by Peter Murphy
‘For six months, yes, he probably will.’
‘Talking of names, Harriet,’ Gareth continued, ‘is there any mention of Conrad Rainer, by any chance?’
Aubrey frowned and looked down at his shoes.
Harriet shook her head. ‘No. It only deals with this one case. Why do you ask?’
‘The Sunday Times mentioned him last week,’ Gareth replied. ‘There was a reported sighting of him in Brazil – São Paulo, if I remember rightly. Hearing about Daniel Cleary again reminded me of it.’
‘If you’re going on the run, Brazil is as good a place as any,’ Ben commented. ‘No extradition treaty with the UK.’
‘It’s all speculation,’ Aubrey said quietly. ‘There have been a lot of so-called sightings, but none of them has been verified, or anything close to it.’
There was a silence.
‘It was a strange business, Aubrey, wasn’t it?’ Ben asked.
‘In what way?’
‘Well, Rainer was being threatened by Cleary while he was trying a man who was also being threatened by Cleary. That’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I suppose you could look at it in that way.’
‘How else could you look at it? And he went through the whole trial without telling anyone, did he?’
‘Would you really expect him to, Ben? In the circumstances?’
‘I think he might have told Andrew Pilkington in confidence. Andrew is Treasury Counsel. He could have arranged protection for him.’
Aubrey shook his head.
‘But the whole story would probably have come out. He would have been taking a terrible risk.’
‘Perhaps so. But Cleary wasn’t just a personal problem, was he? He was also highly relevant to the case he was trying. Surely, at the very least, he should have – ?’
‘Recused himself?’ Aubrey laughed. ‘Yes, technically he should have, of course. But judicial propriety wasn’t the main consideration by then, was it? Conrad knew this was going to be his last case. If he’d told Andrew – or you – why he needed to hand the case over to someone else, that would have been the end of him, there and then.’
‘He could have found some reason, other than telling them that he was involved with Cleary,’ Ben replied. ‘A judge can always find a way out of trying a criminal case if he really wants to.’
‘But he didn’t want to,’ Aubrey said. ‘He thought that Henry Lang was provoked to kill his wife, and he thought a conviction for murder would have been a miscarriage of justice. He wanted to do everything he could to prevent that.’
‘In which he was successful,’ Gareth pointed out, ‘with a certain amount of help from Ben and Jess, of course.’
‘Yes, and I’m sure that the verdict would have eased his mind.’
‘Are you saying that Conrad was deliberately trying to steer the case towards manslaughter?’ Harriet asked.
‘That was obvious,’ Ben interjected, before Aubrey could reply. ‘Andrew Pilkington wasn’t pleased about it, and Jess and I were concerned that he was going too far, and that he might push the jury the other way. He had no criminal experience at all. It was sheer good luck that the jury came back with the right verdict.’
‘I don’t think that’s fair,’ Aubrey said morosely. ‘Conrad could have coped with any criminal trial, with help from the Bar. But he was under tremendous pressure. Even so, he did his best to get a just result. Some of us think that’s what judges are there for. I think you might at least give him some credit for that.’
‘And while we’re on that subject,’ Ben said, ‘Rainer knew all about the application we were going to make to admit Harriet’s evidence – the privilege question – because you had tipped him off about it.’
Aubrey smiled.
‘I believe I admitted that when you bearded me in my den at the time.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t know the whole story then, did I?’
‘Conrad may have consulted me about it and asked for my views, Ben. Judges are allowed to consult before making a decision, you know. If he hadn’t asked me, he would have asked one of the Old Bailey judges over lunch. It happens all the time.’
‘But you’d spoken to us about it before you spoke to Conrad,’ Ben replied. ‘There are rules, Aubrey, and the rules are there for a purpose.’
‘Are you going to shop me to the Bar Council, Ben?’
Ben shook his head. ‘No, of course not.’
‘Well, then…’
Gareth held up a hand.
‘All right. Let’s remember this is supposed to be a party. Everyone have another brandy.’
He refilled the glasses, and the tension slowly eased.
‘I have a different question,’ Gareth said, as they raised their glasses in a silent toast.
‘Off the record, Aubrey, you really don’t know where Conrad Rainer is?’
‘I honestly have no idea,’ Aubrey replied.
‘And you didn’t help him on his way?’
‘No comment.’
Gareth laughed.
‘I take it that you don’t think he was done in by Daniel Cleary?’
‘No.’
‘Or that Daniel Cleary murdered Greta Thiemann?’
‘No.’
‘Are the police ever going to find Conrad Rainer?’
‘No.’
They were silent for some time.
‘So what happened to Conrad Rainer, Aubrey?’ Gareth asked. ‘He’d been successful all his life: doing well at the Bar, nice home in the country, a wife with money. What on earth went so wrong for him?’
‘It wasn’t enough,’ Aubrey replied. ‘He wanted more. He wanted excitement, the thrill of gambling; and he found a woman who not only encouraged him, but made it all a lot more exciting – and a lot more dangerous – than he ever expected.’
He was silent for some moments.
‘But it was more than that,’ he added. ‘He wasn’t afraid of the danger. He courted it. He loved it. He loved every minute of it. He loved it so much that finally, he called down the storm, and he stood right in its path and faced it. And it carried him away.’
Author’s Note
In the course of my research for this book I took the fortunate decision to contact the Clermont Club to ask for their help. I told them that I was writing a novel, and that I wanted to set some of the scenes in the Club, and that I would very much like the chance to see the place for myself. I assured them that this was not another book about Lord Lucan, the Club’s most notorious member, but that he would play a peripheral role in the story. I didn’t have much confidence that they would be very keen on the idea. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I received a friendly, welcoming reply from Alison Sullivan, the Clermont’s general manager, inviting my wife Chris and myself to visit the Club and spend some time. Alison also offered to have members of her staff answer any questions I might have. Needless to say, I took full advantage.
Chris and I were made very welcome. Melodie Triffaux, the Clermont’s marketing executive, gave us a guided tour of William Kent’s magnificent town house at 44 Berkeley Square. As befits an important listed building, Kent’s design, including the famous staircase, has been carefully and lovingly preserved, but the Club has done far more than legally required to ensure its continuity and the Club’s presence there is almost inconspicuous. The house is one of the architectural glories of London and, regardless of the book, it was well worth the trip just to see it.
The casino manager, Marcello Benelli, was able to help me to reconstruct what the Club had looked like in 1970 and 1971, as the John Aspinall era was drawing to a close, but still three years before Lucan’s disappearance. He had some photographs from the period, and was able to tell me how the use of various rooms in the Club had changed since then – surprisingly little, as it turned out, but the
se are valuable details for an author. Marcello also took me through the mechanics of chemin de fer, a game which is no longer played commercially at the Club, but which had been a staple in its day. I had learned the basics from online sources, but there are many details that Marcello, with his long experience of casinos, brought to life for me.
As a parting gift, they gave me a copy of John Pearson’s The Gamblers (Arrow Books, London, 2007). I had already read Pearson’s book on Kindle, but it was nice, and very useful, to have it in hard copy. Pearson provides a penetrating insight into the group that frequented the Clermont at the time – not only Lucan, but also Dominick Elwes, James Goldsmith, Ian and Susie Maxwell-Scott, and others – and into the world of high-stakes gaming generally. It was a valuable resource.
As ever, my thanks to Ion and Claire at No Exit Press, my agent Annette Crossland, and my editor, Irene Goodacre. Thanks also to Chris, for whom the visit to 44 Berkeley Square, though enjoyable, must have been poor compensation for having a husband who spends so much time at his computer.
Copyright
First published in 2017
by No Exit Press
an imprint of Oldcastle Books
PO Box 394,
Harpenden, AL5 1XJ
noexit.co.uk
All rights reserved
© Peter Murphy 2017
Editor: Irene Goodacre
The right of Peter Murphy to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses,
companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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