by Neil White
Susie was her name. She had joined the firm as a trainee just as Joe was qualifying, so she got to shadow him around the courts. The thing with courts is that a lot of time is spent hanging around, waiting to be called on, so he and Susie had a long time to get to know each other. And Susie had been someone he wanted to get to know, with olive skin and dark hair than curled down to her shoulders, her figure trim, her smile bright and confident.
It was after a long day in the old court at Salford, a grand old building of wooden docks and ornate landings, before it was closed down so everyone could go to the modern building of grubby magnolia paint. They went for a drink, and then another. Susie didn’t go home for a week, and within a month, she had moved in.
Unfortunately, being an on-call criminal lawyer kept Joe out too long and too often, and Susie’s eyes started to wander. They didn’t wander that far. Just two rooms along the corridor, where one of the civil law partners worked. One night, there was a gap between police interviews, and so he went to the office to catch up with some paperwork. When he got there, he felt the full wrench of infidelity, Susie’s soft moans instantly recognisable through the closed office door.
He had opened the door slowly, his phone in his hand. He took three pictures before they saw him, Susie on her back on the desk, her shirt and bra on the floor, her skirt hoisted up to her thighs, her new lover standing between her open legs.
He hadn’t said anything. There was nothing that needed to be said. He walked out of the room, and that was the last time he had set foot in Mahones. He had a few weeks of doing nothing, except clearing Susie’s stuff from the apartment, until Honeywells called.
‘How are the two great lovers?’ Joe said.
Isla smiled, and then checked around that no one was listening before she whispered, ‘Tense. I think his wife is being quite unreasonable in the divorce.’
Joe enjoyed that thought. ‘I feel bad about the photographs though,’ he said.
‘No you don’t. I would have been proud of it.’
And she was right. The phone had a decent camera, and he caught them perfectly, with Susie’s breasts like two tanned jellies on a plate and Mike’s pale legs contrasting perfectly with the dark trousers that were gathered round his ankles, the third picture catching their shocked faces as they turned towards the camera. Joe emailed them to everyone in the firm in a drunken jealous rage later that night, the chain on the door so Susie couldn’t get back in. It was the one he sent to Mike’s wife that really caused the damage.
Joe had found out how infidelity hurt, and he wasn’t going to inflict it on anyone else. It was single women only for him, except that, at his age, there weren’t that many around. He guessed he would be waiting until the first marriages started to crumble.
‘I need to speak to whoever knows about Ronnie Bagley,’ he said.
Isla looked confused for a while, and then said, ‘Is he the murderer?’
‘He says he isn’t.’
‘I heard people talking about it. You upset a few people by pinching Ronnie’s case.’
‘That’s no bad thing. Is there anyone in who will still talk to me? What about Matt?’
‘Do you want me to see if he’s around?’
‘Please. I haven’t come here for the nostalgia.’
Isla made a call and then turned to Joe and said, ‘Go on up. He hasn’t moved.’ Joe hesitated, and so Isla added, ‘Mike isn’t in.’
‘Susie?’
‘Somewhere around, but you can’t hide away all your life.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ he said, and then headed for the stairs.
As he set off, he wondered what he would discover. He was sure that Ronnie Bagley’s secrets were buried in the building somewhere.
Fifty-Two
Sam went straight to a computer terminal, Charlotte alongside. No one paid them any attention. Although Charlotte must have shown some strong qualities to become a detective, on the team she was still the junior officer. Sam knew he was even less than that.
Sam logged on and searched for the complaint made by Claire. As the egg-timer icon tumbled on-screen, Evans came up behind him.
‘How are you getting on today?’ she said.
Sam turned round. ‘We’re getting somewhere,’ and he told her about the link with the photograph.
‘A different link?’ She thought for a few seconds and then said, ‘You two should keep on looking, but we’re going to need some more people on this.’
Before Sam could respond, Evans was distracted by a shout from the other side of the room. ‘Mary, the prosecution are on the phone.’
‘Hang on,’ she said, and went over to take the call.
Sam looked back to the screen, still waiting for the information to load, when Evans slammed down her phone. Everyone looked over.
Evans stood up, throwing her chair against the wall.
‘Right, confession time,’ she said, the words coming out with venom. ‘Who’s spoken to Terry Day recently?’
No one spoke. A few people exchanged glances and small shakes of the head.
Evans stepped out from behind her desk. She stood in the middle of the room, her hands on her hips.
‘Make no mistake, I will ask Terry Day myself, but I’d rather hear it from my team,’ she continued, turning round, making sure that she got a good look at everyone. Still no one spoke. ‘That was the CPS on the phone. Guess what: Terry Day has told the defence that he has seen Carrie Smith since Ronnie Bagley is supposed to have killed her. And little Grace. Our victims in our murder case. He’s certain that they aren’t dead.’
There were gasps around the room, pens going down, people looking at each other, eyes wide. Everyone knew how bad this was. Without a potential deceased, there was no murder case.
‘I shouldn’t have to find out like this, through the prosecution. So come on, who already knows about this, because Terry told the defence that he spoke to someone here?’
She looked around again, daring someone to say something, breathing heavily through her nose, her anger visible from the glare in her eyes.
Then there was a cough. It was Ged, the officer with the muscles, coffee-boy.
Evans whirled round.
Ged looked to his colleagues for support, but they all seemed suddenly distracted.
‘I spoke to him, over the weekend,’ he said, his voice sheepish.
‘What did he say?’
‘Just what you said.’ He held up his hands. ‘Hey, it’s not how it looks. He told me that he thought he had seen Carrie, but it was all wrong. Her hair colour was different, much darker, and he had been far enough away to make a mistake. So I told him that was what it was, a mistake. I thought he agreed with me.’
‘He doesn’t seem quite so mistaken anymore,’ she said, her voice rising a pitch. ‘What were you thinking of, for Christ’s sake? We spent the weekend persuading the CPS to charge him, and all the time our witness was saying that our victims were still alive.’
‘I just thought that there was no point in making a record of it, because the defence would make a lot of it, when really there was nothing in it. It’s easy to make a mistake from a distance. He was wrong.’
‘It doesn’t matter what you think,’ she said, stepping closer to him, leaning over him. ‘You kept it quiet, and now we’ve got a police cover-up on top of a witness who is certain the victims are still alive.’ Her chest was pumping hard, deep breaths taken through her nose. ‘You might have ruined this case now, and Ronnie Bagley could stay free.’
Ged looked down, a flush to his cheeks, embarrassed.
Evans turned away and pointed at Sam. ‘Go and visit Terry Day and take a new statement. I want it served on the CPS this afternoon.’ She looked round the rest of the room. ‘You know how I work. I deal with truth, not results. It’s why I joined the force, to get to the truth. I do not want a repeat. Everyone understand?’
There were mumbles of agreement.
Evans went back to her office, and Ged look
ed for comradeship amongst his colleagues. There was none.
Sam looked back to the screen, refocusing on the link with the photograph, and saw a number of entries that connected to Claire’s name. An incident log. A crime report. Statements from the officers who had got involved with the complaint. But it was the crime report that made Sam’s eyes widen.
It was a summary of the complaint and how it progressed. It concluded that the suspect had been given words of advice about how he used the internet.
‘We need to go now,’ Sam said, getting up quickly. ‘We will go see Terry Day, but there’s somewhere I need to go first.’
‘Where?’
‘To see my brother. I need to talk to him.’
Sam pointed at the screen. Charlotte gasped. It was name of the suspect, the person behind the internet profile who had made contact with Gilly Henderson using the photograph.
Ronnie Bagley.
Fifty-Three
As Joe walked through the Mahones building, he felt so much of his early career slide back into focus. His nervousness when he first started, the new boy fresh from university and law college. Those boozy nights that ended with him waking up with one of the young secretaries or clerks. Those times had ended when Susie came along.
Like a lot of the law offices in the city centre, Mahones occupied what was once an old grand house, so that the corridors snaked between small rooms that once served as bedrooms, the view outwards through old sash windows. The building smelled of furniture polish, the cleaners attentive. As he walked past the rooms, he glanced in. Some people looked up, and those that remembered him waved. Some of them even shouted after him, but he kept on walking. He didn’t want his presence widely known.
Matt Liver had an office at the end of the corridor, overlooking a small car park. Joe wasn’t sure what reaction he would get. The last time Joe had seen him, he was pinching Liver’s client from him.
Joe knocked on the door and then pushed at it slowly. When Matt saw him, he said, ‘You’ve got a cheek.’ His eyes were ablaze behind small round glasses, his chain-store suit too small, as always, so that he looked like he’d grown out of it.
‘It’s not a social call,’ Joe said. ‘Look, no hard feelings. Ronnie asked for me. I didn’t poach him.’
‘Old man Mahone didn’t see it like that.’
‘I didn’t mean to cause you any problems.’
Matt pointed to Joe’s bruised eye. ‘It looks like you’ve been making a few enemies this week.’
‘It’s a long story, and there are some around here who would enjoy it too much.’
‘You mean Susie?’
‘She’s one, for sure. And how is she?’
‘Sleeping with one of the partners gives her a power she doesn’t deserve, and she doesn’t wear it well.’
‘She always had greater ambition than me.’
Matt sighed. ‘Okay, so what are you here for, if it isn’t my wit?’
‘Ronnie Bagley.’
‘What, you want to give him back?’
‘He keeps hinting that he knows me, but I don’t remember him. He tells me like it’s important, almost as if he wants me to know who he is.’
‘Are you sure you don’t remember him?’ Matt said. ‘Haircut Ronnie?’
Joe’s mouth opened, as if he was about to say something, but he stopped, because a memory came back to him.
‘Haircut Ronnie is Ronnie Bagley?’
‘Didn’t you know?’
‘That was six, seven years ago. I’ve had a lot of clients since then.’
Joe thought back to the case, because it was one of those that provided light relief for defence lawyers, some oddball tale squeezed in between the usual stories of bad luck and sheer wickedness.
As he remembered it, Ronnie had been a man with a hair obsession, stalking students on the streets down by the university. He carried scissors in his pocket and would clip off a chunk. There had been a few complaints, and he was caught when he was followed and admitted an assault. Joe had regarded it as a good result because they had only been able to pin one on him. He remembered that Ronnie hadn’t viewed it so reasonably.
Whatever he had thought back then though, he had wanted Joe to represent him again.
‘He’s changed,’ Joe said. ‘I just didn’t recognise him.’
‘People get older.’
‘It explains why he thought I should remember him,’ Joe said. He thanked Matt. ‘Next time we talk, let’s make it more civil. It’s good to see you again,’ he said, and started to back out of the office. ‘I’ll go before someone catches me who doesn’t want me here.’
‘Yeah, right. Next time, stick to your own clients.’ He shook his head. ‘Look after yourself, Joe.’
‘And you.’
He wanted to get away from there. He had the information he needed, although he wasn’t sure what it meant. As he walked quickly along the corridor, heading for the stairs that would take him back to reception, he heard a familiar voice. There was a door opening ahead, to the room where the secretaries worked, and Susie was there, holding a file under her arm.
He looked behind quickly, but he knew there was no exit that way. There was no alternative but to walk forward. As he got closer, Susie turned around.
There was a pause as she took him in, that moment of recognition that bought them both a second to compose themselves.
‘Joe, what are you doing here?’ she said as she closed the door to the typist room, wanting to avoid the gossip that would start up behind her.
‘Just a nostalgia trip,’ he said.
She pointed at his eye. ‘What happened there?’
‘Not every client is happy with my work.’
That made her smile, and just for a moment he saw what had brought them together in the first place. There was a glint to her eyes, some fire beneath her demure exterior. It had been too hot for Joe.
‘You look good,’ he said, before he could stop himself. And he meant it. He had hardly seen her since they split. He had been out when she had collected her things, so he had been limited to glimpses whenever she walked past his office window.
Susie blushed. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and then she looked towards the office where he had caught her that time, further back along the corridor. Her shoulders slumped. ‘I’m still sorry for you finding out like that. I should have told you.’
‘I’m sorry about what I did after I caught you.’
‘I’d have done the same,’ she said.
‘How is it going with Mike?’
Susie shook her head. ‘His wife finding out made it stressful. It was never meant to be permanent. It was just, well, you know.’
‘Arms around you, because mine never were?’
‘Something like that.’ Her tone softened when she said, ‘Why couldn’t we ever talk like this before?’
‘Because it hurts less now.’
‘Okay, I’m sorry. So what are you doing here, anyway?’
‘Ronnie Bagley.’
Susie frowned at the name, and then said, ‘Oh, Haircut Ronnie.’
‘How come you remember that? I was the criminal lawyer, not you.’
‘Because he wanted to apply for an order to keep his girlfriend away from him, and he wanted his daughter with him. He came to me.’
Joe was surprised. ‘What, Carrie?’
‘That’s her.’
‘Why did he want to keep Carrie away?’
‘That was the main problem: he wouldn’t say, and so we couldn’t do anything for him.’
‘You know that he’s been accused of killing Carrie, and his child?’
‘Yeah, I heard Matt bitching about you,’ she said, and then, ‘but it doesn’t seem right.’
‘How so?’
‘Because he was scared of her, but he loved his child. It was the way he talked about her.’
‘So what happened?’
‘He stopped coming in once he realised he would have to pay a lot of money for a lost cause.’ She
looked at Joe, concern in her eyes. ‘Is it something I didn’t do? If I’d got the court order, perhaps he wouldn’t have been able to kill them.’
‘No, it’s not that. You know we don’t run our clients’ lives, we just help them out from time to time.’ He smiled. ‘Thanks for the catch up, Susie. I’ve got what I need.’
He turned to go, but Susie grabbed his hand. When he stopped and looked back to her, she stepped forward and kissed him, her lips soft and warm on his, and just for a second he felt his own fires begin to burn. She pulled away, her eyes opening slowly, and whispered, ‘We never did say goodbye properly, Joe. You know, one last time, just to spite each other, to get closure.’
He let go of her hand and stepped back. ‘You’re with someone else. Infidelity hurts.’ And when he turned to go this time, Susie didn’t stop him.
‘You’re a bastard, Joe Parker,’ she said.
He didn’t try to argue. He was too busy wondering why the news about Ronnie Bagley bothered him so much.
Joe left Mahones and walked quickly back to his office. So Ronnie had been his client a few years earlier, and he wanted him to know that, as if it was somehow important. And what was his jibe before, that it was all his fault? What was his fault?
As he got to his office, he saw his brother’s car outside, a young woman in the passenger seat. Joe rolled his eyes. Time for more wisdom from the self-appointed patriarch. When he walked into the building, Sam was sitting in reception.
‘What can I do for you, Sam?’ he said, trying to hide the weariness he felt.
Sam pointed at Joe’s eye. ‘What happened to you?’
‘Another dissatisfied customer.’
‘Have you called it in?’
‘No, I haven’t, and I won’t. It was just one of those things.’
‘I tried to contact you last night.’
‘My phone got smashed, during this,’ Joe said, and pointed at his face. Sam had seemed tense, but that seemed to make him relax. It had the opposite effect on Joe. ‘What’s wrong?’ Then Joe noticed Marion taking an interest in what was being said, and he pointed to the stairs. ‘Let’s find somewhere more private.’