Part Forty Eight
"The Lord Chancellor wishes to see the both of you," the smartly dressed ambitious aide to the head of their Department informed them. They were sharply interrupted when they were chatting and strolling casually along one of the many corridors which stretched far into the distance of the ancient heart of the judiciary.
Sir Ian gulped as the casual intonation held the flavour of years gone by in a prelude to an unwelcome and painful interview in the Headmaster's office where choice invective and a stout cane was painfully ready and waiting. From their own observations in the gallery of the Crown Versus Atkins Pilkinton trial, the case was going very badly for the Lord Chancellor. In other words, the prospects were that these two unwanted and unwelcome criminals were going to end up in Her Majesty's Prison for a long stretch. How much easier would it be if that Pilkinton tart could be sent back to Florida and that she, at least, would be someone else's problem.
Nervously, they opened the stout mahogany door and sat in the low seats across the way from the huge desk, overstuffed with papers and the grey indefinite figure that addressed them from the gloom.
"I need to know what's happening in the Atkins Pilkinton trial. I've written memos to you on it but, quite frankly, I've not had any clear replies. So I thought if we had a chat together I'd get a proper explanation without your usual waffle. So how's the trial going, eh."
"Well, err, the trial is rapidly approaching its conclusion or so I hear." Sir Ian stammered, giving the utterly false impression that his source of information was several stages removed from him.
They wanted to keep quiet the livelier moments of the trial, like the recent morning session where the dignity of the court had been disrupted by female bawdy humour. It was not what his public school upbringing and cloistered life in what was once an all male preserve had accustomed him to. Sir Ian's sister and mother never behaved in the same way as these women.
"What conclusion, guilty or innocent." The voice snapped.
"It's too early to say yet. You know that nothing is cut and dried where a British jury is concerned." Sir Ian replied. Lawrence James as his junior, figured that his best course of non action was to edge his chair discretely backwards and pretend to be invisible. This would avoid him being drawn into the argument.
"So what about this Deed character that's running the trial. How the devil did you ever let him get his hands on this case. And that Jo Mills, another trouble maker. And George Channing, sound enough barrister in her way and her bed mate is Neil Houghton. I've popped into his office, from time to time to give him a bit of advice to pass on to George Channing to use in the trial. The man's fairly young and keen and will have to earn his keep. Despite all this, from what I hear the verdict will be guilty without a doubt. Have you both completely lost the plot "
"You can't interfere with the independence of the judiciary." Sir Ian stammered, stealing one of John Deed's favourite lines.
"Let's put it this way. Would you both like a level transfer career move to, say, the Immigration Department?" the steely threatening tones hung in the air." If I can put a bit of pressure on Neil Houghton, then when it comes to you two………….."
The pair of them froze in horror at the thought. That department was the notorious civil service grave yard of all the dispossessed and unwelcome. It meant poring over dubious process figures of asylum applications offered up by sycophantic underlings desperate to please. In reality , this could not camouflage the real intractable logjam of work which would not go away no matter what new initiatives and restructuring was carried out. Occasionally an interfering busybody of an MP caused his pet interest in one local constituent application to vault the enormous distance from his place in the queue right to the front .Once that political hot potato was dealt with, the queuing system trudged on in the same mood of hopeless apathy as that of bygone Iron Curtain era Russian bread queues. Outside the beleaguered gates, the lunatic Right wing press pilloried the Department on the one hand as lackadaisical and the trouble makers on the left slated the Department on the other as heartless and bureaucratic. In contrast, their present lifestyle was that of comfortable bonhomie, hobnobbing with Old Etonian judges. Even John Deed isn't such a bad fellow , Sir Ian reflected, perhaps we've misjudged him.
They slunk out, with their tails between their legs, fired with a desperate last ditch resolution to persuade, cajole and bully John Deed into doing what is assuredly the Greater Good for us all.
The Lord Chancellor sat back in his chair with a sigh of relief, hoping against hope that his little pep talk would put a bit of backbone into Sir Ian and Lawrence James. He had been made to feel highly uncomfortable , coming out of the Cabinet Room just in front of Neil Houghton , being pinned into a corner by the man with the sharp pointed steel teeth of the Cheshire cat smile and stone cold blue eyes. Both Neil Houghton and him immediately ingratiated themselves to him as he talked at the two of them, briefly in passing. It was only right, therefore, or so the Lord Chancellor rationalised to himself that he should pass on his uncomfortable feelings down the line and bully his underlings, like Sir Ian and Lawrence James.
These powerful people only had to click their fingers for others to do their bidding and live in their own insulated little world, one for whom life is arranged to suit their needs. They are an alien species in the same country as the human population who live by standards of basic decency and sympathetic feelings. But the likes of Karen, Yvonne, Cassie, Roisin, Babs and Denny are at the bottom end of the heap, relatively speaking where nothing ever comes easily and has to be fought for but it is all the more precious if their dreams come true. As for John Deed, he could have joined the aliens but made a conscious life commitment not to do so and that's what they never understood about him.
"A fine help you were with the Lord Chancellor," a very rattled Sir Ian snapped to his assistant Lawrence James who had been unusually quiet.
"I'm sorry, Sir Ian," Lawrence James's reply was more of a croak."Do you really think we are doing the right thing in seeing Deed after this morning's regrettable performance?"
This wasn't Lawrence James best moment in explaining to Sir Ian his concerns . He was at his most comfortable when he was at his most officious, picking up minor errors in procedures committed by some junior clerk working under him. He was all the more jealous of his position as a black man who had climbed to such dizzying heights of power. A major characteristic of him was an almost Victorian sense of propriety which Deed's anarchistic sense of humour constantly affronted as it was disrespectful of his sense of position and an almost bygone era of 'good form.' Lawrence James found particularly offensive that a renegade white public school man with an upper class drawl like Deed should brazenly attack such values.
For this reason, bawdy female humour was his Achilles heel and, to make it worse, he had never encountered this before. If some kindly friend had played him TV excerpts of Jo Brand's choicer moments, he would have been better prepared and the shocked virgin routine really didn't help his overdeveloped sense of his own dignity. His one defensive shield was that the colour of his skin, the cause of so much racial discrimination of so many of his culture, enabled him to blush without anyone noticing it.
"You heard what the Lord Chancellor said. Do you really fancy moving your belongings to the Immigration Department ,that squalid 1960's concrete and glass monstrosity. Think about it." snapped Sir Ian, getting out of breath in his hyperdriven seven league walk down the corridors of power, to grab the first taxi and to propel themselves in the direction of John Deed.
John Deed was mulling over the most recent trial episode and the extraordinary revelations when the habitual knock on the door told him that a space in time of Buddhist contemplation was not to be his lot in life.
"Don't worry, Ian. The door's perfectly safe. It will keep out a horde of marauding Visigoths this time." John heartily reassured Sir Ian and Lawrence James. He had noticed the way that Sir Ian closed the door ever so delicately for fear of offending it.
Sir Ian and Lawrence James sat back recovering their breath after accepting John Deed's wordless invitation to take a seat. They looked as if they had done a ten mile hike, thought John, and that is not typical of them.
Sir Ian gratefully accepted a bone china cup of tea and decided not to lead off straight away with the matter that was most pressing.
"Well, just to be absolutely sure, John, please don't offend that ex wife of yours, there's a good fellow." Sir Ian, replied slightly patronisingly. "Or is it going to be a window next?"
"My wife knows a good builder locally who could do all the repairs you might want, Sir John." Lawrence James added in helpful tones."I could give you his phone number. Very reasonable price."
John Deed's eyebrows were raised in sheer puzzlement. He was psyched up in a second to whatever threats and blandishments that came natural to them but here they are, in an almighty hurry and all they do is talk about building repairs. Was the caretaker of the chambers suddenly going to come in next, in his overalls and hold forth about abstruse points of law? His world was starting to go a bit askew.
"The real reason why we called, John," Sir Ian resumed more abruptly." is because of this damned trial. The burden of proof is on the Crown and the case has become compromised with some witnesses for the crown being the type that I would not buy a second hand car from."
"We are thinking, My Lord, of your best interests." Lawrence James added without a discernable trace of irony.
Now I get it, John Deed thought, they're trying the classic nasty guy, nice guy routine. Nice try but it won't work.
"Which witnesses do you mean, Ian?" John Deed asked promptly. He's trying his usual mix of truth and lies.
"I prefer not to name names. That would be improper. Besides, you are placing far too great a burden in asking them to pick their way through what is an infernally complicated matter. There is no clear straightforward picture of what may, or may not, have happened."
"I don't know, Ian. I was most impressed by Jo's use of the OHP. I am intending to make that the subject of a talk that I have agreed to do and encourage its use.We are always being asked to move with the times, Ian and this is my concession."
"OHP?" the puzzled chorus delay echoed.
"Over Head Projector,Ian." John Deed replied speaking unnaturally slowly and clearly, enunciating every syllable."Much more practical than a lot of barristers waffling on. Cuts to the core of the matter."
"The next thing you'll inflict us with is disco lights next to make the court more modern since you clearly see yourself as a trendy judge." Sir Ian replied sarcastically.
"Good heavens, no, Ian. That would be to confuse thought, rather than clarify it as the OHP, in the right hands, has the potential to do. In the same way, a Stradivarius played by a master of the instrument will move human feelings to pinnacles of spirituality. In the hands of an ignoramus, it produces nothing but a hideous discord."
"Very poetic," sneered Sir Ian, not knowing the hidden joke that John Deed was playing on him. "So I suppose the trial is going the way to suit both you and your girlfriend." Sir Ian's reply was abrupt and aggressive. John could sense that the man was sweating. This isn't Ian trying to be strong and dominant this time but a man being leaned on.
"My concern is, as always, that justice is being served, Ian. You know me of old." John Deed replied softly and gently.
"And, I suppose that this morning's unseemly display with the gun was likely to add to the dignity of the legal system." Sir Ian cut back icily.
"Oh, that," John Deed smiled broadly and then chuckled outright. "The debate was one of the more illuminating I have been involved with from the bench."Tell me, as men of good judgement , between you and me, do you really think it would be possible for women to conceal a gun internally as Mr Fenner suggested."
"It is not for me to say, my lord." Laurence James's verbal three steps back left Sir Ian exposed.
"Is this some tasteless game you are playing with us, Deed." Sir Ian angrily retorted.
"The only point I would make in return is that one of the main witnesses for the prosecution stood in front of the dock, utterly compromised by her loose morals. Who knows what she was really prepared to get up to for the sake of one of the accused in the dock if the truth were known. From all appearances, she has gone from one man to another and someone with a compromised private life means that the performance of her public duties should be seriously questioned. All it takes is enough of a close investigation over her time at Larkhall and before. Mark my words on this. The Home Office is not my department but if I were an official in the Home Office charged with personnel matters, I know one change I would make to the management of Larkhall."
John Deed saw red as the chivalrous side of him leapt to the fore. He would not stand by and allow a woman whom he held in high regard to be slandered by two cheap politicians of easy virtue.
"How dare you make such wild accusations against a woman who knew full well what questions she was going to face in this trial but has done her public duty in testifying when she could have held back if she wanted to. I think you ought to take yourself back to where you came from."
"Touched a sensitive nerve, did it. I mean about morals." Sir Ian rashly hit back.
"If you came before me on the bench, Ian. I would impose the heaviest damages for slander. If you said it in the street, I'd knock your block off." John Deed replied in a quieter tone but with a dangerous look in his eye. The second option seemed very real in that atmosphere of electric tension..
Lawrence James tugged at His Master's sleeve indicating that they should go before John Deed's proven public aptitude for fisticuffs were to be repeated.
"The trial will go on to its conclusion, and justice shall decide. Nothing now will stop this."
Sir Ian and Lawrence James delicately made their way out of the danger zone while the going was good. The sheer physical need for self preservation overrode everything, including what the lord Chancellor would say. Once they had sidled out of the door, they shut it hastily and beat a rapid retreat.
"The Lord Chancellor wishes to see the both of you," the smartly dressed ambitious aide to the head of their Department informed them. They were sharply interrupted when they were chatting and strolling casually along one of the many corridors which stretched far into the distance of the ancient heart of the judiciary.
Sir Ian gulped as the casual intonation held the flavour of years gone by in a prelude to an unwelcome and painful interview in the Headmaster's office where choice invective and a stout cane was painfully ready and waiting. From their own observations in the gallery of the Crown Versus Atkins Pilkinton trial, the case was going very badly for the Lord Chancellor. In other words, the prospects were that these two unwanted and unwelcome criminals were going to end up in Her Majesty's Prison for a long stretch. How much easier would it be if that Pilkinton tart could be sent back to Florida and that she, at least, would be someone else's problem.
Nervously, they opened the stout mahogany door and sat in the low seats across the way from the huge desk, overstuffed with papers and the grey indefinite figure that addressed them from the gloom.
"I need to know what's happening in the Atkins Pilkinton trial. I've written memos to you on it but, quite frankly, I've not had any clear replies. So I thought if we had a chat together I'd get a proper explanation without your usual waffle. So how's the trial going, eh."
"Well, err, the trial is rapidly approaching its conclusion or so I hear." Sir Ian stammered, giving the utterly false impression that his source of information was several stages removed from him.
They wanted to keep quiet the livelier moments of the trial, like the recent morning session where the dignity of the court had been disrupted by female bawdy humour. It was not what his public school upbringing and cloistered life in what was once an all male preserve had accustomed him to. Sir Ian's sister and mother never behaved in the same way as these women.
"What conclusion, guilty or innocent." The voice snapped.
"It's too early to say yet. You know that nothing is cut and dried where a British jury is concerned." Sir Ian replied. Lawrence James as his junior, figured that his best course of non action was to edge his chair discretely backwards and pretend to be invisible. This would avoid him being drawn into the argument.
"So what about this Deed character that's running the trial. How the devil did you ever let him get his hands on this case. And that Jo Mills, another trouble maker. And George Channing, sound enough barrister in her way and her bed mate is Neil Houghton. I've popped into his office, from time to time to give him a bit of advice to pass on to George Channing to use in the trial. The man's fairly young and keen and will have to earn his keep. Despite all this, from what I hear the verdict will be guilty without a doubt. Have you both completely lost the plot "
"You can't interfere with the independence of the judiciary." Sir Ian stammered, stealing one of John Deed's favourite lines.
"Let's put it this way. Would you both like a level transfer career move to, say, the Immigration Department?" the steely threatening tones hung in the air." If I can put a bit of pressure on Neil Houghton, then when it comes to you two………….."
The pair of them froze in horror at the thought. That department was the notorious civil service grave yard of all the dispossessed and unwelcome. It meant poring over dubious process figures of asylum applications offered up by sycophantic underlings desperate to please. In reality , this could not camouflage the real intractable logjam of work which would not go away no matter what new initiatives and restructuring was carried out. Occasionally an interfering busybody of an MP caused his pet interest in one local constituent application to vault the enormous distance from his place in the queue right to the front .Once that political hot potato was dealt with, the queuing system trudged on in the same mood of hopeless apathy as that of bygone Iron Curtain era Russian bread queues. Outside the beleaguered gates, the lunatic Right wing press pilloried the Department on the one hand as lackadaisical and the trouble makers on the left slated the Department on the other as heartless and bureaucratic. In contrast, their present lifestyle was that of comfortable bonhomie, hobnobbing with Old Etonian judges. Even John Deed isn't such a bad fellow , Sir Ian reflected, perhaps we've misjudged him.
They slunk out, with their tails between their legs, fired with a desperate last ditch resolution to persuade, cajole and bully John Deed into doing what is assuredly the Greater Good for us all.
The Lord Chancellor sat back in his chair with a sigh of relief, hoping against hope that his little pep talk would put a bit of backbone into Sir Ian and Lawrence James. He had been made to feel highly uncomfortable , coming out of the Cabinet Room just in front of Neil Houghton , being pinned into a corner by the man with the sharp pointed steel teeth of the Cheshire cat smile and stone cold blue eyes. Both Neil Houghton and him immediately ingratiated themselves to him as he talked at the two of them, briefly in passing. It was only right, therefore, or so the Lord Chancellor rationalised to himself that he should pass on his uncomfortable feelings down the line and bully his underlings, like Sir Ian and Lawrence James.
These powerful people only had to click their fingers for others to do their bidding and live in their own insulated little world, one for whom life is arranged to suit their needs. They are an alien species in the same country as the human population who live by standards of basic decency and sympathetic feelings. But the likes of Karen, Yvonne, Cassie, Roisin, Babs and Denny are at the bottom end of the heap, relatively speaking where nothing ever comes easily and has to be fought for but it is all the more precious if their dreams come true. As for John Deed, he could have joined the aliens but made a conscious life commitment not to do so and that's what they never understood about him.
"A fine help you were with the Lord Chancellor," a very rattled Sir Ian snapped to his assistant Lawrence James who had been unusually quiet.
"I'm sorry, Sir Ian," Lawrence James's reply was more of a croak."Do you really think we are doing the right thing in seeing Deed after this morning's regrettable performance?"
This wasn't Lawrence James best moment in explaining to Sir Ian his concerns . He was at his most comfortable when he was at his most officious, picking up minor errors in procedures committed by some junior clerk working under him. He was all the more jealous of his position as a black man who had climbed to such dizzying heights of power. A major characteristic of him was an almost Victorian sense of propriety which Deed's anarchistic sense of humour constantly affronted as it was disrespectful of his sense of position and an almost bygone era of 'good form.' Lawrence James found particularly offensive that a renegade white public school man with an upper class drawl like Deed should brazenly attack such values.
For this reason, bawdy female humour was his Achilles heel and, to make it worse, he had never encountered this before. If some kindly friend had played him TV excerpts of Jo Brand's choicer moments, he would have been better prepared and the shocked virgin routine really didn't help his overdeveloped sense of his own dignity. His one defensive shield was that the colour of his skin, the cause of so much racial discrimination of so many of his culture, enabled him to blush without anyone noticing it.
"You heard what the Lord Chancellor said. Do you really fancy moving your belongings to the Immigration Department ,that squalid 1960's concrete and glass monstrosity. Think about it." snapped Sir Ian, getting out of breath in his hyperdriven seven league walk down the corridors of power, to grab the first taxi and to propel themselves in the direction of John Deed.
John Deed was mulling over the most recent trial episode and the extraordinary revelations when the habitual knock on the door told him that a space in time of Buddhist contemplation was not to be his lot in life.
"Don't worry, Ian. The door's perfectly safe. It will keep out a horde of marauding Visigoths this time." John heartily reassured Sir Ian and Lawrence James. He had noticed the way that Sir Ian closed the door ever so delicately for fear of offending it.
Sir Ian and Lawrence James sat back recovering their breath after accepting John Deed's wordless invitation to take a seat. They looked as if they had done a ten mile hike, thought John, and that is not typical of them.
Sir Ian gratefully accepted a bone china cup of tea and decided not to lead off straight away with the matter that was most pressing.
"Well, just to be absolutely sure, John, please don't offend that ex wife of yours, there's a good fellow." Sir Ian, replied slightly patronisingly. "Or is it going to be a window next?"
"My wife knows a good builder locally who could do all the repairs you might want, Sir John." Lawrence James added in helpful tones."I could give you his phone number. Very reasonable price."
John Deed's eyebrows were raised in sheer puzzlement. He was psyched up in a second to whatever threats and blandishments that came natural to them but here they are, in an almighty hurry and all they do is talk about building repairs. Was the caretaker of the chambers suddenly going to come in next, in his overalls and hold forth about abstruse points of law? His world was starting to go a bit askew.
"The real reason why we called, John," Sir Ian resumed more abruptly." is because of this damned trial. The burden of proof is on the Crown and the case has become compromised with some witnesses for the crown being the type that I would not buy a second hand car from."
"We are thinking, My Lord, of your best interests." Lawrence James added without a discernable trace of irony.
Now I get it, John Deed thought, they're trying the classic nasty guy, nice guy routine. Nice try but it won't work.
"Which witnesses do you mean, Ian?" John Deed asked promptly. He's trying his usual mix of truth and lies.
"I prefer not to name names. That would be improper. Besides, you are placing far too great a burden in asking them to pick their way through what is an infernally complicated matter. There is no clear straightforward picture of what may, or may not, have happened."
"I don't know, Ian. I was most impressed by Jo's use of the OHP. I am intending to make that the subject of a talk that I have agreed to do and encourage its use.We are always being asked to move with the times, Ian and this is my concession."
"OHP?" the puzzled chorus delay echoed.
"Over Head Projector,Ian." John Deed replied speaking unnaturally slowly and clearly, enunciating every syllable."Much more practical than a lot of barristers waffling on. Cuts to the core of the matter."
"The next thing you'll inflict us with is disco lights next to make the court more modern since you clearly see yourself as a trendy judge." Sir Ian replied sarcastically.
"Good heavens, no, Ian. That would be to confuse thought, rather than clarify it as the OHP, in the right hands, has the potential to do. In the same way, a Stradivarius played by a master of the instrument will move human feelings to pinnacles of spirituality. In the hands of an ignoramus, it produces nothing but a hideous discord."
"Very poetic," sneered Sir Ian, not knowing the hidden joke that John Deed was playing on him. "So I suppose the trial is going the way to suit both you and your girlfriend." Sir Ian's reply was abrupt and aggressive. John could sense that the man was sweating. This isn't Ian trying to be strong and dominant this time but a man being leaned on.
"My concern is, as always, that justice is being served, Ian. You know me of old." John Deed replied softly and gently.
"And, I suppose that this morning's unseemly display with the gun was likely to add to the dignity of the legal system." Sir Ian cut back icily.
"Oh, that," John Deed smiled broadly and then chuckled outright. "The debate was one of the more illuminating I have been involved with from the bench."Tell me, as men of good judgement , between you and me, do you really think it would be possible for women to conceal a gun internally as Mr Fenner suggested."
"It is not for me to say, my lord." Laurence James's verbal three steps back left Sir Ian exposed.
"Is this some tasteless game you are playing with us, Deed." Sir Ian angrily retorted.
"The only point I would make in return is that one of the main witnesses for the prosecution stood in front of the dock, utterly compromised by her loose morals. Who knows what she was really prepared to get up to for the sake of one of the accused in the dock if the truth were known. From all appearances, she has gone from one man to another and someone with a compromised private life means that the performance of her public duties should be seriously questioned. All it takes is enough of a close investigation over her time at Larkhall and before. Mark my words on this. The Home Office is not my department but if I were an official in the Home Office charged with personnel matters, I know one change I would make to the management of Larkhall."
John Deed saw red as the chivalrous side of him leapt to the fore. He would not stand by and allow a woman whom he held in high regard to be slandered by two cheap politicians of easy virtue.
"How dare you make such wild accusations against a woman who knew full well what questions she was going to face in this trial but has done her public duty in testifying when she could have held back if she wanted to. I think you ought to take yourself back to where you came from."
"Touched a sensitive nerve, did it. I mean about morals." Sir Ian rashly hit back.
"If you came before me on the bench, Ian. I would impose the heaviest damages for slander. If you said it in the street, I'd knock your block off." John Deed replied in a quieter tone but with a dangerous look in his eye. The second option seemed very real in that atmosphere of electric tension..
Lawrence James tugged at His Master's sleeve indicating that they should go before John Deed's proven public aptitude for fisticuffs were to be repeated.
"The trial will go on to its conclusion, and justice shall decide. Nothing now will stop this."
Sir Ian and Lawrence James delicately made their way out of the danger zone while the going was good. The sheer physical need for self preservation overrode everything, including what the lord Chancellor would say. Once they had sidled out of the door, they shut it hastily and beat a rapid retreat.