EXTRACT FOR
Doing It The Hard Way
(Ted Edwards)

CHAPTER 1 



    The stylishly elegant green-glass-shaded lamp cast a pool of light on to the desk, illuminating the papers that were strewn on it. Pandora Beatty-Trenchard, her head cupped in hands whose fingers extended into her abundant gold-blonde hair throwing it into an attractive disarray, stared down at them, a pencil clamped between her teeth while her brow furrowed in intense concentration. The one thing she didn't want at that moment was a distraction, but that's exactly what she got, in the shape of a quiet, almost timid knock on the door of that sumptuous, panelled office of which she was so proud. She ignored it.

      "Tap, tap, tap."

      The furrows deepened, but still she didn't respond.

      "Tap, tap, tap."

      She spat out the pencil; the head came up and angry green eyes glowered at the door. "For fuc....! Come in!"

      The door opened slowly, hesitantly.

      "For God's sake bloody well come in!" she snarled, showing the edge of the temper for which ??" along with her legal brilliance ??" she was becoming renowned.

      It was the temporary junior clerk, Worsley, working late because she was there; someone had to lock the place up when she was finished. Not that she cared; in her view, minions were there to serve her purposes, nothing more. And to vent her spleen upon, as she was gathering choice phrases to do at this very moment.

      "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she blazed. "Did I or did I not tell you that in no circumstances whatsoever ??" whatsoever ??" was I to be disturbed? And what happens? You come up and start banging on the door like a bloody demented bloody bull elephant, breaking my chain of thought and destroying hours of careful work! You're a bloody waste of space!"

      The old man, for he was over seventy, once the senior clerk in this practice for many years, but recalled as a titular junior to help out while the current senior and his deputy were ill, blinked and summoned what dignity he could in the face of the onslaught.

      "In my day," he said. "The staff was not..."

      "I don't bloody care what happened before women had the bloody vote, you old fart! I don't know why they asked you back, because you're bloody useless! Old and useless, which is worse! Now, what do you bloody well want?"

      The old man's face had stiffened through the tirade. When it was over, he walked stiffly over the carpet and handed her a long, stiff brown envelope. "A messenger brought this for you, Miss Beatty."

      "Beatty-Trenchard to you!" She snatched it from him. "Right, you've delivered it. Now bugger off!"

      He made his way back to the door, where he turned. "I will be making a complaint about you, Miss Beatty."

      "Fuck off!" He could complain all he liked, stupid old bastard. All she had to do was go up and flash some leg and tit at old Walters; maybe let him have a quick fumble and any complaint would just disappear. It wouldn't be the first time, or the last. "Men!" she spat and barked a laugh. "Bloody useless, the lot of them!" 

      Useless and profitable, she thought. The stupid bastards thought with their balls, which made bleeding them dry in divorce settlements a breeze. It had been happening in America for years and now it was in Britain. The big difference was that the best practitioner in this country was a twenty-seven-year-old, beautiful and very, very smart barrister called Pandora Beatty-Trenchard, who could gouge an erring ??" or even comparatively innocent - husband for everything he was worth. It was a good feeling. So was looking at her bank balance.

      She looked at the envelope; it looked very much like the ones that solicitors used to send briefs out in, but who was going to be doing that at nine o'clock on a September evening? Odd. She reached for her paper-knife, a silver blade with a handle in the form of a pair of testicles wrapped in barbed wire, a present from a grateful client. She slid it under the flap and ripped it open. Or tried to: the paper was tough, the seal tight, surprisingly so. Muttering a curse ??" of which she had a fund, together with a penchant for using them ??" she tried again, grunting with the effort. This time she made it.

      The envelope contained a single slip of paper as flimsy and insubstantial as the envelope was tough:

      

      'I would be grateful for your presence in my chambers at nine-thirty this evening, the 19th.

      Morrissey'

      

      "What the bloody hell?" she exclaimed. Morrissey was the judge she'd been in front of today and several times before that. A proper old male-establishment fart, long past the time when he should have been put out to grass to grow petunias, or whatever it was that retired judges did. But why would he want to see her? And at such a weird hour? Half pas.... Bloody hell! That was just half an hour! And you don't ignore a summons to chambers, even if you did think that the summoner was a geriatric cretin. Christ!

      Ten minutes, if she let the Porsche rip and the boys in blue were kind. Bugger him, she'd be five... no, ten minutes late; serve the old sod right and anyway she could blame the clerk. Complain about her, indeed! Had she got the time to change? No, but she could do some tidying up. She glanced at the paper on her desk, sighed, tossed the envelope and slip on top of them and went to the bathroom.

      "You're not bad, Pancake," she said to her reflection, using the nickname that they'd given her at Cheltenham. Golden-blonde hair that would never fit under a legal wig, properly ??" not that she tried too hard - a good face, broad but balanced by that high forehead. Nice eyebrows, those lovely green eyes ??" her best feature, she thought ??" and full lips that could pout or snarl with equal effect. Her eyes travelled down. White blouse, just a bit rumpled, but open a button or two and flash a bit of cleavage and the old dear wouldn't notice. That and pull the skirt up a bit and she'd have him where she wanted him, whatever it was the old duck wanted. She spent a few minutes repairing and reinforcing make-up, checked it then unfastened those buttons. Perfect.

      She went past the clerk's office with so much as a glance, let alone a word. Inside it, Worsley listened to the front door slam, waited until he heard the snarl of her car start then accelerate away before getting up to make his way to the stairs. At her office, he took out a skeleton key that he'd had for more years than he wanted to remember, opened the door and walked over to the desk. With a grunt of satisfaction, he saw the envelope and slip of paper; smiling, he picked up both, spent a moment gazing at the papers on the desk the turned and walked out, carefully locking to door behind him.

      

      The court buildings were in darkness, as was to be expected at that time of night. But she knew that the judge used his chambers very late, sometimes even sleeping in them; it was a standing joke among the younger barristers. She also knew, thanks to a chance remark that old Walters had dropped, plus some judicious eavesdropping, that Morrissey and a few of his cronies ??" Walters included - would often spend hours playing bridge and guzzling choice claret and brandy. No wonder the dozy old bastard often looked fast asleep up in the bench!

      	She revved the Porsche's engine quite un-necessarily before she switched it off. Hard luck if it woke him up; serve him right for summoning hard-working barristers at such am ungodly hour. For a moment, as she sat with her hand on the ignition key the thought struck her that such a message really was very unusual so late in the evening, Perhaps the old fogey had a dinner for two, with candles and champagne and seductive music! She was still snorting with laughter as she made her way up the steps at the rear of the building, towards the door with the light set above it. At least she knew the way; the last time he'd asked her to come here had been after court hours, too, though not nearly this late. This was the way she'd come that time.

      The door was open, which was something else strange, what with the new emphasis on security; an open invitation for someone with a grudge to come and plant a bomb. But then, since the door had been left open especially for her, no one else would know about it, she reasoned. She didn't see, because she was on the wrong side of it by then, the light above the door go out the moment it closed behind her; nor did she hear the electronic lock engage. Which latter wasn't entirely surprising, since she knew nothing at all about it.

      She made her way through the corridors to the judges' area, heavily carpeted and, unlike the rest of the building, air-conditioned. There was no doubt about who received the bulk of the expenditure on the legal services here, she thought. At his door she paused to arrange the jacket of her two-piece, ensuring that the blouse had enough buttons open to give that glimpse of tit flesh. To all outward appearances and by careful cultivation, Pandora was a ferocious and aggressive feminist, but she wasn't above using her extremely attractive attributes to get her own way. Cynical? If she'd thought about it she'd have given a mental shrug: so what? If it got her what she wanted, it was entirely justified. Men were made to be used by women smart enough to use them, whether that use was for advancing a career or scratching an itch. Love 'em and leave 'em; except that love just didn't enter into it.

      She glanced down: dark blue skirt a couple of inches above the knee, good; legs nice and brown as if she was wearing stockings, which she wasn't: she hated the things because of the way they felt and because they symbolised the  pandering of women to men's tastes. Bugger that for a game of conkers! All right, Morrissey old duck, I'm dressed to stun and ready for anything! Do your worst! She squared her shoulders, raised a hand and knocked.

      "Come in!" His voice, certainly, with the emphasis on the 'Come', tapering off to the 'in', rather like the tones of an old-fashioned vicar. A breath to calm whatever residual butterflies there might be; not that there was any reason for them and she opened the door and marched in.

      She was slightly envious of that room, though she felt slightly guilty about it because it was just so thoroughly masculine. A huge Persian carpet that must have been over a hundred years old, bookshelves from wall to ceiling, the odd Victorian, be-whiskered portrait, two easy chairs in front of what must once have been a roaring fire, but which was now an elaborate electric replacement ??" and probably referred to as 'that new-fangled thing.' Between the chairs ??" of the deeply-polished leather, high-back-with wings variety - stood a low table upon which sat a silver platter. In its turn, that bore an opened bottle of red wine, upon which, as she got closer, she could see the name 'Margaux'. Two glasses stood beside it.

      His Honour Judge Godfray ??" a bloody silly name - Morrissey sat in one of the chairs ??" rather, he occupied it, because his thin, bony and angular figure didn't seem to fit it. His large, heavy head, set on a scrawny neck that seemed too thin to carry its load, was turned towards her so that she was greeted by the sight of his angular, lugubrious features trying to break into an unaccustomed smile of welcome; the outcome was not a pretty sight.

      	That, though, wasn't what stopped her in her tracks. It was the sight, in the other chair, of her head of chambers. Hilary ??" and even worse choice of name, she thought, despite his protestations that it was entirely male - Walters. He was the very antithesis of Morrissey: short to lanky, plump to lean, chubby to cadaverous, bald to grizzled grey, jovial ??" or what he fondly assumed was jocular ??" to taciturn. He was the man responsible for her becoming a barrister ??" albeit a junior ??" at the tender age of twenty-six and would be a very material help in supporting her when, in a couple of years time, she decided to take silk. Decided to, not wait to be invited: she had an uncle who was very close to the Lord Chancellor (a bit too close for comfort, some thought). And he would do anything she told him to, because she knew who had really been driving the car the night her parents were killed; she had, after all, been sitting in the back seat. Even at seven years of age it was instinct rather than his persuasion that had led her to have convenient amnesia about the details of the event; it had proved a very convenient and lucrative lever during her teenage years and later, had provided her with a few helpful stepping stones in her career.

      But Uncle Arthur, despite everything that had just flashed through her mind, wasn't here. Hilary Walters was, sitting opposite Judge Morrissey with between them a table containing one of the finest clarets available ??" assuming that it was a good year and she knew both well enough to bet on it ??" and two glasses. Two glasses. That moved this summons from the friendly chat arena into something more serious, but a quick rummage through her recent activities brought nothing to mind that could justify alarm. So act casual and be prepared to get peevish if the old dears started kicking up about something. Carefully peevish.

      "Good evening, your Honour," she said. "Evening, Hilary."

      Hilary gave one of his grins, but it didn't quite meet the mark; he was worried about something, she sensed. It sharpened her senses, already tuned to detect anything untoward and made her think, uneasily, that there was something odd about all this.

      "Good evening, Miss Beatty-Trenchard," said Morrissey in that lilting sing-song voice of his. It belonged to a Welshman, that voice, but he was a Home Counties man. "Do pull up a chair... Oh! That foolish valet has taken them all for polishing! I do beg your pardon."

      "That's all right," she said tightly. "I'll stand. This can't take too long, I imagine, given the hour."

      The barb went straight over their heads. She saw them exchange a look with a message in it, but their faces were impassive and gave nothing away; Hilary's now having lost that hint of nervousness, if that's what it had been. Embarrassment, maybe? If so, why, for fuck's sake?

      "Hilary and I were having a chat," went on the judge.

      'And I'll bet that's not the first bottle the pair of you have gone through,' she said to herself; somewhat unjustly, for neither were showing any effects.

      "And we thought that it might be a good idea to ask you over to clear up one or two things."

      What the hell was the old bugger going on about? A glance at Walters showed that he was engrossed in studying his fingernails. "Ask away," she said, resisting the impulse to add another pointed comment. You could jab judges once too often, even geriatric ones.

      "It's about the sort of cases you take," said the judge.

      She stared at him. Just what the hell did the cases she took have to do with him, or the idiot Walters, who was still avoiding her eye? Just what was going on here? She felt her face begin to redden and recognised it as a sign that she was on the point of lighting her fuse; fine in any circumstances but these. You don't just blow up and tell a judge to mind his own fucking business, not if you wanted to take silk some time in the next fifty years, anyway.

      "I'm sorry?" she managed, throttling back what she really wanted to say. "I don't quite follow you."

      "Well," he made a gesture with his hand, a sort of twirl round the wrist; it was something he did in court when he was about to make some pronouncement or other that he thought profound. "These divorces; some people aren't too happy about them."

      "Wha.....?" She bit her tongue, clenched her fists and counted to ten rather quickly. "I'm sorry, I'm still not with you. It's what I do. And do quite well, I might add." 'Careful, girl! Calm down!'

      He leaned back in the chair, practically vanishing into its depths then thought better of it and moved back. "Quite so. Extremely effective, I'd say, having sat in some of your cases. But, er, don't you think that you're being rather rough on some of those husbands?"

      This time there was no stopping it. "What?" she exploded, just stopping herself from stamping her foot. "What did you say? Rough on the hus... They're a bunch of cheating, conniving, womanising scoundrels who deserve everything that coming to them. Or," she felt herself calming, "everything that I manage to get out of them!"

      "Which is a very great deal. You've reduced some of them to near-penury," he said mildly.

      "With the greatest respect, Judge: tough. They got what was coming to them. And I'm sorry, but I don't see what this conversation has to do with your summons."

      "Ah! As I said, some people are quite unhappy about your methods, which you must admit do come rather near the wind."

      "I do nothing illegal. And I get results. Who are these people who're unhappy, anyway?

      That twirling sweep of the hand again. "Oh, friends of ours."

      "'Ours'?" her eyes went to Hilary. "Are you in on this... whatever it is?"

      "Oh yes, Pandora. I was very much involved."

      "You were..." She looked back to Morrissey then back to Walters then back again before taking a deep breath. "Would one of you tell me just what this is about?"

       "Certainly," said Morrissey. "The people who are unhappy ??" and are friends of ours ??" are some of the husbands that you have flayed alive, financially speaking. They feel extremely aggrieved and want... well, for want of a better word, revenge."

      She shook her head as if that would straighten out the words in her head. She knew what she'd just heard, but simply couldn't believe that she was actually hearing what he had said. It was a bit like having tea with the March Hare and dormouse, except that this whole conversation had nasty undertones that she was feeling as much as hearing. There was threat here somewhere, but whether it was professional of physical ??" physical? ??" she couldn't pin down. Whatever it was, the entire business had now gone far beyond the bounds of any discussion between judge and barrister.

      "I'm not sure," she said, her teeth gritted. "Just where this is all going, but I do know that you ??" both of you ??" have stepped over any limitations of propriety. I don't know why that should be," she looked at the bottle ostentatiously, "but I am going to go home now. Once there, I will give serious consideration to making a complaint to the Bar Council."

      "She's good, isn't she? She didn't even blink." It was Hilary, chipping in, presumably to keep her off balance. She ignored him, keeping her eyes fixed on Morrissey, who looked back with an air of bland, indifferent assurance that nettled her. She opened her mouth for a blast, but Hilary got in first.

      "And just what will you complain about, Pandora? We asked you here for a friendly chat and you go away full of wounded fancies and fantasies. A junior female barrister complaining to the Bar Council about her head of chambers and a High Court judge, both of whom deny any impropriety? Shaky ground, Pandora!"

      She turned to him, unable to ignore that. "Then I shall certainly be leaving your chambers, Mr Walters!"

      "Ah!" Morrissey this time, dividing her attention, keeping her on the move. She knew what they were doing, but she couldn't do anything about it. "You will be doing that, without a doubt. And I'm very much afraid that I will not have the pleasure of sitting on the bench while you, with your inimitable style and dash, cut everyone around you ??" including me ??" to ribbons. I shall rather miss that experience; it's good for the soul, a bit of humility. So they tell me."

      "Wha... Are you mad, the pair of you? Or drunk?"

      "Not guilty, my dear," from Walters, taking his turn, "just exasperated. Should I ring the bell Godfray?"

      "I think you should, Hilary. She looks as if she's getting ready to explode and I am so looking forward to that Margaux."

      "Wha...?" she gasped again, her brain whirling. If these had been any other men, she'd have blasted them where they sat minutes ago. But they weren't: they were Hilary Walters and Godfray Morrissey, both of whom appeared to have gone stark, raving bonkers. "You..." She gathered breath, ready to let loose and to hell with who they were. While she was doing it, she saw Walters lean forward and take a small, old-fashioned brass bell from behind the bottle, where it had been hidden from her. With an exaggerated flair, he lifted it to the level of his nose, little finger poking out, amused eyes on hers and rang it.

      It tinkled. That sound was still ringing in her ears when a breath of air on her ears told her that the door behind her had opened. The hairs on the back of her neck rose because of the chill that the draught brought; it rose further when she turned.

      Pandora Beatty-Trenchard didn't do criminal cases; she'd made her name in civil work, specialising in high-profile divorce actions that invariably ended with the husband being taken to the cleaners after a succession of humiliating and demeaning revelations about his misdeeds, some of which he'd actually committed. Criminal cases ??" the ones she thought of as 'dirty' and 'cheap' ??" and cheap they were, when the fees were compared ??" were the province of other, less talented ??" her view ??" colleagues. But the fact that the chambers had a criminal practice meant that she quite often came face to face with the sort of clients that that work attracted. She could, she fondly imagined, identify a criminal face at a hundred yards.

      Well, these ones weren't a hundred yards away, they were just inside the door, standing with legs apart, hands clasped in front of them, dressed in suits and ties. But each of them could have had 'THUG' tattooed on his forehead to proclaim to the world just what he was, despite the fact that doing that tattooing to one of them wouldn't have been all that effective, given that it wouldn't have shown up to well against his black skin. She stared at them as they looked at her as if she was an interesting side of beef before she whirled back to the chairs.

      Morrissey had picked up the bottle by base and neck, holding like a favourite baby. He was examining the label, while Walters was leaning forward watching him. It was as if they'd simply dismissed her from their minds. Or were pretending to.

      "What," she hissed, with a barely-suppressed fury that was driven by a large dollop of fear as well as anger. "Are those two here for?"

      They looked at her as if she'd just popped out of a hole in the floor, Morrissey still holding the bottle up like a trophy he'd been awarded. She wanted to jump forward and dash it from his hands, but held herself back.

      "They've come to take you off to your new job," said Walters, his eyes going back to the bottle. "It's a beautiful colour, isn't it?" 

      "Perfect. Temperature's right, too. I think we could drink this," responded Morrissey.

      "What new job? What the hell are you jabbering about, you stupid old farts?" she screamed, her temper slipping.

      That got to them. Morrissey put the bottle down almost reverentially; they both turned to her. "There's no need to be offensive, my dear," said Walters. They were still playing that game, she noticed. "You're just going to go away for a while and earn enough to pay back some of that money. Well," he corrected with a smile, "quite a lot of that money, in fact."

      "What?" she screeched, losing it completely. "Are you fucking mad, or what? What sort of bloody fantasy world are you living in, you geriatric clowns?"

      "Temper, temper," chided Morrissey. He was smiling she saw. They both were. They were enjoying this, whatever game it was. "What Hilary means is that the chaps over there will escort you to... somewhere suitable to begin your training."

      She choked back the howl of protest, the effort making her pant. "You are mad!" she managed. "Stark, raving bloody mad! I'm not going off with anyone to any new job, not for you or anyone else! And as for paying back any money...? You're... you're a pair of bloody lunatics! I'll have you both certified !"

      "No, no, no!" cried Walters. "You haven't got it at all, have you? No one's asking you whether you want to go off and be trained, dear girl. We're telling you. Just as we've told a few others who've stood where you are now; you might even meet some of them. Oh, and don't start making noises about being missed and people will look for you, etcetera, etcetera; it's all been taken care of. After all, highly-strung and talented young ladies doing stressful jobs go missing all the time, don't they? There'll be no great fuss, especially when the appropriate authorities find out that you've been behaving strangely and erratically lately."

      She was frozen. "But..." she managed.

      "Ah, but you have! I have several carefully prepared reports about you, plus observations from some very reliable people. In short, Pandora my dear, you're stuffed."

      There was a noise that sounded like a rusty gate-hinge that was in the process of opening. It took her stunned and befuddled mind several seconds to realise what it was: it was Morrissey, laughing. "Oh, Hilary!" he chortled, tears in his eyes. "That's... what's the current word? Wicked! That's it...wicked!"

      Her voice came back, though it sounded as if she was some way from it. "You... you caaaaan't! It's..." She saw Walter's hand move and knew what it meant, but before she could move they'd grabbed her. "Nooooo!" she shrieked, twisting.

      "Have a care, Pandora," said Morrissey, who seemed to have recovered from his attack of humour. "The gentlemen who are, um, assisting you have made use of Hilary's services and have been subject to my... er, judicial attentions from time to time. I do not think that either will object to being called criminally violent, since both have served terms for grievous and actual bodily harm. As a matter of fact, they're quite proud of it. Do treat them gently, won't you? 

      They were laughing about that when the two men picked her up as she screamed and kicked, but though she fought them as best she could it was no contest. Her last sight of the office was of the two men in their chairs leaning forward to watch her being carried out. They each had an arm raised from the elbow and both were twiddling their fingers in farewell.