Dick Francis - Silks

‘Yes please,’ I said. ‘I would.’

‘Accident, was it?’ she said, indicating towards the crutches. ‘Personal injury case is it?’

‘Something like that,’ I replied.

‘What name shall I say?’ she asked, standing up and moving as if to go through the door behind her.

‘Trent,’ I said boldly. ‘Julian Trent.’

The effect on her was startling. She went into near collapse and lunged at the door, which opened wide and sent her sprawling onto the floor inside the other room. There I could see a smartly dressed man sitting behind a rather nicer desk than he provided for his secretary.

‘Patrick,’ the woman managed to say. ‘This man says he’s Julian Trent.’

There was a tightening around the eyes but Patrick Hamilton was more in control.

‘It’s all right, Audrey,’ said Mr Hamilton. ‘This isn’t Julian Trent. Julian Trent is only in his early twenties.’ He looked from Audrey up to my face ‘Who are you?’ he said. ‘And what do you want from me?’

‘Tell me what you know about Julian Trent,’ I said to him, walking across to his desk and sitting down on the chair in front of it.

‘Why should I?’ he said.

‘Because otherwise,’ I said, ‘I might go straight to the Law Society and report you for aiding and abetting a known offender. I might tell them about your role in getting Julian Trent off an attempted murder conviction.’

‘You can’t,’ he said. ‘You don’t have the evidence.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘There you might be wrong. I assume you’ve heard of Josef Hughes?’

He went a little pale. I stood up and went to the window. Bob and Josef were both standing on the corner opposite.

‘Would you like me to ask him to come up and identify you?’ I said to Hamilton.

He stood up and looked out of the window. Then he sat down again, heavily, into his chair. I waved at Bob.

‘Now, Mr Hamilton,’ I said. ‘What do you know of Julian Trent?’

In all, I spent forty-five minutes in Patrick Hamilton’s office listening to another sorry tale of petty greed gone wrong. As before, the chance of a quick buck had been the carrot dangled in front of his nose. Just a small thing had been asked for, to start with. Just to collect a statement from someone who would deliver it with no questions asked and to notarize it as a sworn affidavit. Then had come the further demands to attend at the High Court and, if necessary, commit perjury in order to convince the appeal judges as to the truth of the statement. There was no risk, he’d been told by his persuasive visitor. Josef Hughes would never tell anyone, the visitor had guaranteed it. Fortunately for him, he hadn’t needed to testify, so technically he was in the clear. That was, until the next time.

I showed him the pictures of my house.

‘This is what happens to those who stand up and fight,’ I said. ‘Unless we all do it together.’

I showed him another photo and he seemed to visibly shrink before my eyes. I didn’t need to ask him if the photo was of the visitor. I could tell it was.

I stood up to go.

‘Just one last question,’ I said. ‘Why you?’

I didn’t really expect an answer, but what he said was very revealing.

‘I’ve been the Trent family solicitor for years,’ he said. ‘Drawn up their wills and done the conveyancing of their properties. Michael and Barbara Trent have now moved to Walton-on-Thames, but they lived in Weybridge for years.’

‘But your visitor wasn’t Julian Trent’s father?’ I said to him.

‘No, it was his godfather.’

I took Josef Hughes and George Barnett to lunch at the Runnymede Hotel, in the restaurant there overlooking the Thames. Nikki Payne, the solicitor’s clerk from Bruce’s firm, came to join us. I had chosen the venue with care. I wanted somewhere peaceful and quiet, somewhere stress free and calming. I wanted somewhere to tell Josef and George what I had discovered and what I needed them to do to help me.

The four of us sat at a table in the window, with Nikki next to me and Josef and George opposite us. For a while we made small talk and chatted about the weather as we watched the pleasure boats moving up and down through the lock, and we laughed at a duck and her brood waddling in a line along the river bank. Everyone relaxed a little, and a glass of cool Chablis further eased their anxieties.

Finally, after we had eaten lunch from the buffet, we sat over our coffee while I told them about the murder of Scot Barlow. I told them how Steve Mitchell had been arrested for it, and how he was currently on trial at Oxford Crown Court.

‘I’ve seen reports in the papers,’ George said, nodding. ‘Doesn’t seem to be much doubt he did it, if you believe what you read there.’

‘Never believe anything you read in the papers,’ I said seriously. ‘I have no doubt whatsoever that Steve Mitchell is innocent, and he is being framed.’

Both Josef and George looked at me with that same expression of incredulity that people have when a politician says that he really cares about drug addicts, or illegal immigrants.

‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘And I believe he’s being framed by this man.’ I placed a copy of the photograph I had shown to Patrick Hamilton on the table in front of them.

The effect was immediate. Both Josef and George shied away from the image as if it could somehow jump up and hit them. Josef began to take fast, shallow breaths, and I feared he was in danger of passing out, while George just sat there grinding his teeth together, never once taking his eyes off the man in the picture.

‘It’s all right, guys,’ I said, trying to lighten the moment. ‘He isn’t here. And he doesn’t know we’re here, or even that I know either of you.’

Neither of them was much mollified by my assurances. They went on looking scared and uncertain.

‘With your help,’ I said. ‘I can put this man behind bars where he can’t get at you.’

‘Julian Trent was behind bars,’ said Josef quickly. ‘But…’ He tailed off, perhaps not wanting to say that it had been he who had helped get him out. ‘Who says he can’t still get at us from there? Where’s the guarantee?’

‘I agree with Josef,’ said George with a furrowed brow. ‘Julian Trent would simply repay the favour and get him out, and then where would we be?’

I felt that I was losing them.

‘Let me first explain to you what I want to do,’ I said. ‘And then you can decide if you’ll help. But, I’ll tell you, I’m going to try and get this man, whether you help me or not. And it will be easier with your backing.’

Between us, Nikki and I told them everything we had discovered.

‘But why do you need us?’ said Josef. ‘Why don’t you just take all this to the police and let them deal with it?’

‘I could,’ I said. ‘But, for a start, in this sort of case the police would take ages to do their investigating and, in the meantime, Steve Mitchell would be convicted of murder. And, as you both well know, it is easier to get someone acquitted at the first trial than to have to wait for an appeal.’

‘So what do you intend to do?’ asked George.

I told them.

I had to trust them all, including Nikki, not to tell anyone of my plans. So I didn’t tell them quite everything. I did think about showing them the other photos, the ones of the wreckage of my house, which were still in my jacket pocket. Then Josef and George would understand that I was in the same position as they were. But it would also mean telling Nikki the inconvenient truth that I was being intimidated to influence the outcome of a trial, and that might put her under an obligation to tell the court, or, at least, to tell Bruce, who was her immediate superior. I didn’t want to have to ask her to keep more confidences than I already had, and certainly not to do so when it would be so blatantly against the law.