The Brothers of Baker Street

by Michael Robertson

  The magistrate stared for a moment at the witness transcripts before him. “That’s just five minutes after the sighting in Chelsea.”

  “Exactly,” said Reggie. “And several minutes prior to the earliest possible time of death as established by forensics. If my client’s Black Cab appears on the tape at Lower Clapton Road at that time, then it is completely impossible for it to also be the one that drove the unfortunate Americans to their demise on Lots Road.”

  “And does it appear there, Mr. Heath? Are you certain what the CCTV will show?”

  “I’m asking that the court take five minutes to find out.”

  Langdon started to say something now, but the magistrate motioned for silence. He thought about it for a moment longer, and then turned to the bailiff.

  “Queue it up. Let’s hope it is worth the fuss, Mr. Heath.”

  Langdon sighed.

  The bailiff now spent several minutes getting the tape into the player, and getting the portable television configured to display it at such an angle that the magistrate could see it clearly.

  Finally it was ready. The bailiff started the tape, then fast-forwarded, showing quite some proficiency, to the time in question.

  The magistrate leaned in earnestly to look, and after perhaps thirty seconds, his eyes grew wide and he leaned in closer.

  “Stop there. Back up a bit, please. There. There, you have it.”

  The magistrate sat back in his chair, and on his gesture the bailiff turned the display for the lawyers to see.

  Reggie breathed a sigh of relief, and he felt a little tingle of victory go down his spine.

  Darla looked as though she were about to dance in her chair.

  Langdon stared at the screen for a moment longer, said nothing, and then began to pretend that he was looking for something important among his documents.

  “Mr. Langdon,” said the magistrate, “I believe what we see is a Black Cab with the WHAMU1 license number your witnesses reported, at the time they reported it in Chelsea, but it is obviously not in Chelsea—it is on Lower Clapton Road in Hackney, some forty minutes away. Would you agree?”

  “I … it would appear so, my lord.”

  “Have you any explanation how that can be?”

  “Not … quite yet, my lord, but I’m sure something will turn up.”

  Now the magistrate’s tone showed some annoyance: “And have you any explanation why this tape was not specifically called out in the prosecution’s bundle of discovery documents, so that both the court and defense would know of its significance?”

  “I can only say that there were many hours of tapes, and little time to prepare, and the police are only human, my lord.”

  The magistrate nodded, but with a frown. For several seconds he stared at the video display, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. Then he looked up.

  “Be sure everyone takes a little more time if you try again, Mr. Langdon. I am dismissing without prejudice; you may refile when and if you think you’ve got it right. In the meantime, the defendant will be released forthwith.”

  There was an audible murmur now from the gallery behind Reggie, but just what it meant he could not tell.

  The judge stood, and in spectacularly anticlimactic fashion exited the courtroom.

  “I knew there was a reason I chose you,” said Darla, smiling up at Reggie. “No matter what anyone said. I’ll collect our client and meet you at the side exit?”

  Reggie nodded.

  Darla looked back over her shoulder, her face glowing from the victory, and smiled at Reggie again as she exited.

  Reggie left the courtroom now himself and he went to the barrister’s cloakroom to pack up his wig and gown. Then, as he exited the cloakroom, he encountered the prosecuting barrister in the corridor. Langdon’s usual put-on self-effacing manner was gone.

  “Congratulations, Heath,” he said. “You have not lost your touch, it seems.”

  “Thank you.”

  They were about to continue in opposite directions down the corridor, but Langdon turned.

  “It was a bit of luck, though, wasn’t it?” he said.

  “In what way?” said Reggie.

  “CCTVs are quite imperfect. So many things can prevent a CCTV camera capturing the license of a vehicle as it passes by. Lampposts. Double-deckers. Pedestrians with large umbrellas. You had no time to review the tapes. How did you know what you needed would be there?”

  “I knew it when I saw you kick the cassette under the desk,” said Reggie.

  Langdon thought about that for a moment, then shook his head in the negative and laughed. “But that really was just an accident, Heath. There was no time for me to review them either. I had no idea what the tape would show.”

  “A bit of luck on my part then,” said Reggie.

  Langdon nodded very slightly in the affirmative at that and then, looking at something past Reggie’s shoulder, he said, “Good evening, Heath.”

  “Good evening.”

  Langdon walked away in the opposite direction down the corridor.

  Reggie turned now and saw that Darla and Walters had come up behind.

  “I wondered how you knew that, too,” said Darla.

  Walters said, “I’m just bleeding glad you knew to do it. Thank you, Mr. Heath, thank you.”

  Reggie just nodded and shook the man’s hand. It still seemed unwise to acknowledge to anyone that he had been relying on a tip letter written to Sherlock Holmes.

  They reached the end of the corridor now, and an usher opened the door at the side exit of the courthouse. Reggie stepped out first, into a heavy rain, and he took a quick look about.

  At least two news vans from the BBC, along with perhaps a dozen reporters and photographers from the paper media, were assembled at the far end of the street, waiting at the main exit on Holborn.

  At the near end of the street were five parked Black Cabs—oddly parked, facing the wrong way. But in any case, all of them had their out-of-service lights on. That was not good.

  Reggie opened an umbrella, attempting to shield Darla and Walters from both the rain and the news hounds on Holborn, and hoping to find an active cab and be gone before anyone knew. But the media were vigilant—a scout at the intersection was watching, saw the side door open, and shouted out. Cameras and reporters began to hurry toward them, in a flock of black umbrellas; the news vans began to turn around. It was not looking good.

  But now the five out-of-service Black Cabs—all purely black, with no adverts to distinguish any of them—started their engines and turned on their lights. Then each pulled into the narrow street.

  One cab stopped in the middle of the street, blocking a news van approaching from Holborn.

  The other four cabs all pulled up curbside in front of Reggie, Walters, and Darla.

  “I’ll take this one,” said Walters, jumping into one. “He’s a mate. You take another, and we’ll lose them.”

  Passenger doors opened in all four cabs. Reggie began to hustle Darla into one, just as the reporter in the lead position of the running flock—a young woman, with short blond hair and fresher legs than all of the other reporters apparently, and flashing a Daily Sun badge—shouted out to Reggie, loud enough for all on the street and the BBC cameras to hear, “What technicality did you use to get your client out, Mr. Heath?”

  She was accompanied by a photographer, close on her heels. She had not identified herself, but Reggie had an idea who she was. And although he knew better than to respond, he could not resist. He paused just for a moment before following Darla into the cab. “The technicality that he was twelve miles away when the crime was committed,” he shouted back. Then, with cameras flashing, Reggie jumped into the cab, and shut the door.

  All five cabs now took off down Ellis Street. The running reporters—even the young blonde woman—gave up the chase, and now there were only two BBC news vans to deal with.

  At the intersection, the lead cab stopped and remained in place, and the other four split off i
n pairs in opposite directions. At the next intersection, the pair split off as well.

  Reggie looked through the back window of the cab and saw that they had shaken their pursuit.

  “Nice trick,” said Reggie to Darla. “How did you arrange it?”

  “I had no idea of it,” she said. “I only called for the one cab.”

  “Nicely done,” said Reggie to the driver now. “But they all know where Walters lives. They’ll just go directly there.”

  “I’m sure they will,” said the driver. “And they’ll have a nice long wait for him, too. We’ll just drive him about for a time, have a pint and a chat, and bring him back when all the news mongers are too tired and hungry to care anymore.”

  There was silence for a moment, as their cab mingled anonymously now among the traffic on the Embankment.

  And then the driver said, as if they were just any fares that had gotten into his cab, “So where to, then?”

  “We can drop you first, if you like,” said Reggie to Darla, “And then I’ll go back to chambers for my car. Where is your office?”

  “Why on earth should I want to go back to my office? You can drop me at home, or we can go to the Seven Stars to celebrate. Those are the options.”

  “How far is home?”

  “Not far, if it’s one way.”

  Reggie looked at her and pondered her expression for a moment, but he wasn’t quite certain she had meant what he thought she might have meant.

  In any case, he decided that he wasn’t taking chances.

  “A rain check?”

  She laughed a little at that. “If it makes you feel safer,” she said. She smiled as she said it. Reggie looked away from her for an instant, looked back, and she was still directing that smile at him.

  “The Seven Stars,” she said to the driver. And then, to Reggie, “Alone if I must.”

  The Seven Stars was only blocks away. They were there within minutes, mercifully.

  “A rain check, then,” she said to Reggie as she got out, still with the smile.

  The driver turned to look back at Reggie.

  “Blimey, mate, if I were you—”

  “Bloody hell, just drive,” said Reggie quickly. “Dorset House on Baker Street.”

  The driver complied, and several minutes later they pulled up.

  Reggie started to get out of the cab without having paid.

  “Forgetting something, mate?”

  Reggie stopped, halfway out of the cab.

  “Sorry.” He paid the driver.

  “I suppose you were expecting a free ride, for what you did in the courtroom today?”

  “What? No, not at all.”

  “That’s good. ’Cause you’re not likely to get one. Not from me, not from any Black Cab driver.”

  Reggie paused outside the cab and turned back toward the driver.

  “What’s your point?”

  “The last thing in the world we want is one of our own out whacking people. Bloody hell, people trust us with their frail old grand mums. What’s going to happen if they think they can’t anymore?”

  “Point taken,” said Reggie. “But have you considered that he didn’t do it?”

  “Better not have,” said the driver. “And if the police don’t soon put away who did … well, I know blokes who aren’t above taking care of it themselves.”

  On that disturbing bit of bluster, Reggie shut the cab door and went to his car.

  8

  The next morning, in the garden of the Edwardian town home in Mayfair, Ilsa brought a full breakfast—deliciously greasy singed bacon, with stewed tomatoes and baked beans, and all the juices intermingling. Her employer was quite hungry, having worked hard the day before.

  With the meal, Ilsa she again brought the Daily Sun.

  “Page one,” said Ilsa: “‘Balmy Barrister Bails Black Cab Killer.’”

  “Really?” said her employer. “Page one?”

  “Yes.”

  “I like that. I presume we have a photo or two?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me see.”

  Ilsa unfolded the paper so that they both could look.

  The grainy Daily Sun photos showed the defendant getting into one cab—and the lovely leg of the solicitor as she got into the other cab—and the villainous visage of Reggie Heath as he got in as well.

  “Is that him?” asked Ilsa. “The barrister?”

  “Yes,” said her employer. “An evil man, thwarting Londoners in their legitimate desire to be free of the Black Cab menace.”

  “Is that in the editorial page? What you just said?” The phrasing sounded quite journalistic to Ilsa.

  “Not yet. But it should be, shouldn’t it?”

  “He does look mean,” agreed Ilsa.

  “Indeed, he does.”

  Ilsa’s employer sat back with a satisfied sigh, then said, “Ilsa, do you know what the binomial theorem is?”

  “No,” said Ilsa.

  “Neither did I, until just recently,” said her employer. “I paid so little attention to mathematics in school. But I’m rather catching on now. These things run in the family, you know. Perhaps some day I’ll write something about it myself.”

  Ilsa nodded. “Yes,” she began, agreeably, and then her employer quickly interrupted her.

  “You may now address me as Professor.”

  Ilsa hesitated, puzzled over that request. “I didn’t know that you are a professor,” she said, quite respectfully.

  “Well, technically perhaps not yet. But soon, I expect.”

  “I’m sure you can be one if you want,” said Ilsa. “Your doctor said that you are the brightest woman he has ever known.”

  “My doctor is rather a fool,” said Ilsa’s employer, seizing a piece of bacon. “But he is right about that much.”

  “Yes”—said Ilsa, and then, quite carefully—“Professor.”

  9

  Reggie stopped at Audrey’s Coffee and Newsagent across from Dorset House, to pick up a cold sandwich on his way to chambers.

  Audrey’s had installed a small cappuccino machine more than a year ago, and the output from that was part of Reggie’s usual purchase at breakfast. But not so much recently.

  He wasn’t on a budget. Not exactly. It was just that after the loss of his entire Lloyd’s of London investment, it made no sense to pay two quid for milk foam.

  But all told, things were looking up. He had won his case. That was good in and of itself, but more importantly, it meant that if Laura called today, he need not necessarily feel like a complete loser when he spoke to her. That was a start. A step closer to being himself again.

  “The camera makes you look old,” said the clerk at Audrey’s.

  “Excuse me?”

  The clerk nodded at the news rack—the one close at hand by the register, with the cheap daily rags like Buxton’s.

  Reggie saw the Daily Sun story. It was page one; it could not be missed. And it was another Emma Swoop byline.

  Reggie was in the foreground of the largest photo, scowling villainously back at the press, and at an angle that made it look like he was developing a bit of a paunch.

  The solicitor Darla Rennie was visible only in the flash of a shapely bare leg.

  It seemed unlucky, and possibly bad form, to buy the paper and take it with him. But a queue was building in the little shop, and the woman behind him kept peering around Reggie’s shoulder at that front page and then glancing up at Reggie’s face.

  Reggie bought both the paper and the sandwich and hurried out.

  Once again he was entering the Baker Street lobby with the lowest form of journalism tucked conspicuously under his arm.

  He got in the lift, pressed the button, and as the doors began to close, he opened the paper and followed the story onto page two.

  But the lift doors hadn’t closed yet; a slender hand caught them before they did, and the same tall brunette from a few days before stepped inside. Reggie acknowledged her presence with a quick nod, b
ut stayed focused on the story.

  As the lift went up, the woman’s eyes shifted to the outward-facing front page—with Reggie’s photo—and then she craned her neck ever so slightly to see the interior pages Reggie had opened to: page two and, once again, page three with that day’s bare-breasted lass.

  “You’re making progress,” said the woman, as the doors opened on Reggie’s floor. “One more page, and you’ll be right up against her.”

  Reggie couldn’t take the time to even think about a response. He got out and headed quickly down the corridor toward chambers.

  Once safely inside, he opened the Daily Sun again and read the article about how he had used insidious legal trickery to get an obviously guilty killer released.

  It was complete rubbish. But Buxton owned the paper. He would have the last word, and there was nothing Reggie could do about it. Or almost nothing.

  Now the phone rang, and Reggie dismissed, for the moment, the fantasy of going to Wapping to punch out Buxton again.

  He picked up. It was Laura.

  “I should like to speak, please, to a cynical champion of the dark dregs of society. Is there one available?”

  So she had seen the tabloids.

  “A dreg or a cynical champion?”

  “Can I get both in one?”

  “Any time you like.”

  “I would like an early dinner and a chat, then,” she said. And then she added, “She has fine legs, Reggie. But shouldn’t proper solicitors wear opaque tights or the like to court?”

  “I … I told her exactly that myself,” said Reggie.

  Laura laughed again. “It doesn’t matter, Reggie, really.”

  “What time shall I pick you up?”

  There was a short pause. “Why don’t we just meet?” said Laura, too brightly. “I know you’re quite busy.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “The Olde Bank pub at four?”

  “Do they still serve shepherd’s pie?”

  “So I’m told,” said Reggie.

  “Brilliant,” she said.

  Then she was off the phone.

  Reggie was worried the moment she had hung up.