He eased away and went to the bathroom. He washed the sweat from his face and salt from his eyes. As he returned, she took his place. After a few minutes, she was back in a towel gown and lay down beside him.
‘God, darling, that was something.’
‘Yes, love. Thank you. I was being selfish.’
‘No,’ she protested. ‘I wanted you to be. You haven’t been like that for ages. It was nice. Not every time, but this time.’
Seconds passed. He decided to try something. ‘Can we talk more?’
‘I’m not sure I’ll make any sense after that,’ she said, yawning.
‘Jed…’ he said.
‘We should forget about Jed.’
‘Just one thing. I’m worried he’s not telling the truth.’
‘You know him better than me.’
‘But you have good instincts.’
‘I wouldn’t want to guess.’ She stirred herself and sat up. ‘Shall I tell you a story about Jed?’
‘Go on.’
‘At conference two years ago, I found myself briefly alone with him. It was after we’d had a tiff, maybe I was showing it. “Hope things are all right with you and Robbie,” he said. “Fine,” I said lightly. “Just the ups and downs of life. Not been easy for him.” I tried to close it down and move away. He touched me on my arm. “Look,” he said, “Robbie’s still my oldest friend, just want to make sure things are all right.” Then he hesitated, locking eyes with me. “If you ever need a shoulder to cry on or someone to help with him, you know where to come.” I said I really appreciated it. Never quite knew what to make of it.’
‘Weird. You never told me that.’
‘No, at the time I didn’t see the point.’
‘Was he trying to come on to you?’
‘I’m honestly not sure.’ She paused. ‘God, can you imagine it? I’m not even sure he likes women. No, I don’t think it was that. I thought that, in some odd way, he missed you. Maybe wanted to find a way back to you.’
‘That is weird.’
‘Yes. You mentioned instinct. That’s all this is. I suspect Jed would find it hard to lie. He may be very clever. But you could never accuse him of having an overactive imagination. All that frustration. All arising from others not seeing his logic, not agreeing with him. I always felt I could see right through him except for that one conversation. And that wasn’t to do with lying. It was more he couldn’t for once bring himself to say what he really meant. Perhaps because it was about emotion, not reason.’
‘Hmm…’ he murmured. He wished she had answered the question differently. He wished now that he had never asked it. He had nearly allowed his guard to drop.
He needed that ally. Why was Mark taking so long to come back to him about Quine?
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I truly think that’s what it was with Jed. Not trying it on with me, but trying to find a route to you.’
15
‘The defence calls Stanley Hull to the stand.’
Words that Quine would never forget, spoken on that defining day in the Royal Courts of Justice by his and The Post’s QC. Words followed by that blank look from Stanley and his own sudden presentiment.
‘Could you please give your full name?’ continued the QC.
‘Stanley Norman Hull.’
‘Could you describe your employment at the company called IPRM?’
‘Yes, I was a field adviser at International Personnel and Resource Management, later IPRM, from 1994 to 1998. After losing half my leg in a landmine explosion in Liberia, I became an accounts clerk. I continued at IPRM in that role until 2017.’
‘After your retirement, you began a correspondence with Joseph Quine, political editor of The Post newspaper.’
‘Correct.’
‘Why?’
‘He seemed interested in Quentin Deschevaux. I had information of value to him. Initially I sent him the odd thing anonymously.’
‘Why so?’
‘To test his interest.’
‘Did it?’
‘Yes. He wrote a couple of stories based on what I sent him.’
‘And then?’
‘I decided to meet him.’
‘What was your primary motive?’
‘As I said, I believed I had information of value.’
‘You mean journalistic value. Public interest value.’
‘Well, not just that.’
‘Excuse me, Mr Hull, could you explain?’
‘Well, I reckoned there was financial value too. Not just for me but for Mr Quine, too, and his newspaper. To sell copies.’
The QC cast Quine a worried glance. Quine shook his head. It was the first drip of poison.
‘Are you claiming that the issue of money was included in your conversations?’
‘Yes, he asked me himself. Did I want money? I said I wouldn’t refuse. He said it could only happen further down the line when he’d studied all the material.’
‘Did you ever receive money from Mr Quine or The Post?’
‘No,’ replied Stanley. ‘I’m still waiting.’
There were sniggers in court. Quine’s head drooped, his heart sinking. Stanley had never mentioned money again after that first meeting. It had all been about exposing Deschevaux’s crime. He was sure Stanley had not been faking that. His loathing had been real. He thought back to their last meeting two weeks before. Everything had seemed on track. As a final reassurance, with two days to go, he’d called round to the flat. There was no answer, so he’d texted. A reply had come back instantly. See you in court, am prepared. He’d had no tremor of concern. Perhaps he should have stuck around and waited for Stanley’s return, but there had seemed no need.
‘Very amusing, Mr Hull,’ said the QC, trying to ride over the sniggering. ‘In fact, you were always clear with Mr Quine that your motive was entirely to help expose a multiple murder which took place under Mr Deschevaux’s command in Sierra Leone in 1997. Were you not?’
‘I’m not sure I’d put it quite like that.’
The QC ploughed on, as if he had not heard him. ‘In fact so clear – and you are to be applauded for this selfless act in the public interest – that you not only provided Mr Quine with a detailed affidavit and precise geography and timing of this crime, you also supplied a large quantity of documents to Mr Quine to explain the global scope of IPRM’s activities and the nature of the work the company did in Liberia and other countries.’
‘Yes. Well,’ he paused, ‘at the time, that was how I interpreted it.’
Quine instantly saw it. The train was approaching, he was chained to the line, in seconds he’d be crushed under its wheels. From now on, it seemed to happen in slow motion.
‘At the time, Mr Hull?’ asked the QC, the scales falling from his eyes too.
Stanley fidgeted, a hush fell, each person in the courtroom aware only of their own breaths. ‘Yes. In recent days I have had cause to reconsider my understanding of certain matters.’ It was as if Stanley had been scripted and was trying to remember his words. ‘I must apologize both to Mr Quine and to Mr Deschevaux – I have realized I misunderstood a key moment. I have now been told that Mr Deschevaux’s instruction to the leader of the squad of government soldiers attached to us was different to what I thought I’d heard. It appears that Mr Deschevaux’s instruction was that these prisoners needed to be handed over to Freetown police and that they should remain under guard until the police arrived.’
‘But, Mr Hull, as you swore in your affidavit, by this time there was no government in any serious sense, nor police.’
‘Yes, sir. And it remains the case that the massacre took place. However, this was by the order and under the leadership of the government army officer attached to us. Perhaps he understood the collapse was imminent. In any event he made his own decision. He did not follow Mr Deschevaux’s order. The instruction he passed on to his squad in Krio was the opposite – it was to execute the prisoners. The executions must have taken place after Mr Deschevaux, I and another co
lleague had left the scene.’
‘Your original account to Mr Quine was totally different. Why have you changed it, Mr Hull?’
‘As I’ve said, my original account was wrong and I apologize.’
‘Come on, Mr Hull, why have you gone back on the true account you gave Mr Quine?’
‘It was not the true account, sir. I am sorry for my error.’
There was a brief, shocked silence, broken by mutterings from the court. ‘I see. Thank you, Mr Hull.’ The QC addressed the judge. ‘My Lord, may I request an adjournment to seek instructions from my clients?’
‘You most certainly may,’ replied the judge caustically.
The withdrawal to a meeting room of the QC, his junior, The Post’s editor, its financial director and himself was the most dispiriting walk of Quine’s life.
‘Nobbled,’ he said as they slumped into chairs around the table.
‘Unless he was playing you all along, Joe,’ said the financial director harshly.
‘That’s impossible,’ said Quine. ‘He’s not showing it, but he’s terrified. It’s all rehearsed.’
‘Unless he’s been bought,’ said the junior.
‘Makes no difference now, does it?’ said Quine. ‘Either way, it won’t be visible. IPRM act without trace. It’s their business, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t beat yourself up, Joe,’ said the editor. ‘We should have had a twenty-four-hour guard on him.’ He glanced at the financial director. ‘I suggested it. I was told it was not a good use of resources. Bit of a misjudgement there, I’d say.’
‘Post-mortem for another day,’ said the QC. ‘We have to offer to apologize and settle immediately. I’ll open negotiations.’
‘No,’ said Quine. It was a cry from the heart. ‘I can’t give in. Not to that man. He’s evil.’
‘You have to.’ They said it as one.
‘I don’t have to.’ He looked at the editor. ‘The Post can settle. I’ll fight on even if it breaks me.’ He turned to the junior barrister with whom he’d spent so many hours preparing the case. ‘Fiona?’
The junior looked from Quine to her QC. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Tell Joe what you think.’
‘I’m sorry, Joe,’ she said, a soft, evenly modulated voice which could hit the volume button if needed.
‘Is it all over?’
‘In one sense, yes.’
‘What sense?’
‘In front of this judge, I can’t see you winning.’
‘And another sense?’
‘Joe, we both know Stanley’s been “nobbled” as you put it. One way or another, maybe a bit of both. You and I spent enough time with him to know his story’s genuine. We also know that IPRM is a deeply unpleasant organization. Because in civil proceedings “hearsay” evidence is admissible,’ she glanced at the QC who nodded in agreement, ‘you can continue your defence against the libel action. We can produce Stanley’s affidavit, you can describe your conversations with him, we can try to demonstrate what sort of organization IPRM is.’
‘Then,’ said the QC, ‘they’ll bring Stanley back, perhaps even Deschevaux himself. And they’ll rebut it all. The judge you’re in front of is a crusty old bastard. You saw just now he’s not interested in hearing another word.’
‘I agree,’ said Fiona. ‘I don’t want to stop you, Joe. However, Deschevaux’s true role in the massacre might come to light eventually. Africa has changed. This atrocity will be investigated on the ground – something I only wish we had been given the resources to do ourselves.’
‘You were right,’ said Quine, ‘I should have paid for it myself.’
‘No. Your paper should have done.’ She glanced at The Post’s editor and financial director. ‘As I said months ago. But that is past. Now, if you go on, you have a ninety-nine per cent chance of losing and it will probably bankrupt you. If the trial is later shown to be a miscarriage of justice and a witness has been suborned, you may be compensated. But the odds aren’t good.’
Quine looked round the four blank faces in the room. The two men from The Post were looking at the floor. ‘I’m in,’ he said at last. ‘I want to fight. If I go bust, so what. I’m broken anyway.’ He looked at the junior.
‘OK,’ said Fiona. ‘I’ll do it. Pro bono. Because it’s right. Because it’s you. And because he’s evil. It’s easier for me. I won’t lose money, just the case.’
She – all of them – were right. Deschevaux agreed a modest settlement of fifty thousand pounds with The Post; it printed a grovelling apology. Quine was not only required to resign from the paper, he was also hit with ‘exemplary’ damages by the judge for ‘wasting the court’s time in a futile pursuit of self-justification’, amounting to over two hundred thousand pounds and costs of three times that. In the final settlement, Quine agreed to sell his London flat to foot most of the bill but was allowed to keep a small amount of cash and a few possessions, including his camper van. The Post did at least not contest his company pension although the early severance devalued it.
He was indeed a broken man. But there was a postscript.
It began with a final communication to him via The Post which could only have come from Stanley. It was a plain card with a typed name and address label stuck on it. The name was Jack Edgerley, the place Faversham in Kent. There was only one person it could be. The ‘other bloke’. In this desolate period when he was wondering what to do with his shattered life, Quine caught the train to Kent, walked to the old part of Faversham, a terrace of Victorian houses leading down to the river, and rang the bell of one of them.
A burly man opened it. He seemed mid to late sixties, bald with a circle of close-cropped hair, dressed in a T-shirt revealing muscular arms. He glanced at Quine then up and down the street.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry to trouble you. Are you Jack Edgerley?’
‘What if I am?’
‘My name is Joseph Quine. I was sent your name and address. Anonymously.’ He lowered his voice. ‘But I know it came from Stanley Hull.’
‘Fucking hell,’ the man murmured. ‘Get inside.’
Quine followed him into a small front sitting room, its only noticeable feature two prints of sailing boats either side of a fireplace.
‘Who is it?’ came a female voice from upstairs.
‘It’s all right, I’ll deal with it.’ The man’s accent had a mild man of Kent twang. He did not offer Quine a seat. ‘I can’t talk to you.’
‘I understand,’ said Quine.
‘No, I mean it, I can’t talk to you.’
‘OK. I want you to allow me to ask a few questions. Then I’ll be off. I only ask you to nod or shake your head in reply. I’m not recording anything, we’re past all that. But at least this way you can say you never spoke to me.’
The man, clearly Jack Edgerley, took a deep breath. ‘For the third time, I can’t talk to you.’
‘I’m not asking you to. Just listen. Question one. Were my articles both true and accurate?’
Edgerley buried his face in his hands. Time passed. He abruptly turned and left the room. Quine waited. Sounds of toilet flushing and water running. He returned. ‘Jesus Christ.’ He looked out of the window. ‘Stanley fucking Hull, where are you now?’ he murmured. ‘Leaving me on my own, you old bastard.’
He turned back to Quine. He nodded.
‘Question two. Another way of putting it. Did Deschevaux personally order the executions?’
He nodded again.
‘Question three. Did Deschevaux personally take part in the executions?’
His head wobbled.
‘As far as you were able to see and hear, did Deschevaux personally take part in the executions?’
He nodded.
‘Question four. After the massacre, did Deschevaux continue to be a central presence at IPRM, even if no longer a named director or shareholder?’
Another nod.
‘Question five. Does Deschevaux continue to have substantial interests in IPRM globally via sh
ell companies or other unidentifiable vehicles?’
This time, Edgerley grimaced, apparently unsure which way to go.
‘Are you pretty sure he does but don’t have the inside knowledge to say for certain?’
He nodded.
‘Thank you,’ said Quine. ‘That conversation never took place. I’d like to continue. Would you be willing to do that?’
He shook his head.
‘OK, I’ll leave.’
Edgerley led him to the front door, opened it and checked the street. Quine exited and walked fast to be clear of the terrace. He felt transformed, energy rushing into every part of his body. Two weeks later he made the journey to Cornwall and installed himself at 7, The Waves.
To record the truth about Quentin Deschevaux felt like the overriding mission of his life. To keep himself on track he placed a large photograph of his target at the centre of his cork board, attaching it not with darts but with five drawing pins – one for each eyeball, the third for the centre of the forehead, the fourth through the tip of his nose and the fifth driven into the pronounced dimple on the chin. He then drew two dark red lines – one vertical, the second horizontal – to join the pins.
A crucifixion. Nothing less than Deschevaux deserved. Every day Quine glared at the now quartered face – its glinting eyes, glossy brown hair, military moustache.
Then, as the months passed and words were laid down, his mood changed. The simplicity of his new life, the sweep of the coast and power of the sea, calmed him. The book began to turn into his own journey. Mrs Trelight must have intuited a change in him and started occasionally looking into his room for a quick chat. He found himself welcoming it. He knew she would have checked him out on the net and read every piece she could find on the libel trial.
A Time to Lie Page 8
