No One Will Hear (Sam Williams Book 2)

by Joel Hames

  “I haven’t seen him lately, Charlie, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was going off on a frolic of his own.” There was a chuckle from the other end of the line as Blennard registered the legal witticism. “But I haven’t heard a thing about it. All sounds very cloak and dagger to me. Don’t you worry. I’ll steer well away from any nonsense.”

  “Thank you David. I always knew you were a sensible chap. Please give me a call if you think I can be of any assistance.”

  They said their goodbyes, and Brooks-Powell turned to me with a frown on his face. I knew what that frown meant. There was too much at stake here, even for a millionaire whose career didn’t really matter any more. There was the Brooks-Powell reputation on the line, the quality of the name, Blennard’s influence was too great to risk making an enemy of him, and as a friend he could do so much good – I could hear the arguments even before he made them. I was on my own.

  “What a wanker,” said Brooks-Powell, the frown clearing. I stared at him, lost for words.

  “Wanker,” he repeated. “What was all that crap about sensible chap? He’s hardly exchanged a dozen words with me in as many years, and now he knows who I am? Straight bat? What was that about?”

  I thought back to our dinner, in this very house, and its aftermath, in the taxi, with Claire. Was Blennard insinuating something? Or was I reading too much into a bland commonplace uttered by someone who didn’t want to go into too much detail?

  “So you’re going to help me get the files?” I asked, and he nodded.

  “Too right I am. Us. I’m going to help us get the files, and we’re going to look through them until we find out what the hell it is Lord Charlie Blennard doesn’t want us to see. You with me?”

  I nodded, and smiled at him, but a nod and a smile didn’t seem enough. In the end we shook hands. And then we got to work.

  18: Every Victory Is Tempered

  BROOKS-POWELL KNEW the Hancocks number by heart, so they must have been people he’d had dealings with fairly recently. He asked for a Rebecca Ashcroft, and while we were waiting for the call to go through, cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered “It’s bound to be her, she’d have grabbed Trawden with both hands. Anyone who got in her way, she’d have torn them to pieces. Bit like you, back in the day.” He grinned. “I really don’t like her.” A moment later a female voice came on the line.

  “Hello, this is Jenny Beech. Rebecca’s secretary. Can I help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to Rebecca, please.”

  “Who shall I say is calling?”

  “Tell her it’s David Brooks-Powell.”

  There was a pause, a couple of beeps, and then the phone went dead. A moment later, the dial tone returned. Jenny Beech had hung up on us. Undeterred, Brooks-Powell dialled again.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t know what happened there. I know she’s in the office – I can see her from here. I’ll try again.”

  This time we ended up back with the switchboard operator, the same one who’d answered the first two calls, who by the sigh he delivered when he heard Brooks-Powell’s voice was clearly growing as frustrated with Jenny Beech as I was. But Brooks-Powell himself was the model of politeness when she came back on the line.

  “I’m sorry,” she explained. “It’s my first day. I thought I’d figured out these phones.”

  “Don’t worry. Is it a Garminca box and headset?”

  I was impressed. The Brooks-Powell I’d worked with wouldn’t have paid any more attention to the secretarial equipment than he had to the secretaries.

  “Yes, yes it is.”

  “OK, just press the F2 button, wait for the tone, dial her extension, and when she answers you can tell her it’s me, wait for her to bite your head off, because she doesn’t like me very much, and then just hit F2 again, which should put me through. If she’s told you not to you can just pretend it was a mistake.”

  Jenny Beech laughed, a silvery little trill. Several further beeps followed, and I’d resigned myself to hearing that weary switchboard operator one more time when a different voice boomed out.

  “David. What are you doing calling me on a Saturday? Bored, are you?”

  “Far from it, Bex. The only thing that could possibly improve a glorious day like this one is the sound of your voice.”

  “Cut the crap, Brooks-Powell. What do you want?”

  “Trawden.”

  “Yes?”

  “I understand you’ve taken over. I’d like to see his files.”

  “And I’d like to see Idris Elba naked. Not gonna happen. Neither of them.”

  “Come on, Bex!”

  “Come on? Is that all you’ve got? Come on? You want me to hand over confidential client documentation on the strength of a come on? I won’t say I wasn’t expecting to hear from you, Brooks-Powell, but I was hoping for something a little better than come on.”

  “I put this file together, Bex. You can take out anything you’ve added in the last, what is it, four months? My guess is that’s nothing. But everything else, I damn well put there. I know it already.”

  “In that case, David, you won’t really be needing the file, will you?”

  “Don’t be like that, Bex. We can work this out, can’t we? Why don’t you come round when you’ve finished up there and we can discuss it?”

  Rebecca Ashcroft gave a derisive snort. “We both know that’s not going to happen. You can’t get round me that way, believe me. Now why don’t you piss off and make your stupid prank calls to somebody else, OK? I’ve got a secretary to shred, and then I’m off to Covent fucking Garden for a three hour bloody ballet. Oh come on!” A shout, loud and angry, directed at someone else in the office. “For Christ’s sake, Jenny, don’t cry about it. I’ve told you. You’re staying here until you’ve fixed your mistakes. You’re getting paid for your time. Stop bloody crying.”

  Rebecca Ashcroft’s voice was replaced with the dial tone as she cut the call. Brooks-Powell shook his head.

  “Her husband’s a trustee,” he said.

  “Of what?”

  “The Royal Opera House. He’s a decent enough chap. Don’t know what he ever saw in her.” He rested his chin on his hand and stared at the blank screen in front of him. I gave it a minute before I asked.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “What would you do?” He turned to me, one eyebrow raised. “You’d figure out a way, wouldn’t you?”

  I nodded. We sat there in silence for a few seconds, and then something occurred to me.

  “That secretary. Jenny Beech. First day on the job. Might be an angle there.”

  He shook his head.

  “She won’t have any loyalties. But she’s not going to risk throwing away her job on the first day. And Rebecca Ashcroft, trust me, she’d fire her. She’d do it with a smile on her face.”

  I slumped further into the bean bag. Something told me there was material in those files I’d want to see, better than anything in the papers I’d taken from Lizzy Maurier and probably better than anything in the ones I’d left behind. Maybe even something about the elusive Connor. We sat there, me on the beanbag and Brooks-Powell on the chair, his back to me once more, and I felt those files slipping further and further away.

  “OK, I’ve got it,” he said, suddenly, and I sat back up. “But it’s on you, Sam. They know my voice. You’re going to have to do it.”

  He set out his plan. I didn’t like it, but there was no other plan hanging around waiting to be snapped up, and I didn’t not like it enough to give up on those files. We gave it half an hour – Jenny, from the sound of it, was set for the evening, but we wanted to wait until Rebecca Ashcroft had left for the ballet. And then we called.

  “Hello,” I said, my voice slightly deeper than usual. I’d never met Philip Lancaster, the man I was pretending to be, and there was no reason to suspect he had a particularly deep voice, but deep seemed somehow right. “Hello, I’d like to speak with Rebecca Ashcroft, please.”

 
“I’m sorry, she’s not here. I can put you through to her secretary if that will help?”

  “Thank you.”

  So far so good.

  “Hello, this is Jenny Beech. Rebecca’s secretary. Can I help you?”

  Same words, same delivery as last time. Professional. Her struggles with the phone system aside, I liked the sound of Jenny Beech.

  “Hello, this is Philip Lancaster.” I was hoping she knew who Philip Lancaster was. It was her first day, but he was one of the most senior partners at the firm. Hopefully she’d have heard of him. She wouldn’t have met him, barring extremely bad luck, because, as Brooks-Powell had just informed me, Philip Lancaster was just coming to the end of a three-month sabbatical which he’d spent on a boat, or several boats, sailing around a variety of Caribbean islands. Philip Lancaster was due back at work in just over a week. He and Brooks-Powell were, apparently, quite friendly, which surprised me at first, because I couldn’t think of Brooks-Powell being friendly with anyone, even this new, improved Brooks-Powell. After a moment’s thought it fell into place. David Brooks-Powell had the millionaire wife and the mansion. Philip Lancaster had the boats and the Caribbean, and, apparently, a chalet in a glamorous Swiss resort I’d heard of and associated vaguely with the royal family.

  “What can I do for you, Mr Lancaster?”

  She’d heard of me. Of him. I could tell from the deference with which she spoke the name.

  I played it straight, at first. I was home and I needed some files to be sent round to my house. And Jenny was sympathetic, but still professional, and slightly hesitant. So I wheedled, stressing the importance and the urgency and how she’d be doing me a tremendous favour, because my wife would kill me if the first thing I did on my return from the Caribbean was to head into work on a Saturday night.

  “He’s divorced,” hissed Brooks-Powell, but it seemed Jenny Beech wasn’t familiar with Philip Lancaster’s marital status, because she agreed to have the files sent over as soon as she had located them.

  “They’ll be in Rebecca’s office,” I said. “Thank you.” I reeled off Brooks-Powell’s address and prayed she wouldn’t check that against Philip Lancaster’s entry in the partnership directory.

  The files were with us forty minutes later, during which we’d knocked back most of a bottle of red wine that looked expensive and tasted slightly sour. I was drinking because I wanted to, but I was also drinking out of guilt. Jenny Beech was going to be in a world of trouble come Monday. I mentioned this to Brooks-Powell, and he just shrugged and said something about “collateral damage”, which was an unpleasant flash back to the old him.

  We’d moved downstairs, to the living room in which Melanie had entertained us the night before. With her away, no need to remain cooped up in the box room, as Brooks-Powell put it, which made me wonder whether he actually knew what a box room was, or whether the boxes were just that much bigger in his world. Claire called while we were waiting, demanded to know where I was, which was a bit rich, I felt, but didn’t say. I told her I was working, and she shot back with “Who is she this time?”, but then stopped and apologised before I’d had a chance to deny it.

  “It’s OK,” she said. “Come back when you’re done. I’ll be here. Got to go. There’s a call coming through. It’s Viktor.”

  I was worried about Claire, but that seemed to be turning into a permanent thing, a constant low-level tension that hit me whenever I wasn’t worrying about something else. Right now, I had more immediate things to worry about. I felt a little bad about the stunt we’d pulled on Jenny Beech; I hoped it wouldn’t blow up in her face, and tried to work out if there was any chance it would blow up in mine. But the wine helped with the guilt, and the arrival of the files washed it clean away.

  We decided to divide them in half, flick through, and swap over when we were done, but we’d barely begun when my phone rang again, with a very unwelcome voice at the end of it.

  “Hello, Sam.”

  Trawden. I hesitated before replying, as if giving away my identity was giving away anything at all.

  “Hello Trawden. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, a little birdie told me you’ve been digging, and really, you of all people should know better.”

  Brooks-Powell was sitting opposite me in an armchair, with a questioning look on his face. I mouthed “Trawden” at him, put the phone face up on the table between us, and switched it to speaker.

  “What exactly do you mean?”

  “No need to play coy, Sam. You’re after my files. I can’t imagine there’s anything in there you don’t already know, though. And if there is, well, all you have to do is ask?”

  “Ask?”

  “Well yes. Just ask. I’ve nothing to hide. If you need some background, you know, for those memoirs you’re working on, I’ll be more than happy to assist. And between my experience and your photographic memory, I doubt we’ll miss anything.”

  Those memoirs, again. I didn’t like the way he said the word, as if he didn’t believe it, as if he knew the memoirs were nothing more than a cover for something far more interesting, if it existed at all. It was there, in Brooks-Powell’s living room, with Edward Trawden on the phone and his history spilling out across the sofa beside me, that I realised he was right. It wasn’t about the memoirs. Not any more.

  I wondered whether to deny it, to throw in a soft meaningless rebuttal or two, but I didn’t think Trawden would buy it, and he hadn’t stopped talking, anyway. Now he was onto the reminiscences.

  “We saw a bit, you and I, didn’t we? Do you remember that day in court, Sam?”

  “Yes,” I replied, uncertain where he was heading but not looking forward to getting there.

  “Yes, it was remarkable. You were remarkable, Sam. I know Elizabeth got all the credit, but it was your work, your digging, that was what did the job. But then, every victory is tempered, isn’t it?”

  He paused, but there was no way I was jumping in now. My mouth was dry and my mind was racing – I couldn’t have spoken even if I’d known what to say. Every victory is tempered. I knew those words. He went on.

  “Do you remember them, Sam? The Grimshaws? Do you remember their faces, the look on their faces, when the judge said I was walking out of there a free man? I know we were celebrating, you and me and Elizabeth, we had reason to celebrate, but those faces – I’m not likely to forget them. I doubt you are, either. Faces like that are enough to haunt a man for the rest of his life. And you try to push them away, of course you do, and maybe you get through a day without seeing them, but they’re always back at night, aren’t they?”

  I glanced up from the phone. Brooks-Powell was staring at me with a concerned look on his face. I was shaking.

  “Anyway, Sam. Like I said. All you have to do is ask. Be seeing you.”

  He ended the call. I reached for the glass in front of me and drained it in one gulp. Brooks-Powell walked over to a sideboard and came back with a bottle of whisky, but I shook my head. We sat there in silence for a moment. Trawden’s voice might have been sympathetic, but the words were anything but. How did he know? How could he know about the years of nightmares I’d faced, how it had ground me down until I couldn’t work any more, not properly, not the way I’d worked before he’d come into my life? How could he see inside my head?

  And then I had it.

  Elizabeth Maurier. I’d told her. I’d gone to her quietly, months after the trial had ended and she’d moved on to other things as though it had been just another case, just another client. I’d told her, in confidence, about the Grimshaws, about the nightmares, about the way it hit me, every night, and suddenly during the day, while I was reading a file or talking to a client or eating dinner or drinking coffee. She’d suggested a counsellor, told me the firm would pay for one if my insurance wouldn’t, but she’d said all that so casually, so dismissively, that I’d never got round to it. She’d given me her famous smile as I turned to leave, and she’d said something that had seemed, at the time, t
o sum up every disappointment I was feeling.

  “Every victory is tempered,” she’d said. I’d nodded back at her and walked out of the room and mulled over those words. If every success had a downside like this one, I’d thought, maybe I’m not cut out for this job.

  And now Trawden had thrown those same words back at me. She’d told him everything. She’d betrayed me. I wondered whether they’d laughed at me, whether they’d sat there in the office or the pub downstairs, or even in the drawing room in her Oxfordshire house, and laughed at the poor struggling lawyer who couldn’t handle a little sadness in the world.

  I reached for the whisky. I’d changed my mind.

  19: A Short History

  CLAIRE WAS ASLEEP when I got home – it was only ten, but there she was, lying on her side sheathed in winceyette, breathing deep and slow and utterly oblivious to the drunk staggering around the flat trying not to break anything.

  After Trawden’s call we’d made excellent progress on the whisky, but very little on the files. Instead, I’d taken my share home and we’d agreed to get through as much as we could the following day. I stopped outside the front door and scanned the street, but everything was quiet and there was no sign of Rich Hanover or his bike. Inside, I put the papers down, undressed, and slid into bed beside Claire, thinking I’d be getting up in half an hour’s time, haunted by Trawden’s voice and the images from the trial, and spend the night blinking and trying to focus on decades-old legal documents. Instead I fell immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep, and woke late next morning to find a cold empty space beside me, and in the kitchen a note that wasn’t much warmer.

  “I’ve gone out,” it said. And underneath that. “Your friend Blennard called. Said he’d try again later.”