Roddy tapped his pipe upon an ashtray ‘He sounds like many of the gentlemen I’ve had the honour to represent.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ll have to leave it there. I must commandeer a few words to explain away a point-blank shooting. Tell me the rest tomorrow.’
3
‘The case started all right but then went badly, although it seems that the decline itself was a strategic decision — because your mother was responsible.’ Mr Wyecliffe was lodged on one side of a table in a public house near Saint Paul’s. His small head was sunk into the collar of his overcoat. Nick leaned away from the encroaching confidence. ‘The first witness was the youngest, a kid under sixteen. I saw her in the corridor tattooes above each ear. But she ran off.’
‘Where?’
‘No idea. But that meant that the first charge was in the bin: encouraging a minor or something into the profession, if I might use that word.’ He sipped at his pint. ‘That was bad news for the Crown and good news for us.
‘I don’t follow’
‘It was the easiest allegation to make out because they didn’t have to prove procurement or intimidation. Encouragement is enough. The Crown was on the back foot, so to speak, and it was then that your mother seemed — I stress “seemed” — to help their case. The witness in question had, shall we say, a complicated past: not one that would promote trust in her word. But if I wasn’t familiar with forensic technique, I’d have thought that your mother reviewed it to evoke sympathy Take a look yourself. These are my notes of her cross-examination.’ He opened his notebook and passed it over. Nick read the surprisingly neat transcription, almost hearing his mother’s voice, her reluctance and her understanding.
‘Anji, you’re seventeen?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’ve been very brave this morning, telling the court how you came to work on the street — I hope you don’t mind if I use that phrase.’
‘You can call it what you like.’
‘Thank you. I’d like to ask you a little about what happened before you came to London.’
‘Eh?’
About Leeds.’
‘Whatever.’
‘You ran away?’
‘So what?’
‘You ran away from Lambert House, a care home?’
A prison.’
Anji, I’m not going to rake over what happened. This court understands that the places which ought to protect children sometimes fail. Your honour, let me make it plain that__’
Mr Wyecliffe coughed. ‘Do you see that bit about Lambert House?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, the place was eventually closed down because of its moral failings. Now, the prosecution would have been saving that information about the witness for after the defence cross-examination. That way the jury’s last memory of the girl would be sympathetic — because it gave a handle on the running, the lying and the thieving that was to come. But your mother spiked that by getting it in first. It showed she was being fair even as she was stealing the prosecution’s only card. Do you see?’
Nick drew his chair away from the table and continued reading.
Afterwards you ran away from the Amberly Unit?’
‘Yeh?’
‘And then Elstham Place?’
‘And?’
‘Anji, there are nine other projects from which you absconded, aren’t there?’
‘I never counted.’
Nick let the notebook fall. Mr Wyecliffe was examining his beer glass. ‘Tastes mild this stuff but the specific gravity is 5.6. You have to be careful.’
‘Why would my mother… seem to evoke sympathy?’
‘Because she didn’t want to alienate the jury.’ He wiped froth off his moustache. ‘The bedside manner would draw them on side.’
‘How do you know it wasn’t genuine?’
‘As a woman, as a human being, of course she felt for the kid,’ said Mr Wyecliffe, with mock impatience, ‘but as a lawyer that sort of thing becomes part of how you handle a trial. She could make it serve another purpose — to help the client.’
Nick hadn’t quite appreciated that this was the sort of manoeuvring his mother had been obliged to perform if she was to win a case. He turned over the page and his attention latched on to an exchange that Mr Wyecliffe had marked with an asterisk:
‘Anji, you told the court that Mr Riley said, “The one to fear is the Pieman. I’m just the rent collector.” What does the Pieman look like?’
‘I’ve never seen him.’
‘Do you know where he lives?’
‘Nah.’
‘Well, is he in London, or far off?’
‘He’s just round the corner, like, keeping an eye on us all the time.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Mr Riley says so.
‘Have you heard his voice?’
‘Nah.’
‘Why are you frightened of someone you’ve neither seen nor heard?’
‘Cos of what he’ll do if he catches us.
‘What’s that?’
‘He says that when you’re asleep, lying there, with your head all still, the Pieman comes up with a poker.’
‘A poker?’
‘Yeah, and he’ll bash you, just once.’
‘He’s after you, is he?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re in the care of social services at the moment, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re safe, aren’t you?’
‘Nah, cos he knows how to find you, no matter where you are, and he always comes at night, after you’ve closed your eyes. You can’t be looked after all the time, you know. He just watches, like, waiting for your eyes to drop, and when no one’s looking and it’s really dark, that’s when he comes.’
‘Through a window?’
‘Maybes. Wherever there’s an opening. He doesn’t need no keys or nothing.’
‘Anji, from what you’ve said, it’s as though the Pieman is like a bad dream. Is that right?’
‘Yeah, but it’s real.’
‘Thank you, Anji, you’ve been very helpful.’
Nick closed the notebook and handed it back to Mr Wyecliffe. His mother’s work had always been a remote activity: the facts were usually interesting, but it remained on a neutral platform where she’d ‘represented’ someone in ‘a trial’ with ‘evidential difficulties’. Reading the actual questions and answers within their context removed the staging. Each move was determined by one objective: to win. Nothing was sacred, save the rules of the contest. Even compassion was a tool. Nick said, ‘Do you know what happened to George Bradshaw?’
‘I do not.’
‘Do you know what happened to his son?’
‘I do.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘The matter was reported in several newspapers.
‘Who showed you?’
Mr Wyecliffe eyed his beer, admiring the question. ‘Can’t say much,’ he said. ‘Client confidentiality.’
They were back to where they’d started from when Nick had first taken a seat in that dim, stifling office.
On the pavement Mr Wyecliffe whistled at the cold. It came funnelling down Newgate Street from the direction of the Old Bailey. The office blocks were slabs of grey with occasional squares of dim light. ‘I suppose you know Mr Kemble?’
‘Yes.’
‘In a class of his own.
‘Yes.’ Nick, however, thought of his mother and father holding hands upon Skomer. The sea was often wild and the wind could make you shake. It was a world away.
‘Seen him recently?’ Mr Wyecliffe’s breath turned to fog.
‘At the funeral.’
‘Of course.’ He sniffed. ‘I suppose you mentioned your mother’s triumphant performance on Mr Riley’s behalf’
‘I did not.’
Ah.’ That seemed to be the answer he expected. ‘Do you mind if I ask am odd question?’
‘No.’
Mr Wyecliffe’s head sank into his collar until it seemed he had no neck. ‘Did your mother ever mention the Pieman after the trial?’