Unravel a Crime - Tangle With Women (26 page)

“
Martin.”

“
Mr. Martin, my name is Jonny
Brakespeare – David Newberry’s solicitor”.

“
How can I be of at help?” The
response was immediate.

“
Can I briefly ask you about a
witness statement you have made, producing a bundle of exhibits – Exhibit XS2?”

“
Yes, but I know nothing about
the bundle?”

“
No?”

“
No, it was put together by
the Crown Prosecution Service from files that I had collected and handed to the
Police. I just checked to see that the documents came from the file and signed
the statement. I’ve never read them.”

“
So did you know what files
they came from.”

“
Yes, there were two sets. I
got hold of the original correspondence files both from the National and the
surveyors.

“
Did you put them together.”

“
How do you mean? “

“
Well I don’t know if you
noticed, but XS2 contains copies of the original letters from both sides, so it
looks as if someone has taken the originals of letters received by the National
and put them with originals of the letters received from the National by the
Surveyors.”

“
Really. Do you know, I hadn’t
really noticed.”

“
But you did have the two sets
of files.”

“
Certainly, yes.”

“
What did you do with them.”

“
As I said, I handed them over
to the Police, to a D.C. I can’t for the life of me think of his name.”

“
Could it be Durkin”

“
That’s the one. Funny name. I
should have remembered it.”

“
So he ought to have them?”

“
Should do.”

“
Mr. Martin, thank you very
much.”

“
Is that all?”

“
For now, yes.”

“
Let me know how you get on.”

“
I’m sure that Mr. Newberry
will, even if I don’t. Bye.”

Brakespeare put the telephone
down. He just had to see those files. Someone appeared to have been both very
selective and incompetent about the correspondence, or did they want to destroy
their own case? He swung his chair round from his desk and stared through the
window out at Deansway. It was something he now did of habit whenever he wanted
to think. He had been in that position for a few minutes when Lisa re-entered.

“
Christ, I do seem to be
getting them today.”

Brakespeare swung round again.

“
Meaning”

“
I got through to this Enid
Crawford woman. She had received our letter and was considering it. I told her
that that wasn’t good enough, and that it was clear from Exhibit XS2 that there
must be more correspondence between the National and Black which hadn’t been
disclosed; that quite clearly Black was not the independent expert the
prosecution alleged because he had been trying to find a buyer on behalf of the
National and had been charging bloody extortionate fees for his valuations, and
that unless we had a full disclosure of all the bloody documents in the
possession or control of the Prosecution, that we would be making an immediate
application to the Court.”

Brakespeare sat back in his
seat, genuinely amazed.

“
You said all that?

Lisa nodded.

“
Bloody Hell. That must have
gone down well. What did she say?”

“
Well as soon as I finished I
thought that I was going to get a blasting, but I didn’t. She just asked me my
name – I told her that I was the Defence Solicitor’s Personal Assistant – and
she said she would call me back as soon as possible.”

Brakespeare rose from his
chair and wrapped his arms round her. He noted that there was no resistance, so
kissing her on the forehead, he stood back from her with his hands on her arms
and said, “Miss Barnes, that was terrific. I wouldn’t have dared do that.”

“
You couldn’t. Solicitors are
supposed to behave themselves. I‘m just a trainee and permitted to make
mistakes – if necessary.”

“
Long may you continue to make
them. What did she sound like though.”

“
Unsure of herself. Perhaps
unsure of the case.”

“
Well if we keep on launching
missiles at her, she’s bound to become nervous.”

The telephone rang, and
Brakespeare picked it up. Turning to Lisa he held out the receiver to her.
“Well that didn’t take long. It’s your friend.”

Looking puzzled, Lisa took the
receiver from him. ”Hello?”

She listened to the voice at
the other end and a smile spread over her face.

“
Pen and paper”, she
whispered, and bent over Brakespeare’s desk, as she wrote a number down.

“
Thank you. No, there’s no
need to confirm it in writing. Sure, Goodbye.”

Triumphantly she handed the
receiver back to Brakespeare who replaced it in it’s cradle.

“
There you are. Call D.C.
Durkin to make any arrangements. Here’s the number.”

Her face was close to his.
Gently she put her lips against his, and then pulled away from him.

“
We’re not just a team, we’re
a winning team Jonny Brakespeare.” she smiled. Brakespeare felt the same
stirring in his loins that Mel produced in him.

That stirring was still with
Brakespeare as he drove home for the weekend. Lisa had certainly grown in
confidence with him, and had shed the politically correct feminist aura she had
assumed when they first met.

It was above all her
personality that had initially attracted him. Now there was now a chemistry
between them, he had no doubt of it, but if she was as involved with Morrison
as she said she was, she was still out of bounds. “She’s staff” as Mortimer had
said.

Many men would have no
scruples, and would try and bed her as quickly as they could. He did not know
how long he would be with the firm, and the last thing he needed to do was to
cause a problem in the office. If she was as unpopular as she claimed because
of her relationship with Morrison, then if she was seen to be involved with
him, it would do neither of them any good.

Could he have a relationship
with two women? A cerebral, but possibly affectionate one with Lisa, and a
purely sexual one with Mel? That might work, but then Mel was peripatetic and
unreliable from that point of view. Would he be happy with that? Would it be
fair on both. That didn’t matter did it, because neither of them need know
about the other. Yes, that might work.

But Lisa had said that
Morrison was dying. Would he be asked to stay on in the firm? Would he want to
stay on a permanent basis? If he did so, what would happen to his relationship
with Lisa? Would it blossom after Morrison’s death? He could just see Margaret
turning up her nose if Lisa transferred her affections from Morrison to him.
The idea of being a sexual successor was not appealing.

Why couldn’t things be
straightforward? Well, thinking about it, nothing had been for years now! Mind
you, the results he was getting on Newberry’s case were the most positive
things that had happened to him in a long while. His instinct as a lawyer told
him that there were too many cracks in the Prosecution case for it to succeed.
Unfortunately, as he well knew, when cases go before a court, what transpires
during the trial often bears no resemblance to the case that the lawyers have
prepared. Holes suddenly appear in seemingly cast iron cases; and hopeless
cases take on a life force of their own.

There were just too many
questions about Newberry to allow a trial before a jury. God, what would the
jurors make of his adulterous relationship with Mrs Potter – not to mention
their illegitimate child. They would convict him on that alone!

Then there was the question of
the discrepancies in Black’s valuations. You might get a jury of morons whose
eyes would glaze over at the sight of a spreadsheet. They would simply assume
that if matters had to be reduced to charts and diagrams, then Newberry must be
guilty. The Judge might understand, but a jury might not. No, juries liked
simple, straightforward human stories, just like they saw on television and
where the goodies were good, and the baddies were bad. The best juries from a
defence point of view were those that had bad experiences with an awful police
force – and there were a lot of those about.

Then there was Newberry’s
heart. Perhaps better not to think too much about that complication.

He had taken the Motorway
home; it had been hard work concentrating on driving in a traffic queue
proceeding at seventy miles per hour, but he was too excited at what Lisa had
discovered to want a gentle cross country run. The high speed run had matched
his mood.

He pulled onto the drive of
the house in Furzton, and became excited at the thought that Mel might be home
and what that entailed. Trevor’s car was there, but both he and Mel regarded
the University geography lecturer as a nonentity. He opened the front door with
his Yale key, and called out “Hello, anyone at home?”

“
Hello Jonny”, Trevor replied
as he came out of the kitchen.

“
Mel about?” asked Brakespeare
as innocently as he could.

His house-mate looked
surprised. “Didn’t she tell you - she’s gone.”

Brakespeare was stunned. His
expression must have shown his bewilderment, because Trevor continued.

“
Oh, I’m sorry. Funny girl.
Yes, she popped in one evening this week with a big black man, and took her
things. She said she had spoken to the Landlord, and given him a months rent in
lieu of notice, so he was happy to let her go.”

“
Where has she gone?”
Brakespeare tried to pull himself together. Trevor was clearly blind to his
relationship with Mel.

Trevor shrugged his shoulders.
“Don’t worry though. I’ve found someone to replace her. A colleague of mine
from the O.U., Martin, is going to move in this weekend.” He paused. “I’m
sorry, but I didn’t know where you were, and Martin was desperate for somewhere
to live. It has saved Mel some rent.”

“
Martin?”

“
Well, yes.” said Trevor,
looking a little uncertain. “It’s better don’t you think. Women can be
distracting.”

“
Yes, of course.” said
Brakespeare slowly. “Right, I’m glad to know that you’ve managed to sort things
out so quickly. Well, I look forward to meeting your friend Martin.?”

He went upstairs to his room
and opened the bedroom door. A tatty brown envelope was behind it, partly
caught under the bottom of the door.

It was simply addressed to
‘Johnny” in a spidery hand. He knew instinctively that it was from Mel. Inside
was a message written on a sheet of lined paper torn from a notepad.

“Dear Johnny

It is best I do it this way. I feel
for you more than I let on. However it can’t work between us, but you’ve shown
me what I’ve been looking for. I’m going to give up dancing and go back to my
husband, Dwight, and my kids, Cleveland and Chelsey.. It won’t be the same as
with you, but I’ve got to try and make the best of it. I will always remember
you; you made me feel a woman again and gave me my self respect back.

Love,

Melanie”

Brakespeare sat on the edge of
his bed and wished that he could cry. The note raised more questions than it
answered. He had persuaded himself that his relationship with Mel was purely
sexual, and shouldn’t feel this way.

He suddenly realised that Mel
had been the one good thing in his life, and he had not recognised it. He could
have done more for her than he did.

He felt sad and lonely. The
euphoria over the case evaporated. He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.

Back at work Brakespeare was
thankful that he was occupied enough not to think of Mel. In the evenings, a
dark cloud blanketed him when he thought of her disappearance. He was not sure
whether she had been more important to him than he had realised, or whether he
was exaggerating her importance.

Lisa was more warm and
friendly towards him than she had ever been. The fact that he had accepted her
relationship with Morrison without question or censure seemed to have reassured
her. A shared confidence brings people together.

Now she was at his side in the
passenger seat of the Fiat, a Street Atlas of the West Midlands on her lap, as
she navigated him through the maze of former villages that was the Black
Country.

“
Right, we’re on the Halesowen
Road, and the Police Station is on the corner of Court Street, next to the
Magistrates Court on our left. Here we are. Turn left, and pull into the yard
at the back of the Station.”

It had not taken any effort to
arrange to meet D.C. Durkin at the Station. He had seemed anxious for the
company. Brakespeare was pleased that Lisa had agreed to come with him. She had
been through all the exhibits with Newberry, but had not found anything of
significance. “No comment” was a bored Newberry stock answer to each sheet of
paper. All that they had established was that the properties had been valued,
mortgaged and bought. When Lisa had explained this to Brakespeare, it seemed to
them both that the stack of exhibits had been included to literally add
physical weight to the Prosecution case, because they advanced it no further.