‘But I am,’ Anderson protested. ‘Harsher.’
Forster shrugged and sat down, clutching his own copy of the AD. ‘I’ve had a look at the papers, John. My sympathies go out to you, they really do. It’s damage limitation, isn’t it? A trial would be suicide. We’re in front of His Honour Judge Cranston. He’s no softie, especially after a trial. We need to have you arraigned today to get full credit – early guilty plea scheme and all that.’
Anderson looked at Dewi. ‘But what about Heena Butt? Did you manage to find out anything?’
‘Afraid not, but you know my views on that. There’s nothing there that could help you. The driving is what it is.’
Out of options, Anderson agreed to plead guilty. No one believed in him, not even himself anymore. ‘What about bail?’
‘He won’t remand you in custody until the sentence, when probation have done their report. You’ve got three weeks or so to put your affairs in order,’ replied Forster, before stopping to listen to the tannoy.
‘Would all parties in the case of Anderson go to Court One immediately.’
They made their way up the stairs to the circular landing, a central hub where interested parties could wait outside the courtrooms. Anderson kept his head down to avoid eye contact with the various counsel and solicitors who obviously recognised him.
The usher greeted Forster at the door of the courtroom. ‘You’re first on. The judge wants to get this one out of the way – press interest. He’s coming in in two minutes.’ She then turned to the defendant. ‘Mr Anderson?’
‘Yes.’
‘If you’d like to go into the dock please.’
He followed the usher and his legal team into court.
Hannah Stapleton, QC was already in counsels’ row. Just on the right side of fifty, she’d once been the belle of the Leeds Bar. Still with a twinkle in her eye, she now had the maturity and presence of an elite performer. She acknowledged Forster but ignored Anderson, who made his way into the dock. He looked across at the press box, full of reporters scribbling on their pads. The public gallery was also bursting, not with his friends and family, but strangers.
This was officially the end of John Anderson, yet those who mattered most to him didn’t seem to care.
‘All rise!’ cried the usher as His Honour Judge Cranston came into court. A fat, self-important, no-nonsense Yorkshireman. Cranston said what he meant and gave significant discounts for a guilty plea. He had no time for those who chose to play the system, especially at a cost to the public purse. Once seated, he surveyed the packed courtroom, then rested an eye on Anderson.
The clerk identified the defendant: ‘Are you John Anderson?’
‘Yes.’
Stapleton was on her feet. ‘Your Honour, I appear to prosecute, my learned friend, Mr Forster, defends. I have drafted an indictment, as I understand from Mr Forster that the defendant is content to be arraigned today.’
His Honour gave a solemn nod, then gave Anderson a double-take, but decided not to make reference to his condition. ‘Very well, let the indictment be put.’
The clerk stood up and signalled for the defendant to do the same. ‘John Anderson, you are charged with two counts. On count one you are charged with an offence of causing death by dangerous driving in that…’
All eyes were on Anderson. A bruised and broken man. He just wanted it to be over. Not just the hearing, the prison sentence – everything. All fight was gone and with it, all hope.
‘…on the 24th day of January 2012, you drove a mechanically propelled vehicle, namely—’
‘Wait!’
Everyone switched their attention towards the door of the courtroom. Who was the source of this interruption?
‘Who is that?’ erupted the judge. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ He peered over his half-moon spectacles, searching for a clearer view of the man in a grey suit. ‘Come forward.’
‘Profuse apologies, Your Honour. I know it’s highly irregular but I must speak with the defendant before he’s arraigned.’
Hussain? Anderson was astounded. What the hell was he doing?
‘Who are you?’ His Honour Judge Cranston persisted.
‘Tahir Hussain, Your Honour. I’m a solicitor from Manchester. I was involved in a case with the defendant at the time of the alleged offence. I must speak to him.’
The judge let out a sigh. ‘This isn’t how we do things on this side of the Pennines, but very well. I’ll stand the matter down for five minutes – and no more. Bail as before.’
‘I’m grateful, Your Honour.’ Hussain bowed and left court to wait in a conference room just outside.
A furious Forster stormed in, followed by Morgan and then Anderson. ‘This had better be good,’ said Forster.
‘John,’ said Hussain, still catching his breath and ignoring Forster. ‘Can we have a couple of minutes alone?’
Morgan didn’t give his client time to answer. ‘No chance. You’re just here to poach a brief. Have you no shame?’
Hussain ignored the insult. ‘Look, John,’ he said, then saw Anderson’s face properly. ‘Who did this to you?’
Wearily, Anderson replied, ‘What do you want, Hussain?’
Refocusing, he began. ‘I don’t know you on a personal level, but you don’t strike me as the kind of man who would fall asleep driving home to Wilmslow at five in the evening. I just don’t believe it. Judging by what you were saying last night, neither do you?’
Anderson was confused. This person who he’d spent years trying to humiliate in court, who he loathed, who he slagged off behind his back at any opportunity, was seemingly the only person in England who actually believed he might be innocent. He must know something. ‘Do you know what happened?’
Hussain gulped in some air. ‘No I don’t. Like yours, my instincts tell me maybe Waqar Ahmed was involved, but I’ve got no evidence. But more importantly, if you say you’re innocent of this, I believe you.’
Morgan sneered at Hussain. ‘I thought so. He’s got nothing.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Anderson. ‘Why would you come all the way over to Bradford just to tell me that?’
‘Because you’re a bloody good advocate. The best. I don’t want to see you throw everything away just because you think it’s the right thing to do. Where’s the fight in you?’
Anderson considered the advice, could feel himself welling up.
Hussain wasn’t finished: ‘It’s too early to plead guilty. Once you do, that’s it. There’s no going back.’ He pointed at Morgan. ‘John, what’s he actually done? Has he explored all avenues? Maybe you had a seizure. Have you had a brain scan?’
Morgan was outraged. ‘How dare you question my judgement!’
‘He’s right, Dewi. You haven’t done anything, apart from tell me how strong the Crown’s case is. What’s the rush?’ Hussain was only saying what Anderson had thought since the police station.
‘You listen to this reckless lawyer and you’re doubling the sentence,’ warned Morgan.
The usher knocked, then poked her head around the door. ‘The judge wants you in court – now.’
Morgan and Forster attempted to steer their client out of the conference room.
Hussain stopped him. ‘Just so you know, John, if you need a lawyer prepared to defend this, I will gladly do it.’
Anderson’s head was in a whirl. ‘But you’re a witness. You’ve made a statement about seeing me at Starbucks. You can’t defend me.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Hussain protested. ‘I did see you there, but I haven’t spoken to the police about it. It’s not my style to kick a man when he’s down.’
Anderson was beginning to realise that he’d made a grave error of judgement as far as Tahir Hussain was concerned. He looked at Morgan and Forster then back at Hussain.
Hussain offered Anderson his hand − for the second time since the crash. ‘Guilty or not guilty?’
‘Don’t do this, John,’ said Morgan.
Part II
Chapter 33
The door flew open. ‘Have you heard?’ shouted Detective Chief Inspector Armstrong, directing his question to DI Taylor, sitting at his desk.
Instinctively, Taylor glanced over at Waters, who was equally bemused and replied: ‘No, Chief, heard what?’
‘Anderson, he’s gone not guilty.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘Do I look like I’m joking? Thought you said the evidence was overwhelming. Got experts coming out our ears, you said.’
‘It is. We have.’
‘You can hardly blame ’im, Chief,’ Waters chipped in. ‘Got a lot to lose. Worth having a punt on a trial.’
‘Did I ask your opinion?’ Armstrong snapped.
‘Sorry, Chief.’
Taylor didn’t appreciate his officers being spoken to like that, but decided to let it pass this time. ‘All we can do is prepare the case, Chief. How he pleads is out of our hands.’
‘I suppose so,’ Armstrong replied, calming down. ‘Is it watertight? That’s all I want to know.’
‘Yes,’ Taylor replied firmly. Unable to resist winding up his boss, he added: ‘But you know what lawyers say? There’s no such thing as bang to rights.’
‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’
‘Well, we haven’t been able to bottom the identity of his passenger.’
‘Thought you had some Indian name?’
‘That’s from a library card found in her handbag. There’s no other ID. It doesn’t matter technically, as long as we can prove the death, and we’ve got a body, but it might give the defence something to play with.’
‘And who do you think she was?’
‘Dunno, Chief, but if I was a betting man I’d say she was a prostitute. We may never know.’
‘And the five-year-old girl in the other vehicle? I take it you know her identity?’ Armstrong asked.
‘Yes, obviously,’ Taylor replied.
‘Good, because I want you to go and tell her parents there’s going to be a trial. It’s the least you can do.’
‘Yes, Chief.’ His stomach churned.
Chapter 34
Tom and Sandra Granger had aged in the few weeks since DI Taylor last saw them. The house was the same − spotless. Even the magazines on the coffee table were arranged in a perfect fan.
Taylor sat on the settee, noticing the freshly ironed arm-caps. A way of life, deeply ingrained – great pride in their tiny home − as they must have had in their beloved daughter.
Still in his overcoat, Anderson refused the offer of a cup of tea, not wishing to prolong matters. ‘As you know, the plea hearing was today. I wanted to tell you in person that—’ He paused. There was no way to make this easy. ‘The defendant is denying it. He’s pleaded not guilty.’
It took a while for the information to compute. Then: ‘Denying it?’ Tom Granger couldn’t understand. ‘How can he deny it? Our Molly’s dead.’
‘I know,’ Taylor sighed. ‘So there’s going to be a trial.’
‘Does that mean we’ll have to give evidence?’ Sandra asked, fiddling with a tissue in her sleeve.
‘Yes, you will.’
‘Good. I want to, if it helps. For Molly.’
‘Of course. Is there anything else you’ve remembered about what happened?’
‘No.’
Something made him ask, ‘Or anything you think you could have got wrong in your statement?’
‘Like what?’ asked Sandra.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Anything?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘OK, just checking,’ Taylor replied.
‘I’ve heard he’s an important man,’ said Tom Granger. ‘The bloke who did it?’
‘No more important than you, Mr Granger.’
‘A barrister, isn’t he? If he knows the law, might he wriggle out of it?’
‘Not if I can help it,’ Taylor replied. He got up to leave. ‘If there’s anything you want to ask, please, feel free to call me anytime.’
‘I just can’t understand it,’ said Mr Granger.
‘Understand what?’
‘Why it couldn’t have been me.’ His face broke up. Sandra held him. They held each other.
‘It should’ve been me,’ he said. ‘It should’ve been me.’
Taylor showed himself out.
Chapter 35
Hussain left a set of papers in R v Anderson with Adey. He’d managed to scrounge a full bundle of depositions as well as transcripts of the interviews. They were only missing the unused material.
Adey couldn’t wait to get to work. She didn’t believe a word of Anderson’s account to the police. To her it was obvious – he’d messed up. Probably had a fight with a hooker over money and crashed the car. If anyone knew how to get out of a situation like that, it was a prosecution barrister. He might be able to take Hussain for a ride, but not Adey Tuur. She’d been around the block too many times. She’d uncover the truth soon enough. But there was something about John Anderson that drew her. An austere man, yet such a commanding presence. His quiet charisma was almost magnetic. She remembered him bursting into the office full of anger. Adey had never met anyone remotely like him before. Like her, he seemed so lost, yet their lives to date couldn’t have been more different.
Born in Somalia during the civil war, Adey knew little about her father, only what her mother told her, and that was almost nothing. A white Englishman, he’d said he was an aid worker, but was more probably a gun-runner. Adey had never got to the bottom of whether her mother had had a one-night stand on the evening of her conception or whether she’d been raped. She would often look into Adey’s eyes before she died, and comment on the miracle of how someone so beautiful had come out of something so terrible. Her uncle, who lived with them in Mogadishu when she was young, had been involved in politics. She still had nightmares about the men who came to their home during the night. Tattooed on her memory, peeping out from the bedroom door with her brother, Bahdoon. She remembered the torchlights glistening off the machetes, raining down on her uncle. The sound of flesh being chopped – blood-spattered walls. Her mother sobbing as she surveyed the dismembered corpse, confused as to which body part to cling to.
After the withdrawal of UN forces in March 1995 her mother had fled, taking Adey and Bahdoon to the UK as political refugees, eventually settling in Moss Side, Manchester.
Unable to come to terms with the traumatic events in her life, Adey’s mother committed suicide when Adey was fourteen, leaving her and a sixteen-year-old brother to fend for themselves.
With Hussain out at court she treated herself to an extra notch on the electric heater, then set about trying to find out something on Heena Butt.
She started with the basics: Facebook and Twitter. Nothing. Maybe she’d made a mistake with the spelling. She flicked through the brief. To her surprise, there was a hole in the prosecution case − no death certificate and no evidence to prove the identity of the deceased. Paramedics described finding a body in Anderson’s vehicle, pronounced dead on arrival by doctors at the hospital, but no one had confirmed her name. The only reference to the name Heena Butt was from the police officers in Anderson’s interview, but she couldn’t work out where they got it from.
Even basic searches of the electoral role were hopeless without a date of birth or address. And with no details to go on, other searches were pointless. She was stumped, unable to progress this aspect of her preparation until the prosecution disclosed the schedule of unused material. She could only hope that would turn up something. Fortunately for the client, it meant a stay of execution.
Chapter 36
Anderson caught the bus from town. He wiped away the condensation on the window and took in the bright lights of the Curry Mile. His senses revelled in the different sights and smells as he alighted in the centre of Rusholme, a welcome resp
ite from the monotony of sitting in West’s flat. The swelling to his face had reduced and his movement was less restricted.
Surviving on what remained of a £1200 cheque for a trial he’d prosecuted six months before, he was now formally suspended from practice by the Bar Standards Board − not that the clerks had been giving him anything anyway. At least Mia wasn’t pressurising him for maintenance. She seemed to understand his predicament. That was something to be thankful for. God knows what she and the children were living on.
Anderson’s spirits had been lifted. He still couldn’t quite believe how Hussain had driven all the way to Bradford to persuade him not to plead guilty. A man Anderson had despised more than anyone else in the legal profession. He’d thought he had good judgement about people, a sixth sense. How could he have got things so wrong? Anderson found himself actually looking forward to seeing Hussain, being able to talk about the case to someone who wanted to hear his take on things. He hurried along the icy pavement, only the grit keeping him upright.
Before going into Hussain’s office, Anderson stopped and stared across the road at the Kashmiri Palace. Remembering the beating, he shuddered. Was that where the answer lay? Or was he closing his eyes to the obvious – that he, John Anderson, was responsible for the death of two people?
The office was freezing but Hussain’s greeting was warm. He stood in the reception area, holding a kettle. ‘Fancy a brew?’
‘Yes, please. Black, no sugar,’ Anderson replied, undoing the buttons on his overcoat.
‘I hardly recognised you,’ said Hussain, grinning.
Anderson didn’t get it.
‘In your civvies. You look almost relaxed – almost.’
For some reason he had chosen to dress down for the conference: sports jacket, white shirt, jeans and Italian loafers. This uniform was usually only reserved for weekends.
Hussain had taken off his day collar and tie. His suit jacket was replaced by a thick woollen jumper with holes in the elbows. ‘Sorry about the temperature. We put the heating on in the boardroom especially for you!’ he said, gesturing towards a closed door. ‘We’ve never had such an important client.’
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