The two women were seated in one of the bars of the Black Tiles at Martlesham.

The pub which serves the proper Adnams from Southwold beers, very passable bar food in the most agreeable of surroundings tends to act as the unofficial club for all those who work on the huge industrial and scientific site based on the old Royal Aircraft Establishment airfield. Just as in the Second World War, it had acted as a refuge for both British and US fighter pilots.

Daisy had felt that she wanted to lay down a few rules and also to find out how far Alex would go in the pursuit of the truth. 'Can I trust you?' Daisy had looked all around the bar before asking the very direct question.

'Why?'Alex thought she'd been through all this before.

'I made a comment in your office about breaking the law.' She looked the lawyer straight in the face. 'Would you break the law to save a lot of lives or get at the truth? John has said he certainly would!'

'John would! But it's not a question I normally ask myself.' Alex sipped her orange juice. 'I'm a qualified solicitor. I have never had anything to do with extremists of any sort. Right or Left!' She sipped again, as if fumbling for something to say. 'And then after all, I tend to act as a legal policeman on John and the others. If we broke the law, then the Regulators would be down on us like a ton of bricks!'

'Look at it from my position!' Daisy was firm. 'A few years ago, all information would have been fair game, instantly available and damning in Court. We could phone tap, read e-mails and do everything we wanted provided we got permission from a senior policeman!'

'I used to think it was wholly wrong!' Alex broke in. 'A lot of people say things in private, that they would never say in public. Now I'm not so sure, with all the terrorists around!'

'I'll agree with you. The Blair government had gone too far!' She paused. 'Perhaps now, we have gone too far in protecting the individual?'

'It's difficult to strike a balance!'

'But then is it not right that all evidence has to be properly tested and examined in Court?' Daisy was going strong. 'And that the word of a policeman or security officer behind a screen is no longer admissable. We used to give prisoners few rights and just throw them into Belmarsh with little hope of them knowing what the charge was! Now we've got Acts, High and European Court judgements so we behave!'

'The situation is now much better! Well, I think so!' Alex nodded. 'My mother-in-law has rather strident views as well! You should hear her when she gets going about things that happen in her Court!'

'I have!'

***

'Do you know her?' Alex had been surprised, but then she knew her surname was not that common. 'I'd assume professionally?'

'Yes! I hadn't realised until I saw the picture of you on the desk with her. Is it your baby?'

'He is! Yes! Jake's two now!

'I knew Susan Derby some years ago!' Daisy's face said that it was a positive relationship. 'She prosecuted some of the cases I was involved in. Good she was! No! Very good! We were sad, she became a judge in Cambridge! A waste of a good prosecutor! Is she still a judge?'

'Yes! Probably just by the skin of her teeth!' Alex smiled at some of the stories she had been told. 'She's not a very conventional mother-in-law!'

'I suspect she's not a very conventional judge!'

'I wouldn't know!' Alex laughed as she thought of her mother-in-law. 'She's fifty! Looks forty! She's a rich widow and has a serious relationship with an ex-footballer, who's ten years her junior. He's black as well!'

'Anything wrong with that?'

'Not as far as I'm concerned!' She smiled. 'If she gave him up, I might make a move myself!'

'We've got a lot to talk about!' She stood up. 'As I'm going back to London on the train, do you want a proper drink? We'll get a taxi back to your office!'

'Why not!' She reached for her purse, but Daisy declined the offer. 'I'm going to get you your truth! So if I'm going to break the law, I can start with the non-drinking one at work!'

***

'To the truth!' The two women raised their glasses of Paddy to each other!

'I wouldn't have thought you were an Irish drinker!' Daisy made the statement.

'A habit I got from my mother-in-law!'

Daisy laughed. 'I remember a few years back, she poured two tumblers of I think it was Bushmills and then challenged a sergeant who'd called her a useless floosie after she'd lost an important case. She said it was to see who was the real man!'

'That's even a bit outrageous for her!' Alex thought she must have toned down a bit. 'Did she win?'

'Of course!' Daisy was laughing. 'As he tipped his head back to drink, she grabbed and then squeezed his balls very hard. He blew the drink everywhere!'

'Oh! Dear!' Alex added another tale to a long list!

'To be serious will you help, if it means breaking the law?' Daisy was now very serious.

'Surely, nothing should get in the way of saving life! Or the truth for that matter!' She looked Daisy directly in the eyes. 'I'm totally behind John in this!'

'Then why do the Courts and the prisons release so many people who reaffend and kill again? Why do juries fail to convict those that even the judge knows are guilty.'

'But they don't do that very often?' Alex looked straight at the policeman, who she was beginning to think was leaning stronger to the right, than she had first thought.

'No! But to the good old British Public, one reaffender or one guilty man found innocent is one too many!' Daisy was seeing how far she could push, as she needed to be sure that Alex would do what she wanted. 'What would you do, if your husband or one of your children was killed by a drunken driver and then he got off due to a technicality exploited by a smart lawyer?'

'Cry a lot!' She had and she did now! 'It wasn't a drunk, but two fifteen-year-old joy-riders drove directly at my husband on the wrong side of a bend. He tried to avoid them and turned the car over and over. Again and again! He took thirteen days to die.' She continued sobbing. 'They were uninjured and got just twelve months!'

***

'Fuck! I am sorry! I just didn't know!' Daisy was mortified at what she had said in trying to find how far Alex would go in search of the truth. 'How long ago did it happen?' She offered her hand across the table.

'Two years, six months and four days!' Alex was very precise and put a tissue to her eyes. 'It was just after I'd given birth to Jake and David was rushing to see him for the first time.' She dabbed at more tears. 'Their fucking barrister even used that in mitigation for his clients. Said David didn't have his mind on the road.' She continued crying uncontrollably.

***

'Do you want to go back?' Daisy felt that Alex and John would do their best, but she doubted it would be good enough! 'John might have found something more!' She didn't think he would, as London had searched hard and had found nothing.

'No! I'd like another drink!' She had stemmed her tears. 'I know it's against the rules of the office. But can you get me another Paddy? It will give John more time to find something.'

'Do you think he will?'

'Yes!' A smile broke through, as she thought of the fine line John drew between the legal and the illegal. 'He always does!' This reply finally told Daisy, that her trip from London was not going to be wasted. 'Do you want a double Bushmills?'

'If you'll join me!'

***

'You're pissed!' John's greeting was an observation that most would have made. 'I hope you didn't drive back from the Tiles!'

'No!' Daisy grabbed a desk for support. 'Alex made us walk! We couldn't get a taxi! Can you drive Daisy to the station when we finish and then take me home?'

'Yes! Of course!' He didn't seem pleased though! 'I'm glad to hear it! You know it was a drunken driver, who put me in this fucking chair!'

'I didn't know.' Daisy repeated her statement to Alex. 'I hope the driver got his just punishment!'

'Yes! He did!' John turned the chair towards Daisy to emphasise the point. 'He's going to spend the rest of his life in this fucking chair! Now! I suggest that the two of you go and make some strong coffee!'

***

'Look at this!' John was clicking and typing expertly as the two women drunk their coffees. 'Here's the calls made around the time the call was made that delivered the message. You saw these before. But our witness always makes calls to the same number at Barrow!' They all noticed the pattern of the calls.

'Well done!' Daisy felt that some progress had been made. 'Any idea who he is?'

'It could have been a she! But it's a he called Stephen Williams!' He smiled triumphantly. 'He lives in Ellesmere Road in Bow! And alone, according to the Electoral Register.'

'How close is that to Victoria Park?'

'About a quarter of a mile!' He clicked an icon and a small-scale map appeared. 'He lives here and the phone-box is just at his closest entrance to the park.'

'How did you find out who he is?' Daisy thought for a moment. 'I know, he used a BT or some other credit card for some of the other calls!'

'No!' John put up a complicated graph. 'We analysed how he used the phone! All the pauses, the pressures and which finger! Then matched the profile to all the phone cards used recently, for which we had a name. He was one who came up and it just happened that the number called in Barrow, was down to a widow called Williams. I've checked and she's his mother.'

'I didn't know that you were that clever here!' Daisy was astonished at what had been deduced from just one phone call.

'We're not!' John laughed at his own disception. 'I just dialled the number, said I was doing some research work into the reliability of phone boxes. I then asked her politely, if she would answer a few questions in return for a twenty pound discount of her next phone bill. She was most helpful!'

'Now, if I did that...' Daisy was laughing. 'I'd be breaking all number of rules.'

'There's one strange thing though!' John had pulled another table onto the screen. 'This is all the phones in Ellesmere Road. See he's got his own and he uses it quite a bit. So why should he phone his mother from a phone box? He's never phoned her from his home!'

'I could understand a one-off.' Alex knew she would occasionally use a phone box to save money, despite having a mobile. 'But he does it so regularly!'

'Perhaps, his mother is a complete pain and if she knew his number, she would phone him all the time.'

Copyright 2004 by Ewart Higgins