Babyface. Elizabeth Woodcraft

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       EIGHTFriday Evening

      It was gone five o’clock when I got home, and I was planning a pleasant evening in with Friends and people from Seattle, all sharing a takeaway. The phone was ringing. I threw my bag down beside the sofa and retrieved the phone from the arm of the armchair, under yesterday’s Guardian. ‘Hello?’

      Kay said, ‘Were you ever going to ring me to let me know what happened in Birmingham?’

      ‘I’d thought about it.’ We didn’t stand on ceremony in our relationship, we just got straight back in and took up where we’d left off, eight years before. ‘But then I thought phone calls didn’t figure in our professional association, since you failed to ring me about the case before I started it.’

      ‘I didn’t actually know you were doing it. One might almost say I was misled by your clerk. But I would have had no objection.’ She sighed. ‘So?’

      I sat on the chair and stretched my legs, examining my shoes. How do you get marks out of suede? ‘It all went well. He is still your client. The judge wanted to know why Dr Quirk was a fully bound witness.’

      ‘For goodness’ sake! It’s the whole point of the trial.’

      ‘Exactly. And he got furious with me for not being Simon Allison, plus we had a small argument about the different professional approaches of the London and Birmingham Bar and he took the name of my head of chambers.’

      ‘Not to invite him to a drinks party?’

      ‘I don’t think so.’

      ‘How long did this hearing last?’

      ‘About twenty minutes.’

      ‘Dear God, Frankie, you’re not safe to be let out.’

      ‘Some people like living with danger. And I only had ten pages of brief to go on.’

      ‘I didn’t know Simon couldn’t do it.’

      ‘And … eh … Danny said he wants to change his plea. He wants to plead guilty.’

      ‘Oh, not again. What did you say to him?’ I knew she was thinking of all the work she had done, which might be wasted.

      ‘It had nothing to do with me. It was hard enough to persuade him not to do it there and then. You should be thanking me.’ I felt unappreciated.

      ‘Did he tell you he was guilty?’ If a client tells you he’s guilty you cannot put forward a not-guilty defence on his behalf. ‘Did he say that he did it?’

      ‘Oh no.’ I thought back to our conversation. ‘Although he didn’t actually say he didn’t.’ Perhaps he felt he didn’t need to. ‘He’s just fairly realistic about his chances of an acquittal and he wants to get some consideration for a guilty plea. Who knows, maybe he did do it.’

      ‘The police case is very weak. At the very least we should put them to proof.’ Even if the client is guilty, you can test the prosecution case to see if it stands up. ‘But there’s more to it than that. I don’t know Danny at all, but there’s something not right about this.’

      ‘I did have a few ideas you know.’ I dragged my notebook out of my bag and read the list I’d made sitting on the futon in Julie’s house.

      ‘I’ve already got that,’ she said.

      ‘This is my list, I just made this up,’ I protested.

      ‘Well, it’s identical to the advice Simon wrote.’

      ‘Great minds,’ I said.

      ‘I don’t know about that, but perhaps you should do crime. You have a criminal mind.’

      ‘Don’t send me back there again,’ I begged. Memories of being hated by everyone, the judge, prosecuting counsel, the police, even the ushers, just for representing defendants, were still clear in my memory. ‘I met Yolande,’ I said to change the subject.

      ‘Oh, what’s she like? She’s been ringing me about three times a day for the last ten days.’

      ‘Why don’t you speak to her?’

      ‘Danny’s such a tricky guy. He’s given me specific instructions not to and I can’t afford to mess him about. For all I know there are things she knows which I absolutely shouldn’t know.’

      ‘She seems to know things that might help his case. She could be an important person.’

      ‘Oh, yeah?’

      ‘Yes, she was very insistent, she asked me to … go for coffee to talk about it. Although I didn’t,’ I assured her, emphasising the ‘I’.

      ‘Really?’ Kay said, drily. ‘Just tell me this, does Yolande have blonde hair? No, let me guess – she’s left-handed, isn’t she?’

      I retained a haughty silence. Kay could be so shallow. I certainly wasn’t going to tell her about the picnic in chambers now.

      ‘Let me tell you something,’ Kay said. ‘And I will say this just once. Danny is a wheeler and dealer. Which means his girlfriend is probably one too. She might well be asking you to help Danny with his case, but it could equally be that she’s on some complete frolic of her own. Do you know, for example, how long they have been together?’

      I was silent. Of course I didn’t know. But I knew what Kay meant. If Danny’s relationship with Yolande was a relatively recent thing, this could be a set-up by Yolande or someone she was working with. But they had the shop, I told myself. Or did they? It was only what Yolande had said.

      Kay was still talking. ‘The word is that Danny’s a hit man who’s killed at least two people and he’s a very lucky boy because he’s never done time for it.’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘His last counsel.’

      ‘He killed his last counsel?’

      ‘No, that’s who informed me.’

      ‘Well, who was it? Who did he kill?’

      ‘And the reason you are asking?’

      ‘I suppose I’m just interested in the kind of man he is, since I didn’t get to read the whole brief. Ten pages doesn’t provide a СКАЧАТЬ