Babyface. Elizabeth Woodcraft

trailing wire and a BBC logo on their camera, and two journalists who looked more dishevelled than I did. They were almost professionally crumpled, as if how to wear baggy corduroy was something they had learned on their media studies courses. The journalists eagerly wrote down every word as the Chair of the panel introduced the panel members, a senior social worker from Sussex, a childcare expert from a Scottish university, and himself, Henry Curston QC. I vaguely recognised him. He was something auspicious at the Bar Council and his face had been in Counsel magazine on one or two occasions.

      The BBC crew moved away from the panel and directed their attention to the legal representatives. As the TV camera panned round towards me, I put down my pen and bent confidentially towards my neighbour and began talking earnestly about the weather.

      He looked at me with disdain, then turned firmly away from me and spoke to the person on his left.

      The camera panned away. The Chair bent across the table, looking questioningly from side to side, murmuring to his colleagues. The journalists craned forward excitedly, their pens poised, waiting for some details, some hint of the dreadful stories to come, to thrill their readers, to please their editors, to make their mark, then sank back despondently as the panel nodded to each other and rose and left the room. The press conference was over and the press disappeared like grease spots when you squirt Fairy Liquid into the washing-up bowl. The lawyers pushed back their chairs, picked up their pigskin bags and, laughing and joking with each other as if they’d all been friends for years, filed out of the door. I was left packing my notebooks into my non-pigskin bag. I didn’t want them to like me, I didn’t want them to be my friends, but I felt loneliness lapping at my ankles.

      ‘The chair has asked me to say we’re starting at ten thirty tomorrow morning.’ Catherine Delahaye had stepped back into the room. I looked round to see who she was talking to. It was me. I just stopped myself throwing my arms round her neck. She took out a sheet of paper from a plastic folder. ‘I thought it would be useful if I circulated a list of all the legal representatives’ phone numbers, so I can be in touch if anything crops up. Especially people from out of town.’

      ‘Do you mean here, or in London?’ I took the sheet of paper which was divided with two meticulously ruled lines.

      ‘Both.’

      I tugged a pen out of my jacket pocket and, with what I hoped was a friendly grin, enthusiastically scribbled Julie’s number in Birmingham and my number in London. I didn’t give her the number for my mobile as I never switched it on, and I had recently become aware that the ringing tone didn’t always work.

      She slid the list back into the plastic folder. She was obviously from the Miss Neatly Organised school of advocacy and I reminded myself sharply that, like a pupil on her first day at a new school, I must beware of making friends with the first person who wants to play with me. I went back to rearranging my notebooks, when I heard Catherine Delahaye’s resigned, ‘Oh, hello.’

      A young man who looked about sixteen with short brown hair and small rimless glasses, his tie at a forty-five degree angle to his collar, approached me, with his hand out, saying breathlessly, ‘Hello, I’m Adam Owen. You’re…?’

      ‘Frankie Richmond, yes, hi.’ My heart sank. This child was my solicitor. What would he know? How could he help me? Had I imagined it or had he done a double take when he saw me? Perhaps it was just a guilty start. He was late after all.

      He looked round the room. ‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed it haven’t I? The senior partner even let me drive one of the cars to get here. I’m meant to be getting as much publicity for the firm as I can. I’m really, really sorry.’

      I shook my head.

      ‘One of our clients had a crisis, social services were threatening to take her son into care, I’ve just spent an hour at her house, trying to reason with them. And they’ve got dogs,’ he said, looking down at his trousers. As he got closer I could see white dog hairs from knee to ankle. He followed my glance. ‘I wouldn’t mind but they were only about six inches high, they just bounced a lot.’ He looked round the room. ‘Did anything happen?’

      It was four o’clock. ‘Let’s go and have a drink and I’ll tell you what you missed,’ I said. ‘While you pick dog hairs off your trousers.’

      He grinned. ‘And that way I don’t have to go back to the office. Perfect. And if you’re good, I’ll let you pick off the dog hairs.’

      ‘Now then,’ I said.

      

      We walked out of the room as a couple appeared at the top of the stairs into the lobby. I thought hard, this was … yes, Mr and Mrs Springer. They had been at the one conference I’d had with my clients. Mr Springer was my actual client, but it was his wife whose face was working with indignation. Today, as on the day of the conference, she was wearing a thick sheepskin coat, which she held tightly round herself with thin, red hands. I noticed that her wedding ring was too big for her finger, slipping back and forth to her knuckle.

      ‘I told them not to come,’ Adam muttered to me, as we advanced with apology on our faces.

      Gregory Springer sank into himself, shaking his head and telling us not to worry, so sorry to be troublesome. Mrs Springer looked around angrily, as if expecting to catch a glimpse of the other clients, hiding behind pillars or in the stairwell. ‘Why shouldn’t we come?’ she asked.

      ‘When I rang them, most people decided they didn’t want to be photographed,’ Adam said.

      ‘Our story has a right to be heard,’ she said. ‘There’s been too much whitewashing already.’

      ‘The press may well be here tomorrow,’ I said. ‘They do want to hear what people have to say. But Mr Springer, I thought you had decided not to give oral evidence.’

      ‘Yes, well, he’s still considering his position.’ Mrs Springer spoke before her husband could answer. ‘Come on Gregory,’ she said. ‘I took the afternoon off work for this.’

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, ‘but we’ll see you tomorrow morning.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Mr Springer, as his wife said, ‘Maybe.’

      

      Adam knew a tapas bar behind the inquiry building. We dashed the last ten yards as it started to rain and immediately ordered some tortilla and patatas bravas (egg and chips) to make up for the lunch I hadn’t had, and a bottle of red, oaky wine to make up for everything.

      ‘Nice shirt,’ I said, looking at the crisp pink creases as he shook off his jacket and hung it over a chair.

      He laughed, embarrassed. ‘I cycle to work, and we’re usually quite casual in the office, but I didn’t think … you … would go for lycra.’

      He said he had rung chambers again this morning as soon as he had learned of the press conference, and left a message. So it wasn’t that the victims were being victimised before the inquiry started, or that my solicitor was hopeless, it was just chambers being useless and failing to ring me, probably Gavin not wanting another earful about Simon’s case. I made a mental note to speak to Gavin.

      In any event it made me feel happier about Adam, so I could relax, and because we had the time, discuss the other lawyers. Adam ran through the list of representatives. Because the abuse had happened twenty years before, not everyone who had worked at Haslam Hall was going to be represented. The perpetrators, the five men whose names had been given to the police, were in prison. Some of the other staff could not be found, one or two had died, and a few simply wanted to forget it had happened.

      But David Wyatt, the man who had been principal of the home at the time of the abuse, was being represented. He had not been charged with any offence and was now, it said in his statements, anxious to help the inquiry. His solicitor was Mr Frodsham, who from Adam’s description was the man I had attempted to swap meteorological niceties with earlier. Frodsham worked for Stiversons, Adam told me – the Carter Ruck of Birmingham – an old firm situated in a narrow alley off Corporation Street. Six