Mightier Than the Sword (40 page)

As he sat there waiting, waiting for he knew not what, Harry’s thoughts turned to Emma, as they had done so often between stolen moments of sleep. Would she understand why he couldn’t sign the confession and allow them to hammer another nail into Babakov’s coffin? He wondered how her own trial was progressing, and felt guilty for not being by her side.

His thoughts were interrupted when a door on the far side of the room swung open and seven women and five men entered and sat in their allocated places, giving the distinct impression this wasn’t the first time they had performed the task.

Not one of them as much as glanced in his direction, which didn’t stop Harry staring at them. Their blank faces suggested they had only one thing in common: their minds had been confiscated by the State, and they were no longer expected to have opinions of their own. Even in that moment of darkness, Harry reflected on what a privileged life he’d led. Was it possible that among these blank-faced clones there was a singer, an artist, an actor, a musician, even an author, who had never been given the opportunity to express their talent? Such is the lottery of birth.

Moments later, two other men entered the room, made their way to the front bench and sat down, facing the stage, with their backs to him. One of them was in his fifties, far better dressed than anyone else in the room. His suit fitted, and he had an air of confidence that suggested he was the sort of professional even a dictatorship requires if a regime is to run smoothly.

The other man was much younger, and kept looking around the courtroom as if he was trying to find his bearings. If these two were the counsel for the state and for the defense, it wasn’t difficult for Harry to work out which of them would be representing him.

Finally, the door behind the platform opened so the principal actors could make their entrance: three of them, one woman and two men, who took their seats behind the long table on the center of the stage.

The woman, who must have been about sixty and had fine gray hair tightly pinned up in a bun, could have been a retired headmistress. Harry even wondered if this had once been her classroom. She was clearly the most senior person present because everyone else in the room was looking in her direction. She opened the file in front of her and began to read out loud. Harry silently thanked his Russian tutor for the hours she’d spent making him read the Russian classics before getting him to translate whole chapters into English.

“The prisoner”—Harry had to assume she was referring to him, although she had not once acknowledged his presence “recently entered the Soviet Union illegally”—Harry would have liked to take notes, but he hadn’t been supplied with a pen or paper so he would have to rely on his memory, assuming he would even be given the chance to defend himself—“with the sole purpose of breaking the law.” She turned to the jury and did not smile. “You, comrades, have been selected to be the arbiters of whether the prisoner is guilty or not. Witnesses will come forward to assist you in making that judgement.”

“Mr. Kosanov,” she said, turning to face counsel, “you may now present the State’s case.”

The older of the two men seated on the front bench rose slowly to his feet.

“Comrade commissioner, this is a straightforward case that should not trouble the jury for any length of time. The prisoner is a well-known enemy of the State, and this is not his first offense.”

Harry couldn’t wait to hear what his first offense had been. He soon found out.

“The prisoner visited Moscow some five years ago as a guest of our country and took cynical advantage of his privileged status. He used the opening speech at an international conference to mount a campaign for the release of a self-confessed criminal who had previously pleaded guilty to seven offenses against the State. Anatoly Babakov will be well known to you, comrade commissioner, as the author of a book about our revered leader, Comrade Chairman Stalin, for which he was charged with seditious libel and sentenced to twenty years’ hard labor.

“The prisoner repeated these libels despite the fact that it was pointed out to him on more than one occasion that he was breaking the law”—Harry couldn’t recall that, unless the scantily dressed young woman who’d visited him in his hotel room in the middle of the night was meant to have delivered the message, along with the bottle of champagne—“but for the sake of international relations, and to demonstrate our magnanimity, we allowed him to return to the West, where this kind of libel and slander is part of everyday life. We sometimes wonder if the British remember we were their allies during the last war and that our leader at the time was none other than Comrade Stalin.

“Earlier this year, the prisoner traveled to the United States for the sole purpose of making contact with Babakov’s wife, who defected to the West days before her husband was arrested. It was the traitor, Yelena Babakov, who told the prisoner where she had hidden a copy of her husband’s seditious book. Armed with this information, the prisoner returned to the Soviet Union to complete his mission: locate the book, smuggle it back to the West, and have it published.

“You may ask, comrade commissioner, why the prisoner was willing to involve himself in such a risky venture. The answer is quite simple. Greed. He hoped to make a vast fortune for himself and Mrs. Babakov by peddling these libels to whoever would publish them, even though he knew the book was pure invention from beginning to end, and written by a man who’d only met our revered former leader on one occasion when he was a student.

“But thanks to some brilliant detective work carried out by Colonel Marinkin, the prisoner was arrested while trying to escape from Leningrad with a copy of Babakov’s book in his overnight bag. In order that the court can fully understand the lengths to which this criminal was willing to go to undermine the State, I will call my first witness, Comrade Colonel Vitaly Marinkin.”

38

E
MMA THOUGHT
her legs would give way as she walked the short distance to the witness box. When the clerk of the court handed her a Bible, everyone could see her hands were shaking, and then she heard her voice.

“I swear by Almighty God that the evidence I give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”

“Would you please state your name for the record,” said Mr. Trelford.

“Emma Grace Clifton.”

“And your occupation?”

“I am chairman of the Barrington Shipping Company.”

“And how long have you been chairman of that distinguished company?”

“For the past eleven years.”

Emma could see Mr. Trelford’s head jerking from right to left, and then she recalled his words, “Listen to my questions carefully, but always address your answers to the jury.”

“Are you married, Mrs. Clifton?”

“Yes,” said Emma, turning to the jury, “for nearly twenty-five years.”

Mr. Trelford would have liked her to add, “My husband Harry, our son Sebastian, and my brother Giles are all present in the court.” She could then turn to face them and the jury would realize they were a happy and united family. But Harry wasn’t there, in fact Emma didn’t even know where he was, so she continued to look at the jury. Mr. Trelford moved quickly on. “Can you please tell the court when you first met Lady Virginia Fenwick?”

“Yes,” said Emma, returning to her script, “my brother Giles…” This time she did look across at him, and like an old pro, he smiled first at his sister and then at the jury. “My brother Giles,” she repeated, “invited my husband Harry and myself to dinner to meet the woman he’d just become engaged to.”

“And what was your first impression of Lady Virginia?”

“Stunning. The kind of beauty you normally associate only with film stars or glamorous models. It quickly became clear to me that Giles was totally infatuated with her.”

“And did you, in time, become friends?”

“No, but to be fair we were never likely to become bosom pals.”

“Why do you say that, Mrs. Clifton?”

“We didn’t share the same interests. I’ve never been part of the hunting, shooting, and fishing set. Frankly, we come from different backgrounds, and Lady Virginia mixed in a circle I would never normally have come across.”

“Were you jealous of her?”

“Only of her good looks,” said Emma with a broad grin. This was rewarded with several smiles from the jury box.

“But sadly, your brother and Lady Virginia’s marriage ended in divorce.”

“Which didn’t come as a surprise, at least not to anyone on our side of the family,” said Emma.

“And why was that, Mrs. Clifton?”

“I never felt she was the right person for Giles.”

“So you and Lady Virginia didn’t part as friends?”

“We’d never been friends in the first place, Mr. Trelford.”

“Nevertheless, she came back into your life a few years later?”

“Yes, but that wasn’t by my choice. Virginia started buying a large number of Barrington’s shares, which came as a surprise to me, as she’d never previously shown any interest in the company. I didn’t give it a great deal of thought until the company secretary informed me that she owned seven and a half percent of the stock.”

“Why was seven and a half percent so important?”

“Because it entitled her to a place on the board.”

“And did she take up that responsibility?”

“No, she appointed Major Alex Fisher to represent her.”

“Did you welcome this appointment?”

“No, I did not. From the first day, Major Fisher made it abundantly clear that he was only there to carry out Lady Virginia’s wishes.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Certainly. Major Fisher would vote against almost any proposal I recommended to the board, and often came up with his own ideas, which he must have known could only damage the company.”

“But in the end, Major Fisher resigned.”

“If he hadn’t, I would have sacked him.”

Mr. Trelford frowned, not pleased that his client had come off-piste. Sir Edward smiled and made a note on the pad in front of him.

“I would now like to move on to the AGM held at the Colston Hall in Bristol, on the morning of August twenty-fourth, 1964. You were in the chair at the time, and—”

“Perhaps Mrs. Clifton can tell us in her own words, Mr. Trelford,” suggested the judge. “And not be continually prompted by you.”

“As you wish, my lady.”

“I had just presented the annual report,” said Emma, “which I felt had gone rather well, not least because I had been able to announce the date for the launch of our first luxury liner, the MV
Buckingham
.”

“And if I recall,” said Trelford, “the naming ceremony was to be performed by Her Majesty the Queen Mother—”

“Clever, Mr. Trelford, but don’t try my patience.”

“I apologize, my lady, I just thought—”

“I know exactly what you were thinking, Mr. Trelford. Now please let Mrs. Clifton be her own spokesman.”

“At the end of your speech,” said Trelford, turning back to his client, “you took questions from the floor?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And among those who asked a question was Lady Virginia Fenwick. As the outcome of this trial rests on that exchange, I will, with your permission, my lady, read out to the court the words spoken by Mrs. Clifton that are the cause of this trial. In reply to a question from Lady Virginia she said, ‘If it was your intention to bring the company down, Lady Virginia,… then you have failed, and failed lamentably, because you were defeated by decent ordinary people who want this company to be a success.’ Now that you hear those words again in the cold light of day, Mrs. Clifton, do you regret them?”

“Certainly not. They were nothing more than a statement of fact.”

“Then it was never your intention to defame Lady Virginia?”

“Far from it. I simply wanted the shareholders to know that Major Fisher, her representative on the board, had been buying and selling the company’s shares without informing me or any other of his colleagues.”

“Quite so. Thank you, Mrs. Clifton. No more questions, my lady.”

“Do you wish to cross-examine this witness, Sir Edward?” asked Mrs. Justice Lane, well aware of what his answer would be.

“I most certainly do, my lady,” said Sir Edward, rising slowly from his place and adjusting his ancient wig. He checked his first question before leaning back and giving the jury his most avuncular smile, in the hope that they would look upon him as a respected family friend from whom everyone seeks advice.

“Mrs. Clifton,” he said, turning to face the witness box, “let’s not mince words. The truth is that you were against Lady Virginia marrying your brother from the moment you met. In fact, isn’t it the case that you’d made up your mind to dislike her even before you’d met?”

Trelford was surprised. He hadn’t thought Eddie would plunge the dagger in quite so quickly, although he had warned Emma that her cross-examination was not going to be a pleasant experience.

“As I said, Sir Edward, we were not natural friends.”

“But isn’t it the case that you set out from the start to make her an enemy?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Did you attend the wedding of your brother and Lady Virginia?”

“I was not invited.”

“Were you surprised at that, after the way you’d treated her?”

“Disappointed, rather than surprised.”

“And your husband,” said Sir Edward, taking his time to look around the courtroom as if he was trying to find him, “was he invited?”

“Not one member of the family received an invitation.”

“And why do you think that was?”

“You’ll have to ask your client, Sir Edward.”

“And I intend to do so, Mrs. Clifton. May I now turn to the death of your mother. I understand there was a dispute over her will.”

“Which was settled in the High Court, Sir Edward.”

“Yes, indeed it was. But correct me if I’m wrong, as I am sure you will, Mrs. Clifton, you and your sister Grace inherited almost the entire estate, while your brother, Lady Virginia’s husband, ended up with nothing.”

“That was not my choice, Sir Edward. In fact, I tried to talk my mother out of it.”