by Peter Murphy
‘I honestly believed that they had every intention of trying to kill the Queen and the Prince of Wales, or at least do incredible damage around them. I couldn’t let that happen. What was I supposed to do?’
Ben stood and walked slowly to Barratt’s desk. There was a long silence.
‘But after the arrest,’ he said eventually, ‘you could at least have tried to help Arianwen, couldn’t you? You could have distanced her from Caradog and Dai Bach in some way. Instead, you just ran away and abandoned her to her fate. And now she will spend a very long time in prison and Harri will grow up in a foster-home. I am having some trouble understanding how that squares with your loving her.’
Barratt reached out a hand and touched Ben’s arm.
‘Before you go too far down that road, Ben,’ he said, ‘there is something else you need to see.’
77
Barratt picked up the large brown envelope which had been lying on his desk, and took out a thick document, which he handed to Ben.
‘This is the other thing DC Finch brought with him,’ he said. ‘It is a very long sworn affidavit, almost 60 pages, which covers the whole history of his deployment in Caernarfon. And I understand that DC Finch would be prepared to give evidence to the Court of Appeal.’
The mention of the Court of Appeal set Ben’s heart beating faster.
‘That is correct, Mr Schroeder,’ Finch confirmed. ‘One of the things I deal with in the affidavit is what happened on the morning of the Investiture. I had kept Special Branch informed of the plans to plant the bomb up to the minute. I had to, just in case anything happened to me.’
‘So they knew exactly where to find Arianwen to arrest her?’ Ben asked.
Finch exhaled heavily.
‘That wasn’t the way I planned it. My first plan was to intervene and make the arrests before the bomb could even be moved. That was the safest thing to do. But my superiors wouldn’t listen. They wanted to catch them red-handed. So then my plan was to drive Dai Bach to Bangor myself; drive back to the square in Caernarfon; and make an excuse for going somewhere else before Caradog and Dai Bach were arrested in possession of the bomb. If I couldn’t make an excuse, I would be arrested with them. That’s the way I wanted to handle it, and it could have been done. But…’
‘But…?’
‘But at the last moment, my superiors got nervous. As soon as the protest in the square ended, they whisked me away, and told me to leave Dai Bach to his own devices. They gave me no advance warning. Change of plan. Don’t argue. Just do it.’
‘But that might have meant that he would call the whole thing off, or change the plan completely,’ Ben said.
‘Exactly, Mr Schroeder. That’s what I kept telling them. I didn’t think Caradog would just give up, but it meant that we then had to try to keep them under observation without knowing what they were up to. Why do that when I could have followed every move? With the stakes being so high, I thought it was madness. But they wouldn’t listen to me.’
‘So Dai Bach was telling the truth,’ Ben said. ‘He was waiting for you outside the Castle Hotel, and you didn’t show up.’
‘Yes. I thought he would hire a taxi. There are always taxis around in the square. I swear to you, it never occurred to me that he would involve Arianwen. I insisted from day one that they leave her completely out of it. I made it a condition of my joining them, and I was pretty clear about it, I can tell you. It never occurred to me in my wildest dreams that Dai Bach would involve her. If it had, I would have gone home and taken the car somewhere so that she couldn’t have driven it.’
‘You must have been beside yourself when she was arrested,’ Barratt said.
‘That would be an understatement,’ Finch replied. ‘If I had seen Dai Bach that night, I would have killed him.’
‘So, what did happen to you after you were whisked away?’ Barratt asked.
‘I was instructed to make myself scarce with immediate effect – do not pass go, do not collect £200 – and to remain out of circulation until otherwise ordered. So far, I have not been otherwise ordered.’
Ben looked at him in astonishment.
‘But the prosecution told the court that you had gone on the run. There was supposed to be intelligence that you had fled to Ireland. There was even a veiled suggestion that you had been given sanctuary by the IRA.’
Finch scoffed.
‘Yes. I’d like to know what genius came up with that one. It was complete nonsense. They had a car waiting for me. I drove down to London immediately, and I have been in London ever since – keeping my head down, yes, but not in sanctuary and certainly not with the IRA. I’m amazed that anyone bought that story. How would I have had time to catch a ferry to Ireland, even from Holyhead, even if the ferries were running normally that day, which I doubt? Look, the first thing any police officer would do would be to put an alert out to all ports and airports. I would never have made it to Ireland – not that day, I assure you.’
78
‘And that’s the key to it, Ben,’ Barratt said. ‘Someone decided to create the fiction that Trevor Hughes was a co-conspirator who had got away. That meant that they couldn’t allow him to be arrested or put on trial. That’s why they had to keep him under wraps.’
‘That’s why they had to change course at the last moment,’ Ben said, ‘even at the risk of endangering the public by allowing someone to move the bomb from Bangor all the way to Caernarfon. DC Finch’s plan of arresting everyone before the bomb was moved was obviously far more sensible, but they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t let him be arrested with the others, so they couldn’t have him driving the car.’
‘Exactly.’
‘They misled the court, Barratt,’ Ben added quietly. ‘They deliberately misled the court.’
‘Yes,’ Barratt agreed, ‘and the worst of it is, I am not sure that they could ever have allowed DC Finch to re-emerge under his real identity. If he hadn’t come to us today, we might never have known.’
‘They couldn’t let him come back now, certainly,’ Ben said. ‘It would prove that the trial was conducted under false pretences.’ He stopped abruptly, as another light came on in his mind.
‘And that means that some of the evidence… well, the invoices for the rental of the garage and the carrying case for the bomb…’
‘Fabrications,’ Finch said. ‘I mean, I haven’t seen them. I read about them in the papers while the trial was going on. But I definitely did not keep records like that. I did rent the garage in Bangor because I had to be in control; I had to be in a position to pull the plug at any time if I needed to. It was the only safe way to do it. But that was just a monthly agreement by word of mouth. There were no documents.’
‘Would you be prepared to give us a sample of your handwriting?’ Ben asked.
‘Not a problem,’ Finch replied.
‘All right,’ Barratt said. ‘Let’s think this through. The key question, as far as Arianwen is concerned, is the question of what, if anything, she knew. Her defence would not necessarily have succeeded, even if we could have called him to give evidence at the trial. Arianwen had the bomb in her car. You could argue that the jury would have convicted in any case.’
‘Yes,’ Ben agreed. ‘But the test the Court of Appeal has to apply is: whether they can be sure that the verdict would have been the same even with his evidence; and I don’t see how they can possibly be sure of that. Let’s not have that discussion now. I don’t want to risk contaminating his evidence.’
He turned back to DC Finch.
‘You will give evidence on Arianwen’s behalf?’
‘Yes. It is the least I can do. I had always planned on coming forward if she was convicted. I hoped the jury might give her the benefit of the doubt, but now that she has been convicted, I will do anything I can.’
‘The Court is bound to criticise you for the way in which y
ou handled the undercover operation,’ Ben said. ‘You do understand that?’
‘My career as a police officer ended on the day I decided to commit myself to Arianwen,’ Finch replied. ‘They would never have forgiven me for that, ever. I broke a cardinal rule of undercover work. But that is water under the bridge. It doesn’t matter now. All that matters is helping Arianwen.’
‘How will we contact you?’ Barratt asked.
‘I will keep in touch. I will contact you every few days,’ Finch said. ‘There’s a number inside that envelope in case you need it. Just don’t give it to anyone else, please. I am close by in London. If you need to see me again, just ask.’
‘The Court of Appeal may want to look at the convictions of Caradog and Dai Bach too,’ Ben said. ‘I will have to speak to Gareth.’
‘I will wait to hear from you when you’ve spoken to Gareth,’ Barratt said. ‘Then I will arrange a conference with Arianwen, and we will start the ball rolling.’
‘I will make sure I see him this evening,’ Ben said.
79
Gareth shook his head. It was late now, after 8 o’clock. Ben had told Jess he would be late home for dinner, but not why, and he had taken a copy of DC Finch’s affidavit to Gareth’s room as soon as he returned from Barratt’s office.
‘I knew something was wrong,’ Gareth said quietly, dropping the affidavit on to his desk, ‘but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I feel so bloody stupid. Now that I think about it, the story of Trevor Hughes vanishing so mysteriously into the mists of the Menai Strait…’
‘Yes, I know,’ Ben replied. ‘I feel the same.’
‘This explains everything, doesn’t it?’ Gareth said. ‘It never made sense that Trevor Hughes would have walked out like that. Dai Bach was completely baffled. He kept telling me that Trevor was totally reliable. He and Caradog never had any reason to doubt him. By the time the trial started, they thought MI5 had probably disposed of him. It never occurred to them that Trevor was grassing them up. But all the time, he was sending every detail of what they were planning to Special Branch. The police were watching their every move. They were sitting ducks. The police could have taken them whenever and wherever they chose.’
Gareth stood and walked over to his bookcase, and opened the two doors of the base section. He extracted two heavy glasses and a bottle of a good single malt whisky.
‘Bernard left this for me as a parting gift,’ he smiled. ‘I haven’t opened it yet, but this seems an appropriate occasion.’ He poured a generous glassful for both of them. ‘We need to give some serious thought to how we manage things.’
‘Gareth, do you think this helps your man, or Caradog?’ Ben asked. ‘It obviously gives Arianwen hope, but I’m not sure about them.’
‘I’m not sure, either,’ Gareth agreed. ‘His affidavit doesn’t suggest that he crossed the line on entrapment by instigating an offence which otherwise would not have been committed. He is clear that they approached him with the plan, not the other way around. But, on the other hand, we can confront the Court of Appeal with the fact that the prosecution conducted the entire trial on a false basis. We don’t know what the judge, or the jury, would have made of it if Hughes – or Finch – had given evidence, do we?’
‘It’s difficult to argue that it would have made no difference,’ Ben suggested.
‘Yes. So tomorrow, I will get Donald started on the law, and you and I will draft grounds of appeal and an application to the Court of Appeal to hear Finch’s evidence.’
They toasted each other with a clink of glasses.
‘The other thing we will do, I think,’ Gareth said, ‘is to pay a visit to our good friend Evan Roberts.’
‘Oh? Why?’
‘Because someone should make him aware of the deception he was led to practise on the court,’ Gareth replied.
‘Are we assuming that he was not aware of it at the time?’
‘Evan, whatever his faults, is a member of the Bar,’ Gareth replied, ‘as is Jamie Broderick, and so we are going to assume that neither of them would knowingly have deceived the court. Privately, we have to reckon with that possibility, but we have to observe the conventions, and at the end of the day, it may not matter.’
‘How so?’
‘Because even if he didn’t personally mislead the court, somebody did, and that is probably enough. But it will do no harm to point out a few home truths to Evan at this point.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as that his career may be in jeopardy. Ben, if the Court of Appeal so much as suspects that he was a party to this kind of deception, they are going to drop him on his head from a great height. It’s only fair to warn him of what is coming. In addition to that, it may focus his mind on the attitude he should take to our appeals. It may be in his best interests, as well as ours, for him to think about not resisting us. He was leading for the Crown after all, and it’s not going to be easy for him to explain what happened, is it?’
Jess hugged and kissed him. She pulled him down on to the sofa, and sat beside him.
‘Ben, this is marvellous news. Does Arianwen know?’
‘Not yet, but Barratt has made an appointment to see her. He will take her a copy of Finch’s affidavit and the grounds of appeal.’
‘She is going to take this very hard,’ Jess said. ‘I mean, I know the appeal is good news, but when she knows the truth about her husband…’
‘Yes,’ Ben agreed.
‘Do you think Finch is for real? Is there any chance he will run away and leave her in the lurch again?’
‘I suppose it’s always a possibility. But I don’t think so. He says he loves her. I don’t think he would have come forward and given us the affidavit if he didn’t intend to do his best for her. He’s not going to come out of this looking too good, whatever happens. No, I may be wrong, but my sense is that he is with us, and with her.’
She nodded.
‘Ben, I need to see her too. Perhaps not at the same time you do, but before too long.’
‘Yes, of course. You need to start thinking about Harri.’
‘We can’t do anything formally until the appeal is resolved, of course. But if she is freed, we need to start planning what her life will look like, and how we are going to persuade the local authority, and perhaps a judge, that she is a safe pair of hands for him.’
Ben nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘We will need every moment,’ she added, ‘just to allow her time to deal with how she feels. She will have to work out where Trevor Finch fits into all this, if he fits in anywhere at all. He is Harri’s father, so she can’t ignore him entirely. But how does she relate to him now? She will have to work that out so that we know where he fits into Harri’s future. She is going to need time just to come to terms with all that emotionally, and decide where she goes from here. I don’t envy her that. And even then, getting Harri back is not a formality.’
‘But surely, if her conviction is overturned…?’
‘Even if the conviction is overturned – on what your average local authority social worker may see as a technicality – she is still a woman who was driving her son around late at night with a bomb in the boot of her car. That’s a fact, Ben, regardless of what Trevor Finch may have to say about it now. I’m not saying we won’t get Harri back. But it’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to happen overnight. She needs to know that.’
80
Friday 22 May 1970
As far as he could recall, Ben had never before had the experience of counting off ten minutes on his watch in perfect silence, just sitting and waiting, without anything happening or anyone speaking at all. But he and Barratt had that experience now, sitting in an austere conference room in Holloway prison, facing the woman, who from now on would call herself Arianwen Finch, across the battered and stained metal folding table. A copy of DC Trevor Finch’s affid
avit lay on the table in front of her, untouched. When she finally spoke, Ben was not sure whether she was speaking to them, or to herself, or simply to the opposite wall.
‘I suppose I should hate him,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s what I would have expected. I would have expected to find myself running around the room, screaming and cursing him and wishing him dead. That’s how any woman in my position would feel, isn’t it? But I don’t. I don’t hate him. I can’t. I don’t know why, but I can’t.’
She suddenly focused on them.
‘Perhaps it’s because I haven’t heard it from him. Do you think that’s the reason?’
‘I don’t think there is any right or wrong way to feel,’ Barratt replied. ‘This must have come as a terrible shock. You will need time to sort your feelings out. We understand that, and I’m sorry it had to come from us, but you had to know as soon as possible. There are steps we have to take now.’
She nodded.
‘Yes. You’re right. I can’t think about Trevor now. I have to think about Harri. Do you really think this will make a difference?’
She paused.
‘Please tell me honestly what you think. The last thing I want is to have my hopes raised, only to have them dashed again later. I’ve spent every moment since the verdict trying to come to terms with what has happened to me. I’ve been to some very dark places in my mind… they had me on suicide watch for several days. Did you know that?’
‘I suggested it,’ Barratt replied apologetically. ‘I…’
‘No, you were right,’ she said. ‘You were right to assume the worst. I would never have done it, not while Harri is out there waiting for me, not while there is any hope at all that I might see him again. But I am sure you were worried about me, and if it hadn’t been for Harri, I might have been tempted. I can’t even begin to tell you what it’s been like – the hopelessness, the despair, the emptiness, the feeling that my life was over, that I would spend what was left of it here, or somewhere like here. They have had me pumped full of sedatives and God knows what else ever since the trial ended, but it hasn’t kept the darkness away.’