My stomach knotted as Ruth replied, ‘He was on his own. No passengers.’
‘This is like a bad dream,’ I said. ‘You know what he’s like. Can you see Richard as a major-league car thief and drug dealer? Where are you now, Ruth?’ I asked.
‘I’m on my way out the door. The sooner I get in to see him, the sooner we can get this business straightened out. You’re right. Richard’s no villain,’ she said reassuringly.
‘Too true. Look, Ruth, thanks for letting me know. I appreciate it.’ I fastened my bra and moved over to the wardrobe door.
‘I’ll keep you posted,’ she said. ‘Speak to you soon.’
Sooner than you think, I told myself as I shrugged into a cream polo-neck knitted cotton top. I grabbed my favourite knock-’em-dead suit, a lightweight wool number in a grey and moss green weave. Of course, dressing on the run, my legs tangled in the trousers as I made for the hall and I ended up sprawled on the floor, face smacked up against the skirting board, forced to recognize that it was too long since I’d cleaned the house. Cursing in a fluent monotone, I made it as far as the porch and pulled a pair of flat loafers out of the shoe cupboard. On my way out of the door, I remembered the route I was planning to go down, and hurried back into the living room, where I picked up the slim black leather briefcase I use to impress prospective clients with my businesslike qualities.
As I started the car, I noticed Richard’s Beetle wasn’t in its usual parking space. What in God’s name was going on? If he’d gone out in his own car, what was he doing driving round in the middle of the night in a stolen car with a parcel of heavy drugs? More to the point, did the owners of the drugs know who’d driven off with their merchandise? Because if they did, I didn’t give much for Richard’s chances of seeing his next birthday.
I pulled up in the visitors’ car park at Longsight nick a couple of minutes later. There wasn’t much competition for parking places that time of night. I knew I’d have at least fifteen minutes to kill, since Ruth had to drive all the way over from her house in Hale. Usually, I don’t have much trouble keeping my mind occupied on stake-outs. Maybe that’s because I don’t have to do it too often, given the line of work Mortensen and Brannigan specialize in. A lot of private eyes have to make the bulk of their income doing mind-and-bum-numbing bread-and-butter surveillance work, but because we work mainly with computer crime and white-collar fraud, we spend a lot more of our backside-breaking hours in other people’s offices than we do outside their houses. But tonight, the seventeen minutes I spent staring at the dirty red brick and tall blank windows of the rambling, mock-Gothic police station felt like hours. I suppose I was worried. I must be getting soft in my old age.
I spotted Ruth’s car as soon as she turned into the car park. Her husband’s in the rag trade, and he drives a white Bentley Mulsanne Turbo. When she gets dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, Ruth likes to drive the Bentley. It doesn’t half get up the noses of the cops. Her regular clients love it to bits. As the dazzling headlights in my rear-view mirror dimmed to black, I was out of my car and waving to Ruth.
The driver’s window slid down with an almost imperceptible hum. She didn’t stick her head out; she waited for me to draw level. I grinned. Ruth didn’t. ‘You’ll have a long wait, Kate,’ she said, a warning in her voice.
I ignored the warning. ‘Ruth, you and I both know you’re the best criminal lawyer in the city. But we also both know that being an officer of the court means there is a whole raft of things you can’t even think about doing. The kind of shit Richard seems to have got himself in, he needs someone out there ducking and diving, doing whatever it takes to dig up the information that’ll get him off the hook with the cops and with the dealers. I’m the one who’s going to have to do that, and the most efficient way for that process to get started is for me to sit in on your briefing.’
Give her her due, Ruth heard me out. She even paused for the count of five to create the impression she was giving some thought to my suggestion. Then she slowly shook her head. ‘No way, Kate. I suspect you know the provisions of PACE as well as I do.’
I smiled ruefully. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act hadn’t exactly been my bedtime reading when it became law, but I was reasonably familiar with its provisions. I knew perfectly well that the only person a suspect was entitled to have sitting in on their interview with the police was his or her solicitor. ‘There is one way round it,’ I said.
There’s something about the mind of a criminal solicitor. They can’t resist discovering any new wrinkle in the law. Dangle that as a carrot and they’ll bite your arm off faster than a starving donkey. ‘Go on,’ Ruth said cautiously. I swear her eyes sparkled.
‘Trainee solicitors who are just starting criminal work usually learn the ropes by bird-dogging a senior brief like yourself,’ I said. ‘And that includes sitting in on interviews in police stations.’
Ruth smiled sweetly. ‘Not in the middle of the night. And you’re not a trainee solicitor, Kate.’
‘True, Ruth, but I did do two years of a law degree. And as you yourself pointed out not five minutes since, I do know my way around PACE. I’m not going to blow it out of ignorance of the procedures.’ I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had to be this persuasive. Before I knew where I was, I’d be down on my knees begging. This was going to be the most expensive night out Richard Barclay had ever had.
Ruth shook her head decisively. ‘Kate, if we’re going to quote each other, let me remind you of your opening speech. As an officer of the court, there are a whole lot of things I can’t even think about doing. I’m afraid this is one of them.’ As she spoke, the window rose again.
I stepped back to allow Ruth to open the door and get out of her living room on wheels. She let the door close with a soft, expensive click. She took a deep breath, considering. While I waited for her to say something, I couldn’t help admiring her style. Ruth looked nothing like a woman whose sleep had been wrecked by the call that had dragged her out of bed. There was nothing slapdash about her understated make-up and her long blonde hair was pulled back in a neat scalp plait, the distinguished silver streaks at the temples glinting in the street lights. She was in her middle thirties, but the only giveaway was a faint cluster of laughter lines at the corners of her eyes. She wore a black frock coat over a cream silk shirt with a rolled neck, black leggings and black ankle boots with a high heel. The extra height disguised the fact that she had to be at least a size eighteen. We’d been friends ever since she’d been the guest speaker at my university Women In Law group, and I’d never seen her look anything other than immaculate. If I didn’t like her so much, I’d hate her.
Now, she put a surprisingly slim hand on my arm. ‘Kate, you know I sympathize. If that was Peter in there, I’d be moving heaven and earth to get him out. I have no doubt whatsoever that Richard’s first demand will be that I get you on the case. And I’ll back that one hundred per cent. But give me space to do what I’m best at. As soon as I’m through here, I’ll come straight round and brief you, I promise.’
I shook my head. ‘I hear what you’re saying, but that’s not enough, I’m sorry. If I’m going to do what I’m best at, there are questions I need to ask that won’t necessarily have anything to do with what you need to know. Ruth, it’s in your client’s best interests.’
Ruth put an arm round my shoulder and hugged me. ‘Nice try, Kate. You really should have stuck to the law, you know. You’d have made a great advocate. But the answer’s still no. I’ll see you later.’
She let me go and walked across the police car park towards the entrance, the heels of her boots clicking on the tarmac. ‘You’d better believe it,’ I said softly.
Time to exploit the irregular verb theory of life. In this case, the appropriate one seemed to be: I am creative, you exaggerate, he/she is a pathological liar. I gave Ruth ten minutes to get through the formalities. Then I walked across to the door and pressed the intercom buzzer. ‘Hello?’ the intercom crackled.
Giving