The Brief

by Simon Michael

  Holborne

  You may think you have won, but I assure you, no filthy little Jew and his whore shall defeat me. The disgrace you have made me suffer will be as nothing to what I shall cause you. I shall repay you with interest. Isn’t that what your race expects?

  The note was unsigned and there was no clue from the envelope, which had been delivered by hand, but Charles had a suspicion. He lifted the notepaper to his nose and sniffed. There was no doubt: it had the same musty bird smell as Kellett-Brown’s clothing and budgerigar-infested flat. Charles read it again, laughed, and threw it in the bin.

  •

  “SERIOUS CRIME FILE E4/1379/82 [Murder/robbery – EXPRESS DAIRIES, LONDON NORTH DEPOT 5/2/60]

  Memorandum:

  Central Criminal Court Indictment No: 61/0012 (see linked indictment 60/1375-6)

  Robert Reginald SANDS (CRO E/6563/20) convicted on 23 March 1961 of attempting to pervert the course of public justice. Sentenced to 5 years imprisonment to run consecutive to present sentence of 9 years for armed robbery. No further action re: murder William Wright. File ends.”

  PART THREE

  1962, payback

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The rain stopped almost as suddenly as it started, and as the black clouds scudded off towards the east, they seemed lit from underneath by the horizontal orange shafts of the setting sun.

  ‘Look at that,’ said Charles, nodding through the windscreen at the sky. ‘Amazing. If you painted those colours, people would think you were making it up.’

  They had not spoken since getting into the car almost an hour earlier, and Henrietta deliberately turned her head to look out of the passenger window without responding. Charles sighed, and leaned forward to turn on the radio. Without a word Henrietta turned it off.

  ‘I thought you liked Cilla Black,’ commented Charles. ‘You were humming that yesterday.’

  Henrietta turned slowly and stared at Charles’s profile. ‘The music’s fine, Charles,’ she said, after a pause. ‘I just don’t want to pretend anymore, okay? I don’t want this to be normal – it’s not. We’re not listening to pop songs, having a nice little drive on the way to a party, as if nothing was wrong.’

  ‘I thought perhaps we could make a special effort, you know, draw a line under the last few days and have a nice evening?’

  ‘I’m too angry.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just put that to one side for a few hours?’

  ‘No. I’m not like you, Charles.’

  They remained silent for the rest of the journey. When they arrived at the Temple Henrietta got out of the car before Charles had turned off the ignition, and clip-clopped in her high-heeled boots across the wet cobblestones to the wooden staircase leading to the top of Chancery Court. Charles watched her flowery miniskirt disappear up the stairs and sighed. Yet again he wondered what had happened to them. There had been a time, until about a year before, when despite Henrietta’s disdain for him and the cold bitterness of their rows and the nights spent apart, he was always able to locate in himself the deep tenderness he had felt for her from the first. It took much to make Charles really angry, and once roused the storm soon passed. Half an hour of pottering in the garden, working on some papers or watching television, and the substance of the row no longer seemed important, and all he wanted was to ambush her with a hug, and watch how the corners of her mouth would, despite her resistance, crease with a reluctant smile. And then they would have make up sex which brought them oblivion and then stillness, if only for a short while.

  But now…well, now, he was just exhausted by it. It was such hard work, just keeping the peace. Once or twice Charles had let himself be goaded into responding in kind and, with a glorious and dangerous freedom, he had let the brakes off, reducing Henrietta to tears. Now however it was as if the brake lever was useless in his hands. Whatever he said or didn’t say made no difference. Their marriage had become a runaway train, rattling downhill at an increasingly terrifying speed towards an inevitable wreck.

  Charles got out of the car and locked the door. He followed Henrietta up the staircase towards the sound of animated talking and music. The door was just closing having admitted Henrietta, and for one moment Charles toyed with the idea of simply turning on his heel and leaving. Henrietta would barely notice his absence, and an hour or two of walking along the Thames embankment at dusk appealed to him. But as he hesitated, the door opened wide and Sebastian Campbell-Smyth looked out.

  ‘I did wonder for a moment if Henrietta had come alone,’ he said. ‘Has she?’

  Charles sighed, and stepped inside. ‘No, although you did catch me wondering if I could bunk off.’

  Sebastian smiled grimly. ‘Still no better?’ The state of the Holbornes’ marriage was an open secret in Chambers. Charles shook his head. The other barrister leaned forward confidentially. ‘I did wonder about the wisdom of buying that flat.’

  Charles shook his head. ‘That’s nothing to do with it. It’s convenient, and Henrietta agreed it made sense. It takes me exactly three minutes from here to Fetter Lane.’

  ‘Sure. But what message did it send, eh?’

  Charles thought about it, and nodded slowly. ‘I know. If truth be told, I needed…an oasis,’ he sighed. ‘Somewhere to regroup.’

  Sebastian put a friendly arm round Charles’s shoulder. He was about to say something else when someone dropped the heavy brass knocker on the outside of the door, and he resumed his door keeping duties.

  Charles followed party sounds through the panelled corridor into the reception area. Chambers was laid out for a party. To his right the double doors into Sir Geoffrey’s room, the largest in Chambers, were wide open. The room had been cleared of office furniture and now contained two large tables laden with food and drink. In a corner were the unattended instruments of a jazz trio. Two waitresses circulated among the guests with champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Most of the members of Chambers were already there with their wives. The only female member, Gwyneth Price-Hopkins, clinked champagne glasses with her husband. The guest of honour, Sir Geoffrey Duchenne, soon to be Mr Justice Duchenne, had still to arrive.

  Charles scanned the room for Henrietta but couldn’t see her. He wandered over to the makeshift bar and waited to be served. He looked to his left and saw Sally.

  ‘Hello Sally,’ he said. ‘You look lovely.’

  ‘Thank you sir,’ she replied, blushing slightly at the compliment. She wore a strapless, and almost backless, evening dress in crimson. Her hair had been cut in a very short Mary Quant bob. Charles found the contrast between her full figure and tomboy haircut enticing. He found himself wondering how the strapless dress held itself up, and that thought led shortly to wondering what she would look like with no dress on at all.

  ‘Is Mrs Holborne here?’ she asked Charles.

  ‘Yes… somewhere.’

  Then he caught sight of her in the far corner, deeply engrossed in conversation with Simon Ellison. Their heads were close together, as if sharing some confidence, and they both laughed. She hasn’t laughed like that with me for months, thought Charles bitterly, and then grimaced ruefully at his own self-pity.

  Henrietta patted Ellison on the cheek. The gesture was affectionate but at the same time patronising, as if she was teasing a child who’d said something daft but endearing, and Ellison flushed. Then, as if suddenly aware that he was observing her, Henrietta turned round and caught Charles’s eye. Her mouth hardened, and the smile died on her face. Charles considered for a moment if the whole scene might have been staged for his benefit. At a dinner party two weeks previously Henrietta had flirted outrageously with another of the guests and had become progressively more drunk and furious when Charles had ignored it. That evening had prompted an entire week of silence.

  Ellison moved away from Henrietta and spoke quietly to Peter Finch, one of the senior members of Chambers. They had a brief whispered conversation, Finch nodded, and the two men slipped outside into the corridor. Plotting, thought Charles. Cha
rles returned his attention to Sally, but she was no longer beside him. He took a second drink from a passing tray and stared out at the evening shadows lengthening over the manicured gardens of the Temple.

  •

  Peter Finch entered the panelled room on the opposite side of Chambers, followed closely by Ellison. The room was in half-darkness and it took a moment for Finch’s eyes to adjust from the bright lights of the party. He reached for the light switch.

  ‘Leave it off, there’s a good chap,’ said a voice from the far corner of the room. Finch started as he realised that his desk was occupied by someone else. ‘I was just enjoying the last sunlight.’

  Laurence Corbett sat with his feet up on Finch’s desk and gazed out over the Thames. He slouched at an angle, his hand resting on the back of Finch’s chair. Smoke curled lazily from the cigarette held between his index and middle fingers. His face was lost in shadow, but his head turned slowly as he followed the progress of a tug towing a wide empty barge upriver. As they laboured their way against the ebbing tide, the vessels’ wakes created two wings of pink reflected sky.

  ‘Get your bloody feet off my papers!’ protested Finch.

  ‘Certainly Peter,’ replied Corbett, but he didn’t move. After a few seconds he languorously folded his long legs like a crane fly and spun round, vacating the desk.

  ‘Well? What do you want, Corbett?’ asked Finch.

  Finch was in his early 60s, with a long grey comb-over partially concealing his bald patch. When it was windy the thin mat of hair would sometimes fall forward over his face like a silver curtain, much to the merriment of his pupil. He had watery grey eyes, and he blinked frequently.

  Corbett perched on the edge of the older barrister’s desk, making it difficult for Finch to skirt round and reach his seat. Finch cast an eye over his shoulder. Ellison was leaning nonchalantly against the door lighting a cigarette, and while he was not quite blocking Finch’s escape, Finch felt uncomfortable, and stood awkwardly in the middle of the room.

  ‘A few of the chaps and I have been chatting about the succession,’ explained Corbett, ‘and I have been asked to canvass your views.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought my views were very important,’ replied Finch irritably. ‘We all know who’s going to be head of Chambers.’

  ‘That’s not a safe assumption,’ said Ellison from behind him.

  Finch turned. ‘What do you mean?’

  Corbett answered. ‘Well…we wondered if you would like to stand?’

  ‘Me?’ said Finch, genuinely astonished. ‘I have no ambitions in that direction.’

  ‘Liar,’ said Corbett quietly, without malice.

  ‘We’re not all as ambitious as you, Corbett. And I couldn’t afford the rent. The Inn wouldn’t have me.’

  ‘They might, if a number of us stood as joint guarantors.’

  Finch thought about that for a moment. ‘You’re saying that if I were to stand against Bob for the tenancy from the Inn, you and some others would support my application? Which others?’

  ‘Enough.’

  ‘No. I need to know exactly who. A contest for the position would be extremely divisive, and…well, I may have had my differences with Bob over the years, but I’m not going to be responsible for splitting Chambers.’

  ‘I can’t tell you at the moment. Just believe me.’

  Finch took a couple of steps towards the window, and looked at the river below him. In the space of only a few moments the pink flecks on the water had gone, and twilight was almost at an end.

  ‘And what would you want from me?’ he asked shrewdly.

  Corbett smiled in the gathering darkness. ‘Move Holborne on.’

  Finch turned round. ‘Oh, not again, Laurence. You’ve raised this half a dozen times, in Chambers meeting and outside. What have you got against the poor man?’

  ‘You must be joking, Peter. Do you like his child molesters sitting in the waiting room? How do your banker clients enjoy sitting next to unshaven derelicts, smoking roll-ups and stinking of cider?’

  ‘Granted – ’

  ‘And have you noticed how long Stanley’s out every afternoon checking the criminal courts lists? During the busiest time of the day? A hugely disproportionate time is given to one man’s practice, at the expense of everyone else’s. How many times do I have to say it? We are not set up to do crime here. He would be far better off somewhere else.’

  Finch listened patiently, a small smile on his face. ‘All very good reasons, no doubt, but we all know the truth: you just loathe him, right? You just can’t bear him.’

  ‘Well, can you? He’s an arrogant, common, barrow boy – like most of his clients. And he’s a Jew. But that’s really not the point. There are plenty of perfectly valid grounds for sacking him, if one needs them. The tenant of the Inn can give notice to any barrister in Chambers. Like everyone else, he’d be one of your licensees.’

  ‘He’ll appeal to the Inn. I would. He’s done nothing to merit sacking. He pays his rent on time – which is more than many do – and he’s never been caught with his hand in the till, or his trousers down.’

  Ellison replied from the other side of the room. ‘Not yet maybe, but have you seen the way he looks at Sally?’

  ‘This is all academic,’ said Corbett. ‘There’s no need to make life more difficult than it has to be. This wouldn’t be a sacking; it would simply be a case of Chambers wanting to specialise in civil work, so those doing crime have to find a more suitable home. It’s the way the Bar’s going. It’s what they did at Kings Bench Walk, and no one so much as turned a hair. Give him six months to find somewhere else, and he can’t possibly complain.’

  The door suddenly opened and Ellison found himself propelled further into the room. A couple of the junior members of Chambers entered. ‘Oh, sorry,’ the first apologised, giggling, slightly the worse for the champagne.

  ‘That’s alright,’ said Corbett. ‘Why don’t you both stay?’

  ‘Have you…’ asked the other, indicating Finch.

  ‘Just doing it,’ replied Corbett. ‘Well?’ he asked, returning to Finch. The door closed silently, and the two young men stood next to Ellison.

  ‘I’m not sure. I don’t think there’d be enough support. Bob’s got it sewn up. He’s very popular. You’d need at least twelve to vote against him, and I can’t see…’ His voice faltered as he saw Corbett’s face. ‘You’ve got twelve?’ he asked.

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  Finch looked towards the others, and received a nodded confirmation. Finch wavered. His little pale eyes watered at the prospect, but then he began to shake his head. Corbett took several steps towards him, and leaned over the shorter man menacingly.

  ‘Why don’t you face facts, Peter? Your practice is going nowhere – ’ Finch spluttered a half-protest but Corbett held up a finger to silence him ‘ – I’ve looked in the diary: you’ve only had two decent court appearances in the last six weeks, and your desk’s almost empty. Don’t tell me you’re doing paperwork, because I know you aren’t. You’re, what, 62, 63? Your practice is winding down and you know it. If you’re going to be able to keep the twins at university for the next two years, you need to get on the Bench. And the cachet of being head of Chambers… well, that would certainly help the CV, wouldn’t it? Principles are fine, but not enough to support kids at university.’

  •

  Charles sat on a chair near the clerks’ room, nursing his drink. Henrietta had disappeared some time ago. He wasn’t sure whether she had gone home or was just in one of the other rooms, but he didn’t care enough to go looking for her. Sally looked at him every now and then, feeling sorry for him. He looked so miserable! There were times when she could quite fancy him, even though he was a bit old.

  Charles stood up, drained his glass, and made for the door, slipping behind the substantial bulk of his head of chambers. Sir Geoffrey had arrived an hour late, having been celebrating his elevation with some of the
Benchers. He had made an impromptu and largely unintelligible speech and had started the dancing. Thus far, Charles had managed to avoid him. Geoffrey Duchenne’s bonhomie was all he needed to give the evening the coup de grace, but as that very thought entered Charles’s head, a heavy hand landed on his shoulder.

  ‘Ah, Charles!’ boomed Duchenne, ‘I shall miss you, you and your tacky little clients.’

  Charles stood. ‘Will you, Geoffrey?’

  Duchenne’s ruddy face was redder than usual and his eyes sparkled. He was now unequivocally the worse for drink. ‘I certainly shall. You know, I don’t mind telling you now, I was against your coming in. But you came, and I don’t mind admitting it: I was wrong. Thoroughly nice chap… and I can tell, you know, you’re going places. I admire someone who doesn’t let his background hold him back.’

  ‘Thank you, Geoffrey,’ said Charles, trying in vain to extricate himself. ‘That will always be a great comfort to me.’

  ‘You know, there’s this Indian chappie. Bought the corner shop near me a few years back.’ He frowned, trying to concentrate. ‘Worked every hour God sent. Dammit if he doesn’t own the whole bloody block now! Huge supermarket!’

  ‘It’s amazing isn’t it? Sorry Geoffrey, but I really ought to find Henrietta.’ Charles wrenched himself out of the other’s grip.

  ‘Certainly old chap. You really must bring her round some time soon. Ages since we saw you socially.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve never seen you socially, Geoffrey.’

  ‘Oh, of course, no one’s been to the new house – only been there a few months – ’

  ‘Not to the new house, nor the old house, nor any bloody house! For all I know, you live above your mate’s supermarket.’

  ‘You know, I could have sworn…’

  Charles walked off. He opened the door and went down to the courtyard. The clouds had cleared completely, and the sky was alight with stars. He paused. For a second he couldn’t remember where he had parked the car. Then he remembered, and looked over to the space. It was empty.