Babyface

‘Both.’

I tugged a pen out of my jacket pocket and, with what I hoped was a friendly grin, enthusiastically scribbled Julie’s number in Birmingham and my number in London. I didn’t give her the number for my mobile as I never switched it on, and I had recently become aware that the ringing tone didn’t always work.

She slid the list back into the plastic folder. She was obviously from the Miss Neatly Organised school of advocacy and I reminded myself sharply that, like a pupil on her first day at a new school, I must beware of making friends with the first person who wants to play with me. I went back to rearranging my notebooks, when I heard Catherine Delahaye’s resigned, ‘Oh, hello.’

A young man who looked about sixteen with short brown hair and small rimless glasses, his tie at a forty-five degree angle to his collar, approached me, with his hand out, saying breathlessly, ‘Hello, I’m Adam Owen. You’re…?’

‘Frankie Richmond, yes, hi.’ My heart sank. This child was my solicitor. What would he know? How could he help me? Had I imagined it or had he done a double take when he saw me? Perhaps it was just a guilty start. He was late after all.

He looked round the room. ‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed it haven’t I? The senior partner even let me drive one of the cars to get here. I’m meant to be getting as much publicity for the firm as I can. I’m really, really sorry.’

I shook my head.

‘One of our clients had a crisis, social services were threatening to take her son into care, I’ve just spent an hour at her house, trying to reason with them. And they’ve got dogs,’ he said, looking down at his trousers. As he got closer I could see white dog hairs from knee to ankle. He followed my glance. ‘I wouldn’t mind but they were only about six inches high, they just bounced a lot.’ He looked round the room. ‘Did anything happen?’

It was four o’clock. ‘Let’s go and have a drink and I’ll tell you what you missed,’ I said. ‘While you pick dog hairs off your trousers.’

He grinned. ‘And that way I don’t have to go back to the office. Perfect. And if you’re good, I’ll let you pick off the dog hairs.’

‘Now then,’ I said.

We walked out of the room as a couple appeared at the top of the stairs into the lobby. I thought hard, this was … yes, Mr and Mrs Springer. They had been at the one conference I’d had with my clients. Mr Springer was my actual client, but it was his wife whose face was working with indignation. Today, as on the day of the conference, she was wearing a thick sheepskin coat, which she held tightly round herself with thin, red hands. I noticed that her wedding ring was too big for her finger, slipping back and forth to her knuckle.

‘I told them not to come,’ Adam muttered to me, as we advanced with apology on our faces.

Gregory Springer sank into himself, shaking his head and telling us not to worry, so sorry to be troublesome. Mrs Springer looked around angrily, as if expecting to catch a glimpse of the other clients, hiding behind pillars or in the stairwell. ‘Why shouldn’t we come?’ she asked.

‘When I rang them, most people decided they didn’t want to be photographed,’ Adam said.

‘Our story has a right to be heard,’ she said. ‘There’s been too much whitewashing already.’

‘The press may well be here tomorrow,’ I said. ‘They do want to hear what people have to say. But Mr Springer, I thought you had decided not to give oral evidence.’

‘Yes, well, he’s still considering his position.’ Mrs Springer spoke before her husband could answer. ‘Come on Gregory,’ she said. ‘I took the afternoon off work for this.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, ‘but we’ll see you tomorrow morning.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Springer, as his wife said, ‘Maybe.’

Adam knew a tapas bar behind the inquiry building. We dashed the last ten yards as it started to rain and immediately ordered some tortilla and patatas bravas (egg and chips) to make up for the lunch I hadn’t had, and a bottle of red, oaky wine to make up for everything.

‘Nice shirt,’ I said, looking at the crisp pink creases as he shook off his jacket and hung it over a chair.

He laughed, embarrassed. ‘I cycle to work, and we’re usually quite casual in the office, but I didn’t think … you … would go for lycra.’

He said he had rung chambers again this morning as soon as he had learned of the press conference, and left a message. So it wasn’t that the victims were being victimised before the inquiry started, or that my solicitor was hopeless, it was just chambers being useless and failing to ring me, probably Gavin not wanting another earful about Simon’s case. I made a mental note to speak to Gavin.

In any event it made me feel happier about Adam, so I could relax, and because we had the time, discuss the other lawyers. Adam ran through the list of representatives. Because the abuse had happened twenty years before, not everyone who had worked at Haslam Hall was going to be represented. The perpetrators, the five men whose names had been given to the police, were in prison. Some of the other staff could not be found, one or two had died, and a few simply wanted to forget it had happened.

But David Wyatt, the man who had been principal of the home at the time of the abuse, was being represented. He had not been charged with any offence and was now, it said in his statements, anxious to help the inquiry. His solicitor was Mr Frodsham, who from Adam’s description was the man I had attempted to swap meteorological niceties with earlier. Frodsham worked for Stiversons, Adam told me – the Carter Ruck of Birmingham – an old firm situated in a narrow alley off Corporation Street. Six social workers were participating in the inquiry, they were from four local authorities and were represented by two solicitors’ firms in Leicester. The two care workers who had never been implicated in the abuse had chosen a firm in Sutton Coldfield.

Adam was an assistant solicitor in the firm of Painter, Pavish and Rutland. PPR, as he called them, was regarded with suspicion by the other solicitors in the inquiry. Although the partners were old school, recent recruitment had brought in lots of bright young things with too many degrees for their own good, earning enormous amounts of money. ‘Not me, though,’ Adam explained, ‘being the most junior solicitor in the firm.’ PPR had new, modern offices near the Convention Centre, and an intense work ethic.

I devoured the potatoes and tortilla, and he picked at a piece of bread, and we watched the rain falling steadily outside. ‘I still don’t know how come I was instructed,’ I said.

Adam’s face began to colour. ‘Well …’ he began. ‘I had nothing to do with it, because it was before my time. But I was quite surprised to see you. You weren’t … quite what I expected.’ He opened a crisp yellow file and began flicking through a deep pile of correspondence and attendance notes, held together by a metal pin. ‘You were instructed before my time. Yes, here.’ He held back a bunch of papers and read from a note dated the autumn of the year before. It had been sent to someone who had been a new trainee, who had since left the firm without finishing his training. ‘David, ring 19 Kings Bench Walk to instruct Francis Richmond to represent the victims, whom they have requested.’

‘17,’ I corrected. ‘My chambers are at 17 Kings Bench Walk.’

‘19,’ he repeated, staring at the scrawl on the note. ‘Francis with an “I”.’

‘That’s not me.’

‘Apparently not.’ There was a beat of silence. ‘But the clients haven’t said anything, which is obviously why it wasn’t picked up. And they’re obviously happy.’

Francis Richmond had been a well-known and apparently well-liked Birmingham solicitor who had decided to become a barrister. He divided his time between London and Birmingham, where his wife remained. When she had fallen ill with a wasting illness, he was forced to stay in London where he could find better, more lucrative work. A prolonged period in Birmingham on this inquiry would have been a godsend for him. The money, the proximity to his wife, the quiet rhythm you get into in an inquiry.

Instead the trainee had made a mistake looking up the number in the Bar directory. He had rung my chambers and got me. ‘I should have noticed there are several different numbers for your chambers,’ he said.

I shook my head. Not only was I not the right person, but I was positively the wrong person. And they all knew it.

I made a note to ask Gavin if he had known. I had a horrible feeling that he had. When your world is falling all around you, shoot the clerk. I added it to my mental list of things to do.

‘It may have been 19 KBW that I rang this morning about the press conference,’ he said.

I was still going to shoot Gavin.

When I got back to Julie’s, my shoulder sagging with the weight of my soaking wet bags, which I had dragged through the rain, from a parking place halfway down the street, Marnie was curled, dry and comfy, on the sofa in front of the TV. ‘I just saw you on the news!’ she crowed as she let me in. ‘Can I come down and watch you one day? Ooh, you’re wet.’ I dropped a dripping bag. ‘But who was that horrible man?’

‘Which one?’

‘The one who slapped his thigh and turned his back on you. He was so rude. I wanted to punch him.’

‘Perhaps you should come to the inquiry as my minder,’ I said carelessly.

‘Yeah!’

‘No.’

‘But I want to meet all your lawyer friends.’

‘That would not be possible,’ I said bitterly. ‘I have no lawyer friends.’ I dragged the two bags ostentatiously across the room. ‘I’ll just take these heavy wet bags upstairs then.’

‘OK,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Oh, Mum said to tell you she’s working late, so we should take something out of the freezer.’

‘Oh great,’ I murmured as I climbed the stairs. Julie’s freezer was like mine. Everything was three years old, nothing had labels, and it was all mince.

As I threw the bags onto the floor of my room, I noticed the stitching in my work bag had perished in several places and a corner of my brief was poking through. It was wet. Everything was wet. What a lousy start to the inquiry. Water is not my medium. My star sign is not a water sign. And clearly my bag was not waterproof. Not now anyway. I was going to have to buy a new work bag. And, on top of everything, I was about to have melted mince for my supper. I needed warmth, I needed human kindness, so, foolishly, I fished my mobile out of my bag, sat on the edge of the bed and rang chambers for my messages. There were none.