by Peter Murphy
‘Come on in, Harriet.’ Aubrey said brightly. ‘Would you like tea?’
‘No, thanks. I’m fine.
‘I saw in The Times today that your father is on the warpath again, saying we’re not doing enough to make sure underprivileged children can get into higher education.’
‘He’s absolutely right,’ Harriet said.
‘I wouldn’t have said this a few years ago, but I’m beginning to come round to his point of view.’
She smiled. ‘Are you becoming a liberal in your old age, Aubrey?’
‘Certainly not. But I’ve always liked your father. He’s done a lot for the College as Master, and the government ought to listen to him. When are they going to send him up to the House of Lords? Surely he’s done more than enough by now?’
‘He certainly thinks so.’
They laughed.
He waved her into a chair. ‘Merlin said you needed a spot of advice. What can I do for you?’
She leaned forward.
‘It’s a question of professional ethics, Aubrey, or at least I think it is.’
‘Sounds intriguing.’
‘You remember the client I had who was killed by her husband in April, Susan Lang?’
Aubrey sat up in his chair.
‘How could I forget? You were with me here when they called to break the news to you. You were terribly upset – and understandably so. It was a dreadful business.’
‘I was, and I’m grateful for you taking care of me that afternoon. I was a mess.’
‘You had every right to be.’
She paused.
‘Aubrey, the husband’s trial for murder began at the Old Bailey this morning. Ben and Jess are representing him. I decided to go and listen for a while.’
Aubrey raised his eyebrows.
‘Incognito, I assume, given the way you’re dressed.’
She laughed, looking down at herself. She had deliberately worn light-coloured clothes to avoid looking like a lawyer.
‘Why did you feel the need to be there?’
‘I didn’t want to distract Ben and Jess, or get in their way. That’s why I dressed down. I sat at the back of the court and generally tried to keep a low profile. I don’t think they knew I was there.’
‘I repeat my question,’ Aubrey said.
She did not reply immediately.
‘I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. I had no reason for being there, except, I suppose, some kind of morbid curiosity. It made such an impact on me emotionally when I heard about Susan. For some reason I felt I had to hear for myself what had happened.’
‘Was your morbid curiosity satisfied?’
‘As much as it could be. I listened to the evidence of the welfare officer they had visited just before he killed her. She saw the whole thing through her front window. It was ghastly just listening to her evidence. He stabbed her over and over again with a large kitchen knife. It was a really vicious, relentless attack. She never stood a chance.’
Aubrey nodded.
‘It all sounds very nasty. But how does all this involve your professional ethics?’
‘Ben told the court that the defence was going to be provocation, which would reduce the charge from murder to manslaughter. The jury hasn’t been told yet what the provocation was, and they probably won’t know until the defendant gives evidence, but the pattern seems clear from Ben’s cross-examination.’
‘She was being cruel to him, was she, getting him worked up?’
‘That’s one way of putting it. The welfare officer painted him as a bit obsessive when it came to the children. She thought he might be liable to lash out if the wife gave him too much of a hard time over custody, and by all accounts, she was pretty good at giving him a hard time.’
‘So presumably Ben was cheering the welfare officer on. That’s good for him, yes?’
‘Yes. He wants the jury to think of Henry Lang as the textbook example of a man who might lose his self-control if provoked far enough. He even got the welfare officer to agree that she had picked up on his obsessive streak and made a specific note about it after just one meeting with him.’
‘Do I recall correctly? I seem to remember that he was accusing her of running around, staying out late, and generally hanging around with the wrong sort of people?’
‘Yes, and there’s a lot more than just the accusation now. She admitted to the welfare officer that she was sleeping with other men and drinking too much. But that wasn’t all. After her death, the police found that she was using cannabis and cocaine.’
Aubrey sat back in his chair and nodded.
‘So, in addition to everything else, the husband was fully justified in worrying about the children while they were with her?’
‘Aubrey, my instructing solicitor, Val Turner, and I had both warned her that she was skating on thin ice, and that we might reach the point where we couldn’t in all conscience support her claim for custody unless she made some changes to her lifestyle.’
‘Was she listening?’
‘I don’t think so. She would go through the motions of agreeing with us, but I don’t think she meant it.’
Harriet stood, walked around her chair, and leaned against it, her arms over the top.
‘But here’s what I want to ask you about. Ben asked the welfare officer whether Susan had ever mentioned a man called Daniel Cleary as one of the men she was running around with.’
‘Who is Daniel Cleary when he’s at home?’
‘He’s reputed to be a drug dealer and a fixer for certain criminal elements. He has form for violence and blackmail, among other things. If I tell you that he rejoices in the street name of “Danny Ice” that should give you a pretty good idea of what you’re dealing with.’
Aubrey laughed. ‘He does sound like a charming fellow.’
‘Ben also asked the welfare officer whether she knew anything about Cleary making threats of violence against Henry Lang. She said she knew nothing about that.’
‘And this is important because…?’
‘Aubrey, the prosecution’s case is that this was premeditated murder, not provocation. Their trump card is that on the morning he killed his wife, Henry carefully selected a large kitchen knife from a set he had in his kitchen, concealed it in his raincoat, and took it to the meeting.’
‘Thereby demonstrating that he intended to kill Susan all along?’
‘Exactly.’
Aubrey nodded.
‘Well, I’m no criminal lawyer, Harriet, as you know, but even I can see why that might make it difficult to run provocation with a straight face.’
‘If that were the whole story, it would make it almost impossible,’ she said. ‘But it’s not the whole story.’
She hesitated.
‘Go on,’ he said encouragingly.
‘It would be different if Ben knew about a conversation Val and I had with Susan a week or so before the killing.’
She took her seat again. He did not rush her.
‘Aubrey, when we warned Susan about her lifestyle, she didn’t just ignore us. She told us we didn’t have to worry about it. She said that Henry wouldn’t go through with his custody application; she said he would withdraw it and allow the court to award custody to her.’
‘Oh? And why would he do that?’
‘That’s what we wanted to know. She said it was because her friend Danny Ice was going to make it clear to Henry what would happen to him if he didn’t.’
Aubrey brought his hands up to his face.
‘God Almighty,’ he said quietly. ‘I assume you –’
‘Yes, of course. We read her the Riot Act. We made it clear that we could have nothing to do with it, and that if the court ever got wind of it, not only would she lose custody, but she might well be in danger of prosecution. We couldn’t have be
en much more forceful, and by the end she was backing right down, blaming Danny Ice for it all, insisting that it was all his idea, and had nothing to do with her.’
‘Just an act of pure, unsolicited friendship on Danny’s part, out of the goodness of his heart?’
‘Something like that.’
Aubrey smiled.
‘And you would like to tell Ben all about it, but you’re worried because what she told you is privileged?’
She nodded. ‘Aubrey, I don’t even know for a fact that Ben is going to offer Danny Ice as an explanation for Henry carrying the knife. I can’t ethically plant ideas in his head.’
‘I don’t think there’s any risk of that,’ Aubrey replied. ‘Ben can’t invent defences for his client, can he? He can only go on what Henry tells him, so Henry must have told Ben that he was so scared of Danny Ice that he thought he needed the knife for protection. It was a bloody silly thing to do, obviously, but that may just go to show how scared he was. Anyway, what other reason could he have had for taking the knife with him – unless, of course, he did intend to kill her?’
‘I can’t think of any. But what should I do? When we spoke to Susan, we were acting as her legal advisers. Anything she said to us was privileged, and we can’t ethically reveal it without her permission – and it’s too late for that now.’
Aubrey stood and walked over to his bookcase.
‘The first thing you should do is talk to Val and see if you can agree on exactly what was said. Make a note of it as accurately as you can, and list any points that you can’t remember, or remember differently.’
She nodded.
‘Yes, all right. I’ll call her now.’
‘In the meanwhile, I will consult Cross on Evidence and see what I can find about the law of legal professional privilege.’
‘What’s your instinct?’ she asked.
He thought for a moment.
‘Well, on the one hand, the law takes legal privilege seriously – as it should. Clients must be able to trust their lawyers to keep their confidences; if they can’t, no client will trust a lawyer enough to tell the truth, and the whole system will break down. Not only that, but the privilege belongs to the client, not to you or Val. You can’t waive it for her.
‘On the other hand, the client is dead; there’s no obvious reason to keep what she said confidential after her death; and the defence of a man charged with murder may depend on the jury hearing about it. My instinct is that there will be a way to do it. We just need to come up with the right legal argument.’
She smiled.
‘I may ask you to represent me. After all, we will be in front of a good friend of yours, and there’s no harm in having a friendly tribunal.’
‘Oh?’
‘Mr Justice Rainer is trying it.’
He laughed. ‘Conrad? Trying a criminal case? God help us all. What is the world coming to?’
‘Don’t sound so smug, Aubrey. The same may happen to you one of these days, when you take your rightful place among the great and the good.’
‘If I ever end up trying a case at the Old Bailey,’ he replied, returning the smile, ‘that may be the end of the criminal trial as we know it. I’m not sure they would ever recover from the experience.’
‘Oh, stop it. You are both more than competent to try any case you turn your minds to,’ she said.
‘Well, I’m sure that Conrad will cope perfectly well with the law of privilege. Our job is to find the right way to put it to him. Not a word to Ben yet, obviously. When will he be ready to present the defence case?’
‘Not for a couple of days at least, I would say.’
‘More than enough time,’ Aubrey said.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
As Aubrey began to explore Cross on Evidence, his phone rang. He picked it up absent-mindedly, his attention focused on a passage in which Professor Cross appeared to offer some hope for the argument he had been asked to make.
‘Aubrey, is that you? It’s Conrad.’
It took Aubrey a moment or two to adjust.
‘Conrad? Well, this is a coincidence; we were just talking about you.’
There was a silence.
‘Talking about me? Why? Who with? What do you mean?’
The voice had become shrill, as if alarmed. Aubrey’s attention quickly shifted from Cross to the voice.
‘It was nothing, Conrad. I was talking with my former pupil, Harriet Fisk, and your name came up, that’s all.’
‘Are you sure that’s all it was?’
‘Yes, of course… Conrad, what’s the matter? You sound distressed.’
Another silence.
‘Aubrey, I need to see you. I need to talk to you. Can you meet me at the Club?’
Aubrey closed his eyes. His family home was in Sussex. He kept a flat in London, in the Temple, and it was not unusual for him to stay in town if he was working late. But this evening he had promised his wife and daughters that he would be home for a family dinner. He was on the brink of making his apologies to Conrad.
‘Aubrey, it’s a matter of life and death. Literally. Please.’
Aubrey looked at his watch. There was something about Conrad’s voice. He couldn’t quite place it, but there was no doubt about the urgency.
‘All right, Conrad. I’ll see you at the Club at 6 o’clock,’ he promised.
‘Thank you, Aubrey. Thank you.’
After Conrad had hung up, Aubrey sat quietly for several minutes, contemplating what he had casually called a coincidence, and suddenly feeling by no means sure that coincidence was the right word for it. Eventually, he took one or two deep breaths and called home.
‘I’m sorry, Sandra,’ he said, ‘I really am…’
43
When Aubrey arrived at his Club in Pall Mall at 6 o’clock, Conrad Rainer had already taken possession of a confidential corner table in the larger of the two lounges on the ground floor. He had a large glass of whisky in front of him, and the bottle from which it had been poured stood alongside the glass. He was lighting a cigarette, and the ashtray already held four butts. As he took his seat, Aubrey caught the eye of Luke, the waiter on duty in the lounge, and ordered his usual pre-dinner Campari and soda with no more than a wave of his hand, a gesture he had refined at the Club over many years and with which the staff were by now thoroughly familiar. He looked closely at Conrad. He seemed pale and preoccupied. Aubrey decided to do what he could to keep the atmosphere light.
‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ he said. ‘Is the stress of the new job getting to you already?’
Conrad shook his head quickly.
‘No, not at all. I used to smoke a bit at university, if you remember. For some reason, I seem to have picked the habit up again; can’t think why.’
There was a silence.
‘You sounded rather upset earlier, on the phone,’ Aubrey smiled. ‘I do hope no one in my chambers is to blame.’
There was no smile in return.
‘Why would anyone in your chambers be to blame?’
Aubrey looked away briefly, and then back.
‘You have Ben Schroeder in front of you, don’t you?’
‘Yes. But Schroeder seems very good. He’s done nothing to upset me.’ He paused. ‘Why were you talking about me with your former pupil?’
Aubrey sat back in his chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Luke putting the finishing touches to his Campari and soda. He turned away to watch him approach, buying time, sparing himself the necessity of an immediate reply. He calculated quickly as he watched Luke expertly serve his drink from a silver tray, a pristine white tea towel lying neatly over his shoulder. Having served the drink, he removed the ashtray and instantly replaced it with a clean one.
‘Will that be all, Mr Smith-Gurney? Sir Conrad?’
‘Yes, thank you,
Luke,’ Aubrey said.
He waited for Luke to retreat out of earshot.
‘I wasn’t talking to Harriet about you in that sense, Conrad. Your name came up because she mentioned your trial. Harriet represented Susan Lang in the family proceedings in front of Bernard Wesley. She was very distressed when her client was stabbed to death, needless to say, and she’s not quite over it yet. She noted that the husband’s trial had started today.’ He hesitated. ‘That was all there was to it.’
He raised his glass in a silent toast and took a drink.
‘Now, since you’re keeping me from Sandra and the girls on what was supposed to be a family evening, why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?’
Conrad nodded. Aubrey watched the man crumble before his eyes. His hand shook as he raised his cigarette to his mouth, and his voice was hoarse when he eventually spoke.
‘I don’t think I can go on, Aubrey. I’ve been dreading saying what I’m about to say for a long time, because I know that once I tell someone, my life is over. While it’s just in my head, it’s not real, but once I say the words it takes form, and once it takes form, my life as I know it is gone. I’ve been thinking that I may need to find a way out.’
For a brief moment, Aubrey felt an urge to take one of Conrad’s cigarettes; but he had given up the habit on his doctor’s advice three years earlier, and if Sandra knew he had started smoking again, even the occasional one, she would have a few words to say on the subject. It wasn’t worth it. Instead, he took another drink from his glass.
‘Conrad, I’m here to listen, and whatever you say to me in the Club is said in confidence. But in all honesty, I have no idea what you’re talking about. It seems like only yesterday I was at your party, celebrating your appointment to the bench. You had capped a successful practice with a High Court judgeship. You seemed to be on top of the world. And now you’re talking about finding a way out? For Heaven’s sake, what’s happened to make you talk like this?’
‘It’s not anything that happened overnight, Aubrey,’ Conrad said, refilling his glass generously from the bottle. ‘It’s been going on for a long time now. But it’s finally come to a head. It was bound to, sooner or later, and now it has.’