A Game of Proof

between her fingers. ‘He really did that? Pulled his nose and spat in his ear?’

Lucy nodded. ‘Smack in the middle. He used his monogrammed hankie to clean it out.’

‘Oh. Oh dear me.’ Sarah began to shake. At first Lucy couldn’t identify the reaction, then she realized it was laughter. A wild, hysterical kind of laughter, but laughter all the same. And once Sarah had begun to laugh Lucy started too, as she’d been longing to do all morning. The two of them rocked back and forwards in their chairs, hooting helplessly. Lucy wiped her streaming eyes, and passed the tissues to Sarah.

‘So what now?’ Sarah asked, sobering suddenly. ‘Will he still take the case, d’you think?’

‘He was still speaking of Simon as his client, when he got into his Jaguar.’

‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. But it’s hardly likely to increase his level of commitment, Lucy, is it?’

Lucy frowned. ‘His feelings ought not to come into it. Sir Richard Haverstock is a professional, Sarah.’

‘Yes, he is, isn’t he?’ Sarah met her friend’s eyes with a deadpan grimace. ‘A Queen’s Counsel, no less. Not a spittoon.’

‘Look, I’ve spoken to him and he doesn’t hold it against you. He understands that you’re under a lot of stress and he’ll forget all about it and give you the best defence he can.’

‘How can he?’ Simon asked angrily. ‘He wants me to plead guilty. He thinks I did it.’

‘He wasn’t saying that exactly, Simon. He was saying the prosecution have a strong case.’

‘So he’s given up already. That’s it, isn’t it?’

Simon, Lucy and Sarah were back in the interview room in Hull. It was less than a week before the trial was due to start. Sir Richard had not been back to see Simon again, but Lucy had had several long phone conversations with him. The man had been smooth, urbane, reassuring.

‘It’s his duty to give you the best advice he can. He said if he could present you in a sympathetic light, you might get eight years and be out in four. Which is a lot less than life.’

‘Eight years? Christ.’ Simon stared out of the window, while a warder watched through the door. Since his assault on Sir Richard, Simon was handcuffed during visiting.

‘Is that what you do, then, mum? Tell people to plead guilty when they didn’t do it?’

‘Sometimes, Simon, yes. If the prosecution case is very strong, I might advise a client to do that in his own best interests. But it’s always the client who decides, not the lawyer.’

‘Yeah, well I’m the client and I’m pleading not guilty, OK?’

‘I think you made that clear to Sir Richard when he was here,’ said Lucy. ‘And I’ve told him that over the phone. Naturally he’ll defend you on that basis if you insist, he said.’

Simon looked down at his manacled hands. He was thinner and more subdued than she remembered, Sarah thought. She wondered if they were giving him some sort of calming drug. Or more likely, the impending urgency of the trial was getting to him.

‘Yeah, but what does he actually know about my case? He’s only met me once.’

‘I’ve sent him the papers,’ Lucy answered. ‘Four box files. He’s had them a week now.’

‘A week?’ Simon stared at her, anxiously. ‘Is that long enough?’

Lucy hesitated. The truth, she knew, was that Sir Richard had probably not given the papers more than a cursory glance so far. His massive, complex, and highly lucrative drug smuggling case was due to finish tomorrow, and had certainly occupied all his mental energies for the past month or more. By comparison, Simon’s case was small beer. But if the drug trial did finish on time Sir Richard and his junior would still have a long weekend to familiarise themselves with the evidence.

This was not unusual. Barristers prided themselves on assimilating large amounts of complex information swiftly. They were used to it. It was how the system worked. It was clients, rather than lawyers, who were unhappy with it.

She explained all this to Simon, who began to sway his head from side to side, in a panic.

‘You mean, they still don’t know shit about my case? They’re going to read all this stuff that you and mum have spent months on in just three days?’

‘They’ve already read some of it, Simon, obviously. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to talk to you about it last week.’

‘He didn’t talk to me, the ponce — he told me to plead guilty!’ Simon got up, walked to the window, and rested his manacled hands on the bars. The guard peered in anxiously. ‘Christ! The miserable sod advised me to plead guilty and he hadn’t even read the case! I thought at least he’d done that!’

‘Simon, he knew the main facts …’

‘Sod the main facts! He’s supposed to know everything about it, isn’t he? Specially if he tells me to plead guilty!’

Panic was clear on his face. ‘This is the guy you chose to defend me? Mum? Lucy? Why? ’

‘Because he’s a top criminal QC, Simon,’ Lucy insisted. ‘We were very lucky to get him.’

‘And that’s your idea of luck, is it? A guy who tells me to plead guilty before he’s read the papers? A guy who wants me to rot in here for four long years?’ He gazed for a while at the windblown clouds racing freely over the rooftops. Then he took a deep, sobbing breath and turned back into the room. ‘Well, I don’t want him.’

‘What?’

‘You heard, I don’t want a turd like that defending me. I’d rather defend myself.’

‘You can’t do that, Simon,’ said Sarah coolly. ‘Be sensible. You don’t know the first thing about the law.’

‘Maybe not.’ He focussed on her for the first time. ‘But you do, don’t you, Mum. Why don’t you defend me?’

‘Me? I can’t, Simon.’

‘Why not? You’re a barrister, aren’t you? And at least you know about my bloody case. You know everything about it, you do. You even saw Jasmine’s body.’

‘Which is exactly why I can’t defend you. I’m too closely involved. I’m your mother, after all …’

‘True. And you believe I’m not guilty, as well.’

‘Yes.’ If there was a hesitation in her voice it was the tiniest possible one, so tiny that Sarah hoped only she herself heard it. ‘Yes, I believe you’re not guilty.’

‘Well then. That’s a thousand times better than Sir Richard Pissface. You should do it.’

‘I understand why you think that, Simon, but I can’t. I told you, I’m too closely involved. The whole point of hiring a barrister is to hire a professional, an expert in the law who can put forward your arguments in the best way possible without the liability of ….’

She hesitated, words unexpectedly failing her for a moment.

‘Without what, mum? Without the liability of actually caring one way or the other, is that what you were going to say?’

‘Something like that, Simon, yes. It’s how the system works.’

‘Then the system stinks. It’s a load of shit.’

For a while no one said anything. The three of them thought hard. Simon’s eyes were locked on Sarah’s. Lucy watched, afraid to speak. This wasn’t just a matter of legal advice now, she thought. It was between Simon and his mother.

‘Is that true, mum? You’re not allowed to defend me, really? There’s a law against it?’

Sarah’s mind was racing — through everything she’d learned since she began to practise law. Simon had raised a question which, in all those years, had never actually come up.

‘I don’t think there’s a law against it exactly, Simon,’ she said falteringly. ‘It’s just the way it works.’

‘And you’re happy with that, are you?’

‘I didn’t say I was happy with it …’

‘Mum, listen to me. All the time I was a kid, you were studying. You couldn’t go swimming with us, you couldn’t play football, because you had an essay to write or a book to read. Always. Then when you passed your exams and we thought it would get better, you got more exams, more essays. Remember? You were away for weeks, months on end. Study, study, study, that’s all you ever did. I never saw you. Your studying was more