by Simon Hall
Click, clack, click, clack…
Templar’s voice fell to a confiding tone. They were in the confessional together, edging towards the heart of the man.
“At this point, I must raise one personal matter, and it is an issue of a dreadful irony. My comfort and companion throughout the difficult times of my changing views was my lady wife, Eileen. She was the most doughty of rocks. And then she was taken from me. The result was a man whose life had been spent serving justice suffering the gross injustice of the loss of his lifelong companion and best friend.”
Dan was writing fast, taking down quote after quote. But now he paused, for even the most hackneyed of hardened reporters would have been moved by the pain in the judge’s words.
“I turn now to the trial of the Edwards, the case in point,” Templar intoned, his voice stronger. “It encapsulates all that I have outlined. A trial where it is so very obvious what the true outcome should have been but yet again where that ending proves elusive. It was then I decided to take matters into my own hands.”
Overhead, thunder rumbled once more. Templar waited for it to die and then turned over his sheet of paper.
Click, clack, click, clack…
“In conclusion, I say this. Please show mercy to Usher Ivy, who played by far the minor role in our conspiracy and who acted entirely in my thrall. And I would ask you also to try to understand why I did what I did, and ask yourselves the question – whether it was truly wrong?”
The judge rested the piece of paper. He reached out and stopped the swinging of the silver spheres.
Stillness and silence settled on the courtroom. Templar studied the two men and one woman, lined up below him. And they looked back. Perhaps now with a different view, but still an inescapable duty.
Adam waited, then took a step forwards. The old wooden boards creaked with the movement. When at last he spoke, the words were quiet and measured.
“Your Honour, I hear what you say. And perhaps I can understand it, maybe even sympathise. But I must now tell you that I have to place you under arrest for the murders of Martha and Brian Edwards, and—”
“I have not finished,” Templar barked suddenly, with all a judge’s authority. “By no means.”
And now came something entirely unexpected. Templar’s face changed. It twitched into a grin, followed by a broad smile. He even began chuckling to himself, the sound eerie in the empty courtroom.
“This was all phased out before my time,” he giggled. “We’re far too politically correct for anything so sensible now, sadly. These days it’s all community service and psychiatric assessments, as though a crime isn’t a damned crime. But I’ve always wanted to do it.”
Templar fumbled under the bench once more. This time, he brought out a black cap that he placed slowly and deliberately upon the top of his wig. And if that was not shock enough, following the small square of dark silk came a gun.
Chapter Forty-Four
It was a quirk of history, but so portentous that it resonated through the years.
In his law classes at Journalism College, Dan had been taught about the legend of the black cap. The stories of the culmination of a murder trial and the judge donning the cap to pass a sentence of death were still told by older hacks at retirement gatherings and reunions. They were often marked as the sole moments of stillness in the hubbub of the evening.
The impenetrable quiet in the courtroom. The movement of the judge’s hand towards that little square of black fabric. The inevitable gasps of the crowd and the look on the face of the defendant.
These days it had become a curiosity. Something for museums, books and bedtime stories, no longer needed in a modern courtroom.
Until today, this stormy afternoon, and Templar.
The judge was staring down at them, the laughter gone and any hint of humanity banished in another of those mercurial swings of mood. His face was intractable, as hard as the Dartmoor granite.
Before him, Dan, Claire and Adam stood in a line. It was as though they were waiting to find out who would be condemned. Dan let his eyes slip to the expressions of his companions. From the looks chilling their faces, creeping like the crystals of a frost, it was clear they knew far too well what that black cap signified.
The smile returned as Templar began checking the gun. It was a revolver, a bright and polished body and a dark handle, curved with the crescents of finger grips.
“Came from some relative in the war, never found out which one,” he chuckled. “Dad always kept it. He said you never knew when you’d need it. And damned right he was, too.”
The judge turned the wheel of the gun and stroked the brassy, honed bullets. Dan could see Claire calculating the distance to the bench, whether she could make it in time to grab the weapon. But it was too far, too difficult to clamber over that last parapet of the wood. Templar would have plenty of time to take aim and shoot. Instinctively, with no thought as to the meaning of the simple gesture, Dan found himself taking Claire’s hand to hold her back.
Templar raised the gun and pointed it at the glass walls of the dock.
“Bang, bang! That sure beats handing out suspended sentences, eh? You know, sometimes I think I missed my moment. I’d have been much happier parking the old black cap on my head. I’d have them hanging for bloody shoplifting, let alone murder.”
Templar beamed around the court. To the lawyers, jury, public gallery. All were there in his mind, all intent upon this, his final case.
The whiteness of a distant lightning bolt lit the gloom of the courtroom and more thunder rumbled overhead.
“Now then,” he said. “To our final business.”
He levelled the revolved and pointed it at Adam.
***
It had started as a game, this life as an unofficial detective. The first case had been serious, yes, but ultimately just a deception. A clever riddle to be solved and little more. For Dan, in those days, it had been entertainment. A distraction, a reinvigorating new world at a time when he was growing stale in a job he had known since college.
Only after a couple more cases, when he was confronted by the enormity of true suffering and violent death, did Dan understand the gravity of that which he had become a part. And now, on this rainy afternoon, he was facing the end himself, as surely as if summoned before the reaper.
“Your Honour,” Adam spoke out, his voice remarkably calm, “it doesn’t have to be this way.”
“This is my court and my judgement. I shall be the one who decides which way it has to be.”
“But—”
“There is no but. There is only now. I invited you here to witness my summing up. That issue has been concluded. There remains just one further order of business.”
Templar stroked a hand over the barrel of the revolver. It looked so long, so lethal, so very effortless in its ability to guide that killing bullet.
“Judge Templar,” Claire said, gently. “I think I understand what you’ve been going through. I’ve sometimes felt the same myself in this job. But how does it help, doing this? It won’t bring back Annette. It can’t change the past. How does more death make anything right?”
The flint of the man’s expression softened. “Ah, Ms Reynolds, I appreciate your thoughts. At this final moment, please allow me to say that you were always one of my favourite officers. A diligent and talented investigator but, as I hope I’ve shown, justice can be a fickle and flighty visitor to our world. I thank you for what you say, but I cannot agree with it. This is the end I have chosen, and so it must be.”
Dan saw Adam’s eyes flick to him. Many times the detective had joked that the reporter who became his friend did so in part because he possessed the legendary gift of a silvered tongue.
And so Dan tried to think of some powerful logic or moving emotion to save them. He scoured the furthest edges of his mind for a beautiful intervention. And at this time of greatest need, the canvas remained steadfastly blank.
He was too afraid to think. And the sec
ond of opportunity was lost.
“So then,” Templar intoned, “as we have no blindfolds available to us, you may wish to turn around.”
“Your Honour—” Adam tried, but was overridden.
“Turn around, Inspector.”
Dan began to turn, and a strange memory formed. It was a story he’d once covered, a suicide, a young woman who had been made redundant from the job she loved. She wore glasses but had taken them off before jumping from the top floor of her office building. The investigation uncovered the curious insight that most people who wore glasses would remove their spectacles before jumping.
And in this case, a bullet in the back of the head was surely preferable to the last living second of witnessing it tearing between your eyes.
“I’m not turning around,” Claire said, firmly. “If you’re going to do this, you do it face to face.”
“Very well, Ms Reynolds. If that is how you wish it.”
Outside, through the glass panels of the door, Dan thought he could see a marksman. But the movement was fleeting and he couldn’t be sure.
To his side he heard Claire draw in a sharp breath. Adam let out a low murmur.
Dan could sense the revolver raising. He wondered who would be shot first. If it was him, at least he wouldn’t have to suffer the sound of the bodies of his comrades falling and that horrendous wait for his own turn.
Another movement at the door. Dan was almost sure it was edging open.
But then again, if he was the first to be killed it would mean no chance of salvation. No time for the marksmen to storm the courtroom and disarm the judge. And something was happening outside. Feet were striding, running.
A loud click made Dan start. It sounded like the movement of a trigger, but it was the Newton’s Cradle. Templar had set those silver spheres in motion once again.
Click, clack, click, clack…
“This is your final chance to turn around,” the judge announced.
“No,” Claire replied.
“No,” Adam affirmed.
More thunder boomed overhead, more pounding rain. Dan tensed his body, wondering if he would live long enough to know how the burning passage of a bullet felt. He waited for the shot.
But it didn’t come.
The door to the court was opening.
***
So much Dan may have expected then. A rifle barrel, the red dot of a laser sight finding a target on Templar’s chest and killing him in an instant. Perhaps a negotiator, dressed in helmet and body armour, edging through the door.
Maybe stun grenades, smoke, tear gas flying through the air. Shouts, a tumble of armed police flooding the court, pinning down and protecting Adam, Dan and Claire and overpowering the judge.
Nothing so dramatic came to pass. The door opened to reveal Katrina.
She stood in the doorway, just stood. Arms by her sides, not threatening, not fearful, but calm.
“Hello, Judge Templar,” Katrina said, in a gentle voice, but which carried easily across the courtroom.
“Ms Harper,” he replied, with similar composure. “It is a pleasure, as ever. But you arrive at a crucial point in the proceedings. Hard though this is to say this to one as engaging as you, it may be better if you left.”
She took a step into the room and let the door ease shut.
“I don’t think so.”
Templar allowed the revolver to lower from its bead upon Adam. He rested the gun on the bench, but his fingers were still firm on the handle and his expression intensely watchful.
Katrina paced further into the room until she was level with the edge of the public gallery. “I hope you don’t think ill of me, but I was listening at the door,” she said.
“Then you will have heard all I said. I have nothing more to add. My case rests.”
He lifted the gun again and ran a finger over the grooves of the chamber. “I do, however, suspect those gathered here may have been suffering from a misapprehension which I must correct. They were never at threat. I am a man who believes in justice, not murder.”
Templar guided the gun back and forth through the air, as if conducting an orchestra, and placed the tip of the barrel carefully against his temple. With his other hand he adjusted the black cap so it was set perfectly square upon his crown.
“It is time for the sentence to be carried out.”
“No, it is not,” Katrina replied, emphatically. “There’s one more submission for the court to hear. It’s my appeal. And if you believe in justice, then you have to allow for an appeal.”
She walked further into the courtroom, every step a challenge. The footfall fell in time with the click, clack of the cradle. She was level with Adam.
Templar watched every movement, but said nothing.
“Your Honour, I heard your – closing speech, may I call it?”
“You may.”
“I found it very powerful. Very moving.”
The judge inclined his head. “Thank you, Ms Harper. Coming from one as eloquent as you that is a compliment which I cannot fail but to appreciate.”
“And I agreed with much of what you said. As I believe would many people.”
Adam was trying to catch her eye, warn her of the danger they were facing, of how quickly the man’s mood could shift. But Katrina was focused only on Templar. Dan glanced down at his satchel. The little red dot on the side of his phone was still alight.
If they got out of this alive, all would be well. But, as he had thought so many times before, if was a very small word which often carried far larger implications.
Templar nodded slowly. “Thank you again Ms Harper, but I fear I fail to see the point you are trying to make.”
She stepped past the dock, her elegant figure reflecting in the glass, and rested by the witness box.
“Why not make your point to the whole world?” Katrina asked.
“In what way?”
“The most effective way – in person. Every word argued well to a watching public. I believe they would find it compelling.”
“I believe I already have.” A disdainful finger pointed to Dan. “That is why I summoned the media here.”
“Yes, Your Honour, but he’s just one journalist. Why not a whole court full? And not just that, but solicitors and barristers, a judge, a public gallery? The case would attract international attention.”
Click, clack, click, clack…
Templar considered her words, a hand tapping on the wood. “You are suggesting I give myself up and submit to a trial?”
Katrina stepped forwards again. She was almost at the bench. Dan could see Adam assessing the distance between her and Templar, calculating whether she could reach the gun before he had time to shoot.
“You could represent yourself,” she said. “You were such a fine advocate.”
Templar reached out and stopped the silver spheres. The room felt suddenly quiet without their rhythmic sound. Even the rain had eased, to just a gentle spray pattering on the skylights.
“And why should the court grant your request?”
“For several reasons.”
Katrina began to climb the steps to the bench. She eased open the small wooden gate that led to the great chair where the judge sat. He made no move to stop her, but kept the revolver pressed to his head.
“Careful, Ms Harper,” Templar warned. “This court requires sound arguments, not ill-advised heroics.”
She stopped and held up her hands. But she was only feet from Templar.
“Your Honour, I believe you still want to live. The plan you put together to set off the explosion, the way you provided alibis for yourself and Jonathan Ivy, was brilliant. It’s clear you didn’t want to be caught.”
The barrel of the revolver was drooping.
“And then there’s the rest of your life,” she continued. “What about your memoirs? And you were looking for another partner, weren’t you? That’s not the way of someone without hope. There are so many women who would love to know someone as
principled and engaging as you.”
“Visiting me as I spend the rest of my days in a tawdry prison cell, like some common criminal?”
“I don’t believe so. Given your skills as an advocate, along with the emotional trauma you’ve suffered, a murder charge could never be proved. A jury would have sympathy with you, as would the rest of the world. You could be the catalyst for reform of the legal system –
in exactly the way you’ve spoken so passionately about wanting.”
In the distance, more thunder rumbled. Katrina moved forwards once again. She was standing above Templar now. He had lowered the gun to the bench, but it was still in his hand.
Dan, Claire and Adam all watched, all wondering what she would do. Katrina was much younger and fitter than Templar. She could easily end this. Grab the revolver and give them the few seconds they would need to restrain the man. He would be carried out in handcuffs, the case finally over.
But all she did was stand there, staring down at the old man wearing the black cap and grey wig, his face as soft as an opium dream.
Katrina reached out her arms. Templar looked up and found those mesmeric eyes.
Slowly, laboured with a great weight of emotion, he released the gun and cuddled into her.
Chapter Forty-Five
The storm battered the city anew.
From the vista of the bay window Dan watched, Rutherford at his feet. Fork after bolt of lightning flickered and struck, the great percussion of the heavens following in their wake. The rain cascaded down, beating on the trees and plants of the garden and the protective shield of the double glazing, distorting the world in a flood of water.
Darkness had fallen early tonight, the power of the elements a foe too formidable for the day’s light. It was an omen of the shorter, colder days to come.
“No run for us,” Dan told Rutherford. “But we’ll do one tomorrow, I promise old friend. I’ve been neglecting you, haven’t I? Are you ok just to sit here and chat tonight? There’s lots I want to talk about and you’ve got the short straw of listening, as ever.”