Chapter 10 Leila
Leila
My conversation with Chester last week in the bar left me stewing for more reasons than I’d like.
After brushing off the hand-on-knee situation, I was filled with guilt and disappointment at myself. How am I supposed to set an example if I can’t uphold basic feminism?
But that was the least of my worries when I left the bar that afternoon.
The gut feeling I’d had about Demi had only intensified.
I’ve always been an intuitive person. Hypervigilant.
It’s what makes me a good lawyer. It always starts with a gut feeling that something isn’t quite right.
You know how, sometimes, when you walk into a room, you can sense something has changed?
Even if it’s a small detail, like a picture has been taken down off the wall? Nobody else has noticed, but you do.
It’s like that.
That’s how I feel about Demi.
I have a conference with Davina in chambers this morning. We fill the enormous table in Conference Room 3 with files and papers that have been sent to us by the prosecution.
By my husband.
It is against this evidence that I will advise Jack what his defense should be, if he has one, and whether he should plead guilty or not guilty.
Jim arranged for a tray of coffee and pastries to be sent in for Davina.
Solicitors usually only get biscuits, but none of us will forget the (only) time she was subjected to this and proceeded to march down to the clerks’ room to complain.
There was a veiled threat of refusing to send further work to chambers if “our firm is worth no more than a standard Marks and Spencer biscuit selection.”
Davina is a force of nature. I was terrified of her when I first started.
Always immaculate, she wears her platinum hair in the same high, slick bun every day, and even wears a hairnet to keep it secure.
I mean, this woman has her life together.
A heavy, blunt fringe sits just above her brows.
She is known for her bold look—orange lipstick, smoky black eyeliner—and is an influential person within legal circles, so I’m keen to impress her in this trial.
Do a good job for someone like Davina and you’ll never be out of work.
“So, what do you think his defense is going to be?” she asks, draining the caramel latte she brought in from Starbucks. Within seconds, she’s pouring another coffee from the French press Jim supplied. “Because it sounds to me like he’s intending to plead very not guilty.”
“What are you thinking? Self-defense?”
“It’s the only defense he can advance, surely?”
“What’s Anton’s motive for attacking Jack, though?” I ask her. “You wouldn’t place them both together. It’s just so…peculiar.”
“Yes. What was Anton doing there in the first place? That’s what will make people think there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
“I agree,” I confirm, nodding my head. “And going by what Jack said, there already is.”
“Perhaps that’s the one thing we have going for us. No motive.”
“Well, if I know anything about my husband, he’ll find one,” I say with a hint of anxiety in my voice.
“The jury will speculate all kinds of reasons why Anton was visiting a doorman on a Friday night. Drugs? Was he gay? The prosecution will paint Anton as a friend of the people, but you and I know he was often controversial. He carried outdated views and routinely upset people. And he liked women.”
“Yes, I noticed nothing was said about that at his memorial,” Davina interrupts.
Typical of Davina to point this out.
“What’s your relationship with Jack?” I ask Davina. “Have you dealt with him before?”
“Nope. But I’m aware of him. You know me, Leila, everyone’s on my radar, but I was surprised he wanted us for this.”
“Surprised? Why?”
“You know we have a very particular way of doing things at Jessops. It’s not for everyone and it’s not for the weak.
It’s strategic. We go in hard and make the prosecution prove everything.
No-comment interview. ‘It wasn’t me. I wasn’t there.
If I was there, prove I did it.’ We don’t make it easy for them.
It comes with risks. Sometimes it pays off, and sometimes it doesn’t.
We don’t pussyfoot around clients—we tell it like it is.
They are loyal to us, and we are loyal to them. ”
As summaries go, she’s putting it lightly. Davina and her (equally dodgy) solicitor husband blur the line that separates lawyers and criminals. When people go to them, they don’t just get a criminal lawyer, they get a criminal lawyer.
They will do anything to secure an acquittal, even if it’s not by the book, and are funded by all the big-time criminals.
“Why is he doing this? The riddles, the cryptic clues?” she says. “I sensed some friction when he mentioned the last time you represented him. Anything I need to be aware of?”
I place my pen down on the table. It still stings to talk about it. “I advised him—entirely properly—on how to proceed with that case but it backfired. He was convicted, labeled a grass, and went to prison.”
“So, what’s changed now? No offense, but I’m surprised he instructed you again.”
“He knows I’ll run the trial however he wants. No defense statement. No idea what he’s going to say in evidence. It’s a disaster waiting to happen, but he knows I won’t stop it. I owe him.”
“If he makes us work out what happened, I guess he technically hasn’t grassed anyone up?”
“Exactly.”
“And it has the added bonus of clawing his reputation back, by the look of things. The criminal network talks. Whoever he’s protecting—and it sounds like they’re high up—they remain safe. That’ll get out. He’s smart, this one.”
This is why Jack chose Davina as his lawyer. Damage limitation. He knows that as long as he doesn’t speak, Davina will make sure the criminal underground hears about it. Whether he’s acquitted and gets out or goes to prison, his reputation as a snitch will at least be gone.
“I wonder if I should have a conference with him alone, see if he’ll talk.”
“Alone?” I ask, confused. “Why?”
“I think he’d be more likely to talk to me if you weren’t there.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I think clients like Jack—they’re removed from the likes of you. They see the wig and robes and there’s an air of distrust. They trust me because I’m more on their level. He might open up to me. I’d relay everything back to you, obviously.”
Setting aside the fact that I’m not remotely convinced Davina would tell me everything Jack said in a secret conference of this type, I’m insulted she’s portrayed me as being stuffy and out of touch with my client.
“I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“Leila…”
Why is she pushing this? What’s the urgency to be alone with him? Especially after the conversation we’ve just had.
“No,” I say firmly. “I think it’s best we see him together.”
A silence hangs in the air. I don’t want the conference to get off to a bad start, but I need to be definite with her about this.
“So, where do you want to begin? The postmortem?” Davina asks abruptly. “Pretty grim reading.”
“Cause of death—subdural hematoma. Bleeding to the brain as a result of blunt force trauma. Died a few hours after arriving at the hospital,” I confirm. “He was hit over the head with a blunt weapon, something heavy by the looks of things.”
“It’s this,” she answers, picking up a photo of a kettlebell, surrounded by markers to demonstrate how big it is.
“What weight is it?”
“Ten kilograms. Pathologist claims it’s consistent with the injury.”
“That’s bad for us if he’s going to go down the self-defense route. The kettlebell was found at the scene, effectively acting as a doorstop in the bedroom. No attempt to hide it and no prints, is that right?”
“Yes. Odd, isn’t it?”
I lean back in my chair, staring at this photo of a black and electric-blue kettlebell.
“Very. Is there any indication where it was kept before that?”
“Nothing in the file.”
“Can you make inquiries, Davina? It’s a bit of a reach, I know. But if anyone can do it, you can.”
Picking up her pen, she writes frantically in her notebook.
“Whatever happened that night, he appears to have intended to cause serious harm,” she observes.
“I can’t imagine that being classed as reasonable force for self-defense.
If you look at the arresting officer’s statement, PC Walker confirms Jack displayed superficial injuries on his face and neck when the police arrived at the scene. Look at the photos.”
We shuffle through the papers and find the photos taken at the police station following Jack’s arrest. As per the statement, redness has formed around Jack’s right eye and the middle of his neck.
His hair is wild, unstyled. He’s wearing a white T-shirt, although it’s inside out and back to front.
The label sticks out from the collar, visible below his chin.
There’s also a large, wet, brown stain down the front.
“Yes,” I tell her, “but, as you say, even if there was a scuffle for whatever reason, it doesn’t justify Jack picking up a heavy weight and cracking Anton over the head with it. It’s disproportionate.”
“Having said that, Anton’s prints have been found on a small kitchen knife,” Davina points out. “It was on the kitchen floor. Might give us a run at self-defense?”
“Given Anton’s dead, the Crown will say it was him who picked up the knife in self-defense.
Jack didn’t have any injuries from it. Not a scratch.
Besides, we need to be careful running that in front of a jury—you’ve seen Jack.
Would they seriously believe he’d fear an out-of-shape near-pensioner holding a small knife?
Jack is built like the lead in a Magic Mike show, for god’s sake. ”
It’s hard, shooting every point down, but we need to be realistic. I’ve seen how jurors react to these kinds of defenses. We need to be smarter than this.
“What about other forensics?” she asks. “What have they found?”
“A lot,” I answer, nodding my head. “Fibers from the clothes Anton was wearing were found on Jack’s T-shirt and jeans, suggesting a struggle. But they also went through the room with a fine-tooth comb and found some other stuff, too.”
“Like what?”
“Jack’s fresh semen on the sofa.”
The room goes quiet for a few moments. The question is clear on Davina’s face—is this relevant in any way?
It’s difficult when you’re examining crime scenes because something that appears normal could either be totally irrelevant or essential information.
It’s often only experience that allows you to determine between the two.
“I’m not sure where to place this piece of information yet.
But there are also seven different strands of hair,” I go on.
“Ranging in lengths but likely female, they were found in the living room where Anton’s body was.
There were also six different sets of prints on various items in the same room: five glasses from the club and a lighter.
The police can’t find a match to any of them. ”
“Good for us, though?” she says optimistically. “Shows the apartment wasn’t only used by Jack? That there could have been other people there?”
“It depends on what his defense is.”
“What about CCTV at the club?” she asks.
“None.”
“I thought so.” Davina nods. She wouldn’t be surprised by this. She’s the kind of lawyer who advises people to get rid of CCTV for this exact reason. “What about the bar downstairs?”
Temptation is located on the first and second floors of a Grade II listed building. It is linked by one door to the ground floor—a bar called Innocence, which is owned by Eddie Sorrington, too. Members also have their own secret entrance to Temptation from the outside. It’s not advertised.
“Same. No CCTV anywhere. It’s a place people go to not be seen. They know there’s no CCTV there or leading up to Jack’s apartment upstairs. That’s why they go. To become invisible.”
“I’m concerned what the jury will make of his phone, Leila,” Davina says, changing lanes, looking at me. “Or, lack of it.”
“Me too,” I agree with her. “A phone that goes missing the day you’re accused of murder isn’t a great start, is it? We’ll have to see what the phone company records bring back, but the prosecution will have a field day with that side of things. It looks bad.”
“Drugs?”
“Maybe,” I reply, mulling over her suggestion. “But I don’t think it’s as simple as that.”
“Why?”
“Just a feeling.”
Davina smiles but doesn’t respond.
“I’m really not happy about him jumping into the witness box at trial to lay out his version of events without telling us what he’s going to say first, Leila. It makes me edgy. This isn’t how I do things.”
“I know, but it’s how he wants to run it, and we can’t force him to talk. Then again, how are we supposed to prepare a defense out of thin air?”
“All cases have weak spots,” Davina says, reaching for a croissant. “We’ll just have to find one.”
—
Two hours later my head is banging. Needing fresh air, I nip out to buy lunch. The crushing weight of expectation and stress that comes with this case bears down on me so heavily now I feel suffocated by it. I’m going to humiliate myself publicly and get Jack convicted at the same time.
What I really want to do is ask Julian for help. Am I doing this bit right? How would you approach this? But I can’t do any of that because, right now, he’s my opponent.
Waiting in the never-ending line to get served, I reach for my phone for the first time since I left chambers. I have a new private message on my Chats at the Bar Instagram account. It was sent seven minutes ago.
@JustAnotherDumbBlonde
Very much enjoyed your talk at Mountcross Academy.
Particularly entertaining to hear you talk about your terribly sad childhood *eye roll* You must have forgotten about the top boarding school you attended.
Excellent advice about how we shouldn’t encourage sexual inappropriateness with people at work…
just a shame you can’t follow it yourself.
If this is how you distort your own truth, I worry for Jack Millman.