Find Them Dead

22 Friday 3 May

Many criminal law barristers worked long hours for a relatively modest living, frequently alternating between prosecuting and defending. But some, like Primrose Brown, had carved a niche for themselves through winning high-profile trials for their clients against the odds — clients who were only too aware that no price was too steep to pay for freedom.

Brown was a QC — a Queen’s Counsel, or ‘silk’ as they were colloquially known — with an impressive track record. A short and ferociously bright woman of fifty-five, her fair hair pulled tightly and severely back and gripped by an ornate hairslide, she had a penchant for voluminous, sombre dresses, chunky jewellery and expensive shoes.

For many years Terence Gready had regularly entrusted clients to her when he needed the services of a QC, and they could afford her, and she seldom disappointed, either in the eye-watering size of her fees or in the evisceration of the prosecution’s case. At an age when many of her colleagues had opted for less stressful, but also less lucrative, positions as judges she had made the career decision to remain at the Bar, because she loved the work and was endlessly fascinated by the characters she encountered. But during these past months it was Gready himself who was now dependent on her skills of advocacy — and at the mercy of her fee notes.

At 11 a.m., seated opposite him at the metal table in the cramped, grotty interview room at Highdown Prison — away from his home patch of Brighton and Hove — Primrose Brown brought a rare dash of glamour into the numbing drabness of the place, Gready thought, and the fragrance of her scent made a welcome change to the cheesy ingrained smell in the room. To her left was her junior barrister, a smartly turned-out man in his late thirties called Crispin Sykes, who spoke little but had made copious notes at every meeting since Gready’s arrest. Primrose would not normally attend this type of meeting, leaving it to her junior counsel, but she had made an exception today due to her long history with Terence Gready.

To his left was Nick Fox. This was their last meeting before the trial.

Primrose Brown’s voice over the years had refined from a Yorkshire accent into London legal posh. But a trace of the gravelly North Country still remained. ‘I have to level with you, Terry, it’s not looking good,’ she said, peering at him through half-frame glasses.

And he wasn’t looking good, either, she thought. He’d lost weight and looked a decade older than when he’d first been incarcerated, just over five months ago. Prison did that to people, she was well aware; the diet, the drugs, the lack of fresh air — and perhaps all the other mental stuff, including loss of self-esteem, that went with the territory of being banged up. She’d met plenty of recidivists who looked twenty years older than their real age, but all the same she was shocked this change had happened so quickly.

‘Tell me about it, Prim,’ he said. ‘The police seized my laptop and phones. They took all the office computers, and the Law Society have closed me down. All my cases and colleagues have gone to other firms. In addition, all the proprietors of every takeaway I’ve helped set up, out of my community spirit, have suffered the indignity of being questioned, and it’s affected their trade for some months. Not to mention the effect this has had on my family.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said. ‘Luck doesn’t seem to be going our way on this case, at the moment. We’ve got Stephen Cork as lead prosecutor.’

Gready started at the mention of the name, as did everyone else in the room. ‘Shit,’ he said.

There were good and bad prosecutors, and Cork was renowned as one of the toughest. He was an experienced criminal barrister with a chip on his shoulder because he’d never become a QC. While training for the Bar, his pupil master had been disbarred for manipulating evidence — and while Cork had never been accused of taking part or having any knowledge, the taint of that episode had dogged him throughout his career. He blamed it as the reason why he had never taken silk.

Brown peered hard at her client. ‘Look, Terry, I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but you’ll understand why I have to.’ She gave him a quizzical look.

Gready shrugged. He sat on the hard chair opposite her, hunched but defiant. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Despite all your bank accounts being frozen, you’ve been able to come up with my original retainer, which was not insubstantial. You’ve met all my fees during these past months, and you’ve now been able to pay a further substantial retainer for my estimated fees for your trial. I need to know where this money has come from.’

‘It’s a loan from a mate who believes in my innocence,’ he said, guilelessly.

She glanced down at her files. ‘Mr Jonathan Jones, who resides in Panama?’

‘Yes. I helped him out years ago when he was in financial trouble. He’s since made a fortune in property out there and he’s repaying an old mate.’

Silently, she jotted down a note and slid the pad over to him for a signature. As soon as he had complied, she said, ‘Good, that’s out of the way. And my next question is, your instructions to me are that you still wish to proceed to trial having entered “not guilty” pleas on all counts, is that correct?’

He stared back at her levelly. ‘As I’ve maintained all along, Primrose, I’ve been fitted up. You understand better than most how much the police loathe us lawyers. Give them any opportunity to hit back and pot one of us and they’ll seize it with open arms. I’m a victim. An innocent victim. This is all a huge embarrassment for me.’

She glanced down and made another note, then looked back up at Gready and their eyes locked.

Her expression was deadpan, but there was the hint of humouring him in her bright blue eyes.

They both knew the score. Two pros. Fighting on the same side. No moral judgements. The trial that began next Tuesday in Court 3 of Lewes Crown Court, in Sussex, like all jury trials, was never going to be about delivering justice. It was going to be a game where personality ran roughshod over evidence. It was going to be about convincing twelve ordinary citizens that the family guy standing in the dock with a pleasant smile in the dark-blue suit and nice tie could not possibly be guilty of the allegations.

It was about those one or two words the foreperson would read out after the jury had retired to deliberate their verdict. Quite binary, really.

Guilty.

Not guilty.

Or in a barrister’s more colloquial terms –

Win.

Lose.

Fox remained behind after Brown and her junior barrister left the room. He gave Gready a reassuring smile. ‘We’ll sort it, Terry,’ he said.

‘What’s the update on Mickey Starr?’

‘No news — a lot depends on the outcome of your trial. If you were found guilty — heaven forbid — you’d both be sentenced together.’

‘And he’s kept schtum?’

‘Appears to have done. He doesn’t feature in any of the trial documents. Want him as a character reference?’

‘Funny,’ Gready said, bitterly.

Fox was silent.

Gready went on. ‘You said a while back he’s looking at the wrong end of fifteen years plus?’

Fox nodded again. ‘For that amount of drugs, yes, plus his violence at Newhaven. He’d likely serve half actually inside, less what he’s done already on remand, the rest out on licence.’

‘How much reduction do you think he’d get for ratting me up?’

The solicitor was evasive. ‘Depends. You know the score, Terry, you’ve been in that situation with clients yourself.’

‘I know — but I’m finding it hard to think straight sometimes, at the moment. Depends on what?’

‘On how valuable the prosecution thinks what he has to say is. He could be looking at a substantial reduction in sentence.’

Gready smiled. It was a while since he had last smiled. But Nick Fox would sort it, he knew. They had their plan. King of the Jungle. He always sorted everything.