Corrupted: Murder and cover-up at the heart of government (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers Book 4)

by Simon Michael

  ‘Fair enough. That deals with the how, but you’re still not answering the why; why did you follow me, Miss Conti?’

  She swings round on the barstool and turns to face him fully. She studies Charles’s battered face with an indecipherable half-smile. She takes in his dark curly hair, somewhat awry from his post-fight shower, the strong yet bruised jaw and the one open eye with its dark brown iris under a split eyebrow.

  She laughs, and Charles guesses that the mockery is directed at herself. ‘You know something, Mister Holborne,’ she answers frankly, ‘I’m not entirely sure. You interest me, and that’s unusual for me. I’m surrounded by good-looking men in my profession — the studio’s constantly pushing us together to make newspaper fodder, but … off the record?’ Charles nods his assent. ‘They bore me so. They’ve got one-track minds — and no, I don’t mean that — I mean they’re only concerned about their careers, their public personae. Half of them ain’t interested in females anyway.’

  Charles notices with surprise the young actress’s correct use of the Latin plural of persona; not something he’d have expected. More intriguing still.

  ‘But you…’ she continues.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of fights, both in the ring and out. You don’t grow up in Philly without seeing blood spilled.’ She breaks eye contact with Charles and swings back round to face the bar, causing a waft of perfume to reach him. He senses uncertainty or embarrassment in her. ‘Let’s just say I’ve never seen anyone look as dangerous as you,’ she finishes.

  ‘Dangerous? Miss Conti, I’m a heavyweight boxer. Amateur, it’s true, and as we’re on the subject of my limitations, well past my prime and out of practice, but boxing is a contact sport.’

  She waves her hand dismissively and talks into her glass. ‘I’m not talking about your technique. It was your eyes.’

  ‘My eyes?’

  She pauses, searching for the right words. ‘It was as if you’d turned off your humanity. I looked at you, and I knew that you could’ve killed that other guy without a care.’

  Charles bows his head. He’s been told this sort of thing before. There have been moments in his life when an icy fury temporarily gained mastery of him and he frightened those around him. When he was younger, especially during the war and especially when in danger, Charles was proud of it. In those moments he revelled in his feeling of indestructibility; while it possessed him he was omnipotent and vengeful. Safe. Now, however, that sensation of puissance leaves him … what? He has yet to work it out; ambivalent, maybe? In any case he is no longer sure it’s something of which to be proud.

  ‘Well … that’s not who I am,’ he says at last. ‘At least, not most of the time. And maybe never again.’

  The woman draws a deep breath and knocks back the rest of her whisky, at the same time raising her hand to the barman for another. She speaks without looking at Charles. ‘I hated you at that moment. You were like an animal — no, not even an animal: a machine. A brutal, cold, machine. I’ve seen that look before.’

  She stops talking abruptly and her eyes become unfocussed for a second. Charles wonders what memory she’s reliving. Then, as quickly, she’s back in the present and she turns to him with a smile.

  ‘But then, at the end, you looked so sad! Like a little boy. As if you had lost the fight … or maybe something else? That’s what persuaded me to follow you “halfway across London”.’

  The barman approaches them and Charles also finishes his drink quickly.

  ‘Same again for both of us, please,’ he requests.

  Charles falls silent while they are served and he pays.

  ‘It was that sadness which intrigued me,’ she continues. ‘And the contradictions. You’re a face, which I guess in Philly parlance means you grew up on the streets, like me. But you’re also an attorney, which means you’re clever, and you got away; you remade yourself. Also like me. But you could’ve been a killer.’

  ‘Also like you?’

  She turns again to Charles, somehow evaluating him. ‘Not this time, Mr Attorney. That may be a conversation for another day.’

  They both fall silent for a while, sipping their whiskies, each lost in their own pasts. Charles drains his glass and steps off his barstool.

  ‘Well, Miss Conti —’

  ‘Patrizia,’ she corrects.

  ‘Very well: Patrizia. I can’t drink any more without eating something first, and I do have a home to go to. Not to mention a day job tomorrow morning. So, if you’ll forgive me, I will bid you goodnight.’

  ‘Mr Holborne?’

  ‘Charles,’ he corrects.

  ‘Charles: can I ask you a question before you go?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Do you find me attractive?’

  Charles grins lopsidedly, his one visible eye sparkling. ‘Are you flirting with me, Patrizia?’ he asks. He groans involuntarily at the pain generated by his smile. ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Best not do that,’ she advises.

  ‘Agreed,’ replies Charles ruefully.

  ‘Do you?’ she persists. ‘Find me attractive? Because you seem strangely immune to my charms.’

  ‘Is that so? Well, maybe it’s because I have a little more heft than some of your professional beaux. But to answer the question straight: you are a very beautiful woman, Patrizia.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But… I’m very sore, pretty drunk, and … taken. At least, I think I am. Thanks for the drink. Goodnight.’

  Charles bends to pick up his rucksack. As he does so Patrizia slides off her barstool and, as Charles stands upright, she leans forward and kisses him lightly on the cheek. Charles can feel her hot whisky breath in his ear and he smells perfume again. At first he thinks she’s about to whisper something but after letting her soft cheek rest for a moment too long on his, the woman stands back. Charles pauses, looks at her questioningly and then, without speaking, turns and threads his way through the tavern’s evening drinkers to the front door.

  Outside there is a very large man in a black suit who watches Charles closely as he leaves the pub. Charles ignores the eyes on his back and walks away into the purple evening.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Wednesday, 8 July

  Charles studies his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He hears the front door close as Sally leaves for the Temple. She was already asleep in the spare room when he returned the night before and they’ve not spoken. He glances at his watch, propped on the shelf under the mirror. It is some time after he planned to depart, but he still feels groggy and exhausted. He has donned underpants and striped barrister’s trousers but is otherwise naked. He examines the blue bruises to the left of his ribcage and on his forearms.

  ‘Jesus, Albert, you can’t half punch,’ he says softly.

  Fortunately, this damage won’t be visible. He gingerly pulls on his crisply starched white shirt and starts doing up the buttons. The soreness in his neck and shoulders that he started to notice in the hours after the fight has steadily worsened and led to a largely sleepless night. That, and the memory of Patrizia Conti. More than once he awoke from a fitful half-sleep and reached across to the empty space where Sally should have been, only to turn over and imagine he could smell Patrizia’s perfume, presumably transferred from his face to his pillowcase.

  Charles leans forward and examines his face more closely. He applied an icepack both before he went to bed and when he rose, and the puffiness over the right eye has reduced slightly; he now has binocular vision. The bleeding from his painful nose, which restarted following his shower, has stopped again, which is also good. On the other hand, it is still obviously red and swollen.

  ‘Not so bad,’ he concludes rather optimistically, speaking to himself in the mirror.

  He returns to the bedroom and straightens the bedclothes, disturbed only on his side. He finishes dressing and descends to the kitchen. He makes coffee and toast, the house ringing loudly with Sally’s absence.

  Char
les collects Max from Kidlington railway station in Oxfordshire, a station shortly to close under Mr Beeching’s proposals, to save the solicitor a two-mile walk to the remand home. Shortly thereafter he parks the Austin Healey beneath a sign proclaiming, ‘Thornbury House Remand Home’ and waits while Max extricates his long legs and briefcase from the tiny sports car. They walk together towards the doors, Max having grinned broadly at Charles’s damaged appearance but having said nothing.

  Charles hates remand homes; he hates them even more than he does adult prisons. The sense of savagery and danger here is uncontrolled, fuelled by rampant teenage hormones, bravado, and the incessant battle for place in the pecking order: the contest for top dog; for top dog’s lieutenants; for his enforcers and his snitches. Every time he enters these self-contained worlds with their written and, more importantly, their unwritten rules, Charles is reminded of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and is again filled with pessimism at man’s essentially evil nature. It doesn’t matter that this remand home in rural Oxfordshire has been opened recently and is supposedly state of the art; underlying the fresh paint and the smart, informal uniforms of the convicted boys, the sense of violence and danger is palpable.

  After they’ve been searched for weapons and contraband he and Max are finally shown into a brightly lit and brightly coloured conference room in the centre of which is a table and four chairs. The lawyers sit down.

  ‘Thanks for coming early,’ says Max, reaching into his briefcase. ‘Here it is. Personally, I think it’s a load of claptrap; mumbo-jumbo.’

  He places a sheaf of pages on the table. Charles picks up the top page and reads: Preliminary report of Dr Audrey Felix, Consultant Child Psychiatrist, Tavistock Clinic (Adolescent Services), Hallam Street, London.

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘Wait till you read it,’ warns Max.

  Charles skim-reads the first pages, which set out Dr Felix’s lengthy qualifications and published works, and then her even lengthier disclaimers: she only saw Teddy on one occasion; no conclusions should be drawn from a single session of psychotherapy as it usually takes weeks if not months to establish trust and rapport with a client, let alone an adolescent client who is likely to have suffered sexual abuse; and so on, and so on. Charles leafs ahead to the substance of the report, contained in little more than a page.

  Using visualisation techniques it was possible to relax the subject and induce a trance. I found the subject highly hypnotisable, which is not uncommon in children suffering from dissociative disorders. Recent research suggests that hypnosis may be seen as a “structured dissociative experience”. In other words when a trusting rapport exists with a therapist, a hypnotised subject is able to dissociate himself from his normal peripheral awareness and fears. His increased suggestibility permits him to become deeply, and safely, absorbed and concentrated on, for example, past events. The reason why children who have been the subject of sexual abuse tend to be more easily hypnotisable is because they have become accustomed to “separating themselves out” in response to the trauma. They dissociate themselves from it, allowing it to occur to them while protecting part of their personalities. The dissociation is part of the subject’s adaptation, and the therapist is able to tap into that existing adaptive response.

  Using age regression, I was able to guide the subject to access memories relating to his childhood. He reported multiple acts of sexual abuse by his stepfather. According to the subject, these acts commenced on the night of the stepfather’s marriage to the mother, when the subject was nine years of age. Initially the acts consisted of inappropriate touching, but over the following months they increased to forced masturbation and, in the last year before the subject’s departure from the family home, repeated episodes of buggery. The subject exhibited increased stress when asked to recall his mother’s response to the abuse and that avenue of enquiry was not pursued during the first session but is thought worthy of further exploration.

  I have been asked to answer two specific questions. The first is whether “it is credible that [the subject] has genuine gaps in his memory lasting from a few hours to over a day during which he might have committed crimes.” It is well-recognised that children suffering from severe dissociative disorders in response to sexual abuse may suffer from periods of profound amnesia. They may remember events up to the moment of a particular episode of abuse, a period of amnesia, and then a resumption of memory after it has finished. I can provide those instructing me with copious research papers demonstrating this feature of dissociative disorders. If acts were committed by a subject during the course of some abuse or other very traumatic episode, it is possible for the subject to have no memory of his actions.

  The second question relates to the subject’s mental capacity. There are two aspects to this question. The first is whether he is likely to understand the nature of the court process. The subject presented as a very shy and uncommunicative 15-year-old. However by the end of the session I had formed the impression that he was of normal intelligence and understanding for his age. Accordingly, appropriately supported by his legal team, in my opinion he probably has capacity to take part in legal proceedings, but I reserve judgement until after further sessions.

  The other aspect is more difficult. I have been asked to express an opinion on whether the subject would have been aware of the nature and quality of his actions during a period of claimed amnesia to make him legally responsible for those actions. As I understand it this question is directed to the possible defence of automatism. Certainly there are reports of cases of subjects suffering amnesia during dissociative states, such as sleepwalking, when they commit acts which would otherwise be criminal, and they have been found not guilty as a result of their lack of awareness. However it is much too early to say whether such a defence might apply in this case. It could take weeks or months of therapy to explore such events with the subject, if it is possible at all.

  Charles skims to the end of the report where there is a section of emboldened text.

  I have been asked to provide interim reports after each session of therapy with the subject. I wish to place on record that this would be considered inappropriate in any clinical setting, and I wish to inform the court that little or no weight can be placed on such reports. The usual course of therapeutic treatment for an adolescent suffering from dissociative disorders in response to long-term sexual abuse runs to months if not years.

  ‘See what I mean?’ says Max as Charles looks up.

  ‘Yes. But it’s not a bad start. Although she hasn’t said so expressly, it looks as if she’ll confirm Teddy’s suffering from a recognised mental illness, this dissociative disorder, and she’s at least conceding the possibility that he could genuinely suffer periods of amnesia as a result. And we have confirmation from his own lips that he was the victim of sexual abuse, so now we know why he ran away. And we can postulate the effect that further abuse might have had.’

  ‘Are you going to raise any of this with him now?’

  Before Charles can answer, the conference room door opens and Teddy stands on the threshold. He wears a clean white shirt and grey slacks, both too large for him. His golden locks have recently been washed and brushed. He looks fresh and clean, except for the stitches holding his top lip together, the angry red swelling that has closed his right eye and what appears to be a patch of bald scalp above his right ear, where both a handful of hair and, it appears, the top curve of the ear itself, have been torn out.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ says Charles, and both he and Max stand in unison from the table where they’d been waiting. ‘What happened?’ demands Charles of the man standing behind Teddy.

  ‘He got into a fight with one of the other boys,’ he says, disinterestedly. ‘We’ve moved him now.’

  He gives Teddy a gentle shove in the back to propel him into the room, closes the door and walks away. Teddy stands just inside the door, looking at his feet.

  ‘It was six other boys,’ he mumbles, surprising Charles t
hat he has spoken at all.

  ‘Come and sit down, Teddy,’ says Charles quietly. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  After a moment’s hesitation the boy moves forward and sits at the table. Charles looks more carefully at him. There are rings under his eyes and some of the soft plumpness around his cheeks and jawline has been lost. He’s not sleeping or eating, thinks Charles.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asks. Teddy shakes his head and stares at the table top. ‘We can make a formal complaint. They’d be obliged to investigate.’

  Teddy shakes his head more vigorously, but remains silent. Charles and Max share a glance.

  ‘Fair enough,’ concludes Charles. ‘The sooner we can get you out of here the better. We have a date for the hearing, and it’s soon, but we need you to talk to us. Max tells me that you’re not prepared to sign your statement.’

  Silence. Teddy looks at the clock above the door in its protective wire mesh.

  ‘Look, Teddy,’ tries Max. ‘This only works if it’s a partnership. You, me and Mr Holborne.’

  ‘Charles,’ corrects Charles.

  ‘You, me and Charles,’ says Max. ‘We will do all we can to protect your interests, to make sure you get a fair hearing, but we can’t do it without your help.’

  Still silence, and again Teddy looks at the clock. Charles frowns and follows Teddy’s gaze. It’s approaching midday. Faint institutional cooking smells emanate from somewhere else in the building.

  ‘You leave me with a problem here,’ says Max. ‘If I’m forced to tell the court I can’t get instructions from you, I can’t continue to represent you. If I have to stand down, so too does Charles.’