Judge Savage

by Tim Parks

  Towards two a.m. that night Daniel replaced his old Opel Estate with a golden Aston Martin. The garage he parked it in was a long way from home. Acceleration was awesome, but for some reason the bonnet kept popping open. Hilary would not be pleased about the lack of luggage space. Then he was just settling down on his side of the bed when it occurred to him that his Aston Martin wasn’t insured. He had driven it dangerously, parked it miles away in the flimsiest of prefab garages – there had been a smell of urine – and it wasn’t even insured! It could be stolen and he would have no compensation. Daniel woke in a panic.

  Later he went to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. The events of a year ago had taught him to recognise that particular chemical tension in the head that tranquillisers will resolve. For a while he sat in the dark in the sitting room, waiting for the drug to work. Hilary had already begun the process of dismantling the flat and packing up. Prematurely, he felt. The books had gone from the shelves. She was in such a hurry to be out. She phoned every day to hear if the new house might be ready earlier. There were dusty boxes, a roll of carpet, a stack of Tom’s games. In our minds this period of our life is already over, he thought. The period of difficulty and crisis. When Tom and Crosby had left the dinner table that evening to go to the Children’s Room and play computer, Sarah had stood up and gone with them, leaving himself and Hilary to talk to Max. There’s something I never penetrate, Daniel was aware.

  Standing up, Judge Savage began to wander round the flat. It was at least a decade since they’d redecorated. Where Hilary had taken down the pictures, the wallpaper almost glowed. He looked in on Tom. It was the room they called the cubby. Then he pushed open Sarah’s door. Her face was solemn in the shadow, her thin body covered only by a sheet. How many people had he sent to gaol since he became a judge? The Colombian woman would not look in on her children. I should cherish this responsibility, Daniel told himself. The curve of his daughter’s neck was so right, so perfectly geared to all a man would ever want to gaze at and adore. But am I responsible for Minnie? Recover everything you remember about Minnie, a voice suddenly ordered. Everything.

  Then Daniel knew he was in panic. My life is changing. He hurried to the kitchen, found pen and paper. MINNIE, he scrawled. Named after the Korean Queen Min. Age? 20 then. What, 25 now? Studies? All their talk, her talk, had revolved around her studies. Accountancy. They had only met, what, five or six times? But she had wanted to go to art college. Was that right? Her father made the children do different subjects that would be useful for the business. The business was essential to their survival. They were immigrants. The community is everything, she said. She had definitely spoken of two brothers. We are one person, she said. And a grandfather too. But why did they save the accounting for me? He heard her voice in those words, that wail. Accounting! She was laughing and crying. It was her voice, her accent to be precise, that had most attracted him.

  As the only daughter, she had had to play nurse to a decrepit grandfather. That was it. Accountant and nurse. The old man woke her at night. He was incontinent. Lying beside Daniel on the pile of cotton in the warehouse, the girl wept with frustration. As soon as she left him, she would have to go and clean her grandfather. She might spend all night with him. After only their second or third meeting, Daniel knew he wanted out. She sensed it. You only pretend to listen, she laughed. She woke up exhausted to a day of accounts. Her father wouldn’t get a professional nurse. Not for a member of the family. Koreans don’t put their fathers in homes. Mother was dead. He’d kill me if he knew, she laughed, naked on the cotton pile.

  Daniel put down his pen. That’s all I remember, he thought. No, there was a boyfriend too, a boyfriend she was supposed to marry. Ben. Daniel had told her she didn’t have to. Nobody had to marry. It was all inside her head. Fuck off, she wept. Just fuck off. That was the last time. At least five years ago. And Daniel wondered, Did Ben work in the business? Had she told him that?

  Anything the matter? Hilary’s voice called softly down the passage. Just worrying about money, he called back. Returning to bed, he said, This is ridiculous, I’m going to go and see Martin as soon as I’ve got a couple of hours free time and demand to know exactly when they’re paying. Sleep now, she whispered. She began to stroke his back. Big day tomorrow, Dan. Lying awake as she dozed off, Daniel knew that other men would not have allowed themselves to be seduced by this dilemma.

  SEVEN

  JUDGE SAVAGE PROCEEDED with quiet authority, addressing himself solely to the jury. He had made no sign of acknowledgement to Mrs Connolly. He explained the function of judge and jury. Or to his daughter for that matter. Max was not beside her. He considered the question of the burden of proof and the standard of proof. People were standing in the press gallery. He defined abduction. Outside the court there had been a demonstration, a television camera. He defined manslaughter, by unlawful act, by gross negligence. He analysed the elements of each crime that had to be proved. Could a family seeking alternative treatments for a life-threatening disease be accused of gross negligence? Stacey held his pen poised. No doubt he was ticking off the routine items a judge must include in any summing up. If so, could the essence of the crime be said to have taken place in the UK, even though the victim died in Chandigarh?

  Daniel looked up. He spoke without flourish, working from notes. The packed court was attentive. He would not be tempted by the theatrical gesture. The cases for the prosecution and defence, The Times would say the following morning, were succinctly put. Someone sneezed. Had the family taken the child to India at the first hint of illness, Daniel reminded the jury, there would be no question of their standing trial today. Such a decision would have been perfectly legal. Then he tackled the question of the mens rea, the guilty mind. It was here that the jury must interpret all that they had heard and reach their decision. Nobody disputed that the child had been suffering from bone cancer. Nobody disputed that an amputation of the right leg would, at the very least, have prolonged the boy’s life. Nobody disputed that the parents had taken the child to India when they were no longer in loco parentis, though equally no one was suggesting that they had used force.

  Over the last two centuries, there has been a considerable shift, Daniel announced, raising his eyes, in the way we try, judge and sentence crime. He paused. He was departing now from standard practice, yet the case seemed to demand it. From a black/white, yes/no decision as to whether a certain incident considered to be a crime actually happened, and if so who did it – his eyes went down to his papers again – we have struggled more and more to establish the level of guilt of the perpetrator. His colleagues would be on the alert. We ask ourselves whether they were in their right mind when the incident occurred. We ask ourselves whether they are mentally ill, whether they acted under the influence of a passion, or a drug. We ask whether they were under duress. The decision of a jury, Daniel spoke very slowly but without emphasis, may be and indeed has been, influenced by the fact that the defendant was suffering from some kind of stress at the time of a certain crime, or experiencing menstruation perhaps, or by the fact that the defendant has recently been abandoned by his wife, or has experienced a bereavement. Stacey whispered something to Mrs Connolly. To a certain extent – Judge Savage slipped one piece of paper behind another – this willingness to consider mental states may seem to complicate the principle that the law is equal to all, in that one person may be condemned and another acquitted for what was to all outward appearances the same action. To that we can reply that the law is equal to all, given the mens rea, the guilty mind, in so far as we have been able to establish it.

  Are they following me, he wondered, am I making myself clear? Certainly nobody could accuse him of being a conformist after a summing up like this. He focused his eyes on the jury, looking at each in turn. In certain cases, however, establishing that mental guilt may be a very difficult thing to do. Five men, seven women. Above all it is something that is more open to debate than the simpler questions, did this person shoot this
gun, did this person take that money. It is here, then, over the issue of the guilty mind, the defendant’s perception of the nature of his intent, that your judgement, the pondered judgement of a jury on the basis of the evidence heard in open court, is crucial.

  We say that the defendant is tried by a jury of his peers. What does that mean? It means his equals, people in the same position in life, people who can be expected to understand what they themselves would do and indeed what it would be right and not be right to do in similar circumstances. At the centre of the line of jurors, a pallid man in his sixties, diligent, self-important, was taking copious notes. The Indian sat with his chin in his hands. He was gazing intently. There were two blacks. Another way of putting it has been to suggest that the jury assesses what the ordinary reasonable man or woman would have done in the same circumstances and compares this hypothetical behaviour with that of the defendant.

  Judge Savage hesitated. For a moment he caught his daughter’s eye, but looked quickly away. Here our problem, he told the jury gently, is that such behaviour is indeed hypothetical. It is clear that over many issues the ordinary reasonable man or woman behaved very differently a hundred years ago than he does today. It is also clear that people in other countries act in different ways. You have heard an expert witness who has told us that in this case the kind of family under scrutiny would have very different customs and attitudes than a traditional English family.

  For a moment he broke off. He lost his thread. What was he thinking? But the pause only served to give his delivery greater authority, as if, despite the copious notes, he were pondering these weighty ideas even as he spoke. Fortunately – he half smiled to acknowledge his stumble – fortunately ladies and gentlemen we are not obliged to try the people of a hundred years ago. On the other hand, and with greater and greater frequency, as I am sure you are aware, we do find ourselves trying the people of other cultures, and this may make your work as a jury doubly difficult.

  Again he paused. It was stupidly melodramatic to imagine Minnie might be dead. Why had he allowed his mind to be invaded like this? He cleared his throat: I think that this is true of the case you have been called upon to try here, ladies and gentleman of the jury. I am not suggesting to you, of course, that the law can be different for different sections of the community. Nevertheless, it is my duty to remind you that where the mens rea, or the guilt that is in the mind, is important, then personal factors, and those must include cultural factors, can hardly be discounted. Again, I am not suggesting to you that we should allow ourselves to drown in a sea of relativity. Mr and Mrs Mishra chose to live in the United Kingdom and in so choosing they bind themselves to live by the laws of the United Kingdom. Their son is a native born citizen of the United Kingdom. But where the law itself considers the guilty mind important in determining whether a crime has been committed – in this case the very serious crime of manslaughter – then we cannot shy away from considering the individual circumstances, cultural and psychological, of the defendant. With these thoughts in mind, let us now consider the evidence offered against each of the two defendants for each of the two crimes.

  Some hours later Judge Savage paced nervously up and down the narrow hallway of the Shields’ beautiful house. Bent over an antique sideboard, Christine was writing out a cheque. There, she said. This is bizarre, Daniel thought. Twenty thousand. Somewhere upstairs the television struck up a brash tune. Pounds. I love him so much, she sighed, laying the pen down. If only he’d, oh I don’t know, even go out and have an affair!

  She was half-laughing, but in tears. Anything! Just to get him out of the house. Out of the house! To be himself, you know. She had leaned back against the door, hugging her breasts, very aware, Daniel sensed, of the melodrama of this intimate conversation in the passageway. He had spoken to no one after the jury retired, left the court almost at once. There had been shouts and angry voices out on the pavement, some kind of demonstration. But he had turned neither to left nor right. These things mustn’t concern a judge. The call to Ben he had made from a phone box. Both the house sale, he told himself, and the Minnie business must be put behind him at once. His work was suffering.

  The moths, Christine was shaking her head, the soaps! You can’t imagine how much they give me the willies. It’s just not Martin at all, you know, the way we knew him. No, Daniel said, slipping the cheque into his wallet. He couldn’t understand how the woman had signed away in the porch, with no problem or explanation, as if to the milkman, what had been due to him by contractual agreement three weeks ago. She seemed distracted. And you really have no idea at all, he asked, what brought it on? She shook her head. Her hair was thick and perfumed. The good thing though, he tried to be encouraging, is that Mart was saying, only the other night, how close you two are, that you’re a world unto yourselves. She smiled warily. Yes, it’s true. And yet there’s nothing that would explain . . . Nothing, she insisted. But why did you decide to buy our flat? Daniel asked. Buying a property’s a major move, after all. Again Christine told him they had simply decided it would be nice to have a place in town. But why? What are you planning to do in town? She shrugged her shoulders. Use it to stay over. If there are concerts or dinners. Avoid the drive back and forth. I know it’s only half an hour but after all these years you go crazy in the car.

  It’s not, Daniel suggested carefully, that one of you doesn’t have the courage to say that you want to separate? Or at least be apart more? The cheque, he’d noticed, was in her name alone. Oh for heaven’s sake, she laughed. She had given her whole life to being his companion, Daniel knew. No regular work, no children. The wealth was on his side of the family. She liked to play hostess, to throw dinner parties. She played tennis, attended church functions. Now she stood hugging herself tight in the panelled hallway of a very expensive house with lawn to the riverbank and swimming pool, a little overweight perhaps, hair dyed obviously, yet younger and prettier than he usually thought her, that prettiness that comes from a constant feminine care for femininity. I just don’t know, she said. She looked softly in his eyes. Daniel knew she wanted to be kissed. He looked at his watch, announced, Right around now Sarah should be landing in Rome. You know we packed her off to Italy, he explained. How wonderful! Christine sighed. Standing up, she gave her bra a little downward tug through cardigan and blouse. It must be such a relief, I suppose, when they finally leave the nest. Her breasts were generous. Got it in one, Daniel laughed.

  Upstairs, Martin didn’t want to be disturbed while his soap was on. He barely greeted his friend. With twenty minutes to kill before driving back to town to meet Ben, Daniel sat in the armchair across the room from the bed. I would be glad to meet any friend of Minnie’s, sir, the voice had said. The accent reminded him of her. Martin was lying in bed, tissues and aspirins by his side. But do you know where I can get in touch with Minnie herself? Daniel had pressed. I’m eager to be in touch with her about a job she might be interested in. Let’s meet, sir, the Korean insisted. What’s your name, sir? The room smelt stale. Clearly the windows hadn’t been opened all day. The phone box had smelt of urine. Steve, Daniel had said, and please don’t call me sir, Steve Johnson.

  On the screen a man and woman were kissing when apparently they shouldn’t. Martin was absorbed, infantile, munching biscuits as he watched. Daniel felt uneasy. There was something unfriendly about it. Yet he owed the man more than he did Minnie. Why hadn’t he insisted that Ben say whether he knew where she was or not? Help me, the girl had said. Martin didn’t want to be helped. She’d said it twice. I did nothing, Daniel thought. I should have acted at once. Now the problem invaded his mind, even during his work in court.

  That’s Rachel, Martin said, nodding at the screen. Christine had explained that he had a fever. That was why he was in bed. More than a week now. Above the thickening scrub of beard, his cheeks were pink. One of the twins. Oh right, Daniel remembered. So has she finally bedded her sister’s husband? No, Rachel was the faithful wife, Martin told him without taking his eyes of
f the screen. Nikki’s the flirt. Except that now Rachel’s going with this computer rep because the letters she’s been getting – we still don’t know who they’re from – have convinced her that the husband’s sleeping with Nikki, while in reality he’s resisting valiantly. It’s quite a story.

  Understanding nothing, Daniel watched Martin watching. His eyes were intensely engaged. Bit tame after the real thing in court, the judge ventured. Don’t you think? He would have liked to discuss the Mishras, to have talked it over with somebody truly competent. Martin didn’t reply. The man’s hands were busy with each other, picking at the quick around the nails. Oh by the way, Daniel tried again – suddenly there were adverts – by the way I found out who my own threatening little letters were from. He waited. My daughter. At last Martin turned: Sarah? At last they made eye contact. Yes, it seems Hilary told her, about me and Jane, that is, and these letters are the belated result. Oh of course, Martin said brightly. There was a smile on his face. Of course nothing! Daniel retorted. We’d agreed we . . .