The Writers' Circle

The incessant ringing eventually broke through the fug, initially insinuating itself into a dream before nagging her awake.
"This is Anna" her voice thick with sleep
"We've got him at Gatwick Chief" unfettered excitement in the short statement
The simple sentence failed to cut through the haze of sleep and alcohol
"You got who?"
"The Guitar Man Boss, the Guitar Man."
"But he's not flying out until tomorrow - never mind; get someone to pick me up, you can fill me in on the details.  When will he be there?"
"We're bringing him in now, what do you want us to do?"
She grunted and reached for the bedside light
"Stick him in a cell to sweat, and see how long you can delay getting his lawyer there, and who will be coming for me; I'd hate to get breathalysed coming in for this."  She took a swig of water, and a couple of the headache pills she kept on the bedside table.
There was chuckling down the line, and she heard him calling to someone else across the room, probably Mary, she was meant to be on tonight.  A muted voice responded and John came back
"Wilson will be down for you in 20 minutes, or do you need longer?"
"Make it thirty, can't see me getting back home anytime early, so I may as well be ready for everything."
She stumbled through to the small bathroom, leaving the light off as she lathered and showered, the small hammer on the inside of her skull mashing out a discordant symphony; by the time she was trying to find a clean blouse the pills were beginning to kick in, and the doorbell was ringing.


 "Why am I still sitting here?  I do hope the plane is still waiting, I don't want to be waiting around for 12 hours until the next one"
Dominic Knotts, or Lester Long, depending upon whether you were his mother or adoring public, was striking - he had 'it', whatever 'it' was.
Right now he was venting at his retinue, not the normal ten or twelve lackeys and flunkeys, but one solitary figure that sat at the bare table.
Matthew Wilson was used to receiving calls in the middle of the night, requesting that he get this or that celebrity released from custody.  He often found that a friendly chat with the arresting officer about how unfair it was that the famous were so hounded, harried, harassed and victimised; pushed to the point where they - insert appropriate phrase (drunk to much, drove to fast, smoked/snorted or injected etc.) - and was all this fuss really necessary?
His average was good, and of the ones he didn't get released immediately most found the charges dropped soon after.  The ones that actually went to court he viewed as a bitter personal insult and fought tooth and claw to keep them free.  The few cases that he lost he wrote off, no appeals with Matthew Wilson.  If he couldn't convince a jury of the innocence, real or otherwise, of his client then let some other sucker sweat for them.  Tonight however was not fun, this was not his usual oeuvre.  The client was fine, right at the top level of his clientele bracket; this one wasn't opening supermarkets or hosting daytime television quiz shows.  The arrest charge however was way beyond what he normally dealt with.  Drug related arrests he dealt with regularly, the whole gamut of them:  Possession, using, procuring, attempting to procure, even dealing on two occasions.  But this was beyond any of these.
"Mr Knott"
"Long" the response was instant, and was accompanied by an anxious tapping on the leather boot that was resting on his knee; Matthew was willing to assume that the leather was genuine crocodile.
"Knott - and this appears to be a very tightly wound knot." he couldn't help himself "You are being held on one of the most serious charges that there are, it puts you in the same region as Islamic terrorism and paedophilia."
Matthew looked at his client, and found the sharp blue eyes staring at him frustratedly 
"You know, you were sold to me as some sort of super lawyer, like that guy in Chicago, only better." He picked nervously at the skin around his thumb.
"Roxie Hart was only charged with murdering one scumball, you on the other hand have been accused of being involved in the organised production and distribution of the single most addictive substance yet to be manufactured.  It is only because I am so damned good that I am in here with you." The last sentence rose with an anger that was fuelled by being dragged out of bed at three on a Saturday morning.  He stared back at the client, long and thin wearing drainpipe jeans with a heavy cotton shirt beneath a casually battered Bladen jacket.  He controlled his voice again
"Look, in a minute or two the questioning will start, just stay calm and quiet, it will let me do my job."

	
At a larger room elsewhere in the building there was a heated discussion going on
"What do you mean it isn't there?  Where the hell is it?"
Detective Chief Inspector Annabelle Manser was getting increasingly frustrated; the numerous cups of station coffee where jangling nerves already taughtened by lack of sleep and a background headache from last nights red wine that the couple of painkillers had failed to dissipate entirely.  The door squealed open as a young uniformed officer entered the room, he stopped frozen as the DCI's bloodshot eyes fixed him with a deathly stare.  His skin flinched and tensed as he awaited a verbal assault that never came.	
"Okay, let's go back to the basics.  We are sure that he has it aren't we?"
"Yes we observed the delivery"
"Could Marshall have double crossed us?"
"No way - he's scared and wants his new life in anonymity - he knows that if we took his file to the CPS there would be enough to get him twenty or thirty years - and some of the people he would end up meeting in their would definitely make life difficult for him"
"Okay, okay, was it left in the room for a hand-off?"
The junior detective was prepared,
"No.  We got access straight after Knott and the others got in the lift, Marshall was still in there and it was clean."
"Right, good, and he was under surveillance all the way to the airport and through"
"Excuse me ma'am" the uniformed officer who had recently entered sat with a hand half raised in an apologetic manner "I double checked with the officers in car two and they told me that they did lose direct visual contact in the multi-storey for a period of one to two minutes"
The room deflated and several people muttered invective under their breath
"When did they admit to this?" The voice of DI Jason Fence was furious, as he had debriefed that team himself, and was unprepared for this.
"I once lost someone in there and just wanted to double check, sorry sir."
DCI Manser cut in
"Good work sergeant, better to find out now than in six months time in-front of a jury"
She felt amazingly calm, considering that she was looking at three months work disappearing before her.
"Shall we assess the situation?  Our subject suddenly switches to an earlier flight, thus compromising the man power available then the few officers we do have trailing him manage to lose him for five whole minutes, yes I know they said two, but seriously, do you trust them?" shoulders shrugged and she continued.
"Now we cant find the damn stuff on him, on top of which he has himself lawyered to the hilt, how did that happen by the way?"
The sergeant answered "Dilks and Walker in car two think that they may have been rumbled when the re-found him in the car park"
"Fantastic, covered themselves in glory haven't they?  I don't suppose that there is any chance he was driving while on the mobile is there?" 
"No ma'am, the car was parked"
She laughed, to the astonishment of the room
"Well Detective Inspector Fence shall we see what tune the Guitar man will play for us before his oh so capable solicitor realises that we have absolutely nothing to hold, never mind charge, his client with?"


The atmosphere at the desk was fractured, a schism of relief and frustration.  The police officers were visibly rattled, the solicitor smug at another success, especially such an easy one.  The 'Guitar Man' himself was a scarcely contained aura of ebullience, his demeanour buoyant, relieved and exuberant.
His guitar sat in the open case at the end of the counter next to DCI Manser as he signed papers confirming the details of the 'assistance' that he had provided.  She watched the long fingers holding the pen and felt something picking at the back of her mind.  She could see the calloused ridges on the fingers where the constant strumming and picking had hardened the skin.  He saw her looking
"The tools of my trade" he said laconically
She forced a smile
"You know, when you smile your face transforms your features," he raised a finger and traced the air along her cheek, she furrowed her brow and shifted away from it "in-fact you have the jaw line of Julie-Anne Moore" he stared at her, his eyes shining "though of course not her hair."
He laughed at his own witticism, and as he did the DCI also broke into a smile, a small controlled smile, the same smile that came when she filled in the last clue of the crossword, or beat the students to the answer on University Challenge.
"Tell me, is that real crocodile skin?" she pointed at the open guitar case
"Alligator, it's alligator, well caiman, handmade in Belize - and entirely legal you know"
"Oh I am sure of that.  Tell me, is it true that you take your guitar every-where; it never leaves your possession?  I've heard you even pay for it to travel on the seat next to you when you fly."
"True, true, this is the first time that it has been out of my view in all the years I have owned it.  Which is why I have been so careful to check that your ham-fisted colleagues have done no damage."
"What about the strings?  Do you tune it yourself, replace them yourself, or do you have someone who does it for you?" she cocked her head in anticipation of his answer
"Myself, myself.  How could I let some-one else prepare it for me, it is my arm, my art, my" he stopped and smiled "I get carried away - but what I would like to do is get off to the airport, I have a stand-bye flight arranged you know.  Don't touch that, put it back!" the last was shouted with feeling as DCI Manser lifted his precious instrument from its case
"I'm just interested Mr Knott," she moved further away from him and with a swift violent slash crashed the instrument on the edge of the counter once, then twice and finally a third time until the neck broke and in the slow syrup of time framed by extraordinary events out tumbled three vials of clear liquid, one of them breaking and scattering glass and liquid as it hit the floor "in how a left handed guitar player who never lets his instrument out of his sight comes to have a guitar strung for a right handed player."

"What would you have done if you'd been wrong?"
DI French asked the obvious question 
"I'd have been like the guy in Hot Fuzz, only more rural and with less authority"
They both laughed, the tension of just a few hours ago dissipated and replaced by intense relief