Computer discs were spread across his office floor as Dan rooted through his files.
They’d always had a way of dealing with discs at Molloys. They were placed into envelopes and stapled to the inside flap of the paper files. Even though the criminal justice system had gone digital and paperless, most firms still printed off the statements they were sent, which meant that a physical file was needed, and until recently video footage was served on discs.
He’d gone through the files that were still before the court, and then the drawers that held the finalised cases that were awaiting payment, and ripped off the envelopes. It would be a job for Margaret later, to replace them, but he didn’t have time to go through them slowly. He needed to know who’d threatened him, and why.
It had taken him nearly an hour so far, replacing each disc and watching enough of it to know that it wasn’t the one that had played in his head earlier that day.
As the last disc whirred into life, showing the outside of a terraced street, he still hadn’t found it. He remembered the case, and if he let it run it would show nothing more than someone scratching a car, a woman’s hand running along the side and moving up and down, following the exact line of a deep scratch that was later photographed by the police. This was no Saturday-night brawl.
He had to go the cellar, where the dead files were kept.
It smelled damp as he went in, the air filled with the clicks of strip lighting coming to life. His nose itched from the dust that coated the files, some going back six years, each shuffling along to their designated destruction date, all in date order.
He wouldn’t have to go back the full six years. The memory of the trousers was more recent than that.
Dan moved along the shelves, his hand feeling the inside of each file cover for the rigid shape of a disc. Whenever he found one, he looked at the file and tried to remember what it was about.
It took him ten minutes, but he knew it as soon as he saw it.
Five defendants, all fighting. His client was one of the five, the other four represented by a different firm, including Carl Ogden. Otherwise known as Oggy.
Dan took the file with him and rushed back upstairs.
Once it was loaded, the familiar scene played out. Five men fighting, lit by the glare of the nearest takeaway, and what was most vivid was the way the artificial light made the letters down one of the fighter’s tracksuit bottoms stand out, the word OGGY spelled out in glowing white.
Oggy had been all ego, so he’d had his nickname emblazoned down the legs of plain black joggers, wanting to be known around the town, which had made it so easy to identify him when the police investigated. Dan remembered how he’d behaved in court, arrogant and surly, adopting the fake gangsta look of cocked head and narrowed eyes.
The irony was that of the five defendants, Oggy had been the only one convicted. Dan’s own client had argued mistaken identity, the footage too indistinct in relation to the facial features. Oggy had maintained that he hadn’t been present but had been wearing the same trousers when arrested and had been unable to come up with an alibi.
He might have stood a chance, but because the police had seized the trousers seen in the footage, all photographed, he’d had some more made. He’d turned up for his trial wearing them. Criminals made the job of the prosecution so much easier by their own stupidity.
Oggy had been represented by the other firm, but that didn’t matter because the charge sheets for all had been sent out. Dan rummaged through the file until he found them, and at the top of Oggy’s was his address.
Dan smiled. Highford was too small to play at being the big man and hope to remain anonymous.
Now, he had a name and an address.
He checked his watch. He would just have to be late for court. He wanted answers, and Carl Ogden would provide them.