by Tim Parks
NINETEEN
FOLLOWING THE ORDER on the indictment, the prosecution began with the case against David Sayle. However, I must establish this initial premise, Trevor Sedley cautioned. He was a man who generated conviction by eliminating any hint of charisma. This is very much a case of joint enterprise. The Crown will be inviting the jury to bear in mind that the nine defendants, together with two others who were not with them on the evening of the twenty-second, but whom we will be hearing as witnesses, were very much a group. Whenever possible they spent their time together. The Crown will be bringing evidence from both inside and outside the group to demonstrate that this was the case. They regularly drank together, either at a pub called the Tally Ho, on the corner of Craeburn Street, where they had been on the evening of the crime, or at another pub called the Belgrave on Canada Avenue. They listened to music together, usually at the home of the Crawley sisters, two of the defendants, or at the home of James Grier, another of the defendants. On occasion they played games together at a church youth club. St Barnabus. David Sayle, in fact, is a regular member of the St Barnabus congregation. He frequently reads the lesson in church. So is Mr Davidson. Sedley looked up from his notes. He spoke tediously slowly. A solid group, then, as my learned friends for the defence will not be contesting. It will be noted, for example – he coughed – that two of the defendants admitted in an initial interview with the police that they had been present on the bridge at the time of the crime and seen stones thrown from the bridge by a member of their group. Released pending further enquiries, however, and thus exposed to the peer presure of their friends, they then both denied this.
Three defence lawyers sprang simultaneously to their feet. I am sure, Judge Savage said calmly, that Mr Sedley will be explaining to the jury the relevance of the interviews to the case against each defendant. As for the differences between the early and later interviews, the defendants themselves will have the opportunity to explain how these came about. However, Mr Sedley, while the fact that this is a close knit group has been well-established, your remarks about peer pressure have not and the objection of my learned colleagues is quite understandable. Your honour, I myself was about to say, Sedley conceded, that the Crown’s interpretation of these interviews will be hotly contested by my learned friends the counsels for the defence. Thank you Mr Sedley. The defence lawyers sat down. At the same time it struck Daniel that he himself, far from being part of a group, was now entirely alone. Exactly, he thought, as society most applauds me – there was the invitation to wait upon her Majesty on September 30th, the very day of their twentieth wedding anniversary – I find myself most alone. Nobody is putting peer pressure on me at all.
Very slowly, and as if a man just couldn’t be more even-handed, Sedley started to explain that the Crown would be maintaining that David Sayle was the group’s leader and that as such he must bear the greatest responsibility for what happened on the evening of March 22nd. This is why Mr Sayle’s is the first name you will see on the indictment. Mr Sayle, ladies and gentlemen, is the man sitting on the extreme left of the dock and his defence counsel is my learned colleague Mrs Wilson directly in front of him. The jury found themselves looking at a pleasant chubby young man with a blond pony tail, who nervously returned their gaze.
Martin was skeletal and serene. He didn’t turn the television off when his guest arrived and the shifting colours of the screen’s melodrama played uncontested across the pallor of his face. The curtains were drawn. The once black hair had turned suddenly grey. His beard was gone. The once powerful voice was a whisper. That’s Shirley, she’s seeing her ex-husband on the sly. We’re supposed to feel sorry for Damian who doesn’t know the boy isn’t his. Judge Savage noticed that the room had a slightly sweet smell to it.
Daniel had driven straight from court to clinic. For ten days now he had been left entirely alone. He had seen no one. Exactly as had happened at The Cambridge a year before, the moment there was a split with Hilary, it seemed impossible for him even to talk to anyone else. My wife is a catalyst who makes other intimacies possible, he thought. Without her, without the children, I am inert and alone. He couldn’t even respond to the most ordinary messages on the answer phone. He listened to Christine’s voice and didn’t answer it. He couldn’t offer sympathy or ask for it. It’s quite inexplicable, Judge Savage told himself. He ate pre-packed sandwiches in the kitchen and went to his work mechanically. I have no individual existence, he realised. I go to court to be jerked into action, like a marionette who only comes alive on stage. I lock into the ugly world of a group of undistinguished youths telling lies about the evening of March 22nd. He thought about his own children, and it was some way into the trial before it occurred to him that March 22nd might have been the very day that he and Hilary had decided to buy the house.
And is this, Sedley asked, the stone that you refer to? From under his bench the lawyer produced a white box and from the box a large rough whitish stone of the variety one might use in a rockery. The usher took the stone and carried it across to the witness box. It is, said the constable. And where was it exactly? On the floor of the car, where a front passenger would put his feet. It was covered in blood. I would like, Sedley said, in his quiet voice, for each member of the jury to take this stone into his or her hands and feel its weight.
The usher took the stone across to the jury. Sedley watched. If one speaks quietly, Daniel thought, all around you must strain to listen. Take your time please, ladies and gentlemen, the lawyer was saying. It’s a style that imposes silence. One or two jurors clearly did not want even to touch the thing. When someone dropped it on the bench the clatter was startling. It was as if Sedley had wished this to happen. Then the prosecutor continued with his case. A forensic expert was called. Your honour, someone stood up. The young man’s voice boomed. I object. The courtroom hadn’t really been designed for nine defence counsels, each with his or her solicitor. Your honour, my learned friend is leading his witness. This was true, though fairly innocuous. The defence lawyers are diminished in stature, Daniel thought, by their number. It was an important aspect of joint enterprise trials. They seem shrill, even when their objections are reasonable. The wisest say as little as possible. Mr Sedley, could you rephrase your question please? The jury was unimpressed. And when the expert had finished and the jurors were taken to the secure car park behind the court to look into the boot of Grier’s father’s Mondeo, the whitish grey fragments were so evident on the coarse black under-carpet over the spare wheel and so clearly of the same stone material that they had examined earlier in the day that this aspect at least of the prosecution’s case became biblical truth. It was the same grey white, Daniel now saw, as Martin’s face, expressionless as a fallen stone on the hospital bed.
Mr Shields is no longer with us the nurse told him at St Steven’s General. Judge Savage had set out to visit his friend with a sudden determination to break the spell of isolation that had fallen on him. Hilary had not been in touch. The children had not phoned. Minnie Kwan had not phoned. Martin will be happy we have broken up, he told himself.
The nurse gave him the name of a private clinic. This was the third day of the trial. Daniel had been in court since nine. To his surprise Kathleen Connolly had appeared at the afternoon session and seemed to be focusing her attention entirely on him. Has my whole private life, he was wondering, been discussed among the various powers that be? Is the advantage of making those arrests being weighed against the disadvantages of disgracing the first black judge on the circuit, and a national hero to boot? How had Mattheson reached the conclusion that Hilary was off on holiday with Tom? I live a charmed life, perhaps, he thought. After a few minutes watching television in a tiny private room, Daniel said: You know, Martin, that stuff you once gave me about having no secrets in marriage: well, I told Hilary everything.
The private clinic was out of town, to the west, not far from the Shields’ home. So, having spoken to nobody for so long, Daniel found himself returning to Martin. He and Mart
in had lived in the glow of each other’s mutual esteem for twenty years. It was a friendship that had seemed as much part of his life as the colour of his skin. Martin was the person who most enabled me to overcome any racial disadvantage, Daniel had often told himself. He had been there when the Savage family broke up. He had provided a security beyond that family. Then, mysteriously, the friendship died. Was the death blow my getting back together with Hilary? Or my becoming a judge, being promoted beyond him? You understand all this, Daniel thought, no more than you understand your relationship with your daughter. Or the reason why a group of young people heave a rock onto a fast road. They could see no way of shedding their innocence. What an odd remark that was! Had there been something innocent about the friendship with Martin? As if an aspect of adolescence had been protracted long into adulthood. We were close for years, Daniel kept saying to himself in the car, then something came between us.
Sitting beside the man’s bed, the judge was suddenly determined to tackle this. Do they still not know what you’ve got? he asked. Oh some obscure viral complication, Martin muttered. Unlike most sick people, he did not seem eager to discuss his ailment. You-had-the-flu-twenty-years-ago-and-now-you’re-paralysed-for-life kind of thing. He shrugged. He seemed resigned and unconvinced. His nose, Daniel noticed, had become prominent between sunken cheeks. It had become an imperious nose. And despite watching TV inanities all day, he still retained an imperious manner. Soap opera, Dan, he pontificated while the ads came on, is the triumph of the age. It’s made up quite casually from day to day by a group of authors who all have their different takes on the various characters; but you invest emotion in it anyway: completely random and completely engrossing.
Judge Savage laughed: Ever since you first talked about them, I keep seeing moths, he said. He was trying to please. Before tackling the issue. There was one enormous one in the bathroom last night. About an inch long maybe. Very gothic. But you don’t want to crush them because their bodies are so soft, their death would be such a mess. Easier to chase them out of the window. Martin grunted. It was the sort of grunt Tom came out with when his father belatedly showed interest in some computer game the boy had already half forgotten. Will I be forever without Tom? I told Hilary everything, Judge Savage said. And I told the police who beat me up.
It was extraordinary how quick Martin’s mind still was, how immediately this corpse of a man grasped the situation. His attention was galvanised. The television was forgotten. He was pleased, excited, condescending. You’ve always had a desire for self-abasement, he explained to his old friend in a cracked, husky voice. You want to be known and still be loved. He shook his head. So when you become a judge and circumstances have apparently put you beyond all abasement, you go and look for a way of destroying yourself. You can’t bear being above criticism.
Daniel was respectful, but didn’t agree. He hadn’t looked for trouble at all. The girl had come to him. He had been obliged to check that she was okay. Martin smiled wanly. Look at it any way you like, he said.
What is wrong with you? Daniel demanded. There was silence in the small and no doubt expensive room. Or rather, there was the chatter of the television. Despite the uncertain weather the place was air-conditioned. You do know, don’t you? Martin lay still. The interest that had flared in his intelligent eyes was swiftly extinguished. Daniel started at the sound of a phone ringing from the TV screen, as if someone were calling them into that world of interminable melodrama. I’m sure you do know, Daniel said, and that if you told people, something would change. Martin’s face was quite expressionless. What does it matter to you? he asked eventually. We were close friends, Daniel said.
So?
This one croaked word seemed to contain oceans of stubbornness. So, I want to help, not to let something that was part of my life just dissolve. You look pretty ill, you know, Daniel insisted. Martin said nothing. Does Christine know? Daniel tried. Again he waited. I think she does, doesn’t she? Christine being another of your close friends, Martin said weakly. He held the remote tightly in two clawed hands. You two were going to split up, weren’t you? Daniel insisted. Anyone could see, Mart. Only since you’re now ill you don’t have to. Martin shook his head. I can’t understand how my problems could possibly matter to you. Lying on his back, eyes turned to the ceiling now, he clasped and unclasped the remote. We live in different worlds, Dan. Rubbish, Judge Savage said. Martin seemed to hesitate. Okay, Dan, okay, for the sake of old friendship, let me tell you something about Christine. At once Judge Savage felt tense, felt he’d made a mistake. On the television, the chatter of the soap turned to a tinkle of music. It was Christine told Sarah about you and Jane. And all the other women you had. Christine. Your friend. At last they exchanged a long look. Martin’s eyes were surprisingly alive. Why? Daniel asked. His old friend shook his head: Caprice?
TWENTY
MR WHITAKER WAS a nondescript, overweight man in his late thirties. He worked in a building society and had come to court, as he would go to the office, formally but not carefully dressed. Mr Whitaker, could you tell the jury what happened on the evening of the twenty-second of March? He is on tranquillisers, Judge Savage saw at once. Any time you need to take a break, Mr Whitaker, all you have to do is ask. The young and rather brash woman on the front row of the jury kept twisting round to make remarks to the man behind her. Elizabeth, that is my wife, and I were driving along the ring road, the witness said, on our way back from a visit to my mother. He spoke in a low voice. We had been driving about ten minutes. Could you speak up, please, Mr Whitaker? We do appreciate how difficult this is. His hands were limp on the rail. His voice was a monotone. That was the day Elizabeth had her scan. Then the windscreen sort of exploded. I think I lost control of the car for a moment, then I braked on the hard shoulder.
Sedley invited the man to say exactly where this had happened. And could you describe to the court the scene after you brought the car to rest? Yes. After I stopped the car, I saw that Elizabeth . . . Mr Whitaker took a breath. He cannot look at the defendants, Daniel noticed. The man’s eyes were fixed on some distant point above the jury’s head. He knows it will make no difference to him whether they are found guilty or not. Well, she was covered in blood, Mr Whitaker continued. Her face was gone.
Only one defence lawyer ventured a cross-examination. Mr Whitaker, did you actually see the stone fall from the bridge? No. The man’s voice was a whisper. Perhaps you could repeat that so that we can be sure everyone has heard. No, I did not see the stone coming. And could you tell the court, Mr Whitaker, how far away you were from the bridge when you stopped? Mr Whitaker said perhaps a hundred yards. And how long was it after the accident before you looked at the bridge and saw, as you said in your statement, ‘quite a few young people’, running away. The man hesitated. I was trying to pull Elizabeth out of the car. I’ve really no idea. She had the mobile in her handbag, you see. I wanted to get it out to call for help but she’d fallen over it. It . . . There was so much blood. How long do you think it was, Mr Whitaker? Perhaps a minute, the witness said vaguely. Not more than two or three. So it might have been as many as three minutes, the lawyer repeated with great deliberation, between the moment you stopped the car and the moment you saw these young people. Yes. Thank you, Mr Whitaker, he said.
That evening, Daniel called Hilary’s parents. These people always disliked me, he knew. He had never understood if it was a racial thing, or whether they would have disliked any partner of Hilary’s. If he had never worried about it, it was because it seemed that the dislike of her parents was a necessary condition for being loved by Hilary. Certainly they had hated Robert before him. Our marriage is strong, she said once, because neither of us feels at home with our boring families. How ominous this seemed in retrospect. They were held together by opposition to the world without.
Are you fully recovered now? his father-in-law enquired. Hilary is not sure of her plans just at the moment. The man had the sharp, cautious voice of one always ready for argument. H
e was waiting for this phone-call, Daniel realised. Of course we will tell her that you phoned. And that I asked her to phone me, Daniel insisted. He had been hoping that she would not have been in touch with her parents at all. If he hadn’t spoken to anyone these last two weeks it was partly because, not talking about it, it seemed the split hadn’t quite happened, or might still be harmlessly reversed. For Hilary to go to her parents, Daniel knew, to speak to her parents against him, this was a huge step. She was gone.
Then, in the space of an hour he called everybody: Jane, Frank, his daughter, Christine, Max. In the empty house he needed to feel people around him. He sat with the newly installed phone in the kitchen, the communicating doors both shut. Max said he had been on holiday and only just returned. What is it, Mr Savage? For a moment Daniel imagined the boy was lying. Could he really not know? Have a good time? he asked. Max began to talk about Chicago. There were relatives he had never seen before. Judge Savage decided he couldn’t tell him: Hilary said to tell you to feel free to use the piano while she’s away. If you stop by one evening, I’m to lend you the keys. Oh that’s so kind. She’s on holiday with the kids, Daniel explained. They’ve gone to the coast. I can’t talk, Jane whispered. I’m with Gordon. Just tell me how’s it going, have you managed to hush it up. Fine, Daniel said. It’s going fine. A bientôt, she said. Frank was merry. Found the dear Asian damsel safe and sound, did we, squire? Desert flower, jungle orchid. I’ve been keeping an eye on News at Ten to see if you’d been brained again. Daniel felt an intense impulse to confide, at once blocked by an equally powerful impulse for self preservation. Instead, he talked about Martin. Repressed queer, Frank said. Alas. He laughed. The worst. By the way, if you’re really hard up for cash, we might even be able to pay you something back, we’re doing a roaring trade. People just can’t get enough of antiques, even the most obvious fakes. Even the immigrants are buying antiques, he laughed. The Pakis, you wouldn’t believe it. Everybody wants to live in a stately home. Pillars of Georgian society. Frank talked on and on. He seemed to have taken a liking to his brother. It’s unbelievable, he cried. People are gaga with the idea they’re getting something unique, something with a history. He bellowed with laughter. The duller the world they live in, the more they want antiques, get me? Come and visit the stall and you’ll see. They’re just begging to be taken in. Most of the stuff’s mass produced of course. When I see you in the dock, Daniel said, I’ll say it’s a case of homonymy. They’ll never guess. Frank has been drinking he thought. His brother couldn’t stop laughing. The old pigmentation was always on your side in the end, he joked. You were born at the right time, squire. But I forgive you. The Savages really were a bit too pale for their name, n’est-ce-pas?