Court Out (2 page)

Oh damn, this must mean that His Honour is cutting down on the evil weed at the moment. I attempt to check my teeth for lipstick in the useless mirror and hurry back to court.

As I make my way through the courtroom, weaving between the rows of seats and files to the dock, I note with alarm that Mr. Walsh is conspicuous by his absence. The court clerk is sat in the well of the court indicating to her usher that the jury should be brought up, ready to resume.

I take my seat and wait. I can hear the clock ticking behind me. Robert clears his throat expectantly. To distract myself, I pick up my copy of Archbold, a huge annual tome that contains all the law your average criminal barrister could ever need. As I flick through it, looking for nothing in particular, my eyes dart anxiously to the door. Time seems to move in fast forward. I’m aware that everyone is looking at me, waiting for me to do something. After a couple of minutes I can take it no more.

“Has the Defendant been tannoyed?” I ask the court clerk.

She looks at me and I swear I see a hint of something resembling amusement in her eyes.

“Yes Miss, twice.” She knows that any attempt on my part to persuade the Judge to assemble a search party will provide an entertaining floorshow for her this afternoon.

I take a split second to think and weigh my options. If he doesn't return then the Judge will issue a warrant for his arrest and the trial will continue as if he were here. The Jury will know he’s decided to absent himself, therefore meaning that my speech will fall on deaf ears. Not good.

“I’ll just see if he’s by the front door,” I say, running to the exit, inadvertently kicking over a box of papers in the process.

“Well hurry up, I’m going to get the Judge in two minutes,” the clerk warns.

For the second time this afternoon I run down the stairs, this time almost losing one of my sling-backs in the process like some dark-robed Cinderella. I stumble down the last few steps and run outside the main doors.

I look left and right, frantically shielding my eyes from the rain. I spot him about twenty metres to my right, down a side street that runs alongside the front of the court. He is facing the redbrick wall and his greasy untidy hair is being whipped round his face by the wind as he hunches over something in his hands.

Without hesitation I run over, lunge towards him and successfully grab him by his coat sleeve. This causes him to jump about a foot in fright, dropping a bag in the process. I barely register the sound of breaking glass as I navigate him back towards and into the court building.

The look of fury on my face has the helpful side effect of dissuading the court security guards from instigating their usual routine of searching every nook and cranny of my Mary Poppins-esque bag, a task that normally takes the best part of half an hour.

As I manhandle Mr. Walsh back up the main flight of stairs I hiss sideways to him, “What do you think you are playing at? Where have you been and why do you smell like something that has died?”

He hiccups and mumbles, “Needed sumfing to cheer me up.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I question, turning to face him halfway up the steps. His face is ruddy and his eyes are glazed. As he hiccups again, a wave of fumes, akin to a sea of whiskey hits me full in the face.

“What have you done you idiot? If the Judge cottons on that you’re paralytic you’ll be sent down to the cells whilst you sober up and I’ll be stuck trying to explain this to the jury!”

“I’m shorry,” he slurs, “It’s, s’my birthday... no-one... prison!”

As I catch the odd word I start to panic. Whilst some Judges would happily adjourn the case for a short while after receiving a coded message from a barrister, this one won’t. I rummage in my bag and from the bottom fish out a half eaten packet of extra strong mints.

“Right, eat these and keep your mouth closed. Not a word to anyone. I’ll tell them we’re ready to go.”

As he stumbles through the door to courtroom four in front of us, needing two attempts to get through, it dawns on me that this could go horribly wrong. When I get back into court, the parties are fully assembled, with, oh no, the Judge already ensconced in his seat, tapping his pen on his notebook, looking far from amused at having been kept waiting for sixty seconds or so.

Horrors of horrors, the jury are also sat in court looking impatient. I’m seething. They should have waited for me. I hurry to my place, offer a quick apology for our lateness and reach for my notebook where the points I have made for my speech are scrawled. Crap, it’s not there.

The courtroom is in total silence and you could hear a pin drop. Oh God, where is it? I lift my papers up, hoping to see the familiar blue A4 book underneath. No such luck. I turn to see Robert looking quizzically at me.

“Notebook?” I silently mouth to him.

He shakes his head and starts looking around him. I can feel twelve pairs of eyes boring into the side of my head. What on earth am I going to do? In the absence of anything better to do, I pick up a polystyrene cup from the bench and fill it from the jug of stale water next to it. Well, I can’t see my notes anywhere, and I can’t exactly ask the Judge to give me time to find it given I’ve already fallen from grace by keeping him waiting. As if on cue, he speaks.

“Is there a problem Miss Chase?” he asks, his tone reminding me of a bored cat playing with a cornered mouse.

It suddenly dawns on me that I must have left my book in the loo. Right, well I guess this is why I’m paid to think on my feet. I inhale deeply, turn to my left, smile and confidently speak.

“Well members of the jury, it now falls to me to address you on behalf of Mr. Walsh.”

Ten minutes in and my confidence is growing. Most of my speeches follow roughly the same pattern so I’m on solid ground and as long as I don’t stray into any specifics about the evidence I should be ok.

            At the moment I’m trying to get the jury to imagine being an innocent shopper targeted by malicious store detectives. I’m sure we’ve all had it. Personally, whenever I go shopping anywhere other than high street stores wearing my ‘weekend clothes’ I can feel the beady eyes of the assistants trying to penetrate my purse to see if I have the means to even consider purchasing some of their overpriced wares. To be fair, nine times out of ten, I don’t.

“So, members of the jury, with that in mind, imagine you had gone out to purchase a gift for a loved one, had spent time carefully considering your options then became aware that for no good reason you were being followed, unjustifiably suspected of being a thief. How would that make you feel? Would you be frustrated? Annoyed? Angry? Wound up enough to throw a pair of pants?...”

This last point is met my by some bemused looks. One young, male juror stifles a giggle. I quickly change tack.

“You have heard that Mr. Walsh has numerous convictions for shoplifting. The prosecution want you to conclude that because he’s done it before, he’s done it this time too. Well I hope you agree that this time is wholly different from before. Yes he may steal bottles of spirits or the odd leg of lamb but he always confesses straight away to the police. This time he maintains his innocence.”

I can feel myself getting caught up with the passion of my words.

“Think of him to some degree as the boy who cried wolf. To work on the basis that he could never be telling the truth because he has been dishonest before would be unjust, it would be unfair, if you were him, wouldn’t it make you-”

I stop, my last word still stuck in the back of my throat as I hear a peculiar noise coming from the rear of the room. Not one of the jury is looking at me, they are staring with looks of abject horror on their faces at the dock.

One lady of the front row has turned an alarming shade of green. The court clerk is wide eyed with disbelief. With an overwhelming sense of dread I rotate slowly to see what has captured the attention of the court.

As I turn, a foul odour seeps into my nostrils and I visibly recoil. The source of the stench soon becomes apparent when I notice all hell breaking loose in the dock. The court security officers are trying to unlock the door to the cells to escape from Mr. Walsh who is vomiting copiously and indiscriminately.

I pivot back to face the twelve nauseated chosen, I really only have one option here.

“I rest my case.”

Chapter Two

“No. Way. Like absolutely no way!”

Serena is still laughing, leaning forwards in the burgundy leather cube chair she is occupying, her intonations making her sound like a Californian sorority princess. Her wine glass is also leaning forwards at a precarious angle so I hastily take it from her hand.

“What did Robert do?” she snorts.

“What? When the Judge literally ran out court before giving the shortest summing-up in the history of the profession or when the jury came back two minutes later and found the Defendant not guilty?”

“Both!” she chuckles.

“He took it remarkably well. I think he was in shock, no-one has ever seen our Judge move that fast before! Even better though, Mr. Walsh came into Chambers later in the day and dropped off a bottle of whisky as a present. I’ve put it on Robert’s desk”

“Why on earth would you do that? Wouldn’t Sebastian want it?”

“Maybe, but seeing as this bottle came missing about two-thirds of its contents I doubt he’d be brave enough to take a swig!”

We both fall about giggling. The bar is packed with solicitors and members of local Chambers who are making merry this Friday night. This particular watering hole is our regular haunt given its proximity to Chambers and the unmistakable fact that regardless of what time of day you visit, there are always at least two other barristers in here. Accordingly, the owners changed the name three years ago to ‘Bar-Bar’.

Most people labour under the common misconception that we have shares in the place. Whilst untrue, I’ve often thought that to be a very good idea given the extortionate prices of their drinks.

Serena gets to her feet.

“The usual?” she asks.

I hesitate for only a second, “Better make it a large one!”

As she walks to the bar I can feel my mobile vibrating against my leg from somewhere deep within the recesses of my bag. It takes me a good few minutes to retrieve it from the precarious depths inside, narrowly avoiding being stabbed by numerous uncapped biros and the odd piece of cutlery I’ve amassed. I really must sort this out.

By the time I have hoisted it out, I’ve missed the incoming call. I scroll through the display to find that it was Sebastian and I have a warm and fuzzy moment. Despite the fact that I rarely make it home on a Friday night before midnight, he always likes to know how I’ve got on in court.

I send him a quick text as it’s way too loud to hear in here anyway and if I step outside then I run the risk of some opportunists stealing our seats before Serena gets back; I’m really not in the mood for a fight with some of the commercial lot about who has proprietary rights.

I glance up to the crowded bar and manage to spot my partner in crime talking to the barman and laugh as I notice a very old, very married member of the judiciary blatantly checking out her rear view.

Serena is a couple of years older than me, having celebrated her 31st birthday in January. We met after uni at Bar School and instantly clicked. I remember our first ethics lecture together when our eyes met over a discussion about what we were supposed to do when a Defendant told us they were guilty but still wanted to be represented at trial.

“Depends how much they’re paying me!” whispered Serena who then fell about laughing at the disapproving look on my face. I couldn’t help but join in and we went for a drink at a nearby student pub after the session ended.

I learned that Serena, having happily progressed through higher education was, like me, hoping to join a criminal set of Chambers in the Midlands. That night we bonded over several bottles of terrible house Chardonnay and far too many shots of even worse tequila. As we stumbled, late, into our seminar the next morning still half-cut, our friendship was cemented.

Over the course of the nine months we worked together, revised together and got very, very drunk together. Whilst Serena is definitely not a ‘girl’s girl’, she must have seen something in me that she could relate to. We spent hours in my little room in halls worrying about our assignments, planning what we would wear to various socials and moaning about the various men in our lives. I feel like a seven year old for saying it out loud, but I suppose apart from Sebastian, she’s my best friend.

As she makes her way back to our table, trying to carry a bottle of wine, two glasses and not catch her heels on her wide legged suit trousers her face is screwed up with the effort of the manouever. She’s doing a much better job at it than I could have.

Her messy blonde hair has been twisted into an impromptu chignon and her face is devoid of any makeup save for her usual single coat of brown mascara. She manages to thrust her wares onto the table without falling over or spilling a drop; something which I never manage.

“Cheers!” I pick up the bottle of decent rose and pour two large glasses for us. It’s ice cold and much appreciated after the long week we’ve both had. She picks up her glass and clinks it against mine.

“Cheers,” she replies. “I’ve had a nightmare day in front of Judge Stinky.”

I should point out that he’s not actually called Judge Stinky, but is simply referred to as such given his penchant for dousing himself liberally in Old Spice before venturing out of his front door each morning. Being stuck in his courtroom on a warm day could be classed as cruel and unusual punishment.

“Not only did he make me wait all day to get my case on, he then wanted to hear submissions about a completely irrelevant point of law. I swear he does it on purpose so that he has someone to talk to all day!”

I nod and silently agree with her.

“Oh well, at least it’s the weekend now and you can turn your finely tuned mind to more pressing matters”