Are you falling asleep?
No, I’m waiting.
What for?
For him to start snoring.
Is he snoring yet? [Pause] Is he snoring yet?
Yes, he is now.
What are you doing?
I’m sitting up and getting onto my knees.
Why?
I’m going to teach Mo a lesson.
How are you going to do that?
With my comb.
Teddy, what are you doing? [Pause] Teddy, what do you see?
It’s hurting my hands. [Sounds of heavy breathing]
What’s hurting your hands?
Twisting … and twisting … and twisting. [Sounds of heavy breathing]
What are you doing now, Teddy?
My hands are slippery but I’m still twisting. No, lie down! Lie down! [Sounds of distress]
Stay relaxed, Teddy. Listen to my voice. You are still very relaxed, all the way to your feet. Your mind is completely clear and peaceful. In just a second I will snap my fingers again and you will wake up. You will remember that night again clearly but you will be calm. Before I snap my fingers I have one more question. Why are you doing it, Teddy? Why are you teaching Mo a lesson?
I trusted him. He said he was my friend, but he wasn’t. And he stole my dad’s medallion. [Snap]
Charles slowly lowers the pages to the desk. He feels numb.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Monday, 24 August
The raincoats and umbrellas have disappeared as what everyone took to be an early start to autumn gives way to a classic Indian summer of high pressure, gentle breezes, blue skies and unusually warm temperatures. The gardens of the Temple are once again full of young barristers sitting on the lawns and judges strolling the gravelled paths, enjoying the early evening sunshine.
Charles’s incessant workflow has slowed somewhat, as often occurs during the August vacation when the major courts aren’t sitting, and he has managed a steady pace through the backlog of paperwork. He has re-established his former bachelor routine at the flat in Fetter Lane and even met his brother, David, for lunch once or twice.
The relative tranquillity has helped. He listens to pop music and works steadily until Radio Caroline goes off the air at six o’clock to make way for Radio Luxembourg.
He often finds himself staring out of the window across the lawns to where he and Patrizia walked hand in hand, but after a few seconds of pointless masochistic nostalgia, tears his eyes away. He gazes instead across the Embankment to the great River Thames, following the progress of tugs chugging downstream, the cranes to the east rising and falling like giant herons, and the ever-changing light on the waves. He still misses the life of a lighterman; the moods of the river, the simplicity of hard physical work and the periods of languor while waiting for the tide or a large boat to arrive for unloading. But he knows that this too is nostalgia, albeit of a different type, as the ancient profession of the lighterman is disappearing, displaced by steel containers and deep-water ports on the east coast.
Charles decides to leave early; he’s due to meet Sean Sloane later that evening for a pint and catch-up. Sean has warned him by phone but now wants to repeat it in person to make sure Charles really gets the point: C11’s file has been destroyed and the events of the last few weeks have left the Krays untouchable. No one in the Met is interested in investigating the dangerous twins, and it looks as if they’re going to get a free pass, at least for a while. Charles needs to take even greater care not to cross them.
Charles puts his head into the clerks’ room to let them know he’s finished for the day and crosses the cobbled lane to stand in the entrance of Inner Temple Gardens for a moment. He’s about to turn and head north up Middle Temple Lane when a couple holding hands approaches from the gardens, intending to climb the stone steps to where Charles stands and proceed through the gates.
It’s Sally. The person with whom she is in deep conversation is the same man Charles saw sitting next to her on the shadowy bench in Fountain Court.
They haven’t seen him yet but as they start up the steps Sally looks up and freezes. The sudden check in her movement causes her companion to look up, and he also recognises Charles. They stop two steps below him. The man attempts to disengage his hand from Sally’s but Charles sees her gripping him all the more tightly.
‘Hello, sir,’ she says.
‘Hello, Sally,’ replies Charles, her reversion to formal address piercing him to the core.
‘It’s turned into a lovely evening, ain’t it?’
‘It has.’
‘I’m glad to hear you’ll be staying on, sir.’
‘You heard about that, did you?’
‘Well, you know what the Temple’s like. You can’t keep no secrets round here. But most of us — that’s the clerks — think you’ve had a rough deal. So we’re pleased you didn’t get chucked out.’
Charles smiles, wondering how his heart can take this further pummelling without breaking. ‘That’s very kind of you, Sally.’
They fall silent but their eyes remain locked onto each other, their unspoken communication vastly more eloquent than anything either of them could have said. She looks happy, Charles thinks.
‘Look, Sally…’ he says, starting to frame an apology, an explanation … something.
‘Never you mind that, sir. We’ll be getting along.’
Charles nods sadly and steps aside. ‘Have a lovely evening,’ he says, his voice flat.
‘You too, sir,’ she says, and Charles watches Sally leave him, hand-in-hand with her new beau.
***
Want to carry on the adventure with Charles Holborne? Read The Waxwork Corpse
— Book Five in the Charles Holborne legal thriller series.
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A NOTE TO THE READER
Dear Reader,
Thank you for taking the time to read the fourth Charles Holborne legal thriller. I am following Charles’s story through the 1960s and although each novel in the series may be read as a stand-alone, the next in the series, The Waxwork Corpse, a much simpler murder case, based on a famous case from the 1970s, follows on directly in time from Corrupted.
Those of you have been to my one-man show, “My Life in Crime”, will know that Charles and his history are based upon me and my own family. Mine was the first generation of Michaels to be born outside the sound of Bow Bells (as you will know, the test for being a “true Cockney”) since 1492, when they arrived in the Port of London as refugees from the Spanish Inquisition. Much of the series is autobiographical. Thus, Charles’s love of London and the Temple are mine; at the start of my career I experienced the class and religious prejudice faced by him; the plots are based to a greater or lesser extent on cases in which I was instructed as a criminal barrister; many of the strange and wonderful characters who populate the books are based upon witnesses, clients and barristers I have known, represented and admired respectively. I try to take no liberties at all with the operation of police procedure, the criminal justice system or the human heart; the books are as true to life as I can make them. If you find any mistakes, I shall be delighted to hear from you. I always reply, and if you’re right, I will make sure future editions are changed.
Nowadays, reviews by readers are essential to authors’ success, so if you enjoyed the novel I shall be in your debt if you would spare the few seconds required to post a review on Amazon and Goodreads. I love hearing from readers, and you can connect with me through my Facebook page via Twitter or through my website.
I hope we’ll meet again in the pages of the next Charl
es Holborne adventure.
Simon Michael
www.simonmichael.uk
HISTORICAL NOTE
I had some hesitation when starting to write Corrupted. It is, in the expression beloved of crime writers and publishers, extremely “gritty”. It is a portrayal of some of the worst depravity of which humans are capable and I was aware that it might offend some readers. However, although this is not a true crime novel, the historical facts upon which it is based actually occurred. Even a brief glance at current news demonstrates that this sort of corruption and abuse of power still continue to this day. For that reason, I believe this is a story that needed to be told.
Almost all of the actors in the drama are now dead. Ronnie Kray was openly homosexual at a time when homosexual acts were both illegal and considered gravely immoral and, whatever evil he did, I cannot help but admire him at least for declaring openly his true nature when the closet was full to bursting with almost everyone else. He did have a relationship with Lord Robert Boothby, the precise extent of which is still debated, but the nature of which Boothby falsely denied. The £40,000 libel damages paid to the latter by the Mirror Group — an unheard-of sum in those days — was wrung out of the newspaper under false pretences. Boothby was the beneficiary of an astonishing cover-up by the Establishment of the day, in which the interests of the Conservative government, still reeling from the Profumo scandal; the Labour Party about to form the next government and its leader and future Prime Minister, Harold Wilson; the Kray twins; and the corrupt sections of the Metropolitan Police converged. The result was that the Krays became untouchable for several years, during which time they were able to continue their reign of terror and a number of lives were lost which might otherwise have been saved.
Reg Payne, the unfortunate editor who ran the Mirror story with the approval of Cecil King, the Chairman of International Press Corporation, did in fact lose his job over the affair.
There was also an investigative journalist, formerly a police officer, who broke the story. However Percy Farrow is entirely my invention, and I hope that the real journalist, whom I have been unable to trace but may still be alive, will forgive me for placing him in the habitus of the brilliant, overweight, gourmand Christian Farrow, a fictional character who I like more with each succeeding appearance in this series.
Finally, Maurice Drake did exist, but not as the doomed Mo of the story. Maurice Drake QC was the barrister who in 1978 became Mr Justice Drake, and whose barrister’s wig I then acquired and wore for the 37 years of my practice. He too is dead, but I have much for which to thank him; Charles’s RAF heroics are based on his war record and I have here borrowed his name.
Everyone else in the book who crosses Charles’s path is a figment of my imagination, although some of the lawyers are modelled on friends and former colleagues at the Bar. If they recognise themselves I hope they will realise that their inclusion is a mark of my respect and affection for them.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank my invaluable beta readers for their thoughts, corrections and in some cases more sophisticated understanding of the human condition than mine. They include Neil Cameron, Carly Jordan, ex-coppers David Lister and Don Hill, Elaine Ibbotson and my lovely agent Lisa Eveleigh. I also wish to thank Dea Parkin of Fiction Feedback and Amy Durant of Sapere Books. Amy’s editorial assistance in getting the structure of this book right was invaluable, while Dea’s understanding of grammar and her eagle-eye for detail are astonishing. Both have immeasurably improved this book. Any remaining flaws in it are mine.
ALSO BY SIMON MICHAEL
The Brief
An Honest Man
The Lighterman
The Waxwork Corpse
Published by Sapere Books.
20 Windermere Drive, Leeds, England, LS17 7UZ,
United Kingdom
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Copyright © Simon Michael, 2018
First published by Urbane Publications, 2018.
Simon Michael has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales are purely coincidental.
eBook ISBN: 9781913028787
Corrupted: Murder and cover-up at the heart of government (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers Book 4) Page 33