Killing the Lawyers

‘These don’t change things much,’ said Joe, all professional reassurance.

‘Yes, they do,’ said Zak. ‘The first one I found in my locker at the Plezz. Which was locked. The second I found on my pillow when I woke up yesterday morning. I think these people are telling me they can go anywhere, do anything. Like cats.’

‘You don’t seem so scared of cats,’ said Joe, looking enviously at Whitey.

‘No, but if he was three times as big as me I’d be scared,’ said Zak.

‘Fair enough,’ said Joe. ‘So why exactly have you come to me?’

‘Because it’s the twenty-ninth, which leaves three days till the race. Seems to me my best chance is for someone to find out what’s going on in those three days.’

‘You’re probably right. But the people with the best chance of doing that are the cops.’

‘Definitely no,’ she said with an authority belying her years. ‘They work for the Law. I want someone working for me.’

This seemed an odd way of putting it but Joe didn’t beat his brain trying to figure out what she meant.

He said, ‘Suppose, as is likely, I can’t find anything out in three days?’

‘Then I find out about it myself on the track,’ she said slowly.

‘That’s crazy! If you’re that worried, why not pull a muscle, catch a cold or something?’

‘The voice told me, don’t think of scratching. I’ve got to run and lose or else all favours are off. Joe, it’s not just me that’s been threatened. I can hire muscle like Starbright to give me some degree of protection. But someone who can get close enough to leave these notes the way they did isn’t going to have any problem targeting my family.’

‘Turning up with me in tow could tip these people you’ve been talking.’

‘Hell, you not that famous, are you?’ she smiled. ‘I’ll say you’re some old friend’s old uncle who’s lost his job and I felt so sorry for you, I’ve taken you on as temporary bagman.’

‘That why you chose me, I’d fit the part so well?’ said Joe unresentingly.

‘No. Positive recommendation,’ she said, standing up and putting Whitey on the desk despite his plaintive protest. ‘Tell me, Joe, that pic up there, who’s it by?’

Surprised, because the only picture in his office was the photo of a recovery truck on the free calendar advertising Ram Ray’s garage, Joe followed her gaze. She was looking at Whitey’s tray still perched on the curtain rail above the window.

‘Sorry, I just stuck it up there to dry …’ he began apologizing.

‘You mean you did it yourself? Joe, that’s really great. Do you exhibit?’

‘No! Look, it was just sort of an accident …’

‘Joe, don’t put yourself down. We’ve had a couple of seminars on the Creative Accident this semester and what comes out of it is that all art is a form of accident, or maybe none of it is, which comes to much the same thing. Will you sell it to me?’

‘No!’

It came out a bit explosively and the girl (Joe knew better than to call girls girls these days, but they couldn’t put him in jail for thinking it!) looked so tearfully taken aback that Joe’s soft heart ruled his soft head and he heard himself saying, ‘What I mean is, you want it, you take it. Gift from me. And Whitey.’

Give credit where it’s due was a Mirabelle motto.

‘Well, thank you, Joe,’ she said, clearly overwhelmed. ‘And thank you too, Whitey.’

She picked up the cat from the desk and gave him a big hug.

Story of my life, thought Joe. I do the deals, he gets the profit.

‘Joe,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to run. Literally. You will take my case, won’t you?’

‘I’ll take a look at it,’ he said. ‘But listen, you haven’t heard my rates …’

‘Charge me top dollar, Joe,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m going to be a millionaire, haven’t you read the papers? I’ll be at the Plezz most of the morning. Come and see me there about twelve thirty. OK?’

And she was gone, clutching her tray like a championship trophy.

Joe looked down at the cat postcards she’d left on the desk.

‘Well, I guess I’m hired, Whitey,’ he said. ‘And I don’t know whether to be glad or not. This one could be a real problem.’

And the cat looked at him with an expression which said, the only real problem you’ve got is you’ve just given away my toilet tray, and what the shoot do you intend doing about that?

5 (#ulink_911de1f4-0017-59fa-9816-a1403034fba9)

Despite the fact that it was still only nine o’clock, breakfast felt a long way away.

Joe popped round the corner to Mr Palamides’s hardware shop where he bought a new litter tray in puce plastic. He foresaw trouble with the colour but it was all Mr P had.

‘OK, it does shout at you,’ he said to Whitey. ‘But have you seen the new gents at the Glit?’

The cat refused to be comforted so Joe left him sulking in the bottom drawer of his desk and went off in search of food.

A bacon sarnie and a mug of tea at MacFrys produced an association-of-ideas timeslip, reminding him of his conclusion, tested at breakfast, that Sandra Iles was Number One Suspect for the Potter killing.

It didn’t feel quite such an odds-on certainty now, but he didn’t doubt that Willie Woodbine on his return home would want to know if she’d been thoroughly checked out, and if Chivers wasn’t bright enough to do it, Joe had no inhibitions about doing himself a bit of good and the sergeant a bit of harm by demonstrating he at least had been on the ball.

The precise nature of this demonstration he had yet to work out. One thing was certain. Anything that came close to confrontation in a secluded spot was definitely out. Citizen’s arrest sounded easy when you said it fast, but it wasn’t a concept most Lutonians took kindly to, and he’d already had experience of getting on the wrong side of Ms Iles.

He doubted she’d be at work today. The chambers on Oldmaid Row would be crawling with cops and in any case, hadn’t she told Chivers she’d just called in to collect some case notes to study at home over the rest of the holiday? Probably a way of making some poor sod pay for her time even when she was lying around watching old movies on the box.

He drove to the post office, checked the telephone directory. There were three S. Iles, but one was a greengrocer and another lived on the Hermsprong Estate where rats hardly dared to go, let alone lawyers. The third address looked promising. 7 Coach Mews. This was all that remained to mark the site of one of Luton’s great coaching inns which had gone into rapid decline with the coming of the railway. The coming of the motor car had taken much longer to displace the horse totally in the town’s conservative affection and the stable complex had survived the demolition of the old inn by a good fifty years. Finally it too had become ruinous till a smart seventies developer had bought up the site, kept the old cobbled yard and as much of the facade as wasn’t on the point of collapse, and constructed eight town houses which had tripled in price by the height of the eighties boom. They had suffered the universal dip since then but were still only within reach of the town’s fattest cats, like accountants, pornographers, and lawyers.

He drove round there and smiled smugly when he saw the BMW parked in the cobbled yard. So far so good. But where next?

He recalled a story he’d heard read on the radio where some guy had gone around telling people in high places he knew their secret, then watched their reaction. It had been a pretty funny story, but maybe it had a serious side.

He guessed she was in the house, what with the car outside and the curtains still drawn. There was a phone box a little way down the street. He went into it and dialled the Iles number.

It rang a few times then an answer machine clicked in.

He put on the approximation of an Irish accent he used when singing ‘Danny Boy’ and said, ‘We know it was you that did it. See you soon.’