Staying Alive Read online

  STAYING ALIVE

  By the same author:

  Wherein Lies Justice, Book Guild Publishing, 2013

  STAYING ALIVE

  Barry Johnson

  Book Guild Publishing

  Sussex, England

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by

  The Book Guild Ltd

  The Werks

  45 Church Road

  Hove, BN3 2BE

  Copyright © Barry Johnson 2014

  The right of Barry Johnson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Typesetting in Baskerville by

  YHT Ltd, London

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  A catalogue record for this book is available from

  The British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 909716 10 0

  ePub ISBN 978 1 909984 98 1

  Mobi ISBN 978 1 909984 99 8

  Acknowledgements

  I extend a sincere thank-you to David Smith, who read an early draft of this novel and lent encouragement with a nice line in honesty. To Her-indoors, who puts up with me spending hours in front of the second love of my life – my Apple Mac computer, which has saved me from the reality of this world so that I can live in the exciting world of Jake Robinson. And to Hayley Sherman, who did another thorough job, picking up my inconsistencies, suggesting amendments and raising pertinent queries.

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Postscript

  Hunt the Killer

  1

  I lay there in bed. The duvet was a crumpled untidy heap halfway off the bed. My cold feet stuck out the bottom. It had been another miserable night. The killing of Jase Phillips in prison just kept nagging at me. Yes, he’d killed Major Michael Carmichael in Iraq but that in itself didn’t justify the sentence or any sentence. I knew it wasn’t my fault but I blamed myself – stupid really. I watched shadows float across the ceiling as clouds passed in front of the early morning sun. I could hear the distant rumble of London’s morning traffic as the rush hour got underway. That day was just another day but I’d decided, today I’d start to do something about the Jase Phillips killing and I knew The Family, with their power and position, would oppose me. I’d said that before, perhaps a hundred times, but now it was keeping me awake at night. What to do was the question. Let’s get some breakfast. Perhaps thinking is better after food. So I fried two eggs using olive oil as part of my healthy diet and had them with toast, but it didn’t seem to make any difference so I went to work.

  My job was interesting, demanding and enjoyable. I just loved working for Sir Nicolas, the best defence barrister in the UK. Time was just flying by and I’d taken over Frances’s flat in central London. I still missed her. I don’t suppose we could have gone through the Bolivian experience without becoming very close. That we lived to escape the American Mafia and the Bolivian organised crime syndicate and get to La Paz was a minor miracle, but then it all went pear-shaped and I lost her. I suppose I’d thought we would settle down together, though I don’t think either of us was a settling-down person. We were independent, self-sufficient but we were also in tune. Now she was dead, killed by the effects of the Mafia attack in Bolivia and I was taking too long to get over it.

  It had been a good move from the special section of the security service to working for a top defence barrister, and Sir Nicolas had me dashing about all over the place. In the main, I was interviewing career criminals, dodgy witnesses, psychopaths and crooked policemen. I suppose that sounds negative but it wasn’t really. Sir Nicolas’s job was to defend them and most of them really needed extensive and intensive defence. They were arrogant and cynical. They were so intent on not admitting anything to anybody just in case they admitted to doing something wrong and most didn’t really think they’d done anything wrong; they just dug a big hole and then fell into it. Funny really, most of them were highly intelligent, highly successful, had extensive friendship circles but were morally deficient. In general, Sir Nicolas defended the ones who were unlikely to get caught, too clever or powerful, and if they did get caught they could afford to get Sir Nicolas Ross QC to defend them.

  Life was good but the killing of Jase Phillips in prison just kept nagging at me. I just couldn’t shake it. An honest, tough, likeable infantry sergeant sent to prison for killing an officer who was on drugs. He killed the officer, Major Michael Carmichael, to save the lives of a whole platoon and now he’d been murdered in prison. Major Michael Carmichael was the son of Rupert Carmichael, Earl of Charnforth, who was the head of The Family, the most powerful political and criminal dynasty in the country. In my view, killing the officer was necessary. But who killed Jase? Who ordered the killing and why? It had to be The Family, but why? Could it just be payback? No, it had to be something more. The Family was too clever, too subtle and too careful to risk murdering somebody. It had to be more than payback; there had to be a reason and a very big reason.

  It was a fine spring day and I soon arrived at Holborn Station. I could get to most places I wanted or needed to go in London by using the underground. I suppose I’m one of those strange people that regard the London Underground as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The sun was shining, the pigeons were pooing and the sparrows seemed to be spritely, hopping about like mad things, collecting crumbs and looking forward to summer. As the sun was out we had the usual mixture of sun-loving nutters in short sleeves or off-the-shoulder summer dresses looking for an early suntan, and the ultra conservatives with overcoats, hats and scarves in case it snowed. London’s a wonderfully cosmopolitan place. It was a pleasant day for the walk from Holborn Station down the Kingsway to the Strand, where Sir Nicolas had his chambers just a stone’s throw from the Royal Courts of Justice. Not that he appeared much in the Royal Courts of Justice, usually only on the rare case when one of his clients had been found guilty or some other barrister had made a cock-up and Sir Nicolas was going in to sort it. I got a kick out of walking through th
at wide, black, shiny door of the chambers and entering a different world.

  I suppose you could call Sir Nicolas’s chambers ostentatious but only after you’d entered. Now that’s a daft thing to say, how would you know until you’d entered? You moved from a busy main thoroughfare through a very wide black, shiny door with some discreet brass plaques on the wall to the left-hand side and you entered wonderland: quiet, modern with exquisite paintings hanging on the walls over superb oak and leather furniture and deep, deep pile carpets. There, Samantha the receptionist was freestanding. By that I mean she wasn’t hidden behind some barrier isolated from the visitor. I would watch her walk to a client or visitor, hold out her hand, take a firm cool grip and say, ‘Good morning, sir. How can we be of help to you?’ It was the way she said ‘we’ and ‘help to you’ that put them at the centre of the universe. Just watching her walk was a delight and many male clients must have thought they’d died and gone to heaven when this exquisite angel smiled at them and her friendly blue eyes flashed a welcome. I’m not sure what female clients thought but they were very few. Funny that, but Sir Nicolas only dealt with heavyweight criminals and I suppose there are few women in that league. I suppose it’s good that in some areas of life equality doesn’t reign. The few women clients that he had had usually murdered their husbands or, to quote the modern parlance, partners. Normally, when I read the brief, I thought, ‘Good on yer gel,’ as our handyman, when I was a boy, might have said. The males in question seemed to me to deserve to be bumped off.

  The chambers were luxurious. The staff, like me, that worked in or from the chambers, revelled in the expensive surroundings. We enjoyed the quiet smooth efficiency of the operation of the defence of people who needed defending and the extraordinary record of the successful defence of people who seemed as guilty as sin. The denizens of these offices were the people I’d hated when I was a military policeman. They could take my painstaking and extensive investigation, which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that a person was guilty, and destroy my evidence as if it were a mere comic book. They wouldn’t now. I’d learned so much that I knew what information was required to achieve a conviction. It’s so much more than establishing the facts and the links between the facts. I’d watched Sir Nicolas drive a coach and horses through rock solid evidence with just three or four simple questions and watched the jury doubt the evidence and move in favour of the accused. Now that I understood the questions he and his partners and juniors were likely to ask, I’d be able to compile the evidence, not as a policeman aiming for a trial but as an avenger aiming for a conviction. My military police training didn’t really equip me for that nor, as far as I could see, did any other police training.

  That morning was like any other morning and there was this vision of loveliness that illuminated my day. It was Monday, nine o’clock, when I walked into the chambers. As it turned out, this was a special day, the beginning of a special adventure, well, perhaps more than one special adventure.

  ‘Good morning, Sam.’

  ‘Good morning, Jake. My name is Samantha, and Joseph would like to see you.’ I knew that would be about my expenses, late again.

  ‘Thank you, Sam – oh, sorry! What do I have to do to call you Sam?’

  ‘Sleep with me.’

  ‘Is that an invitation?’

  ‘Good Lord, no; it’s just the requirement.’

  ‘Ha hum, I see. Is the boss likely to be free this morning?’

  ‘You know that for you, Jake, Sir Nicolas is always free.’

  Sam and I had developed a special bond; well, I thought so. We sparred but I could never penetrate her defences, even though I knew that she wanted me to. Well, even a mere mortal can dream.

  I took the lift to the top floor, silent apart from the zip-zip as it passed each floor. Vera, the wicked witch of the west, who pretends to be Sir Nicolas’s secretary, was, as always, waiting. I knew she was a witch because I never saw her use her expensive Apple Mac, but she produced enough documentation each day to demolish a small forest. Not just a sizable wood but a small forest and, not only that, she was never rushed. She always had time to chat to those she wanted to chat to and the others were too scared to speak to her. One look from her and they turned to stone, dumb, or they became mumbling wrecks. Yes, she was definitely a witch.

  She greeted me, smiled at me, reassured me that Sir Nicolas would see me shortly and asked me to wait. For some unaccountable reason, she liked me. I suppose she was about fifty-something, her hair gripped back in a tight grey bun with, as always, her immaculate white blouse under a dark fine wool suit. Apparently, she lived on her own and it was said that she was a member of the Salvation Army, but I couldn’t image her with a tambourine or tuba marching down the road or standing outside Marks and Sparks singing carols at Christmas in her blue uniform and a bowler hat with a turned-up brim. Did the Salvation Army have witches? No, I didn’t think so. Perhaps it was just a vicious rumour that she was in the Salvation Army.

  I sat on one of the expensive chairs and relaxed. The outer office area was quiet with exquisite paintings hanging on the walls. These were different from the ones downstairs. Downstairs, they were expensive, original, eighteenth-century street scenes of London or the criminal courts as they were then. I was told that a couple in the reception were by William Hogarth. They were probably the prison scenes. Up on this floor they were modern impressionist paintings verging on the abstract. I liked these much more. Every time I looked at one I saw something different. I was told that a couple cost over half a million but that was the sort of figure I couldn’t get my head around for a painting. The matching furniture was modern and beautifully crafted, standing on a deep, deep-pile carpet. No, that was wrong; the furniture stood in the deep, deep luxurious carpet.

  Sir Nicolas never spent long with any client when in his chambers. He saw the clients, bemused them with his charm and handed them over to one of the barristers to whom they unburdened their souls. He then dissected the findings with the QC. There were some juniors but mainly they were QCs working for Sir Nicolas. I believe that was why irrelevancies didn’t divert him or use up his expensive time unnecessarily.

  The door opened and Sir Nicolas showed out a well-dressed man in his fifties. They shook hands and said their goodbyes, and Vera took the man to the lift. The door shut and there was silence as Vera went back to her desk. I’d recognised the man. He was an MP who apparently had done a silly thing in the Far East that had resulted in some sort of financial irregularity and he’d been caught.

  Five minutes passed and Vera spoke. ‘Sir Nicolas will see you now, Jake.’ She had precise, cut-glass pronunciation and always used correct grammar and appropriate words. How the hell did she know? There must have been a ‘free now’ light on her desk because she hadn’t appeared to contact him. She was definitely a witch with extra sensory perception.

  I walked towards the large oak door and Vera, who was there before me, tapped so gently that I couldn’t hear the knock on this side of the door, so how Sir Nicolas was supposed to hear the tap on his side I never understood. She then opened the door. Perhaps the tapping was just for show.

  ‘Jake is here to see you, Sir Nicolas.’

  When she introduced clients they got their full handle: Mr Antony Peter Grandstand Top-Notch Gerard to see you, Sir Nicolas, or Superintendent Graham Blackmailer-of-Old-Ladies-and-Seducer-of-Young-Girls Paterson to see you, Sir Nicolas, and if it were one of the partners it would be Mr Fredrick James pain-in-the-arse Peebles QC to see you, Sir Nicolas; but not with me. With me it was just plain Jake, not Captain Jake Robinson George Cross. It made me feel I belonged. I supposed outsiders and mere staff needed full titles irrespective of their power and standing in the world, but people who belonged didn’t simply because they belonged.

  ‘Come in, Jake, grab a pew.’

  He had this rich, round public school voice. Strange really as he went to a grammar school and was brought up by his single parent mother with his two brothers on a tough
council estate in Neasden. But it did show sometimes in the words he used. His father was an army private killed in the Korean War, so I supposed he was in his late fifties perhaps early sixties. Mind you, both his brothers had done well. One was a surgeon and the other, the youngest, was a career criminal. Well, he worked in the City, so that amounts to the same thing and I heard he was considering standing for Parliament.

  I sat at the small table. We always sat at the small table. It was a ritual. Coffee would come in in about two minutes, after we’d sat down and dispensed with the general chitchat before business began. There we go. It wasn’t Vera, though. Vera didn’t demean herself with serving coffee and the like. She sent in one of her acolytes from the coven. One day she was going to see my fantasy about her and then she would cast a spell and I would disappear in a puff of green smoke. Yes, it would have to be green as Vera was into saving the environment.

  Coffee that day was served by Grace – Grace by name and grace by nature. She’d turned serving coffee to an art form – the positioning of the cups, the elegance of her movements as she manoeuvred the pot and jug of hot milk or cream, depending on the client’s choice – but it was her fingers that fascinated me. She seemed to have more and longer fingers than anybody I’d seen and they seemed to move independently but in total rhythm. And she always asked Sir Nicolas how he wanted his coffee despite the fact that it was always the same. She knew I was a hot, black and sweet, so that’s what she gave me. I remember the first and only time she asked and when I said hot, black and sweet she blushed. I must admit I flashed my eyebrows up and down, but women like Grace frighten me. When serving me coffee she smiled, fluttered her eyelashes at me and withdrew. I was terrified to smile back in case my smile was misunderstood, or was she just getting her own back on me as a junior witch might?

  The coffee serving ceremony completed and Sir Nicolas and I left alone, I started, ‘Sir, something has been bothering me.’

  ‘Yes, Jake, I wondered when you’d get round to talking to me about it.’