The Husband's Story (46 page)

More than once Beryl found herself wondering whether it had really been worth it to come back at all. Mr Stranger-Milne, however, was by now feeling pleasantly refreshed and had decided to relieve his junior. Immediately things brightened up and the proceedings came to life again.

Q. Your hobby is photography, is it not?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And what kind of photographs do you take? Are they landscapes?

A. More nature studies, sir. Trees and, of course, flowers, sir. (Pause). And swans, too, sir. I've done a lot of swans.

Q. And portraits. Do you take portraits?

A. Sometimes, sir. Not just head, though. More figure work.

Q. Nude figure work?

Stan took so long before replying that Mr Stranger-Milne had to repeat his question. The second time he said it louder. It was really this that woke Beryl up.

A. Only once, sir.

Q. And did you select the models?

A. No, sir. They were already in the studio waiting for me.

Q. Did you not expect to find them there?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And will you now tell us what it was that made you decide to switch from nature studies – trees and flowers and swans and that kind of thing – and embark upon pictures of the naked female form?

A. They sell better, sir. There's more demand for them.

A sound like a snigger from somewhere in the public gallery caused Mr Justice Streetley to intervene.

‘This is neither a Fun Fair nor an Amusement Park,' he observed. ‘If there is laughter or other unseemly behaviour I shall order that the Court be cleared immediately. Pray continue, Mr Stranger-Milne.'

Q. So you did it for money, did you? For financial gain?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Of your own free will?

A. Yes, sir. At the time, sir.

Q. What do you mean by ‘at the time'?

A. I was being blackmailed you see, sir, only I didn't know it.

Q. And what was the instrument of this blackmail?

A. The nude pictures, sir. The ones that I'd been taking.

Mr Stranger-Milne raised his eyebrows and drew down the corners of his mouth. The expression was intended to convey pity mingled with astonishment. But Mr Stranger-Milne would never have considered asking any question unless he was already pretty sure of the answer; that was why his examinations usually passed off so smoothly, so effectively. In this one, he was intent on revealing Stan not merely as a common traitor, but as a greedy traitor. Any hint of blackmail would, he knew, be bound to excite the jury's sympathy, and he could not allow that to happen. He resumed his questioning.

Q. But these are the nineteen-sixties. Nude photographs no longer provide the blackmailer with his material. We are not living in Victorian times, remember. I put it to you…

He could get no further, however. Mr Justice Streetley disapproved of counsel who packaged and wrapped-up their questions. Not that he could possibly be seen to be seeking to correct Mr Stranger-Milne on a matter of Court procedure. That would have been unthinkable. Clearly what was called for was a correction of a more general nature. Already the loose red sleeves had been thrust back and the long, pale hands were beginning to appear.

‘It rests upon me,' he said, ‘to ensure that in the course of his examination the prisoner shall not be misled. That is of paramount importance. The reference to the Victorian age, an age which some of us much regret, cannot be held to have helped the prisoner to clarify his mind. Quite the contrary, in fact. Studies of the female nude were commonplace during the reign of Queen Victoria. Our public art
galleries are full of examples of them. The artists themselves were often elected to the Royal Academy, and even on occasion Knighted. It is not for us to ask ourselves why. It is simply a matter of historic truth that it so happened.'

The only other theatrical trick that Mr Stranger-Milne knew was that of raising his hands, palms upwards, in the manner of an Arab street-trader. He used it now. Helpless incredulity was what the gesture was meant to signify.

‘I can only thank your Lordship for so succinctly putting the matter,' he said.

Then, with a little bow, he turned towards Stan again.

Q. Were they very
unusual
photographs that you were taking?

A. Oh no, sir. Nothing like that.

Q. Then how could you be blackmailed?

A. Because I was in some of them myself you see, sir. Someone else must have taken the photographs when I wasn't looking. And there I was, sir, arranging one model, and the other one was just standing there. She'd got nothing on either.

At first Beryl had just sat there, leaning forward in the chair, her eyes fixed on Stan, not believing what she heard. Then, as one by one the facts for which she was unprepared came tumbling out, she slumped forward, and was left staring into the lap of her new navy blue two-piece.

When it was all over, she suddenly sat up. With one quick movement she opened her bag and took out her handkerchief. Then she spat into it. What she wanted to do was to wipe the taste of Stan out of her mouth for ever.

It was not Beryl's fault that she had been neglecting Marleen. In the circumstances, it had proved unavoidable. The constant travelling, the prison visits, the attendance at the Old Bailey, the telephone sessions with Mr Cheevers anxiously seeking what he called ‘background material', had occupied her increasingly. In the result, she had been tired out; so tired, indeed, that her unmotherliness towards little Marleen hadn't even occurred to her.

Not that Marleen had been in the least forlorn and miserable. Left more to herself than she had ever been before, she improvised. For a start, she used the telephone. There was only one of her schoolgirl friends whose family was on the telephone, and Marleen made a point of talking to her every evening. Even though they had been
together less than half an hour before, they carried on long conversations about their other friends; about the mistresses at the School; about their favourite television stars; about new ice cream flavours.

But it was not merely social telephoning that consumed Marleen's time. Drawer by drawer she went through the papers in Beryl's desk, not finding anything particularly interesting, but still reading every line of everything just in case. Equally systematically, she checked over the contents of Beryl's dressing-table; and of her wardrobe, too, trying everything on while standing in front of the long bedroom mirror as she did so, drawing the garments in with her hands because they were too large for her.

It was because of the mirror and because she was alone that she tried some experiments with her hair as well, putting it up on top with the aid of a handful of Beryl's pins and even snipping some of it off with Beryl's nail scissors to see what it would look like if she should decide to grow a fringe.

That did not mean, however, that she had forgotten about Stan. Quite the contrary, in fact. Ever since that first moment of drama down there on the Isle of Wight, she had been collecting everything that had appeared about him. Where Beryl had angrily crumpled up a newspaper and flung it away from her, Marleen had retrieved and smoothed it out again. Just lately when the journalists had not seemed to have much else to write about, she had taken to spending her own pocket money on papers that she did not ordinarily see. Cuttings from
The Times
and the
Daily Telegraph
were now neatly pasted into one of her old exercise books along with pieces from the
Isle of Wight Guardian
and the
Crocketts Green Gazette
. On the front was a new label, lettered in bright crayon. ‘MY DADDY,' it ran. ‘THE DAIRY OF HIS TRAIL'.

School-work had always with Marleen come second to ballroom dancing and horse riding: there had been adverse comment on her spelling in more than one of her end-of-term reports.

The trial was now due to begin its third day, and there seemed nothing likely to prolong it. All that remained were the closing speeches for the prosecution and for the defence; and, of course, Mr Justice Streetley's own summing-up and sentencing.

According to the timetable that Mr Justice Streetley had worked out
in his mind, the prosecution would probably be over by twelve or twelve-fifteen at the latest; if necessary, he could prolong it to twelve-thirty by making one, or possibly two, more of his interventions. His remark about Victorian nudes had been one of his most successful: both evening papers had carried it, and he was in ‘Peterborough' and
The Times
diary as well.

Twelve-thirty, moreover, was one of the critical moments of the day. Anything earlier would have been derisory, and anything later meaningless. If he could spin it out until twelve-thirty, he could take an early lunch adjournment. Mr Jeremy Hayhoe could come on at two o'clock and have as long as he liked – which was practically without limit as Mr Justice Streetley recalled. Tomorrow, probably, he would be able to sum up. Then the jury would retire and give their verdict and the next day, no doubt, he could pronounce sentence. Mr Justice Streetley always liked to have a night's rest between verdict and sentence.

The only person who was left disconsolate was Mr Cheevers. All in all, he judged it to be one of the least memorable trials that he had ever attended. And his Features Editor had been quite right. Even with headings like ‘PHOTOGRAPHER SELLS NAVAL SECRETS' or ‘SPY WHO WENT IN FOR THE NUDE', the exclusive story wasn't worth the two thousand that Beryl had made him pay for it; somewhere in the one thousand to twelve-fifty bracket was where he would have put it.

Stan, on the other hand, was reasonably content. He was relieved to think that the prosecution had not pressed him as to who had taken the other, the incriminating, photographs. Because, no matter how many questions had been fired at him, he would not have revealed the truth. Helga – and it could not have been anyone but Helga – was, by now, a part of his own private fantasy. The thought of Helga was what comforted him when he went to sleep at nights. And this was strange considering that he'd never even had so much as ten minutes alone with her.

It all turned out exactly as Mr Justice Streetley had intended. Mr Stranger-Milne, for the prosecution, would have been through a full five or ten minutes too early if his Lordship had not intervened. As it was, the proceedings were brought to an end at five-and-twenty to one precisely, and everything was back on schedule again.

What is more, it proved to be one of Mr Justice Streetley's happier
interventions, something that was to be much quoted by his admirers and detractors alike. Mr Stranger-Milne, at his most dramatic, had suddenly thrust out his finger and pointed it accusingly in Stan's direction. The gesture was so abrupt and unexpected that, even at that distance, Stan felt himself instinctively recoil from it. And what Mr Stranger-Milne was saying as he glared at him down the length of his finger made it even more alarming. ‘… treacherous to the hilt… moral code of a Judas… most contemptible of motives… Quisling-type mentality… odious combination of high professional skill and low criminal cunning…' the phrases kept hitting into Stan like bolts from a crossbow.

But it was there that Mr Justice Streetley, noticing the time, saw fit momentarily to suspend the barrage.

‘I very strongly deprecate,' he said, speaking slowly and distinctly, ‘anything that may, in any way, interrupt the sequence and flow of Counsel's remarks to the jury – more particularly when they are so thoughtfully composed and so polished as I hear them to be today. Nevertheless, when there has been mis-representation – entirely unintended, of course, but mis-representation all the same – it is my duty to act promptly. It is, indeed, one of the reasons why I should be here at all.'

Mr Stranger-Milne did not miss his cue. Eyebrows arched and with his hands again raised palms upwards, he turned towards Mr Justice Streetley, pausing long enough on the way for the jury to observe the martyrdom that he was being made to suffer.

‘With respect, m'Lud,' he asked, ‘in what way have I, in your Lordship's opinion – with which, when explained to me, I do not doubt that I shall concur – been guilty of this mis-representation to which your Lordship refers?'

Mr Justice Streetley consulted his notes.

‘The expression you used was “high professional skill”, was it not?'

‘It was, indeed, m'Lud,' Mr Stranger-Milne replied. ‘I was referring to the photographic operation of the bogus wrist-watch.'

Mr Justice Streetley gave a little inward chuckle. He had laid the trap and Mr Stranger-Milne had walked right into it. Mr Justice Streetley, quite unnecessarily, consulted his notes again.

‘But did you not tell us,' he asked, ‘that all that was necessary for the taking of a photograph was for the wearer of the wrist-watch to twist it round so that it faced the paper and then press the winder? Did you
not go on to say that the camera – for that is what it really was – was an instrument of fixed focus? And does not that mean that there was no call for the usual fiddling with the knobs and things that characterizes so much professional photography? And did you not further conclude that portion of your remarks by observing that the exposure was automatically – “electronically” I believe was the word you used – adjusted within the machine itself entirely without human intervention?'

Mr Stranger-Milne's sigh was, as he intended, audible to the whole Court.

‘That was, indeed, the gist of my remarks, m'Lud.'

‘Then I fail to see where the degree of high professional skill to which you have directed the attention of the jury, comes into it. A child, or a trained chimpanzee for that matter, could have operated such a camera. There was nothing highly professional about it. Nothing professional about it at all, in fact. Simply “click”, and the whole job was done.'

Mr Stranger-Milne grasped the lapels of his gown, and squared up to his tormentor.

‘I submit, m'Lud, that this is a technical point, a technical
photographic
point. With respect, I submit that it is not a legal point at all. The mere method of procedure involved in the taking of a photograph cannot be a matter of law.'