The guy’s a joke, heading for nothing but retirement and a shitty gold watch, looking for one last case to put his name in lights. Well, it won’t be this one. Not today.
It’ll never be one of mine.
It’s all but signed and sealed. A tap on the wrist for my client, some damages for the victim – some cheap hooker from Soho who took his cash then filmed him getting rough with her on hidden camera. He swore she begged him for it, told him it got her off.
As it turns out, I believed him. Not that that matters.
My digging proved me right, at least. Bill Catterson isn’t the first guy the bitch tried to stitch up, but he will be the last.
I’ve ruined her. Dug up the dregs on her seedy life, on the money she blackmailed from rich guys who can’t keep their dicks in their pants, on the games she plays, on her secret coke habit. On the fact she collects more STDs than I collect gemstones, and I collect a lot of fucking gemstones. Childhood habit – an increasingly expensive one.
My client, Bill Catterson, is a sad loser whose wife now hates his guts worse than she did before.
Once upon a time I’d have had some sympathy for the guy, but now I feel nothing but disgust. Maybe a sliver of pity.
He knows he’s worthless today. The same as he knows he’s riddled with genital nasties, and I suspect the guy will most likely never regain enough testosterone to get his tiny little dick up ever again.
It is tiny. I saw the fucking video. Hazard of the fucking job.
Anyway, the guy’s broken. But he’s not in prison. Not even close.
Jacqueline Catterson flashes me a smile, but her eyes are like spitting coals as we leave court. An air kiss and a thank you, Alexander, despite the fact we’ve never once been on first name terms, and she’s off in a plume of Dior, with her wimp of a husband trailing behind her.
His farewell handshake is as weak as the rest of him. His hand is clammy, and I hate that. I fucking hate sweaty palms.
I wait until he’s out of sight before I tug a handkerchief from my inside pocket. Be fucking damned if I’m wiping that guy’s grimy body fluids on my suit.
I’m waiting for my driver when I catch sight of an even bigger loser, and now I really am craving a fucking cigarette.
They say nicotine cravings peak three to five days after quitting. Bull-fucking-shit.
Two years and counting, and I still think about lighting up at least twenty times a day.
The tabloid journalist piece of shit, known only to himself as Ronald the digger Robertson – a legend in his own tiny mind – closes the distance, trailing his goofy photographer behind him as he sidles up the street, deliberately lighting up and offering me one when I’m close enough to get a waft. Wanker.
His cigarettes are cheap, like him. Cheaper than him, and that’s saying something.
I tap my watch. “Tardiness, Ronald, it’s not very becoming of those in the fast lane of investigative journalism to be late.”
“Been out the back with Miss Whiplash. Poor form, Henley. She’s got little kids, you know, currently in care of Social Services now they’ve been tipped off about her unfortunate addiction. How the fuck do you sleep at night?”
I don’t sleep at night, but I smile a triumphant smile nonetheless and offer him a wave of the hand. “No fucking comment, Robertson. Why don’t you move along to someone who has a modicum of respect for your opinion? I’m sure you’ve got reality TV wannabes tripping over themselves to flash their tits in exchange for a centre spread.”
His beady eyes flash with hate, and it fills me with fucking joy. That’s how the loser started, interviewing nobodies about their five minutes of fame, only now he’s turned serious. Criminal investigative journalism, but Christ he stinks.
“Think she’s gonna divorce him now?” he asks. “I heard she’s leaving town for her sister’s place.”
That’s bullshit speculation. Jacqueline Catterson loves her husband’s money much more than she hates him, but I’ll never tell Robertson that. I’ll never tell Robertson anything. Not purely down to client confidentiality, which I am thoroughly bound by, but because I can’t stand the fucking cunt.
“That’s the most sophisticated question in your repertoire?”
“Just getting started, one off the cuff.” He flips out a grubby little notepad, but I’m done.
My driver pulls up at the kerb, and I turn away as the camera flashes, obscuring my face as I clamber into the backseat of the shiny black hulk of Mercedes.
I see her as we pull away, Miss Whiplash, real name Wendy Brown, her eyes puffy from the bad news as she teeters down the court steps in a pair of cherry-red hooker heels which really don’t match the cream cardigan she’s dug out for the occasion.