He finished the whisky and poured himself another. He normally never drank too much from a fastidious dislike of not having full control of all his senses, but tonight he didn’t give a damn if he got tight. When a man had to choose between two things but such choice was impossible to make, when he had to betray his daughter or the police and he could betray neither, then he had more than a right to lose control of his senses, he had an absolute need.
Mary entered the study. She was wearing a silk dressing-gown over her nightdress. ‘Come to bed, John,’ she said softly.
‘In a while.’
She sat down on the arm of his chair.
‘Whatever I do, it’ll be wrong,’ he said suddenly.
‘Why must you tell them about the money?’
‘It’s a vital piece of evidence.’
‘That makes Bob the traitor?’
‘Yes.’
‘He has to be the one?’
‘The only alternative is that, because of his past, he’s being used as a fall-guy so that all pressure will be taken off the real traitor.’
‘Couldn’t that possibly be the case?’
‘We’ve no evidence to support it.’
‘Not the evidence of Bob’s character?’
‘That’s not evidence. In any case, what is his true character?’
‘Do you think he’s the traitor?’
‘It’s not my job to judge, only to see that the right evidence goes forward to other people to do the judging.’
‘That’s evading the question. John, I’ve just been into Joanna’s room.’
‘Well?’
‘She … John, if you tell others about finding the money she … she may hate you for it. We’ve lost one of our children. Please God, don’t let us lose the other.’
‘If Elwick’s the traitor, he’s got to be tried.’
‘But not on the evidence you obtained from Joanna when she was speaking to you in confidence: not on the evidence you forced out of her handbag. Leave things, John. Something else will turn up to give you the evidence you need. You can’t risk breaking her.’
‘What if no other evidence does turn up? What about the men, women, even boys and girls who may become drug addicts because I don’t tell the full truth?’
‘But surely proving him the traitor won’t break up the drug ring?’
‘No, it won’t,’ he admitted.
‘Then … ?’
‘Can’t you see that it’s even more important to unmask the traitor than it is to catch the villains?’
‘I can’t see that your daughter’s … ’
‘Mary, the morale of the force has gone for a terrible burton.’
‘God Almighty, what about Joanna’s morale? If it won’t even help catch the men … ’
‘It might,’ he said stubbornly.
‘You’ve only a second ago said it won’t.’
‘Not directly. But if Elwick’s a spark of decency left in him, once he’s forced to realise he’s reached the end of the line, he’ll give evidence to land the others.’
‘It’s all … all so problematical. But Joanna isn’t. You can’t yet realise what you’ll do to her if you go ahead.’
‘I do.’
‘Then please, please, I beg you, don’t.’
He was silent.
‘Wait, John: wait for a bit. That’s the very least you can do.’
‘Or the most.’
‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘you frighten me. You can be so hard, ready to sacrifice anyone for an ideal.’
‘An ideal can be more important than a person.’
‘Not to me it can’t. Ever.’ Slowly, she stood up. ‘I’m going back to bed.’
‘I’ll be up later.’
She left.
He poured himself out another whisky. She had appealed to him in terms she had never before used, yet he had been unable to answer her. If he gave evidence about the money, it might do more than drive Joanna away from him — it might create an unhealable breach between himself and Mary.
He lit a cigarette. As he drew the smoke deep into his lungs, he silently cursed. If only it were quite certain that Elwick were the traitor. But suppose Joanna, relying solely on her emotional estimation of his character, was right, suppose Elwick was innocent and was telling the truth, suppose the real traitor had cleverly planned the whole set-up in order to free himself from suspicion? Then if he, Keelton, gave evidence over finding the money, he would be destroying his daughter’s faith in him, his wife’s love for him, for a lie.
He drank, then cursed again. The situation was an impossible one so that, by definition, there could be no solution. Yet he had to find one.
The whisky began to scramble his mind so that his thoughts were no longer sharp. He gazed across at the book-case, in which were many of the law books that dated from the time he had been articled to a firm of solicitors in Sevenoaks. Text books outlined the law in cold unemotional terms, but never ever hinted at the terrible, tragic emotions that lay behind some of the cases.
Why the hell did he have to find himself in a position where he had to act, but could not? He’d always had a high sense of duty. That should have protected him.
His thoughts became more blurred. He poured out another whisky. Liquor never solved anything, but just for a short time it could give the illusion of so doing. Praden knew all about that particular illusion.
What was the answer to an impossible question? Obviously, an impossible answer. All right, what was the impossible answer? Joanna went unbetrayed but the police were told about the money: Elwick was tried but, if innocent, not judged. Wouldn’t Lewis Carroll’s Alice have found this? …
His thoughts suddenly coalesced and sharpened and suggested the impossible. He shook his head. How much was the whisky addling his mind, fatally twisting its judgment? He stubbed out one cigarette and lit another. The impossible answer called impossibly for a man who would risk much for nothing. Yet he might know one such man …
His mind returned to the second World War and Chaninghee and the position code-named Borstal after the C.O.’s old school (a regimental joke told a thousand times and yet still good for a laugh). The ridge, fifty miles behind enemy lines, overlooked the Thamyung. He gave orders for the two inch mortars to open up. After a while, the jungle scrub caught fire. The Japanese put the fire out, the mortaring went on, the scrub caught fire again, the Japanese firefighters were blown to bits. Japanese artillery replied and shells rained down on Borstal. P-38’s were called up by radio and when they arrived they attacked the positions where they thought the artillery was firing from, but the number of shells grew no less, indeed, even increased. Explosions covered the land, filled the air, blasted men and mules into a state of no-existence. Japanese light machine-guns opened up with their high-pitched yammering chatter. Reports came in of heavy casualties. The Japanese were dying in their hundreds, but there were hundreds more to press home their attack with fanatical courage. The telephone rang. Breakthrough in the south-east quadrant, by the wire-netting entanglements where a Japanese officer had been blown in half and the top half of his body had somehow settled upright so that he appeared to be wading through the earth. He hurried to the south-east quadrant. The crew of a machine-gun with enfilading position had been killed, but the machine-gun was still working. He fired it and the line of oncoming enemy faltered as men fell, caught in the open. Shells poured in, mortars flooded in, the world heaved, shook, and gushed death. The line of Japanese disappeared. He went forward, careless about his own safety because he was explosion-drunk, and in the remains of a machine-gun emplacement he found one man, an officer, alive. His name was Gregory Bolt. ‘Listen you old bastard … Sir,’ Bolt said, as he was laid down in the casualty area. ‘You want help some time, just call. That’s all, just call.’ Then the doctor came and began work …
Keelton looked round the study, momentarily surprised to see the walls, bookcases, ceiling and floor. He drank slowly. A man’s gratitude could be a very limited
thing: limited to the immediate occasion. He got up and picked up the telephone receiver, replaced it, hesitated, then picked it up again. He looked at the time. Time for all honest men to be in bed.
The connexion took some time to be made.
‘Gregory?’ he said.
‘Yeah, it’s me. And who the hell’s ringing at this time?’
‘Keelton. John Keelton.’
‘Glory be to God and the postmaster general.’
‘Greg, I need help. I’m desperate.’
‘Money? How much d’you want?’
‘No.’
‘Name it, then.’
‘It’s help that could land you in trouble — although equally you might get away scot-free.’
‘Where d’you want me, and when? And how about a piss-up? Anne was only saying yesterday I’d been sober for so long was I declining into my old age?’
Keelton gripped the receiver very tightly. Gregory Bolt’s gratitude had not become thinned out by the years.
CHAPTER XI
Flecton Cross had its own assize court, much to the annoyance of other, larger towns in the county. It was a matter of historical accident. In 1385, Richard the second, coveting the estate of John de Whorl, had called de Whorl to trial on a charge of high treason in a great hall, said by some modern historians to have been part of Flecton Cross Castle. The verdict was guilty, de Whorl was beheaded, the estate was forfeited to the crown and a precedent had been set … both for holding trials in Flecton Cross and, for a time, beheading wealthy landowners.
The courtroom was to the rear of the municipal buildings. By a strange twist of coincidence, one of the builders who had helped to construct the courtroom was later tried in it and found guilty.
The trial of Robert Elwick had created national interest and so many pressmen had applied to attend that the first row of public seats, at the back of the witness seats, had had to be set aside for them. Seats had also been reserved for the chairman and two members of the watch committee and two members of the finance committee. The future of the borough police force might easily rest on the outcome of this trial.
Peace, prosecuting council, was a small man with a head so large as to be almost out of proportion: in a wig, there was a hint of the ludicrous about him, a hint that soon disappeared as he conducted his case with scrupulous fairness but considerable vigour.
‘ … Members of the jury, you will all be familiar with the term “circumstantial evidence.” Some of you may have heard it said that circumstantial evidence is second-rate evidence. This is not so. There is an old adage, as true today as when first spoken, which runs, “Witnesses may lie, circumstances cannot.” What does this mean? It means that facts are facts and cannot innocently be distorted but that, for instance, identifications have been made by completely honest witnesses which have later been proved to be totally incorrect. Man often sees what he thinks he ought to see or wishes to see, without ever realising this distortion.’
The judge intervened. Mr Justice Heller was a large man, noted as an ardent bon viveur. There were stories current in the Temple, purely slanderous, of his ability to consume any number of bottles of claret at a mess dinner — Château Lafite for preference, but Chateau Mouton-Rothschild was acceptable — without turning a hair. ‘Mr Peace,’ he said, in his deep voice, ‘as you are dealing with the point, perhaps you will make it clear to the jury that it is only the circumstances which cannot lie: the interpretation put on such circumstances is quite another matter.’
‘Indeed, my Lord.’ Peace’s bland voice gave no hint at his annoyance at this interruption. ‘Members of the jury, as his lordship has just pointed out, circumstances cannot lie, but the interpretations put upon such circumstances can conceivably be totally incorrect.
‘This is the trial of a man who is charged with obstructing the course of public justice. The prosecution alleges that Robert Elwick, a detective constable in the Flecton Cross borough police force, on two occasions gave warning to certain persons that a police raid was to take place. As a result of his warnings, such raids proved abortive.
‘Initially, your task may be divided into two parts. First, you have to decide whether, in fact, there was a traitor in the police force who was passing on information to unauthorised persons: then, if your answer to that question is yes, you have to go on to decide whether the traitor in question was the accused.
‘By the very nature of this crime, there is unlikely to be much direct evidence of what the prosecution alleges took place. Unless we could — which we cannot — put before you every move which led to the leakage of information, could call those persons to whom the information was leaked and they testified they had received the information, much of the evidence must be inferred from the circumstances. You, members of the jury, will hear the circumstances and then it will be up to you to say, as reasonable men and women, whether it seems to you beyond any shadow of doubt that there was a leakage of information and the person who leaked such information was the accused.
‘What makes a man a traitor? I suggest that the more usual causes are reward, revenge, or cowardice. In this case, the prosecution says that the motive was reward, that information of the forthcoming police raids was sold for money — for at least five hundred pounds. That is a lot of money, members of the jury, for a little information.
‘The chief constable of the borough police force, Mr John Keelton, once served in a Midlands police force and whilst there he had dealings with a man who was a police informer. At some date, unknown to Mr Keelton, this informer moved south and came to live in this town, or near it … ’
***
Keelton had been in the witness-box for just under half an hour. He was in uniform and, standing very upright, with his slightly aquiline features and neat moustache, he looked the military figure suggested by his nick-name. ‘Yes, I knew the informer had come to the Flecton Cross area because I had previously heard from him on other matters.’
‘What was your previous experience concerning the validity of his information?’
‘It usually proved to be accurate. I would go further and say it seldom proved inaccurate.’
‘Did you reward him for his information?’
‘He always refused any payment. In any case, we never met. All information was passed to me by telephone.’
‘Would you say it is unusual for an informer to work for no reward?’
‘It is unusual, but not unique. Information may be given because of jealousy or the desire for revenge. In such cases, payment is often refused.’
‘Was his information in this case in connexion with any specific matter?’ Peace phrased the question carefully — there was so much that could not be brought out in court, so many names which could not be mentioned, because the laws of evidence forbade it when the trial was of Elwick and no one else.
‘It was in connexion with the sale of prohibited drugs.’
‘Did anything happen as a result of what he told you?’
‘I called for a raid on the eleventh of July on a house in Ellers Road: number thirty-four.’
‘What was the result of that raid?’
‘It proved abortive.’
‘Did you know why?’
‘At the time, no. Later, the police were informed of a possible reason.’
‘Which was?’
‘That the people handling the drugs had been forewarned of the raid,’ said Keelton, his voice filled with bitterness.
‘What action did you take?’
‘None.’
‘Why not?’
‘I refused to accept the possibility of any truth in the report.’
‘You refused to believe that a member of the police force could be a traitor?’
‘Precisely.’
‘What happened next?’
‘On Thursday, the fourth of August, I received a telephone call from the same informer. On the following day, I called for a raid on a house in Jamaica Road: number seven. The raid was carried out, but it pro
ved to be abortive.’
‘Were you present when the raid took place?’
‘I was not.’
‘Then I cannot ask you for details of it.’ Peace turned over a page of his proof, picked up his pen, and made a note. He looked up. ‘Did you subsequently learn why the second raid had proved abortive?’
‘On the following day I learned of a telephone call, made from the police station, that made it seem certain a warning had been given to certain persons that the raid was to take place.’
***
It was thirty-five minutes later. There were large glass panes in the domed roof of the courtroom and the sunlight poured through these to spill across the well. As the day slowly lengthened, the sunlight swept across the jury-box, causing the jury considerable discomfort. There were no blinds that could be drawn.
Peace was questioning Keelton about the relationship between Joanna and Elwick. ‘You have told us that your daughter and the accused met at a dance. Later, they went out together. Did you have any feelings on this friendship?’ Peace rubbed the tip of his prominent nose.
‘If you mean by that did I try to stop it, no, I did not. I have always believed in allowing my children … my daughter, freedom to choose her own friends.’
‘You did not believe such a friendship might cause some difficulties in view of your and Elwick’s respective positions?’
‘I had no intention of ever allowing any such difficulties to arise.’
‘Did anything of special significance ever occur as a direct consequence of their friendship?’
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