“I served the order on the local office. They looked kind of … shocked.”
“Do you think they’ll comply?”
“Probably not. They seemed a bit afraid, but I don’t think they can. I think they couldn’t get the information that quick even if they wanted to.”
“What about the other one?”
“I’ve got time to get it back to the office and still make it to the hearing.”
“Are you sure?” Alex asked.
“Positive. I’m only five minutes away.”
Alex knew that five minutes could mean anything from two minutes to twenty. But he didn’t want to micro- manage — especially not someone as dedicated and motivated as Nat.
“Okay, just drop it off there and let Juanita deal with it. Just make sure you’re at the District Court when the ADA gets there.”
“Okay.”
Nat pressed the red button and put the cell phone in the glove compartment. As he did so, a picture fell out. Nat reached down and picked it up. He always carried the picture round with him, ever since he’d found it … a reminder. It was a picture of a young man, one of those spontaneous, frat party pictures where the alcohol-fueled revelry is interrupted when someone pulls out a camera and starts taking pictures. In this case, it was just a snapshot of a young man raising his glass and smiling. The previous picture in the sequence had been a reverse angle shot of the young woman who had taken this picture, evidently taken by the man. She too was smiling with delight. But that picture wasn’t here now. He kept it at home.
Whether the two people loved each other or were just posing was anyone’s guess. It took a bit of supplementary information to answer that one.
16:09 PDT
“A restraining order?” said the warden incredulously.
“It’s only temporary. They’ve scheduled a full hearing at four thirty that my assistant is going to handle.”
“Then why did he issue it? The execution isn’t scheduled until a minute past midnight.”
The warden didn’t sound angry, just puzzled.
“I think the reasoning was that if the DA convinces him to let it go ahead then a TRO is easier to rescind than a fixed stay but, on the other hand, if
“Okay, well I’m at the mercy of the system as much as your client,” said the warden, amiably. “I guess what happens now is in the hands of the court.”
“Yes. Look, I need to see Burrow to let him know where things stand.”
“Of course.”
A few minutes later, Alex was face to face with his client. He told him about the verse of the poem that David had found.
“A poem? You came here to ask me about a fucking p
Burrow was incredulous.
“No, I came to tell you about the temporary restraining order.”
“Which may get torn up in the next ten minutes.”
Alex just stared at him. It was like a Mexican standoff. Except that the threat and counter-threat weren’t physical. In fact there was no counter-threat. Alex owed Burrow nothing but his best professional services. And it was up to his client to be honest with him.
“Did you rape her, Clayton? Is that what she’s talking about?”
“You know nothing, Alex! You don’t know what it was like as a kid, surrounded by friends, cheering you on every time you found an easy target.”
“I know about bullying, Clayton.”
“You don’t know how easy it is, when everyone’s telling you what a great guy you are!”
Clayton was visibly distressed. But he kept the tears at bay by shouting. He was hiding his sorrow and regret behind a wall of anger. Anger was all he had left.
“Is that why you did it? For the plaudits?”
“What?”
“For the
“Take a hike! Look, you’re not going to save me. We both know that. So why bother? Why not just get the hell out of here and forget about me?”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Why? ‘Cause I’m your client?”
“Partly.”
“I can always sack you! Then I won’t be your problem any longer.”
“Yeah, you can sack me. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to forget you.”
“You might as well. There’ll be nothing in it for you.”
“If you’re talking money, there’s not a cent in it for me now. I’m doing this pro bono.”
“Well
“That’s not the way I work.”
“You’ve done your best. I’ll write you out a satisfied customer statement before they strap me down.”
“What are you trying to hide, Clayton?”
“To hide?” He wasn’t even trying to conceal the tears anymore. “They’re going to kill me in less than eight hours — whatever that restraining order says. You think I’ve got something to hide?”
“No, I think you’ve got
“What are you talking about?”
“I think you’re trying to hide something from yourself. I think you’re trying to avoid facing up to what you did.”
“You think I’m a murderer? So why did you put in all this effort for me?”
“Did you rape her, Clayton?”
“
16:14 PDT (00:14 BST)
The voice changer program worked better than he’d expected. That was just as well because he didn’t have the time to go out and buy one. The hardware type were probably not as good anyway. Technologically, they were never up to date. This one was dead easy to use, was free and he’d been able to obtain it without getting up from the desk in the office that they had let him use. All he’d had to do was log on to a software download site, read a few customer reviews and download the one he wanted. He didn’t have to buy the full version, because he wasn’t going to save any files, just change his voice as it came out the other end.
The banks in England were all closed at this time. But the major high street banks all had helplines. Some of these closed down at 20:00 or 22:00. Others worked till midnight, while a few even operated 24/7.
David was steadily working his way through these, logging on to various banking websites, phoning up using Skype, pretending — through the voice-changing software — to be Dorothy, explaining that “she” hadn’t used the account for a long time and had forgotten her log in details. If he had known at least some of the account details — like the account number or card number — he would have been able to do this online. But as he didn’t have any of
