Law and Peace

by Tim Kevan

  Just in time for his share-selling deadline on Friday.

  Thursday 27 March 2008

  Year 2 (week 26): Warning

  Eight o’clock this morning and the memo was faxed from an anonymous contact of ScandalMonger’s to all the major news agencies. OK, it wasn’t headline stuff in itself but it was sufficient to make it newsworthy in the city and since the markets opened, the telecom company’s shares have fallen by over 60 per cent. This is on top of a steady decline over the last couple of months.

  By three o’clock this afternoon, I had a call from TopFirst. ‘It’s one thing messing with me, BabyB, and don’t think you’ve heard the end of that. But for your information, you’ve just entered a whole new league, taking on a multi-billion-pound company in this way. After what I’ve heard from them today, all I’ll say is that I wouldn’t want to be in your pathetic little shoes.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I answered.

  ‘Leaking like a sieve, BabyB.’

  ‘If you’re talking about the news story today, I can only assume that any leak as you call it came from someone in the company itself. It’s certainly nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Yeah, right. You forget: I know how you work.’

  He then added as an aside, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you even had a financial angle off the back of it.’

  This was perhaps the most worrying part of the conversation since tomorrow ScandalMonger is set to make a lot of money.

  Friday 28 March 2008

  Year 2 (week 26): Sweet FSA

  Well, today was the big day for ScandalMonger’s bet on the telecom company’s shares. Midday to be precise, and at one minute past I received a telephone call from him saying, ‘Congratulations, BabyB. You and I are now considerably richer than we were one minute ago. You just tell me where you want me to send your profits and it’ll be done.’

  ScandalMonger doesn’t seem to have considered the fact that we are now all at risk of being reported to the Financial Services Authority for insider dealing, market manipulation or some other such financial crime. But it’s certainly a worry for me. All I can hope is that TopFirst or the company itself will find ScandalMonger’s paper trail too difficult to unravel. Although the fact that he was reckless enough to phone me at perhaps the most dangerous stage of the whole enterprise does not instil me with enormous amounts of confidence. In any event, I asked him to transfer any money to my friend Blagger on the basis that it was probably better to have a little control over what was going on than none at all. I’d already talked about this possibility with Blagger and we had both agreed that that way at least I would have someone I could trust to keep it at arm’s length from me. It will also buy me some time to try and work out exactly what to do with the money without incriminating myself further.

  Monday 31 March 2008

  Year 2 (week 27): The complaint

  The big news today was that I was informed of a complaint that has been made against me by guess who? A certain Mr TopFirst. He alleges that I am part of a conspiracy to commit illegal insider trading by aiding and abetting the selling short on shares in the telecom company. The strange thing is that rather than making the complaint to the Financial Services Authority, he instead reported it to the Bar Standards Board. My initial thoughts are that he has done this because he currently lacks sufficient evidence to get a conviction and because he hopes he might frighten me out of the woodwork with a professional complaint. I simply wrote back to the Bar Standards Board saying that it was the inappropriate forum to decide such a serious allegation. They may well get back to me asking whether I in fact deny what is being said or not, something I would prefer to avoid answering when I remain unsure as to what evidence TopFirst has in his possession.

  Meanwhile, I will have to try and somehow force TopFirst to withdraw this complaint. Both he and I know full well that if the allegation were proved and it eventually did go to the FSA, it would be porridge for BabyBarista. As if this weren’t enough, my other concern is that knowing TopFirst as I do, I doubt very much that this is exclusively driven by malice and revenge. I suspect it is also a ploy to distract me from whatever else he might be up to in the Moldy litigation.

  Chapter 7

  April: Gotcha!

  Tuesday 1 April 2008

  Year 2 (week 27): Pupil fodder

  It’s one year since I did my first case in court and as I sized up my opponent this morning I considered how appropriate it was that April Fools’ Day should be the date set for the official release of the pupils into the wild. April, the cruellest month, delivering this one fresh from his pupilmaster’s cocoon complete with sparkling white bands, unused wig and ramrod straight back, as if his mother was somehow at his shoulder reminding him not to slouch.

  Actually I say pupilmaster but in fact it’s pupilmistress because I happen to know who will be controlling his life for the next six months. My opponent was none other than the timid will-o’-the-wisp, FraGiles. Today the pupil who can’t stop his voice from rising like a question whenever he opens his mouth had double reason to be afraid since not only was it his first day in court but he’d then be returning back to chambers to the loving care and supervision of UpTights.

  I sympathised with him on both these counts but he seemed oblivious to anything I said today as he was so nervous he had switched into a kind of autopilot mode. Despite it being a small claim, he approached me carrying not only two huge volumes on court procedure but also a skeleton argument and a three-inch-thick bundle of authorities on car cases. He drew breath before asking, ‘Do you accept that a car driver owes a common law duty of care to another when driving on one of Her Majesty’s highways?’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘And do you accept that breaches of the Highway Code constitute negligence?’

  ‘Er . . .’

  He’d clearly been advised to be forceful since despite the obvious and wholly uncontroversial points he was making, I couldn’t get a word in edgeways as he pretty much recited his skeleton at me. Then I spotted SlipperySlope, who was obviously here on a different case, across the other side of the waiting room, and I made my escape from FraGiles. Slippery was clearly in high spirits and as I approached he put his hands on his hips and had his chest pushed out theatrically as he declared, ‘You smell that? Do you smell that? Pupils, BabyB. Nothing else in the world smells like that.’ He paused and then added, ‘I love the smell of pupils in the morning.’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Smells like . . . victory.’

  And in my case this turned out to be right. As I was leaving court, I noticed Claire talking to another barrister and realised immediately that it was the same guy she had been with in the bar. I was going to go and say hello but just as I started walking in her direction I saw her reach over and touch his chest as if brushing off some fluff that was caught on his jacket. In itself it was pretty innocuous but it’s something she has a habit of doing to me, and until today I’ve never seen her do it to anyone else. Really, it’s no big deal at all. Except that as I saw her do it I felt as though someone were suddenly squeezing my heart. I turned away and left the court immediately.

  Wednesday 2 April 2008

  Year 2 (week 27): UpTights’s suppositories

  UpTights was in the clerks room this morning talking about a case she lost yesterday.

  ‘Anyway, I’m appealing,’ she said.

  As she was speaking, OldSmoothie walked through the door and said, ‘I hardly think that’s a very accurate description of reality, now, is it, UpTights? Not by anybody’s standards.’

  She ignored the comment and instead changed the subject to the Moldy litigation which started up one of their regular bouts of argument. At one point she said, ‘Well, I suppose . . .’

  OldSmoothie immediately rolled his eyes and interrupted with, ‘Oh don’t give me another one of your long, rambling “supposes”, UpTights.’

  Then TheVamp made a stage whisper to the rest of the room, ‘He calls them her
suppositories.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ asked one of the pupils innocently.

  ‘Because there’s precisely one place I think she should stick her little theories and all I’ll say is that it’s somewhere the sun doesn’t shine,’ said OldSmoothie.

  ‘Which complements exactly what UpTights calls your own verbal pirouettes,’ said BusyBody sticking up for her friend. ‘I mean, we all know that you talk out of that big fat behind of yours even if most of it’s just hot air. But on the occasions when you get a little over-excited and exceed even your usual capacity for crassness, they’re marked down as “OldSmoothie’s embarrassing little follow-throughs”.’

  ‘This morning being a case in point,’ said UpTights, as she whisked past him and out of the door.

  Thursday 3 April 2008

  Year 2 (week 27): Litigation for sale

  The automatism case against TopFirst came back to life again today and I was a little surprised to hear that my client would be present this morning since until now he has been AWOL. When I arrived at court, SlipperySlope was there to meet me, smirking slightly, and standing next to him was a man he introduced as ‘our missing client’. Yeah, right. Although I’d never met him, the medical report clearly stated that our client was twenty-five and yet this chap looked about fifty. Not only that but according to one of the file notes the client was said to be about six foot two whereas the man to whom I was introduced was about five six. Never having met the client myself I took Slippery to one side and asked, ‘Are you sure this is our client? He looks shorter and somewhat older than I was expecting.’

  ‘Mere details, BabyB. Look, here’s his passport. Definitely him.’

  I examined the passport and it certainly looked legitimate but I still didn’t believe it. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, BabyB, don’t you worry your little barrister head,’ he replied.

  ‘We’ll both be worrying if I withdraw from this case and the judge orders an investigation.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘I would unless you’re straight with me. However bad, I still want to know what you’re up to.’

  He didn’t look at all happy and hesitated for quite a while, as if coming to a decision.

  ‘OK. But this one is definitely privileged.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Rent Your Client dot com. Solved many a tricky little situation. Sometimes, your client just won’t survive cross-examination. Other times, like today, he actually disappears.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘It fulfils a need, BabyB. We’ve got a hundred grand in costs riding on this case alone and all we need is someone to turn up at court, agree to the witness statements that we’ve already drafted and to answer a few questions about his earnings and his job prospects. Easy really and worth every penny of the ten grand it costs.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so precious. You’ve got ten grand of your own fees riding on the success of this case. That’s on top of the fact that you hate your opponent’s guts and would do anything to get one over on him.’

  Then he added, ‘You’re in too deep already to start picking fights about small matters such as this. See no evil, hear no evil, BabyB. Nelsonian knowledge. Just look the other way is all I ask.’

  Well this wasn’t quite accurate any longer since he’d actually given me the full details of what he was up to. But he was also right in his analysis of my own predicament and eventually I relented and we went into court. It did become a little nerve-wracking at one point when TopFirst’s client started suggesting that my client wasn’t the person he’d bumped his car into. But my answer was to point out that if TopFirst’s client was as unconscious as he said he was then how could he possibly have known?

  After much pushing and shoving inside the court, what it all boiled down to in the end was which expert the judge preferred. This is never a good thing since it leaves it even more open than usual for the judge simply to follow his own prejudices rather than the facts.

  Now, the funny thing about the experts I’ve met so far is that without exception they all seem to have a small eccentricity that they play up, almost as if it helps you remember them. One might wear a bow tie. Another might be an ageing hippy with that long-haired, laid-back look. With TopFirst’s expert today it was braces. Not the teeth kind. Stretchy ones. Stretchy and er, gold. Wide, shiny, gold braces, which when he took his jacket off in the witness box even made the judge raise an eyebrow at the barristers in front of him.

  Then Slippery whispered from behind, ‘Ouch. Clip-ons. That’s them done for with this judge.’

  ‘What?’ I whispered back.

  ‘I’ve seen this judge take against an expert in the past merely because he didn’t have double cuffs. Heaven forbid that he’d have clip-on rather than button-on braces.’

  Incredibly, after the build-up and the various adjournments, that was exactly how it was decided. TopFirst stropped off in a sulk as soon as the judge had left the court but our expert asked Slippery and me whether he might have a confidential word before we left.

  When we had crowded into one of the little consultation rooms he looked at us a little nervously and said, ‘I’m not sure if I should say something but word has it on the expert-witness grapevine, such as it is, that there are a few experts who have recently joined together and are literally charging clients to reproduce reports which those clients have in fact ghostwritten themselves. I know there’s always been the odd rogue but this time it’s more organised and explicit. The client pays and the expert says what the client wants him to say. Simple as.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘The thing is, the expert your opponent was using today is one of those I’ve heard is involved.’

  Slippery and I looked at each other, both seeing what this might imply. As soon as we had thanked our expert and let him leave, Slippery said, ‘Well, well, BabyB. I think we’d better start investigating the other side’s experts a little more closely in the Moldy litigation.’

  Friday 4 April 2008

  Year 2 (week 27): Gotcha!

  Received some worrying photos in the post today. They have me getting into a taxi with WhistleBlower and then they show the two of us inside the taxi itself. They look as though they were taken from outside, but from quite close range.

  It definitely suggests that there is some sort of set-up going on. The problem is that they were delivered with no explanation whatsoever. Obviously the first person who springs to mind is TopFirst. He is so determined to destabilise both me personally and the case as a whole. But it also makes me wonder about the authenticity of WhistleBlower. How on earth would whoever took the photos know about the meeting in the first place if they hadn’t heard about it from her?

  Monday 7 April 2008

  Year 2 (week 28): Deadline

  I told OldSmoothie about the photographs today and he was, to say the least, unamused.

  ‘BabyB, we’re committed to relying upon that evidence. If we withdraw it now, the other side will want to know why and they will rub our noses in it with the judge.’

  ‘But what can we do?’ I asked.

  ‘Not “we”, BabyB. You. What can you do? I think it’s time you started earning your money. I don’t care how you do it but you’d better come up with something substantive on this WhistleBlower evidence in the next few weeks. If you fail, I’m cutting you free from this case and if there is any complaint, I shall be pointing them in your direction. Count on that.’

  This is just what I need on top of the insider-dealing complaint from TopFirst. Meanwhile, TopFlirt rang today to suggest meeting up for a specifically platonic lunch tomorrow. I think it’s time I started leveraging my position with her, so to speak.

  Tuesday 8 April 2008

  Year 2 (week 28): Code of conduct

  Met up with TopFlirt outside Temple tube today. She was wearing a big raincoat with a hood and when I arrived she immediately said, ‘Quick, BabyB. Let’s go
straight down to the trains.’

  I didn’t have time to argue since she was already on her way and so I just followed. We both managed to get the one that was standing on the platform and when it moved away she pulled down her hood.

  ‘I think he’s got some private eye or other following you, BabyB, and the last thing I want is him catching me on candid camera meeting up with you.’

  After that we went for a quiet little lunch near Victoria station.

  ‘It’s still going terribly with TopFirst, BabyB,’ she said. ‘He’s becoming increasingly obsessed with the case the two of you are fighting, particularly since you delivered WhistleBlower’s evidence.’

  I wondered why she was talking so openly about the case, as well as her relationship with TopFirst, but I certainly wasn’t going to stop her.

  ‘I just wish he’d leave this case alone,’ she said.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh it’s just as if it’s stealing him away from me. Making him more distant. Compromising him in some way although I can’t work out how.’

  Then she added, ‘Just be careful, BabyB. You know what he’s like as well as I do.’

  For my part, and emboldened by her openness about the problems in her own relationship, I told her about Claire’s new boyfriend and the fact that I’d managed to let her slip through my fingers. There was a pause, and a moment when we found ourselves staring at each other for just a little too long. But then she gave a shake of her head, as if to wake herself up and said, ‘I do really like you, BabyB. But whatever happens between TopFirst and me, you and I would never work out because I know it would destroy him. You know that, don’t you?’