Harry and Jeremy were just about to call it a day and head over to the pub for a drink when the call came through. Harry had gathered the files and papers spread over the round table that stood diagonally opposite the large polished oak desk that dominated his office. There they liked to sit in the afternoon, take stock, and mull over matters at hand once every few days. The London sky, turning a misty yellow-red through the window behind Harry, was being served to them lukewarm and sliced finely into stripes by the blind. Jeremy didn’t envy Harry his large west-facing office. He liked his sun served whole, with a black Americano and two sugars, early in the morning.
Harry had pricked up his ears on the phone. ‘Jeremy, it’s for you,’ he said, locking grave eyes onto his friend’s, ‘from the Guildford police station. Do you want to take it in here?’
A call to Jeremy from a police station was an odd occurrence. It must be something serious, he thought. He had learned by then that such a look from Harry portended serious events to follow without fail.
‘Thanks, Harry.’ He took the phone. ‘Hello?’
He was wholly unprepared for the voice that came through to him.
‘Jeremy, it’s Jack, from Marine Electronics. You remember Michelle? She’s dead, man. I’ve been arrested. I need a solicitor.’
Michelle dead and Jack Arrested! Jeremy paused for a moment to recover from the shock. Marine Electronics was where he had done his last engineering contract. The recession had been biting the company hard and in order to adapt to the harsh economic climate his contract, along with those of most other engineers on fixed term contracts, had not been renewed. Jack Connor was his best mate, the colleague he had been closest to for the three and a half years he had worked there. Jack had been getting involved with Michelle, a golden tigress who worked in Quality Assurance, about the time Jeremy’s contract ended. He had warned Jack that that entanglement was going to end in big trouble, but he hadn’t imagined anything this big!
‘I need a solicitor, Jeremy.’ The pleading in his ear that broke through his reflections had a ring of wretched fear. ‘Your firm is the only one I could think of with someone I know and trust.’
Barrett, Stavers & Associates wasn’t really Jeremy’s firm, though he had become closely associated with it since his redundancy from Marine Electronics. Under the difficult economic climate he had decided that his best option was to start his own company consulting on and subcontracting electronic engineering projects and manufacturing consumer electronics devices. He had named his company Radio Silicon Limited.
Harry Stavers was Jeremy’s best friend from school days. He had never lost touch with Harry from the days they had left for the US together and been roommates at Stanford where Harry was a pre-law psychology major and Jeremy, an electrical engineering undergraduate. They had parted when Harry came back to England to read law at Cambridge and Jeremy went to UC Berkley to read for his PhD in Electrical Engineering.
Harry and his partner, Stephen Barrett, had also been downsizing their firm in London to adapt to the harsh economic times, their third partner having just left the firm, and had offered to sublet a section of their offices—a whole wing with four office rooms and a large open-plan room just right for an engineering laboratory—to set up Jeremy’s business. Harry specialised in criminal law, and Stephen, in corporate law.
Jeremy’s section of the offices was separated from Harry’s firm’s by the large reception area in the middle that they shared, which was occupied and manned with alluring efficiency by Amanda, the company secretary. The associates Peter Stuart and Jake Freeman shared the large open-plan room opposite Harry and Steven’s offices. Next to it was a room packed full of filing cabinets which, on every Thursday, saw the jovial part-time accountant Aaron Jackson seated at its desk. Jeremy had also hired young Sean Holden straight from his PhD in electronics. The two friends’ businesses and friendships had become so intertwined over a short period of time that they, by then, shared the reception, the law firm’s two meeting rooms, the kitchen, the computer network that Jeremy had installed and was looking after, Aaron, and the stunning Amanda.
Less than two years ago, when Jeremy had been in a rut, Jack had literally saved his life and pulled him out of a dark hole. Now Jack needed him.
‘One minute, Jack. I shall pass you onto Harry, our criminal solicitor. Could you confirm you’re being held at the Guildford police station? If we get disconnected I shall call you right back.’
‘Yeah, I’m at the Guildford police station.’
‘Okay. If we get disconnected, don’t speak a word to anybody until we get there.’
He put Jack on hold for a minute and briefed Harry on the situation, who listened intently, nodded, and then picked up the phone.
YOU ARE READING
The Reckless Engineer (The Reckless Engineer #1)
Mystery / Thriller(PG18: Contains two mild non-explicit love scenes.) Can you forgive betrayal? The aftershocks of an affair reverberate out to those in the lives of the lovers, who will NOT take it lying down. Jack Connor lives an idyllic life by the Portsmouth seas...
