City of Spades (20 page)

‘Oh, really? Wheels within wheels, I see.’ Mr Zuss-Amor sat down again. ‘I won’t enquire why,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think it’ll make the slightest difference. If Vial takes on the case, he’ll go all out to win it for you. Shall I ask him, anyway?’

‘What is a junior, exactly?’

‘He’s not taken silk. Doesn’t mean a thing, though. Some of the best men don’t bother, because when they take silk their fees have to go up, and they lose a lot of clients. Better six cases at fifty guineas than one at two hundred, don’t you agree?’

‘And Vial’s the best man we can get?’

‘At the price you can pay, undoubtedly. Your young friend will have to see him some time, too. And before he does, there’s something else you might as well explain to him.’ Mr Zuss-Amor looked at the ceiling, then with his mouth open at me, then continued: ‘It’s a delicate matter: one laymen don’t always grasp at once. In a nutshell: to beat perjured evidence, you have to meet it with perjury.’

‘No, I don’t understand.’

‘I didn’t expect you would. However. Let me give you an instance. Suppose you walk out of this building and the Law arrests you on the doorstep for being drunk and disorderly in Piccadilly Circus while you were really talking here to me. What would you do?’

‘Deny it.’

‘Deny what?’

‘The whole thing.’

‘That’s the point: if they took you to court, you’d be most unwise. When they go into the box – and remember, there’s always more than one of them – and swear you were where you weren’t, and did what you didn’t, no jury will believe you if you deny their tale entirely.’

‘So what do I do?’

‘You say … having sworn by Almighty God, of course, like they have, to tell the whole truth, etcetera … you say that you
were
in Piccadilly Circus, yes, and you
had
taken one light ale, yes, but that you
weren’t
drunk or disorderly. In other words, you tag along with their story in its inessentials, but deny the points that can get you a conviction. If you do that, your counsel can suggest the Law had made an honest error. But if you deny everything they say, the jury will accept their word against yours.’

Mr Zuss-Amor shrugged, flung out his hands, and corrugated his brows into deep furrows.

‘So Johnny mustn’t deny all their story, but simply say he never took money from Dorothy, or had sex with her.

‘Particularly the former, of course. Yes, being an African, I don’t suppose he’ll mind damning his soul to get an acquittal. A lot of Christians do it. Is he one?’

‘I believe so.’

‘You can help him wrestle with his conscience, then. But do it before he sees Mr Vial. Because that’s what Vial will want him to say, but he won’t be able to put it so plain himself. It wouldn’t be etiquette, not for a barrister. Dirty work of that nature’s left to us solicitors, who really win the case by preparing it properly outside the court – that is, if it’s the sort of case that can be won.’

Mr Zuss-Amor bared all his teeth at me. I got up and shook his hand. ‘Thank you, Mr Zuss-Amor, you’ve made things wonderfully clear.’

He also rose. ‘They need to be,’ he said. ‘Trials are all a matter of tactics. I don’t know what happened, or if anything did happen, between that boy and that girl, any more than I suppose you really do. But believe me, when you listen to all the evidence in the court, you’ll be amazed to see how little relation what’s said there bears to what really occurred, so far as one knows it. It’s one pack of lies fighting another, and the thing is to think up the best ones, and have the best man there to tell them for you so that justice is done.’

He opened the frosted door and let me out.

The trial of Johnny Macdonald Fortune took place in a building, damaged in the Hitler war, which had been redecorated in a ‘contemporary’ style – light salmon wood, cubistic lanterns, leather cushions of pastel shades – that pleased none of the lawyers, officials or police officers who worked there. The courts looked too much like the boardrooms of progressive companies, staterooms on liners, even ‘lounges’ of American-type hotels, for the severe traditional taste of these professionals; and all of them, when they appeared there, injected into their behaviour an additional awesome formality to counteract the lack of majesty of their surroundings.

On the morning of the trial, Mr Zuss-Amor had a short conference with Mr Wesley Vial. In his wig and gown, Mr Vial was transformed from the obese, balding playboy of the queer theatrical parties he
loved to give at his flat near Marble Arch, into a really impressive figure; impressive, that is, by his authority, which proceeded from his formidable knowledge of the operation of the law, his nerves of wire, his adaptable, synthetic charm, his aggressive ruthlessness, and his total contempt for weakness and ‘fair play’. Mr Zuss-Amor, by comparison, seemed, in this décor, a shabby figure – like a nonconformist minister calling on a cardinal.

‘Who have we got against us?’ said Mr Zuss-Amor.

‘Archie Gillespie.’

‘As Crown counsel in these cases go, by no means a fool.’

‘By
no
means, Mr Zuss-Amor.’

The solicitor felt rebuked. ‘What was your impression of our client, Mr Vial?’

‘Nice boy. Do what I can for him, of course – but what? The trouble with coloured men in the dock, you know, is that juries just can’t tell a good one from a bad.’

‘Can they
ever
tell that, would you say?’

‘Oh, sometimes! Don’t be too hard on juries.’

‘We’ll be having some ladies, I believe.’

‘Excellent! He must flash all his teeth at them.’ Mr Vial turned over the pages of the brief. ‘There was nothing you could do with this Muriel Macpherson woman?’

‘Nothing. I even went out and saw her myself. She’s very sore with our young client, Mr Vial. Frankly, I think if we
had
called her, we’d have found ourselves asking permission to treat her as a hostile witness.’

‘“Hell hath no fury,” and so on. On the other hand, Gillespie tells me he’s not calling the sister Dorothy. Very 
wise of him. He’s relying on police evidence – which, I’m sorry to say, will probably be quite sufficient for his purpose.’

‘Pity you couldn’t have had a go at the woman Dorothy in the box, though, Mr Vial …’ The solicitor’s eyes gleamed.

‘Oh, best to keep the females out of it, on the whole. I’ll see what can be done with the two officers. I’ve met the Inspector in the courts before … always makes an excellent impression. Looks like a family man who’d like to help the prisoner if he could: deeply regrets having to do his painful duty. I don’t think I know the Detective-Constable …’

‘A new boy in the CID. Very promising in the Force, I’m told. Man of few words in the box, though. Difficult to shake him, I think you’ll find.’

Mr Vial put down the brief. ‘And yet, you know, it
should
be possible to shake them.’

‘If anyone can do it, you can.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I mean this charge: it’s bogus. Just look at it!’ (He held up the brief.) ‘It stinks to high heaven!’

‘You think this boy’s telling the truth – or part of it?’

‘I think he’s telling the whole of it. I pressed him hard at our little interview, as you saw. And what did he do? He lost his temper! I’ve never seen such righteous indignation! I’m always impressed by honest fury in a defendant.’

Mr Zuss-Amor nodded, frowned, and scratched his bottom. ‘Why do they do it, Mr Vial?’ he said. 

‘Why do who do what?’

‘Why do the police bring these trumped-up charges?’

‘Oh, well …’ The advocate sighed with all his bulk, and hitched his robe. ‘You know the familiar argument as well as I do. The accused’s generally done what they say he’s done, but not how they say he’s done it. The charge is usually true, the evidence often false. But in this case, I think both are phoney … Well, we’ll have to see …’

The two CID officers were having a cup of tea in the police room. ‘It’s your first case with us in the vice game,’ said the Inspector, ‘but you don’t have to let that worry you. The way to win a case, in my experience, is not to mind from the beginning if you lose it.’

‘But we shouldn’t lose this one, should we, sir?’

‘I don’t see how we can, Constable. But just remember what I told you. They’ll keep you outside until I’ve given evidence, of course, but you know what I’m going to say in its essential outlines. If they ask any questions in examination that we haven’t thought of, just say as little as possible: take your time, look the lawyer in the eye, and just say you don’t remember.’

‘He’s rough, isn’t he, Inspector, this Wesley Vial?’

‘That fat old poof? Don’t be afraid of him, son. He’s sharp, mind you, but if you don’t let him rattle you, there’s nothing he can do.’ The Inspector lit his Dunhill pipe. ‘It’s obvious what he’ll try,’ he continued. ‘He’ll make out that he accepts our story, but he’ll try to shake us on the details, so as to put a doubt into the jury’s mind.’

The Constable sipped his beverage. ‘They’re not 
likely to raise the question of that bit of rough stuff at the station, are they?’

‘Vial certainly won’t – he knows no jury would believe it. But the boy might allege something, even though Vial’s probably told him not to. Let’s hope he does do. It’d make a very bad impression on the court. Drink up now, Constable, we’re on in a minute or two.’

The Constable swallowed. ‘I’m sure you know best about not calling that girl Dorothy, sir. But don’t you think if we’d had her to pin it on him good and proper …’

‘Mr Gillespie said no, and I think he’s right. I’ve told her to keep out of the way and keep her trap shut till the trial’s over – and she will. You never know how it will be with women in the box: she may love this boy, for all we know, and might have spoken out of turn; and if we’d called her for the prosecution, we might have found ourselves with a hostile witness on our hands.’

In the public gallery, a little minority group of Africans was collecting: among them Laddy Boy, who’d brought an air cushion and a bag of cashew nuts; the Bushman, who’d got a front seat, leant on the railing and immediately gone to sleep; and Mr Karl Marx Bo, who planned to send by air mail a tendentious report on the trial to the Mendi newspaper of which he was part-time correspondent, if, as he hoped it would be, the result was unfavourable to the defendant.

Theodora and Montgomery arrived much too early, and sat in great discomfort on the benches that sloped steeply 
like a dress circle overlooking the well of the court. They wondered if they could take their overcoats off and, if so, where they could put them.

‘It doesn’t look very impressive,’ said Theodora. ‘It’s much too small.’

‘It looks exactly like Act III of a murder play. Which is the dock?’

‘Just underneath us, I expect.’

‘So we won’t see him.’

‘We will when he’s giving evidence,’ said Theodora. ‘That’s the witness-box there on the right.’

‘Box is the word for it. It looks like an upended coffin.’

Mr Wesley Vial met Mr Archie Gillespie in the lawyers’ lavatory. ‘I do hope, Wesley,’ the Crown counsel said, ‘your man’s English will be comprehensible. I take it you’ll be putting him in the box?’

‘Time alone will show, Archie. But if you want any evidence taken in the vernacular, we can always put in for an interpreter and prolong matters to your heart’s content.’

‘No, thank you,’ said Mr Gillespie. ‘Crown counsel don’t draw your huge refreshers.’ He dried his hands. ‘Who’s the judge?’

‘Old Haemorrhoids.’

‘My God. It would be.’

The lawyers looked at each other resignedly. There was a distant shout, and they adjusted their wigs like actors who’ve heard the call-boy summon them to the stage.

Johnny Fortune had been brought up from Brixton to the court in one of those police vans where the prisoners half sit in metal boxes, hardly larger than themselves. They’d arrived more than an hour before the case began, and the court jailer, after searching him yet again, said, ‘Well, we won’t put you in the cells unless you really want to go there. If I leave you in the room here, will you behave yourself?’

‘Of course.’

‘You want some cigarettes?’

‘They not let me take any of my money.’

‘Oh, pay me when you’re acquitted!’ said the jailer with a hearty laugh, and gave Johnny Fortune a half-filled pack of Woodbines and a cup of purple tea. ‘I see you’ve got Vial,’ he went on. ‘That’ll cost you a bit, won’t it? Or should I say’ – the jailer laughed roguishly – ‘cost your little lady and her customers?’

Johnny stood up. ‘Mister, put me in your cells. I do not wish your tea or want your Woodbine.’

‘No offence, lad, don’t be so touchy. I know you all have to say you’re innocent – I get used to it here. Come on, keep them – you’ve got an hour to wait.’ The jailer patted his prisoner on the shoulder, and went over to gossip with a lean, powdered female constable in civilian dress, who, as they talked, looked over the jailer’s shoulder at the folds in Johnny Fortune’s trousers.

Everyone stood, and the judge came in wearing a wig not of the Gilbert and Sullivan variety, but a short one, slightly askew, that made him look like Dr Johnson’s 
younger brother. The jury was new, and the case their first, so they had to be sworn in by the usher. Two of them were women: a WVS housewifely person, and the other with a beret and a tailored suit whose nature it was impossible to guess at. A male juror turned out, when he swore, to be called ‘Ramsay Macdonald’, on hearing which Mr Vial made a slight histrionic gesture of impressed surprise to Mr Gillespie, who ignored him.

One of the two policemen in the dock nudged Johnny, and he stood. The clerk, a quite young man with a pink, pale face, read out the charge in a voice like an Old Vic juvenile’s; and when he asked Johnny how he pleaded, looked up at him, across the court, with a pleading expression on his own wan face.

‘I plead not guilty.’

Mr Zuss-Amor, flanking his advocate, twitched his shoulders slightly. You never could tell with defendants: he’d even known them get the plea wrong at the outset.

Mr Archie Gillespie’s opening statement of the case for the Queen against the prisoner was as methodical as one would expect from a Scottish lawyer of vast experience and entire integrity. He had the great psychological advantages of believing the facts in the brief that he’d been given, or most of them, and of being quite dispassionate in his advocacy. He had no feeling of animosity towards the prisoner whatever, and this made him all the more deadly.

He began by explaining to the jury what living on the immoral earnings of a common prostitute consisted 
of. It was a distasteful subject, and a painful duty for the members of the jury to have to hear about it. But they were, he did not doubt, men and women of ripe experience, to whom he could speak quite frankly. Very well, then. As everyone knew, there were, unfortunately, such women as common prostitutes – selling their bodies for gain (Mr Gillespie paused, and gazed at a female juror, who licked her lips) – in our society; women whose odious commerce was – subject to certain important restrictions – not actually illegal, however reprehensible on moral grounds. But what
was
illegal – and highly so, and he would say more, revolting and abhorrent – was the practice of certain men – if one could call them men – of battening on these wretched creatures, and living on the wages of their sin; and even, in a great many cases – though he would not necessarily say it was so in the present instance – even of forcing them out on to the streets against their wills. It was not for nothing, said Mr Gillespie, removing his spectacles a moment, that such men, in the speech of a more robust age, had been known as ‘bullies’.

The judge manifested a slight impatience, and Mr Gillespie took the hint. He explained to the jury that two police officers would tell them how observation had been kept on one Dorothea Violet Macpherson, a known and convicted common prostitute, who had been seen, on several nights in succession, to accost men in Hyde Park, receive sums of money from them, entice them into the undergrowth, and there have carnal knowledge of them. These officers would further tell the members 
of the jury how the said Dorothea Violet Macpherson was subsequently followed to an address in Immigration Road, Whitechapel, where she lived in two rooms with the accused. (Here Mr Gillespie paused, and spoke more slowly.) These officers would then tell how, on a number of occasions when observation was kept on the accused and on the said Dorothea Violet Macpherson, she was seen to hand over to him large sums of money that had come into her possession through her immoral commerce in the purlieus of Hyde Park.

The Crown counsel now glanced at Mr Vial, who sat looking into the infinite like a Buddha. ‘No doubt my learned friend here will suggest to you,’ he declared, ‘that the accused was not present on these occasions or, alternatively, that the sums of money in question were not passed over to him or, alternatively again, that if they were, they were not those proceeding from the act of common prostitution.’ Mr Gillespie waited a second, as if inviting Mr Vial to say just that: then continued, ‘It will be for you, members of the jury, to decide on whose evidence you should rely: on that of the witness, or witnesses, that may be brought forward by the defence, or on that of the two experienced police officers whom I am now going to call before you.’

The Detective-Inspector walked in with a modest, capable and self-sufficient mien. He took the oath, removed a notebook from his pocket, and turned to face his counsel.

‘Members of the jury,’ said Mr Gillespie. ‘You will observe that the Detective-Inspector is holding a small 
book. Inspector, will you please tell the court what this book is?’