Mr Love and Justice

by Colin MacInnes

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘That’s it. One prosecuting witness is often better than two, even if uncorroborated. You can’t contradict yourself, see: that is, provided you remember all you said if there’s a re-examination.’

  Edward Justice pondered. ‘The courts are very tricky,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’m beginning to realise what goes on in them’s a much bigger battle than all that takes place before you and the prisoner get there.’

  ‘Ah! The light’s dawning on you at last! My goodness! If only one young copper in a hundred realised what you’ve just said!’

  Edward was silent.

  ‘I’ll tell you something,’ said the star sleuth. ‘Our real enemy isn’t the criminals: it’s the courts.’

  ‘Our enemy?’

  ‘Yes. Here’s how I see it. We are the law. I say this because in the whole United Kingdom we’re the only people who really know – and I mean know – what actually goes on. You admit that’s so?’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Well – picture this. The set-up in the Force we can manipulate, once we know how. And the criminals – well, as you know, there’s a thousand and one ways of controlling them. Even in the courts, so long as it’s only at the lawyer level, there are pressures that can be brought to bear. For instance: suppose you’re a barrister who sometimes prosecutes, sometimes defends. If you win a lot of acquittals you’re not likely to get a lot of prosecuting work to do, are you?’

  ‘I suppose not, but …’

  ‘Or take solicitors. Most of those the criminals use are living on criminal money themselves and often getting more of it than they should, in ways their professional bodies mightn’t like to hear about. Now, they know this, they know we know it and pressures can be brought to bear.’

  ‘Yes, I see that. But when …’

  ‘All right, I’m coming to that. But, as I said at the outset, in the courts there’s one thing we can’t get at all – except in a way that I’ll explain to you: and that’s the magistrates and judges – certainly, at any rate, the judges – and also to a certain extent the juries. Except – and mark my words – for this: we can get at all three by working on their ignorance, fear and vanity.’

  ‘We can?’

  ‘We can. As for ignorance, remember this. Judges used to be lawyers, and in their careers there’s not much they haven’t learnt about by seeing it passing before them when they were working in the courts.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘But seeing a thing is not the same as living it. When you go to a theatre you see the show: in fact it’s put on for you, and you’re in the best seats with the actors all facing you and smiling. But you’re still not an actor, are you? You can see a thousand shows, and still know nothing about show-business whatever. Well, with the judges it’s the same: they don’t really know; and if they don’t know you can blind them, if only to a limited extent.’

  ‘But fear, you said. They’re not afraid of us …’

  ‘No? You’d think so, wouldn’t you? The justices, here in England, are the top men in the land: way up above the generals and admirals and cabinet ministers, even. But – never forget – judges in history have been tried themselves. In fact, over on the Continent it’s happened in our lifetime – very often, too. They’re way up there, but they’ve got very far to fall! And if ever they do, who do you think will call round in the small hours to collect them?’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Exactly. We, boy, you see, are even more permanent than they are and they know it. They’re not fools, and because of this somewhere deep down they fear us.’

  ‘And their vanity? They’re vain, you’d say?’

  ‘Well – I ask you! What’s the big, big bribe here in England? Come on – tell me! Is it money? Not a bit of it! Once you get above a certain level it’s honours, man, and fancy-dress. You think I’m just being sarcastic? No, boy! To be dressed up in wigs and gowns and call himself lord and be surrounded by pomp and circumstance is worth millions to almost any Englishman. And judges – well, they love it! And if a man deep inside himself is vain, and what is worse – or better, from our point of view – publicly vain, then you can always play upon that weakness. “Yes, my lord. As you say, my lord.” And, “As your lordship please.”’

  Edward reflected deeply, then said to the star sleuth, ‘You don’t think, then, that beyond us and beyond the courts and judges there’s anything like an actual justice involved?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s all just personalities and procedure?’

  ‘It’s conventions: social customs, you might say. These change and alter, often radically, as anyone who’s studied history a bit will know. But only one thing doesn’t alter – and that’s us: the men who enforce the laws, whatever they may be. And so I tell you: we are the courts, we are the judges, we are justice!’ Edward, though highly excited by all this, was not sure by the soft, icy tone of his companion’s voice whether he had a madman or a genius (or both) sitting beside him. Now the star sleuth’s voice dropped to its normal mumble as he added, ‘And even the stupid public and those fools in parliament, in their own way, admit this. Because according to the acts they’ve passed, if anyone shoots a lawyer – even a judge – and not for robbery, it isn’t capital: but if a man kills one of us for any reason in the world, then – boy, he’s hanged! This sets us up above the rest – above the lot of them, top men and all! Our lives are protected by the hangman’s rope!’

  Edward said deferentially but with considerable reserve (as one does when making a remark to anyone which one both wants him to believe and also be able to say, afterwards, one did not mean), ‘So according to you, you should make a suspect feel that we, “the law”, are the law.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Then Edward said, ‘That’s not how the Detective-Sergeant sees it, I imagine.’

  ‘I don’t suppose so. That pensionable clot!’

  ‘They don’t serve their purpose then, according to you, his type?’

  ‘Yes – for all sorts of things that don’t really matter. Like clearing the public off the streets as they did so well when old Tito came here, or marshalling crowds when they indulge in political demonstrations, or for horseback parades in Hyde Park when we’re drawn up just as if we were soldiers! for a royal inspection. For all that, yes. But for the real work: well – what do you think?’

  ‘I quite like the old boy,’ Edward said.

  ‘I’m not talking about liking. Do you respect him?’

  Edward didn’t answer.

  ‘You’ve got to make up your mind,’ the star sleuth said, ‘right from the outset which kind of copper you’re going to be: a robot or a man with power.’

  After a short pause Edward said, ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve found the Detective-Sergeant helpful to me.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, I see nothing against that …’

  ‘No. He’s put me on guard against one or two little things he’s mentioned.’

  ‘He has? Such as what? Do you mean that I found out about your girl?’

  ‘So it was you.’

  ‘No secret about it, matey. I’m bound to investigate you a bit, aren’t I, if you join our little lot and I’m going to have to put my own life and professional career to a certain extent into your two clumsy hands …’

  ‘But did you have to tell anyone?’

  ‘I didn’t: nothing reported, I mean: I just mentioned it.’

  ‘I don’t see the difference.’

  ‘You don’t? There’s a lot of difference, as you’ll grow to learn.’

  ‘Is there? Well, here’s something for you to learn please, too. I resent your interfering with my private life, and I’ll ask you here and now to stop it.’

  ‘Oh! So I’m being threatened! Well! Listen to me, boy, I’m not in the habit of giving advice because it’s a thing much too precious to give away and anyhow, the kind of person who needs advice never knows how to use it if you give it to him. But I will tell you this, and it’s entirely
for your own good because personally I just don’t care a fuck. Drop that girl. Look at it any way you like, if you want to get on – in fact if you want to stay with us at all – well, boy, it’s your only logical solution.’

  MR JUSTICE (STILL)

  Looking out of the institutional window (too tall for its width) of his nominal residence at the section-house, Edward was mildly alarmed to see his girl standing on the pavement opposite. Since no message had come up to him that anyone wanted to see him and it was scarcely probable that he’d happened to look out at the precise moment she’d arrived, he was even more alarmed. For she certainly didn’t know as well as he did that the most conspicuous possible thing to do, in England, particularly for a woman, is to wait in a public street: even if she’d waited on the anonymous benches of the station itself she’d have attracted far less attention. He hurried down.

  Out in the street he saw her some way off, which partly reassured him. And catching up with her he learnt with approval but anxiety that she’d kept walking round the block until he’d appeared, and that a matter of some urgency – two, in fact – had brought her out of hiding. The first was that she was pregnant; the second, that someone – nobody yet knew who – had visited her father’s house during his absence in peculiar circumstances.

  Though she told him the first of these two things last, he genuinely considered it to be in every way the more important. For one reason because it clearly brought – in some way or another – his relationship with his girl to a state of crisis; but even more because this news excited and delighted Edward unexpectedly. Although in their discussions of this possibility they’d both agreed it was for the present highly undesirable, and had taken steps in a rather haphazard way to guard against the danger, Edward had always feared, in secret, that he was somehow incapable of paternity: just as he had not been sure until he’d first loved his girl in that complete and intimate way that he could actually do so, it needed the proof positive that she now gave to him that he could without any doubt become a father. Not that he had for the new life in her womb – or for what it might become – as yet any feeling, fatherly or otherwise. What he did feel was that his love for her – the total horizon of his whole emotional life – was now – in spite of the manifold complications – entire and wonderful.

  ‘So what shall we do?’ she said.

  ‘Let’s pop in here for a tea and a sit-down.’

  Side by side, and Ted filled with an immense sense of possession, they discussed their predicament in quiet voices. ‘I suppose you don’t want to say it, Edward,’ she said, ‘but I could do away with it.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Why? Because it’s illegal?’ And she smiled rather wryly.

  ‘No: because it’s too dangerous to you.’

  ‘It’s not really … Not all that dangerous …’

  ‘You sure of that?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘No! We can’t risk anything happening to you.’

  ‘Very well, then. What?’

  ‘You’ll have to have it in the normal way.’

  ‘But, Edward. As things are, it won’t be exactly normal.’

  ‘You mean us not being wed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, I know. We must get the position straightened out. That’s what I meant to tell you when I came out to you this evening.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They’ve found out about us.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Several: it’s not officially known to the Force, but there’s individuals who know.’

  The girl looked at him and said, ‘So you won’t have to pretend any longer, Edward, that I don’t exist.’

  ‘No. They know.’

  ‘I see. So what do we do?’

  Edward stared into space, then said, ‘If it’s you or the Force, I choose you. I can always earn my living some other way, I’m competent, you know, believe me. But I’ve been thinking a lot, and there may be a way out.’

  She looked at him harder.

  ‘If your dad emigrated.’

  ‘Emigrated? Dad? Why should he?’

  ‘If he sees it’s to your advantage and to his own to make a new start, and if I make it worth his while.’

  ‘But Edward: how can you?’

  ‘I think I can. He must have a bit saved of his own, and I believe I can make up the single fare and enough over, given a bit of time.’

  ‘But what difference will it make if Dad should go?’

  ‘I’ve been looking into precedents: I mean of marriages with girls of – well, of dubious parentage – and it’s been okay in several cases if the parents are dead, of course, or gone away for good.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I think they’d wear it – but only if he’s right out of the country: Canada or Australia – somewhere like that.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘But there is one other aspect. Suppose he refused to go. I may have to ask you if you don’t mind if I put pressure on him.’

  ‘Pressure? How?’

  ‘Make him believe we’re going to get something on him.’

  The girl said, ‘Oh, Edward! And he’s stayed in the clear so long!’

  ‘So he says, I know. But what can we do?’

  ‘And this money, Ted. It’s a bit of a race against time, isn’t it? I mean you’ve not got all that many months to get it, and get permission to marry, before I have the baby.’

  ‘I’ve thought of that: and it’s why I’ll have to get it quick.’

  ‘I still think you won’t shift Dad. Him leave Kensal Green? And take money from you?’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact he already has done.’

  ‘Dad has? Taken money?’

  ‘Yes. Only to look after it, though. I’ve already made a bit, you see, and the best person I could think of to look after it for us – I mean the only reliable person – was your father.’

  ‘And he agreed?’

  ‘Oh, yes … So we’ve already discussed financial matters.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me, Ted.’

  ‘No, dear. I thought it best not. Well: what you say?’

  The girl stirred her empty cup. ‘For me,’ she said, ‘it’s like this. I want you, Ted, in the best way I can keep you, whatever that turns out to be – but there are limits. I don’t mind so much what arrangements you have to make with Dad, but I want you to promise me if he refused to go, and you let me have my baby, then you’ll marry me even if it means leaving the Force.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Edward. ‘That’s a promise. Though if he does refuse to go and I can’t make him, I will ask you, all the same, to let me check up on the abortion aspects.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, dear, I know it’s a big sacrifice, but you’ve made me think and I’d like to have a word with the station doctor – very indirect, of course – about the actual danger. Because if I can’t shake your dad at once and it’s only a question of the time it takes to persuade him, it’d be a pity to leave the Force if we did manage to persuade him later on.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’

  Edward looked at her. ‘You mean you don’t want an abortion – not in any circumstances?’

  ‘I haven’t quite said that …’

  ‘And you’re not prepared to have the baby out of wedlock …’

  ‘No, Ted. That I don’t want: if I have him, I want to have him legitimate.’

  ‘All right: I think I’ve got it. Thank you, dear, for being so reasonable about it all. Now, then. What about this man you said visited your dad’s place?’

  ‘According to Dad, Ted, he’s certain someone’s been in the house, but there’s no sign of breaking and entering or anything at all.’

  ‘Yeah. I think I know who it might be. Your dad didn’t find anything left in the place? Nothing compromising, I mean?’

  ‘He didn’t say so …’

  ‘And nothing missing?’

  ‘He didn’t say that either … But who do you think
it might be, Ted? A thief?’

  ‘No, a copper. Colleague of mine who doesn’t like me.’

  ‘But why should he try to harm Dad?’

  ‘To try to harm me. I’ll tell you who it is – in confidence – it’s one of our vice boys I’m on a job with at the moment – very clever feller and very dangerous – who’s got a down on me.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I really and truly don’t know: but these things do happen in the Force. I’ll speak to your dad about that as well, and put him on his guard. Meantime, I think there’s something you could do to help.’

  ‘Me? How?’

  Edward smiled at her. ‘If I pointed out this feller to you, do you think you might consider trying to play up to him a bit?’

  ‘How? You mean flirt with him, or so?’

  ‘Yes. Nothing more than that … But it might help to find a way to get something on him, too, to keep him quiet.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure, Edward. If you think it’s wise … But I’m not very glamorous, you know …’

  ‘Nor’s he. Anyway, we’ll see. I’ll keep you well in the picture, dear. Glory! What a morning! I’m glad all that’s tidied up just now.’ He made to get up, but the girl detained him. ‘There is just one other thing,’ she said.

  ‘No! Well, in for a penny …’

  ‘Listen, Edward. You remember that couple we saw at the wrestling that night, and you commented on, who came to settle in the same block as we do …’

  ‘Yeah … Whore and her ponce, I’d say. But not my area and not my business – we don’t want trouble near the flat …’

  ‘No, I know that. But the woman, Ted, the prostitute. She knows about us.’

  ‘Knows? How can she know? What makes you think so? Anything she’s said?’

  ‘Nothing she’s said, but the way she looks at me.’