Part 4 – JULY
It’s still light when I get home. I love summer. Leon’s trainers are missing, so I guess he walked to work today – I’m so jealous he can do that. The tube is even more gross when it’s hot.
I scan the flat for new notes. They’re not always that easy to spot these days – there’s usually Post-its on pretty much everything, unless one of us has got around to doing a clear-up.
I spot it on the kitchen counter eventually: an envelope, with Richie’s name and prisoner number on one side and our address on the other. There’s a short note in Leon’s handwriting next to the address.
The letter from Richie is here.
And then, inside:
Dear Tiffy,
Twas a dark and stormy night . . .
All right, OK, no it wasn’t. It was a dark and grotty night at Daffie’s Nightclub in Clapham. I was already plastered when I got there – we were coming from a friend’s housewarming.
I danced with a few girls that night. You’ll get why I’m telling you that later. It was a really mixed crowd, lots of young guys out of uni, lots of those creepy types who hang around the edges of the dance floor waiting for girls to get too drunk so they can make their move. But right at the back, at one of the tables, there were a few guys who looked like they belonged somewhere else.
It’s hard to explain. They looked like they were there for a different reason from everyone else. They didn’t want to pull, they didn’t want to get drunk, they didn’t want to dance.
So I know now they wanted to do business. They’re known as the Bloods, apparently. I only found that out much later, when I was inside and telling guys here my story, so I’m guessing you’ve never heard of them either. If you’re a pretty much middle-class person who just happens to live in London and goes about their business going to work and everything, you’ll probably never know gangs like this exist.
But they’re important. I think even then I could tell that, looking at them. But I was also very drunk.
One of the guys came to the bar with his girl. There were only two women with the group, and this one looked bored out of her mind, you could just see it. She caught my eye down the bar and started to look a lot more interested.
I looked back. If she’s bored of her bloke, that’s his problem, not mine. I’m not going to miss the chance to make eyes with a pretty lady just because the guy standing next to her looks tougher than the average bloke in Daffie’s, let me tell you that.
He found me later, in the bathroom. Pushed me up against the wall.
‘Keep your hands off, you hear me?’
You know the drill. He was shouting right in my face, a vein pulsing in his forehead.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said. Calm as a cucumber.
He shouted a lot more. Pushed me a bit. I stood firm, but I didn’t push back or hit him. He said he’d seen me dancing with her, which wasn’t true. I know she wasn’t one of the girls I’d danced with earlier in the night, I would have remembered her.
Still, he’d wound me up, and when she turned up later, just before the club closed, I was probably more inclined to chat to her than I would have been, just to piss him off.
We flirted. I bought her a drink. The Bloods, out there at the back, talked business and didn’t seem to notice. I kissed her. She kissed me back. I remember I was so drunk I felt dizzy when I closed my eyes, so I kissed her with my eyes open.
And then that was it. She just sort of faded back into the club somewhere – it’s all hazy, I really was plastered. I couldn’t tell you exactly when she left, or I left, or whatever.
From this point on, I can’t verify everything. If I could, obviously I wouldn’t be writing this to you from here, I’d be chilling on your famous beanbag with a cup of Leon’s milky coffee and this would probably just be a funny anecdote I’d tell at the pub.
But anyway. Here’s what I think happened.
They followed me and my mates when we left. The others got night buses, but I didn’t live far, so I walked it. I went into the off-licence on Clapham Road that stays open all night and bought cigarettes and a six-pack of beers. I didn’t even want them – I definitely didn’t need them. It was nearly four in the morning and I was probably not even walking straight. But I went in, paid cash, went home. I didn’t even see them, but they can’t have been far away when I got out of there, because according to the camera in the store ‘I came back in’ two minutes later with my hoody pulled up and a balaclava on.
When you watch the footage, the guy does have a similar build to me. But as I pointed out in court – whoever it is, they’re doing a better job of walking properly than I did. I was way too drunk to be able to dodge the bargain bins and get the knife out of the back of my jeans all at the same time.
I had no idea any of this had happened until two days later when I was arrested at work.
They got the kid at the till to unlock the safe. There was four thousand five hundred pounds in there. They were smart, or maybe just experienced – they didn’t speak any more than they had to, and so when the kid gave evidence she hardly had anything to recount. Other than the knife pointed in her face, obviously.
I was on CCTV. I had a previous criminal record. They pulled me in.
Once I’d been charged they wouldn’t grant me bail. My lawyer took me on because he was interested, and he felt confident in the only witness, the girl at the till, but they got to her as well in the end. We were expecting her to stand up there and say the guy who came in the second time couldn’t have been me. That she’d seen me in the off-licence before and I’d been perfectly nice and not tried to nick anything.
But she pointed at me across the courtroom. Said it was me for sure. It was like a living nightmare, I can’t even tell you. I could just see it playing out, and watch how the jury members’ faces changed, but I couldn’t do anything. I tried to get up and speak and the judge just shouted at me – you’re not allowed to talk out of turn. My turn never seemed to come, though. By the time they got to questioning me, everyone’s mind was made up.
Sal asked me bullshit stupid questions, and I didn’t get the chance to say anything good, my head was all over the place, I just hadn’t thought it would come to that. The prosecution played on my dodgy record from a few years back – I’d got in a couple of fights on nights out when I was nineteen, when I was at my lowest (that’s another story, and I swear it isn’t as bad as it sounds). They made out like I was violent. They even dredged up a guy I used to work with in a café who properly hated me – we’d fallen out over some girl he’d liked in college, who I’d ended up taking to the prom or some other crap like that. It was kind of amazing, watching them spin it. I can see why the jury believed I was guilty. Those lawyers were really fucking good at making it sound true.
They sentenced me to eight years for armed robbery.
So here I am. I can’t even tell you. Every time I write it out or tell it to someone I can’t believe it even more, if that makes sense. All I get is angrier.
It wasn’t a complicated case. We all thought Sal would sort it on appeal. (Sal’s the lawyer, by the way.) But he hasn’t fucking got to the appeal yet. I was sentenced last November and there’s no appeal even in sight. I know Leon is trying to sort it, and I love that man for it, but the fact is nobody gives a shit about getting me out of here except him. And Mam, I guess.
I’ll be honest with you, Tiffy, I’m shaking now. I want to scream. These times are the worst – there’s nowhere to go. Press-ups are your friend, but sometimes you need to run, and when you’ve got three steps between your bed and your toilet, there’s not a lot of room for that.
Anyway. This is a very long letter, and I know it took me a while to write it – you’ve maybe forgotten about the whole conversation we had by now. You don’t have to reply, but if you want to, Leon can send it with his next letter maybe – if you do write, please send stamps and envelopes too.
I hope you believe me, even more than I usually do. Maybe it’s because you’re important to my brother, and my brother is like the only person who is properly important to me.
Yours,
Richie xx
*
The next morning I reread the letter in bed, the duvet pulled up around me like a nest. I’m all cold in my stomach, and my skin has gone kind of prickly. I want to cry for this man. I don’t know why this is hitting me so hard, but whatever it is, this letter has woken me up at half five on a Saturday morning. That is how much I cannot bear it. It’s so unfair.
I’m reaching for my phone before I’ve really thought about what I’m doing.
‘Gerty, you know your job?’
‘I’m familiar with it, yes. Primarily as the reason that I am awoken at six a.m. almost every morning, bar Saturday mornings.’
I look at the clock. Six a.m.
‘Sorry. But – what kind of law do you do again?’
‘Criminal law, Tiffy. I do criminal law.’
‘Right, right. What does that mean though?’
‘I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is urgent,’ Gerty says. She is audibly gritting her teeth. ‘We deal with crimes that are against people and their property.’
‘Like armed robbery?’
‘Yes. That is a good example, well done.’
‘You hate me, don’t you? I’m top of your hate list right now.’
‘It’s my one lie-in and you’ve ruined it, so yes, you have climbed past Donald Trump and that Uber driver I sometimes get who hums for the whole journey.’
Shit. Things are not going well.
‘You know the special cases you do for free, or for less money, or whatever?’
Gerty pauses. ‘Where’s this going, Tiffy?’
‘Just hear me out. If I give you a letter from a guy convicted of armed robbery will you just take a look at it? You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to take him on or whatever, obviously, I know you have tons more important cases. But will you just read it, and maybe write a list of questions?’
‘Where did you get this letter from?’
‘It’s a long story, and it doesn’t matter. Just know I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important.’
There is a long, sleepy sort of silence at the other end of the phone.
‘Of course I’ll read it. Come over for lunch and bring the letter.’
‘I love you.’
‘I hate you.’
‘I know. I’ll bring you a latte from Moll’s, though. Donald Trump would never bring you a latte from Moll’s.’
‘Fine. I’ll make my decision on your relative placement on the hate list when I’ve tasted how hot the coffee is. Do not ring me again before ten.’ She hangs up.
*
Gerty and Mo’s flat has been completely Gerty-fied. You almost can’t tell Mo lives here. His room at his last place was a tip of washed and unwashed clothes (no system) and paperwork that was probably confidential, but here, every object has a purpose. The flat is tiny, but I don’t notice it nearly as much as I did the first time I saw the place – somehow Gerty’s drawn attention away from the low ceilings and towards the enormous windows, which fill the kitchen-diner with soft summer sunlight. And it’s so clean. I have new respect for Gerty and what she can achieve through sheer willpower, or possibly bullying.
I hand her the coffee. She gives it a sip, then nods in approval. I do a little fist pump, officially becoming a less odious human being than the man who wants to build a wall between Mexico and the US.
‘Letter,’ she says, stretching out her free hand.
Not one for small talk, Gerty. I rifle through my bag and pass it over, and she immediately heads off to read, picking up her glasses from the side table by the front door where, unbelievably, she never seems to forget to put them.
I fidget. I pace a bit. I mess up the order of the pile of books on the end of their dining table, just for the thrill of it.
‘Go away,’ she says, not even raising her voice. ‘You are distracting me. Mo is at the coffee place on the corner that does inferior coffee. He will entertain you.’
‘Right. Fine. So . . . you’re reading it though? What do you think?’
She doesn’t answer. I roll my eyes, and then scarper in case she noticed.
I’ve not even made it to the coffee shop before my phone rings. It’s Gerty.
‘You might as well come back,’ she says.
‘Oh?’
‘The trial transcript will take forty-eight hours to get to me even with the express service. I can’t tell you anything useful until I’ve read that.’
I’m smiling. ‘You’re applying for the trial transcript?’
‘Men often have very convincing stories of their innocence, Tiffy, and I would recommend against believing their summaries of their court cases. They are, obviously, extremely biased, and also do not tend to be well versed in the intricacies of the law.’
I’m still smiling. ‘You’re applying for the trial transcript, though.’
‘Don’t get anyone’s hopes up,’ Gerty says, and her voice is serious now. ‘I mean it, Tiffy. I’m just going to read up on it. Don’t tell this man anything, please. It would be cruel to give him unfounded hope.’
‘I know,’ I say, smile dropping. ‘I won’t. And thanks.’
‘You’re welcome. The coffee was excellent. Now get back here – if I must be up this early on a Saturday, I would at least like to be entertained.’
