Irene narrowed her eyes, considering, then shrugged.
‘Over a half a million pounds. A year of one-to-one therapy would cost a tenth of that at most. Incarceration’s old-fashioned but it’s bloody expensive too. The maths alone should persuade them.’
‘Now who’s ranting? I think I’d get on Newsnight before you would.’ Irene looked warmly at him and took a sip of beer. ‘You like defence, don’t you? It comes naturally to you.’
‘Yeah, I like being on this side of it,’ Daniel said, leaning on his elbows. ‘Even if I dislike the person I’m defending I force myself to see it from their side. There has to be a presumption of innocence. I like the fairness of that …’
‘I know; fairness is why we all got into this game. It’s a shame it doesn’t always seem fair.’
They watched the traffic and the scores of people rushing home from the day, and were silent for a few moments.
‘The press’re gonna go mad over this one, you know. It’ll be much worse than Tyrel. You know that, don’t you?’ said Irene.
Daniel nodded.
‘Have you had hassle already?’ she asked.
‘No, have you?’
Irene shrugged and waved her hand, as if there had been hassle but she didn’t want to talk about it. ‘It’s him I worry about. The child’s being vilified in the press, unnamed or not … Where’s the fairness in that? He’s not even on trial yet.’
‘You’ll raise that though, won’t you?’
Irene sighed. ‘Yes, we can apply for a stay and say the jury have been influenced by the pre-trial publicity, but we both know it’s pointless. The publicity is prejudicial but it will always be so. And God knows what use a stay will be to us when the child’s inside anyway …’
She looked into the distance, as if imagining the arguments in live court. He watched her cool, blue stare.
‘You must be one of the youngest female QCs now, are you not?’
‘No, don’t be silly, Baroness Scotland was thirty-five.’
‘Will you be forty this year?’
‘No, I’ll be thirty-nine, you sod!’
Daniel coloured and looked away. She narrowed her eyes at him.
‘Irene,’ he said to the passing traffic. ‘Irene. It seems too old-fashioned for you.’
‘My father named me,’ she said, chin down. ‘After Irene of Rome, would you believe?’
‘I would believe.’
‘Most of my family call me Rene. It’s only work people that call me Irene.’
‘Is that what I am, then? Work people?’
She laughed, and finished her beer. ‘No,’ she said, eyes sparkling but coy, ‘you’re the lovely Geordie solicitor.’
He hoped that she had blushed, but it could have been the beer.
‘How is your Geordie these days?’ he asked.
‘Alreet, like,’ she managed, smiling.
He laughed at her Home Counties voice struggling with the consonants. She sounded Scouse.
‘I’m glad to be working with you again,’ he said quietly, no longer smiling.
‘Me too,’ she said.
14
‘My, aren’t you a proper charmer. All right, I’ll take a dozen.’
Daniel sensed Minnie smiling at him as he counted out the change for Jean Wilkes, who worked in the sweetshop. Mrs Wilkes had told Daniel off a few weeks ago for swearing in her shop. She took her eggs and walked off while Daniel counted the takings in the ice-cream tub. Thirty-three pounds fifty.
Minnie smiled at him again and he felt rarefied by it. He was still collecting her forgiveness.
‘You’re good on this stall, so you are,’ said Minnie. ‘You have the patter. Only three hours in and we’re making a killing. Tell you what, if we’re up at the end of the day, I’ll give you some commission.’
‘What d’ya mean?’
‘Well, if we’ve made more than say a hundred and twenty-five, I’ll give you a share.’
Daniel took a breath and smiled.
‘The customers seem to like you, so you’re worth it. It’s ’cause you’re handsome. Just look at Jean. She was all over you. I can hardly crack a smile out of her normally.’
The wind blew over the sign that read Flynn Farm – Fresh Produce. Daniel straightened it, then turned to Minnie, pulling his cuffs down over his hands.
‘I don’t like her.’
‘Whyever not?’ said Minnie. She was busy recording transactions in her notebook. ‘Old Jean wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘She says bad things about you,’ said Daniel, one hand in his pocket, looking up at Minnie. ‘You should hear her. She talks to people in the shop about you.’
‘Ach, let her talk if she wants to.’
‘They all do. All the people in the shops and the kids at school. They all say you’re a witch and that you killed your husband and daughter …’
Daniel watched as Minnie’s face went soft, relaxed and doughy, as if she was dead. Her cheeks hung heavier than they usually did. She looked older.
‘Jean says you have a broomstick and stuff and that Blitz is your familiar.’
Minnie laughed then, a big belly laugh that made her stand back on her heels. She put a hand on her gut and the other on the table to steady herself.
‘They’re just teasing you. Don’t you know that?’
Daniel shrugged and wiped his nose with his sleeve. ‘Dunno. So you didn’t murder your husband then, with a poker from the fire?’
‘No, love, I didn’t. Some people like drama so much that they have to start inventing things because real life isn’t interesting enough for them.’
Daniel looked up at Minnie. She was blowing on her hands and stamping her feet. The smell of her was soothing to him now although he didn’t know why. Spores of himself trusted her, but then the wind would blow again, carry them away, and he would doubt it.
The social worker had confirmed there would be no more contact with his mother. He ran back to Newcastle twice after he killed the chicken, to try to find her anyway, but new people were living in his mother’s old house. He asked the neighbours but no one knew where she had gone. The man he had spoken to after the fire told him that his mother was probably dead.
Tricia the social worker had told Minnie that Daniel was on the adoption register and that he could ‘go any time’. Now, with the threat of another new home upon him, Daniel was beginning to like the farm and was trying to behave. Tricia had confirmed that he would be able to contact his mother when he was eighteen, if he wanted to, but until then he wasn’t allowed any information about her.
‘So how did your husband and your daughter die?’ he asked, looking up at her, licking his lips which had dried in the cold. She wouldn’t look at him at first, too busy straightening up the stall and pulling her coat tighter around her body. But then she met his eye. Her eyes were the hardest thing about her, Daniel thought. The watery blue of them was so different from his own dark eyes. Sometimes it hurt to look at her.
‘An accident.’
‘Both of them?’
Minnie nodded.
‘What happened?’
‘How old are you, Danny?’
‘Twelve.’
‘I know you’ve had a tough twelve years. I don’t want to presume what terrible things you’ve seen or done or had done to you. I want you to know you can talk to me about anything that’s happened to you. I won’t judge you. You can tell me whatever you want. But when you get older maybe you’ll realise there are some things people can’t talk about easily. Maybe it’s good to talk about them, but good doesn’t make it easy. Maybe there are some things you don’t want to talk about right now … things that happened with your mum or other people. You can talk to me about it, but if you don’t want to, then I want you to know that I respect that.