It Ends At Midnight, page 17
I’m still clutching the original warrant in my hand. Section 67 of the Serious Crime Act, 2015. It’s time to look it up, see if it gives me any clearer idea of what the fuck this is all about. There’s an old copy of Archbold on the shelf, a couple of years out of date, but I don’t think that’ll matter. Taking a deep breath, I turn to the index and look up the page number.
Once I have it, I pause for a moment. I’m filled again with dread, a foreboding that what I’m about to see, the offence of which I’m accused, at least sufficient to justify the granting of a search warrant, will be something that, once seen, I’ll never be able to unsee. That once I’ve read it, it’s going to set off a chain of events that will take me somewhere out beyond all control. This is the point at which if I were sleeping, I would force myself awake from the nightmare. But this is no sleep, and the nightmare is real.
I open the page, read. Close it again, gently, gently. Too much is broken already. It’s what I had known from the start, the only reason they would be behaving like this. Sexual communication with a child. I’m suspected of sending sexual material of some sort to a child.
Horror takes hold and sinks me back into the chair, keeps me immobile. My mind is racing but it has nowhere to go. I don’t know any children. I haven’t sent any sexual material. Nothing of the sort.
But then a thought strikes me. In my mind’s eye, I see Philip’s face, flushed with fury, leering from the dock as Liam gave his damning evidence. Surely, though, it can’t be. There’s no way anything like that is even possible. Then I think about the way he turned, glaring at me, and deep dread strikes me down.
26
I don’t know how long I sit in my room, head in hands. My life at the bar has flashed past me: the first days of learning about law, suppressed giggles at the case of R v. Brown, Operation Spanner, in which it was held that you couldn’t give consent for someone else to nail your foreskin to a board. The pride of being called to the bar. The first time of wearing a wig, the scratchy feel of it a triumph, not a chore. First magistrates’ court trial, first Crown Court mention. First time on my feet without a pupil supervisor close on my tail. First robbery, rape. First junior brief on a murder. First time to send someone to jail.
Now this. Facing jail myself, for all I know. For the first time I start properly to understand how my clients might feel. My belief in the system as being fair, fundamentally just has taken a knock. With a growing sense of shame I begin to understand the privilege under which I’ve operated all my life, the benefits that have accrued to me simply as a matter of birth, class, race. I’m used to being in control, having an answer to every question, a solution to every problem. Now, it’s out of my hands. I have no idea what I’m meant to have done, what’s been alleged against me. Who’s made the allegation.
It’s crumbling to dust around me. A morning raid, my electronics seized, my house violated. I hug my arms close around me. The adrenaline is wearing off now and my hands are shaking, tremors running through my whole body. I know I should go home, tidy it up. But I sit as though fixed to the spot, my feet stuck to the floor, gravity too heavy for me.
People are beginning to arrive in chambers now. I can hear voices, footsteps, the sound of the front door opening and closing. There’s a scent of coffee on the air, a crashing of scaffolding from the renovations on the building next door. The sun is fully up now, the sky a bright, beautiful blue, the kind of blue that normally allays all fear, calms me. I should be walking through Temple Gardens down to the Thames, to cross the river and stroll along the South Bank.
I inhale slowly, exhale, trying to bring myself under some sort of control, calm the tremors in my hands. I need to get home. After a few moments, I’m ready, and I push myself up to my feet as slowly as if I were eighty, my knees weak, my legs trembling beneath me. I’m about to leave my room when I hear a loud bellowing from the clerks’ room.
‘If she’s here I bloody well want to see her right now,’ a man is shouting, his accent cut-glass even if shaking with anger. ‘I’ve never heard of anything so disgraceful.’
‘We haven’t seen her come in this morning, sir,’ one of the junior clerks says. I’m too shaken to work out which, or who is doing the shouting. I don’t even know for sure that it has anything to do with me, but at the same time, it seems entirely clear that it must.
‘I want to see that Munro woman right now,’ the man shouts again, and any tiny doubt that might have remained goes. Of course it’s me. ‘You go check upstairs right now, my good man, and tell her to get the fuck down here now before I tell the whole building what she’s been getting up to with my client.’
I hear footsteps up the stairs, the gait hesitant, heavy. It’s Matthew, I know that now. His face appears around the side of my door, blank with astonishment at the situation. He opens his mouth to speak but I put my hand up to stop him.
‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘I heard the shouting.’
‘It’s Mr Lamb,’ he says. ‘The QC. He seems quite anxious to see you.’
I almost laugh at the euphemism. I don’t, though. This situation isn’t Matthew’s fault. He hasn’t asked for his chambers to be searched by the police, for one of his tenants to be treated as a prospective criminal.
‘It’s OK,’ I say again. ‘I’ll come down.’ I stand up, and now gravity has stopped pulling at me. My feet are light, my body too, moving without me in it, as I float somewhere up to the ceiling, watching it all play out underneath me. This is all too much for me to cope with while fully present. I’m aware vaguely of the disassociation. I don’t care. Whatever it takes to get me through this encounter. At least it might take me closer to the truth of what’s happened.
I get to the bottom of the stairs to be greeted by David Lamb, his face puce. He’d looked pissed off enough times the week before when we were dealing with the Youth Court trial. Now he looks as if he might explode, his face is so suffused with blood.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Propositioning my client in a restaurant toilet? Sending him pornographic images? He’s fifteen years old.’
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I remember when I saw Philip on the stairs going down to the toilets in the restaurant. We didn’t even brush arms with each other as we passed. He’s lying. But the photographs . . . the police wouldn’t have taken the steps they’ve taken if there weren’t something. I’m being set up . . . I can’t look at David. I focus instead on Matthew’s face, before looking quickly away. His mouth is open, his eyes wide, his whole demeanour one of shock and outrage.
‘You can’t just barge in here accusing Miss Munro of something like this,’ he says and I feel a momentary flicker of warmth against the chill I’ve felt since the early morning.
‘I can and what’s more, I bloody well will,’ David says, spittle flying out of his mouth and landing on Matthew’s jacket collar. I want to reach out and wipe it off with my sleeve, but I’m frozen to the spot. ‘I’ve seen the photos, I tell you, I’ve never been more shocked in my life.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I finally manage to say, the words grating, my mouth dry.
‘Come off it,’ David says. He looks straight at me and I quail at the blaze of fury in his eyes, bulging blue irises, red-rimmed. ‘I don’t know where the fuck you get off, sending that, that filth to my client. He’s just a child.’
‘I didn’t,’ I say. ‘I have no interest in your client. Why on earth would I send pornographic photographs to him?’
‘You tell me,’ he says. ‘You tell me. I can’t begin to fathom it. And not just pornographic photographs, pornographic photos of yourself.’ He looks me up and down, his face rigid with revulsion. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’
‘Um, Miss Munro, do you know what Mr Lamb is referring to?’ Matthew says. He won’t look straight at me.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening at all. Maybe it’s some kind of fake? Mocked-up photos with my face on them?’
Lamb shakes his head, a deliberate movement left to right, back to left. ‘Believe me, what I saw was no fake, Sylvie. How could you? The family is distraught. It’s destroyed the whole trial. It’s made a mockery of everything.’ He steps back, suddenly pale, and sits down abruptly on one of the chairs in the hallway. After taking a moment to compose himself, he looks straight through me. ‘It was me who called the police, Sylvie. I’m making a formal complaint to the Bar Council this morning, too. I’ve informed the other representatives in the trial, too. The prosecution will have no option but to give it up and go for a retrial with a proper judge. Not a shitshow like you. You should be suspended until this matter is concluded. Even if there’s no suspension, you need to take yourself home and stay there. You have no right to represent any client right now, let alone sit in judgement upon anyone.’
With that, he stands up and leaves. Matthew is silent. All I can hear is the hammering of my heart in my ears, my vision blurred. David is right – while this is hanging over me, I can’t possibly continue to work. But without work, what do I have? I slump down in the same chair that he’s vacated, putting my head down between my knees as a roaring sound threatens to engulf me.
‘Miss Munro,’ Matthew says, hesitation in his tone. Deep concern, too. He does not stand close to me, though, nor extend a hand of comfort. ‘I’m going to have to let the Head of Chambers know about this. The Senior Clerk too.’ He’s hiding behind formality. I know without looking that he’s pulling himself up, straightening his shoulders and puffing up his chest in the way that he does when he has to face down truculent solicitors. I want to argue with him, try and reassure him that it’s a load of bollocks, that a moment’s investigation will clarify that I haven’t done anything wrong. I know it’s pointless, though. I get to my feet and without looking at him, walk out of the building and away, trying to keep myself together at least until I’m out of Temple, away from any further audience to my humiliation.
Somehow, I manage to take myself down to the river. I don’t run into anyone I know and after some long minutes spent leaning against the wall by the side of the Thames, I’m calm enough to know that if I’m going to cry, it’s not going to be yet. It’s time to sort myself out, or at least to try and find out what the hell is happening. Without a phone, that won’t be possible, so I need to get a new one fast. The thought stirs at the back of my mind that perhaps I shouldn’t be accessing my online accounts, but I dismiss it. I haven’t been arrested, I’m only under investigation, and they may not even charge me.
I’m calmer now. I know that I’ve done nothing wrong, so there will be nothing for them to find. This is a misunderstanding. A grim, damaging misunderstanding, but a misunderstanding nonetheless. It will all be OK. Thus comforted (even though I don’t really believe my self-soothing words) I head for Fleet Street to buy a new phone and a replacement SIM card.
27
It’s almost eleven by the time I’ve sorted out a new, basic iPhone and installed my email. I sit in a café near Ludgate Circus and go through it all. There’s the usual spam and a message from the Head of Chambers, confirming that he’s been made aware that very serious allegations have been made against me, and that whilst he’s sure that I will clear my name entirely, in the meantime he is appealing to my good judgement to take myself out of practice ‘just for a few weeks until all this is resolved. We will be happy to take care of everything for you.’
A few weeks. I think about the trials I have coming up in my diary. There’s a particularly juicy attempted murder that I’ve been looking forward to. I’ll bet they’ll be happy to take care of everything. When I come back to work eventually, I’ll find my practice stripped bare. But I can’t even think about that now, not when the trial I’ve been presiding over lies in ruins. Liam’s face flashes into my mind, the determined bravery of it as he told his truth, and I sink my head, weighed down with concern and fury. There’s no way they’ll get Ryan back to give evidence for a second time. Liam will lose his nerve – he’ll think the system has betrayed him completely. Philip is going to get away with it scot free. I just hope they let Daniel out in the meantime. It’s such a fucking mess.
Fuck’s sake. What about Gareth? It’s the first time I’ve dared to think about him since they ripped me from sleep this morning. I don’t know what to say to him, how even to raise it. Hey, they’re investigating me for sending nudes to a minor, but it’s a pack of lies. I select his number, poise my finger ready to call him, but I know I can’t. Not yet.
Nude photographs. My thoughts stumble. There is someone who has taken nude photographs of me, who’s seen me naked on their screen. Gareth. I sit, motionless, horror trickling cold through my veins. Then the espresso machine in the corner bangs and emits a huge head of steam. The noise brings me back down to earth. I’m being ridiculous.
The Facebook app has downloaded while I’ve been neuroticising over Gareth, so instead I open it and enter my login details. It opens, showing that I’ve had some more friend requests: Gareth, a few more colleagues. Someone from primary school.
I can’t deal with it now. I’ll decide later whether to accept his request. This is why I’ve eschewed social media all my life. I’ve no desire whatsoever to have all the pieces of my past fit together into some sort of accusatory jigsaw puzzle, accessible at the touch of a button.
Right on cue, a message notification pops up. I go to the Messenger app and once it’s verified it’s me, I see who has sent the message. Linda. I open it and it’s a paragraph of text. Before I read it, I look around me in the café, nerves back on edge again. There’s no one behind me – I deliberately chose a seat with my back to the wall – and no one to my left or right. Resisting the urge to swipe on it, delete it, as if that would make it all disappear, Linda cease to exist, instead I focus on it properly, moving the text up the screen slowly as I read.
You still haven’t answered my question. What do you want? I can still see you standing there, you and Tess, thick as thieves as you screwed my life up. Tess was lying through her teeth. Or you were. One of you, both of you. You could have been brave, Sylvie. You could have told the truth. But you never had the balls. Why are you hassling me now?
I sit, chewing the inside of my lip. The urge to delete is still overwhelming. But I’ve promised Tess. She wants to resolve this.
It’s because of Tess. She has cancer. She wanted me to find you, see if there was some way of moving forward from everything that happened. It’s been on her mind. We’re still best friends, and I promised to help her.
I hit send. The time that it takes for the message to be read seems to stretch out for eternity, the grey dots hovering on the screen. Finally, a reply.
We all have shit to deal with. Leave me the fuck alone. If you don’t . . . well, I’ve looked you up. I’ve seen you’re a lawyer now. Would they be pleased to know that you committed perjury?
I drop the phone down onto the table, my fingers cold. Another potential complaint, when I’m already in this situation? I don’t know anyone whose reputation could withstand that. The false confidence with which I’d boosted myself earlier ebbs away. It’s over. Between this and the allegations of the morning, I feel crushed in a vice.
My coffee’s cold now and the waiter is glaring at me as a queue for seats forms. It’s nearly lunchtime. I drain what’s left in one gulp and walk out, head held high, but the moment that I’m out of sight, I slump down against a wall. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go. I mean, I should go home, but the idea of facing the mess defeats me.
Tess. I’ll go and see Tess. She’ll help me make sense of all this. She’s always been good at calming situations down. She’ll tell me I have nothing to worry about and she’ll agree to drop all this Linda business now that she can see that no good is going to come from it. I start walking towards the bus stop in the direction of her house in Islington, my steps breaking into a run. Tess will make everything better, just like she always has.
She makes me a cup of tea while I sit at the table in her pristine kitchen, words flowing from me without pause. All the horror of the morning, the shame of it, the feeling of helplessness. She puts the tea in front of me, sits opposite me, her fingers laced tightly together, her face blank, unreadable. After a while I realise she’s made no sound, no noise of sympathy or encouragement.
‘Are you all right?’ I say. ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t even asked how you are.’
‘Not really,’ she says. ‘I saw the specialist last week.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘I’m telling you now. It’s not good, Sylvie. It’s inoperable.’
All my petty troubles fall away, washed away by shame that I could burden her with such meaningless bullshit when she’s facing something so huge.
‘What do you mean, inoperable?’
‘Exactly that,’ she says. ‘It’s in too deep. It’s not very big, but they don’t like the look of it at all. They’re worried that the effects of surgery would be so dangerous that it’s not worth the risk. They’re going to watch and wait, that’s what they call it. I’ll have to have a scan every two months so they can see how it’s progressing.’
‘I can’t believe there’s nothing they can do,’ I say.
Her head is bowed. She’s plucking at the sleeve of her jumper, pleating it over and over again. At this she looks up, her eyes like pebbles. ‘They’re not saying it, not in as many words. They aren’t saying I don’t have long left. But the oncologist. He looked so sad. Before I left, he said really gently that if there was anything I’d ever wanted to do, anything at all, now was the time to do it.’
