I think she had applied to attend the symposium only so that she could spend a night in a London hotel, and spend the evening with me.
I had seen her four or five times since my fall at Cheltenham.
‘Typical,’ she had said when she first came to see me in hospital after I had woken up.
‘What’s typical?’ I’d replied.
‘I sit here beside him trying to wake him up for nearly three whole days and nights and then, when I have to go to work, hey presto, he opens his eyes.’
I had smiled at her. ‘You didn’t have to do that,’ I’d said.
‘I didn’t have to,’ she’d said. ‘But I wanted to.’
That was nice, I’d thought.
She had been back to see me a couple more times during the week that they had insisted on keeping me in Cheltenham hospital, and then she had helped me on the day I went back home to Ranelagh Avenue, SW13.
Strangely, for the first two weeks after hospital I had been permitted only to lie flat on my back or to stand upright. Sitting, other than for a few minutes at a time, had been banned by the doctors. It had made life very complicated as it was impossible to travel anywhere by car. An ambulance had been needed to take me home on a stretcher, yet I was able to climb the stairs to my house, albeit on one leg and a pair of crutches, with Eleanor standing behind me so I didn’t topple over backwards and do myself more mischief.
She had stayed that first night I was home, sleeping in the room that, seven and a half years before, Angela and I had so gleefully decorated with teddy bears’ picnic wallpaper as a nursery for our unborn son, and which I hadn’t yet bothered to change. I realized that, since my father had gone home soon after Angela’s funeral, Eleanor was the first person other than me to have slept in my home. It wasn’t that I was particularly averse to having guests, it was just that I hadn’t yet got round to actually asking anyone to stay. I kept thinking that there was plenty of time, and the last seven years had seemingly passed in a flash.
But I think Eleanor had felt uneasy sleeping at my place, as uneasy as I had at her being there. She had stayed only one night in Barnes before returning to Lambourn, and she hadn’t been back, although we had twice met elsewhere, on neutral territory, as it were, and we had spoken often on the telephone.
I liked her. I liked her a lot. But I still wasn’t sure if I was yet ready for a serious relationship. I had become used to my solitary existence. I had grown accustomed to looking after myself and not having to worry about getting home from work at a reasonable time. Maybe I was set in my ways, and not very sure that I was prepared to change them.
However, I was greatly looking forward to seeing her again for dinner, and I had a spring in my one-footed step as I finally left chambers at seven o’clock and went in search of a taxi.
Julian Trent was standing next to the gate onto Theobald’s Road, leaning on the brick-built gatepost, and I saw him immediately when I walked out of chambers. He was making no attempt at concealment as he had done before, the previous November, when he had hidden between the parked cars before stepping out to hit me with his baseball bat.
I realized there was no point in me trying to run away. The best speed I could manage on one leg and two crutches would have hardly outrun a two-year-old toddler let alone a fit and healthy young man of twenty-four. I turned towards him and he watched me as I carefully and slowly covered the sixty or so yards between us. He stood up straight and stopped leaning on the brickwork as I approached. I hoped he couldn’t actually see my heart beating fast inside my chest.
He took a few steps forward and I was beginning to regret that I hadn’t simply gone back inside my chambers as soon as I had seen him. However, I did gratefully note that he wasn’t accompanied today by his sidekick, the baseball bat, but it might, I thought, have been lurking somewhere nearby.
He seemed about to say something to me but I beat him to it. ‘What the hell do you want?’ I shouted at him.
He seemed a little taken aback and looked around to see if anyone else had heard me. Theobald’s Road was a busy place at seven o’clock on a sunny May evening and a continuous stream of pedestrians flowed past the gated entrance. A few heads had turned as I’d shouted but no one had actually stopped.
‘Didn’t you hear me?’ I shouted again. ‘I asked you what the hell do you want.’
He was definitely unnerved by a reaction he hadn’t been expecting.
‘Did you get the message?’ he said.
‘Do you mean this?’ I shouted at him pulling the envelope and the paper out of my trouser pocket and ripping them both into several pieces. By this time he was standing less than ten feet from me. I threw the bits of paper into the air and they fluttered to the ground at his feet. ‘Now sod off,’ I shouted at him.
‘Stop shouting,’ he said.
‘Why should I?’ I shouted even louder, the sound of my voice echoing back to me from the buildings all around us. ‘What are you afraid of?’
‘Shut up,’ he said, hissing at me.
I stood my ground and raised one of the crutches as a potential weapon. ‘I’ll shut up,’ I shouted at the top of my voice, ‘when you go away and leave me in peace.’
He clenched and unclenched his right fist. Perhaps he was regretting not bringing his baseball bat with him after all.
‘Do as you’re told,’ he said menacingly, again almost under his breath, as if being extra quiet might compensate for my extra noisiness.
‘Why?’ I shouted again at full volume. ‘Who wants me to? Who are you working for, you little creep? Get out of my life, do you hear? And stay out.’
One or two heads out on Theobald’s Road were turned our way and one man stopped and stared at us. Julian Trent seemed to be losing his nerve.
‘You’ll regret this,’ he said quietly through gritted teeth. ‘You’ll bloody regret this.’
And with that, he was gone, dodging out through the gateway, past the staring pedestrian, and off down Theobald’s Road towards Clerkenwell. I stood there for a moment breathing deeply and wondered if I had made a big mistake. Perhaps, as Trent had said, I would regret it. But simply rolling over was not an option. I would not be dictated to, and my father and Eleanor would, like me, have to take their chances. To succumb to these threats in this case would simply invite more threats in the future. Both Josef Hughes and George Barnett had complied with the first demands and, in each case, the menace had returned for more.
I was aware that over the past few months I had become fairly ambivalent about the outcome of the Steve Mitchell trial. If he was convicted, then I would have nothing to fear from Julian Trent, or whoever was behind him. If he was acquitted then I could hold my head up for justice.
Now, suddenly, the result became incredibly important to me. If Mitchell was innocent, and I was sure that he must be, then I had to find a way to show it. And to do that, I had to find out who actually had committed the murder, and soon.
As things stood, I was pretty sure that he would be convicted simply because there was no credible indication to show that he didn’t do it and the circumstantial evidence would be enough to sway the jury. True, there was none of Mitchell’s DNA at the scene, but Barlow’s blood and DNA had been found on Mitchell’s boots and in his car, and that alone was very damning. If I were the prosecutor in the case, I would be highly confident of a guilty verdict. Even Sir James Horley QC, who was meant to be leading for the defence, seemed sure of the defendant’s guilt and had even suggested to me that I go and see Mitchell in prison and encourage him to plead guilty. I had the distinct impression that, just this time, Sir James was going to be happy to let me conduct the case throughout. I suspected that he would find a good reason not to go to Oxford on the first day, and then he would use that as the excuse for not going at all. And that would suit me just fine.