The trial proceeded smoothly towards the end of the day, the afternoon session being especially harmonious. It did not prevent George in indulging in one or two of her favourite debating ploys just for the sake of it which Jo parried with as much good humour as once John dueled with Roe Colmore, only with words not foils. There was a definite playful banter as far as the seriousness of the matter in hand permitted. That measure of levity did not go unobserved.
As John trod slowly out of the courtroom, he was aware of a sharp clicking sound behind his languid lengthy stride. John paid it no attention. Some instinct told him to ignore it in hopes that it would go away overlaying an instinct that told him that he would be out of luck. He sighed as the sounds came closer. Just his luck when all he wanted was to flop down in his armchair and bask in contentment.
"Might I have a word with you, John?" that tight hard voice sounded in his ear.
"What would you say if I said no?" came his impish response. As the eyebrows of the other man rose, he added in weary tones. "You might as well come in now as anytime, Ian. Cup of tea?"
They observed the polite preliminaries and sipped at his cup of tea. So had he behaved when he was summoned before his headmaster before being punished for one of his more stylish transgressions of the school rules? As he thought back in time, he could not be sure if he was better or worse off in those days, the disadvantages of the very unequal balance of power as opposed to the advantages that rules were written down and he knew where he stood. These days, as the apparatchiks encroached more and more into what areas of freedoms still remained, what once was meritorious was becoming frowned upon as the half way staging post before being outlawed or proscribed. Conversely, what once was described as shameless, self-seeking greed was now described as the meritorious action of 'wealth creators?" Other people demeaned himself in slavishly worshipping the new gods for the grace and favours they received. As a fleeting aside, he wondered what Helen would make of this recklessly defiant and obstinate streak in him. They had never discussed such matters but he suspected that Helen would be sympathetic to that side of his personality of which he had never been ashamed. He was fated to fight yet another battle when he really couldn't be bothered to look for trouble. He knew that destiny would win.
"By coincidence, I happened to drop in on your court this afternoon, John. You may have overlooked me"
"I spotted you in your accustomed place at the back of the visitor's gallery. I confess I was curious about your presence but I assumed that I would be enlightened in due course"
"Yes, well I couldn't help noticing the increasingly cordial relations between you, Jo and George. Even allowing for the orchestral performance and the rehearsals. I confess that it is a surprise"
"An improvement, I trust? You would surely not want us all to be at daggers drawn as at the time of the 'One Way' phone trial," John replied in his smoothest, most imperturbable manner.
Sir Ian winced to John's amusement. From his adolescence onward, he had impishly enjoyed that smooth neatly delivered thrust at the weak spot of the overbearing and pompous bully. Once that temptation flashed into his mind, it was only a split second to give way to it and spoken words to follow.
"Hardly, John. There must be a balance"
"Oh," John observed with an exaggerated appearance of profound philosophical enlightenment. "You mean that I should steer the conduct of the trial so that an acceptable measure of balanced hostility should be observed between all parties. Truly, you are asking me to steer such trials through such perilous waters."
Sir Ian shut up at this for a few minutes and sipped slowly from his cup of tea while the teaspoon jangled around in the saucer.
"There's another matter I wanted to make discreet enquiries about and that is the Mills trial"
At another time, Sir Ian's callous description of Barbara enraged him. Instead, he gently reproached him.
"Her name is Barbara, Ian. You remember, the lady who so kindly volunteered her services to play the harpsichord and, with her late husband, the generous use of church hall and the church itself."
"Don't I remember? I wish to God I had not made the acquaintance of the woman who is now on trial for murdering her husband"
Still the same old Ian, John concluded wearily. The supposed eleventh commandment 'thou shalt not be found out' was custom made for the man. Come to think of it, that squalid weasly fellow schoolboy wasn't that much better.
"You don't object to hobnobbing with dubious acquaintances who, in a just society, would be behind bars but I forgot, the power of the establishment defends one of their own. Who in hell invented the phrase, a level playing field? One of the most ineptly crass expressions imaginable"
"Ever the one to act morally superior," sneered Sir Ian, his temper rising. "You'll put a foot wrong one of these days and then, we'll have you"
"Look, just spare me the vitriol, Ian," Came John's bored response. "I came to my chamber to rest awhile, not to trade insults with a doubtfully welcome gatecrasher. Say what you've come to say and be gone."
Sir Ian shut up for several minutes and fumed inwardly. Even though he had never been able to win a single argument with John, some perverse sense of duty could not let him give it up as a bad job. Questions would be asked by his political masters but that was only half the matter. It was not necessary for some slave master to threaten those whose lives he ruled with the threat of the lash. Sir Ian was driven uncontrollably to do that to himself psychologically.
"I confess that I was somewhat surprised that you had got wind of proposals to move both trial and the accused's prison further afield out of harm's way"
"We live in an age where information is increasingly available. Take the internet. I must confess that it has spread the availability of knowledge so that it can be retrieved at a touch of a button. Whereas the reporting of court cases took such laborious efforts to print up in book form, to be published and then distributed, one click of a button and, there it appears on the screen of my laptop over there"
Sir Ian cut short John's enthusiastic endorsement of the internet. To him, it was a confounded nuisance and let far too many common people get access to dangerous ideas. The damned thing smacked of anarchy and, what was worse, it was so infernally hard to understand.
"I have not come to discuss the relative merits of the internet. It might be a useful merchandising toy but other than that, I have no interest in it. What is more to the point is how these proposals were leaked to you or did you indulge in unauthorized snooping"
The nerve of the fellow, John thought. Another time he would have got angry but today, he laughed out loud.
"Of course, Ian, when you talk so self righteously of snooping you are forgetting the over zealous functionary who acted as disgracefully as any despised paparazzi in photographing me and Jo, that night she was at my digs. Does it ring a bell by any chance"
Sir Ian coughed while sipping his cup of tea, jerked it as his face twitched in discomfort and spilled some of it into his saucer.
"Will you come to the point, John? I will be answered"
Sir Ian tried to lash himself into a fury in order to sound dominant and powerful but only succeeded in coming over as petulant.
"Rest assured, the trial will be in safe hands. As I said when I talked the matter over with Monty, I freely confess that I would have had misgivings if I had sole charge of this case. It would be very hard for any single judge to be dispassionate. The combination of the two of us seem unlikely but I sense that Monty and I may pull it off. I have not had a cross word with him since the performance. I freely admit that we are taking a risk but so is any alternative"
"But the leak?" Piped up Sir Ian. He was so agitated that he had set the cup of tea down and was pacing around restlessly.
"You surely don't expect me to divulge my sources of information to you any more than I expect you to discuss your sources of information to me," Came John's answer in lordly amusement and, he had to add his stinger of a follow up riposte. "Level playing field, Ian. You know it makes sense."
Sir Ian's level of frustration had built up to a crescendo and he was about to lose his temper when he realized that Deed was behaving differently. There was a distinct note of bored disdain and a reluctance to pile in, full tilt into a full-scale row with him. The fellow was too smug and self satisfied by half.
"You're looking very cheerful," Sir Ian's hardest, accusatory tones accompanied his squint of concentration. "The last time I remember you looking that way was when you slept with my wife"
"Afterwards, surely, Ian. No, this was far more pleasurable"
For once, Sir Ian managed to resist rising to the bait. He wasn't sure if deed was playing with him. It would be his style to have such a reprehensible sense of humour. That silence spurred John to drop another bombshell on him.
"By the way, Ian. I am moving out of the digs into my own flat in the very near future. It means that my fellow judges won't be disturbed by my comings and goings. It does make the LCD spy network somewhat redundant"
Sir Ian reacted as if someone had jabbed him with a red-hot needle. Goodness knows what a 'let off the leash' Deed might get up to without the restraining influence of the brethren. The LCD spy network was precisely the point. John was someone whom it was positively incumbent on them to spy upon.
"You can't, you mustn't. It would be unwise. The digs provide a certain collective protection from the close proximity of the outside world which is increasingly dangerous to the reputations of public figures," he spluttered away vaguely and incoherently.
"I am touched by your concern, Ian," John grinned. "I think I am quite capable of looking after myself. I repeat, I would have thought that such a move would mean a more peaceful life for you. Think of it, no more complaints from my fellow judges about my private life. They can go their way and I can go mine. Everyone will be happy"
Sir Ian narrowed his eyes suspiciously. There had to be more to it than this.
"Just what schemes are you up to, John?" Sir ian growled, coming to the point.
"None whatsoever, Ian. Much though I am gratified by your continuing concern for my welfare, I fear you have outworn your welcome. I really could do with some peace and contemplation."
Sir Ian stalked off. He had gained precisely nothing from his errand and had received news, which disturbed him greatly. All the time, he couldn't put into words the worrying mental picture of a John Deed unleashed on the world at large, free to get up to anything he wanted with nobody knowing. It was that fear that he felt most strongly but he couldn't say it in so many words. Of course, Deed had chosen to remain utterly oblivious of his dark hints. He would, he fumed angrily as he slammed a door behind him viciously. Unexpectedly, its well-oiled hinges allowed it to slam shut with a loud thud and the superb acoustics made the sound echo round the high ceilings in a sequence of sound waves that only slowly diminished. Immediately, Sir Ian felt totally sheepish and embarrassed and he tiptoes his way out into the sharp cutting wind of an October evening.
John smiled freely to himself. The very unexpected sexual gratification from a very bold and forward George and the presence of a very interested and curious Jo had restored his self esteem and did a lot to restore that sense of sense of 'all's right with the world.' Correction, all's right with his immediate surroundings and the rest of the world was a madhouse with him as a leading force to reclaim the world, as it should be. He could live with that external turmoil, even thrive on it perversely. It was only when he started to question his own place in the universe that he started to worry. He suspected that this feeling could grow inside him and gnaw away at his self-belief. That sense of self-doubt was a very dangerous form of emotional castration, which had him in a grip that even his strength could not free himself from. If he did not believe in himself, whoever that restless fellow was, then who was he? He shook his head in bemusement at the thought that he had never seen fit to ask that one question while everything else around him was there to be probed and illuminated by his formidable intellect. All he knew that he would have to account to himself at some time in the future or to Helen at the next therapy session or both. Up till then, at least for this evening, he had achieved a measure of balance.