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

the tight staircase that seemed built for people half my size, and I didn’t get a good look at the client until I was back in my room with the door shut behind us.

It would be ignorant to say that Charli Meadows didn’t look like the ordinary criminal – I had dealt with lawbreakers of all shapes and sizes during my decades at the Bar – but, in appearance at least, she certainly challenged the misconception of an average. Like her brother, she was early thirties, black; they shared the same curved outlines to their features and spoke with comparable east London accents, but the physical similarities between the siblings seemed to end there.

Charli Meadows looked used up. Many defendants do, with the seriousness of charges often measurable by the radius of shadow around the eyes. Some look positively proud of themselves, and others don’t even bother to hide their dumb, smug smirks, but Charli Meadows was not one of those. She’d put effort into her outfit, enough to look presentable even in a simple denim jacket and clean white shirt, but nothing that spoke of spare cash hidden in the secret places of her home. The rings she wore were costume-grade, the stones in her ears too dull to be diamonds. There were no whites left along her fingernails, and her mascara was uneven. The lines around her mouth looked as if they’d been loaned from a woman twice her age. Here was a picture of despondency.

By comparison, her solicitor Lydia Roth moved with the sweeping confidence of a high-class professional. She was more than comfortable in her own fair, almost ashen, skin, and wore her strawberry-blonde hair in a short, stylish cut that looked as expensive as her designer glasses. As she took a seat, I found myself checking with what I hoped was discretion: no wedding ring.

She, Charli and I sat down around my desk, but the brother, Delroy Meadows, paced the room with a heavy tread. He selected books at random from my shelves, turned them in his hands and then clunked them down again. He seemed restless. Unsettled. I wondered if he was nervous, though he didn’t strike me as an easily unnerved figure.

I flicked through the case papers, imitating familiarity. ‘Miss Meadows,’ I said, ‘while I’m sure you’re well aware of the charges against you by now, perhaps we ought to start from the top to avoid any confusion going forward. I’ll be representing you in your upcoming trial. Now, you’ve –’

‘You been doing this long?’ It was her brother, who was off to the left weighing my battered copy of Crime and Punishment in his open palm. ‘We saw you in the news back at Christmas. That’s why we wanted you, but they told us you were booked up, didn’t they, Charli?’

I waited to see if she’d respond – she glanced to her solicitor as if for a cue, but Roth didn’t say a word – before I replied. ‘I’ve been doing this quite long enough to be of use to your sister, I think.’ Turning back to her. ‘You are being indicted for bringing prohibited List A items into prison, contrary to Section 40B of the Prison Act 1952.’

‘Drugs,’ her brother remarked, shaking his head as he plonked the novel back onto the wrong shelf, face down, without looking at me. ‘Let’s tell it like it is, Mr Rook. They’re calling her a smuggler. Honestly, does my sister look like a drug dealer to you? Does she?’

I caught a rolling glance from Lydia Roth, sneaking out over the frame of her glasses, which suggested that she’d already had her own fair share of these interruptions.

‘Honestly?’ I replied. ‘Some years ago, I had a client in her late eighties who had been selling cocaine from her Tuesday-evening bridge club. An otherwise charming old lady, I assure you. She carried a flathead screwdriver in her stocking for protection. I’m not quite sure what a drug dealer is supposed to look like.’

‘It’s crazy,’ Delroy went on, rapping a knuckle against my wig tin, apparently capable of dismissing any anecdote that failed to support his opinion. ‘This whole thing, ridiculous. She doesn’t look like a drug dealer to me.’

By now Charli’s eyes were moving around the office, disconnected, as if this was all a film to which she was nothing more than a passive observer. I leaned into her sight, fighting for attention, avoiding the urge to rudely snap my fingers in her face. ‘First, I’d like to discuss your role as prison officer at …’

‘HMP Wormwood Scrubs,’ she said, monotonal.

‘Really?’ There must’ve been surprise in my voice, but nobody seemed to notice.

‘Not an officer,’ her brother added, swiping his hands together as if he was checking for dust. ‘Operational Support Grade. They call it Band 2, one level below officer, which is Band 3.’

‘Operational Support.’ I reached for a pencil and then scribbled the words onto my legal jotter. ‘What does that consist of?’

‘General staff work,’ Charli said. ‘Portal duties like gates and doors, anything with locks … Working the control room … Processing and escorting visitors … Wall patrols … Driving duties … Censoring correspondence and checking prisoners’ possessions … Food deliveries …’ She took a slow breath. ‘All sorts.’

‘Four years she’s kept that place running,’ her brother said, ‘haven’t you, Charli?’

Charli blinked.

‘The Scrubs was your first prison?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You worked there full-time?’

A nod.

‘Good salary?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘The money. How are your earnings?’

She hesitated and glanced again to Lydia Roth, who said patiently, ‘It’s one of the first things the prosecution will look at.’

Relenting, Charli rubbed her hands together; the cheap jewellery made a hollow, rattling sound. ‘Twenty-three thousand before tax.’

I noted it down, which she regarded with some disapproval. ‘You’re the only earner in the house?’

‘Yes.’

‘And whereabouts do you live?’

‘Walthamstow.’ Her brother answered for her, burying his hands into his overalls and rocking on his heels behind her. ‘That’s an hour to and from the prison every day.’

‘You live with her?’ I asked sceptically.

‘Me? No.