Chapter Four Tristan #2
The next morning, I peeled myself out of Razor’s shirt and left it inside my sheets as if it was him waiting for me there. I reluctantly got in the shower, into a suit, straightening out my spine as court demanded composure, my body humming with everything I shouldn’t be thinking about.
Today was Highbury. One of those mornings where I didn’t know what cases would land in my hands until I arrived.
My coffee machine took its time spitting out the only blend strong enough to get me through a youth list, and I tightened my tie, Windsor knot naturally, when my phone buzzed across the kitchen counter.
Father.
I rolled my eyes and swiped to answer. Of course he’d be calling before seven; he’d have been in his own chambers since dawn, itching for a report on the favour he’d so helpfully agreed to. The dinner with Lord Wolfe. The ‘opportunity’ he thought I needed.
“Morning, Father.”
“Morning, Tristan. I trust the dinner went well?”
“It was… fine.”
I kept my voice flat. Professional. The safest tone I had.
The last thing I needed was a post-mortem of last night or a probing analysis of Lord Wolfe’s intentions.
I had a full day ahead and no space in my skull for anything except my court list. Certainly not Razor’s hands locking around my hips, or his breath at my ear, or the way he’d pushed me open with a devastating certainty I could still feel if I let myself.
“He sent me a message this morning,” Father said as I shrugged into my blazer. “Apparently, you’ve organised a second meeting.”
“It’s not confirmed.” I poured coffee into my flask. And if I could help it, that invitation would remain open-ended and never fulfilled.
He coughed, a harsh, dry scrape, before saying, “A man like Wolfe can open doors.”
“I can open my own doors.” I tightened the lid on my flask, trying not to imagine my father’s neck.
“You’d still benefit from having him on the other side of the one you choose to walk through.”
“Okay, Father. I really have to go. Court.”
“We’ll see you Saturday. Your sister’s birthday. The garden party.”
“Of course.”
I ended the call before he could say anything else, slung my laptop bag over my shoulder, and was out of the flat at a near run.
The Piccadilly line to Holloway Road was its usual misery, but it got me within walking distance of Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court.
I’d been here a handful of times since stepping straight into pupillage under Imogen Parry KC, a little later than everyone would like but she’d made it possible.
The shift still felt surreal some mornings.
One minute poring over dissertations and library books, the next standing in court corridors with a wig box and an inbox full of misery.
Highbury never disappointed. It still smelt faintly of damp coats, cheap aftershave, and carrying on the air was the stale anxiety of people waiting to hear how badly their lives were about to change.
The heating was, as always, possessed by demons: blasting out of industrial cast-iron radiators despite it being a scorching July.
The walls sweated. So did everyone else.
I slipped through security with my bag checked and my flask of coffee in hand, trying to ignore the knot forming under my ribs.
The morning rush was in full swing: duty solicitors weaving between defendants; parents wringing their hands; teenagers slouched in chairs pretending they didn’t care while the ground shifted under their feet.
This was the job. The life I’d chosen.
A life I was determined to build with no Hale-Fitzroy shortcuts.
I signed in at the advocates’ desk, then headed to the defence room. Someone’s paper cup had leaked across a stack of files; a paralegal cried silently into her phone. Typical Friday.
“Mr Hale-Fitzroy?”
I turned. A solicitor’s agent, mid-twenties, sensible shoes, hair frizzing in the heat, held out a slim file. “Could you take a youth matter for us? First appearance. Possession with intent. Thirteen-year-old. Billy Amos. Mum’s downstairs.”
I took the file. It weighed almost nothing. Most youth cases did. One catastrophic decision flattened into three pages of police summary, all pointing at a child barely old enough for GCSEs.
I skimmed as I walked towards the consultation rooms.
Arrested in Camden. Wraps found in his jacket pocket.
No previous convictions. A kid who’d been handed something he shouldn’t have and didn’t know how to say no and exactly the sort of case Imogen wanted me exposed to.
Exactly the kind of case I’d written and studied in my thesis.
Reminding me how thin the line was between the kids who got help, and the ones who got swallowed whole by determined prosecutors like my father.
The consultation room was barely larger than a broom cupboard with peeling paint, a table that wobbled when I leant on it and Billy Amos sitting hunched over the surface, hood up, leg bouncing so fast the chair quivered.
His mother perched beside him, handbag clutched to her lap as if she could anchor him there by force of will.
“I’m Mr Hale-Fitzroy.” I took the seat opposite. “I’ll be speaking for you today.”
Billy didn’t lift his head. His mum did, though. Mascara-clad eyes swollen and red-rimmed.
“Are they going to take him from me?” she blurted. “Will they… will they put him away? I’ve got a baby at home. I need him. His dad’s inside. I’m on my own. I can’t—”
“It’s okay.” I opened my palms on the table. “Take a breath. This is his first charge. We’re at first appearance, not sentencing. Today is about identifying the offence, entering a plea, and explaining your situation to the court.”
She swallowed hard, nodding.
Billy kept staring at the laminate table as if it held the answers.
“Billy?” I turned to him, because addressing him might make him understand how this was his life.
It took a moment, but eventually he lifted his gaze to me.
Defensive, wary, terrified. “Here’s how this works.
” I leant forward. “You’re thirteen. That means you’re under youth jurisdiction.
The magistrates can’t send you to an adult prison.
At this stage, the worst outcome is they might consider bail with conditions.
They might give you a curfew, exclusion zones, that sort of thing. ”
His mum exhaled shakily. “He never stays in. Never.”
“He might have to from now on.”
She nudged him. “You hear that?”
Billy said nothing. But he heard. I could tell.
So I continued, “I’m going to tell the court you’ve got no previous convictions, that you’re in school, and you’ve cooperated, and that this seems out of character. I’ll also tell them you’ve got siblings at home who depend on the family staying together.”
Billy’s leg bounces slowed a fraction.
“And when they ask what happened, I want you to let me speak for you. Not to hide anything but to keep you safe from saying something the prosecution might twist.”
He nodded once. Almost imperceptible.
His mum whispered, “Do you think he’ll… be alright?”
“I think he has a very good chance of being released today.” I closed the file. “Let’s get you upstairs.”
We moved as a trio through the corridors, the building humming with that familiar mix of fluorescent lights, cheap carpet, and other people’s fear.
Youth Court was smaller, quieter, strangely intimate.
A place where futures tilted on details barely filling a page.
And I could feel myself slipping into the version of me that made sense.
Measured, composed, one step removed. The Tristan who could handle this.
The Tristan I’d worked so hard to become.
Who could make a difference. Stop the cycle.
But as we reached the courtroom, the ground shifted beneath me, the world reminding me there was a different version of me.
One who chased the darkness and the thrill of danger.
Because standing by the open door in a cheap off-the-rack suit was a man I’d only met once but would recognise anywhere.
Billy’s mum gasped. “Lennon!” She hurried over and hugged him, then he ruffled Billy’s hood, giving him a soft tap on the shoulder.
“You got this, yeah?” Lennon held out his fist for Billy to bump. “Eyes forward.”
He then glanced up and saw me. The blink of recognition hit us both, and my breath locked sharp behind my ribs.
He was the last person I expected to see in this building.
Razor’s oldest friend. The man he’d spoken about in the lazy, naked, after-sex voice still living under my skin.
Another reminder that no matter how hard I tried to build walls between my worlds, Razor’s sharp edges had a way of penetrating through.
“Hi.” Lennon tilted his head as if he were lining me up inside his mind. He held out his hand.
I took it, shaking once. A silent plea buried in the pressure of my fingers. “Tristan Hale-Fitzroy.” I got my professional tone back in place. “Counsel for Billy Amos.”
“Lennon Foster.” He squeezed my hand with a subtle ‘I hear you.’ “I know the family. I’m Billy’s youth boxing coach down at the gym. Thought I might be useful as a character witness.”
“Character witnesses won’t be needed today,” I said. “And unfortunately, there are no public galleries in youth court.”
“Ah.”
“You could wait outside?” I nodded, but before Lennon could say anything else, an usher appeared at the doorway.
“Case of Billy Amos. Parties inside, please.”
Billy’s mum clutched his arm and hurried him through the door. I made to follow, but Lennon’s hand closed around my forearm, firm and shocked and furious all at once.
“This because of him?”