“How much was the bail?”
“Five grand.”
Where would Bobby find that sort of money?
I glance at my watch. It’s still only five thirty. Eddie’s secretary answers the phone and I can hear Eddie shouting in the background. She apologizes and asks me to wait. The two of them shout at each other. It’s like listening to a domestic fight. Eventually, she comes back to me. Eddie can give me twenty minutes.
It’s quicker to walk than to take a taxi to Chancery Lane. Buzzed through the main door, I climb the narrow stairs to the third floor, weaving past boxes of court documents and files, which have been stacked in every available space.
Eddie is talking on the phone as he ushers me into his office and points to a chair. I have to move two files to sit down. Eddie looks to be in his late fifties but is probably ten years younger. Whenever I’ve seen him interviewed on TV he’s put me in mind of a bulldog. He has the same swagger, with his shoulders barely moving and his ass swinging back and forth. He even has large incisor teeth, which must come in handy when ripping strips off people.
When I mention Bobby’s name Eddie looks disappointed. I think he was hoping for a medical malpractice case. He spins his chair and begins searching the drawer of a filing cabinet.
“What did Bobby tell you about the attack?”
“You saw his statement.”
“Did he mention seeing a young boy?”
“No.”
Eddie interrupts tiredly. “Look, I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot here, Madonna, but just explain to me why the fuck I’m talking to you. No offense.”
“None taken.” He’s a lot less pleasant up close. I start again. “Did Bobby mention he was seeing a psychologist?”
Eddie’s mood improves. “Shit no! Tell me more.”
“I’ve been seeing him for about six months. I also think he’s been evaluated before but I don’t have the records.”
“A history of mental illness— better and better.” He picks up a ringing telephone and motions for me to carry on. He’s trying to conduct two conversations at once.
“Did Bobby tell you why he lost his temper?”
“She took his cab.”
“It’s hardly a reason.”
“You ever tried to get a cab in Holborn on a wet Friday afternoon?” He half chuckles.
“I think there’s more to it than that.”
Eddie sighs. “Listen, Pollyanna, I don’t ask my clients to tell me the truth. I just keep them out of jail so they can go and make the same mistakes all over again.”
“The woman— what did she look like?”
“A fucking mess if you look at the photographs.”
“How old?”
“Mid-forties. Dark hair…”
“What was she wearing?”
“Just a second.” He hangs up the phone and yells to his secretary to get him Bobby’s file. Then he rifles through the pages, humming to himself.
“Mid-thigh skirt, high heels, a short jacket… mutton dressed as lamb if you ask me. Why do you want to know?”
I can’t tell him. It’s only half an idea.
“What’s going to happen to Bobby?”
“Right now he faces prison time. The crown prosecution service won’t downgrade the charges.”
“Jail isn’t going to help him. I can do you a psych report. Maybe I can get him into an anger management program.”
“What do you want from me?”
“A written request.”
Eddie’s pen is already moving. I can’t remember the last time I could write that fluidly. He slides it across the desk.
“Thanks for this.”
He grunts. “It’s a letter not a kidney.”
If ever a man had issues. Maybe it’s a Napoleon complex or he’s trying to compensate for being ugly. He’s bored with me now. The subject no longer interests him. I ask my questions quickly.
“Who put up the bail?”
“No idea.”
“And who phoned you?”
“He did.”
Before I can say anything else, he interrupts.
“Listen, Oprah, I’m due at a Law Society drinks party and I need a pee. This kid is your nutcase; I just defend the sorry fuck. Why don’t you take a peek inside his head, see if anything rattles and come back to me. Have a terrific day.”
10
Julianne is doing her stretching exercises in the spare bedroom. She does these yogalike poses every morning with names that sound like Indian squaws. Babbling Brook meets Running Deer.
A veteran early riser, she is combat ready by 6:30 a.m. Nothing like me. I’ve been seeing bloody and beaten faces all night in my dreams.
Julianne pads barefoot into the bedroom wearing just a pajama top. She bends to kiss me.
“You had a restless night.”
Pressing her head against my chest, she lets her fingers go tap-dancing up my spine until she feels me shiver. She is reminding me that she knows every square inch of me.
“Remember I told you about Charlie singing carols with the choir?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Apparently young Ryan Fraser kissed her on the bus on the way home.”
“Cheeky devil.”
“It wasn’t easy. Three of her friends had to help her catch him and hold him down.”
We laugh and I pull her on top of me, letting her feel my erection against her thigh.
“Stay in bed.”
She laughs and slides away. “No. I’m too busy.”
“C’mon.”
“It’s not the right time. You have to save your fellas.”
My “fellas” are my sperm. She makes them sound like paratroopers.
She’s getting dressed. White bikini pants slide along her legs and snap into place. Then she raises the shirt over her head and shrugs her shoulders into the straps of a bra. She won’t risk giving me another kiss. I might not let her go next time.
After she’s gone I stay in bed listening to her move through the house, her feet hardly touching the floor. I hear the kettle being filled and the milk being collected from the front step. I hear the freezer door open and the toaster being pushed down.
Dragging myself upright, I take six paces to the bathroom and turn on the shower. The boiler in the basement belches and the pipes clunk and gargle. I stand shivering on the cold tiles waiting for some sign of water. The showerhead is shaking. At any moment I expect the tiles to start coming loose from around the taps.
After two coughs and a hacking spit, a cloudy trickle emerges and then dies.
“The boiler is broken again,” yells Julianne from downstairs.
Great! Brilliant! Somewhere there is a plumber laughing at me. He’s no doubt telling all his plumber mates how he pretended to fix a Jurassic boiler and charged enough to pay for a fortnight in Florida.
I shave with cold water, using a fresh razor, without cutting myself. It may seem like a small victory, but worth noting.
I emerge into the kitchen and watch Julianne make plunger coffee and put posh jam on a piece of whole-wheat toast. I always feel childish eating my Rice Krispies.
I still remember the first time I saw her. She was in her first year studying languages at the University of London. I was doing my postgraduate degree. Not even my mother would call me handsome. I had curly brown hair, a pear-shaped nose and skin that freckled at the first hint of sunlight.
I had stayed on at university determined to sleep with every promiscuous, terminally uncommitted first-year on campus, but unlike other would-be lotharios I tried too hard. I even failed miserably at being fashionably unkempt and seditious. No matter how many times I slept on someone’s floor, using my jacket as a pillow, it refused to crumple or stain. And instead of appearing grungy and intellectually blasé, I looked like someone on his way to his first job interview.