Ascension Day (2 page)

   But swamping his family photos were religious prints: Dali’s Christ on the Cross, Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, Da Vinci’s Last Supper, Caravaggio’s St Francis, Raphael’s Madonna and Child.

When word had first got around that Larry had found religion, one of the other inmates, Sal Peretti, had his aunt, who still lived in her native Umbria, send a collection of prints and cards, eleven in all, from the gift shop at Perugia Cathedral, to complete the array on his makeshift altar.

Upon sight of the finished display, given a misty, eerie glow from fifteen interspersed candles, Roddy had commented simply, ‘Christ!’

‘
Exactly
.’ Larry smiled back drolly.

Now Larry wasn’t looking just at the altar for inspiration, but beyond – his eyes boring through to the hole they’d dug in the wall behind, along the ventilation shaft, then the twists and dog-legs through three hundred yards of ducting barely enough to squeeze through and two more walls before arriving at the vents by the boiler room; then the final sixty-foot waste-pipe slide to the Achalaya river. The passage that the five of them – himself, Roddy, BC, Sal Peretti and Theo Mellor – knew every inch of, had consumed every spare minute they could steal away over the past ten months.

That’s where they’d be taking Roddy, for sure: the boiler room deep in the prison’s bowels, where the clank and hiss of the boilers and pipes and two-foot thick walls would prevent even the loudest screams reaching the cells above.

Larry also knew that if he used their escape passage to get to the boiler room, it would be uncovered, their last hope gone and four of them condemned to die. Those were the odds at Libreville: twenty per cent reprieved, pardoned or commuted to life imprisonment, eighty per cent executed.

That was the choice right there: Roddy’s life saved for four others lost, including his own. And with two or three of them now with Roddy, what chance did he have in any case of being able to save him? Another muted mumble from Roddy, fading quickly with the rapid shuffle of footsteps along the outside walkway, gave him a sharp prompt. He had to decide quickly.

But Larry Durrant stayed staring at his makeshift altar, frozen with indecision. Just when he needed guidance the most, there was nothing.

‘That’s the original trial preparation file. That’s the trial transcript and notes. Appeal preparation…. and appeal transcript and notes.’ John Langfranc piled each file on the desk before him, some of them four inches thick, with an appropriate pause. ‘Finally, any case notes since.’ The last file was thinnest of all. ‘Though to be honest, not much has happened over the last seven years. Lawrence Durrant has been all but forgotten. Until now.’

‘Now that they’re about to kill him,’ Jac said, though his disdain could equally have been aimed at the mountain of paperwork he’d have to plough through over the coming days.

Langfranc raised an eyebrow and smiled smugly. ‘First thing to get clear, Jac, is that the State of Louisiana never kills anyone. They execute, process, fulfil sentencing, lethally inject, expedite and terminate… but they never
kill
. If you’re going to use a word like kill, you’ll have to get used to putting
legally
in front. Presumably, that one word differentiates the State’s actions from those of the people they’re killing. Sorry,
processing
.’

‘Why me?’ Jac asked.

Fair question, thought Langfranc. He shrugged. ‘Time for you to prove yourself, I guess.’ No point in embellishing beyond that, trying to kid Jac that this might be a landmark glory case. They knew each other too well for that now, and with Jac only passing his criminal law bar exams ten months ago, he’d be aware that he was a long way from being handed the firm’s prize cases. ‘You and I both know that if there was a good angle left in all of this,’ Langfranc waved one hand across the files, ‘Beaton would have taken it himself.’

Clive Beaton, senior criminal trial lawyer at Payne, Beaton and Sawyer, New Orlean’s second largest law firm, at which Langfranc was a junior partner. Strange title, ‘junior’, for someone fifty-two years old, Jac had always thought. In a way it further underlined Langfranc’s frustration that he should have been made a senior partner earlier. Perhaps one reason why the two of them had bonded so well, the feeling that the firm’s main head-pats and accolades had gone to others, often less deserving. Though in Jac’s case that was mainly because he’d spent his first years wallowing in corporate and tax law before he’d turned to criminal law. The easy route after his initial years of practice in France; commercial law in Louisiana followed the French Napoleonic code, criminal law didn’t.

Langfranc looked up as the clatter from the general office drifted in.

‘I’ve re-scheduled Donneley for three-fifteen,’ Penny Vance, his PA who Jac also shared as a secretary, said through the half-open door. ‘That will give you a clear hour at Liberty street. Oh, and Jem Payne has called for an update briefing on Borkowski before you head out this afternoon, so you might have to cut lunch short to make the time.’

The information brought a faint slouch, an extra ruffle to Langfranc’s appearance. He always wore the best Versace or Missoni suits with slip-on Italian loafers to match, but with his wild, wavy greying hair, to Jac he still looked somehow unkempt; as if there’d been a strong breeze on his way into work, then the rush of the day simply kept him that way.

‘Thanks.’ Langfranc sighed as the door closed; only ten minutes into the day and already everything was at full tilt. He brought his attention back to Jac and Durrant’s files. ‘It’s a no-goer from the outset. Full confession. Every possible angle exhausted at the appeal. No new evidence since. Your only hope is to try and get our good – or bad – Lawrence Durrant pardoned. Throw all on the mercy of our good – or bad – Governor. The illustrious Piers Candaret. And to a lesser extent, the Board of Pardons.’

Jac’s eyes narrowed. ‘Candaret holds the whip hand?’

‘Without a doubt. He nominates the Board to begin with, and while they’re meant to sift through and review everything on his behalf – when it comes to big cases, he likes to have a hands-on, first look-see. And while he’s also meant to accept their recommendations, in many cases he’s gone his own way. So, you’ll file simultaneously with both of them – but the buck stops with Candaret.’

‘And that’s all there’s left to do – prepare a simple plea letter?’

‘Well, there’s a tad more to it than that. You’re going to have to plough through most of this to get the tone right for the letter. Hit the right notes. Durrant’s apparently very religious. Candaret is too, or at least he pushes Christian and family values at every photo opportunity. And by all claims, Durrant has been a model prisoner. Kept his nose clean. So those are probably good start points. We’re talking about quite a long, considered clemency plea. Six or seven pages, maybe more – plus any relevant file attachments. It might only take a day to prepare the letter, but you could spend a good week in preparation.’ As Langfranc fought to boost the case’s merits, Jac’s quizzical eyebrow merely arched higher. ‘For God’s sake, Jac, this is a big case. For Louisiana murder cases, they don’t come bigger. So don’t make light of it. And whatever might or might not be involved, also don’t lose sight of what’s at stake here. Good or bad or rotten to hell’s core – a man’s life.’

‘I know. I know.’ Jac held up one hand in submission and bowed his head slightly. When Langfranc had first told him he’d be getting the case, he was excited: murder of the wife of Adelay Roche, one of Louisiana’s wealthiest industrialists, the case had occupied more newspaper column inches than any other Louisiana case since the Garrison-JFK investigation. He’d immediately dived into the library on St Charles Street to leaf through clippings. But most of the attention had been at the time of the trial and the appeal. For the past seven years the newspapers, and the world outside, had forgotten about Lawrence Tyler Durrant; though now no doubt there’d be a renewed flurry of media activity. ‘I suppose I’m just disappointed to know that all the main angles have gone, all avenues for appeal already exhausted. All I’m left with is sweeping up the dust of the case.’

‘The only shot at appeal was centred around Durrant’s accident and his resultant memory lapses at the time. And all hopes on that front died seven years ago.’ Langfranc shrugged. ‘And as I said, if there were any angles left, Beaton would have taken the case himself. But it’s still a big case, Jac. The biggest. Life or death for Larry Durrant and every local TV network and newspaper, and some beyond, covering which way it’s going to swing. You might not be Beaton’s golden boy, but the fact that he’s even given you a high profile case like this – even if all that’s left is a clemency plea – means that he’s noticed you. You exist.’

‘Therefore I am.’

Langfranc smiled back thinly. Jac McElroy had set his cap on criminal law with a determination that probably was largely lost on old man Beaton. At thirty-one, with six years practice under his belt, he could have just kept coasting along with corporate law, raking in the big bucks. Taken the easy route. But, no, he’d wanted to do criminal law, so that meant going back to square one and taking a fresh set of bar exams alongside a bunch of fresh-faced graduates while still juggling the remainder of his corporate caseload. So that meant he was either crazy, or it was a real vocation. From Jac’s first ten months of criminal case-handling, Langfranc hadn’t yet made his mind up which.

Jac was thoughtful for a second. ‘What’s Candaret’s track record on pardons and reprieves?’

‘Pardons are rare, and will no doubt now be doubly difficult since the last but one guy pardoned, Aaron Harvey – also African-American, as it happens – killed again just six months back. With commuted to life there’s far more chance, I think running somewhere between one in five or six. But that could be one of the first things to check – along with case histories. Get a feel for what might hit the right note with Candaret.’

‘So, slim chances – but not impossible.’

Langfranc held one palm out. ‘Better than that buffoon in Texas. Like his predecessor, he sends everyone for the chop. No exceptions. Thinks that’s what the public wants, might make him potential White House material. And Florida’s not much better. At least with Candaret there’s some chance.’

Jac studied the files a second longer, then laid one hand firmly on top of them, exhaling wearily. ‘Don’t worry. Slim hopes or not, I’ll give it my best shot. I won’t let Larry Durrant down.’

But belying the brooding look that Jac gave the files, Langfranc caught a fleeting gleam in his eyes – challenge, defiance – that sounded a faint alarm bell. In Jac McElroy’s first year with the firm, Langfranc had often found him sullen and contemplative, which as they’d got to know each other he’d learnt was due to the recent death of Jac’s father – a Scotsman who twenty-odd years ago had taken his family to France to pursue his dream of running an artists’ retreat. But Langfranc had also discovered that nothing lifted Jac out of that slump like a good challenge. Of only eleven criminal cases that Jac had so far handled solo – the most serious a grand-theft auto and representing a colourful local forger, Morvaun Jaspar – he’d turned four of them into major productions. ‘And no grandstanding and glory-searching on this one. No screaming the client’s innocence against impossible odds. That’s not what Beaton wants, nor what the case calls for.’

‘Rest easy, I’ll be a good boy.’ Jac stood up and hoisted the files under one arm, firing Langfranc a strained smile as he took on the extra weight. ‘I’ll do what I’m told and just sweep up the dust.’

Just a look.

There’d been a few derisory looks from Tally to Roddy during the first couple of years, but nothing too intense or worrying. Just a sly, conciliatory smile and shrug, ‘Funny guy,’ as the other inmates guffawed and belly-laughed at Roddy’s latest quip.

None of the comments were aimed at Tally, and on occasion when the target was someone he didn’t like, he’d join in laughing with everyone else. But gradually resentment grew in Tally at Roddy’s constant flow of jokes and jibes, as if, as Roddy’s popularity grew as a result, Tally felt that his power base was being threatened; or simply because humour undermined the mood of menace and fear which helped Tally operate more effectively.

But that was exactly why everyone loved Roddy: a rare, bright light in the stifling gloom, he lifted everyone’s spirits, made them forget, even if for only part of the day, where they were. For Larry in particular, Roddy had been a godsend, a lifeline, arriving at Libreville only five months after Larry’s mother died and his spirits were at their lowest.

Just a look. The first came when Roddy compared the grunts, snorts and hisses coming from the men in the muscle-yard to the pigs at feeding time in Libreville’s farm compound. Tally overheard, and took it as an insult of the muscle-yard men in general, and of him, as their leader, in particular. He warned Roddy that if he was loose with his mouth again, he’d be taught a lesson.

The second came when Peretti complained that his library duties weren’t giving him enough time either for farm duty or general exercise. He was finding it hard to keep in shape.

‘Don’ worry,’ Roddy assured. ‘You got the best end of the deal. Some of those guys on farm duty are worked till they drop. And as for the yard guys, they might be developin’ their pecs and abs – but not much up here.’ Roddy tapped his forehead. ‘The only time they use a fuckin’ tome is as a doorstop or to rest barbells either side o’ their head.’

Roddy had made sure this time that Tally was out of earshot, but one of the other yard-men overheard, and duly reported.