Babyface. Elizabeth Woodcraft

       FIVEWednesday Afternoon – The Inquiry

      It was quarter to two. How had that happened? My solicitor’s office was on Broad Street, near the Convention Centre. There was little point in trekking all the way over there if the inquiry was starting at two thirty. I rang him from the street on my mobile. I realised it was the first time we had spoken to each other. He was new to the firm and most of our communication had been by email. Now, he sounded weary. ‘Don’t worry about the fresh paper. It’s nothing urgent,’ he said.

      ‘Is it stuff I ought to know before this afternoon?’

      ‘Oh no. Some statements from two social workers from London saying they visited the children on a regular basis. And there’s a couple of reports from other inquiries. I’ll bring them down to the Grange. I thought you were coming in this morning to pick them up,’ he said vaguely.

      ‘Unfortunately I had to do a directions hearing for a colleague and it went on rather longer than I expected.’

      ‘Who was your judge?’ he asked.

      ‘Norman?’

      ‘You were lucky to get out alive.’

      ‘Given how things turned out, death might have been a blissful release.’

      He laughed.

      Encouraged, I went on, ‘One of the barristers there said … Do you know any reason why our case, well, this brief would be regarded as the poisoned chalice?’ I asked him.

      ‘No, not at all,’ he said. But then he’d only been on the case about three weeks. ‘Look, I’d better go now. Do you know how to get to the Grange?’

      I told him I did and then he said he’d got to find a fresh shirt before we started this afternoon. I wasn’t sure whether I should be reassured that personal presentation was important to him or worry that he had to change shirts in the middle of the day. Perhaps it was the Birmingham way. I looked down at my own, black, shirt, it was creased and sticking to parts of my body. Perhaps I had things to learn from the Midlands.

      The inquiry was being held at the Grange on Dalton Street. The name, the Grange, might make you think it was a large old country building covered in ivy, with fields of cows somehow miraculously nearby. But no. It was a square 1950s concrete municipal office block, grey and flat with wide steps leading up to a vast glass door. The upside was that inside the building were long wide corridors which led into large airy rooms. I was directed to the first floor, down one of the long corridors, through a wide vestibule to the room where the inquiry was to be held. In fact it was two rooms whose shared middle wall was folded back to create an enormous space with one huge glass wall, looking out over a scratchy piece of lawn. Inside the room were historically daring light fitments, municipal chairs and long trestle tables.

      Lawyers are not used to appearing in rooms with natural light and I wondered if it was the glare of the sun that made the room seem empty. A woman in a short purple jacket and black slacks was straightening green baize on the top table. She looked up at me with a polite smile. ‘Can I help?’

      ‘I’m Frances Richmond, counsel for the … victims,’ I said breathlessly. I had to find another name for my clients. Calling them victims made them sound weak and pathetic when they were actually angry and frustrated and hungry for action. I looked wildly round the room. Whatever they were called, they weren’t here.

      ‘Oh,’ she said, and gave me a puzzled look. ‘I’m Mrs Gisborough, eh, Ellen Gisborough. I’m part of the administrative team. We’re providing secretarial and administrative support for the inquiry. We’re not starting till tomorrow. Have you not been told?’ That was the reason for the look.

      With a rush of paranoia I wondered if it was just me who didn’t know, or if it was our team who hadn’t been given the information. Was this what Roseanna had meant?

      ‘So you won’t know it’s the press conference this afternoon.’

      ‘Ah,’ I said. We both looked round the room. ‘Not for the clients then?’

      ‘Not really. I think your solicitor said something about them not wanting photos.’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Yes, this afternoon is just – what would you call it? – a bit of PR for the inquiry.’ She stopped as if she had said too much. Which she probably had. Busily, she began to pull the other tables in the room into a straight line facing the head table. There was nothing to do but help her.

      At twenty-five past two, lawyers began to appear. You could tell they were lawyers because they carried large pigskin briefcases. Three of them were men who I would, at some stage, be able to distinguish from each other. At the moment they all had plump cheeks, varying shades of grey hair and wore subdued navy suits. As a gesture to the press conference, I assumed, they were all wearing snazzy ties. A woman introduced herself as Catherine Delahaye, the advocate to the inquiry. She and the only other woman wore careful, understated peach-coloured lipsticks and small, black polished shoes. I felt worn and dusty, the word ‘hack’ seemed to hang over my head like the ghost of things to come.

      At two thirty the panel of three came into the room and we all stood. The panel sat and then so did we. I had placed myself next to a large man who looked in his late fifties, wearing a double-breasted suit and a navy blue tie with large red spots. I put a low pile of my papers in front of me, then, leaning across my neighbour, took a glass from the tray Mrs Gisborough had anxiously provided, and poured myself some water. ‘Water?’ I asked him, but he obviously didn’t hear.

      Mrs Gisborough ushered in the press and I began writing, as if I were preparing incisive, justice-provoking, questions. I wrote ‘Bad Company’ – I ought to dig it out and play it. Then I wrote ‘Pay bills’. Then ‘New Suit?’ Finally I added, ‘Solve