“That’s fine. I mean, of course, I would be happy to work with the entire team.”
“Mmm-hmm. Then we’l see you at the office on Monday.”
Hannah hung up the phone. She took a long slow breath and let it out, then lay back on her bed and thought about her next move.
HANNAH WENT FOR A RUN BEFORE WORK. SHE NEEDED IT
TO FOCUS her mind for the day ahead. She got to the Project offices at ten A.M. Marianne Stephenson gave her a nod and a smile but otherwise her arrival went largely unnoticed. Robert Parekh’s office door was open and Hannah could see him in there, sitting on the edge of his desk, feet on a chair and phone pressed to his ear.
He saw her pass and nodded to her. Rachel was already at her computer, as were Sean, Camila, and Hazel. Hannah put her head down and kept walking. She made her way to her desk, said hel o to Rachel, and started work. Today her approach would be different.
Monday had been al about metrics and efficiency. Today she wanted to show that she could dig deeper. She had been working quietly for a couple of hours when Robert Parekh dropped by her desk.
“Hannah,” he said.
Hannah looked up, aware of Rachel’s smal jump of surprise next to her.
“Hel o,” Hannah said.
“Marianne talked to me this morning,” Parekh said. “She keeps an eye on al of our new recruits. I’ve had a look at the work you have done so far and I read your recommendations so far. Good work. Very good work.”
“Thank you,” Hannah said.
“I guess they give you good training up there at the Bangor legal aid clinic,” he said.
Hannah smiled. “The best,” she said, and he started to move away. “Sorry, Professor Parekh?”
He stopped. “It’s Rob, please.”
“I’ve come across one application here that I think has a lot of potential. The applicant’s sister sent in her appel ant’s brief overnight, and I think . . . wel , you’l be the judge of course, but I think there’s a case here. The applicant’s been in prison for more than twenty-four years and she has eleven years left to run. I’m hoping to finish my analysis today, and I was just wondering who I should send my recommendation to for review?”
“You can send it to me.” Parekh glanced at his watch. “You know what? I’ve got a few minutes. Why don’t you come by now and run through what you have so far?”
“Great,” Hannah said. “I’l just print out my notes.”
Parekh left for his office and Hannah printed her document. She was conscious of Rachel, sitting to her right, quivering in outrage.
Rachel’s head was stil bent to her work, but she had two spots of color high in her cheeks and her hand was clenched around her pen.
“You’re a fast mover, aren’t you?” she said in a sharp whisper.
Hannah said nothing.
“I told you yesterday that our recommendations go to the staff attorneys for review,” Rachel said.
“This is a good case,” Hannah said. “I don’t want it to get lost.”
“Sure,” Rachel said. “You’re just thinking about the applicant, right?”
“That’s what I’m here for.” Hannah picked up her notebook and pen and made for Parekh’s office, stopping only to col ect her notes from the printer. She paused as she entered his office.
“Door open, or closed?” she asked.
“Open is fine,” he said. “Take a seat.”
Hannah sat in one of the seats in front of his desk and, conscious that they could be interrupted at any time, launched into her pitch without any preamble.
“The applicant’s name is Nia Jones. In 1994 she was twenty-two years old and living in a trailer in a park outside Richmond with her children—a six-month-old baby boy named Andre, and a two-year-old little girl named Carly-Anne. At approximately ten-thirty P.M. on a Friday night in October, the trailer caught fire. The fire started in the kitchen area. Nia was asleep in the bedroom with the baby, and Carly-Anne was asleep too.” Hannah looked up. “Carly-Anne slept in the living room. The couch there converted into a bed at night, but that meant that she was caught on the other side of the fire from Nia and Andre.” Parekh nodded, and Hannah looked back at her notes.
“Nia managed to get outside with the baby, and witnesses say that she went straight around to the side of the home and broke the window. The window was high up off the ground . . .” Hannah put her papers down and demonstrated with her hands. “It would have been above head height for Nia, who is only five foot two. But she broke the window and managed to climb halfway inside before the fire drove her back. She had deep lacerations to both hands and second-degree burns to her face and upper body.”
“The little girl didn’t make it,” Parekh said.
Hannah shook her head.
“And Nia was charged.”
“Yes. With arson and felony murder. I’ve looked at the reporting around the case. There’s a strong streak of prejudice running through everything. Lots of talk about how she was a single mother of two. Lots of references to previous arrests for drug offenses at the trailer park, though there’s nothing to suggest that Nia had any drug history. Her sister tel s me that she had no history with the police at al , that she was a good mother who loved her children and was doing her best. No drugs, no alcohol abuse.”
Hannah would never deny that there were innocent people in prison. She had, however, been a little taken aback by how easy it had been to find a case that seemed to be such an obvious case of wrongful conviction. Was that just luck? Or were they real y stacked up, ten deep?
“You said felony murder?” Parekh asked, brow furrowed.
“Yes.”
“Anything in that we can use?”