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

to know what is and what isn’t allowed beyond those walls … But, if we could convince the jury that you genuinely believed you were smuggling regular tobacco onto the premises, which is only a List C article, then I think we may just have enough –’

‘But I didn’t,’ she interrupted. ‘I didn’t try to smuggle anything, I have no idea how it ended up there. I drive my children around in that car, Mr Rook. I pick up their friends. Why in God’s name would I … Why would I risk …’ She lost whatever stride she was finally beginning to gather and faded out to miserable silence.

‘I understand that this isn’t easy,’ I said, ‘but it’s going to be a lot more difficult in the courtroom. The prosecution will consider every possible scenario that might have put those drugs into that car, and they’re going to ensure that the answer always leads back to you. Who else uses your car? Anybody? Ever?’ She shook her head. ‘You have the only keys?’ A nod. ‘What about you, Mr Meadows? Didn’t you say you were a mechanic?’

He did a double take, startled by the query. ‘I make a damn reasonable living out of my own business, thank you very much. Who do you think is paying your fees?’

‘I didn’t mean to cause offence, Mr –’ I started, but he was off.

‘I haven’t touched that damn car since its MOT in December. You think it’s my fault she’s got herself into another one of life’s little messes? You want to see my annual turnover while you’re at it? Do my tax return, maybe?’

‘Not in the slightest.’ I raised my palms non-judgementally. ‘I’m just making the enquiries that those empanelled twelve will want to hear explained. It comes down to a simple enough question. How did ten thousand pounds’ worth of Spice end up in the boot of that car?’

Of course, nobody had the answer.

‘This is making me sick,’ Charli whispered. ‘Physically sick.’ When she buried one hand into the pocket of her jacket, I heard cigarettes rattling against cardboard, shaken by the tremor in her palm.

‘Perhaps now would be a good time for a short break?’ I suggested. ‘Some fresh air, and then we can go over this defence in more detail?’

‘Yeah,’ her brother added, moving one of his hands onto her shoulder, talking mostly to himself. ‘Come on, Charli. You’ve got to keep it together. Man’s just doing his job, you know what I mean? Just doing his job. Let’s go for a fag. Sort your head out. He’s only doing his job.’

She nodded, momentarily placing her own hand over his, and then followed his lead out of the room.

The solicitor stayed behind. She waited until the sound of the creaking staircase had completely faded beyond the door and then blew a mouthful of air.

‘Brothers,’ she said, pushing back into her chair until her spine cracked loudly. She crossed her legs and looked me up and down as if I’d only just materialised before her. ‘Elliot Rook. Corny, I know, but your reputation does precede you.’

‘Whereas yours doesn’t,’ I said. ‘I’m surprised we haven’t met before. I thought I knew everyone in the small world of London serious crime.’

‘I don’t do a lot of fraud. Nothing of the calibre you’re used to, anyway. Mostly drugs. A few murders here and there.’

‘Who do you work for?’

‘I’m independent.’ She tilted her head. ‘Entirely independent, in case you were wondering.’

I cleared my throat. ‘What are we looking at here … Miss … Ms …’

‘Call me Lydia,’ she insisted politely, inclining off to one side to stare straight past me and check her reflection in the window. Whatever she saw there gave her a smile. ‘Do you spend much time down at the Scrubs, Elliot?’

‘Not lately,’ I replied, feeling strangely naked and disarmed; few people called me by my first name any more.

‘I work with a lot of clients there. Dozens. The place is a cesspit. Infested with cockroaches and rats, and I’m not talking about the convicts. Enough drugs to put Glastonbury to shame. You heard about the inmates who died there in January?’

‘Of course.’

‘Overdosed on a tainted batch of this Spice crap,’ she said. ‘The CPS actually considered manslaughter charges for Meadows, what with the drugs being found in her car the following week, but everybody knew damn well that there was no evidence to say she’d been in any way responsible for past supply, even if –’

‘It was that soon?’ I asked abruptly.

She blinked, adjusting her glasses. ‘Hmm?’

‘The date …’ I quickly rifled through my case papers until I found it. ‘Monday the fifteenth,’ I read. ‘They found the drugs in the vehicle on the fifteenth, and you say the deaths occurred a week before?’

‘Tuesday or Wednesday, I think. I’d have to double-check.’

‘Doesn’t that seem a touch expedient to you? Thirteen inmates die, causing a national scandal, and the Prison Service, which has famously struggled against the influx of drugs for years, somehow manages to put a stop to one of its suppliers within the week?’

‘Seems cogent enough to me.’ She shrugged. ‘Scandals mean searches. Increased security. If they were ever going to find anything, it makes sense that it would be then.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said, tapping the date on the paper with the end of my pencil. ‘Just strikes me as rather extraordinary that one of the staff members involved in security procedures, who has no doubt been briefed on such crackdowns, still chances smuggling more potentially lethal product through the gates within the week.’ I clicked my tongue, considering the client who was almost certainly chain-smoking below my window.

‘You believe her?’ She sounded surprised. ‘You think that she really didn’t know anything about the drugs?’

‘No. No, I suspect that she probably did, though that doesn’t matter. What I find most jarring is the risk involved. I’m interested in why she might have done it. Whether or not she had a choice at all.’

The solicitor cocked her head, causing her neck