by Peter Murphy
He smiled, and they allowed some time to pass in silence.
‘I suppose, when it comes right down to it, it’s not about the Court of Criminal Appeal. As you put it so nicely, the grounds could have gone either way – even though I still think we were right.’
‘Of course,’ she said.
‘It’s really about me. Wondering what I should have done differently, how I could have dealt with Martin Hardcastle differently. Perhaps if I’d made more of a scene at the time, perhaps even told the judge that I wasn’t happy with what was happening.’
She was shaking her head.
‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t do that, and it probably wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. Even if Cottage had given evidence… perhaps Martin was right.’
‘And perhaps at some point, Ben,’ she said, ‘you should try to contemplate the possibility that Billy Cottage is the monster the prosecution say he is, and that he attacked those two young people as savagely as they say he did, and that he deserves everything that’s coming to him. Perhaps it wouldn’t have made any difference what you did, or what Martin Hardcastle did. Have you thought of that?’
‘Yes, he replied. ‘I have thought of that, and I know that it may well be the truth. But he is my client, and…’ He allowed his voice to trail away.
She looked at him closely. He turned his eyes away from her. She gave him some time.
‘Ben, we know each other too well. This is not really about Billy Cottage, is it?’ she asked gently. ‘It’s about you. You’re still beating yourself up, questioning whether you have the right to be at the Bar, aren’t you?’
He nodded.
‘Well, I’m going to give you the same answer I’ve given you before. You are at the Bar, and you are a member of our Chambers because you are good at what you do, and you have every talent you need to succeed. You just need to believe it. You did everything you could have done for Billy Cottage, including going into the Court of Criminal Appeal without a leader. And they complimented you on your argument.’
The drinks arrived. Ben gratefully raised his glass in a toast.
‘Thank you,’ he said, simply.
He took a deep draught of beer.
‘To better days,’ she replied, raising her own glass.
There was a pause while they both savoured their drinks, then Ben suddenly sat up straight as if he had just remembered something.
‘Harriet, I have to know what happened when I was taken on in Chambers,’ he said suddenly.
There was real urgency in his voice. The change of tone took her aback.
‘I thought we had been through that,’ she said, after a pause. ‘When you talked to Gareth, didn’t he…?’
‘I got part of the story from Gareth,’ he replied, ‘but there’s something missing. Gareth told me that there was a problem in Chambers because of Anne Gaskell’s divorce case. Well, we all knew that. Bernard Wesley had to do something to make it all right, and that involved only taking one of us on. That one was going to be you. But somehow, we were both voted in.’
Harriet had been nodding.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Did it ever occur to you that Chambers realised what a huge mistake they would be making if they let you go?’
He shook his head.
‘There’s more to it,’ he said. ‘There must be. Anthony Norris…’
‘Anthony Norris is an anti-semitic bigot,’ she replied with fervour. ‘We both know that. You can’t let a man like that rule your life. And Ben, even Norris was impressed with the work you did. Aubrey told me he was ready to vote for you. I really think he had changed his mind. I know it doesn’t make it any easier that we have a man like that in our Chambers. But let’s not give him power over us. He took much the same approach towards women, you know.’
She looked at him again for some time. He did not respond.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I will tell you everything I know. You do know almost the whole story. But there is one piece of the puzzle you don’t have, and the reason you don’t have it is that only Bernard Wesley and I know what happened. It’s not something Gareth could have told you about.’
Ben was leaning forward, his arms crossed in front of him on the table. Harriet looked around the room. She saw no one she recognised.
‘And you have to promise that this will stay between us.’
‘I promise,’ he replied.
She nodded and leaned in towards him.
‘Kenneth Gaskell had an affair with Anne while he was acting as her counsel in the divorce case,’ she began. ‘They were old flames and it all flared up again. Why they couldn’t have waited until… anyway, there it was. Bernard was leading Kenneth. They had a very strong case. The husband drank and was violent – well, you know all this through talking to Simon, probably. Miles Overton was on the other side, leading Ginny Castle. Their instructing solicitor had the idea of having Anne followed by a private detective. They struck gold, including photographs.’
‘How do you know that?’ Ben asked.
‘Through my father.’
‘Your father?’
‘All will become clear. Give me time.’
She sipped her gin and tonic.
‘Armed with this, Miles had lunch with Bernard at the Club and essentially blackmailed him. He gave Bernard seven days to allow the husband incredibly generous terms, or Miles would serve a cross-petition naming Kenneth as a Party Cited and asking for damages for adultery.’
‘Which would have been the end…’
‘It would have been the end – for Chambers, not just for Kenneth,’ she agreed. ‘Remember, Ben, Anne was a client of Herbert Harper. You know how much work Harper Sutton & Harper send to Chambers. So Bernard had seven days to save Chambers.’
‘How did he do it?’ Ben asked.
Harriet took another sip and smiled.
‘Partly by good fortune, and partly by sheer animal cunning,’ she replied. ‘The good fortune was that Miles Overton’s son, Clive, now Gareth’s pupil of course, asked Chambers for help. He was a friend of Donald Weston, Kenneth’s pupil. You know the background to that story, of course. Everyone does now. When Clive was up at Cambridge, he was ringleader in a drunken escapade after the college rugby club dinner. They threw another student into the river and he drowned. Miles disowned Clive and sent him abroad, to America, where he remained, until he happened to call Donald during the aforesaid period of seven days. He told Donald he wanted to come back to England and that he wanted to come to the Bar. Donald offered to help, and he went to Bernard. Bernard saw a glimmer of light.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘Clive was at my father’s college,’ she replied. ‘That is where the rugby club incident happened. Miles and Bernard are also college men. Bernard put two and two together and made four. He realised that someone must have covered up what Clive and the other hearties had done – after all, no charges were pursued against any of them – and it wasn’t too much of a stretch to conclude that Miles was probably behind it. The problem was, Bernard couldn’t prove that.’
‘But your father could?’
She nodded.
‘Of course. As Master he knew everything that went on,’ she replied. ‘And I’m pretty sure he helped Miles to do it, though he would never admit that to me. Bernard went up to college to confront him about it. Of course, that meant that Bernard had to tell my father everything that was going on in Chambers. The idea was to sell Miles a way to bring Clive back. Miles couldn’t do that himself, of course. He had sworn never to speak to Clive again. My father agreed to help Bernard – on certain conditions, needless to say.’
Ben smiled.
‘You would be offered a place in Chambers.’
‘Yes. I had no knowledge of that, Ben, I swear.’
He nodded.
‘I remem
ber you told me that Bernard was going to Cambridge to see your father, but you didn’t know why. It was that day we were both at the Willesden County Court and we had a drink at the pub at lunch time.’
‘Yes. Well, after that, Aubrey told me that I was going to be elected. What I didn’t know until later was that Gareth had had to abandon you because Chambers only wanted one new member.’
‘I had worked most of that out,’ Ben said, ‘from what Gareth told me. But I’m still mystified…’
She took a deep breath.
‘I went to see Bernard, about five minutes before the Chambers meeting,’ she said. ‘It was a conversation that was just between the two of us.’
Ben had his pint glass in his hand, but suddenly replaced it on the table.
‘I told him to his face that they could not treat you like that, and that I would not accept a place in Chambers unless they took you too.’
Ben suddenly felt himself go hot and cold. A lump formed in his throat, and he was not sure he could speak.
‘Harriet…’ he began weakly.
She laughed and shook her head.
‘No, no. Ben, before you prostrate yourself at my feet in gratitude, I must be honest. I knew Bernard could not allow me to turn my place down. The whole deal would have crumbled. Bernard, of course, used the information my father gave him to blackmail Miles back, and make him agree to a reasonable settlement – one which let Kenneth and Chambers off the hook and allowed Clive to come to the Bar with a pupillage all arranged. But without the proof my father gave him – whatever that was – he could not have brought any of that off. Of course, as we all know, that’s exactly what he did. And in any case…’
‘In any case…?’
‘I told Bernard the truth, Ben. I didn’t want to be in a set of Chambers that turned a good man down because he was Jewish. I would have left if you had been voted down. I have my own work, as you know. I could have gone elsewhere, and Bernard knew that. But fortunately, Bernard did the right thing. Aubrey told me he actually threatened to leave Chambers if they didn’t vote you in.’
She sipped again.
‘So we all lived happily ever after.’
She smiled. He reached across for her hand, and she saw that there were tears in his eyes. She smiled, but said nothing more.
At that moment their waitress appeared with their bangers and mash, saying that she was sorry it had taken so long.
56
21 July
‘Martin,’ Jeremy Sawyer said, getting up briskly to greet his visitor. ‘Thank you for coming. I’m glad you could spare the time.’
‘Not at all,’ Martin Hardcastle replied, shaking Sawyer’s proffered hand. The phrase ‘spare the time’ was a bit ironic, Hardcastle reflected. The invitation to attend Sawyer’s office in the House of Lords had come suddenly, without warning, and without any suggestion that the date or time could be postponed if it should be inconvenient. It was, in truth, more of a summons than an invitation. He had had to scramble to make arrangements to comply.
‘Would you like some coffee?’
‘No. Thank you.’
‘Well, come and have a seat, please.’
Sawyer’s office was spacious, sparingly but elegantly furnished with reproduction Regency chairs and tables, and overlooked the river. It was the office of a man used to wielding considerable authority. Once Hardcastle was seated in front of his desk, Sawyer took his own seat and spread his hands in front of him. He eyed Hardcastle carefully. He had chosen the appointment time of 9 o’clock in the morning deliberately. He detected nothing untoward in Hardcastle’s manner, but it had been worth checking.
‘Martin, you may or may not know this already. I’m the Lord Chancellor’s right-hand man on judicial appointments.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Hardcastle replied. Everyone in Silk knew who Jeremy Sawyer was, and what he did. Under certain circumstances, an invitation to Sawyer’s office was the harbinger of good news. The Lord Chancellor had concluded that the time had come to launch a man into his new career on the High Court bench. Hardcastle would have loved to believe that his turn had come. But he did not believe it. He had probably not been in Silk long enough. He was still a bit young. But, more significantly, the Lord Chancellor never made such a move without taking soundings from a number of senior judges before whom a Silk had appeared recently. Hardcastle was no longer sure of his standing with the senior judges. The Cottage case gave him particular cause for alarm. He had read the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal. It did not augur well.
‘I’m sure you have a busy day ahead, so I’ll come straight to the point,’ Sawyer said. ‘The Lord Chancellor has asked me to inform you of his intention to appoint you to the County Court bench. He would like you to sit in London, but the opportunity may well arise for a chairmanship of Quarter Sessions, or perhaps a recordership in due course, so that you can do some crime as well. Usually, this kind of appointment takes a fair amount of time to arrange, but it so happens that we are in rather urgent need of a judge to sit at West London. So the Lord Chancellor sees no need to delay. May I be the first to congratulate you?’
Hardcastle suddenly felt short of breath. He found it difficult to focus on what Sawyer had said. To a member of the public, it might have seemed that Sawyer was paying him a compliment, that he was offering him a professional honour. But in the world which Hardcastle and Sawyer both inhabited, his words had an altogether different meaning. Hardcastle’s career had just been holed below the water line. Sawyer’s cultured voice and carefully chosen words conveyed to him as clearly as could be that he would be denied access to the highest echelons of the profession to which Queen’s Counsel aspired. The County Court bench was not just an offer; it was the end. Sawyer seemed to sense the effect his words had produced, and he did not try to hurry Hardcastle into a reply. He seemed content to shift his gaze and look out over the river.
‘This comes as something of a surprise, Jeremy,’ Hardcastle replied. ‘I had understood that it was the Lord Chancellor’s practice to sound people out about whether they would wish for this kind of appointment, to allow them some time to think about it, to consider their options.’
‘That is the usual practice,’ Sawyer agreed, without diverting his gaze from the river. ‘But in this case, the Lord Chancellor feels unusually strongly about the matter and, as I say, we have a vacancy to fill almost at once. I’m not saying you can’t have time to think about it. Of course you can. Take all the time you wish. And, of course, we will work with you on the timing of your appointment, so that you can deal with any cases you may feel professionally obliged to see through to the end.’
Hardcastle looked down at the floor.
‘And if I should decide that, grateful as I am to the Lord Chancellor for the confidence he is placing in me, I would prefer to remain in practice as Queen’s Counsel?’
Sawyer turned back to face him.
‘You’re perfectly entitled to respond in that way, Martin. The Lord Chancellor has no power, and indeed would not wish to force anyone to take an appointment. But I have been asked to make it clear to you that the Lord Chancellor does not envisage offering you an appointment at a higher level.’
Hardcastle sat back in his chair.
‘I see,’ he said quietly.
‘And while you are free to continue in practice as Queen’s Counsel as long as you wish, the Lord Chancellor has asked me to remind you of the professional standards which he expects of Queen’s Counsel.’
Hardcastle felt his blood pressure start to rise.
‘Now, look here, Sawyer. You can’t bring me here and try to intimidate me like this. I am…’
Sawyer shook his head dismissively.
‘People are talking, Martin,’ he said. ‘More importantly, judges are talking. You are living on borrowed time – professionally speaking, that is. It has not escaped the Lord Chancellor
’s attention. And please don’t make it awkward for both of us by asking me what I mean. You know perfectly well what I mean. Don’t make me spell it out.’
Hardcastle sat back in his chair, deflated.
‘Martin, we feel we owe you something,’ Sawyer continued. ‘You are in Silk, after all. That is why the Lord Chancellor invited you here this morning. But please understand, there is only so far we can go.’
He stood and proffered his hand.
‘Take the appointment, Martin. That is my strong advice to you.’
He walked around his desk and placed his hand on Hardcastle’s forearm.
‘Don’t look so downcast, my dear fellow. I think you will rather enjoy the bench once you get used to it. Let me know when you have made a decision. I’m sure you can find your own way out, can’t you?’
57
31 July
At extremely short notice, Virginia Castle had been put in charge of organising Martin Hardcastle’s congratulatory – and farewell – party. Miles Overton was anxious to hold it as soon as possible. If the truth were told, most members of Overton’s Chambers were not entirely unhappy to see Martin go. He was a successful and ambitious Silk, and over the years he had done more than his fair share of keeping Chambers’ solicitors happy and introducing new solicitors to Chambers. For some years that contribution was an asset which outweighed the liability of the rumours. But, as time went by and the successes grew less frequent, the balance began to shift, and there had been mutterings in the ranks to the effect that it was time for him either to make changes or move on. The Lord Chancellor’s decision to appoint Martin a county court judge not only confirmed the suspicions, but also came as a welcome relief to most members of Chambers. They would never say so except in whispered conversations, of course, but in private they felt a burden being lifted.
Virginia was a rising star in court, but was also known for her deft touch in social and diplomatic situations. She had no trace of the pomposity of the Bar, and had an engaging and irreverent sense of humour. Even those who were too stuffy to approve fully found themselves drawn irresistibly to her. Miles Overton had asked her for something tasteful, but not too elaborate – or too long-lasting. Virginia immediately ruled out a formal Chambers dinner, and very quickly ruled out a venue outside Chambers. She opted for a Friday evening reception in Chambers with champagne and hors d’oeuvres, an event which would run from six until eight and which allowed people to come and go as they wished. Using Chambers instead of an outside venue also reduced the risk of embarrassment and gave her more to spend on food and drink. When her plans were complete, and had been approved by Miles Overton, she announced them to Martin as a fait accompli, and with such enthusiasm that it did not occur to him that there could ever have been an alternative.
