Elizabeth Woodcraft - Babyface

My fax machine had stopped. Ten pages had come through from Gavin. Ten of ten. That didn’t seem a lot for a tricky murder, but if Simon felt that was enough then it must be enough. I glanced at the back sheet and realised that Gavin had failed to mention that the instructing solicitor in Simon’s case was Kay Davidson. I wondered if he had done it deliberately. I thought of ringing him to ask, but I knew that the answer would probably irritate me. Kay was one of Gavin’s favourite solicitors. The fact that she was an ex of mine was only a minor complication. Anyway, apart from a brief phonecall after the hearing tomorrow morning to let her know the outcome, I wouldn’t need to have any contact with her, which was probably best for all of us.

I shovelled the new papers and the huge brief for the inquiry into a second bag, threw in an alarm clock, and my packing was finished. I glanced round the living room and reluctantly I carried two empty wine glasses and a used coffee mug into the kitchen. Then I picked up three old copies of the Guardian from the sofa, straightened the rug in front of the fireplace, and, having switched on the timer that worked the two lamps, I left.

TWOBirmingham

Of course I didn’t miss the rush hour at all. Well, I missed it for a bit, but my car, an L-reg Renault, was taking it steady, so that by the time I got to the turn off for Luton Airport and was wishing I’d brought my passport, as I always do on that stretch of road, the rush hour caught up with me and stayed by my side, jostling and pushing, till we got past Watford Gap.

I arrived at Julie’s redbrick terraced house in Selly Oak at eight o’clock. Marnie, her fifteen-year-old daughter, answered the door. Ever since she was eleven I have been surprised each time I see her by the growing maturity of her appearance. She kissed me effusively then went back across the room to watch the TV. I made my way through the living room to the back of the house.

Julie was in the kitchen, looking at a pizza in the oven. You could tell Julie and I were blood relatives, neither of us liked cooking.

She hugged me and suggested I take my things up to my room before supper. ‘Marnie!’ she called, ‘show Frankie where everything is.’

Marnie stomped ahead of me up the narrow, dark staircase to the first floor, and then up another flight to the loft, the room that was to be my home away from home for as long as the inquiry lasted.

‘It’s great,’ I said. I hadn’t seen it since Julie had converted it into an extra room. Pale wooden floorboards, white walls and a television standing on a chest of drawers. I didn’t need anything else. I knew I would be happy here. At one end of the room was the bed, with a duvet in a royal-blue cotton cover. ‘That goes into a sofa,’ Marnie said, following my gaze. ‘And there’s this lamp.’ She switched on a small white lamp with a bendy neck. ‘That was mine,’ she said, with a trace of bitterness.

‘Well, I was intending to bring up some stuff of my own next week,’ I said, quickly. ‘Including a couple of lamps.’

She thought for a moment. ‘What if I like yours more than mine?’ she said.

‘We can swap,’ I said. ‘Thanks for a great guided tour, I think I can hear the TV calling you.’

In a second she had slipped out of the room.

As well as the futon there was a good-sized table and a sensible office chair, beside which stood an empty bookcase. I imagined the shelves filled with a few of my favourite books, looking colourful and interesting. My cassette player would fit just nicely on the bottom shelf. I turned to the clock radio by the bed and fiddled with the dial. Having found the easy rhythm of ‘The Way You Do the Things You Do’ I fell back onto the bed. With my hands behind my head and the Temptations harmonising gently round the room I felt content, and I had a sense that my problems were sorting themselves out.

My practice and my bank balance might actually improve as a result of doing this inquiry, which in turn could lead to a new car and some new clothes. And then, looking sleek and successful and driving a shiny new vehicle, I would inexorably start a rich and satisfying relationship, filled with passion, good music and true love. A relationship of my own, not sharing with anyone, not thinking mixed and angry thoughts about Kay, or just falling for the wrong kind of gal – although who could resist a woman singing soft and sexy love songs, in a red sequin dress with curves and high-heel shoes … ?

I was beginning to get maudlin, I could feel it, and the Four Tops were reminding me that they were ‘Standing in the Shadows of Love’. I jumped off the bed to unpack.

I laid my two briefs in neat piles on the bed. The brief in Simon’s case was small and narrow. I had wrapped it in a piece of the pink ribbon which grows at the bottom of all my work bags. It wouldn’t take long to read. I’d do it after supper.

My inquiry brief was enormous, but I’d read most of it. I skimmed through the latest thoughts of my inquiry clients. They had met as a group on their own several times, they had written letters, they had even organised demonstrations. Now they wanted some legal action, and they wanted to get started.

I made a few notes on matters I should raise with them tomorrow afternoon – whether they were still anxious to put our case first, double check exactly who wanted to give evidence, whether we should ask for a view of Haslam Hall, and remind them what the procedure at the inquiry was likely to be.

Then I closed my notebook and followed the smell of burning pizza down to the small dining room. Julie, Marnie and I sat round the square utility table covered in maroon oilskin, by the window that looked out over the side passage at the back of the house where Julie had hung pots of geraniums. Marnie ate her Hawaiian with extra caramelised pineapple in silence, sighing loudly from time to time, as Julie and I exchanged family gossip, mainly about our mothers, who were sisters.

When Julie said to me, ‘Your hair looks nice,’ Marnie looked at me and then back at Julie.

‘It’s just like yours,’ she said to her mother.

Julie’s hair was short at the back and had a floppy fringe that skimmed her eyebrows.

‘Your hair is really nice,’ I said to Julie.

Marnie tutted in disgust and stroked her own hair, which was pulled back from her face in a thick golden-brown ponytail.

As soon as she had finished her pizza she excused herself and slid back into the living room. Julie made tea and as we sat at the table, talking about GCSEs and the last time Julie had been out on her own and what films were on in town, I felt the comfort and security of staying somewhere with other people to talk to and discuss articles in the Guardian with. The words to ‘We are Family’ drifted through my head. I shook myself and made a mental note to be alert for further signs of the family vortex thing. So easy to slip into, so hard to climb out of.

It was a quarter to eleven when I sat cross-legged on the bed and began to read through the papers in Simon’s case. If I had done it earlier I might have rung Gavin back and shouted ‘Be serious!’ and laughed maniacally down the phone. Of course Gavin knows how I work, so he deliberately faxed me the papers just as I was leaving. He calculated how long it would take me to get to Birmingham, unpack, have something to eat, an hour or so of chat with my cousin, and bingo, it’s eleven o’clock and far too late to return the brief. I felt like ringing him up and laughing maniacally down the phone anyway.

For a start it quickly became clear that I had nowhere near enough papers. The ten sheets of paper that had come through my machine included the fax letter, and also the back sheet to the brief, which in terms of legal importance is the equivalent of an envelope. To attend court to sort out the final directions for a trial, which I read was listed to last for three weeks, I had eight pages of information. Kay is a very good solicitor and her instructions, dense and informative, ran to six pages. But she had obviously prepared the brief for tomorrow morning’s hearing thinking Simon was doing it; Simon who had had days to read everything.