The Trusted Professions - Chapter 19

I was hoisted to my feet and the voice of a man I could not see said: ?Mr. McKinley, I?m placing you under arrest on suspicion of murder. I am obliged to warn you that anything you may say whilst under arrest may be used against you in a criminal trial at Her Majesty?s pleasure. You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so but I am also obliged to warn you that if you should fail to mention any fact which you later rely on during your defence in Her Majesty?s court, your failure to take this opportunity to mention said fact may well be treated as supporting any relevant evidence that is held against you. If you should wish to say anything at this time, what you say may be given in evidence. Do you understand your rights as I have read them to you??

?Yes.? I said, in a daze.

Do you know where the right to silence comes from?

What, the, uh, Miranda? Some American guy?

It?s actually an old British common law. Made it illegal for someone to give testimony against themselves if they did not wish to. Before they came up with that law, Police would just beat people into confessing, whether they?d done it or not. That law was supposed to take away the impetus for it- since you couldn?t incriminate yourself anyway, no point beating it out of you.

Is that right?

It is. We lobbied extensively to have a similar law introduced in Brazil. Never quite succeeded, but hope springs.

Lucky for me we?ve got it here, I guess. Saved me a beating that night!

Right. So what happened next?

Oh, y?know, the trial was a disaster. Two counts of murder, one count grand theft auto, various misdemeanor charges related to the initial surveillance of Colmes and Gillette. I pleaded guilty with extenuating circumstances on the car theft, but the murder trial was a fucking joke. I mean, the evidence against me was utterly shoddy, but the whole thing was held in the court of public opinion. Nothing like death to redeem a man- Colmes was virtually hailed as a modern Saint by the tabloids, huge, gushing editorials about his ?unique, bold style?. ?A British institution that will be sorely missed?. Jez?s death was a tiny footnote compared to that kind of hyperbole, but the papers covered every inch of the trial with obsessive detail. I think one news channel even ran twenty-four hour footage of the trial in progress. There were a few dissenting voices in a the press, I mean, anyone looking with anything beyond a disinterested glance would see there was a huge gap in the chain of evidence linking me to the crime. They had no murder weapon for Jez, couldn?t source the poison used on Colmes. Hell, I walked into the restaurant and started screaming that he was going to die, and he up and died. If I hadn?t come straight from the headless corpse of my business partner, it would have been laughed out of court for lack of proof. But combine the two facts together, on top of the proof they found at the office, that we?d been monitoring him covertly for weeks, and it seemed obvious that I?d killed him.

The case the prosecution built against me maintained that I was the one who planned the murder, and then killed Jez when he disagreed with me.

What about Samantha? Wouldn?t she have been able to exonerate you?

No- she was actually a witness for the prosecution, a major lynchpin in their case. She said exactly what she saw: Jez had been acting irritably and upset for the last few weeks before his death- trouble at work, he said. She came home from shopping to find me standing over his headless corpse, at which point I rushed her into her car and drove her to Saul Colmes? house, acting erratically and refusing to say who was on the floor. She wept openly on the stand; they had to bring the trial to a halt for her to regain her composure on several occasions. And when she looked at me in court, well, I knew she thought I?d done it. They couldn?t provide any logical explanation as to why I would have executed him using a sniper?s rifle from over two blocks away only to dispose of the weapon and then go to stand over his body, but they figured I was unhinged, out of my head. It?s not at all unknown for killers to act in ways contrary to their best interests.

Gillette?s testimony was hardly any better- strange, wild-eyed man comes barging into her house, steals her phone, then shoves a shell-shocked widow through the door before driving off to the scene of her lover?s death. She was alarmed to discover that we?d been tracking her movements, recording her life with Colmes, hacking into her cell, which obviously prejudiced her against me as a witness. Well, that and the fact that she thought I poisoned her lover. She soaked up the attention of the trial like a sponge, though. Made herself up for the show trial of the decade, cried crocodile tears on the stand. Probably thought about all the money she would have had access too if she?d gotten married to Saul just that little bit sooner to bring them up. Probably made just as much selling her story to the tabloids.

What about Keri Colmes?

Are you kidding? She was too busy defending her own ass to save mine, hell, she used me as a fucking sacrificial lamb. Said she?d hired the Trusted Professions just to keep tabs on her husband during the separation, and that was it. ?Why no your honour, of course he?s lying when he says I asked him to kill my husband. I?m under so much stress!? Her story didn?t hold together and everyone in the courtroom and the country knew it, but they had nothing to hold her on, no evidence of wrongdoing. She was held under suspicion for a while but never charged, at least not that I?m aware of. However she paid off Max for the hit, she did it discreetly. Hope she fucking regrets it. Didn?t say a single word in my defence, said we?d only met once. Hope she fucking burns in hell, come to think of it. Evil bitch. Maybe Jez was right when he said he should have bugged our own offices.

Was Max called to the stand?

No. I mean, she was mentioned, but habeas corpus, y?know? She disappeared. No-one could find her. No-one knew who she was or where she came from. I didn?t even know her real name. The dungeon denied all knowledge. I mean, we had evidence that she?d existed, Gillette had seen her, we had her voice on tape. But the prosecution wasn?t interested in her, they were after me, so they never even mentioned her and actively encouraged their witnesses to do the same. I mean, Gillette admitted under cross-examination that Saul had left that day with a second woman, and the maitre d? recalls seeing him dining with her, but beyond that she may as well have been a figment of my imagination as far as the prosecution was concerned- I think they may even have said that in their summary. And my whole defence rested on this central figure that we were wholly unable to produce, or even find the name of. She just?vanished. Like midnight smoke.

So finally, I was called to the stand. I mean, my defence team strongly advised me not to, but I wanted to fucking look the jury in the eye, y?know? I was innocent. I?d lost my best friend! I wanted them to see it in my eyes. To feel it. Plus I figured, well, what did I have to lose? Total fucking disaster. The prosecution tore me apart.

?So you met with a hired killer??

?Yes.?

?So you admit that it was your intention to kill Saul Colmes.?

?No, I mean, yes, at the time, but??

?So you admit that you did, at one point in time, make arrangements for his murder??

?Yes, but??

??and what method was your so called ?hired killer? planning to use, Mr. McKinley??

?You don?t underst??

?Your honour can I humbly ask that you instruct the witness to please answer the question asked of him!?

?Poison.?

?Poison! And what effect might this poison have had on a person, were one to ingest it??

?It would simulate the effect of a heart attack.?

?A heart attack. A heart attack very much like the one Saul Colmes died of, I suppose??

?Look I?m not saying he wasn?t killed by that poison, in fact I?m saying that he was, but I didn?t administer it.?

?Really. Well I must say that it?s a remarkable coincidence that one week after you meet with an assassin to discuss the poisoning of Saul Colmes, he drops dead with the effects of that very same poison with you standing right in front of him while he eats his dinner, screaming and yelling that he?s going to die. Doesn?t that strike you as a remarkable coincidence, sir??

?No, because I was trying to save him! To prevent him from taking the poison!?

?The poison that you hired someone to administer to him.?
?No! I?ve already told you??

??yes, yes, you ?changed your mind?, I believe you?ve said, several times.?

The prosecution had an answer for everything. The shot in my arm? Self-inflicted to support my story. The footage of the honey-trap? A sick game to extort money from Colmes that went horribly wrong when Jez tried to put an end to it. They constantly implied that I was imbalanced, but never pressed the issue so far that the defence might push for insanity. Not that my lawyers didn?t strongly advise me to take that defence, or even plead guilty and beg for leniency. But I refused to. I wasn?t going to say I shot my own fucking friend in the head, not for money or a lesser sentence.

The case against me had a huge amount of holes in it, the ballistics at my home didn?t match a self-inflicted wound, the documentation at our office didn?t support Keri?s version of events?but the prosecution didn?t need to make it an airtight narrative- they just needed to point the finger at me. Public opinion is heavily swayed by the power of celebrity and the people needed someone to blame for this heinous crime. Juries are no different, and there was no one else on offer. Anyone who could have helped me was either dead, disappeared, or testifying against me. I was alone. Open, shut, put away for life. Not that there was a lot of life left for me out there, after the trial. Hell of a disappointment for my parents, let me tell you.

And that?s it?

Not quite. Got a postcard a few months back, a photo with a stamp on it. Don?t know how she found my address, or even why she sent it, really. Maybe, in her bizarre, twisted mind, she really did have some kind of caring for me, and really did want to thank me, genuinely. Or maybe she?s just got a sick sense of humour. Probably a little bit of both. It always was hard to tell.

One side of the postcard was a photo of this little taverna on it, somewhere on the coast by the looks of it. Two figures were barely noticeable sitting in the shade of the veranda, raising their glasses to the camera. One was a tiny little figure, smile as big as her head. The other was a tall, olive-skinned man with impossibly long legs, not smiling but wearing outrageously coloured shorts.

On the back were just four words:

Thanks a million! Mx.

You wanna know the weirdest thing about prison, Doc?

What?s that?

I always kind of figured I?d end up here. Is there a name for a psychological condition like that?

A psychological condition with what symptoms?

Just?this feeling, all your life, that you were going to end up in prison one day. I mean, you didn?t know how or why, just that one day you?d have to deal with it, the isolation, the lack of freedom. I used to lie in bed when I was a kid and fantasize that it was lock-down time and all the lights were going out, cell by cell, all the way to the end of the row, and I?d be the last one to see the light, and then we?d be plunged into darkness, and it?d be me, alone with my thoughts. I used to be obsessed with prison movies as a teenager, and I?d think, y?know, think about how well I?d be able to survive in a prison, if I ever ended up in one. No, not ?if?, when. I really did think I?d end up here. I wondered what I?d do with my time, what I?d become. I figured I?d read a lot, which I?d enjoy. It always used to upset me that I never had enough time for some serious reading- now I do almost nothing else! If I had a hot tub in my cell I figure I?d be pretty well set. I don?t, though.

What?s it like?

Prison? Not so bad as you?d think in all the practical, day-to-day ways. There are no doors made of bars or anything if that?s what you?re thinking. It?s kind of like living in the dorm of an all-boys school. I got a room to myself, a bed, a desk, a TV, a bookshelf. I read a lot. They let us out into the yard once a day and I lift weights, try to stay in shape. Don?t really socialize with the other prisoners. There isn?t a huge amount of infighting, y?know, like you see on TV. I mean, I?ve seen it happen, but I?ve never been attacked or anything. I just generally keep to myself when I?m not at work. Reading, writing. Hour a night on the web, but pretty heavily restricted.

It?s worse in other ways, though, ways you don?t expect. I?m sure that, in practical terms, there?s a lot of people on the outside who have it a lot worse than I do. I get three squares a day, I?m always warm, I?m always entertained. Better than a lot of folk, I know it. And I don?t just mean homeless people, y?know, I?m sure there are some people who get up, go to work, come home to their little box, read, watch TV, repeat. Just like I do. But that knowledge, that they can just get up and go somewhere, go to another country, go to a bar, talk to a woman, walk the streets. See the sea. Must be very comforting. Even if they never actually do any of that stuff, must be comforting to know that they can, if the fancy took them. That?s rough- knowing that every day will be exactly the same, for the rest of my life. Although in a way, it?s freeing, as well. No responsibility. No drive to ?make it?. To ?be? something. No status anxiety.

Maybe you were meant to end up here? Who knows what would have happened if you?d stayed outside?

I guess no-one will ever know.

No.

It?d be nice to see the sea, though.

Yes. It is.

Well, that?s my story; take it for all in all. What do you reckon?

Some pretty incredible stuff.

Yeah.

Thank you for sharing it with me.

Yeah, well, hey, thanks for listening to it. So will you let me read your report?

I think so. Maybe in a few days- I?ve still got write it up.

Cool.