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Good Bad Woman
Elizabeth Woodcraft
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.
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_1bc35bc8-29e0-5ed3-b531-a8550b006f54)
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
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
DEDICATION (#ulink_cf474cca-ddd7-577e-bac6-6afb03c6447d)
To Caroline
CONTENTS
COVER (#u0ec9b4df-a390-579c-b413-c4e81c52861d)
TITLE PAGE (#uaefc5d2c-9870-5b8d-aab7-ce112d8fd0b2)
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_dbc76da2-7075-5951-9e2c-c3cbf2b0a76c)
DEDICATION (#ulink_3ee4c296-15a1-5a94-92b9-cf27ab974548)
ONE: Wednesday Afternoon – Chambers (#ulink_b1cf4bb0-f006-502c-96c4-12737ed20400)
TWO: Thursday Morning – Highbury Corner (#ulink_756a4f5f-6f24-5302-9611-460fb09772fe)
THREE: Thursday Afternoon – Chambers (#ulink_46f17e22-9bcd-5b28-8bdb-a3c2dc991609)
FOUR: Friday – Edmonton (#ulink_d075f7c7-7a06-5699-a2c2-a690a611155d)
FIVE: Saturday Morning – Church Street (#ulink_ff7fe510-30e7-5b06-8c9a-3a60198a14f6)
SIX: Saturday Evening – The Queen of Sheba (#ulink_7b47f874-a750-5b49-96d1-20c7887f00b6)
SEVEN: Sunday – Columbia Road (#ulink_c6b9060a-8d75-5c79-9116-cac127e8b15c)
EIGHT: Monday Morning – Paperwork (#litres_trial_promo)
NINE: Tuesday Morning – Stoke Newington Police Station (#litres_trial_promo)
TEN: Tuesday Afternoon (#litres_trial_promo)
ELEVEN: Tuesday Evening (#litres_trial_promo)
TWELVE: Wednesday – Royal Courts of Justice (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTEEN: Wednesday Evening – Chambers (#litres_trial_promo)
FOURTEEN: Thursday Afternoon (#litres_trial_promo)
FIFTEEN: Late Thursday Evening – Finsbury Park (#litres_trial_promo)
SIXTEEN: Thursday Night/Friday Morning (#litres_trial_promo)
SEVENTEEN: Early Friday Morning (#litres_trial_promo)
EIGHTEEN: Friday Lunchtime (#litres_trial_promo)
NINETEEN: Friday Night (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY: Saturday Morning (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-ONE: Sunday (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-TWO: Sunday Midday (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-THREE: Sunday Lunch (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-FOUR: Sunday Evening (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-FIVE: Sunday Night – The Caravan (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-SIX: Sunday Night (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-SEVEN: Monday (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-EIGHT: Monday Afternoon (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-NINE: Monday Evening (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTY: Later Monday Evening (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTY-ONE: Monday Night/Tuesday Morning (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTY-TWO: Tuesday Morning (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTY-THREE: Wednesday Lunchtime (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTY-FOUR: Wednesday Afternoon – Kay’s Office (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTY-FIVE: Wednesday Evening (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTY-SIX: Thursday Morning (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTY-SEVEN: Thursday Evening (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTY-EIGHT: Thursday Night (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTY-NINE: Late Thursday (#litres_trial_promo)
FORTY: Friday Evening – The Club (#litres_trial_promo)
KEEP READING (#litres_trial_promo)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#litres_trial_promo)
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER (#litres_trial_promo)
ONE (#ulink_d243eedc-3bfd-50ee-8fae-63b877de9f66)
Wednesday Afternoon – Chambers (#ulink_d243eedc-3bfd-50ee-8fae-63b877de9f66)
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.
‘Frankie, I’m sorry about this case.’
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought, as I dabbed at the tea by the desk calendar.
‘It’s just that it’s an old client of yours.’ She paused. ‘It’s Saskia.’
‘Saskia! My God, Saskia.’
I hadn’t seen Saskia for at least five years. Tall, blonde, lovely Saskia. She had large grey eyes and a wide friendly smile with perfect teeth. I’d represented her on several occasions when she’d been arrested after demonstrations. We’d had some good results, mainly due to that charming smile. She made you think of full cream milk and welfare orange juice, as my mum would say. She was in fact more a child of the seventies and eighties, rebelling against the Conservative government.
‘What is Saskia doing being charged with drunk and disorderly? I would have thought a little marijuana was more her thing.’
‘I don’t know. She rang me from the police station. She sounded in quite a state.’
‘What time was she arrested?’ I began making notes.
‘Half past two this afternoon.’
‘Half past two! Where?’
