Killing the Lawyers

Joe followed him into the room which was smallish and contained a desk with a typewriter, a few filing cabinets and an old-fashioned coat stand. The lawyer took the file and began to leaf through its contents. Joe, perspiring freely from his recent exertions, took off his donkey jacket, to get the benefit later, and began to hang it on the stand.

‘No need to strip off,’ said Potter irritably. ‘This won’t take long. You’ve wrecked your car, right?’

‘It got wrecked …’

‘And it’s a write-off?’

‘So they say but …’

‘And it was an old banger, made in the sixties? And they’re offering you one twenty-five? Grab it, you’ve got a bargain.’

He glared at Joe as though challenging him to demur.

Joe thought, glad I’m not paying this guy else I’d want a refund! He opened his mouth to voice this thought when a telephone started ringing. The man looked over his shoulder, looked back at Joe, snapped, ‘Wait here!’, stood up and went through a door behind him. It was dark through there, but Joe got a sense of a much larger room. Or chamber! The bastard’s kept me in his typist’s office, thought Joe indignantly.

He heard Potter on the phone, his voice still loud and bad tempered enough to be clearly audible.

‘Felix, I’ve been trying to get hold of you. Yes, that’s right. It’s urgent. Something’s come up. Can you get back for a meeting tomorrow? Good. Midday would be fine. Hang on a moment, will you?’

Potter came back into the outer office.

‘You still here?’ he said. ‘I’ve told you, you haven’t got a case. Now if you don’t mind, I’m busy.’

He rammed the contract back into its file and thrust it at Joe, using it as a weapon to force him to the door.

Joe said, ‘Hey, man, no need to get so heavy …’

‘Just go away,’ snarled Potter. ‘The days are past when you could wreck your old banger and get paid for a Jag XJ.’

Joe was out in the corridor now. He wasn’t a man to raise his voice but some things needed to be heard.

‘One thing to get straight,’ he said forcefully. ‘This ain’t no old banger we’re talking about. This is a vintage Oxford with an engine so sweet it could sing in the Philharmonic Choir.’

‘And pigs could fly!’ sneered Potter. ‘Good night!’

He closed the door. Joe turned away, paused, turned back, and flung it open again.

Potter re-entering his chamber, turned with a look of such fury that Joe almost fled. But some things are more precious than mere self-preservation.

‘I may not have a case,’ he said. ‘But I do have a coat, and you’re not having that off my back.’

So saying, he seized his donkey jacket and swept it down off the coat stand. Unfortunately for the gesture, the collar caught on the point of the hook and as he dragged it loose, the whole stand came toppling over.

Joe’s evasive backward leap took him out into the corridor once more as the stand hit the floor with a tremendous crash. It seemed like a good sound to exit on and pulling his coat round his shoulders he went down the stairs like Batman.

Black Belt was standing in the doorway of her office.

She said, ‘What the hell’s going on up there?’

Joe said, ‘Not much. Whoever said “Kill all the lawyers” just about got it right!’

It was a bold thing to say to someone whose earlier response to much smaller provocation was still jangling through his nerve ends. So he didn’t pause for an answer but headed straight out into the street where the sight of the Magic Mini brought his indignation back to boiling point.

‘Old banger!’ he yelled up at the blank-eyed building. ‘Now this is an old banger. You lawyers can’t tell tit from tat!’

His anger took him down to the Glit, the famous Luton pub dedicated to the living legend of Gary Glitter, superstar, where he poured Guinness down his gullet and his woes into the ear of Merv Golightly. Merv, old workmate, fellow redundant, and reconstructed taxi driver, said, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ in tones of sepulchral sympathy at all the right moments, but his body language, which was as articulate as his six and a half foot length, seemed to have a different script.

‘So what you been up to that’s so interesting, Merv?’ said Joe, slightly hurt to find he was boring his friend. ‘How’s the publicity campaign? I ain’t been swamped by enquiries yet.’

It was a pretty mild retaliatory gibe, but it seemed to hit the button. Merv’s face screwed up in a rictus of anticipated pain and he said, ‘Well, yeah, something to tell you there, Joe.’

‘Hey, Joe, how’re you doing? You look tired, doesn’t he look tired, guys?’

‘Well, he would be, wouldn’t he? All that hard work he’s been doing, but he loves his work, don’t you, Joe?’

‘Yeah, night and day he stays on the job. Night and day!’

The enigmatic greetings from a group of regulars who’d just come in set the whole bar laughing. Joe grinned too and waved his glass, though he couldn’t for the life of him see what was so funny.

‘About the hand-outs,’ said Merv.

Merv regarded himself as a kind of sleeping partner in Joe’s PI business, and as he was Joe’s oldest friend, and as he had sometimes been positively helpful and as he didn’t want pay, Joe was happy to go along with this.

Just before Christmas Joe had been bewailing the slowness of business and Merv, a man of sudden enthusiasms, had said, ‘Yeah, it’s all this goodwill but that won’t last. Holiday over and it’s back to basics. You want to be ready, Joe. You want to be sure your name comes up first when folks find they need a gumshoe. You want to advertise!’

‘Great,’ said Joe. ‘I’ll take a ten-minute spot in the middle of The Bill.’

‘Start small, build big,’ said Merv. ‘Printed hand-outs are the thing.’

‘Couldn’t afford more than three, handwritten,’ said Joe.

‘No sweat. I got this friend, Molly, whose daughter works with some printing firm …’

‘You going out with a woman old enough to have a working daughter?’ interrupted Joe mockingly. ‘You’ll be into grannies next.’

‘She was a child bride,’ retorted Merv. ‘Anyway, I’ve been checking out the cost of putting out fliers advertising the cab, and Molly says Dorrie – that’s the daughter – can get these hand-outs done real pro standard, cost next to nothing, materials only. And I got to thinking, sheet of paper’s got two sides, why not let my friend Joe in on this unique marketing opportunity? Ten quid your share, call it fifteen for cash. What do you say?’

‘I say, what about distribution?’ said Joe, interested despite himself.

‘I go all over in my cab. Few here, few there, push ’em through letter boxes, pin ’em on walls, word’ll spread like smallpox. Let’s work out the wording. Direct message, that’s the name of the game.’

The direct message he’d come up with was:

IN TROUBLE? NEED HELP?

JOE SIXSMITH’S THE MAN

ON THE JOB NIGHT AND DAY

NOTHING TOO SMALL OR TOO BIG

FOR THE JOE SIXSMITH TOUCH.

GOT TROUBLE?

GET SIXSMITH!

Ring, write or call:

SIXSMITH INVESTIGATIONS INC

Top Floor, Peck House, Robespierre Place

(Tel: [phone])

Couldn’t do any harm, thought Joe. Also, he was touched to see Merv so enthusiastic, motivated by nothing more than friendship. So he’d agreed.

Why was he suddenly wishing he hadn’t?

‘What’s wrong, Merv?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. Well, not much. In fact you’d hardly notice it.’

He dug in his pocket and produced a pale-pink hand-out. He’d been lying. Joe noticed it at once. In fact, it leapt from the page and hit you in the eye.

Every time the name SIXSMITH occurred it was spelled SEXWITH.

‘It was Dorrie’s fault, that’s Molly’s daughter,’ said Merv defensively. ‘She must have misread it from my script and it seems she’s a bit dyspeptic …’

‘You gave her the thing handwritten?’ said Joe incredulously. ‘Shoot, Merv, you know your scrawl makes prescriptions look like road signs. And don’t you mean dyslexic?’

‘That too. And she should’ve checked,’ protested Merv.

‘Yeah, yeah, I bet you made sure she got your name right,’ said Joe, turning the sheet over to look at the advert for Merv’s FAB CAB with his home and mobile numbers. ‘So tell me the bad news. How many copies of this foul-up did you distribute?’

‘Hardly any. And soon as I spotted it I started collecting them back in. Honestly, Joe, if half a dozen people saw it, that’s the limit.’

‘Hey, Merv, watch him or he’ll be giving you that special touch,’ said Dick Hull, the Glit’s owner, as he arrived behind the bar.

‘Yeah, half a dozen, and they all just happen to be in here,’ said Joe.

‘Pay them no heed. Joe, I really have been pulling these things back in and sticking them on the fire. Won’t be any left very soon, I promise you.’

He sounded so genuinely contrite, Joe found his anger ebbing. Confession’s all right for Catholics, said Aunt Mirabelle. It’s putting things right that saves your soul.

His mollification was completed when Merv offered to refund him the fifteen quid he’d contributed to expenses.

‘That’s OK, it was a good idea,’ he said. ‘But in future I’ll stick to word of mouth. And let’s not leave any of these things lying around, OK?’

He picked up the hand-out lying on the bar, thrust it into his pocket, finished his drink and left the bar. This had not turned out to be one of his better days. Best thing to do was pick up Whitey from Mirabelle’s then head for home and see if he could find an old feel-good movie on the box to restore his faith in a benevolent deity. Failing that, he could carry on improving himself professionally by reading Beryl Boddington’s Christmas present. Not So Private Eye, the life story of Endo Venera, the famous Mafia soldier turned gumshoe, as told to some Pulitzer-winning journalist. Beryl’s purpose had, he guessed, been satirical, but Joe was finding the book fascinating and full of pointers.

He took a deep breath of the cold night air. Promised to be a hard frost. Which reminded him he hadn’t closed his office window when he rushed out in his foolish eagerness to get legal advice. Like a man with piles sitting on a red-hot stove for relief. Best head back there to shut it. Way things were working out today, someone would be up the drainpipe and in through the window to help himself to the electric kettle and the answer machine. Probably had been already.

But no, they were both still there, with the machine registering that one call … Four Golden Rings … fat chance!

It was a woman’s voice. Young, nicely spoken, probably black, but with so much cross-dressing these days, it was hard to say. Kids picked their accents like they picked their clothes, to fit the fashion.

She said, ‘Hi, Mr Sixsmith. Like to see you sometime, have to talk about a problem I got. Look, I’ll pass this way early tomorrow, look in just on the off chance. But before nine. If not, I’ll ring again. OK? By the way, the name’s Jones. Miss Jones. OK?’

Way she said Jones had a bit of a giggle in it. Could this be a wind-up by one of the Glit jokers? He played it again, listened carefully. No, definitely Sixsmith not Sexwith. So where was the joke? Get him into the office before nine? Ha ha, really funny.

The phone rang. He grabbed it but didn’t say anything. If this was some joker, let them make the first move.

‘Sixsmith, is that you?’

The voice was female but this time he recognized it.

‘Butcher, is that you?’ he echoed.

She wasn’t in the mood for joking. Her voice was urgent.

‘Listen, you went to see Peter Potter, did you?’

‘That’s right,’ he said, his sense of grievance welling up. ‘And he’s a lot further gone than you imagine.’

‘What do you mean?’

She sounded alarmed.

‘You just got him down as a self-seeking fascist, if I remember you right. I’d say he was an A1 dickhead with all the charm and good manners of a wire worm!’

‘You didn’t get on?’

‘No, we didn’t.’

‘So what happened?’

‘What happened? He told me I’d got no case and should think myself lucky to be getting one twenty-five. I told him he should think himself lucky still to be chewing on a full set of teeth.’

‘Sixsmith, you didn’t?’

‘No, I’m just being macho after the event,’ he confessed. ‘Why? Has he been complaining? What does he say I said?’

‘Nothing. What happened then?’

‘Well, I left, didn’t I? Nothing more to be said and he looked the type who was capable of billing me by the millisec.’

‘And he was all right when you left?’

‘Yes, of course, he was fine … Butcher what’s going on?’

‘Listen, Joe, I’ve just had the police here. They came to ask if I’d sent a small balding black man round to see Potter. I said I needed to know why they were asking before I answered. They said that Potter had been attacked in his office and they needed the said small balding black man to help with enquiries.’

‘What? Shoot, Butcher, this is crazy. All they got to do is ask Potter. He’ll tell them I never laid a hand on him.’

‘They can’t do that, Joe. He’s dead. Pete Potter’s dead.’

Joe sat and looked at the phone as if hoping it would burst into laughter and tell him it was OK, this was just the new British Telecom dial-a-joke service.

He could hear footsteps running up the stairs.

‘Joe, I’m sorry, I had to give them your name. They’ll be round to see you any minute …’

The door burst open and three uniformed policemen spilled into the room.

‘With you in a moment, gents,’ said Joe Sixsmith. ‘Butcher, I think I need a lawyer.’

3

The policemen of Luton have a tradition of liberal thought running back to the Middle Ages when the sheriff’s charge to the constables of the watch contained the clause, ‘Nor shall it be taken as mitigation of rudely laying thy hands on a citizen and breaking his head, to say that thou mistook him for a Son of Harpenden. But against such as are known by certain signs to be Sons of Harpenden, whose depravations and depredations are notorious amongst sober Christian folk, then lay on amain!’

Joe in his teens had got himself classed as a Son of Harpenden by wilfully provoking the police in three respects: one, by being young; two, by being black; three, by being working class.

As the passing years gradually diluted the first of these provocations, Joe found the police magnanimously tolerant of his steadfast refusal to do anything about the other two, and eventually, safely pinned down as an industrial wage-slave, he looked set to pass the remainder of his life in that state of armed truce which a Martian on a day trip to England could mistake for integration.

Then he had turned PI.

This to some cops was a provocation stronger even than youth.

And to make matters worse, Joe had the gift of the truly innocent of stumbling into situations which, like a bishop in a bathhouse, required some explanation.

Fortunately his matching serendipity had enabled him to come up with a couple of results which Detective Superintendent Woodbine had managed to transfer to his own record sheet. Therefore it was with reasonable equanimity that Joe accepted the beat boys’ kind invitation to come down to the station and help with enquiries.

Nor did his heart sink more than a couple of ribs when the interview-room door opened and Detective Sergeant Chivers came in. Chivers was not a fan.

He was not so far gone in his dislike that he’d frame Joe, but he didn’t bother to hide his pleasure at finding him already in the frame.

Joe said, ‘Hi, Sarge. Nice to see you.’

‘You reckon?’

‘Well, I know it can’t be all that serious,’ said Joe confidently. ‘Else Willie would be turning the handle himself.’

The familiar reference to Superintendent Woodbine was by way of reminder to the sergeant that he was handling delicate goods, but Chivers looked unfazed.

‘Super’s sunning himself in Morocco for a week, thought you’d have known that, being such chums,’ he sneered.

Joe’s heart dropped like an overripe plum and lay exposed, waiting to be trodden on.

‘And the DCI?’ he asked.

‘In bed with flu. And the DI’s got himself snowbound up a Cairngorm. So that leaves nobody in the place but you and me, Joe.’

‘I know the song. Maybe I should wait for my brief,’ said Joe.

‘You want to be banged up till morning that’s your privilege,’ said Chivers.

Shoot, thought Joe. One of the uniforms must’ve earwigged his conversation with Butcher; not hard, as Joe’s indignation had made him echo much of what the little lawyer had said.

‘Tomorrow morning!’ he yelled. ‘You can’t do anything till tomorrow morning? Butcher, we’re not talking car-insurance claims any more.’

‘I know, Joe, and I’m sorry. But there’s this dinner in Cambridge, and I’m the main speaker, and I’m planning to stay over …’

‘Oh well, if you’re planning to stay over, don’t you worry yourself about me!’ said Joe.

‘Hopefully, you haven’t done anything to worry about,’ said Butcher. ‘Just tell Woodbine the truth. He knows which side his bread’s buttered on. You’ll probably be in bed before I am.’

‘Not from what I hear about them dirty dons,’ said Joe.

‘Don’t get cheeky. I’ll call you soon as I can, OK?’

‘I get it. Don’t ring us, we’ll ring you. What happened to kill the other lawyers, then call us?’

Not the cleverest of things to say. And he’d already said it, or something like it, earlier this evening, as he was soon to be reminded.

‘Nose looks sore, Joe,’ said Chivers sympathetically. Joe didn’t like it. Cops were like hospital nurses. The more helpless you were, the sooner they started treating you like you were five and backward.

‘It’s fine,’ said Joe, though his nose was twingeing like it knew it was being talked about. ‘Listen, is it true Potter’s dead?’

‘Surprise you, does it? Well, these things happen, Joe. It’s not like on the movies. Fight starts. You go in there chopping and twisting, next thing someone’s seriously hurt. Or worse. Specially when you’ve had the training.’

‘Training? What the shoot does that mean?’

‘It means one of my boys going into the sports centre for Mr Takeushi’s advanced class saw you coming away from the beginners’ session.’

‘And that makes me a killer?’

‘Shows you’ve got the inclination maybe.’

‘Yeah? And what does the advance class show about your boy? That he wants to be a mass murderer? It’s self-defence, that’s all. The whole philosophy is nonviolent.’

Mr Takeushi would be pleased to know that his words if not his techniques had made some impression.

‘Nonviolent, eh? So why were you shooting your mouth off about killing lawyers, Joe?’

‘Figure of speech,’ said Joe. ‘It’s from Shakespeare.’

‘Shakespeare?’ said Chivers in mock admiration. ‘Didn’t know you had such classy tastes, Joe. Now which play would that be in? Macbeth where the king gets killed? Or Othello where the black guy kills his wife? Or Hamlet maybe where everybody kills everybody else? Lots of killing in Shakespeare. Turns you on, does it?’

‘When does this get official, Sarge?’ asked Joe. ‘I mean, I’ve come here voluntarily to make a statement and as it sounds like a serious matter, I thought you’d have been wanting to hear it while it’s still fresh.’

He waited to see if Chivers would suggest his presence wasn’t voluntary. He could see the man was tempted, but while he might be a fascist he wasn’t a fool and in the end all he said was, ‘We appreciate your cooperation, Mr Sixsmith. Let’s get the tape running, shall we?’

Joe told it like it had happened. Chivers probed his story for a bit then, with the unconcealed reluctance of a man leaving the warm pub where he wants to be for the cold night air which he doesn’t fancy, he began asking questions based on the possibility that Joe could be telling the truth.

‘Did you see anyone else in the building but Ms Iles and Mr Potter?’

‘No.’

‘Did you see or hear anything which might have suggested there was someone else in the building?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Come on, Sixsmith. A footstep, a creaking board, an open door. Anything.’

‘Like I say, I don’t recollect anything. But I’ll work on it.’

‘What about outside? When you arrived and when you left, did you see anyone hanging around? Or anyone at all?’

‘No. The Row was empty. No one walking. No cars parked. Except mine and Ms Iles’s. It was six o’clock in Christmas week. All them businesses would be shut for the duration.’

‘What about the park?’

Joe thought.

‘Didn’t see anyone,’ he said. ‘But I wasn’t really looking.’

‘So there could have been someone in the park?’

‘Could have been King Kong up a tree, but I didn’t see him,’ said Joe.

‘What about lights? What lights were on in the building?’

‘When I arrived, none that I could see. But there wouldn’t be. Mr Potter’s room looks out on the back.’

‘How do you know that?’ demanded Chivers. ‘You told me you never got into his room, only as far as his secretary’s office.’

‘I didn’t. But I know which way I’m facing.’

‘Always?’

‘Usually.’

‘Not a Muslim, are you?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Could be a useful talent for a Muslim.’

Joe glanced towards the tape and coughed gently.

‘Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks for your cooperation, Mr Sixsmith. We may need to talk to you again and meanwhile if anything comes to mind that you think might help us, please get in touch. Interview ends at 20.15 hours.’

He switched the recorder off and sat glowering at Joe.

‘You’re a waste of my time and everyone’s space, Sixsmith,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you sod off out of here?’

‘Hey, if you’re going to get personal, let’s have the recorder back on,’ said Joe. ‘Making jokes about Muslims just gets you killed, but being rude to witnesses may get you sued. What’s your beef anyway, Sarge? I told you all I know. Don’t want me making stuff up, do you?’

‘No, don’t want that,’ said Chivers, relaxing a little. ‘Just wanted a bit of a pointer but I suppose that was too much to hope for.’

Suddenly Joe got it. When Woodbine had been made up to superintendent, his detective inspector had become acting DCI, but Chivers hadn’t moved up to acting inspector. Instead, a new young high flier had been appointed. But Scottish snow, African sun, and Asian flu had united to leave the sergeant temporarily in charge of the shop. A good quick result in a murder case would do him no harm at all and at the very least be a satisfying two fingers to his sceptical superiors.

He said, ‘I’m doing my best, Sarge. You know that.’

He saw the man tremble on the brink of another insult then pull himself back, maybe recalling that Willie Woodbine had done OK by giving Joe his head.

‘Yeah, sure,’ he said. ‘I meant it when I said, any little pointer.’

Happy to extend the phoney peace, Joe racked his brain for an idea.

‘There was the phone call,’ he said. ‘Someone called Felix. Listen, if you dialled 1471, you’d probably get his number …’

He saw from Chivers’s face this was mutton to the Falklands.

‘Felix Naysmith. One of the partners. Number was his holiday cottage in Lincolnshire. We rang back, but they must have gone out for the evening. No sweat. Unless Potter was actually attacked while he was on the phone, which doesn’t seem likely, there’s not much chance of Naysmith being able to help. It’s those who were on the spot I’m interested in.’

Grinding his teeth significantly, Joe said, ‘Like Ms Iles, you mean?’

‘Ms Iles has been very helpful,’ said Chivers, implying compared with some people. ‘First off, she told us she heard a din upstairs and went to her door in time to see you flouncing out, yelling about killing lawyers.’

‘I explained that.’