A Friend in Deed

by G D Harper

  Jeremy stood up as a signal that the meeting was at an end. ‘I’ll prepare my submission while my clerk drafts your affidavit. I’ll see you on the steps of the High Court at one thirty. Here’s my card with my telephone number if you need to talk to me before that. Do you have any questions?’

  His clerk came in, a bookish young woman with horn-rimmed glasses.

  ‘Janet, Mr Jones needs to prepare a sworn affidavit. Can you assist him and track down a notary to witness it?’

  She gave a demure smile and said it would be done straight away. Jeremy ushered Tristian and me out of his office and I went off to prepare the documents.

  * * *

  I arrived at the court in plenty of time. Tristian had said he’d get there as soon as he could, as he had a prior engagement. Jeremy arrived at 1:45, fifteen minutes late, no apology. Customer service was apparently not a high priority in this part of the world.

  ‘We’ll have to go straight in,’ Jeremy informed me. ‘Doesn’t do to keep the judge waiting.’

  I scuttled along behind him as he strode purposefully through the labyrinth of corridors before arriving at the designated courtroom. It had the full paraphernalia of criminal dock, witness box, jury bench and judge’s chair, an empty public gallery behind us. I started to feel intimidated. The other lawyers were already there, six of them, their leading silk in his magisterial pomp, exuding gravitas and confidence.

  Jeremy was flicking anxiously through his papers like he had lost something, his eyebrows leaping up and down like dancing caterpillars. Tristian arrived, nodded a hello, then sat behind me and stared into space, like he was in a trance. It felt like Raith Rovers were taking on Real Madrid.

  Janet sidled in at the last minute and handed Jeremy a lever arch file. He opened it up and looked relieved when he glanced inside. I was glad he wasn’t defending me in a murder case. The judge arrived with due pomp and ceremony and after the formalities were over, Jeremy stood up and mechanically and laboriously read out word for word what was in the folder in front of him. Impenetrable legalese about the mechanics of going to trial, as far as I could tell.

  ‘And so, I humbly submit to Your Lordship, that due process should be allowed to take its course. My client should be allowed to publish his accusations freely and openly, fully aware that any mendacity on his part will ensure the full force of the law is brought to bear on him and he will be punished accordingly.’

  Not exactly the ringing endorsement of the veracity of my story and the impassioned defence of free speech I was looking for.

  ‘I thought he was supposed to be on my side,’ I whispered to Janet. I was sure I detected a flicker of amusement trying to break through her ice-maiden expression.

  The opposing barrister rose up with regal splendour to make his arguments.

  ‘The Crown is of the opinion that this article by Mr Jones is nothing more than a reckless canard, a flight of fancy which attempts to undermine the nation’s security and is an indiscriminate and irresponsible attempt to sow discord and animosity towards the government.’ He enunciated every syllable, making every word appear to be dripping with deep significance. ‘I respectfully submit an affidavit from the Attorney General stating this to be the case. Under section two, clause one of the Dissemination of Terrorism Act, I would ask Your Lordship to extend the current order, until the threat to public order represented by this article can be addressed by the court in due course by full legal process.’ He nodded his agreement to himself and settled his ample posterior back in his seat.

  ‘All rise,’ said the usher.

  Totally nonplussed, I got to my feet as the judge left.

  ‘Was that it?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t there, like, a cross-examination or something?’

  ‘No, that would be for the trial,’ replied Jeremy. ‘But risky strategy that, relying on the judge to interpret the Act in that way. Now we wait.’

  ‘For what? Between the two of you, you’ve uttered less than a thousand words.’

  The courtroom door opened. ‘You’re right, Mr Jones. The judge is returning,’ Jeremy said.

  The usher called for us to stand as the judge re-entered the courtroom. He sat down and glared at the barrister for the Crown.

  ‘Your argument, Mr Davidson, relies exclusively on the Attorney General’s affidavit that the article under discussion is in breach of the Dissemination of Terrorism Act. And under the provisions of that Act, the affidavit of the Attorney General is, de facto, grounds for the injunction to be upheld, along with the conjoint injunction barring discussion of the banning order.’

  Davidson bowed his acknowledgement.

  The judge scowled again. ‘This is a perilous and sinister path the government is going down. When this case comes to court, and if the scenario of the defendant being found not guilty prevails, I would expect the consequences for the government to be very severe indeed. However, in the meantime, my hands are tied due to what I would characterise as the draconian provisions of the Act requiring the injunction to be extended if so requested by the Attorney General. I hereby extend the injunction for another four weeks, after which we shall reconvene to see if the Attorney General sees fit to withdraw his affidavit.’

  The judge turned to me.

  ‘Mr Jones, I continue this injunction until further proceedings in the case.’

  With that, he stood up and left.

  I staggered out of the courtroom in a state of shock. ‘So, if in four weeks the Attorney General hasn’t changed his mind, it gets extended again? And then again and again, until one day they bring me to court and decide whether I’m telling the truth? Is that what just happened?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Shocking really.’

  I wished Jeremy had put more outrage into his voice.

  ‘But of course, I will be happy to represent you at the next hearing, and perhaps we might get a more sympathetic reaction from the judge if the other side doesn’t do any more than restate the same case again.’

  ‘I hope so.’ A horrible thought struck me. ‘But that won’t require an extra fee, will it? After all, today took all of ten minutes and five of them were spent waiting for the judge to pop in and out of the courtroom.’

  Jeremy looked offended. ‘I’m sorry to say, yes, I’m afraid it will. The fee for today’s hearing was not predicated on the length of the hearing. I’m able to make some accommodation to reduce the fee to £5000 for the next hearing, but unfortunately, yes, there will have to be another fee.’

  ‘And five grand for the one after that? And the one after that? Every four weeks until it comes to trial?’

  ‘Worst case, yes. And if you decided to escalate this to the court of appeal, I’m afraid the costs would be even more severe. But I doubt if the judge will keep extending the injunctions indefinitely.’

  I returned home, despondent and depressed. I fired an email off to Bobbie to see if we could have a chat. It was after eight before she got my message; spring’s a busy time up in Scoraig, apparently. I could see she shared my pain over the Tanya revelations and my distress at being gagged by the State from telling my story. Even more so, being made bankrupt if I wanted to keep fighting it every four weeks.

  ‘Tanya always did seem too good to be true,’ she said. ‘But I’m appalled that we live in a country where the truth can be silenced so easily. How did that happen?’

  ‘I suppose the communication age has been a victim of its own success,’ I replied. ‘It became so easy for anyone to say anything and the consequences became so problematic, that there eventually had to be controls put into place. And Act Now! saw it as a chance to create a police state without anyone realising it. I need to give up on this and move on.’

  ‘I’ve never known you to be so defeatist, Duncan. That’s not like you.’

  ‘I know, but everything about this sickens me. Being deceived by Tanya, being manipulated by MI5, the bul
ly boy tactics of Act Now!, rip-off lawyers and ineffectual judges; sometimes you’ve got to realise that the odds are stacked against you. If the law’s geared up to stopping me from talking, and they’ve got the full might of the State behind them, there’s not a lot a one-man-band can do to stop them.’

  ‘One thing’s for sure. You can’t keep shelling out money on legal costs.’

  ‘Tell me about it. These bloody lawyers would drain me dry.’

  We finished on that unsatisfactory note, and I headed off to bed. In the middle of the night, a noise encroached on my subconscious. It was a Skype notification ping, and I staggered blearily into my study. It was Bobbie. Three o’clock in the morning. I clicked Accept.

  ‘Hi Duncan, sorry to wake you.’

  ‘It’s all right. I had to get up anyway, my computer was making a noise.’

  She ignored me. ‘There is another way you could get the story out. One that a lawyer might not have thought about. And one you’ve proved you’re good at.’

  My eyes were starting to focus now, and I could see Bobbie had a glimmer of a smile on her face.

  My interest was piqued. ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Write the truth as a novel. Roman-à-clef, remember? When you used my story about Michael as the inspiration for that bloody book of yours which brought the world crashing down. Get your author hat back on, tell the story as a work of fiction, get it talked about and eventually the true story will come out, like it did all those years ago.’

  ‘Except that the story led to an innocent man going to jail. In case you had forgotten.’

  ‘That’s not nice, Duncan. I’m only trying to help. What I’m saying is write a story, have people speculate about the truth. Don’t say it is the truth, but don’t deny it either. It might knock a hole through this ban you’re under.’

  ‘It’s a nice idea, but it would take too long. A year to write, even longer to get it edited and published. And that’s assuming I’ve even got it in myself to write something. I’ve not written any fiction for twenty years.’

  Bobbie shrugged. ‘Just a thought.’

  Then I felt a surge of excitement.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Who says it has to be a novel? It could be a play, even a radio play. I’d only have to write ten thousand words, not eighty. That could be done in months, if not weeks.’

  Bobbie nodded at my enthusiasm. ‘And you could do that? Write it as a play, I mean?’

  ‘I could try. There’s a lot of technical differences, but I’ve been around the block enough times to give it a go. And I was involved with the screen adaptation of Escape to Danger.’ I paused. ‘Yes, I could do it. Let me check with the lawyer, see if it could be published and performed. Then at least I’m trying something to get the story out.’

  When I checked, my cunning plan turned out not to be so cunning after all. Simply performing a re-enactment of my blog, changing the names and a few details here and there, didn’t get around the injunction, my lawyer told me. Despondently, I told Bobbie the bad news.

  ‘He said it had to be fundamentally different. To the point that nobody could reasonably assume that what I was saying was that Act Now! was under the control of the Russians. Which sort of defeats the point of the exercise. I could try to write something metaphorical, like Orwell’s Animal Farm, but the more obtuse I make the connection, the less likely it is to do the job I want it to do. And I’m not that sort of writer, I’m more of a real-life drama sort of scribe. Bit too old a dog to learn new tricks.’

  Bobbie made me promise to at least give it a try and so the next day I headed off to Soho House, found my favourite nook and sat down brainstorming idea after idea about how I could tell my story. Nothing. After two hours, my head was exploding and the size of the pile of torn-up sheets of paper thrown into my rucksack was depressing. I needed to clear my head, and headed off to the National Portrait Gallery.

  I almost subconsciously headed up to the Tudor Gallery. Henry was still there, and the portraits of Elizabeth I. The courtiers were looking as fierce and cunning as ever, taking on new significance as I thought of the dark forces behind the current government. Some things never change.

  The room had bittersweet memories – of my first encounter with Tanya and how completely I was taken in. Did I really think that my knowledge of Elizabethan England had been the reason a friendship developed? I thought of her jibe when she described my novels set in the 1970s as historical fiction. Despite everything, it still made me smile. Some of that chemistry must have been genuine, even back then, I tried to convince myself. I looked at the portrait of Sir Henry Lee, his eyes blazing with psychotic ruthlessness.

  ‘You’d fit right in with Act Now!,’ I told him.

  That was the thing about historical fiction these days. Much of it was really about the present. The thought unsettled me.

  I’d gone there to clear my head and all that was happening was that old memories were coming back, clogging up my thoughts, tearing at my emotions, making it impossible to think straight. I needed to escape. I headed down the stairs, passing through the post-war gallery on my way out. I stopped for a moment at the Clement Attlee painting. ‘A modest man, who had much to be modest about,’ was how Winston Churchill described him. But the painting showed something different. Attlee staring straight at the painter, a steely glint in his eyes, the grim determination of the man who had picked Britain up from the ashes of the Second World War and built the foundation of the Welfare State. All from a man who had the outward appearance of an introverted bank manager.

  I allowed myself a few minutes of contemplation of the painting and the man it was revealing to me, my favourite pastime in the gallery, the one I had been indulging with Peter Capaldi when Tanya first came along. I flipped open Attlee’s Wikipedia page on my phone to read more. Won the 1945 general election against all the odds, standing for Labour against Churchill, the war-time hero, and formed a majority government. Dark rumours from the establishment that other forces must be at work, it couldn’t be simply the will of the people that had swept Labour to power on a tide of populist measures which had appealed to the returning troops and their families. The main rumour being that Stalin was somehow behind the election victory, that it was part of the Soviet drive to achieve world domination.

  I reeled at the parallels to Act Now!. A political party gains power unexpectedly for the first time with a wave of radical populist measures that are secretly being orchestrated by the Russians. Not true in Attlee’s case, but a story that could be told as a work of fiction, almost exactly mimicking the events of the twenty-first century.

  ‘I’m sorry to do this to you, mate,’ I said to Attlee, ‘but I can’t be done for libelling the dead.’ I almost detected a twinkle of complicity in his eyes.

  I went back to Soho House, sat down at my computer, and set off exploring the depths of my imagination to make the story come to life.

  I had become a writer again.

  chapter fifteen

  The Ubiquitous Chip had hardly changed since it first opened in 1976, offering a radical alternative to the then typically stodgy and unhealthy Glasgow cuisine. Chips in Glasgow were still ubiquitous, but on the cobbled alleyway of Ashton Lane in the city’s West End, the restaurant had inspired a host of neighbouring cafés and restaurants, creating an eclectic bubble of international gastronomy, tucked away behind the busy thoroughfare of Byres Road.

  It had been three months since I’d first started writing the play and now I was ready to meet with Bobbie to discuss getting it performed. My train from London had arrived on time, but she had texted me to say that a jackknifed lorry was slowing her progress as she drove down from Scoraig. I took another sip of sparkling water and enjoyed the guttural Glaswegian banter all around me.

  ‘I telt him he was aboot as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit’, I heard one guy say to his fellow diners. A well-travelled Billy
Connolly one-liner that always made me chuckle.

  It had quite an impact on me when Bobbie walked in. We try to meet up at least once a year, but it had been a while since I’d made the long drive up to her remote Highlands home. Seeing her in Glasgow, our old stomping ground, with ghosts and memories in every corner, was overwhelming. Our embrace went on for thirty seconds, maybe more. When we separated, we smiled at each other like embarrassed teenagers.

  ‘Any more of that and they’ll be telling us to get a room,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve been thrown out of better places than this,’ Bobbie replied. ‘In fact, I have been told to leave here once before. A sense-of-humour failure at you writing about my debauched existence, and look where that led us.’ She laughed. ‘I hope history’s not about to repeat itself. Duncan, Duncan, what am I to do with you?’

  I tried to look sheepish. ‘We’re a bit older and wiser than we were back then. Well, older anyway. But there’s a difference. This play was your idea. You’ve got me into this mess, so you can get me out of it.’

  Bobbie rummaged in her bag and retrieved a printout.

  ‘Well, I’ve read it,’ she said. ‘And it’s great. Forget its purpose is to bring the Act Now! story out into the open, it’s a bloody good play. So, what’s the problem with getting it performed?’

  ‘Legality. Despite what my lawyer said about it being okay to put on a play about Clement Attlee being a Russian stooge, I’ve pitched it all over London and no one will touch it with a bargepole. The legislation behind the superinjunction is unbelievably strict. People have no idea what sort of repressive police state we live in now. So that’s when I thought of Scotland.’

  ‘Let me get this straight. You want to put the play on in Scotland, where Act Now! isn’t the government, and hope that the different legal system waters down the injunction’s impact? And you want me to dust off my little black book and see if I know of any theatre directors who might like to take the risk of heading to jail with you by deciding to stage it? At least you told me beforehand, rather than dropping a bombshell like the last time we met here.’