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

and here you are grilling me like a couple of cops! I think you’d both better get out of here before I lose my famous cool.’

‘Mr Reid,’ I tried, ‘Isaac, I really do think we could help you, if you’d just be willing to give us –’

‘No.’ He held up a hand as large as a stop sign. ‘You think I was born yesterday? You’re into something, the pair of you, and I want fuck all to do with it.’ He stood up and walked past us for the door; he banged on it and the warder opened it from the other side. ‘I might not want to spend the rest of my life in this place, but I do want to have a rest of my life.’

Then he asked the guard to take him back to his cell, and our conference was over.

I had no choice but to let Zara order an Uber on her phone to take us back to central London, which was an hour’s drive away, after promising to transfer the fee before it ever tried to leave her empty account. I hadn’t slept much after the destruction of my car, so all I really wanted to do was get home.

‘I’m going to take the dog for a walk,’ I said. ‘Try to clear my head and forget all about last night. Come along, if you want. I could use a designated scooper.’

‘Wow, thanks, but no thanks. I’ve had Andre’s bail application listed at Snaresbrook for tomorrow afternoon, and I’m still struggling to decide on the change in circumstances that will even justify me making it.’

‘You’ll figure it out,’ I said. ‘I’ve no doubt.’

‘Yeah, right. And maybe tonight I’ll get a lucky break, and his circumstances really will change.’

‘Perhaps they will,’ I said.

And overnight, they did.

14

I was back in Regent’s Park the following morning, waiting patiently for Scout’s first ablutions of the day, when my phone rang. Zara.

‘Morning,’ I yawned. ‘You were wise to avoid yesterday’s walk; my legs feel like they’ve been put through one of those –’

‘The police have issued Andre with an Osman warning!’

It woke me like a slap to the ear. ‘A threat to his life?’

‘Yes!’ She was panting, breathless, the line whistling as she raced through standing air. ‘They’ve received intelligence of a threat on his life if he stays –’ the blast of a car horn ‘– it’s a zebra crossing, dickhead! – if he stays at the Scrubs!’

‘Did they say who wants him dead?’ At this, two fellow dog walkers glanced in consternation and gave me a wide berth.

‘Don’t know. Haven’t spoken properly!’

‘Where are you now?’ I asked.

‘Just left home, I’ve got to be at Snaresbrook in an hour. They’ve moved the hearing forward and they’re bringing Andre from the prison!’

‘I’d say this is a good enough change in circumstances to warrant that second bail application.’

‘My thoughts exactly. Where are you? What are you doing?’

‘Walking Scout, but I could be at Snaresbrook in an hour if you wanted me there.’

‘Do it! I’m off underground. Meet you there!’

And she hung up.

Snaresbrook Crown Court is a rather magnificent Grade II listed building in north-east London dating from the Victorian era, constructed in an Elizabethan style. On first glance, it’s hard to believe that this former orphanage is now the busiest Crown court in the country, with twenty courtrooms hidden inside its picturesque turrets and limestone ashlar. It is surrounded by eighteen acres of landscape gardens, complete with a lake called Eagle Pond.

It was across these grounds that I saw Zara pelting, canvas shoulder bag flapping, boots flattening the lawn like a pair of leather pistons. I’d been waiting by the entrance for ten minutes or more when she eventually came to a skidding halt before me; from the colour in her cheeks, it looked as if she’d waived the Underground in favour of a sprint all the way.

‘Come on!’ she wheezed. ‘Queue!’

‘Catch your breath. The queue isn’t going anywhere.’

She shook her head and pushed past me to join the back of the line for security checks; ahead, the morning’s lawyers were placing the contents of their pockets into plastic trays and filing through the metal detector.

‘I wish I’d worn my court clothes!’ Zara moaned, tugging at the laces of her boots.

I couldn’t blame her for being agitated. An Osman warning, so named after the 1998 high-profile legal case of Osman v. United Kingdom, is no trivial matter. They are issued by British police in the event of a serious and immediate threat to life when there still isn’t enough evidence to actually arrest the malefactor.

‘When did the police issue the warning?’ I asked.

‘Last night. Two officers showed up at the prison. All they told Andre, as far as I know, was that they’d received intelligence of a threat on his life and to be on the lookout for anything suspicious.’

‘Anything suspicious in prison?’

‘That’s what I said.’

As we came out of security, I checked my watch. Ten minutes late. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Meeting Lady Allen in her chambers,’ she replied, marching ahead. ‘Evelyn Allen! Only one of my role models, and look at the state of me!’

‘Allen?’ I caught her by the shoulder and spun her round. ‘This way.’

Sitting in chambers used to mean a conference in the judge’s private chambers, but these days it tends to refer to a courtroom with no public access.

‘They can’t refuse bail after this,’ she said. ‘Surely they can’t! God, I wish I wasn’t so late. For fuck’s sake!’

‘You’re all right,’ I told her, striding along. ‘The courtroom is just ahead. It’s fine.’

‘It doesn’t feel fine,’ she groaned. ‘At least they haven’t started without us. That’s Andre’s solicitor waiting by the door.’

I looked up and saw the solicitor tapping her feet impatiently, clutching a stack of papers to her chest. After the luck I’d had this week, I should’ve seen it coming.

‘Elliot!’

‘Morning, Lydia.’

‘You know each other?’ Zara asked, coming to a winded stop.

‘Lydia is the solicitor in another case I’m working.’

‘Another case?’ Zara was