‘What is the libel?’ asked the judge.
‘The newspaper claims that the plaintiff was taking bribes,’ the clerk said with satisfaction. He was not a supporter of the government in which Tancred had served and he and his wife were regular readers of the Sunday News, which they much enjoyed.
The following Sunday, on his Sunday morning walk, Jack Traynor bought a copy of the Sunday News. When he had glanced at it he quickly thrust it into a dustbin. His sister Agnes would not have been amused to have him bring a newspaper into the house featuring a gang rape on a housing estate and the reflections of a transsexual drum major.
But as he marched home up the hill from the village, he gloomily reflected that his very first libel case was to be an action between a politician, probably corrupt, and a scandal rag. No wonder there would be public interest. In his room on the following day he told his personal clerk to find out who were the counsel retained in ‘Tancred v. News Universal’. In the evening his clerk reported. Counsel for Richard Tancred was Patrick Foxley QC and Mordecai Ledbury QC would act for the newspaper. The judge put his head in his hands and groaned. The too-clever-by-half Foxley and the offensive Ledbury. The prospect of what lay before him filled him with dread.
Chapter Two
The crowd queuing or struggling to get into the court was immense. All London seemed anxious to attend what the press were calling the libel case of the decade. The suicide of Oscar Sleaven in Acapulco less than two days before the start of the trial had made sure that interest would be intense. Even before the sensational news from Mexico, Digby Price had seen to it that News Universal’s publications had kept the forthcoming trial well before the attention of the public. When it was reported that Oscar Sleaven had killed himself and murdered his wife, News headlines had whipped up the story into a frenzy.
His rivals, the Telegram group, were naturally, anxious to see News Universal lose – and crippled by a vast award of damages. Over the previous months the Telegram had printed several paragraphs about Richard Tancred, his talents and record, describing him as the most successful minister in the present administration, referring to him as the Prime Minister-Who-Never-Was, the man whose glittering political career had been destroyed by the Sunday News. At the announcement of Oscar Sleaven’ s death the Telegram’s reaction was more muted, but between them the two newspaper groups with the largest circulation in the United Kingdom had made sure that the Tancred libel case was more than merely the cause of an ex-minister attempting to vindicate his reputation in the courts. It had become yet another battle in the long-running war between the Telegram group and News Universal.
As the queue for places in the public gallery lengthened, a mass of people and photographers gathered around the railing of the forecourt of the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand to await the arrival of the principal actors in the drama. Spenser had made sure that a crowd of supporters were stationed at the entrance to the Law Courts to acclaim Digby Price when he arrived. The Telegram management had also organised a claque and when Price stepped out of his stretch limousine with the darkened windows, they jeered loudly. But the cheers of the News Universal contingent drowned the jeers. Price stood in the forecourt, waving gaily and chatting to his supporters, before he gestured at those who were jeering him and disappeared into the central hall. A reverse cheer and counter-cheer greeted Tancred, who arrived in a taxi with his solicitor, Cranley Burrows. He acknowledged neither cheer nor counter-cheer. He spoke to no one and, without a single glance to right or left, ascended the steps into the building.
Inside the court, the gallery in the balcony was soon filled and many were turned away. Below, in the body of the court, the rows of seats for witnesses and representatives of the parties were also filled with privileged spectators who had obtained their places by being escorted to them by the clerks of counsel engaged in the case. The front row nearest the raised judge’s bench was reserved for the actual parties and their respective solicitors, the second for the QCs on both sides and the third for the junior barristers. Into this row, however, there had also crowded briefless barristers in their pristine white wigs who had come to listen to what was forecast as the most exciting libel case in recent years and which, they hoped, would provide some days of excellent forensic sport.
Tancred and Burrows made their way across the central hall up the stone stairs along the corridor and took their places on the left side of the court facing the judge’s bench. In his grey suit, white shirt and dark tie, Tancred cut a distinguished figure but with his mottled complexion and dark hair he looked foreign next to the fresh-faced, auburn-haired Cranley Burrows. Some in the gallery leant dangerously over the rail to look at the scene below until ordered by the usher to resume their seats as Tancred, with an air of indifference and ease, chatted to Cranley above the noise and clatter of the people taking their seats behind them.
Patrick Foxley QC and his junior, Ian French, slipped into their respective rows and Patrick leant forward to join in the talk between Tancred and Burrows. The legal team for the claimant was now in position. However, the comparable places on the right of the court reserved for the newspaper’s lawyers remained empty. There was no sign of them or of any of News Universal’s senior executives when the prospective jurors filed into the jury box. Of the jury, seven were men, one of whom was a large black man whose bulk made him uncomfortably squashed in his seat; one stood out by his smart appearance, an elderly, military-looking man in a dark-blue blazer with brass buttons; and one, red-faced and tieless, was soon talking loudly to anyone who cared to listen. Five were women, two middle-aged, one a decided and bewildered-looking spinster and two who might be young mothers. The fifth was a young, light-skinned Asian in a bright-orange sari. When she was settled in her seat she stared interestedly around the court, a half-smile on her face.
Patrick stood to arrange his papers on the desk in front of him, then turned and faced into the body of the court. His legal uniform of grey wig, immaculately starched wing collar and linen bands, and black silk’s gown over his well-cut swallow-tailed black court coat suited him. His eye settled on the person he’d been looking for – Anna James, sitting four rows behind him. She was hatless, the recalcitrant lock of black hair as ever falling in front of her eyes, dressed simply in a white shirt above dark, close-fitting trousers. Patrick smiled and she grinned back, raising her eyebrows, puckering her lips and indicating how quaint she found the whole scene in the court and the sight of Patrick in a wig. She saw, however, that his face was pale and he looked drawn and strained. She knew how greatly the news of the death of Oscar Sleaven two days ago had unsettled him. ‘It’s a terrible blow,’ he’d told Anna; and she knew that now he was really anxious. She, too, feared that the case, difficult as it had been, was slipping away beyond hope of retrieval. His anxiety had made her all the more determined to be with him in court.
Thomas, Patrick’s clerk, had taken her to her privileged place. With her had come Emerald Cunliffe and Sybil Benedict, also the recipients of Patrick’s favour, both hoping to witness the defeat and downfall of Digby Price and the discomfiture of their former friend, Mordecai Ledbury. Both were dressed in smart, well-cut linen suits but, as had been decided after prolonged debate, hatless. When Thomas had conducted the three across Fleet Street through the mob at the forecourt entrance, they had been greeted by a non-partisan cheer that Emerald and Sybil enjoyed. The crowd, of course, had recognised none of them.
When Patrick turned to smile at Anna there was as yet no sight of those whose longed-for humiliation Emerald and Sybil had come to witness. Their places were still empty. News Universal was at present represented only by Wilson, Price’s PA, and Spenser’s secretary who had been placed at the back of the court. But their principals were not far away; they were in a conference room in the corridor behind the court.
Mordecai was seated at a small table, his wig, blackened by wear and age, askew on his large head and his white linen bands already crumpled beneath his drooping wing coll
ar. Beside him stood Walter Morrison, his junior counsel, a plump, good-humoured man with a red face, in his late thirties; next to him was Oliver Goodbody looking, Walter thought, more like an archbishop in mufti than usual. Behind them stood Waite in his baggy suit, holding in his hand a large folder, trying to appear important but only succeeding in looking, to Walter at least, like a bookies’ clerk. He was flanked by Spenser, as neat and tidy as ever. They were waiting for Digby Price.
The door was flung open and he burst into the room. ‘Mexico,’ he announced triumphantly. ‘What about that!’
Mordecai nodded gravely. ‘As I said on the telephone, it could be very significant.’
‘Significant? It’s devastating! One crook down. One to go.’
‘We have two minutes,’ Goodbody said hastily, glancing at his watch. ‘The judge will take his place in exactly two minutes.’
‘He’ll have to wait,’ Mordecai growled. He pushed back his chair and addressed Spenser. ‘I want to be quite clear about this. Did you or did you not receive a memorandum written by Lacey on his return from Paris after the decision had been taken to publish?’
‘I have no recollection of receiving any such memorandum. I’ve gone through all the files and I can find none.’
‘You will swear to that?’
‘In court? In evidence?’ Spenser asked nervously.
‘Of course, from the witness box. Will you swear you never received any memorandum from Lacey?’
‘If that is necessary, I shall.’
‘When did the request come from the other side for us to produce this memorandum?’ Mordecai asked Goodbody.
‘Last evening. No one knew anything about it. We immediately instituted a search of the files.’
‘All I can repeat’, said Spenser, ‘is that I saw no memorandum from Lacey.’
Mordecai’s clerk, Adams, came into the room and announced loudly, ‘The judge is taking his seat.’
‘What’s all the bother about this memorandum?’ Price asked.
Mordecai rose. ‘I anticipate they’ll apply to call Lacey to say that he wrote a memorandum when he got back from Paris and that it referred to what you said at the time when you decided to publish. I assume it will refer to your determination to expose Tancred.’
‘Correct. And I have.’
Mordecai looked at him. ‘It is this evidence they need for punitive damages. To demonstrate your malice.’
Price laughed. ‘Malice, you call it? Balls. You mean my determination to expose a crook.’
Mordecai walked towards the door.
Digby Price caught him by the arm. ‘Remember, Ledbury,’ he said. ‘You know how I want the case handled.’
Mordecai looked at Price’s hand on his arm. Price dropped it. ‘I remember the riding instructions,’ Mordecai said. ‘And when it’s all over, I hope you will too.’
In the court the door behind the bench opened and Mr Justice Traynor, in his bobbed wig and blue gown crossed by a scarlet sash, entered. This coincided with the throwing open of the side door in the body of the court and the passage of Mordecai, limping noisily to his place, followed by Goodbody and Digby Price. The judge reached his place first. He stood waiting, looking grim as Mordecai struggled into his row, dropping one of his sticks with a clatter and acknowledging the judge with only a slight droop of his head. The judge took his seat and, when all in the court had resumed theirs, Mordecai subsided into his with a resounding crash. Spenser slipped into a place behind junior counsel. In front of Mordecai were Oliver Goodbody and Digby Price.
Mr Justice Traynor surveyed the crowded court. It was, as he had expected, full to overflowing, every seat taken and even the side aisles to the swing doors blocked now by spectator barristers’ and solicitors’ clerks. Trust Ledbury to stage an entrance and keep him waiting, he thought. But he’d not start a row. Not now. He knew there’d be plenty of occasions for that in the days that lay ahead. He forced himself to look genial, remembering he had to make his mark with the jury as his clerk placed his notebook on the desk in front of him and, with this assumed air of benignity that he did not feel concealing the twinge of apprehension, he prepared for the ordeal – his first libel trial with a jury, assisted, if that was the right word, by counsel he could not abide.
The associate from his place directly beneath the judge’s dais turned to him. He nodded and the associate turned back to face the court and announced, ‘Tancred against News Universal and Others.’
The usher proceeded to swear in the jury. There were no objections from counsel. One after the other the jurymen and women took the oath, holding the testament in their right hands, except for two men and one young woman who elected to make an affirmation. The judge noted that the young Asian woman had sworn on the Bible. For a moment he considered asking her if she realised what she had done but soon thought better of it. Why shouldn’t she be a Christian?
The speed and lack of fuss with which the jury had been selected and its members accepted without objection from counsel, surprised Anna James. In the States she knew that jury selection was a lengthy and important part of a trial. She’d read of the woman in California who was paid enormous fees to assess prospective jurors on their appearance and advise on those to accept or reject. So she was taken aback by the swiftness with which the jury were assembled and sworn without objection or question from counsel, even though Patrick had told her that the so-called voir dire played little part in the English courts. ‘It is said’, he had told her jokingly, ‘that with us the case begins when the jury is sworn. With you, the case is over.’ Even so, she had expected some exchanges. Instead, the jury had filed into the box and taken the oath or affirmed and no one had said a word.
‘Aye, Mr Foxley,’ said the judge.
Patrick rose. ‘Before I open the case to the jury,’ he began, ‘I should tell Your Lordship that it came to the attention of myself and my solicitors yesterday that there existed a relevant memorandum, which had not been disclosed by the defendants. When this was raised with the defendants they denied any such memorandum existed. Accordingly I shall be applying to Your Lordship to permit the service out of time of a witness statement by a witness I shall call who will prove the existence of the memorandum and its contents. That statement is presently being prepared and I shall raise it at the appropriate time—’
‘Which is not, I fancy,’ interrupted the judge, ‘now.’
‘No’, Patrick replied, ‘but I thought it right to say this in the presence of my learned friend, so that he and his instructing solicitor and clients may not be taken by surprise.’
Mordecai rumbled to his feet. ‘Nothing that happens in these courts ever surprises me and I have been practising in them for over thirty years at a time when my friend was hardly out of short pants.’
Patrick flushed. ‘There is no call to be personally offensive,’ he expostulated.
‘A joke, a statement of fact. My friend should not be so touchy.’ Mordecai turned to the judge. ‘I’ll have something more to say about this when the appropriate time comes.’ Before the judge could reply he had clattered back into his seat.
‘Then we’d better await the appropriate moment,’ the judge said, trying to sound good-humoured. He spoke with his pronounced Geordie burr, which the spinster-looking middle-aged woman on the jury, who lived in Surbiton and who had never in her life been further north than Watford, found difficult to understand.
‘The name of the witness I wish to call’, Patrick went on, ‘is—’
‘I know who it is,’ growled Mordecai.
‘The name of the witness I shall ask leave to call’, Patrick repeated coldly, ‘is Godfrey Lacey, a former employee of the defendants.’
‘Aye, aye, Mr Foxley. You’ve had your say about that and we’ll consider it when you’ve submitted the witness statement. Now perhaps you will get on with it and open your case to the jury.’ Squabbling already, Jack Traynor thought. Roody prima donnas!
When Patrick spoke the name Godfrey Lacey
none of the defendants’ team was surprised; they had known the application would at some time be made. To others in the court the name meant nothing. It did, however, to Anna. Godfrey had drifted from her life. The memory of that evening in Paris, of how she had drunk too much in the restaurant and the nightclub after her rage over the portrait commission still embarrassed her. She had not told Patrick what had happened. After she’d moved to Clapham, Godfrey had telephoned once, to ask if she was all right but really to tell her that he’d left News Universal. She knew that he had, because Patrick had told her when they were driving down to The Waves, and she had not heard from Godfrey again. When she heard Patrick announce that he proposed calling Godfrey as a witness – which meant a witness against his old employers, News Universal – she wondered what it was that Godfrey could say.
Patrick, tall and elegant, now faced the jury to make his opening statement. He began by reminding them of Richard Tancred’s prominent position in public life and he recited the details of his client’s distinguished career. Then he turned to Francis Richmond, referring to Richmond’s ‘insignificant’ achievements in literary circles and his snobbish delight in the social world, which he masked by his malicious and feline comments on those who thought they were his friends. When he read aloud some of the extracts from the diary to illustrate this Emerald, in the row at the back of the court, stretched out her hand and took Sylvia’s.
‘It may have been,’ Patrick went on, ‘indeed one hopes it was, the diarist’s intention that what he was writing would never be read. We do not know. All we do know is that the diary was sold in its entirety to News Universal by Richmond’s literary executor and extracts were published in the Sunday News. I shall read some of them to you so that you may assess the kind of man the diarist was from what he wrote. It will be for you to judge what reliance you can put on the accuracy of his observations and the validity of his judgements.’
Then his tone changed and he became grave. ‘I turn now’, he said, ‘to those extracts which refer to Richmond’s reports of sightings of Richard Tancred, the Minister for Defence Procurement, in the company of an industrialist, Oscar Sleaven, whose company was at that time engaged in negotiating contracts with Richard Tancred’s ministry, contracts which involved millions of public money.’ Patrick read the entries in the diary about the meetings between the two men and the diarist’s dark hints at the strange relationship between them. ‘In these extracts,’ he declared, ‘you may have little doubt that Francis Richmond was making plain to any who read his diary his suspicion that something improper was going on between the Minister for Defence Procurement and the industrialist.’
The Richmond Diary Page 17
