Howard Linskey - The Dead

‘So what’s the good news?’

She shrugged, ‘Accountants are ten a penny.’

‘Like lawyers?’

She gave me a humourless smile, ‘And gangsters.’

‘This one is special,’ I told her and she gave me a quizzical look. ‘Not the man. Baxter is vile and deserves everything he gets but the information he holds is… valuable to me. I want it back. I need it back, in fact. Without it my entire organisation is in considerable jeopardy.’

‘I see.’ She seemed taken aback.

‘I hope you do,’ I assured her.

‘Then you are going to need a very good lawyer indeed.’

‘One of those dispassionate, messianic types with the super-keen intellect who believes the system owes every man the right to a fair trial,’ I suggested.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘all that and a monstrous ego.’

Things had been strained with Sarah since she had asked me to tell her about her father’s last moments. She had actually apologised for springing that on me but, if I thought I’d heard the last of her questions about Bobby, I was sadly mistaken. She tried raising the matter with me again, more than once. She explained that it was important for her to know exactly what had happened to her dad. She drew parallels with my own search for the truth about my missing father, which I didn’t thank her for.

‘I want to know if my father is still alive Sarah, that’s all,’ I retorted. ‘I just want to understand why he walked out on us all those years ago, so I know how to answer Emma’s questions when she gets older. You want to hear details I’m not comfortable discussing with anyone, let alone you.’

I managed to avoid the subject or curtail the conversation each time she raised it with me until it began to drive a wedge between us. Eventually it became a real source of friction, until one day it erupted into a full-blown row.

‘I don’t understand why you won’t even talk to me about it. I have a right to know.’

‘And I have a right to choose not to relive the worst day of my life,’ I countered.

‘I don’t need you to paint me a picture Davey, I just want you to fill in the gaps.’

‘What gaps?’

‘I don’t know!’ she shouted at me. ‘That’s the fucking point!’

‘I’m not discussing it with you anymore and that’s it!’

‘What? The conversation’s over because you decide it is?’

At that point, Sarah looked like she was about to explode and I was spoiling for a fight as well. It was the sound of Emma crying upstairs which brought us back to reality. I think we both thought we’d woken her at first and we stopped shouting and listened for a second.

‘Nightmare,’ I said and she got to her feet. ‘I’ll go,’ I told her, ‘you’ve had her all day.’ When I reached Emma’s room she was tearful and sitting up in bed. As soon as she saw me, she opened her arms wide, as if only a hug from her daddy could banish the monsters from her world.

‘Come here, sweetie,’ I told her. She looked exhausted, so I picked her up and carried her into our room.

‘You lie in mummy and daddy’s bed for a while.’ I put her under the covers and tucked her in. She fell asleep almost instantly. I lay down next to her and closed my eyes for a moment.

When I opened them again I realised I’d dozed off. I checked my watch and found I’d slept for nearly three hours. Emma was still asleep in the bed beside me. Sarah must have given up on us both and gone off to sleep in the spare room.

I still wasn’t sleeping well and I woke as soon as it was light outside. I got up and left early, careful not to wake Emma. A couple of hours later I was sitting in my office at the Cauldron when Susan Fitch called me.

‘You remember we talked about the type of man you need; the dispassionate messiah with the monstrous ego?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think I may have found him.’

Julian Aimes was an arrogant, overgrown public school boy with an overriding belief in the unending power of his abilities. He was very tall, which meant that he literally looked down on people for much of the time, and frowned when he asked questions, which made him appear challenging even when he wasn’t trying to be. Baxter would have liked him.

His chambers were in Durham, but we met him in the coffee house on the Cathedral Square, so I didn’t have to go to his office. I kept my voice low, so the tourists couldn’t hear us discussing a child’s murder while they sipped tea and ate walnut cake. With the help of Susan Fitch, I outlined the key points of the case to him, we described the challenging character of his potential new client, the circumstantial nature of the supporting evidence, which included the proximity of Baxter’s home to the girl’s and the fact that he had served prison time in the interim for unrelated charges, which we hoped would be kept from the jury. Then, as if we were consciously saving the worst till last, we told him about the DNA evidence.

‘I’m not inexpensive Mr Blake,’ was all he offered when I was done.

‘I’m not unaware of that, Mr Aimes,’ I replied.

‘Good,’ he answered, ‘I find it practical to get the vulgar subject of money out of the way early. It saves my time and the client’s embarrassment,’ he brought his fingertips together in front of his face, then stared at me thoughtfully, ‘ but have you told me everything I need to know?’

‘There’s one thing you haven’t asked me,’ I said, unsure if I was impressed by his bluntness or not.

‘And what’s that?’

‘Whether Baxter is guilty or not?’

His eyebrows knotted together quizzically and he stared at me in puzzlement.

‘Oh, I see. You know do you or, should I say, you think that you do? Mr Blake, were you there when the girl was murdered?’

‘No,’ I admitted.

‘So you didn’t witness the act being perpetrated?’

‘I think I just answered that question.’

‘Indeed,’ he said, ‘then we must both acknowledge at least a modicum of doubt as to Mr Baxter’s guilt. From what you tell me, there were no witnesses to the actual killing?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Therefore, whether you view the man as innocent or guilty is entirely irrelevant.’

I was beginning to feel like a school pupil being chastised by a master.

‘If you believe him to be innocent that is of no practical use to me whatsoever. The judge and jury will see you as wholly biased, your assertion being based, as it is, around your professional relationship. Frankly, there isn’t a man convicted of murder who has not had at least one friend, partner, colleague or mother who was willing to swear they never could have done such a thing and it counted not a jot in their favour in the end.’

I was about to reply to this, but he continued, ‘conversely, if you believe him to be guilty, then this can only be based on your, again, wholly biased view of his character while he has been in your employ. The only other alternative is that the accused man has confessed to this heinous act but has chosen not to repeat said confession to the relevant authorities and, officially at least, resolutely maintains his innocence. I must also therefore continue to assert it. Also, he may not have been of entirely sound mind when he uttered this purely hypothetical confession, of which I wish to know nothing. Is that understood?’

‘Entirely. I only asked so I could be sure you had no qualms about representing someone accused of raping and murdering a child because, if you do, now is the time to mention it.’

He gave me the schoolteacher look again. ‘Whether I have personal feelings, either now or at any time in the future, about the victim of this crime, they are of no consequence when compared to the greater imperative of upholding the judicial system of this country and its first principle; that every man, no matter how wretched, be given the opportunity of a fair trial with the best defence he is able to procure. Without this, we may as well simply present the facts to a judge, allow no reasoned argument as to a man’s guilt or innocence, then let said judge pronounce a verdict without the complication of a jury.’