The Death Collector (4 page)

He stopped again. There was another noise, like the hiss of suppressed conversation, someone lying in wait. He looked back and shrieked. There was someone there, an outline of a man walking towards him, just a faint silhouette. Carl faced forward, looking around, panicking, and then there were noises, fast feet running at him.

Carl bolted for a gate that he knew was close by, his hands grabbing at the five bars, hauling himself over, panting and scared. He landed hard and started running, not looking back any more. His feet stumbled over uneven ground, molehills and raised clumps of grass under his feet. The quick thump of his footsteps gave away his position but he knew he had to keep going. They were coming after him.

The sun was rising ahead so his outline would be visible, but he gambled on his youth and local knowledge helping him. He aimed for a small copse of trees ahead, scrambling over a small stile, his breaths getting faster as he ran. The morning air was cold in his eyes, streaming tears along his cheeks, but he didn’t stop until he reached the first shadow of the trees, his legs brushing against the longer grass, fallen twigs snapping under his footfall.

He leaned against a tall sycamore and looked back, his chest aching, sweat breaking out on his forehead. There was movement in the field. Two people. They were still coming.

Joe Parker let the morning sun wake him as he walked to his office, the few hours’ sleep since he’d returned from the police station not enough to rejuvenate him.

The Honeywells office was just a short stroll from Joe’s canal-side apartment in Castlefield. It was the place where the railways and the canals all joined and created a busy triangle of bridges, where the electric screeches of the trams drowned out the calm lap of the water and the gentle putter of narrow barges. Their red and green paintwork was reflected perfectly in the dark water as two willow trees trailed their branches against the surface, the nearby streets nose-to-tail with cars and the clamour of the start of another working day.

He needed to feel the pleasure of his walk. He had tried a morning jog and a large pot of coffee to give his day some kind of a kick-start, but he felt the late night in the sag of his cheeks and heaviness around his eyes.

It made him think back to Carl Jex.

It had been an unusual police station visit. Some are like that – the demons that lurk inside some people can make them act strangely, made worse by the bare walls and the stamp of authority inside a cell complex. But it had been more than that, Joe was sure. Young criminals can be sullen and quiet, often hostile, but Carl was different.

Or perhaps it had been more ordinary than he realised. He didn’t do as many late-night visits these days and the early hours can make minds wander and nerves fray. Only the serious cases kept going through the night. The smoking ban had made the visits easier; when he first started out as a lawyer, clients would call him out just in the hope that he had a cigarette. If he had forgotten to stock up, the meeting would soon get fraught and the person in front of him wouldn’t care that Joe had given up on sleep to be there.

Carl Jex. A quiet and nervous teenager who wasn’t willing to give up his secret, although it had been obvious that he’d wanted Joe to hear it. It all centred on Aidan Molloy, though.

The walk took Joe under railway arches and through a small public garden, created on the site of the church that had given the area its name: St John’s. The streets that led away from it were lined with grand old Georgian houses, occupied through the decades by the professions, doctors and lawyers and accountants. Back then, it had been nothing more than a façade. Despite the air of gentility at the front, the streets behind had been crammed with workers’ dwellings, front-street grandeur hiding the tough northern grind further back. The workers’ dwellings were gone now, but the grand entrances of the main street with their lattice sash windows and Tuscan doors were still sought after.

The double white pillars in front of Joe’s office building were visible through the rhododendron bushes that crowded out the exit gate with pink flowers, almost too pretty for a criminal law practice. Joe was carrying on a tradition. Honeywells maintained its criminal department out of habit; there wasn’t much money in criminal law but it had lucrative offshoots. Childcare law, family cases, immigration disputes, prison law, because those who get on the wrong side of the police tend to get on the wrong side of many things. Criminal law wasn’t yet a loss-leader, but it wasn’t far from it.

Joe paused for a moment before he walked in through the side entrance, to the separate reception area reserved for the criminal clients. The thought of the grind ahead made him weary. He took a deep breath and went inside, smiling at Marion, the fifty-something receptionist who ruled the clients like a headmistress.

‘Good morning, Mr Parker.’

He had told her often enough that he preferred just Joe, but the other departments felt it was more corporate to be addressed formally. Joe didn’t care for any of that, and neither did his clients, but Marion seemed to enjoy the brief brush with respectability before she spent the day dealing with people whose lives ran along a different track.

‘Morning. All quiet so far?’

‘Seems that way,’ she said, although as Joe walked up the stairs that curved to the first floor Marion shouted after him, ‘Mr Newman was looking for you.’

That made him pause. Tom Newman, the senior partner. Joe gripped the handrail and peered back into the reception area. ‘Did he say what it was about?’

‘No, but he seemed keen to find you.’

Joe grimaced. He had been avoiding Tom for a while now because Tom just wanted to talk money. He tried to dress it up as targets and figures, but the truth was that the crime department did not put enough cash into the partners’ pockets. Honeywells was a business. It was about the money, nothing else. There had been a partners’ meeting over the weekend, a two-day event, where they drank and planned and developed the strategy for the future. If Tom was looking for him, Joe guessed that the criminal department had been discussed.

‘Thank you, Marion,’ Joe said, more subdued now, and then carried along the narrow corridor to his office, a small square room dominated by a leather-topped desk and with views to the gardens outside. It was decorated to look like a drawing room, with striped wallpaper and law books along one wall. The building was originally two grand old houses but long ago they had been knocked through into a small labyrinth of tight corridors and small rooms.

He savoured the quiet. Soon it would be time for the daily calls to the various police stations – checking whether there was any work to be had, keeping his name on the lips of the custody sergeants – and then he would have to focus on his existing clients and the day ahead in court. Another day of people who leave everything too late, who turn up at court expecting Joe to be ready even though they never bothered to turn up at the office to tell him their own stories. They were his constituency, those people whose lives had somehow been left behind. This was a moment of calm and he should enjoy it.

He looked at his desk, expecting to see the files for the day ahead, but there were none. He put his bag there instead, a small leather one that held the papers from the visit to the police station, and went looking for Karen, his secretary.

The secretaries worked from a small room down a flight of stairs, six of them serving all the departments. When he walked in, they were in a huddle, whispering to each other. When someone noticed him, they broke up and went to their seats behind their desks.

‘It’s all right, carry on,’ he said, trying to be jocular, but when no one said anything he asked, ‘What’s going on?’

It was Karen who spoke. She was small and quiet with straight mousy hair.

‘Mr Newman came in before,’ she said. There was a tremble to her voice, and she looked at the other women in the room.

‘What did he say?’

‘He warned us that some departments might be closing, that we might have to look for new jobs.’ A tear appeared in her eye. ‘I can’t lose this job. My husband’s just been laid off, and well… I’m sorry, but it’s hard.’

Joe sighed. This wasn’t a good way to start the day. ‘I’ll speak to him,’ he said.

Karen got to her feet and used the heel of her palm to wipe her eyes. ‘I’ll get you your files.’

‘No, leave them,’ he said, putting his hand on her arm. ‘Bring them when you’re ready.’

She looked at him and Joe felt the weight of responsibility. These people needed their jobs and it was Joe’s job to bring in the money, which he wasn’t doing. He gave her a smile of reassurance, but she must have seen the effort in it as she merely nodded and sat down again. Nothing was said. The smile wasn’t returned.

He went to the kitchen to make a drink, needing the caffeine, the snatched couple of hours of sleep making it hard to concentrate. By the time he got back to his own room, Tom Newman was waiting for him.

Joe exhaled loudly. He didn’t need this.

Tom was tall and trim and hawk-like, his hair receding and his nose in the air, standing in the doorway in straight pinstriped trousers and a well-pressed shirt, no pocket, with white cuffs and collar.

‘Tom, good to see you,’ Joe said, faking it.

‘We need to talk about the fees,’ Tom said. He grinned nervously when he said it, knowing there was conflict ahead.

Joe sat down in his chair, not ready for the discussion. ‘I know how it looks, Tom.’

‘No, don’t,’ Tom said, cutting him off, his hand in the air. He stepped into Joe’s office and closed the door, leaning back against it. ‘We know the reasons, Joe, and no one blames you. It’s the cutbacks, we know that, and the way the police work, but that doesn’t make you any more profitable.’

Joe took a sip of his coffee. ‘So what do you need me to do?’

Tom looked down.

‘Are you thinking of closing the department?’

Tom didn’t answer.

Joe raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you?’

‘Not yet,’ he said, ‘but you need to find ways to make savings. We’ve all been hit by the recession, and businesses aren’t buying and selling like they used to. It’s all about consolidation, you know how it is. We kept the criminal department because of a promise to old man Honeywell, but now we have to look at breaking promises. I’m sorry, but the firm comes first.’ He held out his hands in apology. ‘Just make a profit, that’s all. It doesn’t have to be big; it’s useful having you here, with all the spin-off family work.’

‘And what about the civil side?’ Joe said. ‘How much profit have you made from my clients coming to you with beefed-up personal injury claims, or actions against the police?’ Tom didn’t answer. ‘You’ll lose all of that if I go somewhere else.’

Tom paused and then said, ‘We can’t carry any more losses. Take a look at your staff, see if you’ve got more than you need.’

‘What, sack someone?’

‘If you want the department to survive, you’ve got to make it pay,’ Tom said. ‘We need your proposals by the weekend. If you can’t come up with a way of cutting costs without hurting fee-earning, we’ll close it down, and then you’ll be out. We can use your secretary and clerk in an expanded commercial department, but you won’t fit there.’

And with that, Tom left the room.

Joe put his head back. So that was it.
Cutting costs
meant sack someone or walk away. Sacrifice himself to let his secretary keep her job.

The ring of his phone interrupted his thoughts.

‘Hello, Joe Parker,’ he said, always formal. Sometimes he gave out his direct number to clients.

It was Marion.

‘Mr Parker, there’s a woman here to see you.’

He checked his watch. He needed to be in court soon and he hadn’t read the files yet. ‘What’s it about?’

‘Carl Jex, your client from last night. It’s his mother. She says it’s urgent.’

He groaned to himself. It was hardly
last night
. The scent of the custody suite – stale sweat and disinfectant – was still on him.

He rubbed his eyes. He had no interest in seeing her. He didn’t think Carl was going to be prosecuted and if there’s no court appearance, there’s no money. But if something was so urgent, she would only come back. He might as well bring an end to it now.

‘Okay, send her up, thank you,’ he said, and put the phone down.

He went to his office door and looked along the corridor. He could hear Marion giving directions – up the stairs and along the corridor and last door on the right – and he smiled politely when a small woman appeared further along. She didn’t return it. She just stared ahead as if steeling herself for something.

Joe showed her in to his office. She sat in the chair on the other side of his desk, her knees tight together, her hands toying with a handkerchief, knotting it around her fingers. Joe recognised some of Carl in her small pointy chin and pursed lips.

As Joe sat down in his chair he smiled again, to put her at ease, and said, ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’m Carl’s mother.’

Joe didn’t respond.

‘From last night. Carl Jex. I’m Lorna, Carl’s mother.’

‘I know, my receptionist said, but I’m sorry, I can’t discuss anything about the case, not without Carl being here.’

‘I’m his mother.’

‘The same applies.’

‘It’s not about the case,’ she said, and her chin trembled as she looked up to the ceiling, tears brimming onto her lashes. ‘Well, not really.’