Anselm breathed in deeply wondering why he’d put the key back in his wig tin. Generously, the Prior had not enquired. Perhaps it was that word ‘murder’, and the hopeless search for a rhyme. Whatever the cause, Anselm was altogether sure that the consequent delay would complicate things considerably Elizabeth had foreseen many things, but Anselm’s hesitation wasn’t one of them.
PART TWO
the story of a box
1
The door opened and Mr Wyecliffe’s face emerged out of a warm gloom. His brown oval suit seemed to join his beard and run up his cheeks, stopping just below the small eyes. ‘Sorry, the light bulb’s just blown. There’s sufficient illumination, however, in my quarters.’ He led Nick to a sort of hole composed of shelves and files. The air was stale and still and seemed to have a colour, as though they were immersed in a yellowish solution carrying a hint of blue from far, far away. Upon a large, chipped bureau stood a yellow plastic air freshener that kept watch over piles of paper in disarray.
‘I thought it best we speak outside office hours.’ He blinked and nodded with a single movement. ‘Can’t say much, mind. Client confidentiality’ He slumped in a chair behind his desk and said, ‘It was a first-class funeral, if you take my meaning. Very nice reception. Lovely house. Nice to see the clients invited. But I am sorry. Dreadful business, if you ask me.’
‘Your clients?’ asked Nick.
‘Quite a few One of them ate the ham sandwiches.’ He spoke as though he were tempting the outrage of a magistrate.
Nick said, ‘You specialise in criminal law?’
‘Not really,’ he reminisced, scratching an ear as he leaned back. ‘I’ve followed the personal injury market. And family work, of course. I’d always done that. Care, divorce, custody. Always lots to do in that neck of the woods.’ His narrow eyes seemed to glaze. ‘I sent your mother more dog’s breakfasts than I care to admit. But she had a knack with parents not disposed to cooperate with expert assistance.’ He blinked in the gloom, regarding the air freshener. ‘But why do you want to know about the Riley case? It was a long time ago… Best forgotten, I should think.’ He almost winked.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Nick. ‘But I found the papers among my mother’s personal things. She kept them for nearly ten years. I wondered if you might be able to tell me why’
Mr Wyecliffe’s eyes enlarged like ink on blotting paper. ‘I’ll do my best.’ He picked up a glass ball containing a log cabin, two fir trees and three reindeer yoked to a sleigh. He shook it and a blizzard swirled against a cobalt sky It was the only movement in the room. ‘Was there anything with the brief?’
‘Why?’
‘Sorry. Silly question. That’s why I keep out of court.’ He watched the flakes of snow sinking. ‘Maybe I should begin before the trial… You don’t mind if I put the odd question do you?’ His eyebrows seemed to nod.
‘Not at all.’
‘That’s fine.’ As if startled by a recollection, he went to a side room. A cupboard door clipped open and then shut. He came back with some envelopes and threw them into a large plastic bin the size of a laundry basket. ‘My out-tray,’ he explained. ‘Where was I? Ah, yes… It’s probably best to start after your mother took silk. You’ll appreciate, I wasn’t in the criminal field that often, so what I know was picked up from here and there.’ Nick saw him at the funeral reception, eyeing the plates, picking at this and that. ‘She’d built a reputation as a prosecutor and was always booked up. But defendants wanted her as well: word gets round. Villains talk while they’re on remand. They play bridge and discuss the relative merits of counsel. So, you see, it wasn’t surprising to have a client who came in asking for your mother. But with Mr Riley it was slightly different.’
‘Why?’
‘He’d never been in trouble with the police.’
Evening had come and the room was weakly lit by a single central light. A dinted shade hung askew, like a hat on a stand-up comic.
‘You mean that Mr Riley asked for my mother?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he say why he wanted her?’
‘Not right off the bat.’
‘Did you ask?’
‘Yes.’
Annoyance raised Nick’s voice. ‘Well, what did he say?’
‘That he’d heard she was good; so good that she could win without even opening her mouth.’
‘Who’d said that?’
‘He didn’t say’
‘Did you ask how he’d heard of her?’
‘No.’ Mr Wyecliffe raised his hands, like he was offering a platter. ‘Mr Riley had considered a newspaper article about women at the Bar. He picked your mother because he’d read she could see right inside the guilty. Such an aptitude, he said, would be invaluable for the exposure of his detractors.’
‘What’s that got to do with her not having to open her mouth?’
‘An astute question, if I may say so,’ complimented Mr Wyecliffe, ‘for that telling phrase wasn’t in the article.’
Coldly and with apprehension, Nick considered his interrogator. This mound of hair and cloth had been angling for an understanding of the trial ever since he’d cleaned up the plates at St John’s Wood.
Mr Wyecliffe reached for his glass ball and gave it another shake, stirring up the snow The flakes swirled and began to fall slowly Nick said, ‘Please can we open the window?’
‘Sorry. It’s been painted shut.’
The air was still and warm and quietly beating.
‘Where was I?’ asked Mr Wyecliffe pleasantly ‘Oh yes. I arranged a conference and sent the papers off Your mother rang up the next day to say the case didn’t need a silk and suggested I use Mr Duffy instead. But the client wouldn’t agree. So I booked them both – at your mother’s insistence. Speaking of the monk – well, he wasn’t a monk then – do you know him?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘Any idea why she might have selected him?’
‘No. Why?’
‘If I might speak confidentially… He was good if you wanted a trumpet on a sinking ship, but to stay afloat.., there were others. As it happens, I was wrong. He blew the other side out of the water with one question.’
‘Something about calling himself George rather than David.’
‘Yes.’ Mr Wyecliffe twisted the air freshener on its axis. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Mr Duffy told me.’
The solicitor hitched a shoulder and coughed. ‘I trust my nautical metaphor can remain between ourselves.’
‘It can.’
‘Most grateful.’ Mr Wyecliffe scratched his beard. ‘All very peculiar really because the name business came from me – well, I brought it to the attention of instructed counsel – but your mother didn’t like it all.., discouraged it, in fact. I’ve often wondered why because it turned out to be our best point. Are you leaving already?’
Nick said, ‘Perhaps I might buy you a drink?’
A most agreeable proposal.’
