Babyface. Elizabeth Woodcraft

I was bruised and battered, I needed to lick my wounds, not go three more rounds with Danny Richards.

      I looked over at him. He grinned and winked. Oh no.

      He inclined his head towards the back of the dock, wanting me to go down to the cells. I walked over to the dock. ‘Have you got a minute?’ he said.

      ‘Not really. Can’t it wait? Can’t you tell Simon?’ I emphasised the word Simon, to remind him where his future lay. I was not getting any further involved in this case.

      ‘No, it can’t, this is important stuff,’ he murmured so I had to strain towards him to hear. ‘I enjoyed that, though.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘I was right, you are.’

      I frowned.

      ‘Just like a Jack Russell.’

      

      Roseanna and I stood outside the door leading to the cells. Each of us held our wig in one hand and a pile of papers in the other. As we waited for a jailer to let us in Roseanna said, ‘I’m sorry I tugged your arm.’

      ‘I’m glad you did. I don’t know what more I might have made up if you hadn’t. What do you think he’ll do?’

      ‘I don’t know. Probably nothing, he’s too lazy. Have you got time for coffee after this?’ she asked.

      ‘I can’t.’ I pressed the bell again. ‘I’m starting an inquiry this afternoon and I’ve got to meet my solicitor who says a load more papers arrived last night.’ Chambers had rung me at Julie’s this morning.

      ‘Oh, you’re in the abuse inquiry,’ she said.

      ‘There’s more than one inquiry?’

      ‘There’s the environmental one, that’s been going a couple of weeks, and the abuse one.’

      ‘Well, then yes, I suppose I’m in the abuse one.’

      ‘Everybody from here to Leicester has been after at least one inquiry brief. All that lovely money. I thought in the end that it was mostly solicitors doing the representation in the Haslam Hall case.’

      ‘I’m representing the victims,’ I said.

      ‘Oh, you have the poisoned chalice,’ she said. ‘Good luck.’

      ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said.

      ‘No, no, I’m being unfair,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’ll get on well with everyone. Are you staying up or are you commuting?’

      ‘I’m staying at my cousin’s in Selly Oak,’ I said.

      ‘Well, keep in touch,’ she said. ‘I’m at Bournville Chambers.’ She pulled a card out of her bag. ‘If you fancy a drink or dinner one night, just give me a call. I don’t want you to think that all the legal profession up here are unfriendly oafs.’

      ‘Don’t worry, despite what I said in court, unfriendly oafs are, unfortunately, everywhere,’ I said. ‘But thanks, that’s great. I’ll take you up on that offer.’

      The door was opened and we were directed into separate rooms to await our clients.

      

      Danny Richards came in humming. He grinned at me. ‘I think you got under old Norman’s skin there for a bit.’

      I looked at him.

      He danced over to his chair. He was light on his feet. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I just wanted to say, and you can pass this on, I may or may not change my plea. If Catcher’s fighting it, I might as well go the distance. It’ll put the wind up him for me to go not guilty. But I don’t want anyone taking any trouble, all that cross-examination of prosecution witnesses. I don’t want any of that.’ He held my gaze. He sighed. ‘Some things just have to follow their natural course.’

      ‘Maybe so, but you’ve got some natural points to make. The fact that the argument you had with Terry Fleming was so long ago. They can’t rely on that.’

      ‘Fortunately for you, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And nor do most people round here. People do things, other things happen. It’s the way of the world. All right? What will be, will be.’

      ‘Is that meant to be religion?’

      ‘I thought it was Doris Day. Whatever. Call it what you like, it’s realism, anyway.’

      I was too bedraggled from my voyage under HHJ Norman’s skin to argue. Danny Richards leaned back in his chair and, from his trouser pocket, drew out the packet of cigarettes I had given him. He kept humming as he took out a cigarette and lit it.

      Unusually the jailer appeared at the door. He didn’t even look at me. ‘You’ve got a visitor,’ he said to Danny.

      I could have ignored the interruption, but I feared that if I stayed, Danny might really start to like me. I stood up and said goodbye.

      ‘Don’t say goodbye,’ he said, ‘say “so long.” ’

      ‘Mr Richards,’ I said, ‘this is no longer my case.’ I remember saying it very clearly. And then I left the cells.

      As I took the lift back up to the Robing Room, I found myself humming Danny’s tune. I knew it, I knew I knew it. It was a seventies song, I was sure. Dum, dum, dum. A bit of a heart-catching voice. Dum de dum de dum, ‘Bad Company’! At least he had a sense of humour.

      But now I could forget Danny Richards and start to think about my inquiry, get myself into a different mode, relax. First of all divest myself of my robes. I slid my wig back into its tin and rolled up my gown. I looked at myself in the mirror. I would have worn a different shirt if I hadn’t had to robe. Something sharper, with a collar, more likely to impress my colleagues at the inquiry, although if what Roseanna had said was right, perhaps I should have just worn a suit of armour.

      As I walked out of the building into the hot, dry sunshine of the street, it was already half past eleven. A figure stepped in front of me and I took a step sideways to avoid her. She stepped with me and for a few seconds we swayed in a repetitive dance on the pavement. Finally I said, ‘Do you come here often?’

      ‘You’re Danny’s brief, aren’t you?’

      I thought back over my life as a barrister. Had there ever been a client called Danny?

      ‘Danny, Danny,’ I said, hoping that saying the name would bring an image to my mind.

      ‘Danny Richards,’ she said disdainfully. ‘He was your client this morning.’

      ‘OK,’ I said neutrally, hoping she thought my vagueness was actually a result of my duty of confidentiality.

      ‘I’m Yolande.’

      The name didn’t ring a bell, I wondered which part of his life she was involved in, in which volume of the brief I might have read about her, if I’d had all the papers.

      ‘Mmm,’ I said, cautiously.

      She was thin, blond and tanned. She had to be Danny Richards’ girlfriend. She looked tired, her face was lined, as if she’d spent too much time in the sun, and I was conscious that she was wearing a lot of gold jewellery. She looked like my idea of a gangster’s moll.

      ‘Have you got time for a coffee?’

      ‘I can’t talk to you about his case,’ I said. ‘I’m only here for the morning. You should get in touch with his solicitor.’

      ‘Oh her,’ she said, dismissively. ‘I don’t even know her. She’s only been on the case a week.’

      ‘Has she?’ I was surprised. The brief I didn’t have was obviously prepared in her usual meticulous style.

      ‘Two weeks,’ she amended.

      ‘Look, Mr Richards hasn’t said I can talk to you,’ I said, thinking he probably would have, if we’d got