It had been raining cats and dogs. I looked out of my window from my high rise office. It was monotonous, success. It felt like I was reliving the same day, everyday. I had a love hate relationship with rain.
When I was younger, I would dance under the rain with m friends and siblings and after we had enough fun, we would all snuggle into the only giant bed we had which was in my dad’s room. We would hold each other murmuring “cold oo, cold oo”.
It was simple memories like that that made me blush. I would get flashbacks of this at out nowhere and smile so hard. I was from a very poor background so we did not have things like tea along with bread and butter when we were cold, we just enjoyed the tranquillity of the weather in whatever way we could.
My secretary, a young girl barely twenty four years old with a half cast complexion, walked into the office. She was opinionated and bold, this girl. Her name was Alice. We did not have the typical employer - employee relationship. There was nothing amorous about our relationship, neither did she share with me personal details about her life, but we maintained a close friendship, as appropriate as it could be.
“This is cold” she said as she walked in.
The Air condition was at the lowest temperature. I wanted to creep her out so I told her,
“Oh I forgot”
“Yeah I thought as much. Would you want me to switch it off”
“I was joking. Someone told you they forgot they were cold and you don’t take much of it. No thought he might be a Vampire”
“You know all those years you spent abroad might have spoilt you but here we don’t fear vampires, they are blood sucking agents, we bind them”
I laughed and shook my head. She went over some of the meetings I had for the day. I told her to clear my schedule, idid not feel well. My mind was far,
“Where is Miss Derele”, my throat felt tight mentioning her late husband’s surname
“She went to court for the Fannie May case, she has not yet returned”
“She is still working that case, I thought I told her to drop it” I thundered suddenly agitated
“You know how she is Sir”
“I don’t” I barked
I had personally instructed her to drop the client. I had explained with diligence how dangerous the case was. Okay, maybe I did not voice out my hesitation as delicately as I felt, maybe I sounded authoritative and harsh but I needed to maintain a professional atmosphere and it was difficult to do that every time I looked at her.
“When she comes back, tell her I need to speak with her”
Alice looked at me bewildered. She always gave me the same look every time it involved Hadassah.
“Go on” I instructed her. She pressed her lips together and I could tell she was making an effort not to say something
“Why don’t you say what is on your mind”
“Nothing” she smiled slightly and left the office. I looked after her bemused. What in God’s name could have been on her mind.
When Hadassah came to see her she looked worn out and weary.
“Take a seat please”
She sat compliantly.
“You spent so much time in court?” I asked intending to sound strict but not quite being successful.
“You will have to forgive me but not all of us have cars. I had to take public transport”
I could sense the jealousy in her voice, ever since I bought a car for Elizabeth, she would make sardonic references to cars when it was not necessary in the least. Not just cars she would find a way to make subtle remarks on my relationship with Elizabeth. It made my blood boil, she had no right to do that
“If you worked harder like most ladies you would get one” I responded, ignoring the hurt on her face.
“I thought I instructed you to avoid that case. My firm cannot be associated with exonerating a hardened rapist and a criminal”
“You don’t know that” she interrupted
“I don’t know what my firm should be associated with?” o asked sarcastically, feigning ignorance.
“You don’t know that he is a rapist or a murderer. He is innocent until proven guilty”.
“I don’t need to be a psychiatrist to know that he is guilty, one look at him confirms that. And I am certain, a judge would think the same no matter how many evidences you present before her or him “
“Why don’t you let the judge be the judge of that”
“It is my firm Hadassah you don’t tell me what to do here”
She looked up at me the moment I mentioned her name.
“Please, let me do this, I believe he is innocent. There is no guilty mind”
“Look, I know you are trying to see the best in people but this situation is not ideal to be mother Theresa. It does not help that his father is well known politician , it could blow up in your face, in our faces. People would think we collected a huge sum of money and we have no regard for justice”
“I don’t care what people say”
“I know that” I responded, catching myself on how familiar I sounded
“What makes you believe him so much”
“Well, he had no Mensrea. He has no criminal record and more importantly he was never really academically bright”
“So he is a dummy, he cannot be a killer?
“I did not say he was a dummy I just mean he could not possible have known or premeditate the consequences of whatever he suggested. He was trying to have a good time. He did not know that the fact she had not slept in almost three days would lead to her death. The media is twisting it to make it look like he drugged her with the intention of killing her, then raped her. These are two consenting individuals and the text messages she sent him indicates consent”
“What does that even mean, everybody knows not sleeping for more than twenty four hours already puts you in a vulnerable position. There is plenty of evidence in the text messages that she sent indicating how tired she was and needed to sleep. For starters, the message in which she said ’baby I haven’t slept in two days I cannot have sex tonight’. So there could never be any excuse in the world for overlooking the state of her mind, in giving the son called consent she gave. She was exhausted “
“Oh please like we have not all had sex when we are tired”
I looked up at her, I was tempted to disparage her character, I was enraged she talked about her sex life so openly.
“What about section 314 of the criminal code. Causation? So aside from Mensrea there would be no Actus reus, because how would he had known that asking her to ingest an ED medication when she had not been well rested, would lead to death as an adverse effect”
“It was on the body of the drugs, that it induces fatigue, to be avoid when lethargic. You don’t have a case here. Best case scenario he had the intention of killing her and saw a perfect opportunity when she said she had not slept in days, he seduced her and used the drugs as a bait.
Her food had also been laced with it, so even she had willingly taken the drugs no judge would believe she agreed to ingest more than the prescribed dosage and it was on that consensus that he sprinkled it on her food and drink. That is fallacious.
“Worst case scenario, he was not intending to kill her but he would still be accountable for manslaughter not homicide. There is no getting out of this one for him and us if we persist”
I noticed absentmindedly I had used we and us casually.
“What about the cases of Queensland and R v Dyson. Are those to be over looked as well. The facts were very similar”
“I don’t know where you are going with this. They are not at all similar . Those cases had an extremely long duration before the eventual death of the deceased. They also did not include the deceased making known time and again about a deteriorating physical condition that could have triggered her death. Is it understood that you are dropping this case?”
“There are so many defences and you know it”
“The only defence I see is bribing a judge and it would not be in my firm, you can work somewhere else if you want”
“I would drop it.”
She sounded so sad it broke my heart. Her eyes were heavy still willing me to change my mind. I watched her leave and my heart sank. I wanted to explain to her it was for her good but I could not, I was going the extra mile to bottle up my feelings.
The deceased was the daughter of a powerful man in the country. There would be a retaliation, it would not happen soon but I had seen enough of these cases to know it would eventually.
I did not want her caught in the cross fire. I had no doubt he would eventually be set free, not because I was over confident in her legal prowess but because the family of the accused would bribe the judge.
It would be a case of power tussle and not justice. The strongest would win, in this case the suspect, the lawyer ignorant of the behind the scene would be praised and when the matter had died there would be a string of unknown causes of death.
I understood it was stupid to be so over protective. This was what she wanted to do. This was her choice. All our cases were from rich and powerful people. I couldn’t possibly stop her from all of it. I just wished she went more with civil cases that did not involve much danger
At the close of day, I went to her office. I was thinking of her from the moment she left and i wanted to see how she was doing. I met her daughter sitting on the floor playing with a English school reader. We had many problems in the past about bring her child to work.
I did not want to create a scene in the presence of the child but I was certain I would give Hadassah a good talking to, I also did not want to ask her where her mother was, her seat was vacant.
The little angel looked up from the book she was holding, she was extremely beautiful, she had her mother eyes and her mouth, she sounded exactly like her and even asked lots of questions like her. But that was with people she liked.
She did not like me in the least. She must have caught wind of the fact that I did not want her around. She would stare at me expressionlessly whenever she saw me. I could see she tolerated me
Hadassah rushed in from behind me,
“I know you are going to say something but I couldn’t drop her with Jesse today, she was really busy and I had to bring her here. It won’t happen again”
I lost every desire to ask her to ride with me, which was what I intended and I started to leave
“Desmond” she called out
“Did you want something”
“No just checking to see you did what I asked”
“Of course” she said curtly
“Okay Goodnight” she did not respond
React
