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FOURWednesday – Court 7

The prosecutor didn’t like me. He was a young man with a five o’clock shadow, his accent obviously having shattered his shaving mirror. His first words were, ‘Counsel from London?’ He pronounced it kine-sel.

‘That’s right,’ I said cheerfully. They hate it when you come from out of town, stealing their work, stealing their hooks in the Robing Room, stealing their women.

‘Which chambers?’

When I told him he said, ‘And why does a case like this need counsel from 17 Kings Bench Walk?’

That was a good question, to which I didn’t have an answer. I thought of getting personal and saying ‘Because at 17 KBW we got rid of five o’clock shadows at the end of the last century.’ Which wasn’t even true. But he had strutted off to speak to a police officer. I wondered if I should try to create a friendship for Simon’s sake. Perhaps I should run after him and say something appeasing, something barristerial, like ‘What’s the best pudding they do in the Bar Mess?’ But it stuck in my throat.

A woman with dark hair and red lipstick came over to me. She was wearing a spotless wing collar and snowy-white tabs, a true professional. ‘So you’ve met the Birmingham Bar’s roving ambassador? That’s Ewan Phillips,’ she said. I liked her at once. ‘I’m Roseanna Newson, I’m for Ronald Catcher.’ Her thick black hair, cut in harsh, geometric lines, highlighted the delicacy of her neat heart-shaped face.

‘I’m Frankie Richmond, for Danny Richards,’ I said, stroking my neck to hide my creased, cream collarette.

‘It’ll be good co-defending with a woman,’ she said.

‘Unfortunately, I’m not doing the trial,’ I said. ‘I’m standing in for Simon Allison for the day. He’s done something to his ankle.’

Roseanna’s neat little rosebud mouth formed an O of concern. ‘Oh, dear. Norman’s not going to like that. He said on the last occasion that trial counsel must attend this hearing. And if Ewan is Birmingham’s ambassador, Judge Norman is our honorary consul. He’s a bit of a fool, but he’s a stickler for procedure.’

I knew it, I knew it. This is exactly why I don’t do crime, why I don’t do returns from other people, why I don’t like to leave London. I hadn’t even got a medical note to back up Simon’s story. Norman would make me do the trial.

We were called on at ten o’clock precisely.

And of course, Danny Richards’ name was first on the indictment which meant that after the prosecution had opened the case I would be required to stand and say my piece. But even before Ewan Phillips had introduced all three counsel, the judge barked, ‘Miss Richmond, we haven’t seen you in this matter before?’

‘No, Mr Richards has recently changed his representation.’

‘And we will have the pleasure of your company throughout this trial.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘I don’t want her representing me!’ Danny shouted from the back of the court. I turned to the dock in horror. Danny was on his feet, grasping the rail. The security guard had risen beside him. Danny’s codefendant, a thin, hunched man, in a grey T-shirt and jeans, didn’t even look up. He’d probably seen it all before, if Danny really did make a habit of sacking his representatives. Then Danny winked at me. He was doing this to help me. He was trying to make it look as if I was meant to be doing the trial but now he’d decided he didn’t want me.

‘Mr Richards, I hear what you say. Now be quiet.’

‘I’m not having her. I want a real barrister.’ But he was going further than I considered absolutely necessary. ‘I want someone who knows what they’re doing.’ Much further.

‘That’s enough, Mr Richards. It may be that your objections are well-founded, but I have told you before, this court is not to be used as a soapbox. One more word and you will go below.’ He turned his gaze to me. ‘Are you prepared to represent Mr Richards?’

‘I’m certainly prepared to represent him.’ This was true in so far as I was prepared to represent him this morning, although I was not prepared to represent him in the widest sense and certainly not beyond today.

The judge rifled through some loose papers on his desk, found what he was looking for and peered at the page. My heart sank. He was going to ask me a question. ‘I have a letter here from your instructing solicitors. A Miss Davidson.’ He held up the page between the tips of his fingers. ‘This is your latest team of representatives is it, Mr Richards? Miss Davidson and Miss Richmond? A London team? Very well. And why is the witness referred to at page 213 of the bundle a fully bound witness?’

I didn’t have a clue as to why that witness was required to give oral evidence at the trial instead of having his or her evidence read. I didn’t have page 213. I didn’t even have a bundle. I rose to my feet, flicking through the ten faxed pages I did have, hoping the answer would come to me through ESP. Roseanna slid her bundle across to me, open at page 213. Quickly I scanned the page. Not quickly enough.

‘Miss Richmond, you just told me that you were ready to represent this defendant. That is patently not so. What are you doing in my court without being prepared for the case?’

‘I am in your court because my colleague Simon Allison is in hospital at this moment having surgery on his ankle.’ Oh God, let that be true, I prayed. ‘And as for not being prepared, I am prepared for what usually happens in a Pleas and Directions Hearing. As for the attendance of Dr…’ I glanced at the page ‘…Rowland Quirk. Quite clearly…’ I skimmed through the paragraphs ‘…his evidence is of a forensic nature.’

‘Rowland Quirk. Rowland Quirk? Was he ever in Saudi Arabia?’

‘I – eh – don’t think…’

‘Had a terrible problem with his business interests? What, about seventeen years ago?’

‘Eh…’

‘Do you know, I think I represented him.’

A small rattle left my throat.

‘He was in terrible trouble. Owed millions. Well, if I have represented him, and he is to be called to give oral evidence as a result of the way the defence wish to run their case, then I must step down at this very, very late stage, because I cannot hear this case. The case will have to come out of the list. So be it, if the defence wish to call Roger Quirk, they must pay the price.’

‘Rowland Quirk.’

‘Oh Rowland Quirk. Oh, no, not the same man. I don’t think I know him. So? Why do you need him?’ he barked.

Roseanna rose and I sank to my seat. ‘Your Honour may remember that this witness is one of a series of expert witnesses which both defendants seek to cross-examine at trial. Your Honour indicated on the last occasion that an investigation of this area of the case was the only appropriate way to take the matter forward.’

The judge opened his mouth but nothing came out. Ewan Phillips rose to his feet. ‘I wonder if I could be of some assistance as to the availability of prosecution witnesses.’ Judge Norman turned a beaming smile on him. ‘Dr Quirk is available to give his evidence during the second and third weeks of the trial.’

‘Ewan and the judge come from the same set of chambers,’ Roseanna whispered to me. ‘Ewan’s very intelligent, he’ll go far, Norman isn’t and hasn’t.’

‘I will say again, Miss Richmond,’ the judge’s voice boomed around the room. ‘Has there been a meeting of all the professional witnesses to see if there is any way that this matter can be shortened?’

I knew the answer to that one. ‘Yes there has.’

‘And still you wish to call them?’

‘Yes,’ I said wildly. ‘I think that’s quite usual for a trial, isn’t it?’

Ewan Phillips rose slowly, insolently, to his feet. ‘Of course, your Honour,’ he said, ‘as your Honour has pointed out, my learned friend for Mr Richards is from London.’ He said it as if I had just flown in from the twin towns of Sodom and Gomorrah. ‘In Birmingham, and in particular in your Honour’s court, close attention is always paid to the detail and it is pertinent at every stage of the proceedings to consider whether there is a way to save time or prevent a drain on the public purse. Perhaps my learned friend’s instructing solicitors, a London firm –’ he shuddered ‘– are unaware that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things.’

‘Precisely, Mr Phillips,’ the judge said. ‘Well, Miss Richmond?’

‘My learned friend for the prosecution may not know that, in London, matters such as this are usually dealt with outside court in order to save the court the trouble of enquiring into every small detail. In London,’ I emphasised the ‘L’, ‘in London, we ensure that the Judge is able to deal with the big picture.’ Roseanna was tugging the sleeve of my gown, hissing, ‘Shut up, sit down! Shut up, sit down!’ ‘In London,’ I ploughed on, ‘counsel have the skill and ability to ensure that a case goes forward smoothly and properly, without incurring unnecessary costs. In London, members of the Bar are regarded as professional and competent. Which they are.’

‘Have you finished Miss Richmond?’

I thought for a second and then nodded.

‘Which chambers are you from?’ His Honour Judge Norman leaned forward, licking his lips.

He was going to write to my head of chambers. Or he was going to report me to the Bar Council. I told him my chambers address and he made a great show of writing it all down, including the postcode.

So there. I’d lost my career at the Bar for a client who wasn’t even mine. And I’d probably lost the client. If I hadn’t lost him when I first stood up without the papers, I’d lost him now, after he’d seen me shouting my mouth off at the judge. I sagged in my seat, taking a desultory note, while Ewan Phillips completed the last technicalities. Then we all rose, bowed and His Honour Judge Norman left the courtroom.

And then Danny Richards hissed at me. He was being led away, between two men in short-sleeved shirts and with self-important chains on their belts. No words, just a hiss. I looked at my watch. It was ten thirty. I had so much to do, so much to read. So much money to earn before I was deprived of my livelihood. I was bruised and battered, I needed to lick my wounds, not go three more rounds with Danny Richards.

I looked over at him. He grinned and winked. Oh no.

He inclined his head towards the back of the dock, wanting me to go down to the cells. I walked over to the dock. ‘Have you got a minute?’ he said.

‘Not really. Can’t it wait? Can’t you tell Simon?’ I emphasised the word Simon, to remind him where his future lay. I was not getting any further involved in this case.

‘No, it can’t, this is important stuff,’ he murmured so I had to strain towards him to hear. ‘I enjoyed that, though.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘I was right, you are.’

I frowned.

‘Just like a Jack Russell.’

Roseanna and I stood outside the door leading to the cells. Each of us held our wig in one hand and a pile of papers in the other. As we waited for a jailer to let us in Roseanna said, ‘I’m sorry I tugged your arm.’

‘I’m glad you did. I don’t know what more I might have made up if you hadn’t. What do you think he’ll do?’

‘I don’t know. Probably nothing, he’s too lazy. Have you got time for coffee after this?’ she asked.

‘I can’t.’ I pressed the bell again. ‘I’m starting an inquiry this afternoon and I’ve got to meet my solicitor who says a load more papers arrived last night.’ Chambers had rung me at Julie’s this morning.

‘Oh, you’re in the abuse inquiry,’ she said.

‘There’s more than one inquiry?’

‘There’s the environmental one, that’s been going a couple of weeks, and the abuse one.’

‘Well, then yes, I suppose I’m in the abuse one.’

‘Everybody from here to Leicester has been after at least one inquiry brief. All that lovely money. I thought in the end that it was mostly solicitors doing the representation in the Haslam Hall case.’

‘I’m representing the victims,’ I said.

‘Oh, you have the poisoned chalice,’ she said. ‘Good luck.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said.

‘No, no, I’m being unfair,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’ll get on well with everyone. Are you staying up or are you commuting?’

‘I’m staying at my cousin’s in Selly Oak,’ I said.

‘Well, keep in touch,’ she said. ‘I’m at Bournville Chambers.’ She pulled a card out of her bag. ‘If you fancy a drink or dinner one night, just give me a call. I don’t want you to think that all the legal profession up here are unfriendly oafs.’

‘Don’t worry, despite what I said in court, unfriendly oafs are, unfortunately, everywhere,’ I said. ‘But thanks, that’s great. I’ll take you up on that offer.’

The door was opened and we were directed into separate rooms to await our clients.

Danny Richards came in humming. He grinned at me. ‘I think you got under old Norman’s skin there for a bit.’

I looked at him.

He danced over to his chair. He was light on his feet. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I just wanted to say, and you can pass this on, I may or may not change my plea. If Catcher’s fighting it, I might as well go the distance. It’ll put the wind up him for me to go not guilty. But I don’t want anyone taking any trouble, all that cross-examination of prosecution witnesses. I don’t want any of that.’ He held my gaze. He sighed. ‘Some things just have to follow their natural course.’

‘Maybe so, but you’ve got some natural points to make. The fact that the argument you had with Terry Fleming was so long ago. They can’t rely on that.’

‘Fortunately for you, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And nor do most people round here. People do things, other things happen. It’s the way of the world. All right? What will be, will be.’

‘Is that meant to be religion?’

‘I thought it was Doris Day. Whatever. Call it what you like, it’s realism, anyway.’

I was too bedraggled from my voyage under HHJ Norman’s skin to argue. Danny Richards leaned back in his chair and, from his trouser pocket, drew out the packet of cigarettes I had given him. He kept humming as he took out a cigarette and lit it.

Unusually the jailer appeared at the door. He didn’t even look at me. ‘You’ve got a visitor,’ he said to Danny.

I could have ignored the interruption, but I feared that if I stayed, Danny might really start to like me. I stood up and said goodbye.

‘Don’t say goodbye,’ he said, ‘say “so long.” ’

‘Mr Richards,’ I said, ‘this is no longer my case.’ I remember saying it very clearly. And then I left the cells.

As I took the lift back up to the Robing Room, I found myself humming Danny’s tune. I knew it, I knew I knew it. It was a seventies song, I was sure. Dum, dum, dum. A bit of a heart-catching voice. Dum de dum de dum, ‘Bad Company’! At least he had a sense of humour.

But now I could forget Danny Richards and start to think about my inquiry, get myself into a different mode, relax. First of all divest myself of my robes. I slid my wig back into its tin and rolled up my gown. I looked at myself in the mirror. I would have worn a different shirt if I hadn’t had to robe. Something sharper, with a collar, more likely to impress my colleagues at the inquiry, although if what Roseanna had said was right, perhaps I should have just worn a suit of armour.

As I walked out of the building into the hot, dry sunshine of the street, it was already half past eleven. A figure stepped in front of me and I took a step sideways to avoid her. She stepped with me and for a few seconds we swayed in a repetitive dance on the pavement. Finally I said, ‘Do you come here often?’

‘You’re Danny’s brief, aren’t you?’

I thought back over my life as a barrister. Had there ever been a client called Danny?

‘Danny, Danny,’ I said, hoping that saying the name would bring an image to my mind.

‘Danny Richards,’ she said disdainfully. ‘He was your client this morning.’

‘OK,’ I said neutrally, hoping she thought my vagueness was actually a result of my duty of confidentiality.

‘I’m Yolande.’

The name didn’t ring a bell, I wondered which part of his life she was involved in, in which volume of the brief I might have read about her, if I’d had all the papers.

‘Mmm,’ I said, cautiously.

She was thin, blond and tanned. She had to be Danny Richards’ girlfriend. She looked tired, her face was lined, as if she’d spent too much time in the sun, and I was conscious that she was wearing a lot of gold jewellery. She looked like my idea of a gangster’s moll.

‘Have you got time for a coffee?’

‘I can’t talk to you about his case,’ I said. ‘I’m only here for the morning. You should get in touch with his solicitor.’

‘Oh her,’ she said, dismissively. ‘I don’t even know her. She’s only been on the case a week.’

‘Has she?’ I was surprised. The brief I didn’t have was obviously prepared in her usual meticulous style.

‘Two weeks,’ she amended.

‘Look, Mr Richards hasn’t said I can talk to you,’ I said, thinking he probably would have, if we’d got round to it. ‘It’s his case, I can’t.’

Her face twisted in anguish. ‘I’m not going to be able to see him before this trial. Someone’s got to do something.’

‘OK,’ I sighed. ‘If you like, you can tell me what you want to tell me and I’ll pass it on.’

She smiled, a big wide smile.

I thought we would go to a rather nice café with large windows and the smell of coffee beans; I envisaged a little espresso with some hot milk on the side; I saw myself considering a slightly warm apricot danish pastry. But we were sitting on two rickety chairs in the back room of a shop, drinking Tesco’s own brand and eating non-chocolate Hob Nobs. I felt quite at home, it reminded me of my life in Colchester, days spent in my dad’s garage. And compared to that, this was high class, because in those days it was Rich Tea or nothing.

We had walked for about five minutes, in silence, away from the city centre, down Dalton Street and round behind the hospital. She walked like a model, moving confidently, head straight, a small smile on her lips. Men looked at her, and kept watching as we passed, twisting their necks, shaking their heads. Till we arrived at the shop. ‘This is Danny’s shop,’ she said. My heart sank. I shouldn’t be here. Kay was going to kill me.

I would make it short. It would be very short. She had unlocked the front door (‘There’s just me, during the week, when Danny’s away,’ she explained. ‘Sometimes I have extra help on a Saturday.’) and we had walked through a forest of armchairs and sofas, covered in mottled blue and grey velvet, and beige and orange corduroy, with matching footstools, guarded by nests of tables. The kind of things I always say I would never have in my home, but that are always fantastically comfortable and comforting to sit on, unlike my own furniture.

I had watched Yolande as she had fiddled with the kettle, carrying it to a room I assumed was the toilet to fill it, as she had removed two mugs from a cupboard on the wall and as she spooned powder from the jar. All with her left hand. I gazed at the long pale-pink painted fingernails incongruously but expertly, left-handedly, completing the coffee-making process. I once fell in love with a person on the basis of left-handedness alone. The relationship didn’t last long, but while it did, whenever anything manual came up I was in heaven, watching her write, watching her make a point, watching her look at the time on the other wrist.

But today I was here for professional reasons.

Yolande eased carefully back in her chair and stretched out her long legs. Not that I was watching.

She wore two thick gold rings on the third finger of her left hand, one splattered with stones that looked like diamonds. She wore a thick gold chain round her left wrist. Her blonde hair was caught up in a sleek chignon and she wore expensive cream clothes. She looked like she had stepped out of the eighties, the seventies. She was obviously older than me, and older than Danny Richards, but as she relaxed, nibbling at a Hob Nob, sipping her coffee, she seemed to grow younger. Maybe that’s what classic clothes and hair do for you. Or perhaps good biscuits. Or possibly good company. I smiled.

She crushed it. ‘You know who I’m married to?’ she said. I couldn’t work out if it was a statement or a question.

‘No.’

‘He’s a bastard.’

‘OK.’

‘He hates the fact that I’m having an affair with Danny.’

‘Well he would.’

‘No, he wouldn’t. Not for the reasons you’re thinking. He doesn’t care about me.’ Uh-oh, we were into the barrister-as-priest situation. I fixed a bland but caring expression on my face. ‘But I actually care about him.’

‘Mmm hmm.’ Whatever gets you through the night, I thought.

‘He’s fifteen years older than me. To him I’m a kind of trophy. That’s what he wanted when he asked me to marry him. And that’s what he got. Look at me. Long legs, blonde hair, good face.’

‘He’s a lucky man,’ I said, meaning it, uncertain where the conversation was going.

‘We’ve been married fifteen years.’

‘That’s good. Did you care about him when you married him?’

‘Good question,’ she said. I felt a small glow of pleasure. ‘I don’t know. I suppose I married him because he asked me. And it made my sister’s eyes pop. And he was very rich,’ she added. ‘So I suppose in one way I married him for his money. And he’s got his money’s worth.’ She ran a hand down her leg. ‘He’s been good to me. It’s just … he can’t help Danny with this … thing.’ She stared at the pieces of carpet on the floor.

‘That’s understandable.’

‘And I wondered if you could.’

My head snapped up from the turquoise swirls on the floor. I was more than happy for her to ask me to go for coffee because of my personal charm. I was also happy to be a listening ear, even to offer a little bit of moral support. But I wasn’t sure what concepts we were now dealing with. What might a husband do? Put up shelves? Have a toolbox with screwdrivers in? Plan a jailbreak? We could be heading towards a conflict of interests. ‘I’m Danny’s barrister,’ I said. I was already in too deep, I was calling the client by his first name. ‘Does he know you’re talking to me?’

‘Oh yes, I just went to see him. He said he thought you were OK.’

‘That’s nice, but I can’t represent anybody else.’

‘But I thought that after today, you weren’t going to be his barrister. You could give me some advice.’

‘No, no, no. There are professional considerations here. I really shouldn’t be talking to you at all.’

‘Professional considerations! Where have I heard that before?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m no good to anybody if I’m not professional. You have got to go through Kay Davidson, the solicitor.’

‘I don’t know her, I don’t know if I can trust her.’

‘She’s straight,’ I said, adding to myself, professionally speaking. ‘I know her, you have absolutely nothing to worry about from her. But, if you don’t trust her, what’s she doing being Danny’s … Mr Richards’ solicitor? Not to mention the fact she’s in London.’ It’s not unheard of to have a solicitor from out of town, even on Legal Aid, but it is unusual.

‘Because he – he needed a new solicitor. For this, he needed a new solicitor.’

‘I thought all his recent offences were serious assaults? Why change now?’

‘He’d … had the old one for years. He needed someone new. And we heard she was good. She was in London, away from Birmingham. But I’ve never met her. You can get a feel of people when you meet them. You know who to trust.’ Her expression changed. ‘Danny’s got to get off this.’

‘You can trust Kay Davidson,’ I said. ‘Ask her.’ I was so anxious not to know about Danny Richards and his problems. I could feel myself slipping down into a large vat of golden syrup. Nice, especially if you had a slice of bread and butter with you, but really difficult to get out of.

‘But she’s only been to see him a couple of times. She won’t even speak to me on the phone.’

I lifted my hand. ‘It’s probably because she hasn’t been given the say-so from Danny to speak to you.’ Oh God, Kay was going to kill me for talking to Yolande. ‘It really is tricky in a case like this, who you talk to, who you don’t. Why don’t you go and see Danny? He’s on remand, you can go any time, can’t you? Tell him to talk to Kay.’

‘I can’t take any more time off,’ she said, gesturing round the room with a biscuit.

‘Really?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you have an early closing day? Or a late opening?’

‘I’ve lost too much time already.’ She saw my expression. ‘I can’t go, all right?’ A small flush rose up her neck.

‘Then tell Simon, the barrister, when he comes up.’

‘For the start of the trial? No, that’s too late. Danny will have pleaded guilty by then. And I don’t want that on my conscience.’ She took a mouthful of coffee. ‘If he goes down for this, he’ll be inside for years. He won’t get time off because he never does, he won’t show remorse. He can’t go down for this.’ She shuddered.

‘But why did he bother getting a new solicitor if all he wants to do is plead guilty?’

‘I made that happen. I wanted someone to fight for him.’

‘But it’s his choice, surely.’

‘No, it’s not!’ she said sharply. ‘There are other people involved.’ She took a mouthful of coffee and paused. ‘He just needs time.’

It wasn’t only Danny who needed time. I leaned over to pick up another biscuit, casually easing up the sleeve of my jacket. It was getting late.

‘Look, you obviously stopped him pleading guilty this morning,’ she went on. ‘You had a go at the judge. You’ve got to help me.’

‘Ehhh…’

She leaned down and picked up her handbag from the floor. She took out a small gold-covered diary and a slim, gold ballpoint pen. She turned to the back of the diary and looked up at me. ‘What’s your number?’

She wanted my number. She shouldn’t have my number. She wanted my number so that she could write it down. With her left hand. She could find my chambers’ number in any directory.

‘020 7249…’ I was giving her my home number. I hesitated. I shouldn’t. There wasn’t anything I could do for her. I was a barrister, not a private detective. Her hand moved gracefully across the paper, covering each digit as she wrote it, elegant, liquid, smoother in every way than writing with the right hand. I was putty. I gave her the rest of my number.

‘Mmm, a London number. I come to London sometimes.’ She smiled at me, her eyes a stunning dark blue.

‘So call me.’ It just slipped out.

‘OK.’ She pushed back her chair and stood up.

We walked through the shop together. I threw a last regretful glance at the comfy sofas. I might have to come back to do some furniture research.