Martin Edwards: Suspicious Minds

Valerie’s chambers were in Balliol Court, off Rumford Street. A brass plate by the door listed the dozen members of Mr. Arnold Lloyd-Makinson’s set. Her name was the most recent addition. Inside, the mustard-tiled walls reminded Harry of public conveniences built pre-war. The lift had a metal cage and looked as if its next journey might be its last. He and Valerie had a tacit agreement that they would walk up the stairs.

A sad-faced woman sat in reception, reading a pamphlet about the law on divorce. Valerie led Harry into the senior clerk’s room, where the business of chambers was done. David Base stood by his desk, cradling a receiver against his neck and simultaneously tossing a peppermint up and down with his free hand whilst he assured an anxious solicitor that the papers being chased would be ready tomorrow. To back up his promise, a young girl at the opposite desk pounded an aged Remington with more gusto than skill.

Valerie gave David the thumbs-up sign and gestured to Harry to deposit the papers he was carrying on the floor by the main desk. The clerk hung up and flipped the sweet into his mouth with a casual flourish.

“Not an easy man to please, Mr Fingall. So — another success, Miss Kaiwar?”

She smiled, the first unstrained expression Harry had seen from her that afternoon. “The legal aid fund had value for money, I think. And haven’t I warned you those wretched peppermints will rot your teeth? Anything new come in?”

“A County Court claim in Runcorn.” David Base was still in his twenties, but his manner was as discreet as that of a veteran civil servant. Nevertheless, his thoughtful face yielded a hint of sympathy. “A matter concerning a soiled carpet.”

“Marshall Hall never had to put up with this.”

“The case has more twists than a Berber,” the clerk assured her solemnly. “And you never know, it might lead on to greater things.”

“A dispute over an Axminster, you mean?”

The three of them laughed. Harry regarded most barristers’ clerks as the professional equivalent of used car salesmen, flogging the services of clapped-out Rumpoles with mendacious protestations of faith in their performance. But he felt in David Base’s debt.

A few weeks earlier, Crusoe and Devlin had sent a brief on a Crown Court trial to one of the middle-ranking barristers in chambers, only to be told at the last minute that the chosen advocate was unavailable because one of his cases had overrun. David had offered as a substitute a young woman new in chambers called Valerie Kaiwar. Accustomed to last minute let-downs, Harry had feared the worst. Usually some wet-behind-the-ears kid would foul up a winnable case, earning experience at the luckless client’s expense. To Harry’s amazement, Valerie not only mastered the papers overnight, but also achieved an acquittal, to the chagrin of the prosecutor presenting the case against the light-fingered accused.

Afterwards, Harry had chatted with her over coffee. She talked animatedly, using her hands to emphasise the points she made. Justice, integrity and principles were words she often used, though sometimes with a cutting irony. Her pride in her performance and her instinctive sympathy for the underdog were worthy enough. But what entranced Harry was the passion invested in everything she did or said, from her mimicry of her opponent’s lacklustre closing speech to the way her eyes shone with pleasure when he complimented her on a job well done. Unlike the second-rate advocates whom he encountered day after day, trudging round the courts like sleepwalkers, she was not simply in it for money or security, but because what mattered most to her was fighting for a cause.

At first sight they had nothing in common. She came from a wealthy background; her old man was a Ugandan Asian who had been kicked out by Idi Amin only to settle in the North West of England and make a fortune by building up a chain of cut-price supermarkets. She had read law at Somerville and learned the art of public speaking by arguing for radical motions before chinless sceptics at the Oxford Union. Harry had been born in Liverpool’s bandit country, within spitting distance of Scotland Road. He’d lost his parents in his teens and Liz through murder after a short failed marriage. Yet at least he and Valerie shared a questioning mind. To say nothing of an addiction to film noir.

One thing led to another. Dinner at the Ensenada, an afternoon spent wandering around the Maritime Museum. Neither of them wanted to push the relationship too fast, too soon. They had kissed long and hard a couple of nights back after watching the original version of D.O.A. at a city film club, but that was all. So far.

“Hello, Valerie. Triumphed again?”

Julian Hamer had emerged from his room. Harry could forgive the barrister’s Charles Dance looks and Charterhouse and Cambridge charm, because Hamer never posed or patronised. With his easy manner and sharp mind he was a difficult man to dislike. But not impossible, for he fancied Valerie. Harry felt sure of that: something in the way Hamer spoke to her stretched beyond an established man’s courtesy to a colleague a dozen years younger.

“Another fine result, Mr. Hamer,” confirmed David Base.

“Did she make old Kermincham wake up, Harry? Poor old devil, he’s been on the bench so long I’m surprised he hasn’t got piles. Tell us about it, Valerie.”

The warmth of her smile made Harry itch with irritation.

“Some other time, perhaps. Right now I have a case to get up.”

Hamer nodded. He seemed tired for once: lines of fatigue edged the corners of his eyes. Starting to look his age, Harry thought with a stab of malice. In days gone by — and especially in the midst of tedious trials — he’d wondered idly about Hamer’s sexual preferences. For someone so smooth to escape marriage for so long must say as much about his instincts as his luck. But now Harry was gloomily convinced that his rival was a bachelor, gay only in the most traditional sense.

“First things first. See you later then.”

“Sure.”

Did they exchange a glance of complicity? Whenever he saw Valerie in Hamer’s presence Harry had the sense of a secret shared, from which he was excluded. He told himself not to be paranoid.

Valerie set off down the passageway. Feeling awkward, Harry followed. He wanted to talk to her alone, but realised that now was not a good time. Perhaps tonight would be better, when she had shaken off the courtroom blues.

She occupied a corner of the building more akin to a cupboard than a room. The shelf running along the rear wall overhung the chair behind her desk. A taller woman would have cracked her head if she rose to her feet without ducking.

He cleared his throat, embarrassed by his own nervousness. “I was wondering — would you like to come round to the flat tonight?”

She considered him from under long black lashes.

“I can’t make it tonight, Harry. Sorry. But — I’ve got things to do. You know how it is.”

Although spoken kindly, the words slapped him. He realised how much he’d been counting on her saying yes. He told himself he didn’t own her, and there would be other nights, but he felt a boy’s frustration at the denial of a longed-for treat.

“Okay.”

Something in his tone prompted her to stretch a hand across the desk and touch his fingers. “Maybe tomorrow, how about that?”

He tried to look don’t-careish. “Shall I give you a call?”

“Please.”

There was a short pause. He wasn’t certain whether she intended to say anything else. Finally he stood up. “All right then, Val. I’ll leave you to your carpet.”

“Thanks so much for coming back with me.”

“The pleasure was mine.”

On the way out, he stopped again at David’s desk and asked if he could use the phone.