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

drug dealer, inmate of the Scrubs and potential cuckoo of the Meadows household … is also the proprietor of an independent drill label by the name of Banged Up Records.’

She slammed the sandwich down onto its foil. ‘Get the fuck out of here!’

‘At this rate, I almost wish I could.’

‘He produced for Andre and Omar Pickett.’ She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘What have we got ourselves into?’

‘There’s more. You recall the Meadows family dog?’

‘Oh, you mean the county lines guard dog of choice? Yeah, I think I do recall that.’

‘My client got it from Deacon.’

‘Inevitable, really. How did you find that out?’

‘Charli told me all about it this morning, when she was explaining how it died.’

‘It died?’

‘Poisoned, it would appear.’

‘Poisoned?’

‘And it is now buried under the very allotment where we sat last week.’

She gawped at me for a moment, then slid the last of her sandwich away across the table. ‘They’re not still going to eat those tomatoes she was growing, are they?’

I couldn’t say.

The afternoon brought Garrick’s opening speech. I’d been staring at the strangers gathered in the public gallery when the judge invited him to start, and he got to his feet and turned to the jury, notes sprawled before him on our shared row.

‘From ten o’clock on the morning of Monday 15 January this year, a joint operation between the Prison Service’s Anti-Corruption Investigation Unit, the National Crime Agency and the Metropolitan Police’s Organised Crime Division was undertaken at Her Majesty’s Prison Wormwood Scrubs, a Category B local jail in the Hammersmith and Fulham borough of London. Code-named Operation Triptych, this strategic manoeuvre consisted of searches on all members of staff as well as every onsite vehicle in response to drugs-related fatalities within the prison. Specially trained canines were employed for the task.

‘At approximately 10.35, Operation Triptych uncovered a large quantity of synthetic cannabinoids, generically referred to as Spice, concealed within the boot of a vehicle in the prison’s private staff car park. These drugs, which were disguised as ten individual packets of rolling tobacco, were estimated to have a combined prison value of £10,000. The vehicle in which they were discovered was an unassuming Vauxhall Corsa, a dark blue model from the year 2000, registration number X326 ADM. This vehicle was owned by Charli Meadows, the defendant brought before you today. She was the only suspect to be arrested and charged under the efforts of Operation Triptych that day.

‘Charli Meadows was a trusted employee of HMP Wormwood Scrubs. Her role, officially titled Operational Support Grade, was one tier below officer level, but no less integral to the running of the prison. For more than four years, her responsibilities included everything from direct contact with countless inmates to having control of the very locks designed to hold them on the premises. It would be no hyperbole to say that Charli Meadows quite literally held the keys to Wormwood Scrubs in the palm of her hand.

‘The single count on today’s indictment is one of smuggling psychoactive substances, as defined by the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, into a custodial institution. This is in direct violation of Section 40B of the Prison Act 1952, which concerns the unlawful conveyance of List A articles into one of Her Majesty’s Prisons. It is the Crown’s case that the defendant, Miss Charli Meadows, did knowingly smuggle these drugs onto the premises.

‘But who is Charli Meadows?’ Garrick’s eyes turned briefly and indifferently towards the dock, his hollow expression revealing that he didn’t really see anybody inside it. ‘A single mother to three children, she has by all accounts been a hard-working woman before now. The sort that you will, perhaps, recognise from your own lives, your own families. And make no mistake that the defence will attempt to use that to distract you. To cloud the fact that this crime has been committed, committed knowingly, and committed by the defendant alone. The drugs were found in that car. This fact is agreed upon, meaning that it is presented before you unchallenged by the defence. The sole individual who has access to that car is its owner, Charli Meadows, another hard fact that the defence has not even bothered to deny. You will hear that the defendant chose to drive the two-hour round trip from her home in Walthamstow to the prison every single working day for more than four years. What was so important about braving the city’s congestion to have her vehicle onsite in that prison car park is answerable only by the conclusion of her time there.

‘The defence may suggest that Miss Meadows simply did not know that she was committing a crime. That, as far as she was aware, the packages contained nothing worse than ordinary tobacco. As Her Ladyship Lady Allen will direct you on the law as to what constitutes mens rea, you shall discover that ignorance does not legally excuse any such actions. It may even be suggested that Miss Meadows did not have a choice in the matter whatsoever. That she was being coerced into her crime. Well, the answer to this is that we all, always, have a choice.

‘In her interviews, the defendant was given ample opportunity to explain where she acquired the drugs. Her solicitor suggested that she reply “no comment” to all questions asked, but, to her credit, Miss Meadows did respond a little. She denied knowing anything about the drugs. No excuses, no theories, no alternative explanations. The Crown says that she could offer no alternatives, because there is only one possible explanation: Charli Meadows was smuggling Spice into those prison walls for financial reward. True, it might not have been for a lavish, millionaire’s lifestyle – it might simply have been to make a better life for her family – but the fact remains that she broke the law, and intentionally so. The trafficking of drugs is never a victimless crime.

‘On that note, it will become quite obvious to you, as the trial progresses, that Operation Triptych was conducted almost immediately after