Post Mortem by Gary Bell (free children's ebooks pdf .TXT) 📕

of Harrods green. I placed him as being six or seven years younger than Charli, late twenties, a white lad with stylish jeans and a tight Stone Island jumper that spoke of a body he’d earned in the gym. His inquisitive eyes glinted out at us like broken diamonds from beneath his baseball cap as he sauntered straight for the allotments’ gate.

Roland, looking as if he was about to wet himself with excitement, ran to meet him there.

‘Wagwan, little man?’ Deacon asked, and they clasped hands as he stepped through onto the grass.

‘You know how it is, D!’ Roland said, aiming for cool while his treacherous, boyish voice cracked and wavered. ‘Just chillin. What you got in the bag? What is it?’

‘What, this?’ Deacon shrugged one shoulder. ‘Ah, it’s nothing …’

‘Don’t play with me!’ Roland jumped between the allotments and booted the flowerpot I’d previously stepped over. ‘What is it? What is it?’

Deacon held on to the bag a while longer, watching the kid bounce around like a firework in a tin box – he flashed a wink across the gardens to Charli, somehow failing to notice that the mother was a sculpture of mortification – and then yielded and tossed the bag to Roland. ‘Now, if I hear about that damn dog getting anywhere near these …’

The kid screamed. Screamed. He tossed the bag onto the vegetation behind him and what was left in his hands was a black shoebox. I had to blink. It really said Gucci. ‘Sick! Sick! Siiiiick!’ He took the lid off and aimed the contents at us all, showing off a pair of white trainers with green-red-green striping on the sides and a distinctive bee embroidered in gold. ‘D, you’re the man! Wait until my boys see these! Just fucking wait!’

‘Language!’ Deacon said, aiming a playful slap at the boy’s head, but Roland was already sprinting across the road towards the house. He opened the front door, moving quick enough to catch the dog inside, and slammed the door behind him. I caught only a glimpse of the animal before Charli recaptured my attention.

‘Deacon!’ she managed through gritted teeth. If a hole had appeared in the overturned soil right then, I would’ve put money on her climbing into it. ‘I thought you weren’t coming tonight.’

‘I’m only popping on the way from the gym, babe.’ Deacon grinned with sly, childlike defiance as he strolled through the bamboo maze towards us. ‘What? I can’t treat the boy for helping his mum out? Kid’s going through enough shit lately.’

Nobody answered until my mouth did it for me. ‘Gucci for skiving off school? Wish you’d been around when I was a boy.’

Those eyes, once playful jewels in the shadow of his cap, dulled. He looked me up and down, measuring my black coat, white shirt, black tie, hat. ‘Who’re you? Messengers of the Watchtower? You look like you’ve come to bless the ground.’

‘Deacon,’ Charli coughed, ‘this is Elliot Rook, my barrister.’

‘Barrister?’ That caught his attention. ‘What happened? They cancel the trial?’

‘Not that I know of,’ I told him. ‘I had some things to discuss with my client.’

‘Your client?’ He passed us for Charli’s side, leaving a draught of syrupy cologne between us, smells of a post-workout shower. ‘I thought she was Lydia’s client. You some new sort of barristers that make house calls?’ He slipped an arm around her waist. She allowed it but didn’t appear to like it. In fact, she looked very much like most liars do when their deception is unexpectedly revealed to the court. She was smart enough to know what I must be thinking: if she had lied about having a boyfriend …

‘They were in the area,’ she answered for us, trying to stay onside.

‘Where?’ he asked. ‘Snaresbrook?’

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘You know it?’

He smirked. ‘Shithole.’

‘You have much experience in Crown courts?’

The following silence spoke loudly, and what it said was ‘almost certainly’. Charli’s face pulled back from regular humiliation into a bewildered grin of disbelief. The sun was going down now; Deacon adjusted the brim of his cap a degree to the right and sniffed.

‘Still,’ he said, ‘I don’t get what was so important that you couldn’t arrange a proper meeting.’

‘Dead men,’ I told him flatly. ‘Thirteen of them.’

I was glad to see the wind momentarily knocked out of his sails. He looked between us. ‘They’re adding those dead druggies to her charge?’

I didn’t respond. I’d already had my fill of answering to the men in Charli’s life and I didn’t appreciate being lied to by my own clients. ‘We should be going. Anything further we can discuss on Monday morning.’ I was already on my feet when I motioned to Zara. ‘Let’s go.’

We were passing back through the gate into the road when Deacon shouted us, arm still wrapped around his woman’s waist. ‘Rook, is it?’

‘Yes?’

‘Maybe don’t come around here again. You want to talk, you can sort out a meeting and make sure her solicitor is involved, all right?’

I looked at Charli for confirmation. She looked away.

I tipped my hat. ‘Whatever you say, D. Whatever you say.’ And left.

Zara and I didn’t speak until we’d circled the curve in the lane and made it back to my car, which was parked well out of sight of Charli’s plot.

‘What was that all about?’ she asked, settling into the passenger seat. ‘I’m guessing by the look on her face that she didn’t mention her flashy fella before today?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘In fact, she outright denied having a partner.’

‘That’s interesting.’ She met my eye knowingly. ‘Very interesting.’

‘Not as interesting as the dog,’ I said. ‘That was a Dogo Argentino.’

11

‘Feels like we’re on a stakeout,’ Zara said, lifting her Doc Martens up onto the dashboard. ‘Got any binoculars?’

‘No. Now get those bloody boots off the walnut.’

She rolled her eyes as she lowered her feet and went back to her phone.

I’d turned the car round so that it was facing in the same general direction as Deacon’s, to save us staring straight at