Justice Mirror

by Simon Hall

  Claire laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on, sir. You cracked it in the end.’

  ‘More by blundering around than anything clever.’ He sighed and wiped some rain from his face. ‘Ah, come on, I’ve had enough of standing here feeling sorry for myself. It’s time to face the wrath.’

  Adam was about to start trudging back towards the courthouse when a shout stopped him. It was the security guard and he was running and waving.

  ‘Just make my day even better,’ Adam grunted. ‘Let me guess – Ivy’s escaped?’

  ‘No sir,’ the man replied. ‘It’s Judge Templar. He wants to see you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Most insistent, His Honour was. He even made me run through this weather to tell you. He says he’s in Courtroom Number Three and wants to see you right away.’

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Through the glass panel of the door they could see Templar, sitting high at the head of the court. He was writing, a fat fountain pen moving quickly back and forth over a sheet of paper. The judge occasionally stopped to think before continuing with his task. He wore his grey wig, red and purple robes, and had positioned a gavel by his side.

  Adam turned to Dan and Claire. ‘The good news is – no sign of any weapon. The bad news – no sign of any sanity either.’

  ‘There’s plenty of space under the bench to hide a gun,’ Dan observed.

  Claire ignored the latest outbreak of faintheartedness. ‘I can’t believe he’d have called us here if he just wanted to start shooting. He could have done that earlier when you two were talking to Ivy. Or he could have gone to the car park and waited to shoot it out with us there.’

  Adam checked his watch. The time was just before half past four.

  ‘If we’re going to crack this case and save ourselves, it has to be now.’

  Claire nodded her agreement. Dan hesitated and did the same.

  Adam held a quick whispered conversation with the firearms commander, who was standing by the stairs. He was lean and tall, with a neatly trimmed beard. It was clear from the man’s continual frowns that he didn’t approve. Dan could hear the odd phrase.

  ‘It’s going completely against procedure… Surely better to hold him there until he decides to come out.’

  But Adam wasn’t in a mood to heed advice. The discussion was brief and the order given.

  Armed police officers were deployed at both ends of the corridor around the door to courtroom number three. They were dressed all in black, wearing body armour, and moved fast and silently. Some knelt, others half hid behind walls.

  The rest of the building was being quietly evacuated, ushers and security guards herding people towards the entrance. There they stood, a huddled group, sheltering as best they could from the rain. Across the plaza the firefighters were packing up their inflatable bags, ready for use another day.

  Word of what was happening had reached the media. A cordon was in place around the courthouse and behind it stood photographers, reporters and cameramen, Nigel amongst them.

  The firearms commander beckoned to Adam. ‘The Deputy Chief Constable will be here in ten minutes.’

  Adam paced back to Dan and Claire, waiting by the double doors of the courtroom.

  ‘That settles it,’ he said. ‘I’m going in. The only question is whether you two should come.’

  ‘I’m coming,’ Claire replied. ‘I was ready to face him in the car park, I am again now. Plus, Templar’s old school. He might just react better to me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Adam nodded. ‘Dan?’

  ‘Well, Templar doesn’t like the media, and he didn’t think much of me before. I don’t want to antagonise him. Maybe I should just—’

  ‘Dan’s coming,’ Claire interrupted.

  The three held a look. The curious triangle that linked them still held strong. They would win or lose together. Inside the court, Templar was still scribbling at his piece of paper.

  ‘Right,’ Adam said. ‘Let’s do it.’

  ***

  Claire pushed the door gently open and Adam stepped carefully into the courtroom. Templar didn’t look up from his notes.

  The detective took a pace inside, then another. Claire and Dan followed. There was still no reaction from the judge.

  Rain beat down on the skylights. The room was a little too warm, just as it had been when the jury returned their verdict in the trial of Martha and Brian Edwards.

  Adam stopped in front of the rows of seats in the public gallery. Templar had shown no sign of acknowledging their arrival. He was too intent on what he was writing.

  Claire shifted her position. One of the old wooden floorboards creaked a loud, complaining sound. They waited, sure now that the judge would speak. But the room was still, the only sound the unending, battering attack of the rain.

  Adam took a breath and coughed loudly. And now, at last, Templar looked up. He stared at them, those piercing eyes scrutinising, just as with everything that happened in this court.

  They must have looked a strange incarnation of the coming of justice. All three were soaked; their hair still dripping with rainwater, their jackets dark with the storm. Each of them standing with hands behind their backs in the well of a deserted courtroom, facing a judge who the years had journeyed to become a murderer.

  Templar prodded at his wig. ‘Ah, there you are,’ he announced, brusquely. ‘It’s about time.’

  He pointed to Adam. ‘You, Breen. I imagine even you managed to spot the clue about where I might be, given that I instructed the guard to come and tell you. I see from your appearance you followed my little feint to the car park. I thought that would appeal to your sense of melodrama.’

  Adam rode the blows without comment. He hesitated before replying, and even here, even now, the judge of many years standing in this court still demanded the respect of the title he had worn for so long.

  ‘Your Honour,’ Adam said, carefully. ‘I’m not sure whether you appreciate this, but we’re here to arrest you—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know all that,’ Templar interjected. ‘God knows I’ve presided over enough miserable trials to have heard it sufficient times. We’ll get to all that nonsense in a moment. But first, I have something to say.’

  He pointed to the benches below, where the solicitors and barristers usually sat. ‘Step forwards, will you? Come on, hurry up. I have some remarks upon which to address you.’

  ***

  Dan couldn’t help but glance around the room. At the jury box, where Parkinson had delivered that extraordinary verdict. At the dock, where the Edwards stood, waiting for the decision on their fate.

  And then behind, at the public gallery. Where Annette and Roger Newman sat week after week, as the trial went about its judicial progress.

  It was only a couple of days ago that the case had ended, but it felt a long time indeed.

  ‘Right, then,’ Templar barked. ‘Before I begin, I think we need a little accompaniment, do we not?’

  He reached under the bench. Dan saw Adam stiffen, his body tense, ready for the appearance of a gun. But in Templar’s careful hands was the Newton’s Cradle.

  He smiled fondly, set it on the polished wooden surface and began the silver balls swinging.

  Click, clack, click, clack…

  ‘That’s better,’ he exclaimed. ‘Now, one last matter requires attention before I begin summing up in this, my final case.’

  A finger singled out Dan. ‘You, Groves. You’re supposed to be a reporter, are you not?’

  ‘Yes, Your Honour,’ came the startled reply.

  ‘Take some damned notes, then. This is an important part of the story, is it not? Something you will doubtless be wishing to report upon? It would at least be welcome if you could make some reasonable attempt to get it right – for once.’

  Dan reached into his satchel for a pen and pad. His phone was there, switched off to avoid the endless calls and messages, and that prompted an idea. A couple more seconds pretence of fumbling and all was
in place. He held up his notebook and did his best to smile disarmingly at Templar.

  ‘Do I have to think of everything for you people?’ the judge chided. ‘Right, pay attention. This won’t take long. In fact, it’s somewhat extraordinary that after all these years I have so little to say by way of my concluding remarks.’

  Click, clack, click, clack…

  Templar studied the piece of paper and drew himself up in the chair. His voice boomed as he projected it around the old wooden panels of the courtroom.

  ‘It is often said that justice is a game. But if that be the case, then it is a game in which one side is heavily disadvantaged, like a football team of eleven playing a five-a-side ensemble. And not content with this handicap, the state appears set upon ever further attempts to neuter its ability to find any form of justice. It bestows an increasing body of rights upon the criminals, whilst eroding those of the victims.’

  Templar paused and looked up to check they were all listening. And they were, how they were. Strange, extraordinary and bizarre though it may be, this was the most compelling of confessions.

  ‘In my years upon the bench, it seems to me that the fine old quotation – “Justice should not only be done but manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done” – has taken on a new meaning. In these modern days, justice should neither be done, nor be seen to approach anywhere remotely close to being done.’

  A droplet of rain dripped from Adam’s jacket, landing in time with one of the clicks from the silver spheres. Claire pushed her fringe back from her brow but kept her eyes set on the judge.

  ‘I can no longer keep count of the number of cases which I have presided over where the needs of justice have fallen far short of being satisfied. When first I became the resident judge in this court, it was with great pride that I would look up to the Lady of Justice, standing tall above us. These days, I fear I have come to see her as a figure of shame.’

  Click, clack, click, clack…

  Templar’s voice fell to a confiding tone. They were in the confessional together, edging towards the heart of the man.

  ‘At this point, I must raise one personal matter, and it is a dreadful irony. My comfort throughout the difficult times of my changing views was my lady wife, Eileen. She was the most doughty of rocks. And then she was taken from me. The result was a man whose life had been spent serving justice suffering the gross injustice of the loss of his lifelong companion and best friend.’

  Dan was writing fast, taking down quote after quote. But now he paused, for even the most hackneyed of reporters would have been moved by the pain in the judge’s words.

  ‘I turn now to the trial of the Edwards, the case in point,’ Templar intoned, his voice stronger. ‘It encapsulates all that I have outlined. A trial where it is so very obvious what the true outcome should have been, but where yet again it proved elusive. And from that flowed the dreadful consequences we have all witnessed. It was after the loss of Annette that I decided to take matters into my own hands.’

  Overhead, thunder rumbled once more. Templar waited for it to die and then turned over his sheet of paper.

  Click, clack, click, clack…

  ‘In conclusion, I say this. Please show mercy to Usher Ivy, who played by far the minor role in our conspiracy and who acted entirely in my thrall. And I would ask you also to try to understand why I did what I did, and ask yourselves the question – whether it was truly wrong?’

  The judge put down his piece of paper. He reached out and stopped the swinging of the silver spheres.

  Silence settled on the courtroom. Templar studied the two men and one woman, lined up below him. And they looked back.

  Perhaps now with a different view, but still an inescapable duty.

  Adam waited, then took a step forwards. The old wooden boards creaked with the movement. When at last he spoke, the words were quiet and measured.

  ‘Your Honour, I hear what you say. And perhaps I can understand it, and even sympathise. But I must now tell you that I have to place you under arrest for the murders of Martha and Brian Edwards, and—’

  ‘I have not finished,’ Templar barked, with all a judge’s authority. ‘By no means.’

  And now Templar’s face changed. It twitched into a grin, followed by a broad smile. He even began chuckling to himself, the sound eerie in the hollow courtroom.

  ‘This was all abolished before my time,’ he giggled. ‘We’re far too politically correct for anything so sensible now, sadly. These days it’s all community service and psychiatric assessments, as though a crime isn’t a damned crime. But I’ve always wanted to do it.’

  Templar fumbled under the bench once more. This time, he brought out a black cap, carefully smoothed it and placed it slowly and deliberately upon the top of his wig. And if that was not shock enough, following the small square of dark silk came a gun.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  It was a quirk of history, but so notorious that it resonated through the years.

  In his law classes at Journalism College, Dan had been taught about the legend of the black cap. The stories of the culmination of a murder trial and the judge donning the cap to pass a sentence of death were still told by older, long retired hacks at retirement gatherings. They were often the sole moments of stillness in the hubbub of the evening.

  These days, the black cap had become a curiosity. Something for museums, books and bedtime stories, redundant in a modern courtroom.

  Until today, this stormy afternoon, and Templar.

  The judge was staring down at them, the laughter gone in another of those mercurial swings of mood. His face was intractable, as hard as Dartmoor granite.

  Before him, Dan, Claire and Adam stood in a line. It was as though they were waiting to find out who would be condemned. Dan let his eyes slip to the expressions of his companions. From the looks on their faces, creeping like the crystals of a frost, it was clear they knew far too well what the black cap signified.

  The smile returned as Templar began checking the gun. It was a revolver, a bright and polished body and a dark handle, curved with the crescents of finger grips.

  ‘Came from some relative in the war,’ he chuckled. ‘Dad always kept it. He said you never knew when you’d need it. And damned right he was, too.’

  The judge turned the wheel of the gun and stroked the brassy, honed bullets. Dan could see Claire calculating the distance to the bench, whether she could make it in time to grab the weapon. But it was too far, too difficult to clamber over that last parapet of the wood. Templar would have plenty of time to take aim and shoot.

  Instinctively, with no thought about the meaning of the simple gesture, Dan found himself taking Claire’s hand to hold her back.

  Templar raised the gun and pointed it at the glass walls of the dock.

  ‘Bang, bang! That sure beats handing out suspended sentences, eh? You know, sometimes I think I missed my moment. I’d have been much happier parking the old black cap on my head. I’d have them hanging for bloody shoplifting, let alone murder.’

  Templar beamed around the court. To the lawyers, jury, public gallery. All were there in his mind for this, his final case. The whiteness of a distant lightning bolt lit the gloom of the courtroom and more thunder rumbled overhead.

  ‘Now then,’ he said. ‘To our remaining business.’

  Templar levelled the revolver and pointed it at Adam.

  ***

  It had started as a game, this life as an amateur detective. The first case had been serious, yes, but ultimately just a deception. A clever riddle to be solved and little more. For Dan, in those days, it had been entertainment. A reinvigorating new world at a time when he was growing stale in a job he had known since college.

  Only after a couple more cases, when he was confronted by the enormity of pure suffering and violent death, did Dan understand the acid truth of policing. And now, on this rainy afternoon, he was facing the end himself, as surely as if summoned before the reaper.

  ‘Your
Honour,’ Adam spoke out, his voice remarkably calm, ‘it doesn’t have to be this way.’

  ‘This is my court and my judgement. I shall be the one who decides which way it has to be.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘There is no but. I invited you here to witness my summing up. That issue has been concluded. There remains just one further order of business.’

  Templar stroked a hand over the barrel of the revolver. It looked so long, so lethal.

  ‘Judge Templar,’ Claire said, gently. ‘I think I understand what you’ve been going through. I’ve sometimes felt the same way myself. But how does it help, doing this? It won’t bring back Annette. It can’t change the past. How does more death make anything right?’

  The flint of the man’s expression softened. ‘Ah, Ms Reynolds, I appreciate your thoughts. At this final moment, please allow me to say that you were always one of my favourite officers. A diligent and talented investigator, but, as I hope I’ve shown, justice can be a fickle and flighty visitor to our world. I thank you for what you say, but I cannot concur. This is the end I have chosen, and so it must be.’

  Dan saw Adam’s eyes flick to him. Many times the detective had joked that the reporter who became his friend did so in part because he possessed the legendary gift of the silver tongue.

  And so Dan tried to think of some powerful logic or moving emotion to save them. He scoured the furthest edges of his mind for a beautiful intervention. But at this time of greatest need, the canvas remained blank.

  He was too afraid to think. And the second of opportunity was lost.

  ‘So then,’ Templar intoned, ‘as we have no blindfolds available, you may wish to turn around.’

  ‘Your Honour—’ Adam tried, but was overridden.

  ‘Turn around, Inspector.’

  Dan began to turn, and a strange memory formed. It was a story he’d once covered, a suicide, a young woman who had been made redundant from the job she loved. She wore glasses, but had taken them off before jumping from the top floor of her office building.