A Chance Encounter by Rae Shaw (best ereader for academics .TXT) 📕

owns. Jackson owns these little accountancy firms. Eyes everywhere. Anyway, I thought he was going to rake me over the coals and fire me. He was charming. Hettie needed some advice and Jackson arranged for us to meet at her gallery. He liked me, I guess. After that, we exchanged emails about a few cases his forensic team were dealing with and he wanted my opinion. I suppose it was a test. Hence the transfer from Daneswan.’

None of what Mark had said was in his personnel file, the one that security kept.

‘Jackson knew Alex at school.’ She’d married an older man, as had Hettie. Only, Hettie had struck gold and Julianna had found rust. ‘You weren't in the Bullingdon club, were you?’

He laughed. ‘Heck, no. I got a scholarship. I'm a council house kid. Bread and butter pudding for tea if I was lucky.’

She smiled. ‘Alex and Jackson met at a reunion. Different years, of course, but still old boys.’ She despised the secret networks the public schools built. She should have seen the betrayal coming. Alex wanted a wife to parade at parties, a blonde bombshell with a plastic smile and not a frizzy-haired kick-boxing champion.

‘Not my scene,’ he said.

‘So no secrets in your past?’

He slowly lowered his fork. ‘Secrets?’

‘Stuff, you know. Well, anything exciting.’ She half-expected a bead of sweat to drip down his temple. In a few seconds, he had gone from relaxed to rigid. ‘What?’ she asked. His hand rested on the table, a span's width away from hers. She could touch it. Hold it. Something to jolt him out of his hiding place. He slipped his hand off the table and used the napkin to wipe his lips. He sighed, deeply. She waited patiently, containing her eagerness.

‘My dad worked hard – he was a fitness trainer at a local boxing club. Helped kids keep off the streets. Everyone liked Bill Clewer. There was always food, clothes, a little money for holidays. He took me to see United play. We couldn't afford a season ticket, he had to beg and borrow to buy any tickets. Mum would have tea ready when we got home.’

‘Just you?’

‘Ellen, my sister, was a baby.’

‘Then...’ There had to be a then. He had painted a picture of contentment. Now, he had to blow it apart.

‘Then, he got into petty crime. Robbing Peter to pay Paul kind of stuff. Shifting stolen goods or counterfeit ones out of the back of a van. No drugs, vice or violent acts, not at first. Later...’ He slouched in his chair. He had left the top two buttons of his shirt undone and the tails hanging out. He hadn’t shaved. Mark, unintentionally, bore a good resemblance to the caricature of a brat pack rogue. She had joked about the film noir. Mark wasn't flippant.

‘So, he ended up on the wrong side of the law,’ she said.

‘He ended up in prison serving a life sentence for murder.’ He fixed his dark eyes on hers and waited.

She once had the displeasure of meeting some of society's worst on a regular basis. She had seen crime scenes and dead bodies, interviewed traumatised victims, listened to their horror stories for hours, then heard the pathetic excuses given by the accused. Murder no longer shocked her like it once did, but Mark's revelation was a surprise.

‘Who did he kill?’ If he had murdered a woman, would Mark lose his appeal? She held her breath.

‘Another guy.’

Julianna exhaled, softly, and leaned on her elbows attentively.

‘Somebody he knew from a rival gang,’ Mark said. ‘He pleaded not guilty to murder. But the jury rejected the lesser charge of manslaughter on the advice of the judge. Dad claimed he had gone to negotiate a deal, something to their mutual benefit and it went bad. He says it was self-defence. He stood in court and said the other man attacked him and he fought back. Except...’ Mark groaned and rubbed his eyes.

‘The evidence didn't support him?’ They both understood the importance of forensics; the sordid details, the indelible evidence of wrongdoing.

He nodded. ‘There was a knife in the other man's hand. But, critically, Dad said he was in the car with him, fighting him, but nothing found inside the car supports this. In fact, there were no fingerprints or fibres inside the car, and the only fibres recovered from Dad's clothing were on the outside and the driver’s window was wound down, too. He’d been stabbed in the heart.’

‘But the victim was holding a knife?’

Mark lips pressed together. Another nod.

‘Could somebody have cleaned up afterwards, to make it look like your dad wasn't in the car?’

He pursed his lips, briefly. ‘Possibly. To be honest, I've not read all the evidence. I was seventeen when it happened.’

Seventeen! ‘You were a kid? This must have happened...’

‘Nine years ago. Ellen was eleven. She has problems dealing with it. I left home, went to Oxford.’ He slowly straightened up. ‘Look. It's a pile of shit and I'm stuck with it because I'm their son. Dad has tried for years to reduce the sentence. Mum is still crusading to prove his innocence. She thinks there’s a witness who can corroborate Dad's story. He had mates, people he went around with, and she thinks they’re too afraid to speak up for him.’

‘Have you found them, these witnesses?’

This time, he laughed. A dry, humourless chuckle. He had obviously fielded that question many times. ‘No. It's nine years ago. Gangs change. People go to jail, come out of jail. One thing stays the same – silence.’ He dropped into a disappointed whisper.

‘And you want to clear him?’ She nudged with her voice. ‘Mark?’

He clenched a fist on the table. ‘I want it to be over. I idolised him, Julianna. He was Dad. Is Dad. Fuck, I don't know. He could have managed