Babyface. Elizabeth Woodcraft

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СКАЧАТЬ worry, despite what I said in court, unfriendly oafs are, unfortunately, everywhere,’ I said. ‘But thanks, that’s great. I’ll take you up on that offer.’

      The door was opened and we were directed into separate rooms to await our clients.

      

      Danny Richards came in humming. He grinned at me. ‘I think you got under old Norman’s skin there for a bit.’

      I looked at him.

      He danced over to his chair. He was light on his feet. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I just wanted to say, and you can pass this on, I may or may not change my plea. If Catcher’s fighting it, I might as well go the distance. It’ll put the wind up him for me to go not guilty. But I don’t want anyone taking any trouble, all that cross-examination of prosecution witnesses. I don’t want any of that.’ He held my gaze. He sighed. ‘Some things just have to follow their natural course.’

      ‘Maybe so, but you’ve got some natural points to make. The fact that the argument you had with Terry Fleming was so long ago. They can’t rely on that.’

      ‘Fortunately for you, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And nor do most people round here. People do things, other things happen. It’s the way of the world. All right? What will be, will be.’

      ‘Is that meant to be religion?’

      ‘I thought it was Doris Day. Whatever. Call it what you like, it’s realism, anyway.’

      I was too bedraggled from my voyage under HHJ Norman’s skin to argue. Danny Richards leaned back in his chair and, from his trouser pocket, drew out the packet of cigarettes I had given him. He kept humming as he took out a cigarette and lit it.

      Unusually the jailer appeared at the door. He didn’t even look at me. ‘You’ve got a visitor,’ he said to Danny.

      I could have ignored the interruption, but I feared that if I stayed, Danny might really start to like me. I stood up and said goodbye.

      ‘Don’t say goodbye,’ he said, ‘say “so long.” ’

      ‘Mr Richards,’ I said, ‘this is no longer my case.’ I remember saying it very clearly. And then I left the cells.

      As I took the lift back up to the Robing Room, I found myself humming Danny’s tune. I knew it, I knew I knew it. It was a seventies song, I was sure. Dum, dum, dum. A bit of a heart-catching voice. Dum de dum de dum, ‘Bad Company’! At least he had a sense of humour.

      But now I could forget Danny Richards and start to think about my inquiry, get myself into a different mode, relax. First of all divest myself of my robes. I slid my wig back into its tin and rolled up my gown. I looked at myself in the mirror. I would have worn a different shirt if I hadn’t had to robe. Something sharper, with a collar, more likely to impress my colleagues at the inquiry, although if what Roseanna had said was right, perhaps I should have just worn a suit of armour.

      As I walked out of the building into the hot, dry sunshine of the street, it was already half past eleven. A figure stepped in front of me and I took a step sideways to avoid her. She stepped with me and for a few seconds we swayed in a repetitive dance on the pavement. Finally I said, ‘Do you come here often?’

      ‘You’re Danny’s brief, aren’t you?’

      I thought back over my life as a barrister. Had there ever been a client called Danny?

      ‘Danny, Danny,’ I said, hoping that saying the name would bring an image to my mind.

      ‘Danny Richards,’ she said disdainfully. ‘He was your client this morning.’

      ‘OK,’ I said neutrally, hoping she thought my vagueness was actually a result of my duty of confidentiality.

      ‘I’m Yolande.’

      The name didn’t ring a bell, I wondered which part of his life she was involved in, in which volume of the brief I might have read about her, if I’d had all the papers.

      ‘Mmm,’ I said, cautiously.

      She was thin, blond and tanned. She had to be Danny Richards’ girlfriend. She looked tired, her face was lined, as if she’d spent too much time in the sun, and I was conscious that she was wearing a lot of gold jewellery. She looked like my idea of a gangster’s moll.

      ‘Have you got time for a coffee?’

      ‘I can’t talk to you about his case,’ I said. ‘I’m only here for the morning. You should get in touch with his solicitor.’

      ‘Oh her,’ she said, dismissively. ‘I don’t even know her. She’s only been on the case a week.’

      ‘Has she?’ I was surprised. The brief I didn’t have was obviously prepared in her usual meticulous style.

      ‘Two weeks,’ she amended.

      ‘Look, Mr Richards hasn’t said I can talk to you,’ I said, thinking he probably would have, if we’d got round to it. ‘It’s his case, I can’t.’

      Her face twisted in anguish. ‘I’m not going to be able to see him before this trial. Someone’s got to do something.’

      ‘OK,’ I sighed. ‘If you like, you can tell me what you want to tell me and I’ll pass it on.’

      She smiled, a big wide smile.

      I thought we would go to a rather nice café with large windows and the smell of coffee beans; I envisaged a little espresso with some hot milk on the side; I saw myself considering a slightly warm apricot danish pastry. But we were sitting on two rickety chairs in the back room of a shop, drinking Tesco’s own brand and eating non-chocolate Hob Nobs. I felt quite at home, it reminded me of my life in Colchester, days spent in my dad’s garage. And compared to that, this was high class, because in those days it was Rich Tea or nothing.

      We had walked for about five minutes, in silence, away from the city centre, down Dalton Street and round behind the hospital. She walked like a model, moving confidently, head straight, a small smile on her lips. Men looked at her, and kept watching as we passed, twisting their necks, shaking their heads. Till we arrived at the shop. ‘This is Danny’s shop,’ she said. My heart sank. I shouldn’t be here. Kay was going to kill me.

      I would make it short. It would be very short. She had unlocked the front door (‘There’s just me, during the week, when Danny’s away,’ she explained. ‘Sometimes I have extra help on a Saturday.’) and we had walked through a forest of armchairs and sofas, covered in mottled blue and grey velvet, and beige and orange corduroy, with matching footstools, guarded by nests of tables. The kind of things I always say I would never have in my home, but that are always fantastically comfortable and comforting to sit on, unlike my own furniture.

      I had watched Yolande as she had fiddled with the kettle, carrying it to a room I assumed was the toilet to fill it, as she had removed two mugs from a cupboard on the wall and as she spooned powder from the jar. All with her left hand. I gazed at the long pale-pink painted fingernails incongruously but expertly, left-handedly, completing the coffee-making process. I once fell in love with a person on the basis of left-handedness alone. The relationship didn’t last long, but while it did, whenever СКАЧАТЬ