Summary Justice: 'An all-action court drama' Sunday Times (Benson and De Vere)

by John Fairfax

  ‘Do you think he’d be interested in a thirty-something who couldn’t care less about public opinion? A brunette of wit and charm?’

  ‘I really have no idea.’

  ‘Would you introduce me?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  Sally swiped her screen with a perfectly manicured thumb. She angled the image towards Tess. She’d found a picture of the Harbeton family. Tess vaguely remembered the three sons, led now by Gary Chilton, Paul Harbeton’s half-brother, who dominated the frame. The person she’d been unable to forget was Maureen, their mother. Throughout the trial, she’d sat watching through a haemorrhage of mascara. It was as though the black smudges had never dried.

  Sally closed the screen down. ‘I couldn’t do your job. I couldn’t look someone like that in the eye and defend the person she believes killed their son.’

  ‘Someone has to do it,’ said Tess.

  ‘Even when you think your client is guilty?’

  ‘I’ve told you before. On the way to Prague. And since. It doesn’t matter what I think. You don’t get involved. You don’t take sides. All that matters is what the client tells you. And if they tell you they’re innocent, you fight their corner to the death. It’s simple, actually.’

  This was the work that had once captivated Tess; work that had gradually been replaced by business-class excursions to the court in Strasbourg. Smiling at Gordon during lunch, she’d felt the old hunger for a fight over the evidence – a hunger similar to indignation, roused into flame by the slacker behind who’d complained about green fees while abandoning his client to the prosecutor. That client would now be represented by William Benson. His long route to this unlikely outcome was a feat of astonishing endurance. And there was more:

  ‘You’ve got to give it to him. He’s accepted the jury’s verdict when they got it wrong. And he’s done that because he believes in the system that failed him. Can you picture that?’

  ‘Not easily.’ Sally took a thoughtful sip. ‘How do you know Benson is innocent?’

  ‘He told me so.’

  ‘Ah. That explains everything.’

  ‘No, Sally, this was different.’

  ‘How? I thought you didn’t get involved? Didn’t take sides?’

  Tess reached for her coat. ‘Sorry, Sal, I’ve got to go.’

  Sally took another thoughtful sip. Aping mild puzzlement, she said, ‘Look at your glass.’

  It was almost full. Tess had barely touched her Corpse Reviver and Sally was examining her friend’s face as if it were a transcript of their conversation. She was reading the signs. People paid her for what she was now thinking but Sally’s expression said you can have it for free. She said:

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Tess. ‘I’ve got a conference. New work. Cutting edge.’

  3

  Tess turned the ignition of her classic Mini and set off for Seymour Road near the Regent’s Canal in north London. According to the Sun, a gate in the middle of an iron railed fence opened on to a path flanked by trees that led to Seymour Basin, where a barge, The Wooden Doll, lay moored on a private wharf. This was Benson’s ‘exclusive’ residence, shared with a cat called Papillon. ‘Two strays,’ observed the writer.

  Tess dropped a gear and a conversation crackled in her memory. It had taken place sixteen years ago in a cramped conference room near the cells in the Old Bailey. The jury were still deliberating. Braithwaite and Camberley had just been called to another court for a mention in a different case. Tess and Benson were alone, sipping coffee from plastic cups. The silence became tense with embarrassment. They were both out of their depth. Their eyes met and locked.

  ‘I didn’t do this,’ Benson said, very quietly.

  ‘Okay.’

  His lips were chapped. Blood had dried on one of the cracks.

  ‘No, I’m telling you as if I was telling the world,’ he said. ‘You’re not my lawyer. You’re not on the jury. But you’re here. You’re a stranger and you’ve heard it all . . . and I swear I’m innocent. I want you to hear that from my own mouth because when the jury sends me down, I need at least one person I don’t know to accept I didn’t kill that man.’

  ‘Who says you’re—’

  ‘I didn’t do it. Believe me. Please.’

  ‘Who says you’re going to prison?’

  ‘I do. I can sense it. Tell me you believe me . . . if you believe me.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘Is that pity or what?’

  ‘No, I mean it. I swear.’

  They fell silent again, bound by the unforeseen, an exchange of oaths. Benson seemed relieved: he covered his face with his hands, a mop of black hair falling over his fingers.

  Aged nineteen, Tess had come to London after the summer term in order to shadow Charles Hutton, a shipping specialist at Hutton, Braithwaite and Jones. They’d been in the Admiralty Courts sitting behind counsel in a couple of trials, the first an action for demurrage under charterparty, representing the plaintiffs, the second acting for the defendants in a claim for damage to cargo, relying upon excepted clauses under the Hague-Visby Rules. It had all been wonderfully civilised. No jury, just a judge. No drama and no appeal to the emotions, just polite intellectual wrangling with occasional lapses from irony into sarcasm. The sums of money at stake had been eye-watering. They’d lunched appropriately afterwards. And then, one day, George Braithwaite – the partner with the smallest office in the building – had said, ‘Do you want to see a slice of real life?’ She had done, and she’d come to the Old Bailey and met a young man, pretty much her age, facing a charge of murder.

  Benson had been so pale he looked sick. And looking sick, he looked guilty – especially when he was in the dock, flanked by guards who’d seen it all before. Only Tess, observing him outside court, had gradually realised that this awful bloodlessness had been fear and anxiety and powerlessness. He’d been overwhelmed by the apparatus of criminal law – until that moment, for Tess, the dry stuff of another textbook, rumoured to be badly paid in practice. The trial itself had profoundly disturbed her. But it had also been riveting. She’d sat, entranced, as the prosecutor span the facts one way and Camberley span them another. The evidence had been alive, its meaning moving like a ball off a racket. At times, she’d held her breath: a man’s innocence or guilt turned on the bounce. The truth – game, set and match – would only be called when the foreman of the jury stood up to announce a group decision.

  ‘If my future wasn’t in the balance, if I wasn’t scared to hell, I’d say I’ve enjoyed this trial.’ Benson nodded, contradicting Tess’s shake of the head. ‘Honestly. If I’d known what being a barrister involved, if I’d realised what happens in a courtroom, this is what I’d liked to have done with my life. It’s been a revelation. Like a blinding light. Only it’s come too late.’

  ‘It’s never too late.’ Tess had spoken lightly, but Benson leaned across the table. Those drowning brown eyes were wide with a dying man’s hope.

  ‘Are you being serious?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Tess freewheeled: ‘Look, I don’t think you’re going down. But even if you do, no one can stop you reading law. Sure, they can try and block you coming to the Bar, but you can take them on. There’s no law preventing someone with a conviction from starting a legal career. None whatsoever.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. And barristers are self-employed. They’re completely independent. Get yourself qualified and you can do what you damn-well like. Tell the feckers where to get off. You can even operate on your own.’

  Tess had made Benson smile; and it moved her. She became emphatic, irresponsibly so, because she was no expert on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, or how the Bar worked:

  ‘Sure, it would be a long, bruising haul. You’d have to wear down the establishment, plodding on and taking the knocks until you got there. But if you want it bad enough, you can do it. Do you like the Proclaimers?’

&nb
sp; Benson said he did, so Tess went on:

  ‘Do you know that song about what a man will do for the girl he loves? Because a life in the law . . . well, I think it’s like a love affair. It is for me, anyway.’ She began to sing, her voice low and husky: ‘But I would walk five hundred miles—’

  Benson took over, his eyes finding hers. They almost threw the words at each other, drawing closer, minutely, until the door opened and George Braithwaite stepped inside, frowning. ‘I respectfully suggest we save the celebrations for later. There’s a verdict. We’ve been called back to court.’

  Benson glanced at Tess and then he seemed to go under.

  He’d been right. The foreman of the jury said the one feared word, ‘Guilty’. There was a whoop of triumph from the Harbeton camp and Mrs Benson collapsed. A member of the public caught her as she slumped to one side. Two weeks later Benson was sentenced to life imprisonment. Afterwards, in the cramped conference room, Tess leaned on the chipped wall as Benson told Camberley he’d decided to come to the Bar. With her eyes she told him he could do it, that he could walk a thousand miles, not believing for a moment that he’d actually take to the road. Like Camberley said, the cost was too high, the obstacles too many, the chance of success too small. They all said goodbye. They all felt awkward.

  Another conversation now crackled in Tess’s memory.

  She went up a gear, accelerating, because when it was over, she’d been embarrassed and angry. Back at Hutton, Braithwaite and Jones, again in a cramped (albeit Georgian) room, Braithwaite had given Tess some advice. And a kind of order.

  ‘Take a seat, please.’

  ‘Mr Braithwaite, I was wondering if I might—’

  ‘A word of guidance first, if I may.’ He frowned at his tea, observing that the cream had separated from the milk. And then he sighed. ‘Miss de Vere, in the criminal courts, one has to be very careful not to get involved with the client. One has to keep some distance in order to remain objective and clear-headed. The work requires a certain personality, or at least a certain discipline. It’s not easy to fight passionately on someone’s behalf and then walk away afterwards, but that is what we do. It’s called professionalism. The detachment is a vital part of offering fearless representation. Down the other road is compromise and complicity. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I hope I haven’t offended you.’

  ‘You haven’t. I take the warning.’

  ‘Good.’ And then out popped the order disguised as an afterthought: ‘Oh yes, there’s just one final matter. Your father is a friend of Charles. And Charles has stood in loco parentis while you’ve been with us. In those delicate circumstances, I think it would be most unwise, not to say inappropriate, if you were to consider visiting Benson. Or writing to him. It’s not what Charles expects. Let Benson go, Miss de Vere. He has a long road ahead of him. Yours runs in a very different, and I have to say promising, direction. The twain should never meet. I’m sure you agree.’

  Tess nodded.

  ‘You were wondering something, if I recall?’

  ‘It’s not worth mentioning.’

  Tess had followed Braithwaite’s advice. And over the years she’d come to understand, with gratitude, what he meant by the discipline of passionate detachment. She’d also obeyed his order. Which, at the time, incensed her, because – as Braithwaite divined – Tess had planned to both visit Benson and write to him, as a natural extension of their conversation, and the injunction not to do so brought their association to an abrupt end. He’d separated the milk from the cream. Strangely, she was even angrier now, and ashamed, because knowing what Benson had subsequently done – walk a thousand miles over sixteen years – she felt as if she’d abandoned him. She’d pointed out the difficult road and then gone her own sweet way. She could have helped, and she hadn’t done, simply because Charles Hutton didn’t want to tell her father that his daughter had taken a shine to a convicted murderer.

  Tess parked and cut the engine.

  On crossing Seymour Road she saw a bearded man in a leather bomber jacket walking towards her; and he, on seeing her, turned and began retracing his steps. He had a slight imbalance to his gait. Thinking nothing more of him, Tess looked and easily found the entrance in the railings described by the Sun, along with the post box without a name, and the bell, which she pressed. Standing by a streetlamp, humming ‘Lady Luck’ by the Proclaimers, she watched the blue-and-red barge through the bare branches. But no one emerged. There was no movement, save the shiver of the water as it twinkled in the dying light. Looking down, she saw a large cat looking at her through the bars. This, presumably, was Papillon. He purred like an idling HGV.

  ‘Where’s Benson?’ she said, crouching. ‘Where’s he gone?’

  And in saying those words, Tess realised that she was scared. She didn’t know Benson. She’d hardly known him when she was nineteen, and she’d no idea who he’d become now that she was thirty-five. She didn’t know where he’d gone, as a man. He’d spent most of his adult life in prison. The thought unsettled her. Resolved to wait, Tess left Papillon and went back to her car, wondering what eleven years in a cell might have done to William Benson, the student philosopher who’d begged her to believe in his innocence.

  4

  Benson was inexplicably terrified. The last time he’d felt like this was the morning of his trial. It didn’t make any sense. That had been the Old Bailey. This was an old people’s home in Shoreditch. Back then, he’d faced a judge and jury. Now it was a ninety-five-year-old pensioner with his pensioner daughters.

  The situation would have been comic if a serious question hadn’t been in play. Benson had just finished renovating the ground floor of the building that was meant to function as his chambers. He’d furnished three rooms. He’d unpacked two thousand books. He’d placed a name board by the door. He’d authorised modest publicity. He was up and running. And now, at the last moment, he faced eviction two days before a major trial, just when the Secretary of State for Justice was hoping to shut him down. This wasn’t a good time for a breach in landlord and tenant relations.

  ‘You’ll be okay, Rizla,’ said Archie, leading Benson along a gloomy corridor to the chosen parlour. ‘Just answer the questions to the best of your ability.’

  ‘You sound like Camberley. And stop calling me “Rizla”.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s just a habit.’

  ‘This is your bloody fault.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry again.’

  ‘You should have explained my situation.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You didn’t. You left out the one bit that mattered. That I’m trapped.’

  They’d reached the parlour door. Archie flicked some dust off Benson’s shoulder. ‘If he says, “Call me CJ”, you’re home and dry.’

  Benson entered the room, leaving the door slightly ajar behind him. His mouth went dry. ‘CJ’ Congreve, in his wheelchair, was positioned behind a long, bare table. On his right sat Dot and Joyce Congreve; on his left, Betsy and Eileen Congreve. Archie, the only boy in the family, didn’t have a place. He was somewhere behind Benson, who sat down on a wooden chair facing the tribunal. None of the would-be judges were smiling. CJ had put on a tartan tie for the occasion. His white shirt and diamond-patterned tank-top hung loose on a shrunken frame. Bald and milky-eyed, he banged the table with the knuckle of a bony hand.

  ‘My father opened Congreve’s in Artillery Passage in 1892. In those days, Spitalfields was like a village. There were tailors on every corner. Locksmiths. Grocers. Pawnbrokers. Alehouses. But there was only one fishmonger. And that was Charlie Congreve.’

  ‘Get on with it, Dad,’ said Betsy.

  ‘I had two brothers. Both of ’em died in the Great War. One on the Somme. The other on the Menin Road. Serving their country. I was born in 1919—’

  ‘Dad—’

  ‘And I took over Congreve’s in 1946. I’d served in the Royal Signals. I was at El Alamein with General Montgomery. We showed Rom
mel—’

  ‘God almighty,’ said Joyce.

  CJ hit the table again. ‘That’s two world wars and Congreve’s never shut down once.’

  Eileen spoke: ‘Dad, Mr Benson isn’t interested in—’

  ‘I’m talking about the Congreve name. And there was no dishonour in this family until our Archie went daft and fiddled his tax returns. He didn’t tell us the business was failing. He didn’t tell us our Patsy was dying—’

  ‘That was Archie’s wife, Mr Benson,’ said Joyce, as if Benson didn’t know already. ‘She had cancer and our Archie looked after Patsy on his own when he should have asked for help.’

  ‘And after she died, he held his hands up,’ said Eileen.

  ‘And Congreve’s had to close,’ said CJ. ‘After a hundred and seventeen years.’ He squinted at Benson. ‘And now there’s more trouble.’

  Benson had shared a cell with Archie in HMP Lindley. And it was Benson, an old hand at thirty-one, who’d showed Archie the ropes, a grieving widower at fifty-six. Archie hadn’t wanted help caring for Patsy, and he hadn’t been able to tell CJ that Congreve’s was up against the wall; he’d thought he could turn things round with a few big contracts – supplying Harrods and a couple of Michelin star restaurants – but that had all fallen through. By trying to keep everyone’s world normal, free from worry, he’d sunk not only himself but a family tradition, for which he’d received a two-year jail sentence. Benson had pulled out some hooch and they’d both drowned their sorrows.

  They were released within months of each other, Benson to finish his legal training, successfully, Archie to seek work, in vain. No employer would touch him. Living on the dole, he’d set up the ‘Tuesday Club’, a weekly gathering of ex-cons who met (still) at the Pride of Spitalfields on Heneage Street. The idea was to offer mutual support in a world that – by and large – wouldn’t give offenders a second chance. And it was there, on a Tuesday night, that Benson, shown the door by his most recent set of chambers, wondered if now was the time to tell the feckers where to get off. Archie had agreed. He offered Benson the old shop premises in Artillery Passage at a peppercorn rent, subject to CJ’s approval; and that approval was granted, all the more so because Archie, at sixty-two, would become a barrister’s clerk. But now there was a problem. CJ hit the table.