Chapter Three Tristan #2
“Not me, I hope?” I kept it light.
He opened his eyes then, as if only just registering my presence. I could almost see the recalibration. The moment his thoughts caught up with the fact that I was no longer merely a son with a passing curiosity about his work. I was, for all practical purposes, a challenger.
“Forget I said that.”
I smiled. “Shall we return to the safer topic of how you believe I urgently need to get laid?” I lifted an eyebrow. “Perhaps you have insight into where I might conveniently source candidates to remedy my involuntary abstinence?”
He almost smiled back.
Almost.
“Perhaps your mother has.”
I laughed, quietly, and returned to my notes. But remaining seated after that was a particular kind of torture so I was rather thankful when Father dismissed me with a glance at his Rolex.
“Your mother is due any moment, so if you wish to avoid a secondary inquisition into your personal life, now would be the strategic time to depart.”
I took the olive branch with both hands, packed up, gave Father a rather awkward kiss on the cheek and left.
Outside, the air struck colder than I expected. I paused beneath the hospital canopy, fastening my wool coat and forcing myself to calm. Assumption was not evidence. A principle I enforced daily in court. Except this felt far too specific to dismiss as coincidence.
Had Father been discussing Razor’s case?
I walked rather than flagging a cab. It gave the excess energy somewhere to go, burning off the first sharp edge of it before it could tip into something careless.
The city flowed around me in its usual rhythm.
Engines idling, phones raised and lowered, bodies shifting without acknowledgment.
I slipped back into it without effort. Camouflage had always come easily.
By the time I reached chambers, the shock had resolved into focus. But I didn’t go to my room first. Instead, I headed for the terminals near the clerks’ office. The ones everyone used, the ones no one noticed. Public-facing. Procedural. Boring.
Exactly what I needed.
I logged in and pulled up the Crown Court listings, filtering by remand cases, then narrowing by location. Pentonville. The list populated, names appearing in neat, unremarkable rows. I found Razor’s without meaning to.
Or perhaps that was a lie.
The details were sparse, though. Name. Custodial status.
Next hearing: TBC. I scrolled sideways, eyes moving to the representation field.
And there it was. Not blank. Not filled.
Notice pending. I stared at it, heart pounding, then forced myself to keep going.
Checked the timestamp. That morning. Early.
So the call hadn’t been abstract.
It hadn’t been theoretical.
I logged out, printed nothing, saved nothing, and moved away from the terminals as if I’d never stopped there at all. The rule was simple: leave no trace, not even to myself.
In my room, I shut the door and stood with my back against it for a moment, letting the information settle into its proper shape. Then I sat and opened a clean notebook. Not a case file, nor a legal pad. Personal. Unlabelled.
I wrote three words at the top of the page:
Representation instability—remand
Then I started listing facts I could verify without touching anything I shouldn’t: Time on remand. No charge. Defence notice pending. No relisted hearing.
When I’d exhausted what I already knew, I closed the notebook.
I needed context. Pattern. Confirmation that this wasn’t a one-off, that it wasn’t simply administrative chaos dressed up as design. So I took my phone out and scrolled until I found the name I was looking for and sent a message to an old friend from the Bar.
Quick q. Seeing a few remand matters with defence notices pending and no replacement lined up. Is that becoming a thing, or am I just unlucky in what I’m seeing?
I didn’t watch the screen for a reply. Watching made things feel urgent. Instead, I stood and made myself a coffee in the tiny kitchen off the corridor, letting the kettle boil twice before pouring. The mug warmed my hands. Gave me something solid to hold. When the phone buzzed, I was ready for it.
Not just you, the reply read. Usually resource-driven. But when it happens on serious matters, it’s because people are waiting to see what drops next.
I stared at the words until they blurred, then typed back. Waiting how long?
The pause this time was longer. Long enough for it to become someone else’s problem.
That was as close to an answer as I was going to get.
I thanked her, tucked my phone back in my pocket.
Then, before I could talk myself out of it, I went back out towards where the clerks sat.
Marianne was at her desk, glasses perched low on her nose, the phone wedged between shoulder and ear as she continued annotating with decisive strokes.
She glanced up as I approached, finishing the call with a clipped reassurance, then turned her attention fully on me.
She smiled. “What can I do for you, Mr Hale-Fitzroy?”
I leant on the counter, careful to keep my posture loose. Casual. “I was wondering about interim cover.” I rubbed my neck as if in thought. “If a defence firm steps back unexpectedly, how quickly replacement counsel is usually put in place.”
She studied me. Not suspiciously, but with the measured appraisal of someone deciding how much precision I was asking for. It wasn’t uncommon for me to pose questions I already knew the answer to. Occupational hazard. Familial, perhaps.
“Are you asking in general?” She cocked her head. “Or about something specific?”
“In general,” I lied.
She gave a short, noncommittal hum. “In that case, there isn’t a single answer.”
I kept my expression neutral.
“If it’s a straightforward matter, replacement can be arranged quickly enough. Days, sometimes hours.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“Then that would indicate that people have been declining long before anything became official.”
My chest tightened. “Declining on what basis?”
She waved a hand. “Complexity. Visibility. The sense that something else is in motion.”
“And in those situations?”
“In those situations, the lack of representation isn’t the problem. It’s the symptom.”
I nodded, as if filing the information away. “So if a case were… visible, interim cover might take longer.”
“Considerably longer.” Marianne nodded. “Until someone senior decides it’s worth the trouble.”
“Or?”
“Or until it quietly isn’t.”
Silence stretched between us.
“That’s helpful.” I rose from my slouch. “Thank you.”
Marianne’s gaze followed me, sharp and knowing. “You’re up to something, Mr Hale-Fitzroy.”
“Am I?” I pressed a hand to my chest, feigning offence, then retreated to my room before she could push it further.
I closed the door behind me and stood there for a moment, breath uneven, heart thudding hard enough to be inconvenient. I forced myself to slow it. To catalogue facts, not feelings. That discipline was the only thing holding me upright.
One thing was now beyond dispute.
Richard Slade no longer had counsel. Not because of an oversight or a clerical delay, but because no one was willing to take the brief. The absence wasn’t accidental. It was strategic.
The why was easier than the how.
Visibility. Pressure. The understanding that stepping in would invite the wrong sort of attention.
I knew what happened when a man was left in that position. How time distorted. How urgency thinned, then vanished. How waiting itself became a punishment. I’d written about it. Argued it. Reduced it to footnotes and precedent.
Razor would now live it.
And I knew with a certainty settling cold in my chest, that it had very little to do with what he was guilty of, and even less to do with what he wasn’t.
I crossed the room and sat at my desk and opened my laptop. I couldn’t act. Not yet. I had to watch. Wait. To give the system precisely the time it was demanding.
The same thing Razor was being forced to do.
If nothing changed in the coming days, that would be the proof. And when I moved next, it would be deliberately.
There were, after all, advantages to being a Hale-Fitzroy.
And for the first time, I intended to use one.