The Woodcutter

by Reginald Hill

  He said, ‘Brought you a bunch of grapes. Could only get them processed, I’m afraid.’

  He was wearing what he called his poacher’s jacket. I don’t think it was altogether a joke. Johnny would much rather help himself to a neighbour’s birds than accept an invitation to an organized shoot. From one of the deep internal pockets he drew a bottle of red wine and from the other two goblets.

  ‘Thank God for screw tops, eh?’ he said, opening the bottle and filling the glasses. ‘Bottoms up.’

  We drank. It was my first alcohol and it tasted foul, but symbolically it was nectar. Despite everything I found myself thinking, with Johnny here, things must be on the up.

  I said, ‘So how’re things looking, Johnny?’

  For a moment my heart leapt as he said, ‘Not so bad if you like lots of blue sky.’

  Then he added with a grin, ‘Of course, not much else to see when you’ve gone belly-up.’

  It was then I recalled that never in any crisis situation, professional or personal, had I seen Johnny anything but relaxed! Here was a mind that could make sense of a vast acreage of figures at a glance but had no more concept of tomorrow than a gadfly.

  ‘It can’t be as bad as that, surely?’ I said, still scrabbling for some scrap of hope.

  ‘You weren’t there,’ he said. ‘Might have been different if you had been. Did what I could but it was sauve qui peut with the rest of them. That arse Massie in charge of Off-shore just vanished. Even helped himself to those rather nice Gillray prints from his office wall. Then those awful Fraud Squad people started crawling all over the place. I stopped going in after that. Nothing to do and they’ve got absolutely no conversation.’

  I was genuinely bewildered by this indication of just how serious my business worries were.

  I said, ‘What the hell’s going on, Johnny? Hell, we pushed the boundaries like everyone else, but we didn’t step over them, or at least not very far.’

  He shrugged and said, ‘You know what they say, Wolf. When the tide goes out, that’s when all the crap shows up on the beach. Not a lot of sympathy around for anyone just now, and with this other business, you are pretty well at the bottom of the list.’

  ‘You mean the kiddy-porn stuff? For God’s sake, Johnny, they can’t make that stick.’

  ‘No? Well, if anyone can beat the rap, I’d back you, Wolf.’

  I didn’t like the way he phrased that.

  I said sharply, ‘Johnny, you don’t believe any of that crap, do you? I shouldn’t need to tell you that it’s just not true!’

  He shrugged again and said, ‘Whatever you say. Doesn’t matter what I think, does it? Like my great uncle Nigel. Had this thing about sheep, no one in the family gave a damn, they were his sheep, weren’t they? But when it hit the papers, that was different. Had to resign from his clubs. What the papers are saying about you, Wolf, well, all I can say is, if you can prove it’s not true, no need to worry about the business. You’ll be able to live like a lord on your profits from libel actions!’

  I looked at him aghast. I’d always known Johnny lived in a different world from the rest of us, now I saw he lived in another dimension.

  At least if he was giving me the truth as he saw it here, he was my best bet to get the truth about what took pride of place at the top of my mountain of worries.

  I said, ‘Is Imogen still staying with you?’

  ‘Good lord, no. Moved out a few months back. Went up to Cumbria, easier to set mantraps for the press boys up there.’

  ‘And Ginny?’

  ‘Went with her, I think. Some talk of sending her off to this school in Paris, all the top people have their kids there so they’ve got better security than the Pentagon. Don’t know whether she’s gone yet or not, though.’

  ‘Have you talked to her at all – Imogen, I mean? About the divorce?’

  I don’t know what I was looking for. Perhaps I had some faint hope that what Imogen was doing was in some way tactical, a legal move to put herself and some of our fortune beyond the reach of the circling sharks while I lay in a coma.

  I wanted truth from Johnny. I got it.

  ‘Yes, I had a chat when Pippa told me that was the way Imo was thinking. Nothing else for her to do really. I mean, it’s a nobrainer. I expect Toby told her the same. Husband either a vegetable, or if he wakes, a convicted kiddy-fucker and fraudster. Either way, no point hanging about, get out quick as you can with as much as you can. Though the way things are looking, you’ve really got to be sorry for the poor old girl.’

  ‘Poor old girl . . .! You’ve lost me, Johnny,’ I said tightly.

  ‘Think about it. If she’d divorced you, say, a year ago, she’d have scooped the pot! Kind of settlements our courts have been giving, even the Yanks were flocking here from Reno. She’d have walked away with God knows how many millions. Now . . . well . . .’

  He made a wry face.

  I said bitterly, ‘If you see her, tell her I’m really sorry about that, Johnny.’

  ‘Yes, I will,’ he said. ‘She’ll appreciate that. Here, let me top you up.’

  I shook my head. As we talked my initial euphoria had wilted and died, leaving me in a worse state than before. Johnny, I realized, had been my last best hope of relief, the only basket left for me to place my eggs in. Not his fault for not being able to give me what I wanted. My need had bulled him up to saviour status. And in any case the eggs were probably cracked and addled already. There was nothing he could do for me, I realized. All I wanted now was to be left alone.

  ‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘Actually, I’m feeling a bit tired. I suppose I’m not used to visitors. Sorry.’

  ‘No, it’s me who should be sorry. Should have known better than to overtire you. I’ll leave the bottle in your locker here. Don’t want the nurses taking a swig, do we?’

  He disposed of the bottle and stood up. At six foot seven, he’d always had a good four inches on me. Now he seemed to tower like some visitor to Lilliput, free from malicious intent but unable to avoid giving the tiny figures around his ankles the occasional painful kick.

  I said, ‘If you get a chance to talk to Ginny, tell her I love her.’

  ‘Of course I will,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch when you’re feeling a bit more up to snuff. Take care now.’

  He left. Before the door could swing shut, DC McLucky came through.

  ‘Enjoy your wine, did you?’ he said.

  This for him was a subtle way of letting me know he’d been listening in on our conversation. Curiously the sight of his lugubrious face and the sound of his aggressive voice raised my spirits a bit. To say his manner had softened would be going too far – I don’t think he did soft – but at least he seemed to regard me as a human being, unlike some of the medical staff who could hardly conceal their distaste. I realized later this was because as news of my recovery circulated, the papers had decided this was too good a story to miss. ‘The Kraken Wakes’ was an Observer headline. ‘IT’S BACK!’ was the Sun’s.

  But DC McLucky treated me, if not like a man innocent till proven guilty, at least like a PoW under the protection of the Geneva Convention.

  I said, ‘Not a lot. Help yourself, if you fancy a glass. Won’t keep now it’s opened.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the bottle out of the locker and filling my water tumbler. ‘Cheers. Very nice.’

  ‘This mean you’re not on duty?’ I asked.

  He said, ‘Read a lot of detective stories, do you? But I suppose you’re right. I’m on my break. Till I finish this anyway.’

  He was regarding me with an expression I couldn’t quite identify.

  He said, ‘Buddy of yours, that Mr Nutbrown?’

  I said, ‘Yes, he is. A close friend and business colleague. Why?’

  He drank some more wine then said, ‘No reason. Must be a comfort to have such a close friend and colleague walking around free and watching your back.’

  He finished the wine as I let the implications of what he was saying si
nk in.

  If the Fraud Squad investigation was probing so deep, why wasn’t my closest business associate at its heart?

  It was at this point another bubble of memory floated to the surface of my mind.

  Before my accident, I’d been rendezvousing with Johnny at the Black Widow, but it was the cops who were waiting for me there.

  McLucky was at the door.

  I said, ‘Mr McLucky.’

  He said warningly, ‘I’m back on duty now.’

  I said, ‘I’d just like the telephone, if I could. I think I should get myself a lawyer.’

  He nodded, and it came to me that the elusive expression was not a million miles from pity.

  He said, ‘First good idea you’ve had since you woke up, Sir Wilfred.’

  iii

  It was six months from my awakening before I was fit enough to stand trial and even then I entered court leaning heavily on a stick. I’d been told I would have a permanent limp, by which I think they meant stagger. Add to that my scarred face, black eye-patch, and the leather glove on my right hand, and you’d think that perhaps the change from what I used to be might have provoked some pangs of sympathy in the great British public.

  No chance. The abuse and catcalls, not to mention stones and spit that were hurled my way by the crowd gathered for my first appearance, indicated that to a man and woman they’d taken their lead from the tabloids. The Mirror described me as lower than vermin while the Mail had photos of me before and after the accident with the headline ‘Now We See Him as He Really Is!’

  The so called quality press weren’t much better. The Guardian developed the Mail’s theme in a cartoon showing two policemen struggling up the steps of the Bailey with an ornate picture frame containing what was obviously a painting of me with the caption ‘Dorian Gray Comes Down from the Attic’. The Telegraph, not to be outdone in the literary stakes, published a photo that could have been a still from a Frankenstein movie accompanied by the tag-line ‘He must be wicked to deserve such pain’. They didn’t, however, trust their readers sufficiently not to give and verse of the quotation’s source.

  Meant nothing to me, but I’d guess a well-educated girl like you didn’t need to be told, Elf.

  But worst of all was the way they treated Dad’s stroke. Responsibility was laid entirely at my door. The sins of the child being visited on the father was the burden of every reference to Fred. My pleas to be allowed to visit him continued to be disregarded on the grounds that (a) his condition was not presently life-threatening and (b) such a visit might cause public unrest if not disorder. When I pressed my solicitor to make waves, he said laconically, ‘Not worth the bother. Even if we did get permission, they’d leak it to the press and the whole fucking thing would turn into a circus parade with you as the main attraction.’

  Getting a new solicitor hadn’t been as easy as I envisaged. Toby Estover’s defection had dropped me in the mire and none of the other legal firms I knew proved keen to dig me out. I quickly realized the problem wasn’t moral repugnance but money. What the financial crash had left of my fortune, the divorce courts took, and it was soon made clear to me that there was a mile-long queue of investors with writs in their hands, all eager to sue me for the pittance I was likely to earn sewing mailbags or whatever gainful employment was available in HM Prisons these days. In the end I would have had to take pot luck with the legal aid system if I hadn’t remembered Edgar Trapp, a small-time solicitor with an East End practice, who I’d once done a favour for. He had two great merits, one was availability, the other was frankness. Not once either in the run-up to or during the course of my trials did he hold out any hope of an acquittal.

  I had to fall back on Legal Aid for a barrister and when I heard that the court had appointed Andrew Stoller QC, my spirits lifted for a moment. Stoller was a radical crusading lawyer with a growing reputation for taking on lost causes and sometimes winning them. But Trapp shook his head and said gloomily, ‘It just means the CPS are so sure of their case, they’ve pulled strings to make sure you get the best defence possible so there’ll be no leeway for an appeal.’

  I said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Ed! If I were paying you, I’d sack you!’

  He gave one of his rare smiles and said, ‘If you were paying me, I’d have probably resigned long since.’

  It was a joke, but I knew it couldn’t be easy for someone like Ed Trapp to be my legal representative. I was the perfect hate figure. The high-flying bankers who’d brought the country to the edge of ruin were on the whole still flying high, some of them buoyed up by the kind of pension packet that would have kept a dozen or more families out of the dole queue. No way to touch them. But I was in the public’s sights and in their reach, a ruthless financial fraudster with a taste for molesting children. I suspect the general public gave Ed a pretty rough time. Not that they’d get much change if Ed’s wife and assistant, Doll, was around. Only a very brave or very stupid man messed with Doll!

  These were the thoughts that I consoled myself with when I thought of the trouble I might be bringing Ed. Not that I thought of it all that much. To be honest, I had little emotional energy left to worry about anyone else’s woes. As the months rolled by, my physical improvement was matched by a mental deterioration. My early confident belief that nobody could place any credence in any of these accusations, sexual or financial, was worn away by the unremitting drip of evidence from the investigators. After a couple of months it was plain they had enough to drown me in. Trapp said they were showing their hand so clearly because it would save time and money if I pleaded guilty on all charges. This was particularly true in the fraud case, which recent experience had shown could run on for months.

  ‘Let it run!’ was my first reaction. ‘They’ll run out of steam before I do.’

  Ed shook his head and said lugubriously, ‘Doubt it. Anyway, you’ll almost certainly be in jail by then. That’s why they’ve scheduled the other thing first.’

  He usually referred to the kiddy-porn case as the other thing. It soon became clear Stoller, my brief, was as pessimistic as Trapp about my chances in the porn case. He asked me how I was thinking of pleading.

  I exploded, ‘Not guilty, of course!’

  He drew in his breath like a plumber you’ve asked for a quote and said, ‘Let’s not be too hasty. Not before we examine the options . . .’

  I said, ‘The only option for me is not guilty, because that’s what I am. No one who’s known me for any length of time could possibly think I’d get off on this filth. And if you don’t believe that, maybe I should look for another lawyer.’

  He smiled and said, ‘Of course I believe everything you tell me, Sir Wilfred. I could not function else. But the evidence appears strong. And I fear that by now the Great British Public has grown so accustomed to the notion that sexual deviancy may lurk behind even the most respectable façade that Jesus Christ himself at the second coming might be well advised to drop that suffer the little children to come unto me stuff.’

  I got the message. He’d studied the prosecution case and what he’d found there had left him a long way short of absolute faith in my innocence.

  I think that was when the fight began to go out of me. As long as I’d been able to think that, no matter what evidence the cops dug up or what kind of crap the papers printed, most people who actually knew me, even those who didn’t like me much, would find the porn charges impossible to believe, I’d had something to cling to.

  Now, looking at myself through Stoller’s eyes, I saw that most of my acquaintance, far from declaring, Wolf Hadda? No way he could be into that stuff! were probably saying, Hadda, eh? Who’d have thought it? Mind you, there was always something . . .

  And, as I’ve indicated earlier, that readiness to believe the worst of people which has been the inevitable consequence of the downward spiral of modern standards was only reinforced by the change in my appearance.

  Stoller was looking to do a deal with the CPS. He reckoned that in return for a plea of
guilty to the charge of possessing illegal downloaded images he could persuade them to shelve the related charges of helping to finance InArcadia, the pornographic website, and of taking part in one of its videos.

  ‘Their evidence is much shakier here,’ he said. ‘And on the surface there would be some illogicality in your downloading stuff from the site if you were not only one of its organizers but also an active participant in its videos.’

  I jumped on this eagerly, saying that as my defence was that this was all a set-up, surely this looked like a weakness we could exploit.

  He said patiently, ‘It’s a very small weakness and we could only attempt to exploit it by encouraging them to bring the more serious charges. As it is, you could get away with a relatively short period of jail time for the downloading, particularly if you put your hand up for it and promised to sign up for the aversion course. But if they throw the book at you, then we could be talking five or six years.’

  I wouldn’t listen. Whatever else happened, no way was I going to admit to being into that filth.

  It’s a matter of history now that I got found guilty on all counts. I can’t even say I went down fighting. I was deeply depressed on the eve of the trial but still deluded myself that when I stepped out into the spotlight and the directors called Action! I’d be up for it.

  Then, at the end of our last pre-trial consultation, Stoller and Trapp looked at each other and exchanged what seemed to me a reluctant nod of agreement.

  I said, ‘What?’

  Stoller said, ‘There’s something you need to know, Sir Wilfred. Better you hear it from us than from someone shouting it out during the trial. It’s your wife, I mean your former wife . . .’

  I remember feeling a real shock of fear that he was going to tell me something bad had happened to Imogen. Instead, and even more shocking, that was the first time I learned that Imo was going to remarry, and the intended groom was my ex-solicitor and ex-friend, Toby Estover.

  Stoller and Trapp tried to play down the implications of the news. What concerned them of course was that to the Great British Public, including the twelve on my jury, my beloved wife and my dear friend might as well have put out an advert on prime-time television declaring that they knew beyond all doubt that I was guilty as charged.