Damaged Goods (17 page)

‘This lady will come to your house,’ said Penny, ‘and turf out all the stuff that doesn’t suit you.’

‘For a fee, of course,’ said the Australian.

Lilly picked up a cushion and rubbed the fur against her cheek. ‘Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more.’

The next hour passed slowly. Lilly tried to make her escape, but whenever she thought the coast was clear someone engaged her in conversation about property prices and collagen injections. She drank another three glasses of Pimms and ate an entire bowl of designer crisps.

She was starting to feel queasy and desperate.

If she could just reach her bag and back out of the room perhaps no one would notice.

‘Not leaving us, are you?’ the Australian boomed.

‘I’ve got a bit of work to do,’ said Lilly.

‘Haven’t you always,’ said Luella.

Lilly reddened. ‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘I just think it’s a little rude to rush off when Penny’s gone to so much trouble,’ she said. ‘After all, it’s not as if you do something like Christina.’

Lilly glanced at the hedge-fund manager now glued to her mobile and felt anger swelling. ‘I may not earn a fortune but I think what I do is pretty important. Certainly more important than having Ten Ton Tessa there tell me I can’t wear blue.’

‘If that’s how you feel I think you
should
go.’ Luella thrust Lilly’s bag towards her, and the momentum, coupled with an unhappy amount of alcohol, sent her off her feet. The contents flew into the air. Pens, pencils, chocolate wrappers and loose change showered down onto the crudités. Lilly scrabbled to collect them before stopping in her tracks. The autopsy report and pictures were strewn among the polyester, and Penny’s guests were rooted to the spot, each eye wide at the sight of Grace’s dead body on the mortuary slab.

With as much dignity as she could muster Lilly pushed past the Australian and picked up the photo. ‘I don’t know about you but I’d say she was an autumn.’

CHAPTER NINE

Tuesday, 15 September

Lilly woke early. Sam had crept into bed beside her at some point during the night and was still fast asleep. Lilly pushed his hair from his face and kissed his warm cheek, breathing in the delicious smell of her son.

She crept downstairs to fill the kettle and gazed out of the kitchen window while she waited for it to boil. The temperature had risen overnight but the air was still fresh at this early hour.

She sipped her coffee and watched the garden come to life.

Manor Park had an assessment day and Lilly had booked the day off work to spend with her son. There was nothing she could do for Kelsey since the prison would not let her visit without twenty-four hours’ notice and the Crown Court’s lists were full. All in all, she was reassuringly impotent.

Sam appeared silently in the doorway and rubbed his eyes. ‘Can I have hot chocolate?’

‘Yep,’ said Lilly.

‘With squirty cream?’

‘Yep.’

‘And coco sprinkles?’

‘With M&Ms, extra fudge sauce and a bag of crisps if you like, big man.’

The pair spent the morning playing football in their pyjamas, and when it got too hot they made strawberry ice cream and ate the lot straight from the freezer box.

Sam pointed to the fresh dressing on Lilly’s throat. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Only a bit,’ she said.

‘You won’t do anything like that again, will you, Mum?’

‘I’ll try not to.’

‘I mean, if you died I’d have to go into care, wouldn’t I?’

Lilly was shocked. ‘Of course not! Your dad would look after you.’

‘I don’t think Cara would want me.’

It stung Lilly to hear Sam articulate her own greatest fear. For whatever David said and however much he defended her, it was obvious that Cara did not love their son.

Lilly chose diversion tactics and the rest of the afternoon was spent discussing Christmas, a perfectly legitimate activity in mid-September.

When Sam was tucked up in bed Lilly checked her emails. She knew she shouldn’t but the urge was too strong.

To: Lilly Valentine

From: Rupinder Singh

Subject: Kelsey Brand

I did as you asked and faxed an application for bail. When I rang the court to check they’d received it I chatted up the man who answered the phone and
voila
, he listed it tomorrow at 2 p.m.

You should try being a bit more charming.

I’ve booked a barrister and said you’ll meet him at court at about 1 p.m.

To: Lilly Valentine

From: Rupinder Singh

Subject: Kelsey Brand

Forgot to say it’s been listed at CCC.

Lilly groaned. She should have known that a case this big would be listed at the Central Criminal Court but she didn’t relish the prospect. Of all the courts diametrically opposed to the cosiness of Luton Youth Court, the Old Bailey was the worst.

Barrows had sent three text messages to Max, all demanding a meeting with Charlene.

Max smirked as he reread them. As if that pervert was in any position to give orders. Max would make him pay double and make him beg.

He put his phone away and looked up at the window of Barrows’ clinic. When he’d first seen it he’d been impressed by the tinted windows and the embossed sign, but now he knew it was just an office where Barrows listened to the whining of well-dressed women.

What problems could they have? They didn’t know they were born compared to the likes of him and Grace. Max doubted that any one of Barrows’ patients could have survived life in a children’s home. The bullying, the negligence, the abuse.

These people needed to learn to put the past behind them or make it work for them. Max had embraced this as a concept even if it meant he had to mix with filth.

He had thought Barrows was evil and that made the man strong. Now Max could see that in fact it made Barrows weak. His depravity ruled him and Max had turned it to his own advantage. Their roles had reversed and it felt good.

What the hell was he playing at? The stupid little black man must have seen the last patient leave so why was he still hanging about outside?

Barrows breathed deeply and tried to contain the rage. It was always like this just before, his anxiety rising, his impatience bubbling. During the act itself he could barely register what was happening, let alone enjoy it, so overwhelmed was he by his need. But afterwards came sweet release and relief and the endless hours of joy reliving the moment on film.

He knew the latter feeling would soon be his, but for now he was locked into the anticipation that bordered on desperation, and anyone who stood in his way at this time would have to suffer the consequences.

At last Max appeared.

‘You took your time,’ snapped Barrows.

Max shrugged. ‘I’m a busy man.’

Barrows gritted his teeth. He would not allow this idiot to see the storm inside him.

‘I won’t pay double.’

‘Sure you will,’ said Max.

‘There are plenty more girls.’

Max nodded nonchalantly. ‘And there are plenty more freaks like you. I’ll take her to one of them. Ain’t no skin off my nose, man.’

The men stared at each other, their mutual hatred plain.

Suddenly Barrows smiled. ‘What the hell, you can have your money, I’m a rich man.’

He threw an envelope at Max, ensuring it fell short so he would have to pick it up from the floor. ‘Set it up,’ he ordered.

‘We’ll have to be careful.’ Max scooped up the envelope. ‘The Bushes is bound to be buzzing with the filth cos of Kelsey.’

Barrows saw his chance to re-establish the hierarchy. ‘She’s not there any more.’

‘Where’s she gone?’ asked Max, too quickly.

‘Didn’t you know? She’s in prison, and not likely to get out any time soon.’

Max cursed himself for letting the other man steal the advantage, but he had been so shocked to learn that Kelsey was banged up he couldn’t hide it.

Poor, poor baby. Jail was no place for a kid like her. Still, shit happened.

He fingered the envelope, reassuringly fat with notes. This was it. One last job, his ticket to a better place. The US of A and a career in real films beckoned. He could smell success, women and chilli dogs. What the hell were they anyway? Hot dogs with chilli sauce, he supposed. Maybe he’d stick to McDonald’s.

He was heading for the good life, the sweet life. And nothing was sweeter than making that pervert pay for it.

Yes, he would spend some of the money on a plane ticket and live off the rest when he got there until he got himself sorted. In the meantime he’d celebrate with a couple of high-quality stones and half an ounce of skunk. After all, he had plenty to spare.

CHAPTER TEN

Wednesday, 16 September

Rush hour had long since passed and Lilly was left with a choice of seats on the train from Harpenden to Blackfriars.

She watched the landscape change from green to grey as the train raced towards London and felt a nostalgic well of excitement as the city approached.

She and David had spent three happy years in a small flat on Ladbroke Grove watching Polish films at the NFT and eating salt-and-pepper squid in Chinatown. When Lilly fell pregnant they had felt superior to those prudish couples who moved out to the suburbs to give their children bigger gardens. Theirs would be an urban child, immersed in the multi-culture of the most exciting city in the world.

But Sam had not liked his nursery above the bus depot at the end of Notting Hill High Road and screamed during Saturday trips to the Tate. He was frightened of the underground and soon developed asthma.

A decision needed to be taken and was accelerated by a shooting in the local park. A country village near a direct train line beckoned.

Lilly had loved her new life from the outset. She relished the peace of their shabby cottage and her heart soared at the sight of Sam poking snails with a stick in the lovely meadow garden. She planted herbs outside her kitchen window, their scent pungent and earthy, and taught her son how to cook. She had found a job with a small local firm run by a patient woman who seemed happy to leave her staff to their own devices and found vicarious fulfilment in Lilly’s work with children. Rupinder was equally as grateful to have Lilly on her payroll. Her work colleagues and neighbours alike seemed so sure of their right to comfort that it made her feel, dare she say it, greedy. Lilly’s work with the disadvantaged children was a necessary antidote to the affluence of Harpenden, a way to give something back, and she treated Lilly as a friend as well as a colleague.

All in all, Lilly was content.

David, however, was restless. He hated the commute to work and railed against late trains and road works. He stayed in London overnight whenever he could, claiming to find it less stressful. He grumbled that life in the country was tedious and that he needed more stimulation.

A year later Lilly discovered what exactly was stimulating her husband. Her name was Cara.

Lilly didn’t regret her move away from the city but still loved the buzz it gave her when she occasionally dived back in.

She got off the train and benignly handed a fifty-pence coin to a beggar sitting cross-legged at the bottom of the escalator nursing a can of Tennants.

‘Tight fucker,’ he said.

Indeed, Lilly did not regret her move to the country.

As she came out onto street level the glare seemed impossibly bright and Lilly scrambled for her sunglasses. This Indian summer must end soon.

The road in front was bumper to bumper as the stream of traffic inched towards Fleet Street on the left and St Paul’s on the right. The air was thick with the choking stench of pollution. Couriers on bicycles wove in and out of impossibly tight gaps, clad in impossibly tight shorts. The pavement was a seething mass of men and women in dark suits shouting into their phones and hurrying to collect their lunchtime sandwich. The frenetic activity made Lilly dizzy.

The walk to Old Bailey, the unimposing street that housed the Central Criminal Courts, would only take five minutes, so Lilly sauntered. She was early and had no intention of breaking into a sweat. After her television debacle she was determined to look collected and stylish.

When she turned from the narrow street towards the court she felt a stab of disappointment at the relative quiet, despite herself. The press pack clearly had bigger fish to fry elsewhere.

A middle-aged couple with peaked caps and money-belts squinted up at the building and shook their heads.

‘This can’t be it,’ said one.

Lilly smiled. The façade of the Old Bailey was singularly unimpressive and gave little indication as to its identity. Built in the 1970s as a mere annexe to its majestic yet ancient neighbour, the main courtrooms were housed in a flat box of grey breeze blocks. No ornamentation or ceremonial architecture, the only colour a small plaque bearing the cross of St George that declared the building the property of the London Corporation. The famous domes and Justice herself, gold, blindfolded, scales aloft, were only feet away, but could only be seen at a distance from the other side of the road.

Lilly left them to check their guidebooks. They’d find the small door to the public gallery in the end.

She went inside and wasn’t surprised to find extra layers of security. Each visit, it seemed, saw some new round of technology. She passed through the glass pod and placed her bags on the conveyor belt.

When Lilly had started out in the law, back in the days when she wore shoulder-pads bigger than those of an American footballer, she had found herself on her first case at the Old Bailey. The fat guard at reception had merely looked her up and down, no doubt overcome by the smell of Impulse, and had waved her through.

Five years later an IRA bomb had sneaked itself into Court Five disguised as a flask of soup, and so an x-ray machine had been installed.

The latest innovation was a man with a clipboard who asked each person their business in the court. Lilly wondered whether your average terrorist would fall at this final hurdle, unable to think up a plausible explanation.

‘Lilly Valentine, I’m here for the Kelsey Brand case.’

The guard checked his list. ‘Court number three.’

Lilly smiled, keen to get things underway and get Kelsey out of jail before any real harm could befall her.

‘Has anyone else arrived yet?’ she asked.

‘A Mr Stafford of counsel, Miss.’

Lilly’s stomach clenched. Jez Stafford. Surely Rupes hadn’t booked Jez Stafford. He was one of the best criminal barristers around and tipped to take silk in the next few years. With a reputation for tenacity and superb attention to detail he was always fully booked. Goodness knows how he was available at such short notice.

Lilly saw him hovering at the list board, double-checking which court he needed to find, and recalled their last meeting at a chambers party, when copious amounts of champagne and no food at all had led to a paralytic and energetic session of tonsil tennis in a coat cupboard, curtailed only by Lilly vomiting down a rather beautiful faux-fur jacket from Prada whose owner had cried when Lilly tried to apologise.

‘Jez,’ she called.

He smiled warmly and shook her hand. ‘Good to see you again, Lilly.’

To her relief he seemed to remember nothing of their pathetic fumble. And why would he? A man as clever and handsome as Jez probably spent half his life fighting off drunken divorcées.

‘Walk with me to the robing room, Miss Valentine,’ he said in mock grandeur and they climbed the stone stairs to the second floor.

Jez was already dressed in his black gown. A wing- collar shirt and bands were stark white against his olive skin. He spun his battered grey wig around on the tip of his finger.

The robing room was more than a place to get changed, it was a place for gossip, banter and, more importantly, pre-match discussions with the opposition.

‘We need to go in hard. Impress upon the court how vital it is that this girl be released,’ said Lilly.

Jez didn’t reply.

‘There’s no good reason to keep a child locked up,’ she continued. ‘Don’t you agree?’

He knotted his brows. ‘Who’s for the other side?’

‘Brian Marshall,’ Lilly answered.

Jez, unlike most of those called to the bar, was not a man to criticise fellow advocates, but his raised eyebrow told Lilly he shared her opinion of the QC.

Jez waved at a bench. ‘You’d better wait, you know, here.’

At least he had the decency to look embarrassed that Lilly, as a mere solicitor, was not even allowed inside. She also appreciated the subtle way he left the door of the robing room ajar.

‘Jeremiah,’ boomed the voice of Brian Marshall from inside. ‘Glad to have you on board.’

‘I’m for the defence, Brian,’ Jez replied.

‘Poor you, not a leg to stand on.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Jez evenly.

‘Twenty says you don’t get bail today.’

‘As I said, we’ll see.’

‘Don’t like the odds, eh? Can’t say I blame you in front of this judge.’

‘Who’ve we got?’

‘Hugh Blechard-Smith. Nice old duffer, went to school with him. Not the brightest, to be honest.’

‘I thought he was at the High Court,’ said Jez.

‘He was. Drafted him in especially. I expect he had kittens when he heard he’d got this one.’

Lilly looked around her at one of the oldest criminal courts in England. These walls had heard thousands of trials. The cumulative weight of the Krays, Derek Bentley and Peter Sutcliffe hung in the air. Gravitas and solemnity were etched in every archway, yet the fate of a teenage girl now lay with one man of low intelligence who was, by all accounts, shitting a brick.

Jez came out and opened his mouth.

‘Don’t bother. Let’s find a space and talk,’ said Lilly.

Their footsteps echoed as they made their way to the old part of the building and settled into the farthest corner of a grand atrium. The marble underfoot was hard but exquisitely cool. Lilly was tempted to take off her shoes.

‘I saw you on the telly,’ said Jez with a furtive smile.

Lilly groaned.

‘No more soundbites please. If we need to issue a statement we’ll draft it properly,’ said Jez.

‘You’ll get no argument from me.’

Jez smiled. ‘Now, tell me about Kelsey.’

Defendants in custody were rarely produced for preliminary hearings, when often nothing more complex than a timetable was discussed, and never for bail applications. The logistics were far too expensive. If the lawyers made an attempt at bail and were successful the prison would be informed by telephone and the prisoner released. If not, the defendant would work it out for themselves if they weren’t asked to pack their bags by teatime.

Preliminaries sometimes merited a video link from the jail to the court, but there wouldn’t have been time to make the necessary arrangements for Kelsey. Jez would have to get all his information from Lilly.

She didn’t mince her words. ‘She’s all alone and terrified. We have to get her out.’

Jez rubbed his chin. Lilly thought he’d had a neatly trimmed goatee the last time they met. It had left her with a rash that had subsided before her embarrassment.

‘We have to get her bail.’

‘The thing is, I don’t think we should apply today,’ he said.

‘What?’ Her sudden shout echoed around the empty spaces.

‘We can’t possibly succeed.’

‘Of course we can,’ said Lilly. ‘We have to.’

Jez smiled with enough patience to spill, as far as Lilly was concerned, into patronage.

‘I know it’s difficult, but if we make the application today we’ll fail.’

Lilly was incredulous. ‘So we leave Rochene to rot?’

‘Who’s Rochene?’

Lilly shook her head. ‘I mean Kelsey. Are you saying we won’t even bother trying to get her out?’

‘It’s not a question of being bothered, but one of realism.’

‘What are you afraid of? That you’ll damage your reputation so close to promotion?’

Jez didn’t miss a beat. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m afraid of starting off on the wrong foot with this judge. If we make foolish applications now he won’t listen properly when we need to make a good one.’

‘She’s a kid, she shouldn’t be in jail,’ Lilly shouted. ‘Some of them can’t take the pressure. Some of them don’t make it.’

As Lilly’s voice rose, Jez seemed to lower his own so that he spoke in barely a whisper. Whether deliberate or not, it made Jez seem the more mature of the two.

‘No judge will release her without a psychiatric report,’ he said.

‘Says who?’

‘You do, Lilly. I had the CPS bike over the interview tapes and you make it very plain that you don’t consider Kelsey fit for interview. When Bradbury asks whether Kelsey understands the procedure, you say, and I quote, “
I’m not a psychiatrist, nor am I a clairvoyant
.”’

Lilly slumped against a wall. ‘It could take weeks to get an assessment.’

Jez pulled out a card from his wallet. ‘This shrink owes me a favour.’

Judge Blechard-Smith entered court with a face like thunder. As a member of the High Court he would usually wear red, but the Old Bailey had a uniform of its own. Like fashionistas the judges who sat there wore nothing but black. By the looks of things it suited Blechard-Smith’s mood. Before the clerk could introduce the parties the judge launched an attack.

‘Mr Stafford, I’m surprised at you. This application is ill-conceived.’

Jez rose slowly to his feet, but the judge was in full flow.

‘No court in the land will grant bail to this girl without a proper medical assessment.’

‘I agree, My Lord.’

‘What?’ barked the judge.

‘The defence is in full agreement, My Lord.’

Blechard-Smith exploded. ‘So what are we doing here? You should know I take a very dim view of wasting court time.’

Jez opened his arms, his stance compliant. ‘The defence have no intention of applying for bail at this stage.’ He smiled, a picture of reason. ‘This is a preliminary hearing, by definition to deal with preliminary matters such as the filing of reports. Our defendant is a child so any psychiatric assessment must be ordered by the court. I am here simply to ask for that and I am pleased Your Lordship has already given the issue consideration.’

‘Quite so,’ said the judge.

Ten minutes later Lilly and Jez were walking back towards Fleet Street. Lilly had to admit that Jez had been impeccable in court. Maybe working with him would be okay.

The bars were already filling up, drinkers spilling out into the sunshine.

‘Fancy a quick one?’ Jez asked.

Lilly was taken aback.

Jez laughed, a sexy gurgle in his throat. ‘If memory serves you’re partial to a glass of bubbly.’