Bent Brief

JULIAN RUCK

Description

The novel is about an old-school lawyer, Edwin Hillyard, who struggles with the new dotcom world.He accidentally kills his indulged wife, when he discovers her in bed with another woman. Before he knows it, he is the main actor in a dramatic and nail-biting trial.What will the verdict be? And will his new love, a Sikh doctor stand by him?Here is a thriller, full to the brim with humour, love, action and suspense, forcing the reader to race to the end. Crime thriller fans will be hooked!The author's first-hand legal experience has directly informed his novels, making The Bent Brief is a vividly realistic read.

Sujets

• Political
• Politics

Informations

• Publié par: eBookPartnership.com
• Date de parution: 20 juin 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783011704
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Bent Brief
The Bent Brief
Julian Ruck
CONTENTS
HALF TITLE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
EXTRACT
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
CHAPTER - 46
CHAPTER - 47
CHAPTER - 48
CHAPTER - 49
CHAPTER - 50
CHAPTER - 51
EPILOGUE
Also by the same author . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Copyright © Julian Ruck, 2012
Published in 2012 in the United Kingdom by Dinefwr Publishers Rawlings Road, Llandybie Carmarthenshire, SA18 3YD
The right of Julian Ruck to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
The author would like to stress that this is a work of fiction and no resemblance to any actual individual or institution is intended or implied.
A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library.
ISBN 978-1-904323-24-2
Cover illustration: Jeff Kirkhouse
Printed in the UK
For Lynney, with all my love – when I can get a word in!
Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!
Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Jail
CHAPTER 1
Her Majesty’s Prison, Pentonville, London.
“Slop out, fella!”
The prison officer’s verbal assault smashed into my mind and forced me to open my eyes and read the ‘Thought for the day’ that had been scratched into the wall facing me.
‘Don’t fight the system ’cos you’re the knob ’ed for bein’ ’ere.’
Ah well, at least someone in here had a sense of humour.
These gems of foresight had been scratched into the green wall that ran alongside my bed, a metal-framed apology for comfort and rest – and ha-ha to that! The graffiti always ensured that I smiled at least once a day though, so I was grateful for this crude mercy. It definitely beat looking at the unsavoury lout who had just disturbed my sleep. My escape.
On second thoughts, ‘sleep’ is perhaps the wrong word to describe a constant state of sensitivity. More often than not I simply floated in and out of my senses; sometimes they were acute, at other times far too blunt.
I stayed where I was, so to hell with him! I knew that I was fooling myself yet again, and that sooner or later I would have to shift my backside. Prison was like that; there wasn’t a lot of room for ‘choice’, Her Majesty’s Pleasure being exempt from the ‘choice’ that pious politicians kept banging on about.
Another ‘Slop out!’ insulted my eardrums along with a couple of violent kicks to the cell door. I had been spotted enjoying a temporary release from punishment, which wouldn’t do at all. I looked up at the distorted face staring down at me and noted the contempt. ‘Thinking’ was frowned upon in clink; the screws hadn’t forgotten their history. For a moment I felt decidedly uncomfortable. ‘Thinkers’ I knew were always the first to be put up against a wall and shot.
Slopping out was, without doubt, one of the more stomach-wrenching highlights of the day. Ignoring the order of navy blue authority to dispose of my now cloudy and unappetising waste, I treated contempt with contempt and stayed beneath the prison blanket that was so thin I could almost see right through it. I needed, nay demanded, these few minutes to allow my little world to adjust yet again to its new and exciting environment.
My jailer observed, snorted, then disappeared. Perhaps I had managed to retain some dignified defiance after all.
I continued to observe the décor of my new home. Naked females grinned and laughed at me from every wall. I couldn’t understand why my fellow inmates kept plastering their ‘homes’ with unobtainable bosoms and eye-watering rumps. What was the point, for God’s sake? But then prison had its own rules – a unique society with its choked insults and resigned madness.
I had inherited the papery pornography from my predecessor and had yet to decide what to do with it. The odd furious nipple did have the virtue of reminding me that I was still alive and still a man, so to date the walls had remained untouched.
Having finished my morning ritual of cell study I finally got up and began to dress. The blue-pinstripe shirt reminded me of other, less offensive days. I used to wear them to the office; they always made me look suitably lawyerly and professional, especially with a yellow tie. Were I ever to be liberated from this prison of human misery I doubted I would ever wear a blue-pinstripe shirt again. You know I do believe there is a song in there somewhere. Anyway, the prison tailor obviously wasn’t up to much, neither were the laundry facilities. The collars and cuffs were frayed and loose, no starch being used for certain. Single cuffs, so cufflinks were out of the question. Bad form all round, really. Must have a word with the Governor at teatime.
As if all this wasn’t enough, the real abomination and total insult to my dignity were HMP’s underpants. These white monstrosities should have had a sign printed on the front saying, ‘HOP IN!’ My pale muscle-free legs made me look like a malnourished stick insect or worse–astrutting Superman without the body, perhaps. The rest of me wasn’t too bad, but the legs . . . well, the less said the better. In the past some women had actually envied them, if you can work that one out. The coarse blue denim trousers I slipped and slid into completed the sartorial battleground. Now I looked just like every other con in the place. Uniformity and cheapness had thus been achieved.
On the outside at least.
CHAPTER 2
At 7.30 a.m. the prison officer was back with another shout of “Slop out, fella!” Why couldn’t the unimaginative bugger use another word instead of ‘fella’? ‘Fellow’ wouldn’t have been so insulting, and neither would it have made me feel like some dejected animal in a circus being called upon to perform for the titillation of a band of disreputable and overindulged urchins.
I picked up the piss-pot without rancour – resistance was futile – and began my journey to the toilets and washing area. As I joined the disappointed surge of other blue-striped bodies, I noticed that some of them had managed to acquire a more conscientious and bespoke tailor than I since the prison garb seemed to hang better on them than me. On the other hand, of course, it could have been the diet – they were fatter and probably more disposed to starch and haute cuisine bilge.
As I closed in on the cesspit my nasal passages were blasted with a stench as angry as any of those characters around me who cursed and groaned at their misfortune. This was one of the more subtle punishments I would never get used to – I’ll spare you the details. I did what I had to do and almost ran back to the blessed sanctity of my ‘Peter’ (or cell, for the uninitiated).
Amazing how one’s values are devalued in prison. My cell had become a refuge, a place of peace, somewhere I could shut out the reality of my present existence. My body might be ‘banged up’, but my mind was as free as the pigeons that crapped on my window ledge. Windows? Prisons? Well, barred they might be, yet at least I was able to distinguish night from day – not that it mattered.
I won’t describe the morning’s breakfast. It isn’t worth it.
At 10.00 a.m. a shout of “fours” echoed along the corridors.
I was on level four. I had been summoned.
The highlight of the day had arrived.
An hour’s exercise.
An hour of air.
An hour of social intercourse.
One hour snatched from twenty-four where life could be confirmed and the skies above stared at for no particular reason.
The prison yard was a triangle enclosed by Victorian wings of strict bricks and mortar. Everything about this hour was strict. No running. No independent travelling. Everyone traced the exact lines of the triangle; after all there was nowhere else to go.
“’Ere mate, ’ave you got a minute?” A man who looked as if he hadn’t seen a decent meal in years suddenly appeared at my side along with a fatter version of criminal recidivism.. The thin man’s eyes bulged and couldn’t keep still, while his partner shuffled his feet from side to side and kept his head firmly tucked into his chest. Crime had obviously bent his ambition and, it seemed, his neck. I quickly concluded that life had beaten him into a scrunched-up nonentity and that the overloaded starch of prison grub had become his only escape.
The thin man smiled whilst his long nose sniffed me up and down. Then his fat friend lifted his head for a brief moment and looked at me with eyes that had seen too much guilt and teeth that had seen too much nicotine – those of them that were left anyway. The sensible fellow had shrewdly avoided the avarice of Denplan, who emphasised how good their services were for all who signed up. Not that dental insurance would have been much good to him in clink; even the namby-pamby State wasn’t prepared to go that far – private dentists for the criminal classes, heaven forbid! His lower lip trembled for a moment, so I took this for a smile. There was certainly no threat in the man’s eyes or indeed his ragged teeth; frankly I couldn’t imagine him