I managed to nab a parking space only a few yards down from my door, which was a fortunate rarity. Zara took the carrier bags from the boot while I negotiated the long, cumbersome flatpack box out of the back seat and up under one armpit.
‘Do you think we left the windows wide enough?’ she fretted, peering back towards the passenger seat. ‘Because you know what they say about dogs in cars …’
‘You’re thinking of hot cars,’ I said, glancing up at the cool blue sky. ‘I’m more worried about what’s going to happen to that leather if we don’t get a move on. Let’s just hope those blankets hold out.’
Zara bent forward, resting the carrier bags on the toes of her Doc Martens, and swept the thick layer of fine hairs the dog had spent the drive shedding onto her lap. ‘I didn’t realise you lived at this end, so close to Regent’s Park! La-di-da!’
It only occurred to me then that, in the eighteen months of living here on Gloucester Place, I’d never had a visitor. That made me uncomfortable. Apart from collecting my car from further up the road this morning, even Zara had never come close.
‘Perhaps you ought to wait out here,’ I said.
‘How come?’ She stared up at the faces of the identical, immaculate town houses. ‘Worried what the neighbours might say?’
‘Oh, no. I’m just not used to entertaining guests.’
‘Ah, come off it. You’ve picked me up and dropped me off at my place loads of times, and I think we can agree that I live in a proper shit-tip. You’re seriously going to stand there and get all humble about some swanky town house in Marylebone?’
‘Swanky?’ Hanging the keys from one finger, I overshot the building’s main entrance and began to lumber the box down the narrow steps that descended to basement level. ‘Come on then. Prepare yourself for the opulence of a silk’s abode.’
Inside, with box and bags dumped onto the carpet, Zara took a moment to fully appreciate the entire 140 square feet of space: the clothes dumped over the free-standing rack, the slump in the middle of the folded futon, the faded records above the stereo. ‘I bet the letting agents described it as cosy, didn’t they?’
‘You know something?’ I said. ‘I believe they did.’
I opened the box and unfolded the metal dog crate into the corner by the door to the bathroom. Zara emptied shopping bags onto the short worktop in the kitchenette. A tweed collar and lead, tins of the softest food we could find, scented plastic bags.
With the room as prepared as it was ever likely to be, Zara followed me back up onto the pavement outside. It was kickout time at the girls’ school round the nearest corner, and the street was swarming with pupils in pink shirts and burgundy sweaters. When I lifted the dog out of the passenger seat, a cluster of the girls gawked with big doe eyes.
‘Aww!’ one of them cried. ‘Look at the cute doggy!’ Then the dog glanced towards them and I heard subdued shrieks as they bolted off down the road.
With one hand, I patted the dog’s ragged ear. ‘Happens to the best of us, girl.’
She accepted the flat slowly, looking frantically from corner to corner with her hackles raised. Then she began to sniff around in tight circles. I might never have showed it, but all my former misgivings were instantly overcome when the remains of her tail started to bounce from side to side.
‘See!’ Zara cried, jumping on the spot and clapping her hands. ‘She loves it!’
‘I think you might be r—’ I began, until the dog trotted into the middle of the room, lowered the back portion of her body and urinated onto the carpet. ‘For Christ’s sake.’
‘Ah, yeah,’ Zara said, ‘you’re probably going to want to buy some kitchen roll for that.’
As I blustered for the bathroom, my phone began to vibrate in my pocket. I checked the screen and didn’t recognise the number. I thought it might be the animal hospital.
‘Hello?’ I answered, tossing a loo roll out from the bathroom into Zara’s waiting hands.
‘Elliot?’ Straight away, I knew it was her. ‘This is Lydia Roth.’
‘Oh?’ This caught me off guard, and I quickly cleared my throat, perhaps a little louder than I’d meant to.
‘I just wanted to tell you what a thrill it was to finally meet you this morning.’
‘A thrill?’
‘Absolutely,’ Lydia replied softly. ‘It looks like we have quite the case on our hands, doesn’t it? I was thinking we could discuss it further. Perhaps one evening this week?’
I could see Zara craning her neck to eavesdrop from where she was blotting the wet patch out of the carpet, which made me stumble through the rest of the short conversation.
‘Who was that?’ Zara asked after I’d hung up a minute later.
‘Solicitor in my smuggling case.’
‘Work then?’ Even from behind, as I watched her carry the bunched-up paper through to the loo to flush it, I could tell that she was smirking. ‘Didn’t sound like work.’
‘I think …’ I paused, trying to work out exactly what I thought. ‘I think she just asked me out for a drink … Only to discuss the case, I’m sure.’
‘Really?’ Zara turned round, grinning. ‘Is she hot?’
Before I had chance to think of a reply, I heard a drizzle of liquid and turned to see the dog marking another area close to my stereo. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’
At least Zara found it amusing.
Zara rushed off to make her meeting at the bank – she was trying to extend her overdraft, again – and I was left alone with the dog and some leaflets on pet ownership I absently flicked through. After several minutes I discarded the brochures onto my joint bedside/coffee table and opened the drawer underneath. It was here, close to where I slept, that I kept my wedding ring. At least I didn’t carry it around any more, a habit that had almost got me killed not so long back.
Things were undeniably better than they had been even six months ago. I was better. Looking over that lost time now was like reflecting on a long drive, the sort where you sporadically tune in to find you’ve been paying no attention whatsoever for the last thirty miles or so – you’ve been on autopilot, and if that autopilot had failed you’d have crashed … but you didn’t, somehow, and now you’re closer to your destination for it. There was a common diagnosis for the blackness that had engulfed those eighteen months, but it was a word that men of my age and background were still not in the habit of using.
Instead of just sitting around, overthinking Lydia Roth’s brief phone call, I managed – after some time – to get the collar around the dog’s neck and take her out for a walk. It was slow going along the pavement, with the dog cowering at every passing motor and distant siren, but Regent’s Park was only a corner away. We stepped out of urban bedlam into tranquil greenery and walked a while in agreeable silence. It made a fine change, being out in the fresh evening air, until the dog left a royal mess on the royal lawn and I remembered that I’d left the plastic bags at home.
I needed to get my head into my case. Unfortunately, it wasn’t only my case on my mind. There was Andre Israel, and what he’d told me about the flow of drugs in and out of Wormwood Scrubs. These so-called E10 Cutthroats.
I got back from the walk before the sun went down and waited for the last of the rush-hour traffic to thin out before deciding to drive back to chambers. I had to collect the case papers I’d left there after rushing off to the Scrubs with Zara. Exhausted from her first real walk, the dog had collapsed inside her crate, but I still apologised as I bolted her inside. ‘Sorry, but we can’t have you trashing the place, can we, girl?’ I realised that I didn’t have a name by which to call her. I doubted Werner had ever thought to give her one. ‘I’ll have to think about that,’ I said, but she wasn’t really listening.
Miller & Stubbs Criminal Barristers was closed for the evening when I unlocked the front door and stepped into the empty reception. I knew there’d be a handful of juniors still scattered around the rooms of the building, working hard and late into the night as I’d so often done while Jenny Rook ate supper alone. Upstairs, in my room, I turned on the lamp and began to pile up the papers from where I’d left them strewn over my desk.
All cases require meticulous preparation before they ever go near a courtroom. The actual case papers themselves are novellas of witness statements, exhibits and interviews, but the typical working day also covers the organisation of interview edits, agreed facts and admissions, the preparation of the PCMH – plea and case management hearing – form, the drafting of the defence statement, activating secondary disclosure of any relevant material raised in said defence statement, and the planning of any legal arguments over issues such as bad character. In this case, there’d be no lenience from the jury for having been thrown in with only a week to prepare. I needed to submit the defence statement with whichever defence we were going to go with, but my mind was restive.
Charli Meadows. Andre Israel. Wormwood Scrubs connecting the two. I could feel the start of a headache coming on. I crossed my room, poked my head out to glance up and down the vacant corridor outside, and then closed the door and locked it. There were no blinds or curtains at my only window, so I turned off the lamp, shoved the window open and sat on the ledge to light a Marlboro from my coat pocket.
As I blew smoke out of the building, I dialled Zara.
‘What’s up?’ she blurted after a single ring. ‘Is it the dog?’
‘No, she’s sleeping. At least I hope she is. I’m back in chambers. Any luck at the bank?’
A bitter laugh. Behind the laugh, I could hear the rise and fall of passing engines, the bleeping of a pedestrian crossing: the sounds of central London. ‘Not really.’
‘You know, I do still have some cash left over from the Kessler fraud case. You were a big help there, and … that is, if you’re seriously in the shit, I could al—’
‘No. We don’t know what’s going to happen after this month and … No, I’d just rather not.’
‘That’s fair enough.’ I didn’t push it.
‘Thought of a name?’ she asked.
I held the cigarette between my teeth, and with my empty hand patted my stomach loud enough for her to hear it down the line. ‘I’m still waiting for the next scan to find out if it’s a boy or a girl.’ I left a pause for laughter. ‘Honestly, I wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘How about naming her after your ex-wife?’ she chuckled. ‘I’m sure that’d really stick it to her!’
I winced. Instinctively, my eyes moved through the shadows to the shelf where I kept my first-edition copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, which Jenny had gifted me on the morning I passed the Bar. ‘How about Harper?’ I suggested.
‘Not since every wannabe Beckham named their kid it.’
‘Boo Radley then? She looks almost scary enough for a Boo.’
‘God no. Boo is like a pet name between Insta-couples these days.’
‘Insta-couples?’ I laughed. ‘In my day, we called those blow-up dolls.’
‘I bet you did. If you’re going Mockingbird, why not Scout?’
‘Scout …’ I turned to the window and gazed at the parallel building across the narrow passageway, the long shadows pushed up its stone face by the lamp post far below. ‘I like it.’
‘You’re welcome. So, how come you’re back in chambers at this time?’
‘Rushed out earlier without my work. Say, you have digital copies of Israel’s case papers, don’t you?’ I knew she did; Zara was digital in all the ways I was still analogue. ‘Any chance you could forward me copies?’
‘Absolutely!’ She sounded brightened and surprised. ‘I’m still central. If you hang on in chambers another fifteen minutes or so I could come meet you and print out the hard copies …’ She coughed guiltily. ‘Then, if you’re feeling charitable, I wouldn’t say no to a lift back down to Brixton to save me the Tube fare …’
‘Deal.’
‘Nice. You’re following the drugs then?’
‘Yes. Whether your client really does know anything of value or not remains to be seen, but I think it’s worth a punt.’
‘You’re probably right …’
A big, blatant gap. ‘But?’
‘Well, I’m not going to lie, the thought of using my client like this makes me feel a bit weird. It’s a shame you don’t know anyone else.’
‘Anybody else?’
‘Yeah. I mean, you’ve worked with enough clients over the years, I thought maybe you’d know someone else with an inside perspective of the Scrubs. Maybe someone who could give us a different opinion on this gang.’
I paused, stumped, only just seeing the obvious answer. ‘Barnes, you are a genius.’
‘You reckon?’
‘Yes. Meadows lives in Walthamstow. As it happens, I know just the place where we could –’ I stopped abruptly. Distancing the phone, I strained my ear towards the landing. There were soft footsteps approaching, footsteps accompanied by the rumbling of small wheels and the jangling of keys. ‘Ah, great …’ Back to the phone. ‘Meet me at chambers.’ I hung up and sent the fag spinning out of the window.
No sooner had I shut the window than the door was unlocked, and our caretaker came tottering into the room carrying his shopping basket of cleaning products and dragging his Henry vacuum behind him with the wheels squeaking. He hit the light switch, squinting indifferently across the room, and then dropped his basket when he saw me perched on the windowsill.
‘Jesus Christ!’ he cried, almost spitting his dentures as spray bottles went rolling over his wide, orthopaedic shoes. ‘You trying to finish me off, Rook?’
‘Sorry, Ernie,’ I said, pocketing the phone.
‘What the hell are you thinking, sitting up here in the dark like …’ He scrunched his nose, sniffed somewhat distastefully, and then started gathering his spilled wares from the rug. ‘You know, Stubbs would have your guts for garters if he caught you doing that up here.’
‘I’m quite sure Rupert will be off sharing his excellent company with a Scotch of some fine vintage by now. What concerns me more is whoever else you might let into my room while I’m not around.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He straightened at once, frowning indignantly until he figured out where I was going and conceded a dry, bashful smile. ‘Barnes.’
I nodded. ‘Barnes.’
He shuffled over to my wastepaper basket, readying a black bag from the pocket of his overalls, and tipped the papers from inside. ‘Won’t happen again, if it’s a problem.’
‘It’s not really. I was thinking of letting her have her own key.’
Ernie had been working weekday mornings and nights in chambers for more than thirty years, changing light bulbs, cleaning lavatories and replacing screws in those curious places where screws tended to unwind. During that time, he had made only one demand: for the first months of my solo residency on the third floor, he had refused to clean my room. I didn’t blame him, considering the mountains of clutter I’d built during my former nosedive into neglect.
We were quiet for a moment; old colleagues of a sort, old friends of another.
‘Well.’ I got to my feet. ‘I’ll get out of your hair …’
‘What’s left of it.’
I clipped the papers into my briefcase and paused on the way out. ‘Hey, Ernie, what would you recommend for cleaning carpets?’
‘Carpets? Depends what you got on ’em.’ He looked me up and down. ‘Red wine, knowing you lot.’
‘Urine, actually.’
‘Ah!’ He nodded, lowering to a whisper. ‘Nothing to be ashamed of, Mr Rook. Whiskey does the exact same thing to me …’
I could only shake my head.