Page 20 of Corrupt

I rolled my eyes and swiped to answer. Of course he’d be calling before seven; he’d have been in his own chambers since dawn, itching for a report on the favour he’d so helpfully agreed to. The dinner with Lord Wolfe. The ‘opportunity’ he thought I needed.

“Morning, Father.”

“Morning, Tristan. I trust the dinner went well?”

“It was… fine.”

I kept my voice flat. Professional. The safest tone I had. The last thing I needed was a post-mortem of last night or a probing analysis of Lord Wolfe’s intentions. I had a full day ahead and no space in my skull for anything except my court list. Certainly not Razor’s hands locking around my hips, or his breath at my ear, or the way he’d pushed me open with a devastating certainty I could still feel if I let myself.

“He sent me a message this morning,” Father said as I shrugged into my blazer. “Apparently, you’ve organised a second meeting.”

“It’s not confirmed.” I poured coffee into my flask. And if I could help it, that invitation would remain open-ended and never fulfilled.

He coughed, a harsh, dry scrape, before saying, “A man like Wolfe can open doors.”

“I can open my own doors.” I tightened the lid on my flask, trying not to imagine my father’s neck.

“You’d still benefit from having him on the other side of the one you choose to walk through.”

“Okay, Father. I really have to go. Court.”

“We’ll see you Saturday. Your sister’s birthday. The garden party.”

“Of course.”

I ended the call before he could say anything else, slung my laptop bag over my shoulder, and was out of the flat at a near run. The Piccadilly line to Holloway Road was its usual misery, but it got me within walking distance of Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court. I’d been here a handful of times since stepping straight into pupillage under Imogen Parry KC, a little later than everyone would like but she’d made it possible. The shift still felt surreal some mornings. One minute poring over dissertations and library books, the next standing in court corridors with a wig box and an inbox full of misery.

Highbury never disappointed. It still smelt faintly of damp coats, cheap aftershave, and carrying on the air was the stale anxiety of people waiting to hear how badly their lives were about to change. The heating was, as always, possessed by demons: blasting out of industrial cast-iron radiators despite it being a scorching July. The walls sweated. So did everyone else.

I slipped through security with my bag checked and my flask of coffee in hand, trying to ignore the knot forming under my ribs. The morning rush was in full swing: duty solicitors weaving between defendants; parents wringing their hands; teenagers slouched in chairs pretending they didn’t care while the ground shifted under their feet.

This was the job. The life I’d chosen.

A life I was determined to build with no Hale-Fitzroy shortcuts.

I signed in at the advocates’ desk, then headed to the defence room. Someone’s paper cup had leaked across a stack of files; a paralegal cried silently into her phone. Typical Friday.

“Mr Hale-Fitzroy?”

I turned. A solicitor’s agent, mid-twenties, sensible shoes, hair frizzing in the heat, held out a slim file. “Could you take a youth matter for us? First appearance. Possession with intent. Thirteen-year-old. Billy Amos. Mum’s downstairs.”

I took the file. It weighed almost nothing. Most youth cases did. One catastrophic decision flattened into three pages of police summary, all pointing at a child barely old enough for GCSEs.

I skimmed as I walked towards the consultation rooms.

Arrested in Camden. Wraps found in his jacket pocket. No previous convictions. A kid who’d been handed something he shouldn’t have and didn’t know how to say no and exactly the sort of case Imogen wanted me exposed to. Exactly the kind of case I’d written and studied in my thesis. Reminding me how thin the line was between the kids who got help, and the ones who got swallowed whole by determined prosecutors like my father.

The consultation room was barely larger than a broom cupboard with peeling paint, a table that wobbled when I leant on it and Billy Amos sitting hunched over the surface, hood up, leg bouncing so fast the chair quivered. His mother perched beside him, handbag clutched to her lap as if she could anchor him there by force of will.

“I’m Mr Hale-Fitzroy.” I took the seat opposite. “I’ll be speaking for you today.”

Billy didn’t lift his head. His mum did, though. Mascara-clad eyes swollen and red-rimmed.

“Are they going to take him from me?” she blurted. “Will they… will they put him away? I’ve got a baby at home. I need him. His dad’s inside. I’m on my own. I can’t—”

“It’s okay.” I opened my palms on the table. “Take a breath. This is his first charge. We’re at first appearance, not sentencing. Today is about identifying the offence, entering a plea, and explaining your situation to the court.”

She swallowed hard, nodding.