“Hello.” She puts out her hand. “Tanya Jeffries, of DPK Legal. Your manager Sam called us. Actually, my friend Gareth Davies also called me, so I could reassure him I was already on my way.”
Oh, ye gods, how did sodding Gareth find out? Gareth’s one of my best mates from uni, stuck by me through everything for thirty years now. He’s a lawyer. But he lives in Manchester. More importantly, he’s the biggest fucking gossip this side of the Irish Sea. No, the Atlantic…
“Gareth? How did he know I needed a brief?”
“Daniel…” She’s got the name written down.
Dan. Of course. He’d have panicked, wanted to ensure I got a good lawyer, would call Gareth. Hopefully he also told Gareth what would happen to his balls, if he spread this about…
“Ah, right. Yes, Dan would have. And I called Sam. Looks like your firm is the go-to for such cases, then.” She grins, presumably knowing they’re the top criminal defenders around.
The duty brief guy looks between us. “Right, are you saying you don’t need me, then?”
Poor lad, he’s intimidated. Which is the opposite of what I need. “I need a good brief. Which of you has more experience at defending public indecency?”
“Her. Definitely her!”
She smiles. “I might do more sex-criminal defence than anyone else in the country. No, that’s not ‘getting rapists off’, thank you. Ensuring everyone has an appropriate defence, based on the facts, is my job. The odd bit of defence of kinksters – I work with Kashminder Singh. Lots of doggers, not as in private as they hoped – or more arrested, rather.” Dogging seems to be trendy nowadays – having sex in vehicles in the woods, for other people to watch. Never seen the attraction, myself.
“Right, thanks for coming down,” I tell Shokar, “but I’ll let you get on to your next client.” I shake his hand – I may need him later.
“So,” Tanya coos, taking a seat on the plinth and getting out an iPad, “let’s chat here rather than waiting for a custody room. Tell me what happened.”
I take a deep breath.
“I’ve not been arrested in twenty years,” I tell her. “Before that, I’ve got a long rap sheet of drunk-and-disorderly, breach of the peace… Simple drunk, disorderly behaviour: three months suspended sentence.”
“That was in Northern Ireland?” Those last two offences don’t exist in England, so she can tell. Also, my accent makes it pretty obvious where I grew up, still. “Were you over eighteen by then?” Juvenile records have to be ignored when looking at your history. Mostly.
“Aye. If you add the under-eighteen, well. Height of the Troubles; my family were… known to the police. A few uncles claimed to be in the IRA; I don’t know how much of that was bollocks. Me, I got lifted regularly. Common assault, vandalism, disorderly. All sorts of stuff that was their word against mine, nothing very interesting.”
“Fine. Once you were of age, then? And over here, by the looks of it.” She studies her paperwork. “A bunch of D&D, assault, breach of the peace, possession. More possession. Arrests for intent to supply, no charges, so basically possession of large quantities.” She stares at me, not voicing her question, which is ‘Could you have been any more obvious you had a fucking huge drug and booze addiction?’
“Ah, aye. My twenties weren’t good. I lost half a dozen jobs thanks to the drink. And the rest. But, and you’ll note this, from age twenty-eight, there’s nothing.”
“Yes. The last is one common assault, for which you were bound over for six months.” Basically, I had to be a good boy or else.
“Don’t get wasted and ask a cop to phone a taxi for you, and trip over onto them, in other words.”
“Mm. And since then?”
“I got sober. With the help of a good woman.” I sigh.
“And?”
“Married her. Then she died. Familial cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Anyway, I held it together. I was already working for Sam a bit, and joined his small specialist firm. They were great, my friends. Including Gareth. They were great. Stayed single, though. Until about eleven years ago, when my friend thought a bloke would help me stop smoking.”
“How?”
“Something long and round to put in my mouth…”
She laughs. “Seriously?”
“It seriously worked! Anyway, Dan answered this ad, and next thing you know – OK, five years on, we’re married. And still very happy about that. So… Tonight…”
“In your own words.”
“Yeah. Right. You won’t mention anyone else I mention, will you?”
“Only if you want me to, as part of your defence.”
“No. Never. I’d rather be found guilty than have him accused of anything.”
“Even if it means you end up on the Sex Offenders Register?”
I shrug. “I’ve got no children, don’t work with any. Sam wouldn’t fire me; Dan wouldn’t leave me. It would be what, max five years on the Register anyway, right?”
She checks her paperwork. “For public indecency, yes. Even if indecent exposure was made out, which I doubt they could prove a mens rea for.”
“A what, now?”
“Sorry. Intent. Did you intend to ‘shock, alarm or distress’ any of the public, when you got your dick out?”
“No! We thought we were completely private. The CCTV looked at the gate, not four feet in front of it. That’s a good question, actually. Who did see it and take the photo the cops mentioned? Other police?”
“I’m not sure. Do you have a stalker, by any chance? Or your partner?”
“Not as far as I know. I can’t imagine Dan does. Oh, fuck.”
She laughs again. “You and your husband, then? Married for years, then decide to have at in an alleyway? That’s actually kinda adorable.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny it was him I was with.”
“Noted. We’ll leave that as an open question. Let them work to prove it. So don’t tell me! I can’t push a defence that I know to be false…” She clings to the implausible deniability I’ve given her. “Would I be right in assuming your Dan doesn’t have a record, or a less-understanding boss than yours?”
“You would. But I’m not saying that’s at all relevant, because I’m not saying he was there.”
“You’re sweet when you’re disingenuous. Go on.”
I roll my eyes. “OK. We were wandering back from Hackney to London Bridge and then Bermondsey, coming home after a day out. We nearly passed that building site. Dan’s the project manager of the renovation of the warehouse. It’s his first really big project. He’s really proud of it.” I smile. “So he offered to show me round and get my opinion on some of it. I’m a fire engineer, so that’s my bread and butter, turning old buildings into flats. Assessing plans and improving them.
“So. We toddled around, wore our hard hats and all, looking inside. It’s a good piece of work, if you’re looking for a decent quality flat?”
She shakes her head.
“So we came out, locked up. Dan’s so tired, but he was so happy and proud. And I thought I could make his day even happier, you get me? Or, as it might have been, I might have packed him off home and dialled up some other guy. Stranger things have happened.”
“I’m afraid I do need you to give me all the personal details. About what you did with your mystery gentleman companion.”
“You know, normally I at least take a lady for a drink, before doing this much sexy talk.”