He pushed at the door and it opened into a communal hallway. It was all shades of brown, with plywood-finish doors and a number 1 in fake marble pinned to the first one. The stairs were narrow and dark, but it was the only way forward.
There was a television playing in one of the flats, and as he climbed, the landings just got darker. The switch for the lights was a push-button timer that slowly released itself, but it didn’t give him enough time to get upstairs. By the time he got to the top floor, flat number six, he had to feel his way along, the number visible only in silhouette against the faint light that came through a glass door. There were small steps on the other side, and so he guessed that it was the loft flat.
Charlie knocked at the door, but there was no answer. All he could do was wait.
His phone rang. He checked the screen. It was Julie, his ex. When he pressed the answer, he let Julie speak first.
‘Charlie, it’s me. I’ve heard about Amelia. We need to talk to you about what happened.’
Charlie thought about whether to answer, but the urge to know what was being said was too strong. ‘What’s the word? Why do you want to speak to me?’
‘I can’t tell you that. You know how it is.’ There was a pause, and then, ‘You need to come in, Charlie.’
‘What, to the station?’
‘Yes. They need to talk to you.’
Charlie closed his eyes for a moment. It felt like everyone was closing in on him.
‘No, I can’t,’ he said, and then he clicked off his phone.
More than an hour passed before he heard footsteps. He had spent that time with his head in his hands, expecting the sound of the police rushing the stairs, but it had stayed quiet. So he had gone over Amelia’s death in his head, trying to make some sense of it all. But he couldn’t, however much he tried, because he didn’t know what was behind it, other than it somehow involved Billy Privett.
He heard footsteps, and tensed up, waiting for the glimpse of a uniform, but he knew it was Donia before he saw her. The footsteps weren’t heavy enough to be the police. When she rounded the corner, she smiled and held out her shoulder bag. It looked heavy.
‘I got it,’ she said.
‘Let’s get inside,’ Charlie said, nodding gratefully but not up to returning the smile.
Donia’s apartment was dark and smelled fusty and damp, or perhaps it was just old cigarettes. There were two bedrooms, but there was a bunk bed in the hallway as well, and so he guessed that in the summer it was all about cramming them in, living off the hill walkers. The carpet was rough carpet tiles, cigarette burns in some, and as he turned into the living room, he saw that it was just a collection of chairs with wooden arms facing a small television, heat provided by a three-bar electric fire topped by plastic coals.
‘Is this low rent, or some kind of retro trendy thing I don’t quite get?’ Charlie said, in an effort to appear normal.
Donia laughed and put her bag down on one of the chairs. ‘It was cheap and not far from your office. I’m thinking of spending the summer here, if things work out.’ Then she blushed and became apologetic. ‘I’m sorry. I wanted to spend the summer working for you, but things have changed, I know, with what happened to Amelia.’ She paused, and then asked, ‘What happened to her?’
Charlie sat down opposite her and closed his eyes. He put his head back against the wall. ‘Make me a drink and we’ll talk about it,’ he said. ‘It’s been one hell of a day.’
He listened as Donia bustled around in the kitchen, and not long after he opened his eyes to see her holding out a mug of coffee and what looked like a cheese sandwich.
‘You look hungry,’ she said.
He was, although he’d hoped the drink was going to be colder and stronger. He thanked her anyway. She watched him eat, her head in her hand as she sat at a table by the window, a white placemat and a vase of plastic flowers adding some fake grandeur to the scuffed surface.
When he put the plate down and drank some of the coffee, she said, ‘The police wouldn’t tell us what happened to Amelia.’
‘How was Linda?’
‘Upset, and she didn’t know what to do, because you weren’t there. She let the police look round the office. Was that all right?’
‘Yes, fine,’ Charlie said. ‘Did they take anything away?’
Donia shook her head. ‘Linda printed Amelia’s appointment list and client list for them, but that was it. They said she had been killed, and that they needed to speak to you, but didn’t say why.’
‘How long were they there for?’
‘Not long.’ Donia took a drink of her own coffee and then said, ‘Those people were hanging round outside the office again.’
‘Which people?’
‘Those people all in black. You spoke to them yesterday.’
Charlie felt uneasy. ‘What were they doing?’
‘Just waiting around.’
‘Did they follow you?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Donia looked worried. ‘What, do you think they might have done?’
‘Check out of the window. If they have, it will be me they are interested in, not you.’
Donia went past him and pulled the curtain to one side. She peered out of the window and then shook her head. ‘I can’t see them.’ When she turned back to Charlie, she said, ‘Why are you running?’
Charlie sighed. He knew that if there was enough planted evidence to put him in a dock, the fact that he ran would be the first thing in the minds of the jury.
‘Because I want to try and find out what happened,’ he said. ‘I’m worried that if the police think I did it, they’ll stop me.’
‘Why would they think you did it?’
Charlie didn’t want to answer that, because it would mean disclosing the knife. ‘Do you think I might have done it?’ he said instead.
‘I don’t really know you,’ she said, her teeth chewing at her lip.
‘So if you’re not ruling it out, why have you let me in?’
She shrugged but didn’t answer.
He put his cup down. ‘I need a proper drink. Have you got anything?’
Donia shook her head. ‘I don’t drink much.’
‘Sensible.’
‘You drink too much.’
‘Depends on the reason. If I’m drinking so that I don’t have to face up to my life, I’m not drinking enough.’
‘Is your life that bad? It looks good to me.’
‘Go on, make it better for me. Why is it good?’
‘You live in a nice place. It’s got countryside, views, fresh air, and you can walk everywhere. You’ve got an interesting job, and you’re healthy. My mum once wanted a career like yours. You should be grateful for what you’ve got.’
Charlie gave a small laugh, but it was bitter. ‘Thank you for the life-coaching. I’ll tell you about this town; it is stagnant. No, it’s more than that. It’s dying. Everyone is waiting for it to be rescued as a Manchester commuter town, but there isn’t enough charm to make it work, and it is too bleak in winter. Pound shops, they’re the only things that work, and don’t start me on my job.’
‘I want your job,’ she said.
‘Good. You can buy me out when you qualify, because I’m sick of it.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘Don’t I? What is there to like? At the beck and call of people who think I’m their friend because I speak up for them in court, but I have to say things I don’t believe, about how prison won’t work and bullshit like that. Because prison isn’t good, I know that, but at least it gives everyone a break from them. So my whole life is a fake, because people who don’t deserve my help spend their lives making other people miserable, and it’s all about them when they get caught, bleating self-pity. So you want to be a lawyer? Well, don’t, because you’ll never get to do what you want to do, just what other people want you to do.’
Donia raised her eyebrows and then started to laugh.
‘What’s funny?’
‘I’ve never seen anyone so wound up,’ she said.
She had an infectious smile, her teeth bright against her skin, but Charlie couldn’t muster a smile.
‘Okay, maybe I’ve just having a bad day,’ he said. ‘No, more than that. I’m having a stinker of a day, the worst fucking day I have had for a long time. I’ve got a hangover, and now my business partner is dead, perhaps because of a file I’ve now got,’ and he nodded towards Donia’s bag. ‘So let me have a look.’
‘Can I help you?’
‘You’re here for work experience.’
She pulled the file out of the bag, resting it on the table with a thump. ‘Just let me get changed out of these clothes,’ she said, and then she went out of the room.
Charlie watched her go and shook his head. She was young and pretty and she wanted to spend some time with him. Then as he went towards the table, he caught his reflection in a mirror. His cheeks were flushed and his hair was grey and messy, his graze darkening. His eyes looked tired, as did his skin, and he knew then why Donia was relaxed around him. To her, he was middle-aged. He was safe, not a sexual threat. Good old Uncle Charlie.
His smile faded, and instead he sat at the table and opened the file.
It wasn’t the usual sort of file for criminal clients. They have separate inserts for the different things that make up a file. The legal aid forms. The prosecution statements. Defence witness statements and the typed-up version of the defendant’s bullshit, something for him to rehearse for his trial. All the correspondence on a clip. But Billy’s case never got as far as the court, and so it didn’t have all that clutter. Instead, there were just the sheets from the police station, with Billy’s details and a summary of what he had told Amelia, along with a deep pile of correspondence and attendance notes. There was a separate insert for press cuttings.
Charlie’s fingers trembled as he put the police station forms on the table, along with the correspondence. Was he going to find something out that should stay secret, or might even suggest that Amelia had been less than frank with the police and courts? It wouldn’t bother her now, but he didn’t want her name dragged through the press. At least let her name retain the dignity that her death had taken away.
Donia came back into the room, pulling on a baggy grey jumper over loose jeans.
‘You’ve started without me,’ she said.
‘You haven’t missed anything,’ Charlie replied flatly.
As he pulled the contents of the file out onto the table, he knew that the next hour could change his life.
John scoured the barn with Gemma, looking for ways to make the house more secure.
Gemma kicked a roll of barbed wire. ‘Can we use this?’
He nodded. ‘We can wrap it round the grilles, or nail it to the window frames on the inside.’
‘What are we defending against?’
John licked his lips nervously, not knowing how much Gemma knew. ‘The authorities don’t like what we do,’ he said. ‘Henry is worried that they’ll do a raid. We’ve got cannabis here, remember, growing in one of the barns.’
‘But we can’t stop that with wire and mesh on the windows.’
‘I know, but it will slow them down and give us more time.’
‘For what?’
‘Just to defend ourselves. Or even get away, if we can hold off until nightfall.’
Gemma didn’t look satisfied by that. ‘Do you think Henry wants us to be martyrs or something?’
‘I don’t know,’ John said, not meeting her gaze, ‘but if we are going to change anything, we have to be prepared for that. It might just be prison, and that will be easy. We’ll be out in less than half, and we’ll be heroes, because we’ll have made a stand. We’re fighting back, but we must be ready for it.’
‘It won’t be prison,’ Gemma said.
‘How do you mean?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Because we don’t recognise their courts, silly. Don’t you remember what Henry said, that their laws only bind us if we agree to it? That’s why we are free.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I’m sorry. Henry told me about the Magna Carta thing, that we can carry out lawful rebellion.’
‘I don’t understand all the details, because every time Henry explains it, I get lost, but I trust him, because it isn’t just us who feel this way. You’ve just got to remember to give up everything.’
‘What, you mean my property?’
‘More than that, because you have to give up your legal name. If you are dealing with anyone official, don’t go by the name you used to have, because your birth certificate is just your membership card to their society, and so if you use that name, you accept membership. But this is the clever thing; if you don’t use your given name, you have opted out. If you have no contract with society, they can’t enforce the penalties under the contract.’ She grinned. ‘Clever, don’t you think?’
‘It can’t be that simple.’
‘It is, I’ve seen it work.’ Gemma started to pull at the coil of wire, an old rag wrapped around her hand to protect it. ‘And like you say, if they try to use force, we will just defend ourselves. It’s exciting, sort of.’
‘Gemma?’
She stopped. ‘Yes?’
‘All I want is for us to stay together, that’s all,’ John said. She started to say something in response, but he held up his hand. ‘I know what Henry said, and I know that you won’t be with me exclusively, but whatever time you’ve got spare, if Henry is all right about it, I would like you to share it with me.’
Gemma grinned and then bit her lip seductively.
He laughed, she knew how to play him, and went back to rummaging, pulling old pieces of machinery to one side, a bit more skip in his step. At the back, covered in dust, he found some animal traps, with metal hinges and strong serrated jaws. They were dusty, with rust on the edges, and so he wasn’t sure if they worked anymore.
He set one of the traps, his arms straining as he pulled on the jaws, until he felt it click into place. He found an old bamboo cane against the wall and placed it in the trap. He didn’t have to push hard before the jaws snapped together, sending one end to the floor, leaving him with a piece of bamboo with a jagged end. He liked it. There were six of the traps, and he carried them outside. Three for the field, two on the path that ran in front of the house, leaving one by the back door. It got dark there, with no lights shining at the back, and so whoever was coming wouldn’t find out until the jaws snapped around their ankle. He just had to make sure that everyone knew about them.