Case for Compensation

by Douglas Stewart

“I agree.”

  “Have you ever, forgetting this accident, been involved in any other emergency in England?”

  “No.” It was said without hesitation.

  “You sound uncertain” commented the Q.C. He gazed for a moment at the Coat of Arms. “Think about it!” He rapped out the words. Bouchin felt the cold blast of the changed climate.

  “No. I can remember no other accident in England.”

  “Then let me remind you.” He paused deliberately, waiting for the interpreter to translate.

  “You haven’t forgotten the occasion when your lorry went off the road, near Exeter, have you? It was less than two years ago, wasn’t it?” Even the interpreter’s face showed a trickle of interest as he translated. His nostrils twiched as he sniffed generously.

  “Oh! that! That wasn’t an accident. It was nothing at all. I swerved to avoid a dog.”

  “You swerved to avoid a dog!” Holden’s bushy eyebrows raised so high that they almost disappeared under his wig. The explanation sounded more hollow with the echoing repetition.

  “This happened—didn’t it?—at about nine o’clock, also on a Friday morning. Not too long after you left the ferry at Plymouth?”

  “Correct.”

  “Do you deny that you fell asleep?” Holden knew that he was stuck with the answer whatever came. But he was anxious to place the thought in the Judge’s mind before he moved on to other matters. As the question was translated Holden turned away from the witness and stared straight back towards Charlie Wilkinson and Wally Wood. He wanted to plant some doubts in Bouchin’s mind—hoped to remind him of a loose moment’s talk.

  “I deny I was asleep.”

  “You deny you were drowsy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you denying that you nodded off for an instant?”

  “Yes.” It was time to change course.

  “On the Thursday night ferry it was your habit to drink Pernod and red wine. And perhaps a cognac?”

  “In moderation.”

  “And week in, week out, you played cards all through the night.”

  “Sometimes—but not always.” Bouchin had been briefed on Wally Wood’s evidence and was careful now not to be dogmatic. He hoped he was treading carefully between the snares.

  “You don’t deny being up all night playing cards on the night before the accident on Yarcombe Hill?”

  “Yes, I do.” It was the expected denial.

  “On the contrary, I suggest you were up all that night playing cards and were drinking your share of a litre bottle of pastis.”

  “Excuse me Mr Holden,” The Judge looked down. “Pernod is a brand name for a French drink called pastis. Is that right?”

  “M’Lud, yes. Pernod is a formidable alcoholic drink, made from aniseed, much in favour in France.”

  “Please don’t explain any more, Mr Holden—you’ll make me thirsty.”

  Holden repeated the question. “I suggest you were up all night playing cards and were drinking your share of a litre bottle of pastis.”

  “I deny it.” Then Bouchin broke the golden rule. He added a comment. “In fact after the incident with the dog I never played cards overnight again. I always went to bed after eating.” The answer was startling.

  “But tell me; what connection could there be between the crisis involving a dog and your lack of sleep?”

  Even after the translation there was a long pause. Bouchin looked uncomfortable.

  “I’ll put the question another way to help you. You’re telling the Court that you realised your lack of sleep played a part in the incident over the so-called dog. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “No. I can only say it was from then that I stopped playing cards overnight.”

  “Quite sure of that answer?”

  “Positive. From the time of the incident with the dog onwards I always had a proper night’s sleep.”

  “Never—not once—since the incident with the dog did you ever pass the night playing cards on the boat?” The tone of Holden’s voice suggested that he was now in agreement with the witness.

  “That’s correct.” The witness agreed with him.

  “If I ever remind you of that answer, you won’t change it under any circumstances, will you?” It was obvious to the defendant’s lawyers and to the Judge that Holden would return to the matter.

  “No. I am quite positive. Bed by midnight always at the latest.” The line of questioning changed and the witness visibly cheered, thinking he was out of the wood.

  “Are you married?”

  “No, but I am engaged to be married.”

  “Your fiancée lives in Vitré?” The Frenchman looked blanched.

  “Yes,” he said cautiously.

  “She lives in a flat just off la rue Notre Dame, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes.” The witness’s tongue licked around his pursed lips.

  “She’s a nude model, isn’t she?”

  “She’s a model.”

  “Is this her?” Holden produced, with relish, a centre-fold from a French girlie magazine. Bouchin agreed. Duncan was pleased. This was the result of Hélène’s efforts sifting through pornographic material in French bookshops.

  “She hasn’t got very much on, has she? You would agree she’s a nude model, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your fiancée has lived in that flat for about twenty months, hasn’t she?” It was a shot in the dark but a carefully calculated risk by Holden who had no idea how long the girl had lived there.

  “Yes. Slightly more, I think. Twenty-two months, I believe.”

  “Very well, I won’t bandy words with you over a couple of months here or there. You told His Lordship that your route was from Nantes to Roscoff by way of Vannes?”

  Bouchin ran his hands down his lapels. Then he swayed and gripped hard at the edge of the witness box. He gabbled out an answer. “That’s the route I always use.”

  “Your fiancée had to leave Marans, didn’t she? She was pregnant, was she not?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suggest that in fact from the time that she moved to Vitré never once—never once—did you go to Roscoff by way of Vannes.”

  “I disagree.” Giles Holden ignored the denial.

  “You went from Nantes to Vitré, to Rennes, to Guingamp, to Morlaix and then to Roscoff.” The witness said nothing so the Q.C. continued. “Week in, week out, you stopped at Vitré, lunched and drank copiously with her and then spent a comfortable couple of hours or so in her flat before continuing your journey. Do you deny it?” he rasped. The translator took the sting out of the question but the hostility hung heavily. The lorry driver found no inspiration.

  “Do you deny it? Oui ou non?” barked the Q.C. across the room with startling effect.

  “Non,” came the solemn reply.

  “Then we are agreed on something. Your evidence as to your route has been a pack of lies.”

  “Yes.”

  “In fact you used the Vitré route on the day before the accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “Explain to His Lordship why you lied.”

  “I don’t know why.”

  “Then I will assist you.” Holden pushed his wig to one side in a jaunty manner. “You lied because going by Vitré your route was three hundred and ten miles long. Over five hundred kilometres.”

  “Yes.”

  “You lied because it’s illegal and a criminal offence both in England and in France for you to drive your lorry that distance in a day.”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr Holden,” interrupted the Judge, “If you’re persisting in this line of questioning, and I have no intention of stopping you, then I think the witness must be warned that he need not answer any questions which tend to incriminate him.”

  “Your Lordship is perfectly correct but I have nearly exhausted this subject.”

  “Nevertheless I propose giving the warning.” The Judge explained the position to the interpreter who passed on the
warning to the witness. He nodded his head.

  “M’Lud,” said Holden, glancing at the clock, “This might be a convenient moment?”

  “You have some way to go yet?”

  “M’Lud, yes. I am about to embark on a further aspect of this witness’s evidence.”

  “In that case, I agree. Shall we say ten minutes to two?”

  Outside the Court room the lawyers met. Roger Goodhart commented, “Thank you, Mr Holden. It was a pleasure to listen to you.”

  “Thank you,” Holden said modestly, “but it is your solicitor who has provided the bullets.” Duncan would like to have passed some credit down the line to Hélène, for she had found out about the fiancée’s child as well as getting copies of the pin-up photos.

  “I was very impressed with Mr Holden’s fluency in French,” Duncan replied. They all laughed but it died as Alice Goodhart joined her husband. Her face was drawn and humourless. Attempts to involve her in the case had been fruitless. She was detached from it all.

  *

  During the adjournment, Sandra Carter had arrived from Hastings. Duncan promised to speak to her when there was a suitable moment.

  “Now” continued Giles Holden, “We were talking about your route and the distance.”

  “Yes.”

  “You admit that on the day before this terrible accident you drove further than the lawful mileage?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had lunch at the Restaurant Bonne Route at Vitré, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Over lunch you drank a considerable quantity of wine and pastis?”

  “A safe amount. I wasn’t drunk,” the witness floundered, uncertain as to who had seen what and when. Somebody seemed to know far too much about him.

  “Answer the question, Monsieur Bouchin! You drank a considerable quantity of wine and pastis.”

  “Some red wine—a glass of pastis perhaps.”

  “In fact, Monsieur Bouchin,” Holden referred theatrically to his brief and read from it—“You drank, I suggest, a generous half of a large carafe of house red wine.” He paused again and referred to Alistair Duncan’s statement. “And two or three glasses of pastis. That’s your usual arrangement for lunch in Vitré, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” The witness, uncertain how much was really known, fell for the confidently asserted bluffs.

  “Now I want you to look at these photographs.” He handed round sets of photographs for everybody, showing the damage to the cab of the lorry. The witness, perhaps expecting something more incriminating seemed relieved that they were of nothing worse. Perhaps he had been thinking of the afternoon in the flat at Vitré.

  “You see” Holden said, pointing a finger “the almost straight line along the front of the lorry well below the cab-window level where the impact damage stopped?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a good bit below the front window, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Except for the broken windscreen.”

  “Now look at the next photo. It’s the interior. Study that photograph carefully, would you?” Everyone studied the photograph. “Does anything strike you as rather . . .” he paused, “odd, in that photograph?”

  “Odd? odd?” repeated the witness in French, playing for time. He shook his head vigorously. “No.”

  “Look at the radio/stereo unit. Do you see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s an expensive one, isn’t it? Worth a hundred pounds, anyway—say a thousand francs.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it damaged?”

  “No.”

  “It’s fitted into the dashboard, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Anyone can see that,” commented the witness defiantly, yet he was not feeling defiant. The lunch-time meat pasty rode heavily indigestible through his stomach.

  “Yes, anyone can see that,” replied the Q.C., unabashed “and anyone can also see that the face of every single dial on that dashboard is also smashed.” Everyone studied the photos.

  “Yes.” The witness blinked.

  “There are dials to the left and to the right of the radio?”

  “Yes.”

  “They were all smashed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet the expensive radio/stereo belonging to you with its glass face . . . is unscathed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you see nothing odd?”

  “No. The glass in the dials must have broken on impact. The perspex on the radio must have been tougher.”

  “You’ve noticed that the dials on the dashboard are much higher in the lorry than the line of impact damage on the outside?”

  “Yes, but I expect the force of the impact sent a shock wave through the cab, causing them all to shatter.”

  “So that is your explanation, is it?”

  “Yes.” He hoped it was the end of the matter. It was not.

  “Turn to photo seven. It’s a close-up of the dials. Do you see the water temperature gauge? Yes? The glass on that is badly cracked, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. The glass on that gauge is the only one which didn’t fall out completely by the look of it.”

  “Agreed. Perhaps it’s fortunate. Perhaps not. It shows, I suggest, that the glass broke or cracked as a result of a blow from above and not from below.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “You can see—can’t you?—the flaking of the glass in the centre of the dials. You can see where it was struck and has fragmented and cracked.”

  “I see what you mean but I don’t accept that it shows that the blow to that glass came from above. Furthermore I don’t see how it could have done. The car was so much lower.”

  “So it is odd?”

  “Only if the glass was struck from above—yes. Yes. That would be odd.”

  “Turn to photo eight. That’s the inside of the entire cab?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a crow-bar on the floor, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Used by you from time to time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ideal for smashing dials in your cab?”

  “Would you mind repeating the question?” the witness asked. The Judge groaned as the interpreter translated.

  “It could do it—yes. But I didn’t do it.”

  “Congratulations. You’re ahead of me. I haven’t asked that question. Yet.”

  “Look at photo four, would you? It’s a close-up of a broken dial. Rather a badly broken dial.”

  “Yes.”

  “It sustained the worst damage, didn’t it?” Bouchin’s trembling hand turned over the photos. The eyes saw but the brain absorbed nothing.

  “Yes.”

  “Which dial is that?”

  “It is the tachograph.”

  “I am sorry,” interposed the Judge.

  “A tachograph, m’Lud,” prompted the Q.C.

  “Oh yes, I have heard of them. Carry on, would you?”

  “Is it in part a speedometer?”

  “Yes.”

  “But is its main function to record automatically on a chart inside it, a driver’s driving record?”

  “Yes.”

  “With split-second accuracy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it record length of distance travelled?”

  “Yes.”

  “So this chart, if checked, would have recorded that you had driven too far in France?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does the chart also record the precise speed at which you are driving at any second?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have to maintain a record by tachograph in France as a matter of law?”

  “Yes.”

  “But not in England?”

  “No. You have the choice of using a chart in a tachograph or you can write up your records.”

  “Make up your records?” suggested the barrister.

  “Record what I
do in writing.” Bouchin’s sallow complexion was alive with perspiration.

  “In England your choice is to rely on an impeccable machine or to write up your own records from memory or convenience?”

  “That’s the choice in England. My records are accurate.”

  “Not so! On the day before the accident, you claim on your written records to have driven only two hundred and fifty miles. You have now admitted driving three hundred and ten miles. You are a persistent liar! You are a cheat! You are a fraud!”

  “No!”

  The Judge looked across at the witness with distaste.

  “You cannot deny that your records were written up after the accident to satisfy the English Police?”

  The room was silent. Everyone stared at the witness. His head was bowed. At last the answer came. “Yes.”

  “If the tachograph chart had been examined, the police would have realised that you had driven too far, wouldn’t they?”

  “Yes.” Bouchin’s face slumped until his chin and neck merged.

  “So you smashed the tachograph with the crow-bar. You made it look like an accident. You destroyed the evidence which it had recorded and deliberately wrote up false time-sheets.” He stopped until he was positive that the interpreter had stated the premise. “I dare you to deny it, Monsieur Bouchin.”

  He did not. “You’re right.”

  “You then systematically smashed the other dials to avoid suspicion?”

  “Yes.”

  “But couldn’t bring yourself to smash your own stereo outfit?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you did this before the police arrived at the scene?”

  “Yes. I pretended to be knocking the glass from the windscreen.”

  “You destroyed the tachograph chart because it would have shown that you failed to react to the emergency.”

  “It recorded the facts.”

  “Palatable or not.”

  “Yes.”

  “They were unpalatable facts.”

  “No. I had nothing to hide except the excessive distance driven in France.”

  “You are on oath, Monsieur Bouchin—for what it is worth. I repeat; you systematically set out to destroy the evidence of your speed.”

  “I deny it was my purpose.”

  “It was the effect.”

  “Yes.”

  “If the chart hadn’t been destroyed by you it would prove that your excessive driving, drinking and total lack of sleep over twenty four hours had blurred your reactions so that you failed to cope.”