Part Three: Why I Went Missing (Paris, May/June)
"I don't know why, I went missing
And though lost I found myself
Where I had been all the time."
- STYLE COUNCIL
At the end of April, Miles had finally returned one of Gumshoe's calls. The detective had been trying to contact him persistently since he'd left Los Angeles - whenever Miles turned on his cellphone, there was the beep of a waiting text or voice message. Occasionally, when he forgot the phone was on, it would ring late at night, and he would switch it off after only a cursory glance at the screen, deleting the reminders later with no thought other than a minor flash of irritation or weariness.
After the initial search was called off, Miles had expected the police to merely shelve his case and waituntil a report came in of his body being foundHe had also expected Gumshoe to keep up the search for a while, but the level of the detective's doggedness had been a surprise. Miles was perplexed by it, sometimes even annoyed, and yet, at the same time, he found it strangely touching. I suppose I'm lucky he's not too bright, or he'd have found me already.
He had harboured no real desire to speak to anyone in Los Angeles since his departure, and did not feel comfortable at the prospect of answering difficult questions about his health, mental well-being or whereabouts – especially from Gumshoe. But on the nights when he was plagued by nightmares, he found himself dwelling on his actions and on the note he had left behind.
It had been during one of his more protracted periods of insomnia, after Von Karma's voice whispering in his ear had kept him from sleep for almost a week, that he'd finally pressed the call button. He had no logical reason for it – he had been sitting on the couch, drinking tea and reading that evening's edition of Le Monde, when an article about Global Studios acquiring a French subsidiary had caught his eye.Just the name had brought a memory, so clear that it had caused him to take a sharp intake of breath. He was standing in court opposite Phoenix Wright, with Will Powers hanging his head in the witness box between them. They all lie. Headache-bright lights, the smell of polish, and the buzz of the spectators, like static blurring his mind. He must be guilty. That intense blue gaze and his growing uncertainty in the face of it; the rough wood under his fingertips as he pressed his hands down onto the surface of the bench to relieve the tension, to regain his focus. But what if he isn't?
The image had vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving behind an echo of misgiving that he had dismissed as mere sentimentality, before returning to his reading. But two hours later, he'd been unable to completely shake the feeling, and he had a sudden, inexplicable longing to know what was happening in Los Angeles. There was no one he could possibly call except Gumshoe, and it was only a matter of a few impulsive seconds until he was listening to the dull buzz of the ringing tone.
As he'd waited for the detective to pick up, he had mentally rehearsed his response to the inevitable first question. I'm fine… perfectly fine.
It was a lie that Miles had told Gumshoe many times; the first, five years ago, in the lobby after his inaugural trial as a prosecutor.
It was the first time he had set foot in that particular courtroom of the Los Angeles District Courthouse since the trial of Yanni Yogi, a decade earlier. Outwardly, he'd been confident, wearing his brand new suit from London that imitated Von Karma's own, and carrying the expensive aluminium briefcase that had been a gift from Franziska when he graduated university. Inwardly, he'd been on edge. It was not due to nerves about the trial – that was an embarrassingly simple affair – an open and shut case that he'd been assigned by Von Karma to ensure the perfect first entry on his perfect record of prosecution. But the anxiety of being in that room after what had gone before was a personal failing that he knew he had to overcome.
The part of him that was still the son of Gregory Edgeworth, then, had been waiting for the lights to go out, the earth to start shaking, even as he strode across the floor and up the steps to the prosecution bench. Looking at the witness stand had reminded him of his own guilt and his own lies; of the scared boy he had once been and who sometimes, in the middle of the night, he was again. Despite his training, it had taken an effort of will to force those thoughts to the furthest recesses of his mind, to remain suitably impassive as he removed the relevant papers from his briefcase and arranged them precisely and deliberately on the desk in front of him, to focus only on his opponent and the desire to win.
"The prosecution is ready, your Honour."
The trial had gone well, right up until the end. The Fey woman had been no more than an irritation – a sentimental fool grasping at straws and relying on the words of her co-counsel. As an opponent, she was weak; he parried, feinted, led her into a trap, and was confident within minutes that she had nothing in reserve, that the verdict would be his. The co-counsel, however, was a different matter. His eyes had met Miles' several times across the court, and there was a fire there that he found unsettling. A dangerous man to have as an enemy.
And then… it had all been swept away. It had happened so quickly. Chaos descended on the courtroom in seconds. Blood. So much blood. On the witness box. In his hand. Memories had rushed back from where he had confined them – the screaming filled his head, and the air tasted of gunpowder and sweat.
Amidst the confusion of the shocked bailiffs, panicked onlookers and medical staff, Miles had made it to the Prosecutor's Lobby with a semblance of dignity. But the door had barely swung shut behind him when his stomach started to heave, and he leaned forward, palm against the wall, covering his mouth with his other hand in a desperate attempt to hold the sickness back. He tried to focus on the feeling of the cold, smooth marble against his palm, struggling to keep the dizziness at bay.
It was Gumshoe who had followed him from the courtroom to the deserted lobby; Gumshoe who had placed a firm hand on his shoulder to steady him, silently proffering a plastic wastebasket whilst keeping his eyes averted in a clumsy attempt to be delicate; Gumshoe who had shielded him from view, away from curious eyes.
"Alright now, sir?" The detective had asked quietly. Miles had looked up, finally, to see a spark of… something in Gumshoe's eyes. Sympathy? Pity? Either way, it made him recoil instinctively against the perception of his weakness.
"Take your handoff me, detective." He had pulled away from the touch, leaning back against the wall for support, while casting a disgusted look at the grubby handkerchief that the detective was holding out. He pulled out his own and wiped his mouth and hand. "I'm… fine. Perfectly fine. I don't need your assistance. I don't needanyone's assistance."
Gumshoe had merely nodded, seemingly unaffected by the lack of appreciation, then left him alone, disappearing back through the swing doors into the chaos of the courtroom. Belatedly, Miles noticed that the detective had retrieved his aluminium briefcase from the prosecution bench and left it leaning against the wall at his feet. As he reached down to pick it up, he realised that his hand was shaking, but by the time he exited the courthouse, no one noticed his white-knuckle grip on the case, or that his left hand was concealed in his pocket. The waiting media just saw the epitome of coldness and arrogance as he pushed past them disdainfully to where his mentor waited for him in the back of the sleek, black car.
For a long time afterwards, Miles had worried that word of his moment of weakness would make its way back to Von Karma, or that the novice prosecutor would become a source of derision at the police precinct. But as far as he could tell, Gumshoe had never spoken of it to anyone, himself included. It was as if it had never happened.
When the detective had answered that first call, there had been a long pause. Then, "Sir…? Mr. Edgeworth, sir?" The complete disbelief in Gumshoe's voice, and the thought of that familiar stunned expression which probably accompanied it, had made Miles smile.
"I can't imagine who else you might have been expecting on this number."
"You're not… I mean… um, are you alright, sir?"
Miles had hesitated, just for a moment, before replying. "I'm perfectly fine, Detective. As always."
Later, he'd reasoned with himself that he had only called so that the detective would stop leaving messages, and stop trying to find him; that if he hadn't, it would only have been a matter of time before the French police would knock at the door of his apartment or his office, and he'd have to either run again or face the media. But although he told himself that this first call in April would not be repeated, Miles found that through May and into June, the temptation was too great, and he and Gumshoe had spoken several times more.
The detective had told him that the Prosecutor's Office was in disarray, having lost both the Chief Prosecutor and the Head Prosecutor in the same month, and was now struggling to recruit anyone new due to the evidence tampering scandals. The Police Department, too, was still reeling under the cloud of Gant's disgrace, with detectives under investigation and the press keen to exploit any perceived vulnerability.
Underlying all of Gumshoe's woes was an unspoken but gentle reproach to which Miles always felt an answering twitch of guilt and duty. But he knew he couldn't return, and it was impossible for him to explain to Gumshoe why he'd had to leave. He couldn't have found the words even if he wanted to – and in any case, he doubted that the detective would really understand. Miles had simply told him that he should stay in touch, but made no attempt to elaborate. He knew that the detective would accept his answer, because he always did. That was just how things had always stood between them since that day five years ago in the Prosecutor's Lobby.
At the very end of May, the inquiries into the evidence tampering accusations were concluded. Miles read a brief summary in that evening's newspaper, reflecting that if it was a big enough story to make even a footnote in the international affairs column of a European paper, it was unlikely to go away as quickly as the parties concerned evidently hoped.
Gumshoe called later that night, and Miles was unsurprised to hear that in the eyes of those on the ground, the official report was a whitewash. It asserted that the scandal was confined to the events surrounding the SL-9 incident and that culpability was assigned to those already dead or disgraced. Von Karma, Skye, Gant were all under attack, and so, he suspected, was his own reputation, although Gumshoe sidestepped the issue, and Miles didn't ask directly. It was clear that the Prosecutor's Office and the Police Department were still blaming each other, but that little had really been resolved. He was absurdly grateful that his own name had not warranted a mention in the Paris press, as it was unlikely that it would pass unnoticed by his colleagues at Marceau, Defès et Associés.
When their conversation began to dwindle, Miles found himself trying to prolong it. Despite his rationalisation since, he knew that there had been another concern at the back of his mind the first time he had called, and while it had remained buried beneath the doubt and regret, it still nagged at him a month later. He focussed his gaze intently on the corner of the newspaper he was creasing into tighter and tighter folds as he only half listened to Gumshoe's chatter. It was almost too much of an effort to force the words out, not even sure if he wanted to hear the answer, but still, he had to know.
"How has Wright been keeping?"
Put into words, it sounded like a strange question, even to him. There was a long pause. Long enough that Miles expected the news to be bad, or to indicate that Gumshoe was thrown off guard by the sudden change of topic. Miles had just begun to wish that he could take the words back when the detective finally responded.
"He… um… Well, he's okay, I guess." He could tell that Gumshoe was unsure of what he was asking, exactly, and Miles was about to change the subject again when something evidently clicked in the detective's mind. "Uh… he doesn't talk about you, Mr. Edgeworth."
Miles sighed, closed his eyes at the sudden jab of guilt. "I see. Does he… think I'm dead?"
"I don't know, sir. He won't let anyone talk about you in front of him, either. He's been like that since he saw your… uh… note."
"I see." Miles repeated. He had expected it. He deserved it. But it was still painful to hear.
"He's still working though, sir – just minor cases. He seems fine in court. Still giving me hell on the witness stand." Gumshoe's voice took an upturn, clearly keen to keep the conversation away from any mention of the note or of suicide. He probably thinks he might give me ideas.
Supposing he had been able to articulate his real situation to Wright back in February, which was unlikely, Miles knew that the defence attorney would have tried to talk him out of his plan to leave. Either they would have argued, or the inevitable conclusion would just have been put off until the next crisis. He had not felt strong enough, then, to deal with any of the man's trademark bullheadedness – and so he had lied, without so much as a second thought.
He was certain now that the note he'd left had done its job, but the knowledge brought him no satisfaction. At the time he had written it, during a recess on the last day of Lana Skye's trial, it had been true. Then, the prospect of further dishonouring the career that had been all he had to cling to since his trial had been too much to bear. He had intended it to prevent anyone from attempting to find or contact him, to irrevocably cut his last ties to a city and a country that had brought him nothing but grief and pain. It would be foolish to regret it now. Yet the feeling that he had made a mistake did not go away.
Miles put down his pen as a sudden wave of weariness washed over him. Too much small print and too little sleep. The warmth of the June air that penetrated even into his air-conditioned office didn't help. He switched his gaze from the papers in front of him to the window at his left. Resting his chin on the back of his hand, he looked out across the bustle of the Paris street below.
In summer, the Latin Quarter attracted tourists in large numbers, filling the sidewalks and roads with renewed colour and noise. In the distance, the midsummer sunlight touched the turrets and domes of the Palais de Justice, bringing the building into sharp relief against the skyline.
Unusually, the sight of it did not cause the familiar twinge in his heart. Today, his mind was elsewhere. He knew that in a few hours, in Los Angeles, Phoenix Wright would be standing up in court, once more defending Maya Fey against a charge of murder.
Detective Gumshoe had advised him about the case two days ago in a clumsy email. Even the bare facts made Miles recoil, as did any reference to the fakery practised by spirit mediums and their ilk. His childhood memories of Misty Fey and her repulsive claims to have channelled the soul of his father stirred his anger even now, whenever they crossed his mind. Still, he'd read through the notes and emailed Gumshoe in return, urging him to ignore the ridiculous suggestions of spiritual possession, to look beyond it at the people involved. "This murder was committed by a human, for a reason. And Maya Fey has no conceivable motive for this crime."
He also knew that this time, his sister would be the one facing Wright from the prosecutor's bench. There was no doubt in his mind that she had transferred to Los Angeles from the Prosecutor's Office in Hamburg to avenge her family's name, to succeed where he had failed, to demonstrate to the world – to Phoenix Wright, and probably to Miles himself – that Miles Edgeworth was nothing, and that the name of Von Karma was everything.
Miles wondered what angle of attack his sister would take in court. He had not seen her prosecute for several years now, so he had no idea if she had fully embraced her father's methods or if she had found her own path. If Maya Fey is convicted, Wright will be devastated. But she can't be guilty – it's simply not logical. He knew that Wright would fight this case with every ounce of his strength, just as he had the last time that Maya Fey was accused; just as he had when Miles himself had been on trial for his life. But Franziska was an unknown quantity, to Miles as well as to Wright. I can only hope she has not become as corrupt and blinded in her methods as I.
And yet, at the back of his mind, he considered the other option – that Maya Fey would be exonerated, and his sister would feel the bite of defeat for the first time. He knew the pain of that bite, and he knew how hard she, in particular, would feel it. The sense of guilt at his own actions returned in response to his conflicted feelings. It should be me trying this case. They'll destroy each other, and it's my fault.
"Monsieur Edgeworth?" The sudden interruption startled him. He'd forgotten that St- Juste was sitting in the chair on the other side of the desk, patiently awaiting any observations on the documents that Miles had in front of him.
"I apologise. I was distracted." Miles' eyes flicked back to the papers and he cleared his throat as he tried to bring his thoughts under control and back to the matter at hand. "I think we're finished here. I can't find anything amiss in the transcript. You can send it to the client with the usual covering letter."
St-Juste nodded, got to his feet, but made no move to collect up the documents. Then, very quietly, "If you don't mind me saying so, Monsieur Edgeworth, I don't think your heart is in the type of legal work that we do here. You do it very well, and very efficiently, but I think – perhaps you miss the prosecution bench too much?"
Miles froze for a second, his eyes fixed on his desk. He's observant, as always. Silently, he picked up his pen and capped it, waiting for the question to pass or for the legal secretary to leave. But when he looked up, it was to see St-Juste's brown eyes still waiting, still holding the question. Miles sighed.
"You're right, St-Juste. I do miss it." It didn't occur to Miles to askhow St-Juste knew that he'd been a prosecuting attorney in his previous life. After nearly four months here, he was accustomed to the legal secretary's seemingly exhaustive knowledge of the firm and all who worked there. It was knowledge that was dispensed discreetly and only when necessary, so it had never bothered him that the man seemed to know more than he should. In a strange way, it was comfortable not feeling forced to lie, or even to talk about himself at all, if he chose not to.
And today? What do I choose today? Miles looked down again at the documents in front of him. Then, he needlessly shuffled the papers together, and made a decision.
"One day, perhaps, I will stand up in a court of law again." He absently traced a finger around the seal on the contract that lay in front of him, still awaiting a signature. "For now, I am content to be here. I… lost my way." He hesitated, struggling to articulate his feelings. "I had to stop. I can't consider returning to court until I know, without doubt, that I fully understand what it means to call myself a prosecutor." And that I can trust my own judgement to be unclouded by the influence of another.
Miles felt the heat of embarrassment creep slowly across his face in response to his own uncommon eloquence. Paris seemed to be rubbing off on him a little – in Los Angeles, he would never have spoken so freely to a colleague, to someone that he had known less than a few months. There, he hadn't even been able to talk about himself to people he'd known for years. That thought brought with it a flash of regret. But St-Juste was a calm, perceptive man, who did not make quick judgements or hasty decisions. Miles had come to value his opinion and regard him highly during his time here. He was the kind of man he felt his father would have approved of, and the kind that Von Karma, undoubtedly, would have despised.
St-Juste smiled when their eyes met again, but his expression was one of quiet concern. "Surely your family and friends must miss you?"
This time, Miles kept his voice flat, and he looked away. "I… don't have any family anymore. Only my sister, and at present… we are not on speaking terms." He recalled the last time he had seen his father, as they stepped into the elevator together after the trial. He recalled Von Karma facing him from the prosecution bench, but dismissed the image of that piercing gaze as soon as it materialised. He felt increasing discomfort as the conversation veered toward issues he was far more sensitive about than internal debates over his past mistakes and the process of law and justice. I haven't changed that much, it seems.
Almost as if St-Juste sensed the subtle shift in atmosphere, he moved on, without missing a beat. "And your friends?"
Miles considered that, picked up his pen, and turned it in his fingers thoughtfully, eyes remaining averted from the legal secretary. "Perhaps. There was a man – another lawyer. We were friends once, many years ago. Last year… he saved my life. And I… started to trust him. But I also blamed him for bringing shame on my reputation as a prosecutor. I was wrong."
"And now – I'm not sure that he'll ever forgive me for leaving the way I did."
There was silence for a moment.
"Then, you must explain your actions to him, Monsieur Edgeworth. If he is truly a friend, he will forgive you."
"Perhaps." Miles repeated, softly. He still held the pen in his hand, but its motion had ceased. His attention drifted to the window again, and he frowned, memories of his childhood flickering in his mind like images seen through a zoetrope. "We've both changed, Edgeworth."
"'Dis-moi et j'oublierai; montre-moi et je me souviendrai peut-être; implique-moi et je comprendrai (see note) '," said St-Juste, with a smile. "A wise proverb to bear in mind, I think."
Miles was unsure if St-Juste took his continued silence as a polite attempt to evade any further discussion, but he was relieved that the conversation seemed to be over. With one last, thoughtful look in his direction, the legal secretary picked up the papers from the antique desk and exited the room quietly. Miles watched him go with a strange mixture of calm and concern that perhaps he had said too much.
Later, when the long shadows of evening started to creep into the office, Miles put away his files with a sigh, checking his watch for the thousandth time in the past couple of hours, and wondering what was happening in the courthouse in Los Angeles.
He had half expected one of Wright's letters to arrive at the apartment in the first couple of months that he'd been in Paris. He had become so used to the defence attorney's missives following him around all his life that the sudden absence of perpetually childish handwriting on mismatched stationery seemed strange now. But he had been here almost four months, and still, there had been no letter. Miles knew that he wouldn't be that hard to find if someone really wanted to locate him. His German passport had served as ID; he'd kept out of the public eye, avoided using credit, and been careful with his bank accounts. But at the same time, he wasn't masquerading under a false name, and he was living in the Von Karma family apartment. Anyone with both quick wits and persistence could have located him, had they really wanted to, and those were both qualities that he knew Phoenix Wright possessed in abundance.
Miles told himself that he had never been expecting a letter, but in truth, that had not stopped him… hoping? Perhaps that was too strong a word. He grimaced impatiently at his own sentimentality. Why do I even care, for God's sake? I didn't answer his letters for fifteen years, didn't even read most of them. I should be glad I don't have it on my conscience anymore.
He took down his jacket from the hook behind the door, and as he did so, he caught sight of himself in the mirror and paused. Miles wondered if anyone from Los Angeles would even recognise him now. He barely recognised himself. Gone was the mirage of the flamboyant prosecutor he had once been accustomed to seeing every day. Here, he wore a three-piece single-breasted suit, a white shirt and a plain burgundy necktie. George had done exceptionally fast work making up the suits – two black, two grey – and the first had been delivered to his apartment just after his return from Hanover. His only vanity now was a plain, gold tiepin which reminded him of the one that his father used to wear.
Back in Los Angeles, his deliberate choice of work clothing had served its intended purpose, but had brought with it the added inconvenience of making him easily recognisable both in and out of court. Here, there was nothing to distinguish him from a thousand other businessmen who worked and lived in Paris. It was a kind of anonymous freedom he had forgotten ever existed.
As usual, Miles was the last to leave the office, and he smiled to himself as he deadlocked the main door on his way out. Some habits are harder to break than others, it seems.
His walk home took him towards the Jardin du Luxembourg, past cafés and bookstores – many opening late into the evening over the summer months to cater for the tourists who crowded to the area. Some days, he stepped into a shop to browse through antiquarian books, or sipped tea at a pavement café while he watched the world go by. Some days, he picked up a newspaper and spent the evening sitting in front of the French window at the apartment with a bottle of good wine to hand.
Once, he had even indulged an often fondly remembered university vice, and called into a tabac to buy a pack of Gitanes Brunes. He had been waiting to pay when he spotted a Steel Samurai postcard on a rack by the register. Given his situation, the irony of Will Powers standing in full costume against the backdrop of the Palais de Justice with the slogan'Pour la Grande Justice!' had not escaped him. He'd bought the card and stuck it on the wall above his desk in the apartment, although whether looking at it resulted in self-mockery or self-reproach depended on his mood. The cigarettes still remained mostly untouched on the kitchen counter.
At weekends, Miles kept his own company, and when he wasn't reading, he amused himself by shopping for food at the market on Rue Mouffetard, or taking walks in the Jardin du Luxembourg. A small jazz club on a back street in the Marais became his sanctuary on those nights when insomnia or the desire to escape from his own thoughts and the voice in his head drove him out of the apartment. He found it infinitely relaxing to have no one else to please, no one to answer to, but there wasn't a day that went by where he didn't miss Pess. In the evenings, or at night, as he read books or snatched a few hours of sleep, he found the lack of that warm body curled at his side was a constant ache.
Despite the solitude, it was a peaceful way to live, and a complete contrast to Los Angeles, where he'd been constantly answerable to Von Karma, and a target for the media from the moment that he'd first appeared in court as Manfred's co-counsel.
His own notoriety had been assured when it was reported that he'd driven his first defendant to suicide and displayed no remorse when he left court in full view of the television cameras. From then on, he'd practically become a recluse, as the press monitored his every move, hoping to find some crack, some weakness in the façade of the man they had dubbed the Demon Prosecutor. Then, he'd been indifferent to the appellation and to the outrage over his manipulation of witnesses or evidence. Even when renewed rumours had circulated in the wake of SL-9, it had simply been an irrelevance – the only things that had mattered to him had been the guilty verdicts and the approval of his mentor.
"You BASTARD!" The gavel's measured slam had heralded a guilty verdict, and then all hell had broken loose. The defendant lunged to the side, taking the bailiffs by surprise and charging across the courtroom floor as people descended on him from all directions, shouting the alarm. Miles was trapped as the man, face convulsed with rage and fear, pushed himself up the steps to the prosecution bench. Miles felt his pulse quicken and he stepped back involuntarily as the man reached forward and grabbed him by the lapels. "You filthy liar! I wasn't there. Tell them the truth!"
There was no time to think, no time to respond. Bailiffs piled onto his attacker at last, but the grip on his jacket did not loosen. The combined weight of the court officials and defendant pulled Miles to the floor, and he struck his head on the handrail as he was dragged partway down the steps. Stunned, he reached out to grab the rail and prevent his forward motion, just as the bailiffs regained control of the situation.
"Sir, are you all right?" One of them was huffing.
"Get away from me," Miles spat, clutching the side of his head as he struggled to his feet. "I'll have you all fired, you incompetent idiots." Sharp pinpoints of light fizzed around the edges of his vision, and he cursed under his breath at the prospect of the bruise he would undoubtedly be sporting by the next day. Schiete! Verdammt nochmal…
"That's going to be some bruise, Prosecutor Edgeworth," a woman's voice, calm and smooth, echoed his own thoughts perfectly. "I do hope you don't have a date tonight." He looked up briefly, then deliberately returned his attention to straightening his suit and dusting himself down. She continued to watch him, arms crossed and head tilted to one side.
"Miss Fey. Is there something I can do for you?"
"You had no evidence to link our client to the crime scene, did you? In fact, I can't help but wonder if you found evidence that may have cast doubt on it."
She was right, of course. Not that it mattered. The defendant was guilty, just as they always were. It was of no consequence to him if eyewitnesses were confused about where the accused had been at the time of the murder; if there was a theatre ticket to suggest he hadn't even been there. The witnesses had been easy enough to convince otherwise during questioning, and if the defence had failed to discover any contradictions in their testimony, it was not his job to do it for them. It would only serve to drag out the trial and risk a guilty man being set free to murder again.
"The verdict has been handed down. Mr. Grossberg had ample opportunity to cross-examine. The evidence offered in this trial is a matter of public record."
"The public record doesn't include the evidence you didn't present."
"That is irrelevant to the proceedings, Miss Fey."
"But it's not irrelevant to the application of justice, Prosecutor Edgeworth. I'm giving you notice on behalf of Grossberg and Associates that we will appeal."
Their eyes met, just for a second, and he saw the anger lurking behind her calm demeanour, met it with a flicker of contempt.
"I can assure you that the outcome will be exactly the same and that justice will most certainly be served – especially after today's… display."
Quite deliberately, he allowed a slow but humourless smirk to form on his lips, and was rewarded by seeing her expression harden.
"I can't condone what our client just did. But he was right – you are a bastard."
She turned on her heel and was gone.
Then, he'd been indifferent to the opinion of Misty Fey's daughter, and had relished writing up an indictment for assault against Grossberg's client. He'd even laughed about it later when he sat in his mentor's office with a tumbler full of ice pressed against his temple and another full of brandy in his hand.
Now, he was ashamed to remember that incident, and many others like it. He couldn't even count the number of times he knew he had used similar tactics to get a conviction. He'd never knowingly forged evidence, but he had failed to disclose it, browbeaten witnesses, deliberately led the defence astray, used court protocol to his own advantage, and pulled any number of tricks during trials to wrong foot his opponents. And as in the SL-9 trial, he was sure that there had been times when he had simply not asked enough questions about the evidence that passed through his hands, and particularly when that evidence came from Manfred. How many innocent people did I get convicted? How many more guilty ones walked free because we… I didn't investigate further? He wasn't sure if he would ever know; if he would ever be able to redress the balance, or if he could trust himself enough to try.
His duties at Marceau, Defès et Associés were light compared to the workload he used to haveat the Prosecutor's Office. There was space to breathe and to think, away from the pressures that had felt insurmountable when he was in Los Angeles. At least, here, doing the job he was doing, and removed from anyone that he could do harm to, he felt he could safely try to rediscover the love for justice and the law that his father had instilled in him as a child, and that he had put aside as an adult.
Not for the first time, he wondered how Gregory Edgeworth would feel if he knew that his son had become a prosecutor, devoting his life to convicting those that his father would have defended to the end. If he knew how easily Miles had been persuaded from his ambitions to follow in his footsteps, and how quickly his memory had been put aside. He wondered if he would ever be able to stand up in court again as a prosecutor, without a sense of shame at his own disloyalty.
Miles was not given to romantic illusions. He was aware of his own limitations and didn't expect to undergo the kind of personal transformation that one read about in works of fiction or religious tracts. But if he could just reclaim his father's legacy, he felt that it would be enough.
His command of French had already been good when he arrived, and it was improving daily, the more he spoke to people and the more he walked about. He had purchased some law books and philosophy tracts to challenge his reading skills, and St-Juste had been helping him decipher some of the more arcane phrases, as well as recommending further reading and specific titles. Even his interest in history had been rejuvenated, and he eagerly worked his way through articles on the French Revolution simply for the fun of learning.
He'd discovered in the course of one of their conversations that St-Juste was a fellow connoisseur of tea, so on occasion, they ventured out from the office to sample the menus at a selection of cafés in the area. St-Juste knew them all – from dark, Russian teashops in hidden back streets, to the glossier places that served expensive pastries to foreign tourists.
Miles was full of curiosity about the French legal system, and St-Juste was happy to answer any questions to the best of his ability, so their conversation when out of the office invariably turned in that direction. The legal secretary seemed amused by his interest, but made no effort to discourage it. Occasionally, they would find themselves joined in cafés by acquaintances of St-Juste, apparently by chance. At first, Miles assumed that St-Juste simply knew a lot of people after many years of working in the area, and had a wide circle of professional contacts. But it became increasingly common for them to be in company, and he realised that most of those who ended up sharing their table were students or professors from the nearby Sorbonne University. Miles began to suspect that perhaps St-Juste was subtly trying to provide him with more opportunities to acquire information. Although he never commented on it, inwardly, he smiled, and took advantage of the chance to indulge his rediscovered interest in the law for its own sake. He was surprised by how much he enjoyed the impromptu lunch debates, but at the same time, he was becoming increasingly ashamed as they demonstrated how restricted his own education had been and how hidebound he had become in the past fifteen years.
The last time he remembered feeling a genuine passion for learning was in grade school. He had studied the books his father always had around the house, constantly questioning him about his work and concepts that, as a child, he found difficult to grasp from the dusty pages. His father had always been able to explain things in such a way as to make them fascinating, and he'd encouraged Miles' curiosity in everything from science to art. He remembered rare but treasured weekend trips to museums and galleries, where he and his father would ponder various exhibits and works of art together. He also recalled frequent visits to the city library where his father had indulged an interest in a variety of subjects, either for research or simply for pleasure, and where Miles had often kept him company with a book of his own until late evening.
"If I read all the books in here, will I know everything there is to know?" His father had smiled at his whispered question, albeit somewhat wearily."Well, you'll know everything there is to know in these books, certainly – but there are a million more books out there still to be read and thousands of new ones every day. No one ever knows everything, Miles. There's always something to learn in the world and always something new to be found. That's part of the fun of being alive." Miles had considered that, his eight-year-old brow furrowed at the concept of infinite shelves filled with infinite books, until his father gave him a gentle push. "Now go and see if you can remember where we found those books on Rembrandt last time – I still need to get more information for the fraud case I'm working on."
When he'd first arrived at the Von Karma house, he'd been overwhelmed to find that it had its own library – he'd never stayed anywhere that had such a treasure under its roof. But he'd quickly found that in his new home, frivolous indulgence and time wasting were frowned upon, and his reading had gradually diminished into a largely utilitarian regime as the months and years wore on. Learning under the tutorship of Manfred Von Karma had been a means to an end; a strictly marked path that only took in a narrow field of knowledge and one set of rules.
Even while at university and studying for the bar in Los Angeles, the pressure of his nightmares and the well-ingrained doctrines of Von Karma had ensured that he never strayed. Any desire he had once held to learn everything from every angle had given way under the burden of concentrating on what he needed to know to pass examinations and to exact revenge on the guilty as a prosecuting prodigy in Los Angeles. And even within that study, there had been a silent understanding of what to retain, and what to disregard, as soon as the immediate aim had been achieved. As far as Von Karma was concerned, qualifications were just an obstacle to be overcome, not an opportunity to expand knowledge beyond the confines of necessity.
"When we first met, I promised that I would teach you everything you need to know to bring the guilty to justice. Anything else is superfluous, and you must learn to recognise the Robert Hammonds of this world, wherever they are. I will ensure that you become as great a lawyer as your father. But you must trust me to know what is best for you, Miles." And for fifteen years he had, without question.
Looking back, Miles wondered now if the gradual, but relentless, narrowing of his world view that Von Karma had implemented had been part of the intentional erosion of his free will, or if it merely reflected the man's own single-mindedness. Whatever had been the motivation, the effects were undeniable. The automatic weighing of everything that he heard, thought or saw against the absolutes set down by Manfred was a reflex ingrained so deep that the effort required to interrupt it was a constant drain.
During a conversation with one of the French professors of law, Miles had discovered that St-Juste's wife was an administrator at the Sorbonne, and that his daughter was at the same university studying the law. This had led him to venture a question to St-Juste about why he himself had not become an attorney, but it seemed as sensitive a subject for the legal secretary as Miles' personal circumstances were for him. St-Juste had politely changed the subject, and Miles had regretted the intrusion instantly. Thereafter, their conversations had returned to the safer areas of work, the law, and the numerous packages of weird and wonderful blends of tea from La Maison des Trois Thés that Miles kept carefully shelved and labelled in his office. The latter were often sampled appreciatively while St-Juste translated particularly difficult passages in some of the law books that Miles had acquired.
Sometimes, Miles took an afternoon away from the office and walked over to the Palais de Justice to sit in the gallery and watch prosecutors and defence attorneys dance their dance. At first, it felt painful to be removed from the proceedings, but he reminded himself that observing trials had been one of the methods by which he'd learned to be a prosecutor in the first place. If he ever hoped to take up that role again, this was a logical place to relearn those lessons. Initially, he'd struggled to understand some of the quick fire French and the legal terms that were bandied back and forth; but with time, study and St-Juste's help, his understanding of the procedure and the banter had improved.
He often found himself gripping the wooden seat and willing the attorneys to spot the contradictions in evidence. He could sense when prosecutors were bending the truth, just as he had himself, once. He could see when defence attorneys were incompetent or unskilled, and it reminded him of the times that he had welcomed such men and taken pleasure in decimating their arguments and making them look like fools in front of their clients. Now, he felt a growing frustration at their ineptitude.
He found it interesting to observe the jury system that was in effect here. He'd studied it at college, of course, but all his prosecuting work had been in Los Angeles, where the system had been abandoned at the same time that the three-day trial system had been introduced. Not that he found it had any real bearing on the interactions of the prosecution and defence. It amused him how similar things were here, despite the differences in language and culture. Objections and counter objections flew across the court, punctuated by the staccato of hands hitting desks, and accompanied by grand gestures that owed more to theatrics than to the law.
Gradually, over the passing weeks, he had begun to see that the prosecutors and defence attorneys were not the most important part of this tableau. Nor was the judge, or even the jury, in reality. None of them were gods. They were just men. But by sifting through the evidence and the testimony, gradually and painstakingly arguing every point, the best lawyers were able to find their way to the important heart of the trial: the truth. He was sure that, to other people, that was self-evident, but to him, it was a revelation.
It was as if Gregory Edgeworth had whispered in his ear, the first time that long-forgotten knowledge about the purpose of the trial system had filtered back into his mind. Accompanying it was the realisation that it did not really matter that, as an attorney, he had chosen to sit on the opposite side of the court. What mattered was that, in doing so, he had squandered the ideals that he once held, and forsaken the real purpose of the law.
"But don't you get mad when the prosecutor waves his finger at you and objects to your evidence?" His father had chuckled at that. "You mean, like this?" And he'd jabbed an exaggerated and alarming forefinger in his son's direction and laughed some more. "If he can see something wrong with it, then it's his job to say so, Miles. Just as it's my job to cross-examine his witnesses and object to the evidence he presents when I can see contradictions. If that didn't happen, we'd never find out if people are lying, or if the police have made mistakes. It's my job to defend my client to the best of my ability, but if he's guilty, then it's the prosecutor's job to prove it. The evidence will always lead to the truth if you look hard enough. That's how our legal system works."
He could see it again, now. But seeing it was not the same as being able to practice it. Miles could not swear that, if he returned to court as a prosecutor, he would be able to resist the temptation of his years of conditioning towards achieving perfection and guilty verdicts at all costs; to resist the constant and persistent whisper of his mentor in his ear. He'd given in to it too often, and the fear of doing so again – ending up on the path that Von Karma and Gant had walked before him – was still very real.
Back at the apartment, Miles sat down at his desk to reread the information that Gumshoe had sent him about Wright's latest case, while he waited for the detective to call. His first murder case since I left, and this one is a case he couldn't abstain from. Has he been avoiding them? I can't believe he's not in demand after last year – the entire police department under investigation, one prosecutor on death row, one in jail on corruption charges, and another driven to apparent suicide. Not a bad score for a rookie's first year – he must be a defendant's dream come true. He smiled grimly, chin resting on interlaced fingers.
It just didn't make sense. Why wouldn't Wright be trading on that reputation by now?
He remembered the unwavering conviction that he'd observed in the defence attorney during trials. That absolute, unshakeable belief in his client, and his dogged refusal to back down, even in the face of the most damning testimony. The way Wright had responded to Miles' own confession about his father's death; immediately preparing a new defence, never stopping to consider for one second that Miles could possibly be guilty.
He'd asked Wright about that later, on one of the occasions that the defence attorney had persuaded him to go for coffee between trial sessions. Those blue eyes had widened in surprise, and then Wright had laughed, in the same way that his father had laughed at his more naïve questions. "Because it was just a nightmare, Edgeworth. I knew it couldn't be real." He'd shaken his head, suddenly serious. "The initial investigation was a mess, and the trial was even worse. But the truth had to be in the evidence, somewhere. I just had to find it and prove it in court."
He'd made it sound so simple. Then it occurred to him that perhaps Wright wasn't avoiding cases so much as not finding ones that he could believe in. Could it be that he could only bring himself to defend so completely if he believed in his client absolutely? Surely not. But the more Miles considered it, the more he wondered. It would be just like him. He remembered the growing confidence that he had felt, facing Wright across the court during the Skye trial. The instinctual leap of faith he'd taken by requesting that the defence attorney take responsibility for calling witnesses to the stand. I trusted him. I trusted him because he trusted his client. It was an alien thought to Miles, the notion of having that belief and trust in someone even before the first testimony had been heard, the first piece of evidence presented. It made him feel uncomfortable, as if he'd come upon a hidden door that led someplace where the rules did not apply, where logic was secondary to emotion. Did I make a mistake? Did I gamble it all on a lucky guess by someone I knew fifteen years ago? Or was that how my father felt about his clients, too? Maybe that's truly what it means to be a defence attorney.
He'd believed that Maya Fey was a murderess, once. But now, he had an additional memory of her. He remembered the moment when she had deliberately put herself in contempt of court to prevent a premature verdict in his own trial. She'd been escorted out of court by the bailiff, almost in tears, but had smiled at him defiantly as she passed the defendant's bench. His fingers tightened around each other at the memory.
But that doesn't mean she isn't guilty this time. She was the only one in that room. And she claims to be a spirit medium. He could feel the animus in his heart even as the thought crossed his mind, and he remembered Misty Fey. She lied. Can her daughter possibly be any less of a deceiver? Wright would be easy to convince, after all.
And there it was. Despite everything he knew now, despite everything he'd learned over the past few months, he could feel it there, at the back of his mind, cold and immovable – the suspicion, the instinctual desire to convict even though motive or evidence might be lacking – just to be sure, just because of what the defendant represented. No matter which path he took, he always ended up at the same point, with that same, quiet voice in his head that had dominated and controlled him for so long.
"They all lie, Miles. You know that."
Miles closed his eyes, feeling defeated. The thought of standing up in a court of law and trying to live up to Gregory Edgeworth's words filled him with dread.
I'm sorry father. I'm not ready.
(Note) "Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand."