Beyond Reasonable Doubt by Gary Bell

Author:Gary Bell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526606143
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-05-03T10:27:18+00:00

21

I left Zara at the cramped, overcrowded house she shared in Brixton, where kids were sitting outside smoking, dressed in the paisley linen garb of backpackers, despite it being a Thursday afternoon. It reminded me of the homeless crowd at the Bullring in the eighties.

I told her to take tomorrow off, to rest, and then come back fresh on Monday. Still painfully hung-over, she seemed grateful for the offer.

I planned to make the trip into chambers as brief as possible, drawn by the thought of my own bed waiting nearby, so I raced the stairs up to the fourth floor, pretending not to see Percy hailing me from the clerks’ room below, and blundered into Rupert’s office.

It proved a total waste of energy.

The latch had barely caught behind me when a brusque knock rattled the door, bouncing it back open, and Charles Stein pushed his head in through the gap. From his desperate panting, I could only assume that he’d been at my heel up every flight.

‘Something wrong with your phone, Rook?’ he wheezed, eyes on my tattered golf shoes.

‘At least fifty things I can think of,’ I said, collapsing into my usual wingback, and pulled the ridiculously dated flip phone out of my pocket for effect.

Straight faces all round. ‘Well, I need a word after you’re done here with Mr Stubbs, if it isn’t too much trouble.’

Rupert was standing by the windows, dressed in a bow tie and polka-dot braces, which he pulled at with both thumbs while watching me down his strong nose. ‘Might I ask what it’s about?’

‘Certainly!’ Stein said, clearly hoping he might, and pushed his way into the office, closing the door behind him. ‘Perhaps you’ll be able to offer some outside opinion on whether or not I’m being unreasonable here.’

‘By all means,’ Rupert said drily, welcoming him into the room with a sweep of his arm.

In the emerald lamplight, Stein looked almost as rough as I felt, his characteristically slick chestnut hair frayed, tie hanging lower than usual over his enormous gut. ‘Did you know already, Rook? Tell me you didn’t know before you roped me into this.’

I shrugged, batting back and forth between the two of them. ‘Know what?’

‘Am I right to assume,’ Rupert interjected, beginning to pace in his brogues, ‘that this is regarding the fraud case you are working on together?’

‘Together?’ Stein raised his eyebrows. ‘The generosity, our newest silk, inviting me onto this train wreck! Twenty-eight solicitors accused of systematic fraud, of robbing the legal aid fund blind, and yet they can’t even prove between themselves whether half of their clients exist, let alone account for the hundreds of thousands of hours they’ve billed them for. The summaries alone come to 150 pages of evidence!’

‘Summaries I produced out of seventeen tonnes of paperwork,’ I reminded him. ‘You’re welcome to start over, if it doesn’t meet your high standard, of course.’

‘Don’t be facetious,’ Rupert rebuked, and Stein pursed his lips.

‘Did you know about the mask?’

I glanced into the corner; Rupert’s full-bottomed wig stared back at me, always judging.

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