Suspicious Minds

Chapter Three

Queen Victoria was still not amused. Her black statue frowned down at Harry from beneath its green cupola as he walked across Derby Square. He winked at the monarch on his way to the Law Courts, a gesture misinterpreted by a woman strolling in the opposite direction. She hurried off, as if convinced that she was about to become The Beast’s latest victim, causing Harry a qualm of guilt. But as he pushed through the revolving doors of the court building, he couldn’t help whistling a Beatles’ song from the days before the Cavern became a car park: “Love Me Do.”

Once on the first floor he followed the corridor which led to the rooms reserved for lawyers. Pleasure flooded through him as he turned the last corner and saw Valerie Kaiwar, deep in conversation with Quentin Pike.

“At least justice has been done,” she was saying.

“In that case, appeal at once,” said Harry lightly. “Hello Quentin, saved another criminal from punishment?”

“Thanks to Miss Kaiwar here. A most capable piece of advocacy, in my opinion.” Pike beamed. He looked more like Billy Bunter with every year that passed, but remained one of the city’s shrewdest solicitors. Harry was conscious of being scrutinised by porcine, bespectacled eyes.

“Congratulations,” said Harry. “But don’t let that fool you, Valerie. He’ll haggle over your next brief fee just as if your man had been sent to the gallows.”

“I was representing a woman, actually,” said Valerie Kaiwar. Her tone was not sarcastic: simply flat, as if the strain of pleading on her client’s behalf had drained the strength from her frail body. “Accused of sticking a pair of kitchen scissors into her boyfriend’s stomach. The fact that he’d beaten her black and blue for years, put her in hospital twice, didn’t enter into it as far as the police were concerned.”

“Typical chauvinism,” said Harry. But as soon as he spoke, he knew he had struck the wrong note. Val was still keyed up, not in the mood for swapping poor jokes.

Pike sensed it too. “I’ll be off, then. Many thanks once again, Miss Kaiwar. A splendid performance.”

With a wave of his pudgy hand he was gone. Harry turned to the woman. The severe black and white of her professional uniform complemented her honey-coloured skin. Something about her smooth high-boned cheeks made him want to touch them. But now wasn’t the time or place. Instead he asked her about the day’s events in court.

“Probation,” she said, brushing a wisp of black hair off her face. “A good result in the circumstances. Though I’d bet a pound to a penny that before the year’s out she’s living with the brute again. Some women never learn.”

Harry thought briefly of his dead wife, of how he had yearned for Liz even after years of drifting apart from her, even after learning of her infidelity, sometimes even now, almost eighteen months after her violent death. Some men, too, never learned.

But he simply said, “Going back to chambers? I’ll come with you, carry your papers.”

They walked together through the commercial centre of Liverpool without speaking. He could tell she was re-living the battle she had fought and won, getting the tension of the case out of her system in readiness for tomorrow’s brush against the cobwebs of justice. For his part, Harry thought of telling her about his morning with Stirrup, confiding his uncertainty about Alison’s fate. But it would keep until the evening. He had in mind a meal at the flat and the previous day had bought a vegetarian cook book especially to cater to her tastes. He was normally a microwave man, and he preferred red meat to lentils any day, but the plan was to wash everything down with plenty of wine and see how things developed from there.

Now and then passers-by gave them a second, curious glance. In the dying years of the century, some people still seemed to think it strange to see a white man in the company of a dark-skinned woman. And Valerie and he were an odd couple in more ways than one. She was small, delicate and smart, with a burning determination implicit in every step she took along the street. Harry was solidly built and shambling in his gait. No onlooker would doubt for an instant which of the two of them knew the way ahead.

At a news-stand he picked up the early evening edition of one of the local papers and glanced at the front page. beast strikes again shrieked the headline. By his side, Valerie made a hissing noise through her teeth.

“What kind of society is it where the women aren’t safe to walk through a park in daylight?”

“How would you feel,” he asked gently, “about defending the culprit when he’s finally caught?”

He heard a sharp intake of breath, as if she were about to explode with rage at the very idea. But no words came. He could tell that she was confronting the prospect: how one day her unshakable faith in the sanctity of the defence lawyer’s role might commit her to pleading on behalf of a man who had repeatedly violated young women.

Valerie’s chambers were in Balliol Court, off Rumford Street. A brass plate by the door listed the dozen members of Mr. Arnold Lloyd-Makinson’s set. Her name was the most recent addition. Inside, the mustard-tiled walls reminded Harry of public conveniences built pre-war. The lift had a metal cage and looked as if its next journey might be its last. He and Valerie had a tacit agreement that they would walk up the stairs.

A sad-faced woman sat in reception, reading a pamphlet about the law on divorce. Valerie led Harry into the senior clerk’s room, where the business of chambers was done. David Base stood by his desk, cradling a receiver against his neck and simultaneously tossing a peppermint up and down with his free hand whilst he assured an anxious solicitor that the papers being chased would be ready tomorrow. To back up his promise, a young girl at the opposite desk pounded an aged Remington with more gusto than skill.

Valerie gave David the thumbs-up sign and gestured to Harry to deposit the papers he was carrying on the floor by the main desk. The clerk hung up and flipped the sweet into his mouth with a casual flourish.

“Not an easy man to please, Mr Fingall. So — another success, Miss Kaiwar?”

She smiled, the first unstrained expression Harry had seen from her that afternoon. “The legal aid fund had value for money, I think. And haven’t I warned you those wretched peppermints will rot your teeth? Anything new come in?”

“A County Court claim in Runcorn.” David Base was still in his twenties, but his manner was as discreet as that of a veteran civil servant. Nevertheless, his thoughtful face yielded a hint of sympathy. “A matter concerning a soiled carpet.”

“Marshall Hall never had to put up with this.”

“The case has more twists than a Berber,” the clerk assured her solemnly. “And you never know, it might lead on to greater things.”

“A dispute over an Axminster, you mean?”

The three of them laughed. Harry regarded most barristers’ clerks as the professional equivalent of used car salesmen, flogging the services of clapped-out Rumpoles with mendacious protestations of faith in their performance. But he felt in David Base’s debt.

A few weeks earlier, Crusoe and Devlin had sent a brief on a Crown Court trial to one of the middle-ranking barristers in chambers, only to be told at the last minute that the chosen advocate was unavailable because one of his cases had overrun. David had offered as a substitute a young woman new in chambers called Valerie Kaiwar. Accustomed to last minute let-downs, Harry had feared the worst. Usually some wet-behind-the-ears kid would foul up a winnable case, earning experience at the luckless client’s expense. To Harry’s amazement, Valerie not only mastered the papers overnight, but also achieved an acquittal, to the chagrin of the prosecutor presenting the case against the light-fingered accused.

Afterwards, Harry had chatted with her over coffee. She talked animatedly, using her hands to emphasise the points she made. Justice, integrity and principles were words she often used, though sometimes with a cutting irony. Her pride in her performance and her instinctive sympathy for the underdog were worthy enough. But what entranced Harry was the passion invested in everything she did or said, from her mimicry of her opponent’s lacklustre closing speech to the way her eyes shone with pleasure when he complimented her on a job well done. Unlike the second-rate advocates whom he encountered day after day, trudging round the courts like sleepwalkers, she was not simply in it for money or security, but because what mattered most to her was fighting for a cause.

At first sight they had nothing in common. She came from a wealthy background; her old man was a Ugandan Asian who had been kicked out by Idi Amin only to settle in the North West of England and make a fortune by building up a chain of cut-price supermarkets. She had read law at Somerville and learned the art of public speaking by arguing for radical motions before chinless sceptics at the Oxford Union. Harry had been born in Liverpool’s bandit country, within spitting distance of Scotland Road. He’d lost his parents in his teens and Liz through murder after a short failed marriage. Yet at least he and Valerie shared a questioning mind. To say nothing of an addiction to film noir.

One thing led to another. Dinner at the Ensenada, an afternoon spent wandering around the Maritime Museum. Neither of them wanted to push the relationship too fast, too soon. They had kissed long and hard a couple of nights back after watching the original version of D.O.A. at a city film club, but that was all. So far.

“Hello, Valerie. Triumphed again?”

Julian Hamer had emerged from his room. Harry could forgive the barrister’s Charles Dance looks and Charterhouse and Cambridge charm, because Hamer never posed or patronised. With his easy manner and sharp mind he was a difficult man to dislike. But not impossible, for he fancied Valerie. Harry felt sure of that: something in the way Hamer spoke to her stretched beyond an established man’s courtesy to a colleague a dozen years younger.

“Another fine result, Mr. Hamer,” confirmed David Base.

“Did she make old Kermincham wake up, Harry? Poor old devil, he’s been on the bench so long I’m surprised he hasn’t got piles. Tell us about it, Valerie.”

The warmth of her smile made Harry itch with irritation.

“Some other time, perhaps. Right now I have a case to get up.”

Hamer nodded. He seemed tired for once: lines of fatigue edged the corners of his eyes. Starting to look his age, Harry thought with a stab of malice. In days gone by — and especially in the midst of tedious trials — he’d wondered idly about Hamer’s sexual preferences. For someone so smooth to escape marriage for so long must say as much about his instincts as his luck. But now Harry was gloomily convinced that his rival was a bachelor, gay only in the most traditional sense.

“First things first. See you later then.”

“Sure.”

Did they exchange a glance of complicity? Whenever he saw Valerie in Hamer’s presence Harry had the sense of a secret shared, from which he was excluded. He told himself not to be paranoid.

Valerie set off down the passageway. Feeling awkward, Harry followed. He wanted to talk to her alone, but realised that now was not a good time. Perhaps tonight would be better, when she had shaken off the courtroom blues.

She occupied a corner of the building more akin to a cupboard than a room. The shelf running along the rear wall overhung the chair behind her desk. A taller woman would have cracked her head if she rose to her feet without ducking.

He cleared his throat, embarrassed by his own nervousness. “I was wondering — would you like to come round to the flat tonight?”

She considered him from under long black lashes.

“I can’t make it tonight, Harry. Sorry. But — I’ve got things to do. You know how it is.”

Although spoken kindly, the words slapped him. He realised how much he’d been counting on her saying yes. He told himself he didn’t own her, and there would be other nights, but he felt a boy’s frustration at the denial of a longed-for treat.

“Okay.”

Something in his tone prompted her to stretch a hand across the desk and touch his fingers. “Maybe tomorrow, how about that?”

He tried to look don’t-careish. “Shall I give you a call?”

“Please.”

There was a short pause. He wasn’t certain whether she intended to say anything else. Finally he stood up. “All right then, Val. I’ll leave you to your carpet.”

“Thanks so much for coming back with me.”

“The pleasure was mine.”

On the way out, he stopped again at David’s desk and asked if he could use the phone.

“Feel free.” The clerk flicked a peppermint into the air with elaborate top-spin and caught it nonchalantly between two fingers. “If only England’s wicket-keeper could do the same, eh? Heard the news about the Test team, by any chance?”

Harry shook his head. “When England plays the West Indies, ignorance is bliss.”

He dialled Stirrup’s direct line. Propped next to the handset was a framed photograph of a pretty blonde girl. David’s fiancee, Valerie had explained the other day. Harry thought again about The Beast, who threatened the safety of so many girls like her. When would the man be caught?

“Jack? I’ve checked and the diary’s clear. If the offer’s still open, I’d be glad to see you this evening after all.”

Stirrup was hearty. “I’ll ring young Claire, tell her to put the oven on, roll out the red carpet. You’ve not seen the new place yet, have you? Just make sure the charging meter’s switched off before you arrive, all right?”

“I’ll see you at half-eight.”

He put down the receiver. “Good win for Valerie today,” he said to the clerk. Something prompted him to add, “Especially picking up the brief at the last minute.”

David Base glanced up from his paperwork. “Today’s case? The stabbing? No, you must be thinking of something else. Windaybanks instructed her a long time ago. Mr. Pike admires Miss Kaiwar as much as you do.”

“My mistake.”

But as Harry went down the stairs he knew he had not misunderstood. Yesterday, when turning down his offer of a visit to the Everyman, Valerie had said she’d been landed with a new brief for a case today. She’d even thrown in a moan about Quentin Pike’s lack of consideration; she would have to sacrifice her evening to mug up all the facts. He felt sickened by the silly little lie. Sicker still that he could guess the reason for it.