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

already robed and intercepting Ted Bowen and Claire Morton inside the entrance of Snaresbrook before my own trial continued.

‘Ted, Claire.’ I nodded as politely as I could manage while stepping out to block their progress. ‘Could I have a quick word with you both?’

‘About what?’ Bowen asked, coming to an irritable halt. His breath smelled of an Embassy Number 1 and his eyes rolled onto Zara, who was standing behind my right shoulder. ‘I’m hoping to begin cross-examining her drug dealer this morning, and I personally like a large cup of coffee to ensure I’m fully awake when I stick the boot in a young man’s backside.’

‘Really? Well, when you’ve finished your sadistic and apparently sexual shoeing of Miss Barnes’s innocent client, she has a defence witness to call.’

‘Fine by me,’ he snorted. ‘If they come up with the same sort of bull as we’re likely to hear from Israel, then they’ll get a good toeing as well.’

‘Gross,’ Zara muttered, then cleared her throat and spoke up. ‘I only wanted to inform you that this particular witness is afraid to give evidence, and I’ll therefore be making an application for special measures.’

‘What special measures?’

‘Screens, to shield him from the dock while he gives evidence.’

‘What sort of a defence witness needs hiding from the person he’s defending?’

‘This one,’ Zara said. ‘It’s Omar Pickett.’

Bowen’s eyes widened. ‘You are joking, aren’t you? You’re not seriously hoping to call a witness who has already been subject to not one but two PII rulings by two different judges!’

‘I’m entirely serious,’ Zara replied coolly; she rummaged through her canvas bag and produced a document. ‘For you, I have this fresh Section 8 application requesting that Judge Bromley revisit disclosure in light of these new developments.’

Bowen snatched the paper from her hand. ‘Where is Pickett now?’

‘He’s in hiding. Associates of these drug dealers want him out of the picture.’

‘I’m hardly surprised.’

Zara glowered. ‘We’re talking about an eighteen-year-old’s life here.’

Bowen almost yawned. ‘Yes, yes, and just last Friday you were talking about another young man’s life, but he will be here today, alive and well, I’m sure. I fear that you take the hollow threats of these hooligans far too seriously, Miss Barnes.’

‘All right,’ I said, taking her by the arm. ‘Don’t forget to deal with her application, Ted,’ and I led Zara away in the general direction of the public canteen.

‘Well,’ she seethed, ‘I don’t see how that does Andre any favours whatsoever.’

‘It may do yet. It may do yet …’ I checked the time. ‘Fifty minutes until court commences. I want to catch Meadows before she’s locked inside the dock.’

‘I’ll join you,’ Zara said, ‘if you wouldn’t mind coming down to see Andre with me afterwards. I don’t … I don’t quite know what the hell I’m supposed to say to him.’

‘Of course.’

We found Charli outside the canteen, wandering aimlessly from one side of the corridor to the other like a yo-yo. Whether it was because of our frosty encounter with the prosecutors, or the result of an emotional hangover after the evening I’d had pandering to Omar Pickett, this morning I wasn’t in the mood for wasting time or mincing words. ‘Charli, where’s Deacon?’

‘D-Deacon?’ She was holding a cup of tea; I could hear the liquid sloshing around.

‘We’ve tiptoed around the subject for long enough,’ I said. ‘Another man in this very courthouse could be sent down through pride or fear or something as stupid as both put together, and Deacon is tied into it somehow. I may not know why, not yet, but I trust my instincts and your boyfriend’s name is the one that keeps on cropping up. He talked you into bringing that tobacco into prison. You weren’t just meeting up for stolen kisses by the prison lockers. You were handing him contraband, the same drugs he once supplied through his so-called record label.’

‘No!’ On tiptoes, she raised an inch higher. ‘You’re supposed to be my defence, Mr Rook!’

‘I am, and that’s the problem. I believe you’re a good woman, Charli, and I don’t want to see you go down on somebody else’s orders. I don’t want to see your children end up in social services because an inmate pulled the wool over your eyes!’ This outburst came as a surprise, even to me, but it felt right. It felt like the truth.

‘But I’ve told you so many times, I didn’t smuggle any –’

‘Where is he now? Where is Deacon?’

Her heels returned to the floor, quickly followed by her eyes. ‘I haven’t seen him. Is that what you want to hear? Ever since the … the weekend. The dog. He got this idea into his head that … It’s crazy …’

‘What idea?’

She shook her head. ‘He thinks the dog was poisoned on purpose. Something to do with this trial. He said something about a threat, a note he’d been sent, but he wasn’t making any sense.’

‘And you didn’t think it necessary to tell me this?’

‘What was I going to say? That another man has walked out on me? On us? He hasn’t answered any of my messages. He’s gone, Mr Rook. Are you happy now?’ Without another word she marched off towards our courtroom, the place I’d be standing to defend her within the hour.

‘That was short,’ Zara said, ‘not quite sweet.’

‘No. Not quite.’

‘I don’t buy it. Not one bit. I’ll bet he’s sitting on her sofa watching Jeremy Kyle with a round of toast as we speak. A note? What, like some anonymous letter? Who’s she trying to fool?’

‘Yes,’ I muttered. ‘Quite.’

‘Right, next.’ She swallowed a heavy, rattling breath. ‘Time to see Andre.’

But the next person we encountered was not Andre Israel; it was Lydia, who we found at the entrance to the cells, the usual stack of papers under her arm.

She was smiling. ‘Elliot! Zara.’

‘Can we talk?’ I asked quietly.

She looked at her watch. ‘Maybe later, I’ve got clients here to see.’

‘We’ve spoken to Omar Pickett.’

This caught her attention. ‘You’re joking. The mystery informant? When?’

‘Yesterday evening. He got in touch