The Fall of Chance (24 page)

Pollock stopped and looked to his master as though for approval. Somehow, in the most neutral look imaginable, he captured complete smugness, as though he’d not only unveiled a great masterpiece but created it himself.

Unt was cut with mixed emotions. He raged at the betrayal - at the way one of the people he’d saved could do this to him - but a part of him had to admit the truth of it. He had got them to lie and as the letter claimed, he’d indirectly brought misery to all those other people.

He could say to himself that just as many other people had been made happier by the effect of his actions on them. He could argue that, with or without his help, some people would have been miserable; he’d just altered the order.

But that didn’t stop the fact that he had definitely caused real misery. He owned that responsibility and would have to carry it. Maybe he should have owned up himself. Maybe private guilt wasn’t enough.

But it should have been his call to make. Olissa or Mélie - whichever it had been - they’d rewarded saving their lives by ruining his. What about feeling guilty for
that
?

These thoughts had circled his head as Pollock read the letter, rising in pitch until they became a cyclone. He was so caught up in the energy of anger that he almost missed Erk’s next words.

“Thank you, Mr Pollock for such a clear reading. Now, please tell us, did you read the letter yourself at the time you received it?”

“I did, sir.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I brought it to your attention. I then accompanied you to the offices of Councillor Kelly. I remained with you while Councillor Brooker was summoned and then went with you to confront the accused.”

“And that ended your involvement with the case?”

“Until this trial, yes.”

“Thank you, Mr Pollock. That will be all from me. But I sense beside me that Councillor Taylor is eager to ask a question. Councillor, your witness.”

Taylor shuffled forward, leaning on his elbows. “Mr Pollock, did you say that you’ve been an Acolyte for seventeen
years
?”

“Eighteen,” said Pollock, stiffly.

“My mistake,” said Taylor, his broad mouth betraying a smirk. “That’s a long time to be an apprentice.”

“Your point, sir?” Pollock frowned.

“It must be very frustrating to be the age you are and with so little career progress.”

Pollock shrugged. “It goes with the post. But I still don’t see your point.”

“My point, Mr Pollock, is that you must harbour a lot of resentment. I think this situation gave you a chance to be a big deal for once in your life and it gave you a chance to take out your frustration on a younger member of your Order.”

Pollock fumed. “Absolutely not. And whatever wrong opinion you might have of me, I don’t see what you would have me do different.”

“I would have you give us the identity of the accuser!” Taylor thumped his finger down like a gavel. “The allegations made in this letter are among the most serious this community has, yet you let the coward point fingers from behind closed curtains.”

“I rolled against the correct table and this was the result,” Pollock was firm. “I had no input.”

“So you say, and yet there’s no witness. Tell me, what were the odds that anonymity be granted? What were the other options? What were the odds on them?”

“Those are three questions,” said Pollock, “And I can’t answer any of them off-hand.”

“Funny. I’d have thought all those years would give you time to memorise every table. Can you at least tell us if the odds of the grant were long?”

Pollock considered, “Fairly long, yes, but that’s the roll that was made.”

There was a small cough and the little frame of Pello leant forward from the end of the bench. Looking along the line of peers, he said, mildly, “I don’t think there’s any need to call Mr Pollock’s integrity into question. His duty here was to read the letter he’d been given.”

“And he did it beautifully,” Taylor snorted.

Pello serenely ignored the remark and carried on. “The system allows for the possibility that anonymity be granted and we must assume that any roll made by anyone is made honourably. Indeed, it is the betrayal of that trust that is the nature of this trial. The system allowed for the chance of this result and if that chance was too short, then it’s the system that is at fault.”

“You’ll get no disagreement here,” growled Taylor.

Erk gave Taylor a moment to speak further and when he didn’t, he asked him, “Are you finished examining the witness?”

Taylor waved him away. “No further questions.”

“In that case, Councillor Hodd, he’s your witness.”

Hodd arched his fingers together and smiled blandly at Pollock. “Mr Pollock, my chief concern is the state of the accuser. How did the bearer of this letter seem to you?”

“Seem, sir?”

“Were they awkward? Shy? Confident? Did they seem like someone making a confession or an accusation?”

Pollock frowned as he thought this over. “I thought they were genuine, sir. I felt they were like the words in the letter.”

“A mixture of fear, guilt and remorse?”

“Exactly.”

“And you got no impression of an attempt to deceive you?”

“They might have been putting it on,” said Pollock, “but if they’ve fooled me I’m not going to be the one to know, am I?”

“Quite,” smiled Hodd. “So, to summarise, they came in, said they wanted to submit an accusing letter and you accepted this letter. You accepted the plea for anonymity and then passed on the letter, so ending your involvement.”

“Well, I accompanied Councillor Erk,” said Pollock.

“But you ceased to be involved in any significant fashion?”

“Well, I suppose my major job was done.”

“Thank you,” said Hodd. “My second line of enquiry then begins with an obvious question: you granted anonymity so you must know the identity of the letter-bearer?”

“Of course.”

“Then I must ask, did you make any effort to investigate the motive of this person?”

Pollock frowned, “They put their motive in the letter.”

“And we have no means to check if they had any other motive,” said Hodd, “But you did. You had the chance to look into the background of this person. You could have seen what they stood to gain from discrediting the accused. Did you make any form of investigation?”

Pollock’s demeanour lost its swagger. “No, I didn’t.”

“You didn’t think to do so?”

“I, er, no.”

Hodd looked like a disappointed teacher. “What a shame. I have one last question: I’m curious how far this anonymity has been extended. Is it only you who knows the accuser’s identity?”

“Well, no. I told Councillor Erk, obviously.”

A Buzz of chatter erupted from the crowd. Among it, Unt heard Hodd say, “Thank you, that’s all.” The delay gave Unt a chance to think. The Councillors were giving Pollock a hard time. Were they trying to close ranks and discredit the charge? If they were, it wasn’t much of a unified front. Taylor seemed to be fighting Unt’s corner but then Pello, mild as he was, had effectively pulled the teeth from his attack.

Then there were these questions from Hodd. He’d opened up a big crack in the case against Unt, shown there’d been little effort by the Council to investigate, and then he’d stopped short.

Was it because Hodd had made his point without the need to probe further? Was the point even related to Unt? It was Erk who was left looking clueless and Hodd had to know that. Unt feared he was set to be a pawn in a fight between Councillors.

“Thank you,” Erk spoke to the crowd. “Thank you,” he repeated louder. “Councillor Pello, I give you your witness.”

“No questions,” said Pello, quickly.

“Councillor Lasper, then,” said Erk.

Lapser. He’d forgotten about Lasper. Surely his attention was focused purely on ruining Unt?

Rearing up like a snake prepared to strike, Lasper spoke. “Thank you, Mr Chairman. Mr Pollock, I feel I must agree with my colleagues, Councillors Taylor and Hodd. There are certain aspects to the handling of the affair that are unsatisfactory, however, I also agree with the sentiment of Councillor Pello. This is no place for making distracting allegations. What we are here to do is establish the guilt, or otherwise, of the person in the dock.

“Therefore, I have only one question for you, Pollock. As you know the identity of the accuser, can you confirm their claim that they were one of the people at the drowning incident?”

“I can indeed.”

“That’s all,” said Lasper and sitting down, he snapped a nod at Erk.

“Very well,” said Erk. “Mr Ostin, you may now cross-examine.”

Ostin rose with rare energy. “No questions.”

“Good,” said Erk. “Mr Pollock, you’re excused.”

12. Olissa

Unt hadn’t time to register Ostin’s words before the Defender was back in his seat and Pollock was leaving the court.

“No questions?” he hissed.

“There’s no point,” said Ostin, biting into a biscuit.

“No point? Taylor and Hodd laid out two points right in front of you.”

“And as your friend, Mr Lasper pointed out, they’re irrelevant. Our argument is that you acted without thinking but your heart was pure. That doesn’t work if you go pointing an accusing finger at everybody else. I can’t make the argument any better for us than they’ve already done.”

That, Unt didn’t doubt.

As the courtroom door closed behind Pollock, Erk retook control of the room. “The court now summons Mrs Olissa, a plumber of Granary Street,” he announced. Olissa entered through the door Pollock had just left. Looking uncomfortable, she let her bushy hair hide her face as she quickly took the stand. She didn’t look at Unt. Had she done so, she’d have met an accusing stare.

“She wrote the letter,” he whispered to Ostin.

“You know this?” Ostin was doubtful.

“There were four of us there. I didn’t do it, Bull’s my best friend and that only leaves the two girls. Mélie’s nice and Olissa’s a bitch. It doesn’t take much working out.”

“Don’t discount Bulton just because he’s a friend,” warned Ostin. “The letter-writer spoke of guilt and he gained more than the other two by your deception.”

“It’s not just that. The letter was written by a girl.”

“An expert on writing styles, are you?”

“No, but I know my friend. It’s too neat and orderly to be Bull. He doesn’t talk like that.”

“The other girl, then.”

“Mélie doesn’t have a bad bone in her body.”

“You know that for sure?”

Unt didn’t have a chance to answer. Erk was already starting Olissa’s questioning.

“Mrs Olissa, you were one of the party involved in the incident that occurred on the sixteenth of the fourth, this year?”

“I was.”

“You were one of the two people rescued from drowning?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear the accusing letter as it was read out by Mr Pollock?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then the clerk of the court will read it to you now.”

Unt hadn’t seen the venerable Croker but now recognised his voice from somewhere behind the Councillors. So they
did
unearth the old guys for more than just the Fall
.
As he read out the letter once again, Unt winced inwardly. What was that saying about a lie oft repeated? How did that work with the truth?

“Now,” said Erk, “Having heard the accusation, do you agree with its description of events?”

“I don’t.”

“Oh? How so?”

“The letter says Unt persuaded us to lie. That’s not true. I couldn’t lie because I was unconscious when the rescue took place. I don’t know what happened.”

“But Mrs Olissa, you gave a witness statement saying what happened, a statement that turns out to be false. How did you end up giving such an account?”

Olissa shrugged. “They told me what happened. I just repeated it.”

“And who does ‘they’ refer to?”

“The people who were there; Mélie, Bulton and Unt.”

“Who specifically told you what to say?”

“Nobody told me what to say. They told me what happened.”

“Which person told you?”

“All of them. No-one in particular.”

“Did you sense any deception when they were telling you this?”

“Obviously not. I wasn’t exactly taking notes.”

“I take your point. But did you not think it was wrong to give a statement based on second-hand reports?”

“It wasn’t a trial then. Somebody fell in a river and that was it.”

“Ok. Could you tell the court what you yourself remember of that day?”

“We were grouped together for Work Experience and it was our fortnight with the Labourers. That day, we were assigned to a jetty on the south bend of the river. There’d been a heavy rainfall a few days earlier and some of the support poles had been damaged. We’d been told to install some new ones and take out the old.

“Our supervisor was away with another group so we were working on our own. Me and Mélie were working on one side and Unt and Bulton were working on the other. Mélie was leaning over to remove a net but leant too far. She lost balance and fell in and because I was holding the net, I got dragged in too.

“What I was told was that we both got tangled in the net. That stopped us from getting washed away but it made it hard to rescue us. I don’t know because I was knocked out. I’m not sure if I hit the jetty or it was the impact with the water but the next thing I know, someone was pushing on my chest, pushing water out.”

“And that person was?”

“I don’t remember. It was a blur.”

“Thank you, Mrs Olissa. That’s all from me. I’ll hand you over to Councillor Lasper.”

Lasper rose minutely. “Once again, I’ll be brief. Mrs Olissa, you have no memory of the rescue itself?”

“No.”

“Well, as that’s the bit we’re interested in, I don’t think we have much use for you as a witness.” He leaned back in his seat.

“I think,” said Erk, “that means she’s your witness, Councillor Pello.”

Pello beamed at Olissa. “Good morning to you, dear. I trust you are well?”

“Well?”

Pello waved an expansive hand. “This must be quite a shock to you. This time yesterday, you were probably expecting that today would be just another day at work.”

“Is that a question?”

“Oh no, dear, just rambling, I suppose. Although it does lead me to a question: when did you find out about the deception?”

“Yesterday. When I got home.”

“I guess it was hard for you to believe.”

“I suppose so.”

“And so you’ve had an evening to mull things over. As have I. I wonder if we’ve arrived at the same conclusions. Tell me, Olissa, do you think Unt gained as a result of this deception?”

“He got the top job going and the girl all the boys were chasing.”

“And what of the other people involved? Did Mr Bulton benefit?”

“Yes. He got the career he wanted.”

“Mrs Mélie?”

“If she gained, it was indirect.”

“So who gained the most?”

“Bull, I suppose. Maybe Unt.”

“And what about yourself?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Did you gain from the conspiracy?”

“As I’ve already said, I didn’t take part in-”

“Yes, you were an unwitting participant. But did you gain?”

“No.”

“Do you think that you lost out?”

Olissa hesitated. “Yes.”

“In what way were you disappointed? In your profession or your partner?”

“Both.” Olissa seemed suddenly as small as Pello.

“Thank you, Olissa, I know that was an uncomfortable question to answer. Now I must ask you, as someone who’s lost out, do you harbour any resentment toward Unt?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you feel resentment?”

Olissa frowned, trying to form the words. “I do feel resentment but I don’t know if he deserves it. I didn’t get what I wanted but who’s to say what would have happened otherwise? Besides, he did save my life.”

“This confusion is at the heart of my concern,” Pello was speaking to the room now, not just Olissa. “We live in a society where we let Fate be our guiding hand but we can’t define what Fate is. The Fall has undoubtedly been altered by this lie. There are some more satisfied with their lot and some who are less so but that is the nature of every Fall, with or without this influence.

“We let Aptitude Modifiers guide our hand in the Fall but random chance has the deciding call. From the angle the dice are thrown, to the material they’re made of, to the order in which candidates make their roll, there are a hundred variables that all influence the result. We could make the argument that this is just another variable.

“Just look at the outcomes for these people we call the conspirators. Mrs Olissa certainly didn’t benefit, Mrs Mélie got a similar result to what she expected and Mr Unt, whom Olissa believes gained from this, wanted to be a Farmer, not a Councillor. The only person who gained directly from this is Mr Bulton and I think the only pertinent question for this court is, did Unt deliberately help him?”

“Councillor Pello”, said Erk, “did you have a question for the witness?”

“No, no questions.”

“Then I believe it is Mr Hodd’s turn to question the witness.”

Hodd didn’t bother to thank the chairman and cut straight to the chase. “Who do you think wrote the letter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who would you guess?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Come on, Olissa. Mr Pollock has already told us the writer was a member of your group of four. Unless Mr Unt chose to incriminate himself and given your claim of amnesia, that leaves only two possible suspects. Surely you can take a guess out of two.”

“I don’t claim to have amnesia. I was unconscious. And as for taking a guess, that’s all it would be so I don’t see the point, do you?”

“Then you refuse to answer.”

“I have no answer. I could toss a coin for you?”

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. I’m done, Mr Chairman.”

“Mr Taylor, then.”

“You know what?” Taylor said. “I have my own idea why you won’t take a guess. It’s because you know neither of those other two wrote the letter and that’s because it was you.”

“I refute that.”

“I’m sure you do but I think you’re putting a lot of faith in this shield of unconsciousness. You weren’t part of the conspiracy because you’d been knocked out and you couldn’t sell out the conspiracy because you didn’t know there was one.

“Well, I find it hard to take the word of someone who’s admitted to making a false testimony. Mr Pello’s little summary of your group’s Fall shows you as the clear loser. You’re the one who lost out and that makes you the one with the strongest motive.”

“That you know of,” said Olissa tartly.

Taylor curled his lip like a hunter who’s spotted a choice prey. “Are you saying you know a motive that I’m not aware of?”

“No. I’m saying that just because you can’t see a motive, it doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”

”And I’m saying you seem to be very good at ducking out of the way of things. Just look at this court: we have a conspiracy of four but for some reason, only one of those people’s on trial.”

Erk interjected. “Councillor, I don’t think this is the time or place to discuss this. You certainly can’t expect the witness to be able to answer that.”

“She doesn’t seem answerable to a lot of things. Maybe she’ll answer the Defender instead.”

“Are you saying you’re through with the witness?” asked Erk.

“I’m through with her.”

“Then take your turn, Mr Ostin.”

Ostin rose and approached the stand. He smiled in a way that was probably supposed to be reassuring or charming but looked more like a lecherous leer. “Olissa, my apologies. These gentlemen have given you quite a grilling, haven’t they?”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“He, he. I’m sure you’re right. Well, you don’t need to worry, I’ll be a lot more gentle with you.”

Olissa gave him a withering look and held it until he continued. “I just want to revisit the statement you gave to Councillor Erk. Who did you say told you what happened?”

“Someone. Everyone. No-one on particular.”

“It wasn’t just Unt who told you what happened?”

“No.”

“He didn’t tell you what to say?”

“No.”

“It was a group effort?”

“You could say that.”

“Did anyone give you an alternative description of events?”

“No.”

“Then there was an accord?”

“That would follow, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, I suppose it would. Thank you, Olissa, you’ve been most helpful.”

“Ok then,” said Erk, turning to his colleagues, “Has anyone anything further to ask?”

“I have an observation to make, if I may,” said Lasper.

Erk frowned. “Very well then, Councillor.”

“I think it’s obvious the point Defender Ostin is making,” said Lasper, “He’s hitting upon Councillor Taylor’s argument that there’s blame to share. Nobody refuted the lie you were told, Olissa, therefore Mr Unt is no more culpable than your other companions.

“But I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. Mr Unt has already admitted he got others to lie: how well he had others singing that false lullaby is neither here nor there. I agree that the other conspirators should stand trial but this trial is concerned only with Mr Unt.”