The Brothers of Baker Street (17 page)

“I hate these things,” said Nigel to Lois. Then, into the phone, he said, “This is Nigel Heath, Ms. Rennie. Kindly call Reggie Heath’s chambers and assist us in getting him out of jail over your client, if it is not too much trouble.”

Then he hung up.

“You’d think she’d have a secretary,” said Nigel. “But I’ll try her office in person. Meantime, there’s something else I need, if you aren’t too busy with your regular duties.”

Lois looked over at the shelf where she was supposed to collect the briefs for new business incoming from solicitors. Nigel looked, too. The shelf should have been full of documents, each rolled up and tied with the traditional purple ribbon that solicitors used when delivering new case instructions to barristers.

The shelf was empty.

“I just might have time for it,” said Lois.

Nigel gave her the letters from Moriarty. “These were done on a very old typewriter. Please see what you can find out about them.”

She gave Nigel a blank look.

“Such as?”

“Letters done on typewriters are traceable to the machines on which they were typed. The characters tend to arrange themselves in their own particular angles and impressions.”

“Yes, but how do I find—”

“Try some repair shops. Maybe there’s a typewriter museum? I don’t know. Someone must have something you can compare it to. If you can get the make and model, perhaps we can even find out where and who purchased the particular machine that typed this. For that you’d get a gold star.”

Her look back at Nigel had not improved much. “I … I’ll certainly try,” she said, gamely.

Nigel thanked her and turned to leave the office now. But then he stopped inside the doorway.

There was a scent. At first, just a very pleasant and interesting scent, of roses and other things—but then he began to remember where he had encountered it before, and the memory aroused mixed emotions.

“What perfume are you wearing?”

Lois looked shocked at first, and then, very quickly, quite pleased.

“Nothing, really. Just what I put on in the bath.” She blushed immediately after saying that.

Nigel sniffed the air, then took a step toward one of the guest chairs. Lois watched him, wondrously, as he looked first behind the chair, and then underneath it.

And then, having found nothing, he boldly put his hand into the crease of the chair.

He found something. He grasped it carefully between the tips of two fingers, and withdrew it.

It was the solicitor’s business card. Darla Rennie’s business card. It was slightly scented. And the scent was familiar.

“Oh,” said Lois. “Yes, she sat there the other day. She must have taken it out of her purse and dropped it?”

No cause for alarm, Nigel told himself. He might be misremembering the scent. And even if it was the same scent, it could be coincidence. Two different women could wear the same scent. One of them might even put it on her business cards.

And in any case, now he had the solicitor’s address.

Nigel left the chambers and hailed a Black Cab. He showed the driver Darla Rennie’s business card.

“A solicitor at that address?” said the driver.

“Yes,” said Nigel. “Tottenham Court Road.”

“Oh, I know where it is all right,” said the driver. “I know every address in London you can name. But there’s no lawyer’s office at 369 Tottenham Court Road.”

“You’re sure about that?” said Nigel, skeptically.

“Of course I’m sure. I know the street, I know what’s on it, and I don’t need any bloody satellite navigation system for it either,” said the driver, with slightly more heat than one would expect.

“Didn’t mean to offend,” said Nigel.

“Pay me no heed, guv. I’m just a bit annoyed that they’re trying to jam this thing down our throats.”

“A navigation system, you say?”

“Don’t read the papers then, do you?”

“I’ve been out of town,” said Nigel.

“Well, there’s a public hearing tomorrow, and I’ll give them a piece of my mind.”

“You should,” said Nigel. “Clearly you have some to spare. But for now, let’s just verify this lack of a solicitor’s office, shall we?”

“Right you are,” said the driver.

They reached the 300 block of Tottenham Court Road—featuring a newly installed American hamburger chain, a Tesco express, a launderette—and Nigel had to admit it was not where one would expect to find a high-end solicitor’s office. But as he could personally attest, not all solicitors are high end.

But now the cab pulled to a stop, and Nigel looked out the window at the address.

“Bloody hell,” said Nigel. “It’s a mail-box rental.”

The cabbie looked back at Nigel and nodded in a self-satisfied way.

“Right you are,” said Nigel.

14

Shortly after one that afternoon, Laura arrived by cab to meet Geoffrey Langdon at the entrance to Central Criminal Court.

She saw a man standing anxiously at the curb in a barrister’s chalk-stripe suit. He was smaller than she expected—thin-faced, with bright, darting eyes, as if always on the alert for some sort of attack from unexpected quarters.

He stepped toward her as soon as the cab door opened.

“Mr. Langdon?” she said.

“Yes, Ms. Rankin; we’ll go right inside, if you don’t mind. The court has allowed some media for this hearing; but let’s give them as little spectacle as we can.”

“I quite agree,” said Laura.

Laura tagged along with Langdon to get admitted through security.

As often as she had seen the outside of it, she had never before been inside the Old Bailey. The lobby was quite spectacular, with its arches and murals—or would have been, if one weren’t there for a criminal proceeding, which of course was the only reason to be there.

Langdon escorted her quickly up the stairs, and then through a short, narrow corridor into the courtroom.

“Sit one row back of me, as if you are Heath’s family,” said Langdon.

She did so, although the “as if” sounded odd somehow.

The prosecuting barrister entered, and sat at a table to their left.

And then a side door opened, and a sergeant entered, escorting a tall man in a regulation beige jumpsuit. It was Reggie.

Reggie stepped into the dock—a raised platform with four-foot glass sides, positioned at the end of the aisle between the defense and prosecuting benches. He managed a subtle wink at Laura as he took his position.

And now a door at the front of the courtroom opened, and the judge entered. Everyone stood. The bailiff called the court to order and announced Reggie’s case.

The judge, not bothering to look up, routinely asked if there would be application for bail.

“My lord, we request that the defendant be released on his own recognizance pending trial.”

Langdon said this in a low voice, matching the judge’s matter-of-fact tone as well as he could. But it didn’t work. The judge looked up.

“The charge is homicide, Mr. Langdon.”

“Yes, my lord, but the defendant is a respected member of the legal profession.”

“But we don’t want one standard of bail for members of the legal profession and another for everyone else, do we?” The judge intoned this with an inflection that made it clear what the right answer should be.

“Certainly not,” said Langdon, correctly. “The relevance of my client’s profession is simply that he must be free in order to properly prepare his own defense.”

“That’s a consideration. But can you cite any instance in recent memory where a London court has released a homicide suspect—one from the general population—on his own recognizance?”

“No, my lord, but I can cite many for which bail was granted on bond to a defendant who has had no prior violent acts, is of solid reputation, and has strong ties in the community.”

“Well, yes, on sufficient bond. That may be something we can consider.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

But now the prosecuting barrister spoke.

“My lord?”

“Yes?”

“As to prior violent acts—I believe there was an incident just a few days ago at Fleet Street in which a well-respected London publisher was violently deposited by Mr. Heath into a rubber tree plant.”

“No charges were filed,” said Langdon quickly.

“And yet another incident in which a photographer duly doing his job at a crime scene was violently accosted—”

“It was a rumpled collar, my lord, nothing more, and again no charges filed.”

The prosecutor sighed, very slightly, in a way intended to convey that it was a shame that multiple instances of no charges being filed could not in themselves add up to something.

The judge looked at him and asked, “Is there more?”

“Only, perhaps, that of which we are not aware,” offered the prosecutor, rather desperately.

“I believe that means ‘no,’ my lord,” chirped Langdon.

“I believe so, too,” said the judge. “But perhaps you will now give us your list, Mr. Langdon.”

“My lord?”

“The strong ties you were referring to. What are they?”

“The defendant has been a practicing barrister in London for fourteen years.”

“So I understand. Although I believe his chambers are not actually in the City of London proper, is that correct?”

“Umm, true, my lord. His chambers are in Marylebone, on Baker Street.”

“Rather unusual.”

“Unusual, but not prohibited,” said Langdon.

“And he is at present the only barrister at Baker Street Chambers, is that also true?”

“Well, yes, he is at this moment a sole practitioner.”

“Somewhat reduces the strength of his connections with the legal community, in my view,” said the judge. “But go on.”

“My lord?”

“Ties to the community in general? Family?”

“Both parents deceased, my lord.”

“Does he have children?”

“Ahh … I’m not…”

For some reason—probably to avoid craning his neck at the upward angle to look over at Reggie—Langdon looked at Laura, who thought about it, and then shook her head rather uncertainly.

“We think not, my lord.”

“A wife?” The judge was still addressing Langdon, and not Reggie.

Laura shook her head emphatically and Langdon relayed that to the court.

“Any family contacts at all?”

“A brother, my lord,” offered Langdon. “Nigel Heath.”

“Ahh, yes,” said the judge. “I’ve heard the name. But not here in London, is he?”

“No,” said Langdon.

The judge breathed a sigh of relief at that, but Laura noticed his reaction too late. She had already whispered a correction to Langdon.

“Correction,” said Langdon to the judge. “Nigel Heath is, in fact, now in London.”

“Is he?” said the judge. “Nigel Heath has returned?”

“Yes.”

The judge frowned. Laura looked over at Reggie, who seemed to be holding his breath.

The judge settled back in his chair to think about it a bit, then cleared his throat.

“So, in London at this moment,” said the judge, “we have one Heath brother who is accused of murdering his own client, and another who, if memory serves, had his license suspended in a row over an attempt to return a client’s tort fee to the opposing litigant.”

The judge still looked at Langdon, not Reggie. Langdon shrugged meekly. “My lord?”

“Perhaps you can tell me, Mr. Langdon. Are the Heath brothers genetically inclined to despise their own clients? Or is it the legal system in general they object to?”

Langdon hesitated in responding, and finally Reggie could bear it no longer.

“My lord, I’m certain that our attitude toward our clients is no different than the attitudes you will hear expressed by any of the barristers at the Wigs and Briefs after their third pint.”

The judge paused and looked at Reggie in astonishment, and Laura realized that Reggie must have spoken out of turn.

“Or at the Seven Stars, on Chancery Court Lane.”

The judge was clearly gathering himself for a rejoinder.

“Or at the Crown and Penance on Fleet Street.”

“Enough,” said the judge. “I did not address a question to you, Mr. Heath. In any case, we are all familiar with their locations, and I, for one, will not apologize for a Foster’s at the end of the day. Though any lawyer who cannot hold his tongue in a pub should not be allowed a pint at all. But at the moment, sir, your ties to the community are looking a little thin. As is your capability to post bond, should I decide to grant it. Nevertheless, as Mr. Langdon points out, the court recognizes some need for you to assist—or totally destroy, as the case may be—your own defense. Bail is therefore set in the amount of one million pounds.”

“Might as well just remand, if you’re going to do that,” said Reggie.