by Anne Perry
Then he saw the prosecution on the other side. It was Herbert Wystan.
Rathbone had known him for years, appeared against him a number of times, and won more often than he had lost. Wystan would no doubt remember that now. It would not make any difference. He was a man who loved and respected the law. He would not care who won or lost. This, of course, was an excellent reason for prosecuting this case with passion. In his eyes, Rathbone had betrayed the very sanctity of the law he was sworn to uphold. For Wystan that would be a crime tantamount to treason.
Had Rathbone done that? He had certainly not intended to. Or at least, he had not intended to betray justice—it was just that justice and the law were not always the same thing. But he knew they were for Wystan. And they ought to have been for him.
Wystan’s hair was sandy gray, but now only his beard was visible, his wig hiding the rest of it. He had a long face, very rarely lit by humor.
The judge began with the formalities. For Rathbone, unable to move or to speak, every moment seemed surreal. Had it been like this for the people he had prosecuted? For those he had defended—people who were less familiar with court procedure than he was—had it all seemed like something happening on the other side of a window, almost in another world?
Had they trusted him to defend them? Or did they watch him as he now watched Brancaster, knowing that he was clever, even brilliant, but still only human. Did they sit here trying to keep themselves from being sick? Breathing in and out deeply, swallowing on nothing, throats too tight?
What did Brancaster think as he stood there, looking so elegant and clever? Was it a personal battle for him, a chance to win the unwinnable? Rathbone had always looked as suave and as confident as Brancaster did now; he knew that. But internally his stomach would churn, his mind racing as he balanced one tactic against another, wondering who to call, what to ask, whom to trust.
He breathed in and out again, counting up to four, and then repeating the exercise. His heart steadied.
He should have let Taft get away with it. He had been childish. It was impossible for every case to go the way he thought it should, to be just. His title had been “judge,” but his job had been only to see that the law was adhered to.
And that was perhaps the worst thing of all in this whole trial: the judge sitting in the high, carved seat, presiding over the entire proceedings, was Ingram York. How smug he looked, how infinitely satisfied. Was the irony of the situation going through his mind as he listened to the openings of the case? Did he think back to that evening at his own dinner table when he was congratulating Rathbone on the success of his first big fraud trial?
That seemed like years ago, but it was only months. How different the world had been then. In his arrogance Rathbone had thought it would get only better and better. The crumbling of his marriage had seemed his only loss then, the only thing in which he had seriously failed. And he had been coming to terms even with that and understanding that it was not his fault. He had cared deeply for her, or for the person he had believed her to be. And he had learned the bitter lesson, that anyone can love what they imagine another to be; real love accepts a person for what he or she truly is …
The formalities were droning on without him, voices echoing, figures moving like puppets.
He did not want to look for familiar faces. He dreaded seeing them, colleagues, men he had fought against across the courtroom. Would they pity him now? Or rejoice in his fall? This was almost beyond bearing, yet he could not sit here with his eyes closed. Everyone would know why.
He recognized an old adversary called Foster. For an instant their eyes met. He could imagine exactly what Foster would say, as clearly as if he could hear his voice. “ ’Come a bit of a cropper, haven’t you?”
He couldn’t see Monk, or Hester. Perhaps they were going to testify.
Was Margaret here now, rejoicing that he was now where her father had once been? Did she really equate them—Rathbone who had made a wild decision, perhaps a moral misjudgment, certainly a legal one—with Ballinger, who had traded in the bodies of children, blackmail, and finally murder?
In the greater sense he realized he did not care if she were here or not, or what she thought. Her opinion was a pinprick, not a fatal wound.
York was looking satisfied. His wig and robes became him well. But then they became most men. The very act of putting them on made one feel taller, more important, set apart from the ordinary run of men. He knew that for himself. What a delusion! One was just as mortal, just as subject to the vicissitudes of the flesh: headache, indigestion, the indignities of bodily functions that would not be controlled, sweating hands, a rasping voice. And one was also capable of all the emotional needs that resulted in errors of the mind: humanity, the longing for love and for forgiveness, for laughter, mercy, and the warmth of touch to steady, to encourage. One could never be truly impartial and still be human.
Did York love Beata? He could still recall her face as exactly as if he had seen her only hours ago. He did not know if she was here. He hoped not. He did not want her to see his humiliation. Anyway, she would hardly come to all the trials over which her husband presided! That would be absurd.
Just in case she was here, Rathbone had to pull his wits and his emotions together and try to show the dignity and the courage he would wish her to see in him.
Hester would be here. They had fought too many battles side by side for her ever to abandon him. She was a woman who might well hate what you had done, but she would go with you to the foot of the gallows, if need be. How badly had he let her down with this arrogance of judgment?
Then he looked at the faces in the courtroom again and saw his father, and his courage bled away as if an artery had been cut. This was the one person he should never have let down, never disappointed. The pain of it left his stomach churning. He would have accepted any failure, any punishment, if only his father had not had to suffer too. This was worse than any other time he had let him down, worse even than when he had failed his exams one time, when, upset about some triviality or other, he had not studied hard enough. Henry had been so angry then, more than Oliver had ever seen him before. This quiet gray was worse. Oliver had been planning to take Henry for a holiday to Europe next year, to see Italy. He had always wanted that. Now it might be too late … if he was found guilty …
The preliminaries were all finished. The trial was about to begin. Wystan rose to his feet. He was a solid man, not very large, but he looked imposing now as he stood out on the floor alone.
“Gentlemen,” he said somberly, looking at the jury. “This may not seem to you a very serious case, compared with some that you might have been called to hear, such as thefts of great sums of money, assault, or murder. But believe me it is. This is a cheating of the process of law to which, as Englishmen, you are entitled. You are subjects of an ancient land that has been ruled by law since the days of the Saxon dooms, before William the Conqueror set foot on our shores eight hundred years ago.”
He moved a couple of steps closer to them, his voice carrying clearly.
“When we sit in judgment upon one another, we are following a very tight set of rules, which are there to ensure that, as far as it is possible for human beings, we are fair. We give to each person the chance to defend himself against wrongful conviction, to speak for himself, to answer or refute the evidence against him. Otherwise, how could we refer to it as the justice system?” He hesitated to let the weight of the concept sink into their minds. “If you are not certain of this system, how can you bring anything before the law?” he continued. “How can you hope for peace or safety? How can you sleep at ease in your beds and believe that we strive to be a just and God-fearing people? The answer is simple. You cannot.”
He turned very slightly and indicated Rathbone high in the dock.
“This man accepted the position of judge. It is a high and ancient position, perhaps one of the greatest honors in the land, in some ways second only to Her Majesty, and yet a position
that intercedes with your lives on a regular basis. It was his task to administer justice to the people—to you. Instead of that, he perverted the law.”
Rathbone winced. What could Brancaster say that would undo this damage?
Wystan continued. His voice was quiet, almost without emotion, and yet it penetrated every corner of the room. Rathbone should have remembered this about him. He wondered now how he had ever beaten the man.
“Oliver Rathbone was presiding over a case in which a man was accused of a most repellent manner of fraud, of taking money from those who had little enough, and of then misusing it. Your sympathy may be entirely with the prosecution of such a case. I know that mine is.” He shook his head. “But the ugliness of a charge does not mean that the person accused is guilty. He is as deserving of a fair and just trial as is a man accused of stealing a loaf of bread. It is the innocence or guilt that we try; we determine whether or not the crime is as charged, and whether or not we have the right person in the dock.”
He smiled very slightly, a mere twitch of the lip. “It is my duty to prove to you beyond any reasonable doubt that Oliver Rathbone abused the trust this nation, this people, placed in him by giving to the prosecution damning evidence as to the character of a witness for the defense, evidence quite unrelated to the charge brought. In so doing he sabotaged the trial of a man who was devastated by these events, by the shattering of his trust, not in the friend who betrayed him but in the law that was sworn to try him justly—so devastated that he took his own life. Upon uncovering the evidence, Oliver Rathbone should have recused himself and stepped aside. You may think this would have caused a mistrial, and you are correct. Nevertheless, that is what he should have done.
“I shall ask you to ignore your own feelings over the guilt or innocence of the man accused in that particular trial, and of anyone else who offered testimony in that trial. You must consider only the greater sin committed by Oliver Rathbone, who perverted the course of justice itself. Force yourselves to think, gentlemen, what refuge, what safety have any of us if the judges who sit in our courts cannot be trusted to be fair, just, and abide by the rules of the law that they are sworn and privileged to administer?”
Rathbone’s heart sank. If he were in Brancaster’s place now he would be choked, all previous words gone from his mind. He watched as Brancaster rose to his feet. He ached for him, quite literally. His throat was tight, his chest suffocated for breath.
Brancaster walked out into the center of the floor, addressed the judge, then turned to the jury. He did not sound self-important, an orator declaring a great cause. His voice was casual, a man speaking to a group of friends.
“Gentlemen, if this case were easy, we might have disposed of it without taking your time and keeping you from your own business. But it is not simple. That is not to say that it is any whit less important than my learned friend Mr. Wystan has suggested. Issues of justice are at stake—greater even than he has implied to you. The difference between Mr. Wystan and myself is not in our belief as to how this issue lies at the core of justice for all of us, for you, for me,”—he spread his arms in a wide, oddly graceful gesture—“for every man, woman, and child in our country. The difference is that I will not merely tell you what occurred that was so desperately wrong, I will show you, step by step, and in such a way that you cannot mistake the truth.”
He smiled so slightly it could almost have been a trick of the light. “I will not ask you to believe anything I cannot demonstrate. Nor will I ask you to reach a verdict other than what sits easily with your conscience, with your sense of the wellbeing of our country, and with the mercy we all wish not only to receive ourselves, but to extend to others. Listen carefully to the evidence.” He gestured toward the still empty witness box. “Imagine yourselves in the places of the people concerned, and then give thought to what you would have done, what you would have believed, and what, with wisdom and courage, you would consider to be just.” He inclined his head. “Thank you.”
Wystan called his first witness. Rathbone was not surprised to see that it was Blair Gavinton. He mounted the stand looking serious and unhappy, which could be interpreted in several ways. The jury would see that the matter was very grave, and Gavinton was sad and disturbed that a man in Rathbone’s position had so abused the law. It would not occur to them that he was dubious about the prosecution or that he regretted this turn of events and would rather not be obliged to testify.
He looked at them closely at last, the twelve men who would decide his guilt or innocence. He was used to reading juries. He had spoken to them often enough, watched as they weighed his words. This time it was different. It was he they were judging, and he could say nothing.
Most of them looked to be about his own age. They were in their best clothes, as solemn as if the jury box were a church pew. Only two of them were looking back at him, with curiosity, skin puckered and eyes narrowed, as if trying to focus. A juror farther along had a white beard hiding his expression. Rathbone could judge nothing.
Gavinton swore as to his name and occupation, and to the fact that he had been the lawyer for the defense in the case of Abel Taft. When prompted by Wystan, he also gave a list of the principal witnesses for the prosecution and then for the defense.
It had been a case of moderate public interest. Many in the gallery might have attended, and that would be the reason they were here now. To the jurors the name, at least, would be familiar.
“A considerable number of witnesses for the prosecution,” Wystan observed. “What manner of people were they?”
Brancaster stirred, as if to object, and then changed his mind.
Wystan smiled at that and turned back to Gavinton on the stand, waiting for his reply.
“Ordinary, decent people,” Gavinton replied. “As far as I know, the only thing they had in common was that they were members of Taft’s religious congregation, and they were generous, regardless of their means. Too generous, perhaps. They had all given more than they were subsequently able to afford and were distressed by the consequences.”
“Were they good witnesses for the prosecution, Mr. Gavinton?” Wystan pressed. “And I am not looking for a generous opinion of their honesty or goodwill. I need your professional judgment as to their value to the prosecution, their effect on the jury.”
Gavinton’s lips tightened as if he were suddenly acutely unhappy. “No,” he said quietly. “I was able to … to expose in each of them a naïveté—a gullibility, if you like—and it made them appear financially incompetent.”
“More than that, Mr. Gavinton, were you not able to show in each of them a need to be liked, to be accepted and appear to be more generous, and of greater means than was actually the case?”
Gavinton looked uncomfortable as he moved his weight from one foot to the other. Rathbone saw this as an affectation and had no pity for him at all. He still found him self-regarding.
“I had no pleasure in it, but yes, that is true,” Gavinton said.
“Did it profit your case?”
Again Brancaster moved a little, but did not rise to object.
Rathbone felt the sweat break out on his body. Why not? Did Brancaster have no idea what to do? Did he not have the heart or the courage to fight at all? He could have objected to that. It was a call for a personal opinion, not a fact.
Why was he doing nothing? He had said he would fight all the way.
“I believe so,” Gavinton replied. “I intended to make them seem both financially and emotionally incompetent, and I believe I did so.”
“How did you accomplish that, Mr. Gavinton?” Wystan pursued. “Did you cross-question each one and expose his weaknesses to the court?”
“No. I had one witness who knew them all, and knew both Mr. Taft himself and also the financial dealings of the church and all the members of the congregation. I was able to draw from him all that I needed.”
“And that witness’s name?”
Gavinton was clearly uncomfortable now. He moved
his head as if his collar were too tight, even touching it with one hand, and then changing his mind.
“Robertson Drew,” he replied.
“Did you in fact win the case?”
Gavinton made a slight, rueful gesture perhaps intended to be self-deprecating. “I doubt it, but the verdict was never returned.”
“Why not?”
This time Gavinton paused, and the effect, intended or not, was highly dramatic.
“The defendant, Abel Taft, took his own life.”
Rathbone looked at the jury and instantly regretted it. They looked grim and slightly embarrassed, perhaps at being spectators, albeit unwillingly, at such a tragedy.
“My sympathy,” Wystan said quietly. “That must have been terrible for you and everyone else concerned. Do you know why he did such a thing? Did you see him that day, or did he leave a letter?”
“I saw him,” Gavinton replied. “He was devastated. He felt totally betrayed by the fact that Robertson Drew had changed all his testimony under cross-examination. I had no doubt that the verdict the following day would have been one of guilty.”
Wystan looked puzzled. “Do you know why Mr. Drew so radically altered his testimony? Did he give you any warning that he would do such a thing?”
Gavinton’s face tightened. Suddenly the charm was gone, and his expression was bleak, even dangerous.
“He gave me no warning. He had no opportunity to. He was on the stand being questioned by Mr. Dillon Warne, counsel for the prosecution, when Mr. Warne produced a photograph and showed it to Mr. Drew. Mr. Drew was clearly profoundly shocked by it. He seemed almost to collapse on the stand. Naturally I demanded to see the photograph myself, and when I did so I requested that we speak to the judge in his chambers, immediately.”