The rest viewed him as a genius, the brief who could spot the weakness in any prosecution case. If you found yourself in a really tight corner, they said, then Crewdson's was the number you called.
The Inspector knocked lightly on the door before going in. Crewdson was sitting at the interview table, leafing through a thick file. His taste in suits and ties was never less than flamboyant, and for a man in his late forties, he'd won a big following amongst the more impressionable female clerks at the magistrates court.
'Leave you to it?' The Inspector nodded at Faraday and left, closing the door behind him.
Crewdson got to his feet. Faraday accepted the proffered handshake, curious to know why Crewdson had phoned him with the offer to represent J-J.
'Paul Winter gave me a ring,' he said briefly. 'He thought you might need a bit of support.'
Faraday permitted himself a thin smile.
'Winter's right. You'll not have spoken to the lad?'
'Hardly. I was waiting for you to arrive.'
'But you've talked to the Custody Officer?'
'Yes.'
'And?'
'It's not as bad as you might think.'
'Really?'
Faraday shed his jacket and sank into one of the four chairs. According to Crewdson, the evidence against J-J was at best thin. Winter and Suttle had photographed him arriving at Pennington Road. There was no evidence he'd left in possession of drugs. Neither had they seen money change hands. Eadie Sykes had volunteered a statement establishing that no drugs had been present in the student's flat, and in the shape of the videotapes, she appeared to have behavioural evidence to prove it. According to Sykes, the drugs had been dropped off early in the evening. She herself had taped the fixing sequence and everything else that followed. In terms of supply, J-J was therefore home free.
'What about the business with the petrol?'
'That's a mystery. No one knows.'
'OK?' Faraday sat back. 'So what do we do now?'
'I suggest he goes no-cpmment.'
'Why?'
'Because that way we leave nothing to chance. The last thing we need is your boy saying anything' he smiled 'silly. The lad's going to be upset, bound to be. We can use that later, if they try and make anything of the no- comment.'
'In court, you mean?'
'Yes.'
'You think it'll come to that?'
'No. Not if we're sensible.'
Faraday sat back a moment, trying to order his thoughts. The thrust of Crewdson's defence was obvious. J-J was about to become yet another stroppy, tight-lipped interviewee.
'That means it's down to us to make the case,' he said at last.
'Exactly.' Crewdson was smiling again. 'But it's them, Mr. Faraday.
Not us.'
Minutes later, the interview strategy agreed, Faraday went to find the Custody Sergeant. To his relief, it was someone he knew. The two men masked their mutual unease with a brisk exchange of nods. When Faraday enquired about someone to sit alongside J-J during the interview, the Custody Sergeant confirmed he'd drawn a blank on the two registered interpreters within the county.
'One's on holiday in Egypt. The other isn't answering her mobile.'
'You've tried out of area? West Sussex? Surrey? Dorset?'
'To be honest, no, sir. I know the ACPO guidelines favour sticking to the register but we're up against the PACE clock. The lad needs communication support, no question, but…'
The Sergeant spread his hands. There was a brief silence, broken by Faraday.
'You're asking me to do it?'
'I'm asking whether you'd mind, sir.'
'You think it's appropriate?'
'I think we ought to move things along.'
'Good idea.' Faraday eyed him for a moment. 'Do you mind if I see him before we start?'
'Of course not.'
The Custody Sergeant lifted a phone and summoned one of the jailers. A burly woman in a white blouse appeared moments later, and led Faraday down through the station to the cell complex at the end. Faraday had made this journey countless times before as a probationer, as a young CID aide, as a serving DC yet never had it occurred to him that he would, one day, be on the receiving end of all this watchful attention.
The bleakness of the place had never hit him quite this way before: the harsh neon lights, the institutional greens and whites, the way that the jangle of a bunch of keys echoed around corner after corner.
J-J was in a cell towards the end of the corridor. A concrete plinth beneath the window served as a bunk, and through the hatch in the grey steel door Faraday could see his son stretched full length on the thin sponge mattress. His eyes were closed and his bony wrists lay handcuffed on the rumpled bottom of his T-shirt. Faraday had never seen anyone looking so solitary, so cut off, so alone. Already, in the stir of air as the jailer unlocked and opened the door, he could smell the harsh tang of petrol.
J-J, hearing nothing, didn't move. Faraday glanced back at the jailer.
'Mr. Crewdson?'
The woman nodded and left. Faraday heard the key turn in the heavy door before she set off down the corridor. He reached out and touched J-J's face with the back of his hand. The boy's eyes opened, staring up at him, the way he might greet a total stranger. Faraday tried to coax a smile. When nothing happened, he turned his attention to J-J's wrists. The handcuffs were double locked, and the skin was raw and inflamed where the steel edges of the cuffs had chafed. J-J struggled upright on the mattress, holding his wrists in front of him the way you might carry a precious object.
'They hurt?' Faraday signed.
J-J shook his head. His face was pale and he wouldn't meet his father's gaze. When Faraday gave him a hug, he could feel a tremor running through his thin frame.
'What happened?'
Approaching footsteps paused outside the cell. A key turned in the lock and Faraday glanced back to find Hartley Crewdson stepping into the cell. The jailer was preparing to lock them in again.
'We need these cuffs off,' Faraday told her. 'He'll be fine now.'
'I'll talk to the Custody Sergeant.'
'You do that.'
Crewdson, a tall man, was looking down at J-J. He must have been in this situation a thousand times, Faraday thought. Another youth colliding head-on with the judicial system. Another plea before the magistrates.
Faraday did the introductions. J-J offered the faintest of nods but his father was unsure whether he really understood what was about to happen.
'You're going to be interviewed,' he explained. 'Two policemen, two detectives. They'll be asking you what happened. All you need tell them is your name and date of birth. Everything else…' He glanced at Crewdson for support. 'Just shake your head.'
'That's right.' It was Crewdson. 'We know already what really happened and there are ways we can prove it. The detectives you'll be talking to may push you to make mistakes. As long as you say nothing, that can't happen. Everything's going to be fine. Just do what we say. OK?'
J-J was staring at his father as Faraday translated Crewdson's assurances into sign. Then his gaze transferred to the lawyer. This stranger might have been trying to explain the rules of a particularly complicated game. J-J's face was quite blank.
'You understand what we're saying?' Faraday signed.
