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

to entrust Mr Israel’s safety to what I consider to be the thoroughly competent employees of the Prison Service. Your second application for bail is refused.’

Zara thanked the court for its time once more, though now it was little louder than a mumble.

She picked up her bag, dropped it, clenched her shaking fists and picked it up again. Then she hurried out of the room, banging her knee on the door as she went.

I sighed as I got to my feet. I looked up at Andre, who was already being taken away. It would be another hour’s drive back to the Scrubs. A two-hour round trip for a hearing that had lasted twenty minutes. After being a barrister for so many years, I rarely felt sorry for defendants any more, yet I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Zara.

I was almost out of the room when, from behind, a small hand alighted neatly onto my shoulder. It was Lydia, papers under one arm, smiling and entirely unfazed by the decision of the court.

‘So,’ she said, ‘I’m still waiting to hear back about that drink. What are you doing tonight?’

And in that moment, a drink was the one thing I couldn’t bring myself to refuse.

I found Zara in the corridor a couple of minutes later. I didn’t tell her about Lydia. I still wasn’t sure if there was anything much to tell. Besides, she looked like she wanted to grieve a little in silence and – after a sincere yet clumsy ‘happens to the best of us’ speech – I was glad to oblige.

On the Tube heading west towards chambers, she broke the silence.

‘The car … Dare I ask?’

‘Bad,’ I replied.

‘Write-off?’

‘Waiting to hear back from Delroy Meadows.’

‘Meadows?’ She was standing up in our carriage, despite it being practically empty at this time; I was sitting, and she shuffled her boots closer. ‘As in …?’

‘Charli’s brother. Charli’s twin brother. He owns a garage in Hackney Wick.’

‘And you took the car there?’ With the hand that wasn’t lassoed in an overhead strap, she reached up behind her glasses and pinched her eyes. ‘Did you tell him how it happened?’

‘No, of course not. I just told him it was vandalised.’

‘It’ll get back to his sister.’

‘I’m sure it will, assuming her boyfriend hasn’t already given her a first-hand account.’

‘Did you report it to the police?’

‘Honestly, if I report this to anybody in the Met they’ll likely pop a bottle of champagne. Speaking of which, I didn’t realise that we were sharing the same OIC.’

‘Linford? He’s in charge of your case too?’

‘I’d have to double-check my papers, but I’m almost certain.’

She caught my eye but didn’t say a word. Then she turned to face the glass behind me and watched the darkness of the Underground rush through her own reflection, shaking her head from time to time.

When I got off the Tube, I had a voicemail from Meadows informing me that, in short, I shouldn’t dream of seeing my car again for at least a week. He asked me to ring back with my go-ahead, before listing the work that needed doing. Halfway through the list, I called him back and told him to do it.

I was to meet Lydia in Soho at six o’clock. By five, I was rifling through shirts at home. I chose what I thought to be a slimming striped one and did a substandard job of neatening it up, using the carpet for an ironing board and brushing dog fur from the cotton as I went. For the first time in years, I combed my hair back, trying to hold the rebellious waves in place with a quarter-pot of old pomade; it looked as though I’d grown an inch more forehead than the last time I’d done it. I tried on two different blazers and discovered that neither would meet at the middle any more. Eventually, I turned to Scout, who was watching idly from the other side of the room.

‘What do you reckon?’

She didn’t answer. I asked the mirror instead, but it didn’t answer either.

‘Christ almighty,’ I said. ‘I look like Ray Winstone in The Departed.’

I was still grimacing like a tough guy in the mirror, entertaining myself with impersonations of Winstone’s loose Boston-cockney accent – ‘Cranberry juice! Craaaanberry juice!’ – when there came a soft knocking upon my front door and the dog began to bark. I shepherded her into her cage, locked it, and then hesitated. I could probably count on one hand the amount of times the basement door had ever been knocked upon, and I had a sickening feeling that I’d misunderstood our meeting, and this would be Lydia come early to collect me.

Improbable, I told myself. Impossible. She didn’t know where I lived, did she?

I opened the door and froze. It felt as if I’d dropped something, a fleeting sense of falling, but there’d been nothing in my hand to begin with.

‘Hello, Elliot.’

I’m not sure how long I stood there. In the end, I managed no better greeting than her name.

‘Jenny.’

15

On a drizzly September evening in 1993, ten years after my trial for fraud and induction into the straight life, I fell in love with Jennifer Tilden.

It was the beginning of my year at Bar school.

After graduating from Bristol University, I’d returned to London and discovered a setback on my journey towards qualifying as a barrister. To get into Bar school, one first had to join an Inn of Court, one of London’s four ancient legal societies. These were Gray’s, Lincoln’s, the Middle Temple and the Inner Temple, and there was an old rhyme about them: Inner for the rich, Middle for the poor, Gray’s for the scholar, Lincoln’s for the bore.

Throughout my time at university I’d been consciously burying my working-class roots, developing the highbrow persona that would – for better or worse – remain with me for the rest of my life. I’d trained myself to talk with a BBC accent and convinced so many people I’d studied at Eton College