Before you eat anything in prison, just remember that every morsel of food about to pass your lips was supplied by the lowest bidder. That was my mother’s advice to Phyllis when she was carted off to Holloway – a hotel where the guest is always wrong – after bail was refused by the local magistrate, just as I’d predicted.
Both of Chantelle’s assailants had denied the charges of rape, conspiracy to rape, grievous bodily harm and aggravated assault. Roxy swept back into the office bearing these bad tidings. She plonked herself on the couch and immediately cracked open two things – the spine of a legal notebook for her and a chocolate block for me.
‘Right. Plan of attack. As both scumbag rapists are pleading their innocence, and conviction rates for rape trials are lower than Lady Ga Ga’s bikini line, it’s imperative that our gran goes on trial first.’
‘Why?’ Countess Flirtalotsky wanted to know, leaning in excitedly. When paying us a visit from her stately pile in the country, the Countess likes to feel part of the action, even though the only law she really understands fully is pre-nup proceedings.
‘If the Crown Prosecution Service doesn’t get a conviction in Chantelle’s rape trial, then the jury will lose sympathy with our ball-blasting gran. She will just be a deranged, vengeful old bat who shot two innocent blokes in their precious gonads in cold blood and will spend the rest of her life monitoring due dates in a prison library.’
The Countess shuddered. ‘That just can’t happen.’ I glanced at her, surprised at this uncharacteristic show of compassion. ‘I mean, prison libraries have such terrible book selections. And absolutely no Pushkin.’
‘The point is’ – Roxy got us back on conversational course – ‘if we want to get Phyllis out of prison, then someone has got to talk to the Senior Treasury Counsel. The case is so newsworthy it’s been kicked up to him.’
‘Who is he?’ If the Countess had been a cat, her whiskers would have been twitching.
‘It’s the senior prosecutor at the Old Bailey. He has the power to persuade the chief clerk to list our granny’s case first, before the rape trial.’
‘You should talk to him, Roxy. You can talk anyone into anything,’ I said, dwelling for a moment on the potentially lucrative legal career I had swapped at Jack’s commercial Chambers, where our exorbitant fees would be sufficient punishment for any wrongdoer, for the pandemonium of life as a criminal legal-aid lawyer on Planet Pandora.
‘No, I think this job’s a cert for you, Tilly.’
‘Me? Why me?’ I asked, surprised.
‘Well, I think in this case, only you have the right powers of persuasion. The new Senior Treasury Counsel has just been announced. It’s a name you know well. One Jack Cassidy.’
I made the face of someone undergoing a surprise enema. ‘Mother, Jack won’t do something for nothing. And the something he’ll want is for me to go on a date with him and, basically . . . I’d rather eat my own pedicure shavings.’
‘Who’s Jack Cassidy?’ the Countess called from the office kitchen, where she was searching for wine.
‘He was once my lover-in-law.’ My mother was clicking away on her laptop.
‘Jack Cassidy was not my lover, Mother! He was just the guy who tricked me out of my virginity.’
‘Oh, you misery-guts. Why can’t you stop acting as though you’re in a Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn movie, admit that you’re still attracted to the bloke and just go on a bloody date?’
‘Yes, I could date Jack . . . or I could stay home and rearrange my own internal organs with a chainsaw. A much more enjoyable experience.’
Jack’s chiselled face blinked on to Roxy’s computer screen, along with various press reports of the eligible barrister helicoptering into Ascot on the arm of a Hollywood movie actress he was ‘linked to romantically’, limousining out of Annabel’s nightclub in the company of George Clooney and lying supine on the yacht of some movie mogul in Cannes in swimming trunks so tight you could detect the man’s religion.
A blog called ‘Male Lawyers Hottie List’ flashed up, and my mother clicked on the link. The Countess read his winning entry aloud:
‘Phwoar! Jack Cassidy ticks so many boxes, we’re going to need new boxes!! With his strong jaw, waves of luscious dark hair and suave man-of-the-world Cary Grant-charm, including a dimpled chin and naughty twinkle, the man would look more at home nursing a Martini in Monte Carlo than a case file in The Temple. Jack, cutting a fine figure in his smart suits, apparently works his abs like he works his briefs. Girls, there’s some really hot flesh on this skeleton argument!
A 6’1” hunk who played rugby, tennis and cricket for Oxford Uni, he knows he’s da bomb, not only because of his undeniable sexiness but also because of his impeccable academic record, topping his year with a starred first and a cornucopia of prizes.
Jack took his smarts straight to the piggybank, joining Regal Helm Chambers. Yes, legal ladies, Jack Cassidy as numero uno Lawyer Lost Object of the Year is a no-brainer! Being Jack’s girlfriend could be tough, though, as you have to keep all those pesky paparazzi at bay. Can’t a couple go to Elton John’s white tie and tiara summer ball in peace?!’
‘Strange how those bloggers see Jack as top barrister tottie . . . while I see him more as a lapsed satanist,’ I said coolly.
‘Really? My own hotness committee confirms that Jack Cassidy could have a very lucrative jockey-underwear endorsement deal,’ the Countess purred, peering over my mother’s shoulder.
‘What the man has is a giant “To Let” sign on his brain. It’s empty and up for grabs to anybody.’ I snapped shut the laptop lid so forcefully, I nearly severed Roxy’s fingertips.
The Countess’s eyebrows are tweezed into pencil-thin arcs which give her a slightly surprised expression, even in her sleep. But she really did seem surprised at my reluctance to date the Senior Treasury Counsel. ‘Of course you’ll go and sweet-talk him . . . But you may have to borrow some of my clothes.’ She cast a disparaging eye over my bobbled jumper and frayed jeans.
I am five foot seven, with green eyes and red hair, parted, like my politics, on the left, but still have a figure which can sashay down a Barcelona beach and get wolf whistles – at least if I’m holding my stomach in so hard my neck gets thicker. But when it comes to sartorial expertise, well, whoever makes my clothes is too embarrassed to sign them.
‘Yeah, sure, I could borrow some of your clothes . . . as long as I wasn’t planning to eat more than a twig for two weeks,’ I mocked. ‘Besides, I’m not going to talk to Jack Cassidy. The man is just not my cup of slime.’
Roxy gave me a stern, levelling look. ‘Tilly, I didn’t go through thirty-six hours of labour to give birth to a limp bit of lettuce. I have nipples down to my knees because of you.’
‘Mother, the man has no moral code. Barristers like Jack believe a man is innocent until proven destitute.’
‘Just think about all the sacrifices I have made for you, Matilda! Those perfectly straight teeth in your lovely mouth; that law degree on your wall . . . they represent my holiday home in the Dordogne, a bespoke Versace suit, the BMW sports car of my dreams . . . and all the other things I don’t bloody well have.’
‘You forgot the best gift you’ve given me. Guilt. The gift that just keeps on giving.’
‘If you don’t go to see Jack, I’ll take terrible revenge. I’ll buy Portia a descant recorder.’
Ignoring this truly horrendous threat, I retreated behind a magazine left by a client and immersed myself in the travails of Rihanna, a profoundly misunderstood young woman. (Apparently, wealth and fame are okay, but true spiritual happiness is the source of all enlightenment and still seems to be eluding the poor poppet.)
‘Let me paint you a picture,’ Roxy persevered. ‘Prison is a place where you get promoted to cleaning toilets. With your own toothbrush. Right now, our poor, beleaguered, scared old gran is being taken from the court cells in a prison escort van known as a “sweat box”. Once the prison gates slam shut, she’ll be frogmarched to a holding pen to be photographed and fingerprinted and given a pat-down search by staff . . . And I mean the kind of intimate pat-down that’s usually only associated with childbirth. But nobody will hear her weeping above the drug-withdrawal screams of other inmates. Although, in Britain’s overcrowded jails, it’s easier to get hold of drugs than underwear, which is rationed to two pairs of knickers a week. So it’s probably preferable to be off your face actually, when locked in your cell for twenty hours a day – just you, a psycho, sex-addict cellmate with gastroenteritis and your communal dunny. Wardens will take away all Phyllis’s property – watches, jewellery, self-esteem. She’ll then undergo a risk analysis to see whether she’s likely to self-harm during the critical early days of her imprisonment. That’s when most suicides occur. If we don’t get Phyllis’s trial on first, she could be on remand for a year, having poo put in her porridge and boiling water “accidentally” spilt over her. If she’s not pulverized into granny gruel by any prison cooks who are on the payroll of those rapists’ drug bosses.’
‘How fascinating,’ I commented casually, glancing up from the magazine page I was reading. ‘Jordan’s undergone five breast implant operations. Boob jobs are like TV evangelists. You know they’re fake, but you can’t stop looking at them,’ I commented conversationally.
‘Matilda, if those rapists intimidate Chantelle into not giving evidence, our gran is going down. You might as well just shove her out of an aeroplane with a cast-iron parachute.’
‘Do you really think Chantelle will go to water in the witness box?’ the Countess asked, reappearing from the tiny kitchen with three wine glasses.
‘Courts are bloody scary places,’ Roxy sighed. ‘The defence barrister will portray the poor kid as “delinquent” and “manipulative”. He’ll say that it was consensual sex that got a little rough. He’ll suggest Chantelle’s not a victim but merely a naughty girl doing grown-up things. Or a bunny-boiler type who had a vendetta against these two innocent blokes because they wouldn’t go out with her.’
‘So Chantelle bit, punched, urinated and graffitied on herself then, did she?’ the Countess asked, appalled.
‘Just last week I heard a leading London lawyer ask a rape victim whether her so-called screams for help were really cries of pleasure.’
‘May his wig shit on his head,’ the Countess seethed succinctly.
‘I heard another boofhead defence barrister describe a child as “sexualized” and “dangerous”. He said she was “glowing with hormones” and “very confident about her body’s power and movement” when she “seduced” a fifty-year-old bloke. He said she “played the game well” and was, he claimed, a danger to men. He was describing a girl who was eleven.’
The Countess narrowed her dark eyes. ‘Let’s just hope Satan has something special planned for that particular gentleman.’ She sashayed back into the office kitchen to fetch the wine.
‘Chantelle will be branded a fantasist or an attention seeker,’ Roxy explained. ‘She’ll be repeatedly called a liar in front of a court room full of strangers, which will leave her feeling raped all over again . . . And which is also why eighty to ninety per cent of attacks are not reported. And why rapists are likely to attack again . . . And why Matilda is likely to see Jack later today and get the granny’s trial on first.’
‘Mother, I know Jack Cassidy won’t help unless I go out with him. And that’s as likely as, I dunno, the Pope pole-dancing.’
‘I just hope the poor girl gets a female judge,’ the Countess said, uncorking the wine.
‘Not bloody likely. The police and the judiciary are paler, maler and staler than ever. The only country in Europe to have fewer female judges is Azerbaijan.’
‘Save your breath, Roxy. I refuse to be bribed by Jack Cassidy. The man’s ego is so big it casts its own shadow.’
‘But at least he doesn’t pretend to be anything he’s not. The reason I like Jack is because I don’t trust good men. Your father was considerate, romantic, attentive . . . and look who he turned out to be,’ Roxy said bitterly.
‘Who? Who exactly did he turn out to be?’ I asked. My father’s betrayal was always with her – like a shadow on an X-ray. And yet she would never talk about him. ‘How can I ever have a healthy relationship with a man when I know nothing about the man who made me?’
My sudden ability to hear the bloke in the flat next door trimming his nostril hairs suggested to me that we had come up against what is known as an ‘awkward silence’.
‘You know what? You’re right. I think it’s high time I told you the truth about your father, Matilda. The truth might help you rethink your attitude to Jack Cassidy. Your father should have come with a “Buyer Beware” sticker on his forehead. But what you see with Jack is what you get. There’s no jiggery-pokery.’
‘Roxy, dah-ling! . . . Are you sure you want to tell her the truth?’
‘What truth?’ I demanded of the Countess.
A few invisible tumbleweeds blew through the room before the Countess thrust a glass of wine at me. ‘Jesus. I think you’ll need a little vino collapso first, dah-ling.’
‘It’s 3 p.m.,’ I remonstrated. ‘On a workday.’
‘Drink. You’ll need it. I know I bloody do.’ My mother downed her glass in one gulp, then held it out for more.
It was now so quiet I could practically hear the cockroaches fornicating in the High Street. I stood up. ‘Do you think we might conclude this conversation any time in my lifespan, because I do actually have a court case to prepare.’
Roxy took another deep swig of fortifying alcohol. ‘Your father told me I was his soulmate. That he loved me more than life itself . . .’
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ I said impatiently. ‘I’ve heard all this before. But then he ran out on you. And you had no choice but to gird your leopardskin loins and just get on with it.’
‘When I found out I was up the duff with you, I contacted the British Consulate in Spain and Greece. I phoned every bloody backpacker hostel in Europe . . .’ Her voice petered out. What the hell was happening? My vibrant mother had suddenly developed the charisma of a crash dummy.
The Countess picked up the story. ‘Your mother even hired a private investigator. But not even he could find any trace of the elusive Daniel Kincade, dah-ling.’ She, too, took a nerve-steadying glug of wine.
‘It was the start of a journey for the truth which ended with me knocking on the door of a Mr and Mrs Kincade of Middleton.’
I sat back down with a jolt. ‘You never told me you’d met my grandparents.’
‘That’s because they’re not really your grandparents.’
‘What do you mean? Who were they?’ No answer was forthcoming. ‘Okay, the Sphinx is less of a riddle than you right now,’ I sighed in irritation.
‘Your father told me he was estranged from his parents. It was something we had in common, actually. Two orphans in the big, bad world. I thought the totally exciting news of your existence might broker a truce . . . and of course help me find your dad . . .’ Roxy petered out once more.
‘But when Roxy knocked on the door of what she thought was the family home – oh, can you imagine how horrendous?’ The Countess put her head in her manicured hands.
‘What was wrong with them? Were they scientologists? Card-carrying Nazis? Or worse . . .’ I said flippantly. ‘. . . Tory Party voters?!’
But Roxy’s tease-o-meter was turned off. ‘The two people I thought were going to be your grandparents started crying. It totally freaked them out to have someone asking after a child who had died aged eight.’
‘What? You’re not making any sense, Mother.’
‘It didn’t make any sense to me either, Tilly. I thought they were just playing silly buggers. The town and the house and everything looked exactly as Danny had described them to me. I felt as though I was in some weird sci-fi movie. But then these poor people showed me Danny’s death certificate . . .’ My mother’s voice broke off raggedly.
‘The document confirmed the details Danny had always given us.’ The Countess took up the conversation. ‘It named the town where he was born in March 1955. It was the same person. The same parents. The same address. But Dan Kincade had died as a boy in a hit-and-run accident.’
‘I chucked a mental,’ Roxy continued. ‘I refused to believe them. I gave them the rough end of my tongue, believe me. Eventually, the only way they could get me to shut my gob was to take me to the graveside. I saw the sculpture of the boy standing guard above the grave. “Safe in the arms of Jesus” – that’s what the engraving said. It was then that my world turned upside down.’
The Countess nodded. ‘It was only later, after some serious in-depth sleuthing, that your mother found out the truth.’
‘What truth?’ I asked urgently. ‘Roxy?’
‘That your father was an undercover cop.’ My mother coughed up this confession like a fur ball. ‘Using the alias of Danny Kincade.’
It’s a strange sensation when two people you know well suddenly start speaking to you in Swahili. ‘What?’ I said.
‘It’s like something out of a horror movie, I know. Your father belonged to a special unit in the police force. He stole this dead boy’s identity so he could infiltrate protest movements. Of which I was a member.’
I only knew of my dad as a crude outline filled in with grey and black. And now here he was, in full, garish, ghoulish Technicolor. ‘I don’t believe you,’ I said, as casually as a cardiac arrest would allow.
‘It’s true. Even though it sounds more like something that would happen in an old Communist Bloc country. Turns out it was common practice in the seventies and eighties for undercover British police to use the identity of dead babies who roughly matched their age and ethnicity. The cops issued their undercover agents with fake passports, drivers’ licences and national insurance numbers in the name of these poor little boys who’d died,’ the Countess confirmed.
‘And it was me who unwittingly gave the bastard credibility. I fell in love with a bloke I thought was a gardener. He was so sympathetic to all my beliefs and causes – animal welfare, pro-abortion, anti-nuclear – that I welcomed him into my circle. Because of me, this “Danny” was able to get inside information on all the peace activists and other protesters. It was the complete dingo act. I fell in love with a fraud,’ Roxy fumed, violently tossing back more vino.
‘And, oh, he was bloody good at his job,’ the Countess elaborated. ‘We found out years later that Danny’s skills of deception earned him legendary status in the elite ranks of the covert unit known as the Special Demonstration Squad.’
It also earned him legendary status as the Biggest Asshole Ever. I gazed at my mother in mortified astonishment. I’d always fantasized that my missing father was off in the Amazon, using his horticultural expertise to discover herbal cures for cancer that would win him the Nobel Prize for medicine . . . Or that he’d died heroically rescuing blind orphan babies from a fire in a far-flung favela. ‘Oh my God, Roxy. Why didn’t you ever tell me this?’
‘I’m only telling you now because I want you to rethink your attitude to Jack Cassidy. Yes, he’s a rogue and a rascal. But he doesn’t pretend to be what he’s not. Yes, he was a bit of a sexual kleptomaniac at college, but you were both young. I’m sure he’s mended his wicked ways.’
I looked at my mother the way you would look at a stranger on the Tube who had 50 pounds of plastic explosives strapped to his body. A wave of irritation overwhelmed me.
‘Well, I hate to break up this little joy seminar of yours. And I’m sorry about my biological father’s appalling behaviour. I’m sorry about Phyllis taking the law into her own hands. I’m sorry about the quality of the prison soap on remand. I’m sorry about the male dominance of the law . . . But what I’m not sorry about is that Britain has a jury system which works – twelve good men and women and true who know that rape is a heinous crime and will convict those scumbags with or without the interference of Senior Treasury Counsel, Jack Hymen-stealing-Cassidy.’
My office door flew open and my daughter pirouetted into the room. Most pubescent girls are little more than a hormone upheaval; a sulk with fake tan on it. Their preferred position is horizontal on the couch, with the remote control, while lackeys bring delicacies. When vertical, they merely moan. My Portia is the opposite. When not at school, she learns tap dancing, volunteers at a nursery for underprivileged kids and organizes fun runs to raise money for cancer research. She has the ability to lift everyone two octaves up on the happiness scale and she doesn’t even know it. Her personality’s so bright, she could act as a beacon for sailors adrift in the ocean. But today her wattage was dimmed. She dropped her tap shoes and school bag on to the floor and flumped into a chair.
‘All the kids at school are talking about Chantelle. Some of the girls reckon she’s a slut – so raping her doesn’t count. During lunchbreak this one girl Tamsin – well, she said that Chantelle’s so ugly they could use her in prisons to cure sex offenders. Tamsin’s boyfriend reckoned he called the Rape Advice Line but, unfortunately, it’s only for victims . . . Another one of the boys wanted to know if you raped a pregnant bitch could you then tell your friends you’d had a threesome? . . . A prefect was on lunch duty. He overheard some of this and marched over to interrupt. He said, “Rape isn’t funny. You should never rape anyone.” I felt sooo relieved and the boys stopped laughing and were kinda worrying about detention. Then this prefect said, “Unless you have a really good reason . . . like they won’t have sex with you or something.” The boys killed themselves laughing. And then on the way home from school I noticed this new graffiti in the bus stop that says “Stop rape, say yes.” What does it all mean, Mum?’ My darling daughter turned her elfin face towards me and gave me her famous candid stare, her pale-blue eyes wide.
My mother’s head was tilted like a bird’s, in that hyperalert way that says nothing will get past her. ‘What it means is that to many people rape is not a heinous crime, but just a “struggle cuddle”,’ she said pointedly.
I kissed the tip of my daughter’s perky nose, picked up my bag and headed for the door. What it meant was that I was off to the Old Bailey. To see Jack Cassidy.