Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) Read online

  Bold Counsel

  Tim Vicary

  The third book in the series ‘The Trials of Sarah Newby’

  First published as an ebook by White Owl Publications Ltd 2011

  Copyright Tim Vicary 2011

  ISBN 978-0-9571698-1-4

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention

  No reproduction without permission

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Tim Vicary to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This is a work of pure fiction. Although most of the places in the book exist, any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Other Kindle e-books by Tim Vicary

  Crime and Legal Thrillers

  A Game of Proof

  (The Trials of Sarah Newby, book 1)

  A Fatal Verdict

  (The Trials of Sarah Newby, book 2)

  Historical novels

  The Blood Upon the Rose

  (Love and terror in Ireland, 1920)

  Cat and Mouse

  (Suffragettes and Ulster Rebellion in 1914)

  The Monmouth Summer

  (Love, tragedy and rebellion in 1685)

  Website: http://www.timvicary.com

  Blog: http://sarahstrials.wordpress.com

  Twitter @TimVicary

  Table of Contents

  1. Fox

  2. Family Troubles

  3. Jason Barnes

  4. Fingers of Death

  5. Hotel Bedroom Blues

  6. Court of Criminal Appeal

  7. School Project

  8. Cross Examination

  9. Afternoon in Court

  10. A Helping Hand

  11. Judgement Day

  12. Ten o'Clock News

  13. Mother and Daughter

  14. Slip Road

  15. Michael Parker

  16. Broken Glass

  17. New Recruit

  18. Mother and Son

  19. Peter Barton

  20. Whose Hand?

  21. Identity Parade

  22. Body Search

  23. First Date

  24. Digging Up the Past

  25. Riverbank

  26. Mask and Mirror

  27. Gone to Ground

  28. On the Edge

  29. Dividing the Equity

  30. Body in the Hall

  31. Sarah and Emily

  32. Alison Grey

  33. Seduction

  34. Doctor and Priest

  35. Location, location

  36. Necessary Ghoul

  37. Lovers’ Gateway

  38. On the Carpet

  39. Landlord

  40. Grandmother

  41. Terry’s Christmas

  42. Quick Sale

  43. Garden of Remembrance

  44. Homeless Person

  45. Burnout

  46. Moving In

  47. Clear as Mud

  48. Student Memories

  49. Intruder

  50. Warning

  51. Local Bobby

  52. Gotcha!

  53. Holding Hands

  54. Interviewing Peter

  55. Hut of Horrors

  56. Windmills in Spain

  57. Confessions

  58. Picture Phone

  59. Two Suspects

  60. Midnight Story

  61. Rough Love

  62. Sailing High

  63. New Start

  1. Fox

  THE YOUNG fox’s ribs showed through its coat; its belly clung to its backbone. In the starlight before dawn, it was stalking young rabbits. Its eyes blazed bright in its skull as a couple of baby rabbits hopped cautiously out of their burrow, stood on their hind legs to sniff the breeze, and cocked their ears for danger. The fox’s jaws drooled, grinning with anticipation.

  But his swift, lunging run sent the rabbits scurrying back underground, his teeth snapping uselessly behind them. The brief effort exhausted him. Outside the burrow, he gasped for breath. If he didn’t eat today, he would die.

  Frantically, he dug down into the burrow, seeking food and shelter. A place to eat, or a place to die. He scrabbled deeper into the earth, with the energy of desperation. His paws grew sore, his nose and eyes were covered with soil.

  But the digging intrigued him; another smell, not rabbit, entered his nostrils. A rare, unusual smell. Finally, to his intense delight, he unearthed it; something hard, crunchy and bone-like. He seized the bones in his teeth, and tugged.

  They tasted of ancient, rotten meat. But they were hard to loosen. He braced his forepaws against the rock and tugged, growling through his teeth. It was like a game he had played as a cub, with kills his mother brought home. The strong got the best bones, the weak got the rest. But here it was just him and the rock.

  At last, almost frantic with exhaustion, he wrenched the bones free and dragged them outside. Dawn was just breaking, a thin lemon glow in the east. Disappointingly, there were only a few tiny scraps of meat between the bones, as hard as old leather. He chewed disconsolately for a while; then, as the sun rose higher, he fell asleep.

  He was woken by a draught of air round his nose. He opened his eyes as a crow, wings spread wide, snatched the bones with its beak. Enraged, the young fox leapt up and lunged. But the crow flicked its wings and floated lightly out of reach. Just a yard away, two - cool orange eyes taunted him to follow. When he did, the crow flew ten, twenty yards further, to the edge of his territory.

  The fox knew there was no point rushing after birds; they saw you coming, and flew away. Still, he’d nearly caught a pheasant once by stalking it - belly to the ground, nose hidden in the grass, inching one foot forward at a time, waiting for just that moment when the bird felt safe, and looked down to peck at something. That was how to get them, by creeping close enough first.

  He tried it now. He crept after the crow until he saw where it had landed. On the road, outside his territory. Probably it felt safe there; it could see all around. But the long grass hid the fox’s approach. And the crow was too keen on the bones. It pecked at them industriously, seeking the tiny, leathery scraps of meat between the joints.

  The fox crouched in the grass, wound tense like a catapult. The crow pecked, then glanced up - not at the fox, but at something behind it. The young fox sprang. A huge growl filled its throat, with rage at the theft.

  Then several things happened at once.

  The crow dropped the bones and flew up, its wings flapping wildly in alarm.

  The fox snatched the bones with its teeth.

  And the car, which came roaring round the corner, its driver enjoying the emptiness of the early morning road, swerved wildly as the bird’s black wings flashed across the windscreen.

  The fox looked to its right, just in time to see death, in the form of a Michelin tyre, coming towards it at sixty miles an hour.

  The driver felt a soft thump and braked, slowing enough to see the crushed body of a young fox on the road behind him, but not stopping to get out or see what it held between its jaws.

  The bones of a human hand.

  2. Family Troubles

  THE MOTORCYCLE headlamp sliced the dusk, creating a clear cone of light down the country lane. The rider, crouched behind the headlamp in her black helmet and leathers, felt no urge to twist the grip and surge ahead down the empty road. On this autumn evening she was unusually aware of the gathering darkness all around, the hint of rain, the chill in the air that meant winter was coming. She had never felt entirely at home in the country, and out here now, alone in the dark, she regretted the lights of the city, the dema
nds of her work, the bustle of people all around.

  Fallen leaves had blown across the road at the next bend. She slowed the bike to a crawl. If I skid and fall off here, she thought, I could lie for hours before anyone comes. Even longer, if I was waiting for anyone who cared.

  It will be all right at home, she told herself, shrugging off the thought. But when she reached her house, in the quiet lane outside the village, no lights were on, as she’d hoped. No children at home, of course - her son Simon lived in town, her daughter Emily was at university. But Bob might have been here, at least. After all, teachers finished at four, didn’t they? Not six or seven in the evening as she often did, preparing for court in the morning.

  But her husband’s school was in Harrogate, not York. He’d been late home more evenings recently than she could count. Sarah Newby wheeled her bike into the garage, and sighed. Bob had tried to persuade her to sell this house and move to Harrogate with him, but she had refused. Stubbornly, grimly, supported by their daughter Emily who loved this house more than Sarah and saw it as her home. But Emily, as Bob pointed out, was hardly ever at home and likely to be living here less and less. Whereas he faced a long daily commute along the A59, one of the most choked roads in the region.

  And I work all over the north of England, Sarah thought. Harrogate would have suited me, just as well as York. So why did I refuse?

  The answer had little to do with logic. It was a feeling. For the past two years, nothing had seemed right between Sarah and her husband. It had started with that terrible trial of her son, Simon, whom she had defended when Bob believed him guilty of murder. That had opened a rift between them, across which they’d tried to throw flimsy, aerial bridges which often broke down. Then Bob had had an affair with his secretary, which made matters worse. It ended, but Sarah’s respect for him was shaken. And so, when he’d wanted to move house ...

  She’d just wanted to keep things the same, that was it.

  Only nothing stays the same; time changes everything. Children grow up and leave, old priorities fade into new, relationships not constantly rebuilt are washed away like sandcastles by the sea. Even memories alter; what was once vital in the past seems distant, ancient history, a petty storm in the blood, half-remembered.

  Sarah shrugged off her gloom and marched determinedly into the house, switching on lights, shrugging off her leathers, shaking out her hair, and putting on jeans and a sweater. The heating was on, at least - she was warm and comfortable. A Mozart string quartet CD filled the air with colour and life. She popped a Thai steamed dinner in the microwave, poured herself a glass of whisky, sat back in a reclining armchair, and ...

  Her mobile rang.

  It was her daughter, Emily. She was at Cambridge, studying environmental science. Six weeks ago Sarah and Bob had ferried her mountains of teenage kit down there in the Volvo, and settled her into her room at Sidney Sussex College. Since then Sarah had rung Emily most days, sometimes sharing excited, breathless accounts of her new friends and exploits, sometimes getting an embarrassed brush-off when it was not really a suitable time. Tonight, unusually, Emily had rung her. What she wanted to talk about was her boyfriend, Larry.

  Larry was three years older than Emily, a postgraduate at Birmingham university. He was a slim, intense young man with a ponytail and wispy beard. He had two main interests in life: saving the planet, and making love to Emily. Often he managed to combine the two, taking Emily away for long weekends to protest at road developments, promote re-cycling or save wetlands for endangered species of birds, but since Emily had moved to Cambridge, this had become more difficult. Neither had much money, transport was difficult, and both found themselves thrown together in groups of vibrant young people where the other was not present.

  ‘I’m scared I might lose him, Mum,’ Emily said. ‘I want to transfer to Birmingham.’

  ‘What? Emily, don’t be silly - you’ve only just started at Cambridge.’

  ‘Yes, well that’s just it. Maybe it’s best to move now - before it’s too late.’

  ‘Emily, you can’t do this. For heavens’ sake, think of all the effort you put into getting into Cambridge in the first place. And Larry supported you, didn’t he? He was there when you went for the interviews?’

  ‘Yes, but he was applying to do postgraduate studies here as well. If he’d got in, it would have been so much easier.’

  ‘Life’s never easy, love, but you can’t throw away an opportunity like this. Not even for ...’ She checked herself. She’d been going to say not even for a man, but clearly that would be the wrong thing to say. Sarah was quite fond of Larry - the boy was good company, and had a certain sexual magnetism to which she, a mother in her late thirties, was not immune - but her ambition for her daughter overrode any concerns for him. Emily, three years ago, had been no more than an average, not particularly bright GCSE student; the way in which she had blossomed since had delighted her mother. Much of that success had been inspired by the confidence her relationship with Larry had given her, so to ditch him was scarcely an option. Still, to think of leaving Cambridge after only six weeks was even worse.

  ‘What’s brought this on, darling?’

  ‘Well, he was going to come here on Saturday but he can’t, he’s got a seminar paper to write, and ...’

  For the next half hour Sarah listened to Emily’s troubles, and tried to pilot a way through them. By the end she had persuaded her not to seek a transfer. After all Larry was coming to visit, just a couple of days later than promised; the course in Cambridge seemed well taught; and Emily was making new friends. But what comforted Emily most of all was Sarah’s promise to visit her next week; she had a case in the Court of Appeal in London and would break her journey on the way home.

  Sarah smiled as she clicked off the phone. The girl’s homesick, she thought, she needs her mother. It was a comforting role, somewhat novel for her. All too often during Emily’s teenage years Sarah had been too buried in her work to listen to her daughter’s problems. Well, it’s never too late to change. She went in search of the steamed Thai dinner, now languishing stone cold in the microwave.

  Bob came home while she was eating it. He seemed preoccupied, grunting a brief hullo as he entered the kitchen. He was a tall, skinny man with a close-trimmed beard that was turning grey. His head teacher’s suit looked rumpled from hours of travel, and there were marks of orange board marker on one of the sleeves. He ran his hand through his hair as he opened a cupboard.

  ‘Out of coffee again. I mentioned that yesterday.’

  ‘You drink too much of that stuff anyway. It’s bad for your heart.’

  ‘My heart’s fine.’ He shut the cupboard, took a bottle of beer from the fridge, and surveyed the meal she was eating from the plastic carton. ‘Anything for me?’

  ‘Look in the freezer. There’s a few instant meals, pizzas and things.’

  He found a chicken curry, pierced a couple of holes in the cellophane wrapper, and put it in the microwave.

  ‘Welcome home, Bob.’

  ‘What?’ Sarah looked up from the file she was reading as she ate. It was the transcript of a murder trial that had taken place 18 years ago - the case that she was taking to London later that week. It was a complicated, interesting case - the first she had presented in the Court of Criminal Appeal. If she succeeded it would be a giant step in her career. She gazed at Bob blankly.

  ‘Nothing. I was just welcoming myself home, since no one else seems interested.’ He poured the beer into a glass, and studied the froth with exaggerated care.

  ‘I’ve had a hard day too, you know.’

  ‘Really? Nothing new there, then.’ The microwave pinged and he searched a drawer for a pair of scissors. Then he lifted the plastic curry container out and cut away the cellophane. He swore as steam scalded his fingers and put his hand under the cold tap to soothe it. Then he tipped the curry out of its plastic container onto a cold plate and sat at the kitchen table to eat it. After a few mouthfuls he put the fork down. ‘
I sometimes wonder what it would be like, you know, to come home to a proper meal, hot from the oven, not bloody plastic like this. Someone to smile at you even ...’

  Sarah pushed the papers away, looked up, forced a smile. ‘I’m sorry, Bob. How was your day?’

  ‘Pretty good, actually, till I got stuck on that road again. They’re digging it up at Green Hammerton. For four weeks, the sign says. That’ll add an hour to my day, if not more. If we’d moved when I said ...’

  ‘We’ve been through that, Bob. A dozen times.’

  ‘And I drive on that road every day.’

  She sighed, studying him carefully. His face was pale, the lines on his forehead clear as they often were when he was tired. But there was something else too, beneath the weariness. Something that scared her slightly. ‘Bob, do we have to quarrel now?’

  It was a rhetorical question, but he affected to consider it as a real one. He lifted a forkful of curry, studied it carefully, then put it down. ‘Yes, I think perhaps we do.’

  ‘What? Come on, Bob, we’re both tired.’

  ‘Tired of each other, is that what you mean?’

  She stared at him, shocked. ‘No. Of course I don’t mean that.’

  ‘Don’t you? Are you sure?’ Their eyes met across the table, searching. His face, so familiar from twenty years of marriage, seemed subtly changed. He took a long drink of beer, then put the glass firmly down on the table. ‘That’s exactly what I mean, Sarah. I’m tired of ...’ He waved his arm around the kitchen, whose fittings they had ordered together when they moved into the house, their first really luxurious home. Years ago, it seemed now. ‘ ... all this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tired of the house was bad enough, but she had heard that before. For a moment she had thought he meant tired of her.

  ‘I’m tired of this house, I’m tired of the way we live, and ... I want something better.’

  His eyes had a look she had never seen in them before. As though she was - not his wife, but someone else.

  ‘Better than me, you mean?’ Sarah had never been afraid of confronting monsters. Most of them ran away, if you stared them down.

  Not this time.

  ‘Yes. Not to put too fine a point on it, that’s exactly what I mean. Better than you.’