cosy if rather dusty den, where he stored the personal treasures rescued from the rubble: his mother’s handed down silver Sabbath candlesticks which, he knew, were so important to her; his three-bladed penknife, given to him by his father for his twelfth birthday; a photograph of David and himself holding hands and squinting into the sun on t
he beach at Southend taken several years earlier; and, of greatest importance to him, a photograph of his first girlfriend, Adalie, whom he prayed, without much hope, had survived the direct hit on Hallsville Junior. For the first few days he had even been able to drink, as metallic-tasting water trickled down from a bent and pierced lead pipe that formerly ran to the kitchen sink.

  Charlie spent the nights curled in what he referred to as his “hole”, listening to bombs dropping all around him. The Anderson shelter in the garden was buried under a ton of masonry and he knew that if he sought refuge in one of the underground stations, he was certain to be asked why he was alone and what had happened to his parents. That would inevitably mean a return to Wales, and a month of that had been quite sufficient.

  Forced to attend chapel, teased constantly for supposedly possessing horns and a tail (which his classmates assured one another were the hallmarks of Judaism) and ridiculed before the class by the teacher for his inability to explain the Holy Trinity, he’d refused to go to school. When dragged there by his father, he’d picked playground fights with anyone who dared look at him. Eventually, after several days of torn clothing, bloodied knuckles and futile beatings by both his father and the head, the school and the Horowitzes tacitly agreed that Charlie’s formal education had probably come to an end.

  A further week of boredom hanging around the farm, regarded sullenly by both farmer and farm animals, and Charlie had had enough. He slipped out one moonlit night, crept across the fields and jumped on an eastbound train as it paused to take on water. His only regret was forgetting to leave a note explaining his absence to David.