by Gavin Smith
Legal privilege was a killer of good cases. The merest suggestion that the police had played fast and loose with client-solicitor confidentiality could cause a judge to change the rules of the game and put the cops in the dock. The wagons would be circled, the police would be roundly excoriated and, to punish them, the criminal would be set free to do more damage.
Harkness stared at the watermarked envelopes as if he’d seen a scorpion scuttle underneath one. He shook his head and picked one up, turned it over in his hands, scrutinised it from every angle. The chalk lining of his gloves was beginning to clump and itch against his sweating hands.
He could be credible and pragmatic. He rolled the words around in his mind. This was a murder case and he had to join the dots. Firth would in all likelihood not volunteer the truth. Even if the contents of the envelopes could never be used in evidence, they could help him jail a murderer. They might even exculpate Firth. Nothing had to be presented in evidence until the facts were known. If they turned out to be irrelevant or dangerous, they could be excluded - there was nothing procedurally wrong with seizing them. How could he make any kind of judgement until he’d read the letters?
He slid a finger under the flap of the envelope in his hand and tugged out the letter, scanning it quickly as if to minimise his exposure to something infectious. It confirmed a connection but didn’t put much flesh on its bones. Dated two months ago, it thanked ‘Mr Firth’ for his continuing instructions in the matter of Firth v Murphy, regretted that a recent negotiation with the prison authorities had yielded so little good news and asked that he make an appointment so that next steps could be discussed. Sharon Jennings (LLB) concluded the letter with an intricate yet flamboyant signature, long, swooping curves for the initials, a dotted ‘i’, detailed uprights and a cheerfully upturned line rounding everything off confidently.
The first letter was essentially repeated in the next two, presumably a simple matter of a computer generating further reminders. The last letter from a few weeks ago was briefer, more personal and dated on a Saturday. Ms Jennings was keen to win a just settlement for Nigel as his case had considerable merit. She had tried unsuccessfully to contact him through his probation officer or on his mobile phone number, and urged him to please get in touch as soon as he could. The signature was more effusive and took up a third of the page. The envelope was stamped rather than franked, and postmarked on the same Saturday. A personal touch.
The supermarket had brusquely enquired if Mr Firth intended to honour his work placement. Equally impersonal letters from the Benefits Agency and Probation Service warned of the dire, statutory consequences of failing to embrace what was a rare opportunity to learn new skills, embrace change, earn a steady wage and claim a stake in society. ‘YOU NEED TO SEE ME,’ his probation officer had written and furiously underlined, as if Firth had once again failed to hand in his homework.
A local library politely requested the return of several educational volumes of an adult nature in a polite, copperplate hand on a compliment slip.
Utility bills addressed to an Alistair Bonham covered a full spectrum of colour-coded indignation. Beyond the necessities of water and electricity, no item of mail suggested that the occupants had any financial history in their own name or tied to this address.
“Isn’t that legal privilege?” asked the sergeant, prodding the envelopes with a pen.
“I’ll worry about that,” barked Harkness, then softening his tone. “Need these. Very relevant. I’ll bag ‘em up and take possession. Note it as you see it. It’ll be my problem if there is one.”
Leaving the sergeant apparently noting his words verbatim, he moved into the bathroom, expecting little and finding it. The grey tide that had left its marks on basin and bath had receded and not returned. A few meagre cakes of soap, ingrained with dirt, had dried and split. A shower gel that promised by the lyricism of its label to be a whirlpool of invigorating lime, ozone and cedar hung barely used from a shower head caked in lime-scale.
Shaking nearly full cans of high octane man-musk, left on display alongside new razors with their security tags still attached, suggested to Harkness that their owner had either done some recent unauthorised shopping or didn’t stay here that often. Two towels hung side by side on the radiator; one tolerably clean and bearing a designer motif, the other a patchwork of moist grime suggesting a spectral face and hands, perhaps this cathedral city’s very own Turin shroud. One damp rag and a shard of soap might have been enough for Firth, but weren’t enough for his flat-mate.
“Bag these towels,” he bellowed into the living room, repeating himself sotto voce when the sergeant instantly appeared in the doorway. “And get SOCO to swab the bath. Might be accelerants. Assuming he washes at all.”
“At once, sahib.”
Sandwiched between the bathroom and the exterior wall, an airing cupboard stood open, framing one of the searchers squatting cross-legged and writing on an evidence bag. In place of towels, the cupboard’s racks held mouldering porn magazines and new library books, most of which described themselves as ‘erotic art’.
“This is the entertainment section,” said the searcher, holding up a modest bag of cannabis.
“What’s he into?” He nodded towards the porn.
“Mixed bag. Nothing scary. Housewives, MILF’s, big tits. No glamour.”
“That all?” Harkness reached across and picked up the only book that wasn’t in the least erotic.
“One condom, used, probably older than me. One dead mouse.”
He leafed through the book, a lavishly illustrated introduction to cosmology. The fabric of the universe unfolded in breathless text and primary colours, existence unwoven and atomised, certainty exchanged for dazzling and infinite complexity. Someone had scrawled questions here and there, usually restricting themselves to ‘why?’
“Hey Sarge,” declared Harkness, wandering back into the living room, and suddenly appreciating that rank meant not having to see every time-guzzling chore through to the end. “I’m going to get off now. Things to do. Leave all this in your capable hands.”
“Somewhere better to be?”
“Than here? Certainly. Catch up with me later with your paperwork and OT forms.”
“Count on it.”
Harkness wedged the broken door open with an unmissable offer of a lifetime and exited the flat. Somewhere above him, a policeman’s knock rapped loud and clear on another plywood door. One door along, the other canvasser was grinning and nodding into an open doorway as he took careful notes.
“How do I spell that again?” he enquired.
The door slammed and the canvasser caught Harkness’s eye with a resigned smirk.
“Apparently chief, Mr & Mrs Gofuckyourmother What’sthatsmellofbacon live here,” he shouted to Harkness, approaching him and consulting his notes. “Real nice neighbours. Good community spirit.”
“Anything useful?”
“A handful think they’ve had intimate relations with my mum and that I should as well, but that’s Lincolnshire for you. A few honest citizens – you know, old people, the disabled – told us all about him. Name. Age. Description. Comings and goings.”
“Go on.”
“Well it’s good stuff. He’s not a typical resident ‘cause nobody likes him and nobody’s scared of him.”
“That’s the good stuff?”
“This morning, between 0730 and 0830 hours, there was all sorts of crashing and banging from the flat. Elderly gent below and mad cat-woman above say similar things. Funny thing is, the noise carried on after our man dropped himself out of the side window and legged it.”
It seemed that Firth was much in demand. Who else had felt compelled to run him to ground and kick his door in? Could it really be just a back-firing cycle of revenge? Despite the mortal ruin of his family home, would Murphy really choose to slip under the radar, to forego official intervention or the embrace of friends, family or workmates, and instead seek a private reckoning with Firth?
&n
bsp; Wedged into the sweltering Mondeo once again, he dialled Slowey’s mobile number and let his gaze fall on two crystalline speckles in the windscreen, centimetres apart, as a soothing, automated voice diverted him to voicemail. Air pellets, he concluded. A nice grouping too. Must have had a decent sight and a bit of elevation. Second or even the first floor of Pemberton Court. Decisions, decisions.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“One police coming through,” proclaimed the portly holder of a dozen keys as Slowey stooped through the hatch set into the twenty foot, iron-studded gates of HMP Lincoln. Had the doorway been built with the under-nourished Victorian underclass in mind, he wondered, or had it aimed to ensure that those who passed within did so stooping and abased.
Out of habit, he had already switched off his mobile and stuck it in his backpack along with his keys and the lunchbox Diane had insisted he take when he called in at home to make it plain that he was still alive.
“DC Slowey from Beaumont Fee to see the Governor,” he said to the mesh screen set into the scratched, shatter-proof glass of the reception desk. Six feet away and a few feet above him, another portly, ageing gent, leaking sweat from every pink pore while inexplicably clad in his thick, uniform jumper, reached down from his dais and slid a clipboard into a hatch.
“Fill this in, stick anything on the list into that locker, come back for your credentials, I’ll tell someone you’re here, read the code of conduct an’ all.”
Slowey ticked all the boxes, promising not to spring anyone or sell drugs while he was here, and locked away his valuables. The mirror on the roof of the truck-sized reception bay showed him a bald patch he was sure he hadn’t had the last time he visited clink.
“Purpose of visit needs filling in,” barked the mesh screen as the gatekeeper scanned Slowey’s paperwork.
“Confidential,” shouted Slowey back, as if to a senile aunt. “My gaffer’s squared it with yours. Private. Personal staff issues.”
“Don’t matter. Need something in the box.”
“Shall I make something up then?”
“Need something in the box.”
Slowey scrawled, ‘enquiries pertaining to the apprehension of a vicious felon and ne’er-do-well as discussed in confidence between persons of stature who may not be named without endangering the sanctity of the realm,’ and was told to wait some more.
Perching on a plastic chair, Slowey stared at the questions he’d sketched out, mentally rehearsing the interview, yawned, closed his eyes in a bid to blink away crushing fatigue and was roused seconds or minutes later by the clatter of his notebook hitting the floor.
“Ken,” a familiar voice hailed him from the inner gate.
He stumbled to his feet and stooped to untie and tie a shoelace while he collected his thoughts.
“Alright there, Ken?” Brian Hoskins regarded him with sympathetic eyes, too well-mannered to be amused.
“Can’t complain, Brian.”
“You should. You fall down the stairs?”
“Yep. Then the stairs fell down on me. Long story. How’s the boss?”
“Feisty mood, today. Don’t be too bolshie. And don’t dribble.”
“Sorry.” Slowey dabbed at his lip with the clean hankie his wife had sneaked into his pocket. For a moment, the reek of oil, disinfectant and boiled cabbage was replaced by fabric conditioner and home cooking. “One side hurts. Other side still a bit numb. Must get those stairs sanded down.”
“You should work here. You’d fit in.”
“No thanks. I like daylight. We off, then?”
Brian had his hands in his pockets rather than on the huge key chain that swung from his belt. He shifted his weight periodically to favour his stronger leg. His other leg had been shattered during the riot of ’02 and he was now relegated to escorting visitors and any other job the admin block could find for their new factotum. His calm and judicious manner had not saved him from being flung from a balcony by rampaging prisoners high on a cocktail of prescription drugs pillaged from the wreckage of the dispensary.
“In a minute, Ken. Just waiting for the fed rep.”
“The union’s in on this? Is Murphy in touch? Has he asked?”
“No, mate. Can’t say too much. Bureaucracy. You know how it is.” He shrugged and looked over his shoulder as if checking for eavesdroppers. “But it’s a staff issue so got to have the fed.”
A blank, reinforced door sprang open within the entry bay, and was slammed shut and locked again with equal alacrity. The sheen of the man’s light grey suit belonged in a car showroom. Slowey shook the outstretched hand.
“DC Slurry hi there I’m Tony Skinner Prison Officers’ Federation here to help in any way I can hello Brian good to see you shall we crack on then?”
Skinner didn’t seem to breathe or blink. Formalities over, Skinner transferred his combination-locked briefcase back to his right hand and smoothed down his jacket with his left, adjusting the enamelled crown of his lapel badge to ensure it was upright and symmetrical.
“Two visitors leaving reception,” shouted Hoskins, gesturing to his counterpart in the reception bay as he selected one of his many seemingly identical keys by touch alone, unlocked the gate, allowed the two men through and then locked it again after them.
Skinner led them across a driveway of cracked cement lined by patches of dying grass and flower beds where pale, downcast men in overalls tended flowers with exquisite care, relishing their time in the open air within earshot of the ordinary world. He set a brisk pace and kept his head down, precluding conversation.
Hoskins grinned, shook his head and shrugged at Slowey, who swallowed the questions on his lips. Slowey contented himself with admiring the architecture of a living, breathing, daunting relic of a time nobody had quite managed to consign to history. This Victorian edifice was only a cathedral of penal servitude in the same way that the great Norman cathedrals were monuments to devotion. Both were more akin to fortresses, built to protect the realm and cow and awe its enemies – and in this case to keep the barbarians inside rather than outside the gates.
Slowey hadn’t wasted the National Trust subscription to which he’d treated his family. He’d yet to inflict on them his scathing take on social history. Perhaps he’d let the kids get into double figures before he educated them out of the chocolate-box view of Lincoln’s unavoidable Roman and medieval heritage, which was really just the bleached bones of dangerous, historical leviathans that weren’t quite dead.
This driveway formed the prison’s bailey, the safe killing ground between the barbican they had just left and the central keep. The architects must have been sensitive to their lineage, otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered to make their red-brick walls so tall, thick and smooth, or to adorn their barbican with turrets, crenulations and mock arrow slits, all picked out in contrasting sandstone.
The tall, rectangular slabs of the prison wings met at a central tower, the hub of what was meant to be an orderly system for storing miscreants and rotating them through rehabilitation. Bellows of rage, anguish and derision were hurled from the high, barred windows, the voice of the place. It spoke of squirming rage, never stifled, echoing through the generations, never quite ebbing away regardless of who breathed the stale air and endured. This old machine was still grinding along, segregation, drug-dealing and a professional tolerance between prisoners and gaolers – both inmates with contrasting privileges – greasing the rusty wheels.
“Here we are then.” Hoskins let them into the admin building, a two-storey breeze-block afterthought wedged against the outer wall in the late afternoon shadow of D Wing.
Reaching the first-floor, Hoskins unlocked and locked another barred gate. As they waited outside the governor’s office, shuffling and stifling yawns, Slowey had time to study the local version of the same command corridor he’d seen elsewhere. In one outsize canvas print, bright, fit and assuredly motivated prison officers talked affably with prisoners whose guileless grins showed that things were getting better. In ano
ther, the velvet glove came off to show an armour-clad riot team reclaiming a barricaded cell. Everywhere the eye rested, verbose, twenty-point mission statements and service pledges promised miraculous improvements across a dizzying variety of key performance matrices.
“Enter!”
Hoskins and Skinner preceded Slowey into a cramped, panelled office dominated by a venerable oak desk, its ancient varnish so dappled and scored that it might have been as old as the prison itself. The woman sitting bolt upright with steepled hands in the executive chair behind it seemed unassailable with or without her ancient desk.
Slowey picked the second of three chairs facing the desk, conscious that he’d been given a poor choice between being flanked by prison staff or marginalised. He felt like a prisoner under escort appearing before the beak. The woman brushed away an errant strand of hair as she perused a blue file. Slowey couldn’t quite age her. She had pale green eyes with traceries of lines at their margins and high cheek bones, a keenness of features accentuated by black hair scraped back severely and knotted behind her head. Piercings in her earlobes suggested jewellery was worn but never at work. A plain white blouse sported crisp creases over well-defined but lean biceps and shoulders. Inevitably, Slowey looked for the ring finger on the left hand and found no ring and no crease where a ring might sit. The woman glanced at the secretary to her right, who held a notepad and pen at the ready.
“Brian. Tony.” She nodded to Slowey’s escorts, swivelling distractedly on her chair. “And DC Slowey. I’m Helen Betts, Governor. I’m not going to waste your time. But to make sure we’re on the same page, tell me what our Mr Murphy has done.” Skinner shuffled forwards and cleared his throat to speak. “Sorry, allegedly done, subject to substantiation and prison regulations. I’m hoping you’re a little less opaque and, well, verbose than your boss.”
“Right then, I’ll give you the barest bones.” Slowey shuffled, sniffed and flipped open his notebook, even though there was nothing in it not already etched in his memory. “Dale Murphy was involved in a tavern brawl late last night with someone who may have been a former guest at Her Majesty’s pleasure within these walls.