Wig Betrayed

by Charles Courtley

  “Just go away – I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Time you did then, don’t you think?”

  Fortescue’s voice, sharp as a razor, cut in as he strode into the hall from a side entrance.

  Charles’s jaw dropped at the barrister’s unexpected entrance.

  “What gives you the right to come here..?”

  “Remember the trial? You instructed me that you were going to admit to manslaughter only – then you took the full rap! Don’t you recall what we were all told when we were called to the Bar? That it was an honourable profession dedicated to upholding the highest professional standards. That fellow barristers should always be able to trust one another. But at your trial you not only misled me but made me look a complete fool, too. Aren’t you, at the very least, sorry for that?”

  “Why should I be sorry? I was thinking of myself, my life...”

  “Come on! You led everybody a merry old dance admitting that you were responsible for that girl’s death but never getting down to specifics. Then you hinted to me that you weren’t actually guilty of murder but might be of manslaughter. Talk about clients behaving in a devious and slippery way towards their lawyers. You’re by far the most difficult person I’ve ever had to represent!”

  “Well, that’s your job, isn’t it? Dealing with difficult people.” There was silence as Fortescue took a seat next to Crossett. Then, startling everybody, he banged the table with his fist.

  “Damn it, man! You were a judge, used to hearing people prevaricate and fudge the whole time in court and that’s exactly what you did with me! Still doing it actually. I want the bloody truth, do you hear? Your wife and Giles don’t think that you did kill that girl. Just admitting responsibility for her death isn’t quite the same, is it? So I demand a straight answer to a straight question. Did you push her off the dam?”

  Charles looked down at the table.

  “I’ve said, time and time again, I’ve nothing further to add to my story.”

  Fortescue rose to his feet and raised his fist.

  “Unless you bloody well answer the question, I’ll fucking well hit you – in the presence of your wife and the Governor too. They’re watching, you know. If I struck you, even if you refused to make a statement of complaint, I’d still be charged and that would ruin my career. Those are the lengths I’m prepared to go to get to the bottom of this. Do you think I would normally contemplate doing anything so extreme?”

  He pulled back his fist, his arm trembling.

  “Are you really prepared to ruin my life as well as your own and your wife’s?” he hissed.

  Charles slumped in his chair and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “All right. I can’t let you do that. There was never any row and I didn’t push her. She actually dived off the top of the dam because she was under the influence of LSD.”

  Fortescue lowered his fists and sat down.

  “Tell us the full story, Charles, right from the beginning.”

  Then it all came out, not only Charles’s gradual infatuation with Anke and the drug taking which culminated in her pointless death, but also his growing depression as the result of the last cases he tried. At the end of it, his voice broke.

  “Don’t you see?” he mumbled. “It was one death too many. Only recently, I’d caused a sergeant to take his own life because of a sentence I’d passed and now someone else was dead because of me – I had to be punished for what I did.”

  Fortescue patted him on the shoulder.

  “Well, that’s quite a story, Charles. I’m sorry that I had to threaten you but I felt it was the only way I would get to the truth.”

  Stifling a sob myself, I turned to the Governor.

  “Will you allow me a visit, please? I’m sure he’ll see me now.”

  The Governor nodded.

  “Of course, Mrs Courtley.”

  Twenty-Six

  I sat back on the bench in the concrete exercise yard, revelling in the sunshine and cool air. I could imagine I was actually in a public park, free to walk around as much as I wanted. In reality, barred windows faced me belonging to the wing of Canning prison to which I had now been transferred. As a result, I spent more time out of my cell, with frequent access to the yard as I was now housed with older, more responsible, prisoners.

  I picked up the letter from Morris Byler, the solicitor whom I had instructed on the recommendation of Fortescue, and read it once again.

  It wasn’t going to be easy from the outset. The time allocated for an appeal against my conviction had lapsed. The first step in the process was to submit my sworn affidavit (setting out what had really happened at the dam and why I had chosen to take responsibility) to a High Court judge sitting in chambers.

  The solicitor was a tall, thin man with a dry manner who had left me in no doubt as to the difficulties that lay ahead.

  “We need a judge to grant you leave to appeal out of time, for a start,” Byler had said. “It’s such an unusual situation that he probably will, bearing in mind what Mr Crossett and Mr Fortescue have both said in their accompanying affidavits. Then it’s a question of him actually granting leave to appeal, which I anticipate he will refuse. No matter – we have the right to raise that with the full court anyway. So the end result will be a hearing which will deal with both aspects. With any luck, the court will decide the appeal on its merits at the same time as the granting of leave. Harris may be the best advocate there is, but the whole matter will depend on your evidence – and really, your evidence alone – to the court. There’s nothing to back it up, I’m afraid.”

  “Surely what Professor Dearman has to say about my condition counts for something?”

  “Only to a point. Indeed, the courts have come across it before in other cases. But it can’t be called wholly independent evidence which actually corroborates your story. Through an enquiry agent in Germany, I tried to contact anyone who knew Anke – someone who might have been able to tell us about a propensity for taking drugs – but without success. Even at university, she seemed to have been a loner. Her boyfriend in Berlin has disappeared too and she had no close relations who might have been able to help.”

  I closed my eyes in the sunshine, enjoying the warmth. Soon enough I would be back in my cell; hot and rank, whatever the weather. At least I didn’t have to share it, but could never escape from the repetitive rap music emanating from one cell or another further down the corridor.

  I knew I had punished myself enough now and at least the enormity of what I had admitted was no longer clouding my mind. The apathetic state of depression I’d succumbed to had been banished, at least temporarily, by Fortescue’s intervention. But the fact remained would anyone ever be able to understand why I had confessed to a crime which I hadn’t committed; indeed, a crime which hadn’t taken place at all?

  There was only my word to say that Anke had taken LSD that day and had actually dived over the dam. Would anybody believe that I had lied in the first place? It wasn’t as if I had been suffering, or was suffering now, from any sort of mental illness. The prison psychiatrist had only concluded that I was clinically depressed at the time he examined me.

  I scrabbled in my tobacco pouch and rolled a cigarette, which I smoked slowly. It wasn’t as good as my pipe, but it was some consolation. One of the few that would be left, if my appeal failed and I was to spend much of my life in prison – which remained a very real possibility.

  * * *

  From the appellant’s point of view, Court Number Six in the Royal Courts of Justice is an uncomfortable place. A small cage was set up high against the wall, on the right-hand side diagonally from where the judges sit. Inside the cage, there is only a narrow, hard bench to sit on and little room to stretch the legs. I found that the only place to put my documents was my lap.

  Lord Justice Massamore was presiding, flanked by two nondescript High Court judges who played little part in the proceedings. The former lived up to the sonority of his name. He was a he
avily-built man, with fleshy jowls and a husky voice. According to Fortescue, he had been a very successful QC in the libel field and possessed a fine brain but wasn’t renowned for his patience with those who appeared before him. The other judges simply looked inscrutable.

  Fortescue and the prosecutor came into court at the same time. Fortescue was followed by Byler who sat two rows back, and the prosecutor – a sturdily-built man with a neat, black beard – sat by the counsel who had appeared for the prosecution at the original trial.

  Fortescue rose and when he introduced his opponent as Mr Denys Cuthbertson I realized who he was; the son of the distinguished barrister, Dermot Cuthbertson, who had prosecuted me in front of a disciplinary tribunal so many years before.

  There was an exchange of legal formalities during which it became apparent that Cuthbertson had an amazing voice. Rich and deep, it resonated around the room and, together with his beard, made him look and sound like an Old Testament Prophet. It was almost reassuring in tone.

  I began to relax. Somehow, I had anticipated having to do verbal battle with somebody like Fortescue – sharp and incisive. It wasn’t until later that I realized how effective Cuthbertson’s manner would be.

  Soon, the important moment came when I was to give evidence. Let out of my cage, I descended into the courtroom via a narrow circular staircase (which exited into the well of the court) and went into the witness box. After giving my account to Fortescue, Cuthbertson lost no time in testing me on the crucial issue.

  “Let me put this to you straightaway, Mr Courtley,” he rumbled, “and please take as much time as you need to deal with it. How could you possibly plead guilty to murdering Anke Stillsmann when her death was, according to you, the result of her own reckless act?”

  “I felt compelled to take the blame for it. I’d allowed her to take the drug, after all. It may not seem rational now in the cold light of day, but that was the way I felt at the time. Let me try to put it into context.”

  I began to tell the court about my growing depression over the last few months, of the previous cases where I’d been racked by guilt, particularly Sergeant Cockaigne’s, and ended by telling them of the humiliating confrontation with Strawbridge outside the officers’ mess.

  Cuthbertson resumed his questioning.

  “All right. Well, let’s leave that aside for a moment, Mr Courtley, and explore what happened later. There was a trial coming up in weeks. Meanwhile, you saw Mr Fortescue in conference and we know that you canvassed a plea of guilty to manslaughter with him because that’s what he told the Crown you were prepared to offer in advance. So why didn’t you go down that road if it was just a question of feeling guilty because she’d died? ”

  “That might have been a possibility, if the prosecution had accepted the plea to manslaughter at the outset. But they wouldn’t, so I was required to give evidence in the trial. And that I couldn’t do because it would mean lying under oath.”

  “Come on, Mr Courtley, let’s be real.” Cuthbertson’s voice was seductively cajoling. “When the indictment was actually put to you – and, after all, as a barrister and judge, you’d seen this done countless times before – you faced up to it and pleaded guilty to murder not manslaughter. It was time to tell the truth! You knew exactly what you were doing – admitting your terrible crime in full. That’s the reality, isn’t it? No sane person would ever plead guilty to murder when they hadn’t committed the crime!”

  “I had to take responsibility for her death, don’t you see? But, I couldn’t bring myself to lie in court about what happened. Telling the truth in court is the bedrock of our legal system. I, of all people, know that – after all, I’d been a judge myself.”

  I looked towards Massamore, hoping for a reaction, but he remained impassive.

  “Very well. Let’s return then to your statement to the police for a moment and attempt to analyse what you actually said in it.”

  He read my statement to the court.

  ‘A few days ago, I killed a woman called Anna Stillsmann from Hanover. Her body was recently found washed up near the Wolfram Talsperre dam. We had a row and she fell over the wall and into the dam. I didn’t report what had happened to anyone. Earlier, she informed me that her parents had died in a car crash and she was all alone in the world.

  My name is Charles Courtley and I am a judge advocate, attached to the British Army of the Rhine, currently serving in Germany. I have been separated from my wife for some months now and was engaged in an affair with the above person.

  “You also repeated that you took full responsibility for her death in answer to the police corporal. Now, at the outset of the statement you said you killed her. According to your evidence now, that isn’t true. Later, your statement says you had a row. Why add that detail at all? It wasn’t necessary, was it?”

  “Well, not strictly I suppose, but I felt I had to elaborate the story a bit...”

  “Do you really expect this court to believe that? This wasn’t a game, Mr Courtley. You were about to throw your life away! The fact is that you did have a row – perhaps because she wanted to finish the affair? Or, you wanted to end it and she was threatening to end your career?”

  “But that’s absurd! I was separated from my wife anyway. Having an affair was a private matter.”

  “Not if she vowed to destroy it though. Perhaps she taunted you by saying she would tell ugly stories to the press – that kind of thing.”

  “No…no…”

  Cuthbertson sighed, lowering his voice a fraction, “But we don’t need to prove any of that, Mr Courtley. Only you and the dead Anke Stillsmann know what really went on for those few, split seconds. The fact is you took the rap at the trial because you pushed her over the dam wall, didn’t you?”

  “No – that’s not what happened.”

  Cuthbertson paused, staring at me intently.

  “Let’s just examine the nobility of your conduct for a moment. You see, your case is that you made a huge sacrifice in order to square your conscience – throwing away your freedom forever, one way or another.” His voice had dropped to a virtual whisper. “Do you agree?”

  “Yes, I had to do it. I know it isn’t rational, but that was the way I felt it had to be.”

  “An admirable – if somewhat extreme – sentiment on the face of it. Noble, as I said just now.” He stopped and brought his hand down on his lectern with a clatter. “But not so noble that you felt compelled to go to the police at once and admit killing her. You only did that a few days later. You agree?”

  “Yes. I suppose I panicked, I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “Because if you had alerted the authorities at the time, Mr Courtley,” Massamore growled from the bench, “Anna Stillsmann might have lived. We do not know when she actually drowned – it could have been some time after she fell into the water.”

  “I don’t deny it. I still feel terrible about not going to the police.”

  I knew how despicable my conduct had been and of course it only served to add to my guilt, which in itself had contributed towards my decision to accept responsibility for Anke’s death after her body had been discovered. Whatever the outcome of the appeal, I knew I would be ashamed of it for the rest of my life.

  But the judges were unlikely to interpret it that way. I glanced up at them. Their faces said it all. They simply didn’t believe me. And I was going to lose the appeal...

  Twenty-Seven

  I lay on the bed facing the barred window of my cell with my back to the door. Next to the bed, the pile of books brought from my last cell remained untouched. I was now in the hospital wing of the prison. The cells were larger than usual but brutally minimalist nonetheless, preventing a patient with psychiatric problems from injuring himself – and that’s why I had been transferred to it.

  Sitting back in my cage in the courtroom, hearing my appeal being dismissed, I had decided to commit suicide. I was in no hurry and opportunities to do it would be limited but my mind was made up. My life,
whatever I did now, was shattered forever.

  My mistake had been to tell Andrea when she came to see me in the cells of the High Court prior to my departure. She broke down, telling me that I mustn’t give up hope, that she would stick by me come what may, and would campaign for my release however long it took. After leaving the cell, she must have informed the guards of my intentions, because when we arrived back at the prison I was escorted to the hospital wing immediately.

  As I was bundled into my new cell, the door of which was a barred gate, the senior officer of the wing had told me that I would now be kept under constant supervision for the time being, with a nurse observing all my movements. There would be another psychiatric assessment in the next few days. I was asked whether I wanted a TV, but I refused. I still had my books, of course, but had lost even my appetite to read.

  Patience, I thought. After all, I couldn’t be kept under constant observation forever. That didn’t prevent a wave of black depression from engulfing me. How was I going to get through the next few days? An acute fear was beginning to take hold of me. What if I lost my self-control altogether and began throwing myself against the walls? And found myself being restrained by a straitjacket?

  I needed to talk to someone! Now!

  Through the bars of my cell above the chair where the nurse was sitting, I saw a notice board with information for prisoners. One of the notices was headed ‘Samaritans’. I was just about able to make out the following words set in bold type: ‘Whatever you’re going through, we’re here to help...’

  “I want to ring them – the Samaritans,” I said to the nurse, pointing to the notice. “Is it possible for me to use a phone?”

  I knew there to be call boxes in the corridor near the cells.

  The nurse shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, that’s not possible. You’re not allowed to leave this cell.”

  Knowing that mobile phones were normally forbidden in prison and that the only available phones were land lines on the wings, I protested.