Part Sixty Three
John Deed was sipping a cup of tea at the long mahogany table on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the peace and serenity of his digs. Despite his busy life, he craved these moments when the pressure of the cases could ease up and the case he had just dealt with was a clear cut Social Security fraud where the evidence was rock solid. The matter was one where he had to merely ensure the case was steered along a straight line to reach a predictable conclusion. The generality of his cases were of this kind but, after the Atkins Pilkinton case he was becoming much more wary as to what he thought of at first glance as a simple case. The afternoon was his to do as he liked and, despite his busy life, there were times that he positively enjoyed his own company.
A message was delivered to him that Joe Channing wished to see him.
"Shall the mountain come to Mohammed?" John asked himself. For a long time, the two of them had an uneasy relationship, John being classified in Joe's eyes as an emotional incontinent while John had Joe pegged as a died in the wool reactionary well to the right of Richard Nixon. He remembered vividly when he and George had first separated that Joe's first instinct was to threaten to give him a good thrashing with a horsewhip for mistreating his daughter. John's views had mellowed over time when he realised that if ever a man came along who mistreated Charlie, his and George's daughter, he might react in a very similar manner.
"Take a seat, Joe. To what do I owe the privilege of your company on a Sunday afternoon?" John offered hospitably.
Joe huffed and puffed his way into a chair opposite John and gratefully accepted the cup offered. Joe was clearly flustered and had a lot on his mind.
"To tell you the truth, I've been worried about George recently," Joe rumbled his introduction, having not thought of a delicate opening gambit to ease his way into a tricky subject of conversation. He did not expect John to greatly concern himself about his ex-wife other than in the role of mother to their daughter.
"I'm listening, Joe," John said in a reassuring tone. "You know as well as I do that relations between George and me are sometimes fraught which makes discussing personal matters difficult with her."
"The two of you have been arguing for years but you are both Charlie's parents and a fellow judge….even though your judgements are often perverse," Joe added in the peeved tone that he dropped into as a matter of habit with John.
"Exactly what is there about her behaviour that is troubling you?" John cut in, sensing that this conversation was going to be sidetracked to no good purpose unless he intervened.
"Have you seen much of George recently?"
" She was before me in the Crown versus Atkins and Pilkinton trial and she started off her usual argumentative impossible self. I must admit that she got better as the trial progressed, both to me and to Jo Mills. I did think that she got out of her depth and she knew it. Apart from a phone call a week last Saturday with Lover Boy thankfully out of the way, I've not heard anything from her."
"You bring the conversation to the very point I've been meaning to mention, John. It's about Neil Houghton. Between you and me, I don't think that she's very happy with him and that makes me all the happier if he doesn't marry into the family," Joe Channing finished on an emphatic note.
John suppressed his first instinct to let loose all the dammed up criticisms he had to make of Neil Houghton and rub it in how poor Joe Channing's judgement had been of the man. After all, Joe had regarded Neil as the blue eyed boy where the sunshine shone out of his backside and that everyone but John, had been taken for a ride by him.
"What sort of problems do you find with him, Joe?" John kindly asked the evidently troubled man. Joe was of the old school where you kept a stiff upper lip and that you sorted out your own troubles. All this agony aunt nonsense was strictly for women, and weak willed women at that. He wasn't going to adopt any namby pamby attitudes and especially at his time of life.
"We're both men of the world, John," Joe confided in the warmest display of acceptance of John that he had shown to him in years. "I first thought that George was merely having a run of bad luck in the cases that she was handling from casual conversation. Then when I started keeping my ears to the ground , I heard on the grapevine that it was one case after another and when I got to hear of the cases that she was taking on, they were all cases that I wouldn't have touched with a bargepole. I don't mind admitting to you that she was defending some pretty unsavoury characters."
"In what way, Joe?" John asked, now keenly interested. "This is not George's style.Her field is in taking on civil and commercial cases. Ones that guarantee her a lot of money
and where she can cut a deal. One thing I know about George is that she is no fool and that she is a bad loser. That makes her go into a plate throwing mood more than anything else. What you have told me so far doesn't add up."
"My thoughts entirely," Joe replied, ignoring the implied criticism of him which was not lost on John. "George phoned up out of the blue and came over to see me the same day that you were on the phone to her."
"With or without Neil?" John asked quickly.
"Without of course," Joe replied.
"Why the 'of course', Joe?"
"Let me finish telling my story, dammit, without you acting as if you were in the judge's seat and I were one of the barristers that you are irritating to death," Joe exploded. "I am convinced that Neil is getting George to take on political cases to rescue some shady character from the consequences of his wrong doings or, in the case of the Atkins Pilkinton case, to get the pair of them acquitted so that one of them could stand trial in Florida. It's as plain as a pikestaff that I've seriously wondered that you haven't harangued me on the phone to use my influence behind the scenes."
John shook his head in total bewilderment and wonder. Why in hell had he not thought of this obvious brainwave himself. Then again, he had not known how things stood between Joe and Lover Boy. He poured another cup of tea for him at his unspoken request as the day recalled more agreeable conversations a long time ago when he was still living with George. The world was tilting yet another subtle shift on it's axis that Joe Channing was a potential ally and that they were having a heart to heart talk about George's problems.
"It's the man's attitude that offends me, John. He's clearly out for all he can get and thinks that I am merely a blundering old fool who can be of some use to him in his political ambitions just as George is," the rumbling tones of disgust and venom were, for once, not directed in his direction.
"You always accused me of not being career minded, Joe," John smiled and his apparent wisecrack affectionately recalled times gone past including bitter arguments.
"You were always a brilliant man.. You have the infuriating knack of somehow rising to be a High Court judge despite your perverse actions in sabotaging your own career. God knows what you would have become if you had really applied yourself to furthering your career," Joe rumbled on in his curious half critical, half admiring fashion.
"And now you've seen a potential son in law dedicating himself totally to self advancement and you don't like it," John responded softly, having some real understanding of the man for the first time in his life.
"The man has no standards, while you have at least got some standards. Ridiculous liberal bleeding heart left wing standards but standards nevertheless," Joe's bombastic manner recalled a little of George .
"And in what other ways is George not happy with Lover Boy?" John asked quietly.
Joe took a long pause while he collected his wits and sought for the right words. Describing the emotions of a woman was definitely something that did not come natural to him.
"As you know, I see George every week and he only pops in occasionally. George makes excuses about him being a busy man and that sort of stuff and nonsense. I once probed her about the matter, nothing indelicate as you know and one of my best Ming vases went flying through the air and smashed against the wall. After that, there was a frightful scene which I won't describe to you …"
"………I can imagine, Joe," John replied. His imagination could visualise the blunt way that Joe charged in as if George was still a little girl and winced, mentally anticipating the fury of the reaction even before Joe described it.
"I told her that if she was going to break any chinaware, could she kindly break it at her own home at which point she shouted at me that she only broke things at houses that she felt comfortable in and stormed off. I thought that it was a peculiar comment and in very poor taste indeed."
John smiled to himself as he could see the significance of this and the direction the story was pointing. His memory of half forgotten snatched conversations with George were recalled in sharp relief as they had more significance than he realised at the time..
"To cut a long story short as I could go all round the houses on it, she came round on Saturday and she took me out to the back garden. She was happier than I've seen her and we talked about the old days. She said that she liked being out there as it reminded her of when she was a little girl and she used to play in the tree house at the back. She said that when she was in there, she felt peaceful and safe as Daddy would keep all the monsters out. As the day went on, she seemed to be more and more reluctant to go home. She didn't say anything, she never does, that damned obstinate girl………….."
"What did she say or do then, Joe?" John asked quietly.
"You know what she is like, John," Joe reacted with a flash of irritation set off by his allergy to John questioning him. "She was her usual argumentative self about nothing at all and abruptly took off in the car with a quick goodbye."
".I think, Joe, that George really wanted to stay at your house and knew she couldn't and that's why she behaved the way that she did. I was talking to her that day and she told Lover Boy that he was living in her house and , I quote , said 'the lord and master is for once demanding my input in to a conversation.' That sounds to me that it is only a matter of time, Joe."
"Good God," Joe said, looking shaken. "What do we do then."
Joe Channing, had simply not looked that closely at matters and drawn them to the logical conclusion. Much though he loved his daughter, he had visions of the peace and serenity shattered by George's tempestuous ways and felt that he was far too old and set in his ways to cope with all this. However, needs must when the Devil drives, he finally decided with grim resolve. The man has more in him than I've realised, he thought to his vast surprise.
"In the meantime, sit tight. After all, if she does dump that drip, she's far more likely to come your way than mine. George on present reckoning is far more likely to go back to Daddy than land herself at 'the Deed's digs," smiled John, recalling from Jo Mills George's less than flattering reference.
John Deed was sipping a cup of tea at the long mahogany table on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the peace and serenity of his digs. Despite his busy life, he craved these moments when the pressure of the cases could ease up and the case he had just dealt with was a clear cut Social Security fraud where the evidence was rock solid. The matter was one where he had to merely ensure the case was steered along a straight line to reach a predictable conclusion. The generality of his cases were of this kind but, after the Atkins Pilkinton case he was becoming much more wary as to what he thought of at first glance as a simple case. The afternoon was his to do as he liked and, despite his busy life, there were times that he positively enjoyed his own company.
A message was delivered to him that Joe Channing wished to see him.
"Shall the mountain come to Mohammed?" John asked himself. For a long time, the two of them had an uneasy relationship, John being classified in Joe's eyes as an emotional incontinent while John had Joe pegged as a died in the wool reactionary well to the right of Richard Nixon. He remembered vividly when he and George had first separated that Joe's first instinct was to threaten to give him a good thrashing with a horsewhip for mistreating his daughter. John's views had mellowed over time when he realised that if ever a man came along who mistreated Charlie, his and George's daughter, he might react in a very similar manner.
"Take a seat, Joe. To what do I owe the privilege of your company on a Sunday afternoon?" John offered hospitably.
Joe huffed and puffed his way into a chair opposite John and gratefully accepted the cup offered. Joe was clearly flustered and had a lot on his mind.
"To tell you the truth, I've been worried about George recently," Joe rumbled his introduction, having not thought of a delicate opening gambit to ease his way into a tricky subject of conversation. He did not expect John to greatly concern himself about his ex-wife other than in the role of mother to their daughter.
"I'm listening, Joe," John said in a reassuring tone. "You know as well as I do that relations between George and me are sometimes fraught which makes discussing personal matters difficult with her."
"The two of you have been arguing for years but you are both Charlie's parents and a fellow judge….even though your judgements are often perverse," Joe added in the peeved tone that he dropped into as a matter of habit with John.
"Exactly what is there about her behaviour that is troubling you?" John cut in, sensing that this conversation was going to be sidetracked to no good purpose unless he intervened.
"Have you seen much of George recently?"
" She was before me in the Crown versus Atkins and Pilkinton trial and she started off her usual argumentative impossible self. I must admit that she got better as the trial progressed, both to me and to Jo Mills. I did think that she got out of her depth and she knew it. Apart from a phone call a week last Saturday with Lover Boy thankfully out of the way, I've not heard anything from her."
"You bring the conversation to the very point I've been meaning to mention, John. It's about Neil Houghton. Between you and me, I don't think that she's very happy with him and that makes me all the happier if he doesn't marry into the family," Joe Channing finished on an emphatic note.
John suppressed his first instinct to let loose all the dammed up criticisms he had to make of Neil Houghton and rub it in how poor Joe Channing's judgement had been of the man. After all, Joe had regarded Neil as the blue eyed boy where the sunshine shone out of his backside and that everyone but John, had been taken for a ride by him.
"What sort of problems do you find with him, Joe?" John kindly asked the evidently troubled man. Joe was of the old school where you kept a stiff upper lip and that you sorted out your own troubles. All this agony aunt nonsense was strictly for women, and weak willed women at that. He wasn't going to adopt any namby pamby attitudes and especially at his time of life.
"We're both men of the world, John," Joe confided in the warmest display of acceptance of John that he had shown to him in years. "I first thought that George was merely having a run of bad luck in the cases that she was handling from casual conversation. Then when I started keeping my ears to the ground , I heard on the grapevine that it was one case after another and when I got to hear of the cases that she was taking on, they were all cases that I wouldn't have touched with a bargepole. I don't mind admitting to you that she was defending some pretty unsavoury characters."
"In what way, Joe?" John asked, now keenly interested. "This is not George's style.Her field is in taking on civil and commercial cases. Ones that guarantee her a lot of money
and where she can cut a deal. One thing I know about George is that she is no fool and that she is a bad loser. That makes her go into a plate throwing mood more than anything else. What you have told me so far doesn't add up."
"My thoughts entirely," Joe replied, ignoring the implied criticism of him which was not lost on John. "George phoned up out of the blue and came over to see me the same day that you were on the phone to her."
"With or without Neil?" John asked quickly.
"Without of course," Joe replied.
"Why the 'of course', Joe?"
"Let me finish telling my story, dammit, without you acting as if you were in the judge's seat and I were one of the barristers that you are irritating to death," Joe exploded. "I am convinced that Neil is getting George to take on political cases to rescue some shady character from the consequences of his wrong doings or, in the case of the Atkins Pilkinton case, to get the pair of them acquitted so that one of them could stand trial in Florida. It's as plain as a pikestaff that I've seriously wondered that you haven't harangued me on the phone to use my influence behind the scenes."
John shook his head in total bewilderment and wonder. Why in hell had he not thought of this obvious brainwave himself. Then again, he had not known how things stood between Joe and Lover Boy. He poured another cup of tea for him at his unspoken request as the day recalled more agreeable conversations a long time ago when he was still living with George. The world was tilting yet another subtle shift on it's axis that Joe Channing was a potential ally and that they were having a heart to heart talk about George's problems.
"It's the man's attitude that offends me, John. He's clearly out for all he can get and thinks that I am merely a blundering old fool who can be of some use to him in his political ambitions just as George is," the rumbling tones of disgust and venom were, for once, not directed in his direction.
"You always accused me of not being career minded, Joe," John smiled and his apparent wisecrack affectionately recalled times gone past including bitter arguments.
"You were always a brilliant man.. You have the infuriating knack of somehow rising to be a High Court judge despite your perverse actions in sabotaging your own career. God knows what you would have become if you had really applied yourself to furthering your career," Joe rumbled on in his curious half critical, half admiring fashion.
"And now you've seen a potential son in law dedicating himself totally to self advancement and you don't like it," John responded softly, having some real understanding of the man for the first time in his life.
"The man has no standards, while you have at least got some standards. Ridiculous liberal bleeding heart left wing standards but standards nevertheless," Joe's bombastic manner recalled a little of George .
"And in what other ways is George not happy with Lover Boy?" John asked quietly.
Joe took a long pause while he collected his wits and sought for the right words. Describing the emotions of a woman was definitely something that did not come natural to him.
"As you know, I see George every week and he only pops in occasionally. George makes excuses about him being a busy man and that sort of stuff and nonsense. I once probed her about the matter, nothing indelicate as you know and one of my best Ming vases went flying through the air and smashed against the wall. After that, there was a frightful scene which I won't describe to you …"
"………I can imagine, Joe," John replied. His imagination could visualise the blunt way that Joe charged in as if George was still a little girl and winced, mentally anticipating the fury of the reaction even before Joe described it.
"I told her that if she was going to break any chinaware, could she kindly break it at her own home at which point she shouted at me that she only broke things at houses that she felt comfortable in and stormed off. I thought that it was a peculiar comment and in very poor taste indeed."
John smiled to himself as he could see the significance of this and the direction the story was pointing. His memory of half forgotten snatched conversations with George were recalled in sharp relief as they had more significance than he realised at the time..
"To cut a long story short as I could go all round the houses on it, she came round on Saturday and she took me out to the back garden. She was happier than I've seen her and we talked about the old days. She said that she liked being out there as it reminded her of when she was a little girl and she used to play in the tree house at the back. She said that when she was in there, she felt peaceful and safe as Daddy would keep all the monsters out. As the day went on, she seemed to be more and more reluctant to go home. She didn't say anything, she never does, that damned obstinate girl………….."
"What did she say or do then, Joe?" John asked quietly.
"You know what she is like, John," Joe reacted with a flash of irritation set off by his allergy to John questioning him. "She was her usual argumentative self about nothing at all and abruptly took off in the car with a quick goodbye."
".I think, Joe, that George really wanted to stay at your house and knew she couldn't and that's why she behaved the way that she did. I was talking to her that day and she told Lover Boy that he was living in her house and , I quote , said 'the lord and master is for once demanding my input in to a conversation.' That sounds to me that it is only a matter of time, Joe."
"Good God," Joe said, looking shaken. "What do we do then."
Joe Channing, had simply not looked that closely at matters and drawn them to the logical conclusion. Much though he loved his daughter, he had visions of the peace and serenity shattered by George's tempestuous ways and felt that he was far too old and set in his ways to cope with all this. However, needs must when the Devil drives, he finally decided with grim resolve. The man has more in him than I've realised, he thought to his vast surprise.
"In the meantime, sit tight. After all, if she does dump that drip, she's far more likely to come your way than mine. George on present reckoning is far more likely to go back to Daddy than land herself at 'the Deed's digs," smiled John, recalling from Jo Mills George's less than flattering reference.