Good Bad Woman
Sharp, streetwise and totally engaging, Good Bad Woman is a slice of London life with a twist, and the first in a new series featuring the irresistible Frankie RichmondFrankie Richmond is a London barrister long on attitude and short on lucrative work. Her chaotic private life interrupts her professional one far too often but never so dangerously as when she agrees to defend an old friend. A routine appearance at a magistrate’s court catapults Frankie into a nightmare from which she wakes up to find herself arrested – for murder.The police would love to see her go down so Frankie sets out to solve the case herself – while trying to revive her flagging career, disentangle her mercurial friendships and meet the woman of her dreams. As she steps up her search for the killer – and a particularly elusive Sir Douglas Quintet track – Frankie’s talent for sowing confusion is given full rein, particularly when clearing her name involves exposing some unsavoury truths about those closest to her.
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First published in Great Britain in 2000 by Collins Crime
Copyright © Elizabeth Woodcraft 2000
Elizabeth Woodcraft asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006514794
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780007476961 Version: 2016-02-29
To Caroline
CONTENTS
ONE: Wednesday Afternoon – Chambers
TWO: Thursday Morning – Highbury Corner
THREE: Thursday Afternoon – Chambers
FIVE: Saturday Morning – Church Street
SIX: Saturday Evening – The Queen of Sheba
EIGHT: Monday Morning – Paperwork
NINE: Tuesday Morning – Stoke Newington Police Station
TWELVE: Wednesday – Royal Courts of Justice
THIRTEEN: Wednesday Evening – Chambers
FIFTEEN: Late Thursday Evening – Finsbury Park
SIXTEEN: Thursday Night/Friday Morning
SEVENTEEN: Early Friday Morning
TWENTY-FIVE: Sunday Night – The Caravan
TWENTY-EIGHT: Monday Afternoon
THIRTY-ONE: Monday Night/Tuesday Morning
THIRTY-THREE: Wednesday Lunchtime
THIRTY-FOUR: Wednesday Afternoon – Kay’s Office
THIRTY-FIVE: Wednesday Evening
THIRTY-SEVEN: Thursday Evening
The phone on my desk rang. I licked my fingers, moved my cream cheese and tomato sandwich and picked up the receiver.
‘Frankie, I know you said you wanted to do paperwork tomorrow, but Davidson’s have just rung. Kay’s got a quick in-and-out job for tomorrow morning that she wants you to do. She’s faxing the papers through. It’s at Highbury Corner Mags.’
I groaned. A quick in-and-out at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court was a contradiction in terms and Gavin, my clerk, knew that very well. Then again, if Kay Davidson wanted me in particular there might be something interesting in it.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Drunk and disorderly.’
‘Drunk and – Gavin! I’m meant to be doing those appeal papers in Morris. We’re nearly out of time.’
‘She said it was important.’
‘Oh, what, important that someone regularly in the Court of Appeal should return to the magistrates’ court?’
‘Someone regularly where?’
‘All right, someone who would like to be regularly in the Court of Appeal. Someone of nearly ten years call –’
‘Who is charming and eager to help out a clerk in distress …’ Gavin was playing the game in his gruff, cockney accent.
‘Someone who has been at the Bar for nine years, and who may well be charming and eager to help out a clerk in distress but who has, it should be remembered, forgotten most of the crime she ever knew – you are saying it is important that she should do this case?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Isn’t there anyone else?’ I wheedled. In the pause that followed I knew Gavin was pretending to look at the computer screen to see what everyone else in chambers was doing the next day. He liked Kay. If she had asked for me, he would make sure she got me.
‘No,’ he said. There’s no one else.’
‘All right, Gavin, I will do it. But if I’m not out of court by half past eleven you will seriously regret it.’
‘You say the sweetest things,’ he said. I replaced the receiver and picked up my cup of tea.
My phone rang again. I spilt tea on my sandwich as I answered it.
Gavin said cheerfully, ‘I’ve got Kay on the line, to have a word about tomorrow.’
‘OK.’ I pushed the briefs on my desk out of the way of some insistent drips of tea and looked for something to make notes on. I found a piece of paper that looked suspiciously as if it had been on my desk for some time. I read ‘FR ring Dr Henry’ and a number with a Brighton code, and promised myself I would do it as soon as I had spoken to Kay. Gavin put her through.
