by Neil White
‘So which area of law do you fancy when you qualify?’ Joe said.
‘I don’t know,’ Monica said. She tucked some stray hairs behind her ear, her other hand clutching a small briefcase that really served as a handbag. ‘I like personal injury. And probate.’
Joe shook his head dismissively. ‘Just paper shuffling. Crime is more fun.’
‘Fun?’
‘Yes, fun,’ he said. ‘No one chooses crime for the money, but you’ll never be short of an anecdote. I could do with some help. Think about it.’
Monica smiled. ‘Thank you. I will.’
She kept her smile until they walked into the Magistrates Court, where they queued behind defendants and their supporters to get past the security guards, even though they all knew Joe’s name. Wearing a suit didn’t help him jump any queues.
Monica looked at ease as she walked past the clusters of defendants, the usual crowds of deadbeats and hard-times, with their slumped shoulders and scowls, bad luck etched into the smoke-tinged lines on their faces and brown stubs of teeth. It was her presence that had attracted Joe to her when he first saw her around the office. She looked demure and poised in her dark suits and white blouses, always the same look, but Joe had noticed the green and red edge of a tattoo emerging from the collar of her blouse, along with the microdots of piercings that ran along the edges of her ears, the earrings left out for the day job. She would stand out and attract the punters. What good was one more grey suit?
They rode the escalator to the second floor, rising in the brightness made by the high glass roof and on to the open concourse, like a glitzy office complex, to where the lawyers from Mahones strutted around. It was one of the biggest firms in Manchester and it came with a status, so the eager young lawyers shook hands and flashed slick smiles, doing whatever they could to make their clients think that they were not really nice middle class kids whose legal career had dumped them in the bargain basement of law.
Joe pushed his way through the small crowd that blocked the entrance to the court cell complex, busy on a Monday morning. Young women talking to their boyfriends’ lawyers, wanting to know when they would come home. A couple of reporters hoping to pick up on something, a case with an angle. Benefit fraud or illegal immigrants always sold well, but mostly it was just a sift through life’s debris. Drink, drugs and violence – the dependable trinity of criminal law.
As he got closer to the door that led to the court cells, the Central Detention Centre, there was someone hovering outside with a Mahones file cover under his arm. Matt Liver. Thinning hair and narrow glasses, he thought being a lawyer was about the shine of his shoes.
Matt stiffened as Joe got closer.
‘Morning, Matt,’ Joe said. ‘Looks like you lost one.’
‘Ronnie isn’t with you just yet.’
‘So why are you here? I thought you’d be in court, putting in your legal aid form. You don’t want anyone to swipe your client before you get your name on the court file.’
Matt’s lips went tight at that.
Joe’s eyes widened and he laughed. ‘Didn’t you get the forms signed? Old man Mahone won’t like that, especially when Ronnie comes to me.’
Matt stepped closer. ‘All weekend, Joe. I was there on Saturday night for him, and yesterday. Where were you then?’
‘You need to get some more sleep,’ Joe said. ‘I can smell your tiredness on your breath.’
Before Matt could respond, Joe tapped on the window next to the door that led to the cells. As it slid open, Joe smiled at the wide man in the white shirt, a chain hanging from his belt loop. ‘I’ve come to see Ronnie Bagley.’
‘Hello, Joe. He’s been waiting for you.’
The door buzzed and Joe and Monica went through. Matt tried to follow, but Joe put his hand out. ‘Don’t demean yourself. I’ll tell the old man you did your best.’
Matt was swearing as the door closed, the final click of the electronic lock bringing welcome silence.
The guard turned round to say, ‘He’s been getting pretty worked up.’
‘What, Matt?’ Joe said. ‘He needs to learn that it’s just a job. He’ll never make partner at Mahones.’
‘Is that why you left?’
Joe didn’t answer that. The reason for his leaving was nothing to do with his career path. Instead, he passed over a legal aid form. ‘Can you get Ronnie to sign that in the usual place, Ken?’
‘No problem,’ he replied.
It wasn’t protocol, but Joe knew who to keep on his side. The ones who transported the prisoners around were the people who might mention his name to those who didn’t have a lawyer. Bottles of whiskey at Christmas, and he made sure he knew their names.
Joe was shown to the kiosk in the corner, where he squeezed in with Monica. Her perfume filled the small space, the view ahead an empty chair behind a glass screen.
‘I’ve never met a murderer before,’ Monica said, her voice quiet.
‘We don’t know if he is one yet.’
Monica pursed her lips. ‘But if the police think he murdered someone, there must be some good reason?’
‘We are lawyers. It’s about proof, about evidence. You’ll learn to rationalise it; we all find our own ways. Just don’t become one of those lawyers who take sides, because often they can’t see where the line is, so get dragged over to the wrong side and become just a crook’s lackey. I do things I shouldn’t, but it’s all about knowing which ones will come back to bite. Be nice but keep your distance, because most of them would sell you out if they get into trouble.’
Monica’s training session was brought to a halt by the sound of someone talking to the guards on the other side, and then a dishevelled man sat down in the chair on the other side of the glass. He had all the averages. Height, build, pale complexion and his hair short but not crewcut, sticking up on top, the result of two nights on the vinyl mattress in a police cell.
‘Ronnie Bagley, I’m Joe Parker. This is Monica Taylor.’
Ronnie rubbed his head. ‘I know who you are, Mr Parker. I asked for you, remember.’ His voice was tired and defeated. When Joe didn’t respond, he said, ‘What did you expect? Big smiles? I’m locked up for murder.’
‘Okay, let’s start again,’ Joe said. He wouldn’t take it from clients normally, but he could only guess at the stresses Ronnie was under. ‘Tell me why you want me and not Mahones.’
‘I thought I was getting you when I asked for Mahones.’
‘I’ve left.’
‘Yeah, I know that now. So what happens next?’
Joe considered Ronnie Bagley. He seemed angry, not nervous or scared, almost impatient to start the process. That wasn’t usual for murder suspects. Most just wanted to tell everyone how innocent they were, even when it wasn’t true. Joe started to notice other things. Ronnie clasped his right palm with his left hand, his thumb rubbing all the time, betraying the nerves. There were tattoos between his finger and thumb, homemade, like small grey lines, just coloured scratches.
Ronnie scowled and, as Joe let the silence grow, he sat back and then hunched forward again, his body in perpetual motion. There was a rugged sort of handsomeness in his face somewhere, but it was being eroded by the knocks and bangs of life, his mouth showing the puckered lines of too many cigarettes, his eyes sunken by dark rings.
‘Nothing much will happen today,’ Joe said. ‘You’ll go to prison tonight. Tomorrow, or probably the day after, a judge at the Crown Court will think about bail, but he won’t grant it. Then you’ll wait for your trial.’
Ronnie swallowed and looked down. ‘Is it for definite I won’t get bail?’
‘Yes, because you’re charged with murder.’
‘Don’t people accused of murder ever get bail?’
‘Not usually. I’m not going to raise your hopes, Ronnie. I can tell you the truth or I can tell you what you want to hear, but the facts won’t change.’
Ronnie kept his eyes on the floor and nodded, almost to himself, as if it was the news
he had expected to hear. When he looked up again, his gaze shifted to Monica, who put her hair behind her ears again and shifted uncomfortably. ‘And you are?’
‘I’m Monica Taylor,’ she said, clearing her throat. ‘I’m the trainee.’
Joe tapped on the glass. ‘Eyes this way, Ronnie,’ he said, pointing to himself. ‘Talk to me about your case. Who do they say you killed?’
Ronnie lingered on Monica for a few more seconds, and then said, ‘My girlfriend, Carrie, and Grace, our daughter.’
Joe made a note of that, although it was really just to take it in. His own child. ‘What did you tell the police?’ Joe said.
‘I didn’t say anything to them. Why should I? There aren’t any bodies. If there aren’t any bodies, how can I be guilty of murder?’
Four
So now it was all about the waiting. He put his head back against the wall. It was cold.
The uncertainty ahead was the hardest part. Was he doing the right thing? He was doing it for the right reason, for love, but what if it was the wrong way? There had been thrills, he knew that, but he had to stop it all. It was out of control.
But quiet moments made him think back; there were so many memories to keep him occupied, and his mind drifted back to the first one.
The first time had been his selection. That had been the promise when he agreed.
He had seen her coming out of the hairdressers, a small salon opposite the blackened walls that ran alongside the railway station, permanently in the shadow of what was once a high grassy outcrop, now scarred by millstone cottages and the slow climb that led to the top part of the town. She was brightness against the dark, somehow wasted in the gloom.
Her hair had been just how he liked it, long and straight, not kinked and spoiled by chemicals and colour. It was as it was meant to be, natural and soft, although the tips had been severe, so that he could almost see the clip of the scissors. He had tried to resist, because he had promised himself he would, but he couldn’t, the urge was too strong. It started as a whisper, but then it turned into a growl, so that his head felt tight, blood coursing around his skull so that he had to release the pressure.
So he had walked behind her. All he could hear was the brush of her hair against the nylon of her top, just soft crackles, swaying from side to side, mesmerising, hypnotic. He moved to the other side of the pavement whenever she paused to look in a shop window or check her phone, worried that he had been spotted, but it had only ever been about her reflection. She had flicked at her fringe, her hair cut straight across and long down the sides, so that it framed her face.
He remembered the coldness of the scissors, small in his pocket and tight around his fingers, but he could keep them concealed in his hand right up until they were slicing across their target. So his fingers went into the grips, ready, just hoping that the chance would arise. A busy shop, or perhaps a bump on the street, his hands quick, like a pickpocket.
Then she had stopped. His heart had drummed in his chest. She was at a bus stop. The perfect way.
He stopped next to her. She hadn’t noticed him.
When the bus came, he listened to where she was going and got a ticket to take him further. He would see where she went.
The seat behind her had been vacant, and so he slid in behind her. Her hair had hung over the edge of the seat and, as the bus rocked, he watched it move in front of him, his breaths like quick gasps, his mouth dry. No one behind him, just an old woman in front, but she wasn’t looking. She wouldn’t remember him.
So he had pulled the scissors out of his pocket. They were his tools, short and sharp, oiled so that they made no sound, the blades keen so that there was no pull. Just one quick, clean cut.
As they came to a stop, her hair had stopped moving. His hand reached up, the scissors ready, his other hand underneath, ready to catch.
It had taken just one snip, the blades coming together, and an inch-wide strip of hair fell into his hand, soft and light, just tickles on his fingers. He clenched his fist and felt the strands in his grip.
He remembered how his vision had blurred, the need to get home, to spend time alone with it, but then she had flicked her hair and everything had seemed to move more slowly, the long strands swaying like the slow waft of a curtain in the breeze, because he had seen it, just a glimpse, but enough. It was the soft nape of her neck, where her hair was softest, those fine hairs almost like down.
He had leaned forward. It had been a risk, because she might feel his breaths on her neck, but he had to get closer. He loved short hair, bob-style, but high at the back, so that he could imagine the hairdresser’s clippers buzzing over skin, sending hair to the floor, tumbling off the back of the chair, the bristles soft against his fingers. Short hair made it too difficult though, because he might nick the skin and so draw attention to himself and his scissors. The clippings he collected were a consolation, because it was the nearest thing he could get without touching.
Her nape had made it harder to think clearly.
She stood up to get off the bus. Her top crackled as her hair swished across it, clean and gleaming, flowing down her back and then swaying with the soft rock of her hips, although not all of it stayed neat. There were those small strands that rubbed against the shoulders, static making it dance. He wanted more. He had watched her as she got off the bus, as she turned into a long street of stone houses. There were only open fields at the end, so that meant she must live on the street.
That had been the moment when he had known he would go further, because he had her hair and knew where she lived.
She had been the first one.
Five
The scene at the court corridor was the usual one: blank faces waiting around for their hearings, sitting on stained blue chairs bolted to the floor as prosecutors made their way past with laptops under their arms. Most of the defence lawyers were young, with their firms emblazoned across the top of their files, instructed to hold them so that the firm’s name was visible, so that they acted like a sandwich board, free advertising.
Monica trailed behind him as Joe moved towards the courtroom. Joe let the conversations in the corridor wash over him, defendants reliving whatever had brought them to the court, although their lawyers would repackage and sanitise the stories and pack them full of remorse, ready for the courtroom. He scanned the faces quickly, just to check if there were any clients he recognised, particularly old clients from Mahones. It didn’t take much to get them to swap; sometimes just a bottle of cheap sherry, but there was no one who looked familiar.
‘So what happens now?’ Monica said, her voice almost a whisper.
‘We get the papers from the prosecution and then later we go see him in prison. All Ronnie has got now is a long wait to find out what happens to the rest of his life.’
The chatter faded as Joe pushed at the door and the courtroom hush took over. Rows of wood-effect desks ran towards the front of the room, stopped by the raised platform used by the magistrates, justice dispensed from below the court crest. The lion and the unicorn. The Royal Standard. Dieu et Mon Droit. Defence solicitors filled the desks. Some were talking. Others were reading their files or doing the crossword. Joe groaned. It looked like there was a queue. He checked his watch. He had somewhere he needed to be.
He thought for a moment of leaving, not wanting to be delayed, but Ronnie’s case was too important. The darkness came back over him, like a sudden swamp of his mood, because he knew what would come later in the day, when the memories flooded him and the secret he had carried for fifteen years rose to the surface once more. But that was for later. Ronnie was the here and now.
He gestured for Monica to sit at the back as he went to speak to the prosecutor. When he saw it was Kim Reader, he smiled. Kim was an old friend from law college, although they had once been more than that, a couple of drunken nights bringing them together. Her expression was weary as she turned round, expecting another bout of moans from a defence lawyer, but when she saw it was Joe, her
face brightened.
‘Joe Parker,’ she said. ‘It’s good to see you.’
‘Yeah, you too. What are you doing here? I thought you played around in the big courts now.’
‘I’ve got a murder case and so I’m keeping hold of it, except that I get the rest of the list too,’ and she grimaced and pointed to a tablet computer on a lectern, the morning’s cases loaded on and ready to be presented, next to a small pile of white file covers, the overnighters.
‘Ronnie Bagley?’ Joe said. ‘He’s mine.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You’ve got that one?’ She turned round and nodded at two people sitting on the seats at the side of court, a man and a woman. Detectives, Joe guessed. It was obvious from the way they were dressed. Pastel shirts, well-pressed, and clean suits. Lawyers went for either well-worn or expensive pin-stripes.
They got up and walked over, their identification swinging from blue ribbons around their necks.
‘DI Evans,’ the woman said, smiling, although Joe could see it was forced. For now, he was the enemy.
The man behind said, ‘DS Bolton,’ and held out his hand to shake. Joe took it, even though he knew why it was being done, to try to make him grimace, to admire the firmness.
‘Inspector, good morning,’ Joe said.
‘I thought Bagley was with Mahones?’ Evans said.
‘Not any more.’
‘I’m not surprised. They told him to stay quiet, but if he had something to say, he should have said it. He might not have been charged.’
‘So you’ll believe whatever he says, Inspector?’ Joe said, mock surprise on his face. ‘If you want, he’ll say how he didn’t do it and you can let him out.’