Michael Robotham - Lost

Nearest to me a lone teenager appears to be reading a book.

“Help me!”

He looks around.

“I'm down here!”

He peers at the grate.

“Help me get out!”

Dropping to his knees, he puts an eye against the bars.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“I'm a police officer.”

I know it doesn't answer the question but it seems to be enough. He goes to fetch a teacher. I can hear him.

“Sir, there's someone in a hole over there. I think he might be stuck.”

A new face appears at the grate, older and in charge.

“What are you doing down there?”

“Trying to get out.”

More faces arrive and stand around the drain. The football game appears to have been forgotten. Most of the players are now scrabbling to get a look at “this guy stuck down a hole.”

A crowbar is summoned from a car trunk. Turf is kicked away from the edges. The grate is pulled aside and strong hands reach inside. I emerge onto a patch of English autumn, blinking into the sunlight and wiping the remains of the sewer from my face.

Reaching into my sodden pocket I retrieve the last of the morphine capsules. Magically, the pain lifts and a wave of emotion passes over me. I don't normally like emotion. It's a wishy-washy, moist-eyed, soft-in-the-head state, good for postcoital bliss and rugby reunions, but you know something, I love these lads. Look at them, all dressed up in their school scarves, kicking a ball around the place. They look so cute. They even let me shower in the pavilion and someone lends me a shirt, tracksuit bottoms and a pair of sneakers. I look like a senior citizen on a power walk.

The Professor is summoned and finds me in the pavilion. Straight off he treats me like a patient, taking my face in his hands and holding my eyelids open.

“How many did you take?”

“The last two.”

“Jesus!”

“I'm fine, really. Listen to me. I've been down there . . . in the river. We should have seen it years ago.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know how they got her out of Dolphin Mansions. She went down the hole—just like Alice in Wonderland.”

I know I'm not making sense but Joe perseveres. Finally, I tell him the story but instead of getting excited he gets angry. He calls me stupid, foolhardy, rash and impulsive, but each of the criticisms is prefaced by the term “with all due respect.” I've never been so politely told off.

I look at my watch. It's almost eleven o'clock. I'm due in court at midday.

“We can still make it.”

“I have to stop off somewhere first.”

“To change your clothes.”

“To see a boy about a light.”

The Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand are composed of a thousand rooms and three miles of hallways, most of them lined with dark wooden panels that soak up the light and add to the gloom. The architecture is Victorian Gothic because the courts are meant to intimidate the crap out of people, which they do.

For Eddie Barrett, however, it's just another stage. Striding along corridors, he pushes through doors and scatters the clusters of whispering lawyers. For a man with short legs and a bulldog swagger, he moves surprisingly quickly.

Barrett is to the legal profession what hyenas are to the African plains—a bully and a scavenger. He takes cases according to how much publicity they generate rather than the fees and he uses every legal loophole and ambiguity while grandly extolling the British judicial system as “the finest and fairest in the world.”

In Eddie's mind the law is a flexible concept. It can be bent, twisted, flattened and stretched until it becomes whatever you want it to be. He can even make it disappear when turned sideways.

A dozen steps behind him comes Charles Raynor, QC, known as “The Rook” because of his black hair and beaked nose. He once made a former cabinet minister cry under cross-examination about his taste in women's underwear.

Eddie spies me and swaggers over. “Well, lookie see who's here—Inspector Roooeeeez. I hear all sorts of stories about you. I hear your wife is banging someone else—his dick, her pussy, making whoopee. I'd be pretty pissed if I caught my missus shagging her boss. For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, isn't that what they say? No mention there of giving it up for the firm's accountant.”

My jaw clenches and I feel the red mist descending.

Eddie takes a step back. “Yeah, that's the temper I heard so much about. Have fun in court.”

I know he's winding me up. That's what Eddie does—gets under people's skin, looking for the softest flesh.

Spectators are crammed into the public gallery and there are three full rows of press, including four sketch artists. The furnishings and fittings predate microphones and recording equipment so cables snake across the floor, pinned beneath masking tape.

I look around for Rachel, hoping she might be here. Instead I see Aleksei, who is watching me as though waiting for me to instantly disintegrate. To his left is the Russian and to the right a young black man with loose limbs and liquid eyes.

The Rook adjusts his horsehair wig and glances across at his adversary, Fiona Hanley, QC, a handsome woman, who reminds me of my second wife, Jessie, who has the same cool detachment and honey-colored eyes. Miss Hanley is busy shuffling papers and rearranging box files as though creating a mini-fortress around her. She turns and gives me an uncertain smile as though we might have met somewhere before (only about a dozen times).

“All rise.”

Lord Connelly, the Chief Justice, enters and pauses, surveying the courtroom as though keeping watch over the pearly gates. He sits. Everybody sits.

Howard Wavell appears next, climbing the stairs into the dock. Gape-mouthed and gray, with his hair hanging limply across his forehead, he has a vague, forgetful frown as though he's lost his bearings. Eddie whispers something to him and they laugh. I'm seeing conspiracies everywhere.

Campbell thinks this has been Howard's plan from the very beginning. The ransom demand, the lock of Mickey's hair, her bikini—all were part of an elaborate hoax designed to cast doubt on his conviction and set him free.

I don't buy it because it begs the same question that Joe keeps asking me: Why wait three years?

Lord Connelly adjusts a lumbar cushion behind his back and clears his throat. He spends a moment studying the courtroom ceiling and begins.

“I have studied the defense submissions regarding the original trial of Mr. Wavell. While I am willing to agree with several of the points raised about the trial judge's summing up, on balance I don't feel they altered the outcome of the jury's deliberations. However, I am willing to hear oral arguments. Are you ready to proceed, Mr. Raynor?”

The Rook is on his feet, pushing his black gown along his forearms. “Yes, Your Honor, I will be seeking to introduce fresh evidence.”

“Does this evidence address the grounds for appeal or the original offense?”

“The original offense.”

Miss Hanley objects. “Your Honor, my learned friend seems intent on rerunning this trial even before being granted leave to appeal. We have been given a witness list with two dozen names. Surely he doesn't intend calling them all.”

Lord Connelly looks at the list.

The Rook clarifies the situation. “It may be that we call only one witness, Your Honor. It very much depends upon what he has to say.”

“I hope you're not embarking on a fishing expedition, Mr. Raynor.”

“No, Your Honor, I can assure you that's not the case. I wish to call the Detective Inspector who was in charge of the original investigation into the disappearance of Michaela Carlyle.”