At the Dark Hour

by John Wilson

  – But we can’t get married!

  – Why ever not?

  – Because I’m not divorced. Graham’s petition was dismissed, remember? And he had to pay all my costs.

  Bateman had laughed with delight and Adam and Jones had joined in. For Adam, it had represented, with the Novak acquittal, one of the two highest points in his career. Bateman turned to him.

  – Here, Mr Falling. I’m thinking of getting some tickets to the Cup Final at Wembley on Saturday week, would you and Jones like to come?

  – I don’t know. Who’s playing?

  – Arsenal and Preston North End.

  By then his ordeal would be over and he would have nothing else to look forward to.

  – Why not. Thanks.

  He turned to Jones with a quiet aside.

  – Thank you sincerely for all your help on this. I couldn’t have done it without you.

  – I’m not sure I did that much.

  – I’m afraid I left it very late to work out what was going on.

  – You worked it out. That was the main thing.

  – I mean I left you with precious little time to find the documents.

  – Oh, it wasn’t too difficult. We all knew about the inquest notes, and once Mr Bateman gave us his authority it was relatively straightforward. And, of course, he had kept the letter enclosing the cheque, and he had a copy of the insurance policy. Said he had plans to frame it. The only potential headaches were in getting hold of the application form that McKechnie had filled out. That had been sent to archive and sometimes they can take several days, if not weeks, to get hold of.

  – Well, it was a stroke of luck that you could get hold of it so quickly.

  Jones had been on the point of putting his pint mug to his lips when Adam said this. He paused abruptly and put the glass down and looked into Adam’s eyes, confused.

  – But I thought you knew …

  – Knew what?

  – Blytheway telephoned me about ten days ago. He said that he thought you were doing a marvellous job on Bateman’s case and that you would probably be asking me to get hold of the application form. He told me to say to Bateman that it was routine but that sometimes these things take time. And so I did.

  – Why didn’t you say anything to me about it?

  – I thought you knew.

  – Didn’t you have any idea why he thought you should get hold of it?

  – Listen, Mr Falling. I’ve seen enough of what he can do. I didn’t feel any need to ask questions.

  ****

  Adam had almost reached Trafalgar Square. He looked at his watch again. It was almost noon. He made his way down Whitehall until he reached the Red Lion, and stepped inside. He needed a drink. Sitting at one of the tables with a weak pint of bitter in his hand, he thought again about Blytheway’s intervention in the Bateman case. Why hadn’t he said anything? He was clearly following the money. He had been thinking about this question ever since that exchange with Jones and the only explanation he could come up with was that Roly had trusted him to get there in the end.

  It was 12.25 and time to leave. He took his glass back to the bar, lit up another cigarette as he was leaving and headed for the little restaurant.

  He had put a telephone call through to Catherine on the Monday evening. The elation from the day’s events had given him the necessary confidence to do so. She had been preparing to bed down for the night. Deborah was already asleep so he was not able to speak with her. The conversation was inevitably stilted but he persuaded her to meet him. He needed to discuss Deborah. Was it wise to allow her to come back to London? Catherine’s tone was cold but polite. She would meet him during her lunch hour on the Wednesday. She could only manage forty-five minutes. It was very busy at the Board of Trade.

  He pushed open the door and entered. The place was already almost full and the noise of conversation and the sound of knives, forks and plates hit him. He struggled to locate her within the crowded room. Then he saw her, sitting in a half-hidden alcove towards the back. Once he had found her it was as though there was no one else in the room. She was wearing an elegant dark twin-set. Mauve. Her legs were crossed at the knee and she was reading. Before her was a plate of bangers and mash and a cup of tea. Untouched. In the place opposite her was the same lunch. She had not seen him come in. She was reading something. He had almost reached the table before she looked up and saw him.

  She folded the book closed and placed it on her side plate before rising to her feet. He tried to kiss her on the cheek but she moved her head out of the way. She was not smiling.

  – I ordered us both some lunch. You never used to arrive anywhere on time.

  – I thought I was a few minutes early.

  – Look. I haven’t got much time. Can we get this over with please?

  – What are you reading?

  She sighed and held up the book so that he could see the cover – Political and Economic Democracy by Max Ascoli and Fritz Lehman – and scooped her fork into the mashed potato.

  – I hope it’s got a good plot. It doesn’t look as though it has.

  – It’s a selection of essays. Someone was able to get it from New York. Roosevelt’s New Deal and all that,

  she said with her mouth full.

  – I don’t know much about that. Tell me about it.

  – I’m sure you don’t, Adam. And no, I won’t. I don’t have the time or the inclination. What do you want?

  – Here’s some more money for you and Deborah.

  He handed over fifteen pounds.

  – A pay-rise?

  she said, raising an eyebrow as she chewed on a sausage.

  – Look. I’m sorry that I haven’t been giving you more but you know what our finances are like. But I am expecting a cheque on a case very soon. It has eased the pressure.

  – Yes. I heard about that. Apparently, you have not only beaten Preston in a case but you got one over on Pemberton earlier this week. If things weren’t as they are between us I could almost have been proud of you. Arrogant, conceited snobs!

  – How do you know about that?

  – Jack told me. Seems that whatever else your colleagues think about you they are universally pleased that they both got their comeuppance.

  – When did you see Jack?

  – Eat your bangers and mash. It’s getting cold and I want to get back to work. You wanted to talk about Deborah?

  Catherine had almost finished her meal and he hadn’t even started. She did not look at him as she waited for him to answer. The outfit she was wearing was new, he thought, and although she had lost a little weight she appeared to be in good health. She had not been so assertive since they were at Cambridge together. Since they had married. She looked less pale than she had done at the funeral. And younger than he remembered. She had emptied her plate and was starting on her tea.

  – Is that a new suit?

  – Eat your lunch!

  – I don’t think I’ve seen it before.

  – I treated myself. Get on with it.

  – Do you think it is altogether wise for Deborah to come back to London? Why couldn’t it wait until the blitz was over, one way or another?

  Catherine put down her cup and sighed and looked properly into his eyes for the first time. Deep brown. He had forgotten how lovely they were.

  – She’s my daughter too, you know. I only want what’s best for her. You know what happened to Jenny. And now to Margaret. I’m just worried for her safety.

  – Has she told her about what was happening out there?

  – I think so. She was telling me about it at the funeral.

  – I suspect she was giving you the potted version – or you would be more worried about that than you sound.

  – I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  – It was that man we used to call “the gypsy”. Of course, he wasn’t a gypsy at all; he just looked a bit wild and so that’s where we found the nickname for him.

  Adam groaned
and put his head in his hands, looking through his fingers at his rapidly cooling meal.

  – Oh, God! What has been happening?

  – I think it could have been worse. Did she tell you the story she told me at first? That he wanted to come into her room to talk with her after she had gone to bed so that she had to lock the door?

  – Yes. That isn’t good. But it could have been worse.

  – Our daughter is too sensible to be overly disconcerted by something like that, but I didn’t believe her. I had told Jack about my concerns and he said I should wait until Easter. And so I did. I went up there on Good Friday.

  She looked as though she might begin to cry. Adam waited her for to continue.

  – He was always letting her ride his horse. And it started off innocently enough. And then he wanted to help her into the saddle. For Christ’s sake! She isn’t thirteen yet! He was touching her where he shouldn’t touch her. And then he started coming around to her bedroom after she had turned the light out and saying he wanted to read her bedtime stories or give her a cuddle.

  – I can’t believe this.

  – Dear Deborah didn’t know what was going on – why should she? – but she knew that it wasn’t right. The man’s almost forty for heaven’s sake! So now do you understand why I brought her back?

  – Yes. But can we talk about putting her somewhere else away from this place?

  – Perhaps.

  – And may I see her?

  – I don’t believe I have any entitlement to stop you. If I did, you can rest assured that there is no guarantee that I would allow it.

  – May I buy her a new kitten? She wrote to me saying she wants one.

  – We’ll have to wait and see. Look, I must go now. You haven’t eaten a thing! I was hoping you would pay.

  Catherine began to rise and put her book in her bag.

  – How was Jack?

  – Fine.

  She clipped her bag shut.

  – You are going to pay, aren’t you?

  – Of course. Tell me about Jack. When did you see him?

  – Yesterday, if you must know. He’s staying with that friend of yours. I’m tempted to say that none of this is any of your business.

  She was turning to leave.

  – Does Deborah know about the trial?

  – Of course not!

  – Thank you, Catherine.

  – I can’t believe it! I don’t think you have any understanding of how much you have humiliated me!

  Then she turned her back on him and walked out.

  Chapter Ninety-three

  (Thursday 1st May 1941)

  Jeremy Pemberton KC edged his way into the narrow cubicle that was the chambers toilet, turned on the light, then closed and locked the door behind him. He pulled his fob watch out from his waistcoat and flipped it open. It was ten to eleven. He took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and polished the lenses with his handkerchief before settling them back on his nose and peering closely at himself in the mirror. He had lost weight and he had aged. The skin of his cheeks lay in folds, but since the last time he had studied himself closely it had also begun to look puffy and unhealthy. He put his watch back in his pocket and lifted his hand to his face, tugging at it. He was fifty-five. He looked into his eyes. They were bloodshot behind his spectacles. Not very. But sufficiently so for anyone with more than average powers of observation. There was nothing average, however, about Sir Patrick Tempest KC.

  There had been a small mention of the Bateman case in Tuesday’s Times:

  “Before Mr Justice Caraway. HIS LORDSHIP gave judgment for the Respondent and Co-Respondent, by consent, in this action in which Mr Graham McKechnie petitioned his wife, Mrs Victoria McKechnie for divorce on the grounds of adultery citing Mr Arnold Bateman. The Respondent and Co-Respondent had, by late amendment, admitted adultery but pleaded condonation. Mr McKechnie agreed to pay Mrs McKechnie’s costs. There was otherwise no order as to costs. Mr Jeremy Pemberton KC with whom was Mr R. Perkins for the Petitioner, Mr D. Farquarson for the Petitioner and Mr A. Falling for the Co-Respondent.”

  The press had been all over it and, although the report was short, Pemberton knew that it would have been noted by everyone around the Temple. They all read the law reports, however brief. It wasn’t as though the case warranted any sort of mention. There was only one reason why so many journalists had come to this … to this … non-event: a bigger story lay behind it. He felt again that bitter humiliation and remembered McKechnie’s caustic criticism as they parted company at the entrance to the Royal Courts of Justice.

  – I’m the one that’s got to pay for this mess, remember!

  So Jeremy Pemberton KC hailed a cab, went home and opened a bottle of whisky.

  He took out his watch to check out the time again. It was five to eleven. He pulled a heavy glass bottle out of his trouser pocket and knocked back a shot of Listerine, gargling for thirty seconds before spitting it into the sink. He turned on the cold tap and splashed his face before drying off with the hand towel. Pemberton smoothed his lapels in the mirror. From his other pocket he took out a bottle of Four Seven Eleven and dabbed the eau de cologne onto his cheeks. Leaving the toilet he returned to his room, put both bottles in a drawer, and then went downstairs and exited Stirrup Court. The sun was shining out of a blue sky and a gentle breeze caressed his face.

  It was a short walk to 11, King’s Bench Walk and the chambers of Sir Patrick Tempest KC. Tempest was sixty-one and six years Pemberton’s senior, but he had been in silk since 1919, ten years before Pemberton himself received his Letters Patent from the Lord Chancellor. Sir Patrick Tempest KC was a legend. He had been brought up on the advocacy of Sir Edward Carson, Rufus Isaacs and Henry Duke. He had sparred frequently with Sir Edward Marshall Hall KC and did much work for whichever party formed the government of the day. It was this work that had led to his knighthood. However, he was equally at home in the criminal courts, the Chancery Division, fashionable libel actions and, of course, the divorce courts. He was also very expensive. Sir Patrick Tempest KC had not succumbed to the convention of acting for nothing for other members of the Bar. And Pemberton had to accept that it was not a convention that he himself tended to observe.

  Pemberton had been more shaken at losing the Bateman case that he could even admit to himself. He questioned his judgment and fretted about the ordeal that awaited him under Blytheway’s cross-examination. Blytheway had made a fool out of Preston, who had seemed shell-shocked on his return to chambers after Novak’s acquittal – more so after Blytheway secured a “not guilty” verdict for Katya Hoffer several weeks later. And so he had asked for an urgent consultation with his legal team to go through everything one final time before the trial began on Monday. Tempest had agreed, perhaps out of sympathy for a fellow member of the profession, for he was a very busy man.

  Pemberton entered 11, King’s Bench Walk and walked up to the first floor. Mr Franklin, his solicitor, of Franklin, Warnock and Cattermole, was already sitting in the waiting room. He had barely had time to shake hands and sit down before the senior clerk entered and invited them to follow him to Tempest’s room. He opened the door into a room that was spacious and bright. The walls were lined with the law reports and textbooks and the lower shelves with a multitude of briefs, some tied in pink ribbons and others – his government work – tied in white. They bore testimony to his great popularity.

  Tempest rose from behind his large desk as the door opened and came round to greet them. He was a tall, rangy man with a full head of silvery hair. Expensive chalk-striped suit and brightly polished shoes. His junior, a Mr Eliot, also rose from a far smaller desk, but said nothing.

  – Jeremy!

  he said, proffering his hand.

  – I know we are not supposed to shake hands or address one another so informally but you and I have known each other so long – crossed swords so often – that it would feel wrong to do otherwise.

  – Thank you, Pat. And thank you for letting me come t
o see you at such short notice. It is good to see you.

  – I saw the report of the Bateman case. That must have hurt. But I wouldn’t take it too hard. We are only ever as good as our cases. Every member of the Bar, me included, has lost a case because a client has lied to us. There’s nothing we can do about that. Or rather, there is. One must simply get back into the saddle and write it off to experience. We are not magicians after all.

  – Thank you, Pat. You have obviously realised that was one of the reasons I wanted to see you.

  Pemberton could feel the other man’s eyes boring into him. There was a quizzical look on his mobile features as he gazed first into Pemberton’s eyes and then down across his face and his clothing. However, Tempest did not reveal his thoughts to his client or his solicitor.

  – I think I’m on top of everything but would be happy to go over any points that are giving you particular concern. I do, also, have some questions of my own. But let us deal with your points first.

  – I brought the inventories. I couldn’t remember whether you actually had an opportunity to consider them?

  – I did. And I think I have their details firmly in my mind. But let us go through them again.

  Pemberton pulled out four sheets of foolscap from an inside pocket and unfolded them.

  – These first two pages are an inventory I took of Falling’s books before he moved out. The other two are a list of Julia’s books that I compiled with the assistance of Samuels – he is my butler – when Julia was out. We went into her dressing room. I kept a key.

  – A key?

  – We had an unspoken convention between us that she would not come into my study and I would not go into her dressing room. Both of us locked the doors when we were out. But we both had keys to the other’s rooms.

  – Forgive me, Jeremy, but that does seem to me a little … caddish?