Part Thirty Three
Uncharacteristically, John turned abruptly away to the back door of the courtroom, through the narrow corridor and into the sanctuary of his chambers. He made a beeline to the nearest armchair where he sank back, deep in contemplation when he could mentally free himself from his immediate past. Once his thoughts dissolved into nothingness, he was in another zone of experience. His almost Buddhist sense of detachment was his way of coping with the stresses and demands of his job where, unknown to his enemies, he could renew himself and none of them would know. He needed this form of buttress against the world as time went on. This time, it didn't quite work as the tearful grateful face of Miss Atkins hung suspended in a disembodied way, right in front of his eyes. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and the feelings that he had acted rightly and seen that a merciful justice had prevailed. After all, he had done everything that could have been expected of him and more than any judge would ever see fit to do. That warm feeling inside him detracted from the negative feelings of tiredness that weakened him. He wanted to rest alone, undisturbed. His very acute hearing warned him that this was not to be as a confused pattern light, precise footsteps could be heard. He groaned inwardly as it could only be the Lord Chancellor's Department's very own dynamic duo Thought Police. Through the crack in the door, the alien life forms intruded into his space. John had his back to them to begin with but he was highly conscious of them before they appeared in his peripheral vision.
"A private word, John? I trust we are not disturbing you after what we know must have been a very taxing day." Sir Ian's soothing, overdone tones were as unconvincing as the tightness of his smile.
"Take a seat if you must," John sighed unenthusiastically. "This is just like old times. All we need is Neil Houghton and our numbers are complete." "Neil Houghton and I are not on speaking terms ever since he tried to pressure me into involving myself in an official capacity in his private life." "You did? I am intrigued. Pray tell me as I would be interested to hear more of the matter." John had totally understated his curiosity, which, once roused, would never let him rest nor the unfortunate object of his curiosity. He had an ulterior motive in questioning Sir Ian so that he could be gently side-tracked but unfortunately, Sir Ian had a misguided sense of purpose, which sadly, was not harnessed to a better cause.
"We have not come to discuss my private business but yours…." "Ah, I wondered when you would get to the point," Came the languid reply and he looked at his watch with an exaggerated gesture.
"A defendant is entitled to a fair trial…." John could not believe his ears. They could not be turning over a new leaf after all these years. However, one glance at their hard, calculating eyes told him differently. They aren't going to change as they had sold their souls a long time ago and were irretrievably damned in his eyes. The morally dead do not come back to life.
"……just as Neumann Mason-Alan should be treated fairly by you." "We could not help but notice, my lord, that you have been unduly generous to Mrs. Mills and rather harsh in your attitude to Mr. Mason-Alan," Lawrence James added.
"In what way? I treat them equally according to their just deserts." "You might not notice it yourself, old man, as you are wrapped up in the trial but an impartial observer from the sidelines can't help but notice." "Impartial? That will be the day." "It's just the little things which you might be quite unconscious of," Sir Ian urged with a curious mixture of ingratiation and subtle threat. John's slightly acid one liners were bringing on the uncomfortable feelings of impotent rage that he always had when crossing swords with Deed. "I shall take to heart what you are saying and I shall redouble my efforts to treat him no less than Mr. Mason-Alan deserves." "Be that as it may, it is a matter which we shall closely scrutinise during the remainder of the trial." Sir Ian's voice shook slightly as his anger became audible. The insufferable man was playing with him in offering meaningless promises.
"As always…." Yawned John.
"There are more pressing matters we want to talk to you about. The last time we came to visit you in your chambers, we had quite obviously disturbed you while you were clearly intimate with a woman called Karen Betts, who I clearly remember was a witness in the last trial involving an Atkins, and for some strange reason, is a visitor in the gallery and associated with former criminals who were prisoners in the very same prison that she works at." "If you had asked me directly, I would have told you all the details." "I am sure you know them very well from the conversation we observed you were having with them." "Nothing wrong with that, surely." "Have you taken leave of your senses, John? You stand to be dangerously compromised." "By whom? By another over zealous amateur photographer?" John fired back. He was getting angry and realised that he could not lazily banish them from his world with a smart quip or two. He could not afford to use half measures if he really wanted some peace and quiet.
"Not necessarily by us, John. There's the matter of her reputation." He smiled more openly at Sir Ian's guilt ridden use of the word 'necessarily' Their thin pretence that they were acting out of concern for his welfare blew away at the spiteful edge to their last word.
"In what way, Ian?" "Well, consider what we know of both trials we were all at. This woman lived with James Fenner, leaves him for another man, and goes out of her way to call at his house late one night, from which this ridiculous story came of her being raped. I might have believed her if I didn't hear with my own ears the way she jumped into bed with the co-defendant in the last trial. He was jointly convicted of a terrible crime and is the very brother of the defendant in this trial, who is also on trial for a brutal murder. And only the other day we visit you and, quite by chance, we saw you with your arm round this woman. Come now, you must admit at the least that she has an unfortunate taste in men." "Your supposed morality, Ian, is merely a product of your lack of attraction to the opposite sex. It is curiously at odds with your utter lack of moral scruples in doing what your lord and master tells you to do. Besides, Karen Betts is a decent, honourable woman and someone who I am proud to call a friend. I regard any slanderous remarks about her as addressed to me." "You have a perverse and dangerous attraction for the disreputable," Sneered Sir Ian.
"Oh have I? You took back Lady Rochester after she escaped from a criminal conviction by the skin of her teeth, from embezzling funds from her aunt's printing firm together with that precious cousin of hers. You turned a very blind eye to her goings on when you should have known better." "I repeat my question, John. Are you having an affair with Karen Betts?" "And I repeat my answer and that is no." "I am hardly likely to believe you, John." "You've been in court all week, Ian. If you remember, you must have realised that men aren't always Karen Betts' preferred persuasion. Besides, you will really have to make up your mind just exactly which woman you suspect me of carrying on an affair with. If you persist in your deluded beliefs, then Jo Mills is in the clear, and also George for all I know. That is, if I dare follow the tortuous path of your squalid imaginings without it making me physically sick."
John was immensely satisfied to see that they did not know what to believe. He had faced them with possibilities which mutually excluded each other and this baffled and frustrated them. He could almost hear the creaking sounds coming from their clockwork minds which were jumping out of gear failing to mesh with other cogs. For the first time since they entered the room, they acted in a way, which suited his purposes, which was to shut up. It faced Sir Ian with the real poser as to how a clearly attractive woman like Karen Betts could be attracted to both men and women. There was nothing in his well ordered well-protected lifestyle that had prepared him for this possibility. His mind shut down at the mere thought of this. There were things in the modern world that he really didn't understand. "By the way, what were you going to tell me about you and Neil Houghton?" John asked impishly.
"Never you mind about Neil Houghton. I insist that you tell me exactly why Mrs. Channing has devoted so much of her spare time in the gallery of a trial that doesn't remotely concern her professionally. I know of Mrs. Channing and she has a perfectly healthy respect for money, both for the wealth creators of this country and for her own large fees. So you explain to me why she is wasting valuable time and money?" "Why ask me. I'm only her ex-husband. What she does with her time is entirely her own business. You would do better to ask her direct." "I hardly think that is necessary." "Are you scared, Ian? Mind you, I can quite understand that. She does have a very short fuse and a fierce temper. It's her way with words that you have to watch. It explains how she's risen to her position in the legal profession. Of course, you will have seen her in action in the previous trial you both dutifully followed." Sir Ian's face was a picture, having turned white with fear and open mouthed at the thought of a verbal scorching from Mrs. Channing and with nothing to show for it. They would have to rethink their strategy on this point in the calm dignified air of the Lord Chancellor's Department. He grasped blindly for the last available ammunition to hurl at John.
"That reminds me, John. I was shocked, utterly shocked at the way you publicly attacked the legal system in open court. Your fellow judges have long disliked your perverse judgements which unsettles respect for the rule of law…." "You mean, I'm right and they are wrong, Ian?" "That is not the point, John. You are being deliberately awkward. You were being foolhardy in the extreme. In open court, any number of reporters could have been present and any sensation seeking hack journalist could have splashed your off the cuff remark all over the tabloids. "I don't see why. Most of the newspaper proprietors are in the pocket of the government or vice versa." "That is a scandalous remark which amounts to Bolshevik trouble making," Spluttered Sir Ian. He had a curious duality in his nature. In his day to day work, he knew very well that 'if he scratched someone else's back, someone else would scratch his' and that is how the inner circle functioned in the way they gently steered the path of this country for the common and greater good. Troublemakers were swiftly sidelined or rendered ineffective, all apart from the worst troublemaker of all. Yet he prided himself on the fact that the country acquiesced in the process and therefore agreed with it. The trouble with Deed was that he painted a picture in words in colours too brutal and tasteless for his liking.
"Still, I should not be surprised by you. To say that you 'loathed the establishment' is quite in keeping. Those were your very words." "So now you know why I said it. Now, goodbye to the pair of you. I want my rest." A slammed door and a violent rush of air marked the exasperated exit of the unwelcome guests.
John lay back, trying to capture the feelings of serenity that he had been striving for. He had all the peace in the world he could wish for and therefore, he should feel happier about himself. As soon as he posed the question that way, it made him feel uncomfortable. Surely, he had realised to perfection the project that he had fashioned for himself when first regained his freedom as a single, very available batchelor. Of course, he had Charlie who was always very dear to him even though she had grown her wings as she must and had flown the nest to a distant university. There was the sometimes sexual companionship of Jo who would always be close to him whatever their occasional rows. It was curious the way George had come into his life in her very individual fashion. A temporary flash of humour made him smile at the way the reputation of his tempestuous relationship with George round the professional circles they mixed in had grown an unexpectedly new, fresh dimension unknown to them. Life was better for him now with George as she had got over that not eating phase and was stronger and healthier, in fact he had never seen her so blooming as recently. Whoever George's mysterious new lover was, it was doing her good despite what she had said when he paid her a surprise call. His mind fluttered over various possibilities that were open to him and, in that chance spin of a roulette wheel, his mind settled on George. He would phone her up as he could do with the sort of female company that was dearest to his heart. It was a vision that he had chased all his life in the way that a child pursued in his mind the zigzag trail of a kite aloft in the sunny, windy sky far above him.
He dismissed his gloomy thoughts with a shake of his head. This was the stage a long gruelling trial found him in before he came triumphantly to the climax with his judgement which cut to the core of the matter. He had worked so hard in his life to get to the position where he had this power and could see off the insignificant, yes men of the Lord Chancellor's Department who were utterly unable to fence him in. With a smile on his face, he picked up the phone. The numbers he dialled were of a pattern as familiar to him as George's body was. Last time he called was an aberration in their relationship. He was sure that tonight would be better.
Uncharacteristically, John turned abruptly away to the back door of the courtroom, through the narrow corridor and into the sanctuary of his chambers. He made a beeline to the nearest armchair where he sank back, deep in contemplation when he could mentally free himself from his immediate past. Once his thoughts dissolved into nothingness, he was in another zone of experience. His almost Buddhist sense of detachment was his way of coping with the stresses and demands of his job where, unknown to his enemies, he could renew himself and none of them would know. He needed this form of buttress against the world as time went on. This time, it didn't quite work as the tearful grateful face of Miss Atkins hung suspended in a disembodied way, right in front of his eyes. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and the feelings that he had acted rightly and seen that a merciful justice had prevailed. After all, he had done everything that could have been expected of him and more than any judge would ever see fit to do. That warm feeling inside him detracted from the negative feelings of tiredness that weakened him. He wanted to rest alone, undisturbed. His very acute hearing warned him that this was not to be as a confused pattern light, precise footsteps could be heard. He groaned inwardly as it could only be the Lord Chancellor's Department's very own dynamic duo Thought Police. Through the crack in the door, the alien life forms intruded into his space. John had his back to them to begin with but he was highly conscious of them before they appeared in his peripheral vision.
"A private word, John? I trust we are not disturbing you after what we know must have been a very taxing day." Sir Ian's soothing, overdone tones were as unconvincing as the tightness of his smile.
"Take a seat if you must," John sighed unenthusiastically. "This is just like old times. All we need is Neil Houghton and our numbers are complete." "Neil Houghton and I are not on speaking terms ever since he tried to pressure me into involving myself in an official capacity in his private life." "You did? I am intrigued. Pray tell me as I would be interested to hear more of the matter." John had totally understated his curiosity, which, once roused, would never let him rest nor the unfortunate object of his curiosity. He had an ulterior motive in questioning Sir Ian so that he could be gently side-tracked but unfortunately, Sir Ian had a misguided sense of purpose, which sadly, was not harnessed to a better cause.
"We have not come to discuss my private business but yours…." "Ah, I wondered when you would get to the point," Came the languid reply and he looked at his watch with an exaggerated gesture.
"A defendant is entitled to a fair trial…." John could not believe his ears. They could not be turning over a new leaf after all these years. However, one glance at their hard, calculating eyes told him differently. They aren't going to change as they had sold their souls a long time ago and were irretrievably damned in his eyes. The morally dead do not come back to life.
"……just as Neumann Mason-Alan should be treated fairly by you." "We could not help but notice, my lord, that you have been unduly generous to Mrs. Mills and rather harsh in your attitude to Mr. Mason-Alan," Lawrence James added.
"In what way? I treat them equally according to their just deserts." "You might not notice it yourself, old man, as you are wrapped up in the trial but an impartial observer from the sidelines can't help but notice." "Impartial? That will be the day." "It's just the little things which you might be quite unconscious of," Sir Ian urged with a curious mixture of ingratiation and subtle threat. John's slightly acid one liners were bringing on the uncomfortable feelings of impotent rage that he always had when crossing swords with Deed. "I shall take to heart what you are saying and I shall redouble my efforts to treat him no less than Mr. Mason-Alan deserves." "Be that as it may, it is a matter which we shall closely scrutinise during the remainder of the trial." Sir Ian's voice shook slightly as his anger became audible. The insufferable man was playing with him in offering meaningless promises.
"As always…." Yawned John.
"There are more pressing matters we want to talk to you about. The last time we came to visit you in your chambers, we had quite obviously disturbed you while you were clearly intimate with a woman called Karen Betts, who I clearly remember was a witness in the last trial involving an Atkins, and for some strange reason, is a visitor in the gallery and associated with former criminals who were prisoners in the very same prison that she works at." "If you had asked me directly, I would have told you all the details." "I am sure you know them very well from the conversation we observed you were having with them." "Nothing wrong with that, surely." "Have you taken leave of your senses, John? You stand to be dangerously compromised." "By whom? By another over zealous amateur photographer?" John fired back. He was getting angry and realised that he could not lazily banish them from his world with a smart quip or two. He could not afford to use half measures if he really wanted some peace and quiet.
"Not necessarily by us, John. There's the matter of her reputation." He smiled more openly at Sir Ian's guilt ridden use of the word 'necessarily' Their thin pretence that they were acting out of concern for his welfare blew away at the spiteful edge to their last word.
"In what way, Ian?" "Well, consider what we know of both trials we were all at. This woman lived with James Fenner, leaves him for another man, and goes out of her way to call at his house late one night, from which this ridiculous story came of her being raped. I might have believed her if I didn't hear with my own ears the way she jumped into bed with the co-defendant in the last trial. He was jointly convicted of a terrible crime and is the very brother of the defendant in this trial, who is also on trial for a brutal murder. And only the other day we visit you and, quite by chance, we saw you with your arm round this woman. Come now, you must admit at the least that she has an unfortunate taste in men." "Your supposed morality, Ian, is merely a product of your lack of attraction to the opposite sex. It is curiously at odds with your utter lack of moral scruples in doing what your lord and master tells you to do. Besides, Karen Betts is a decent, honourable woman and someone who I am proud to call a friend. I regard any slanderous remarks about her as addressed to me." "You have a perverse and dangerous attraction for the disreputable," Sneered Sir Ian.
"Oh have I? You took back Lady Rochester after she escaped from a criminal conviction by the skin of her teeth, from embezzling funds from her aunt's printing firm together with that precious cousin of hers. You turned a very blind eye to her goings on when you should have known better." "I repeat my question, John. Are you having an affair with Karen Betts?" "And I repeat my answer and that is no." "I am hardly likely to believe you, John." "You've been in court all week, Ian. If you remember, you must have realised that men aren't always Karen Betts' preferred persuasion. Besides, you will really have to make up your mind just exactly which woman you suspect me of carrying on an affair with. If you persist in your deluded beliefs, then Jo Mills is in the clear, and also George for all I know. That is, if I dare follow the tortuous path of your squalid imaginings without it making me physically sick."
John was immensely satisfied to see that they did not know what to believe. He had faced them with possibilities which mutually excluded each other and this baffled and frustrated them. He could almost hear the creaking sounds coming from their clockwork minds which were jumping out of gear failing to mesh with other cogs. For the first time since they entered the room, they acted in a way, which suited his purposes, which was to shut up. It faced Sir Ian with the real poser as to how a clearly attractive woman like Karen Betts could be attracted to both men and women. There was nothing in his well ordered well-protected lifestyle that had prepared him for this possibility. His mind shut down at the mere thought of this. There were things in the modern world that he really didn't understand. "By the way, what were you going to tell me about you and Neil Houghton?" John asked impishly.
"Never you mind about Neil Houghton. I insist that you tell me exactly why Mrs. Channing has devoted so much of her spare time in the gallery of a trial that doesn't remotely concern her professionally. I know of Mrs. Channing and she has a perfectly healthy respect for money, both for the wealth creators of this country and for her own large fees. So you explain to me why she is wasting valuable time and money?" "Why ask me. I'm only her ex-husband. What she does with her time is entirely her own business. You would do better to ask her direct." "I hardly think that is necessary." "Are you scared, Ian? Mind you, I can quite understand that. She does have a very short fuse and a fierce temper. It's her way with words that you have to watch. It explains how she's risen to her position in the legal profession. Of course, you will have seen her in action in the previous trial you both dutifully followed." Sir Ian's face was a picture, having turned white with fear and open mouthed at the thought of a verbal scorching from Mrs. Channing and with nothing to show for it. They would have to rethink their strategy on this point in the calm dignified air of the Lord Chancellor's Department. He grasped blindly for the last available ammunition to hurl at John.
"That reminds me, John. I was shocked, utterly shocked at the way you publicly attacked the legal system in open court. Your fellow judges have long disliked your perverse judgements which unsettles respect for the rule of law…." "You mean, I'm right and they are wrong, Ian?" "That is not the point, John. You are being deliberately awkward. You were being foolhardy in the extreme. In open court, any number of reporters could have been present and any sensation seeking hack journalist could have splashed your off the cuff remark all over the tabloids. "I don't see why. Most of the newspaper proprietors are in the pocket of the government or vice versa." "That is a scandalous remark which amounts to Bolshevik trouble making," Spluttered Sir Ian. He had a curious duality in his nature. In his day to day work, he knew very well that 'if he scratched someone else's back, someone else would scratch his' and that is how the inner circle functioned in the way they gently steered the path of this country for the common and greater good. Troublemakers were swiftly sidelined or rendered ineffective, all apart from the worst troublemaker of all. Yet he prided himself on the fact that the country acquiesced in the process and therefore agreed with it. The trouble with Deed was that he painted a picture in words in colours too brutal and tasteless for his liking.
"Still, I should not be surprised by you. To say that you 'loathed the establishment' is quite in keeping. Those were your very words." "So now you know why I said it. Now, goodbye to the pair of you. I want my rest." A slammed door and a violent rush of air marked the exasperated exit of the unwelcome guests.
John lay back, trying to capture the feelings of serenity that he had been striving for. He had all the peace in the world he could wish for and therefore, he should feel happier about himself. As soon as he posed the question that way, it made him feel uncomfortable. Surely, he had realised to perfection the project that he had fashioned for himself when first regained his freedom as a single, very available batchelor. Of course, he had Charlie who was always very dear to him even though she had grown her wings as she must and had flown the nest to a distant university. There was the sometimes sexual companionship of Jo who would always be close to him whatever their occasional rows. It was curious the way George had come into his life in her very individual fashion. A temporary flash of humour made him smile at the way the reputation of his tempestuous relationship with George round the professional circles they mixed in had grown an unexpectedly new, fresh dimension unknown to them. Life was better for him now with George as she had got over that not eating phase and was stronger and healthier, in fact he had never seen her so blooming as recently. Whoever George's mysterious new lover was, it was doing her good despite what she had said when he paid her a surprise call. His mind fluttered over various possibilities that were open to him and, in that chance spin of a roulette wheel, his mind settled on George. He would phone her up as he could do with the sort of female company that was dearest to his heart. It was a vision that he had chased all his life in the way that a child pursued in his mind the zigzag trail of a kite aloft in the sunny, windy sky far above him.
He dismissed his gloomy thoughts with a shake of his head. This was the stage a long gruelling trial found him in before he came triumphantly to the climax with his judgement which cut to the core of the matter. He had worked so hard in his life to get to the position where he had this power and could see off the insignificant, yes men of the Lord Chancellor's Department who were utterly unable to fence him in. With a smile on his face, he picked up the phone. The numbers he dialled were of a pattern as familiar to him as George's body was. Last time he called was an aberration in their relationship. He was sure that tonight would be better.