The Malcontents (21 page)

‘No, you’re right, I’ve no idea.’ Stephen said it politely, but so that one step shouldn’t be followed by another. Thomas Freer did not attempt to do so. As he was spreading honey on his toast, he went off on a sideline: ‘I imagine you must have seen Matthew Hotchkinson once or twice, haven’t you? I wonder, you might have met him in this house–’ Actually, it was unlikely to have been anywhere else.

‘Only once, I think.’

‘Did you have any conversation with him?’

‘It was years ago. No, not much.’

‘Perhaps, I’m not sure, but perhaps I might tell you that he’s never been specially disposed to go in for – what shall I call them? – social emollients, shall we say. I fancy it’s probably fair to say that. Between ourselves, I used to think that was – Uppingham. The result of Uppingham. But I don’t know. I
don’t
know. Anyway, we shall see what your impression is, shan’t we?’

A few minutes before eleven o’clock, Stephen was walking in front of the City Hall, twentieth-century civic Stalinesque, looming heavy in the misty morning. Hotchkinson’s office was close by, in Bishop Street, a couple of blocks away from Thomas Freer’s. Apart from geographical proximity, Stephen, who as a child had enjoyed visiting his father’s office, thoughtfully unmodernized, leather-bound books on shelves, black boxes with clients’ names in white letters, found that this one struck strange. Five floors up, new building, waiting-room smelling of flowers, not books. He wasn’t kept waiting long, and Hotchkinson’s own room was just as beflowered, also with windows instead of walls, airy, agoraphobic.

‘You’re on time,’ said Hotchkinson, as though that were an obscure grievance or a failure in courtesy.

‘Yes,’ said Stephen. To add another incongruity in that tycoon-like room, Hotchkinson was wearing a suit of heavy ginger tweeds. He was a very big man, heavy-shouldered, thick through the chest. In a doughy small-featured face the eyes were shallowly set with full flesh or underlids beneath them, which gave him an expression assertive and surreptitiously salacious. His voice was strangulated, husky, and high, such as one sometimes hears in star games players or other massively muscular men.

‘We might as well sit down,’ said Hotchkinson, leaving his desk and walking soft-footed to a sofa which faced the longest window. In front of them, as they sat, was a low glass-topped table on which stood a cigarette box and an ashtray.

‘Any good to you?’

Stephen thanked him and shook his head.

Hotchkinson said: ‘I don’t understand why you’re here.’

‘I thought my father had told you–’

‘I know all about that. I don’t understand why you’re here.’

‘Didn’t he arrange for you to act for me, if necessary?

‘It isn’t necessary.’

Stephen said: ‘I’m afraid I’m not so certain. I want some advice.’

Hotchkinson answered: ‘All the advice you want is four words. Keep your mouth shut. KYMS.’

‘It isn’t quite so simple–’

‘You clear out and keep quiet. And thank your lucky stars.’

‘No, I haven’t made up my mind. I want your advice. On what’s going to happen, so far as you know.’

‘It’s a waste of time.’

‘Not for me, perhaps.’

Stephen hadn’t been prepared for this kind of attack, but he had equipped himself by now. In another mood, before the crisis, he would have been amused by his father’s euphemisms about Hotchkinson not being specially disposed to go in for social emollients, meaning that he was remarkably rude. Stephen would have been amused too by his father’s explanation, referring to a respectable school as though it were some kind of Borstal: to an outsider, prosperous lawyers in a provincial town might have seemed much of a muchness, but Stephen had grown up knowledgeable about the Byzantine social hierarchy in which his father’s imagination at happy moments moved. But Stephen couldn’t afford such detachment now. Hotchkinson was as a matter of routine remarkably rude. He seemed to be so whoever he was with, and by itself that would not have mattered much. Stephen was indifferent to rudeness and not got down. But there was something more. Hotchkinson was not only rude, but also hostile. He was ready to act for Stephen and the others because Thomas Freer asked him to. For Stephen he might feel — and this wasn’t a consoling thought that morning – something like a class solidarity. Nevertheless, he detested everything that Stephen believed, everything that they had done and stood for. He would gladly have seen them transported: and, looking at those fierce sly eyes, Stephen felt he might, if he had the power, show them less mercy than that.

Even that, though, wasn’t the end of it. Stephen had listened to his trustees and his father’s professional musings, but had never had a legal interview in his life. This was a bizarre one. The lawyer was hostile, he wasn’t on their side: and yet he couldn’t avoid, as they went on talking, no sympathy between them, behaving like a real professional. And, Stephen soon realized, having a respect for professionals and experience in judging them, like a very good one. He loved his job. He didn’t look intelligent, but his mind was as hard and undecorated as Stephen’s own. Further, he appeared to possess a singular amount of inside knowledge – far more than he should have done, to those who innocently believed in the sacrosanct propriety of legal processes. To Stephen, however, used to the toing and froing of his father’s friends and their local connections, that didn’t come as a surprise.

The first sitting of the inquest on Kelshall next morning (Friday) would be formal, said Hotchkinson. Nothing but the immediate cause of death. The inquest would be adjourned. Next time, there would be the post-mortem findings. They were searching for a trace of drugs in the bile duct. Drugs would be mentioned. Coroner’s verdict: anyone’s guess, almost certainly inconclusive, quite certainly irrelevant. By that time St John and Forrester would have been arrested. Warrants would be issued within hours or days. Hotchkinson had already told St John so.

Charges?

Forrester: possession of cannabis, LSD, heroin: trafficking in cannabis and LSD.

St John: possession of cannabis: trafficking in cannabis. When Stephen heard that last rough, confident statement, he said: ‘Nonsense. He’s never possessed a gram.’

‘That’s your story.’

‘I know it.’

‘You can’t know it.’

‘I’m absolutely certain. What’s the evidence?’

‘Stuff found in his room. Not much. Enough.’

‘Planted there,’ said Stephen.

‘That’ll get you nowhere,’ said Hotchkinson, with contempt.

‘Just possibly left there by – someone else.’ For once, Stephen’s sense of fact, of possible accidents and chance, had weakened him.

‘You can believe that if you like.’

Stephen did not attempt to persuade the other man. There was a wall of ice, or something rougher than ice, between them. Kelshall’s death couldn’t be mentioned at the trials, said Hotchkinson, but it would be remembered. Some people who knew the whole story would consider that in breaking secrecy he had performed a public service: Hotchkinson made it obvious that he thought so too. Stephen did not respond. Not even Mark, who had the freest psychological imagination of them all, had reflected that what was treachery to one side was loyalty to the other, or that Bernard, whatever his other motives were, might at the same time have felt dutiful, or a partisan in reverse. Stephen wasn’t capable of disinterest then; he was trying to cut through his own hostility and this other man’s, occupied with one thought alone, how this man could compartmentalize his mind, and apply himself to do his best about their tactics. To that extent, Stephen – though his temper was impelling him to telephone from that office for another lawyer – found himself trusting him.

The two would go for trial?

For certain.

Findings?

For possession, guilty for certain. For trafficking, guilty, but could be made to appear minor and amateur transactions. Youth would be invoked, also pattern of student behaviour. Finlayson’s evidence would be knocked about. Enough left to convict, but they would not look like serious pushers.

Sentences?

Forrester. Heavy fine. Suspended sentence, probably nine months.

St John. Also fine, but less. Also suspended sentence, six months.

Both kicked out of the university.

(These forecasts proved to be very nearly accurate. From this stage onwards, the legal fates of Neil and Lance were predictable, and nothing unlooked-for happened. There was to be no reversal of fortune and no drama, except the normal ritual of the courts. Hotchkinson did not foresee that there would be student protests when they were expelled from the university. These happened, but weren’t prolonged, probably, so it was thought, because Neil had, by a political calculation, cut himself off from other local activists. With that – apart from one exception – the external consequences of the core’s actions dwindled away though to the members themselves there had, simultaneously, been others.)

‘What difference should I make,’ said Stephen, ‘if I gave evidence for Neil St John?’

‘What can you say?’

‘I’ve known him well for two years. I’ve never seen him take a single reefer. He’s always been dead against it.’

‘They won’t believe you.’

‘That’s their privilege. I can go on saying it.’

Hotchkinson gave him a sharp, feral glance, and said: ‘You wouldn’t be a bad witness.’

‘What difference should I make?

‘Not a sausage.’ Hotchkinson wore an angry scowl. ‘No, that’s nearly right, but it might be going too far. These things aren’t so cut-and-dried. They wouldn’t believe you, they wouldn’t let him off. But it might save him a few pounds off his fine.’

‘That makes total nonsense of it.’

‘Total. It’s as likely as not.

Stephen, expression hard and set, asked about the other charge.

‘What can you say about that? Have you ever seen him with Finlayson?’

‘No.’

‘Then what in hell can you say?’

‘Nothing. Except he’s no more likely to peddle drugs than I am. Or than you are, as far as that goes.’

‘Character reference. Useless. Coming from you.’ Then Hotchkinson asked: ‘What about the other man? Do you want to say that you’ve never seen him take a single reefer?’

‘No,’ said Stephen. ‘I shan’t say that.’

After a pause, he added: ‘I could say that I don’t think it’s likely for an instant that he’s ever sold any of the stuff. Why should he?’

‘That’s a very moderate statement,’ Hotchkinson gave a hoarse laugh. ‘What do you think a jury’s going to make of that?’

‘I’ve not decided whether I shall go in front of a jury. That’s why I’m here.’ Stephen went on: ‘If I do I might only feel obliged to give evidence for St John. It’s not all that simple–’

Hotchkinson waited for him to finish, discovered that Stephen had fallen into an abstracted silence. Hotchkinson said: ‘I’ve told you already. Keep out of it. ‘Then, in a tone a shade less peremptory: ‘I’m assuming you realize that it would do you some personal harm. You’d have a black mark against you. I don’t know what your plans are about jobs, but I guess that Cambridge wouldn’t want to give you one.’

‘That’s been thought of.’

‘It’s your affair. You’re old enough to look after yourself. But you’re also involving other people. You’d better be clear about that.’

‘That’s also been thought of.’

‘Has it? It would involve your family. You can’t do it. For no benefit to anyone at all.’

‘You said there conceivably might be slight benefit.’

‘A fleabite. Against involving your family.’

‘I shall have,’ said Stephen, ‘to be the judge of this.’

They confronted each other. Perversely, the hostility was not so hard. Stephen had mastered his temper, he was talking as he might have done to his doctor.

‘I have to tell you something else,’ said Hotchkinson. ‘If you take part, you may be asked how you got mixed up with these fellows. That could fling your whole political game wide open. Nothing grand, just a silly scandal. There wouldn’t be any names mentioned except your own, but all you seem to have a fancy for would get into disrepute. I take it, you wouldn’t find that specially agreeable?’

Which, as Hotchkinson made apparent, he as a private citizen most emphatically would. Yet he had brought the eventuality into the open. Perhaps – Stephen was neither then nor in retrospect able to be certain, for Hotchkinson under the surface was not an unsubtle man – he was using it as the argument most likely to deter Stephen. Perhaps it was merely produced by professional conscience.

‘How likely is this?’ Stephen asked.

‘Can’t be sure.’

‘I should have thought it could be stopped.’

‘Possibly. I can’t guarantee it.’

Stephen had regressed into silence, into a state – though the lawyer could not have understood it – similar to that of the night before, bringing back moments of uncertainty, confusion, relief. At last he said: ‘Is there anything else?’

‘Not until you tell me what you want to do.’

After a pause, Stephen said: ‘I’ve still not quite decided. I’ll let you know when I have.’

At that Hotchkinson stood up. He didn’t offer to shake hands, and gave only a nominal reply to Stephen’s good morning. As Stephen left the room, however, he was followed by a shout: ‘Give my regards to your father.’

For half an hour Stephen walked, without any purpose, round the middle of the town. Shops, bright and busy, chain stores now, not the old proprietorial shops, but busier than they ever were, he glanced at but didn’t see. Or rather he saw them as though it were through dark glasses. It was the same when he had lunch at home with his mother. They had some civil conversation, utterly remote from what they were both thinking, remoter still to Stephen because her voice seemed to come from outside the envelope from which he hadn’t yet escaped.

He would have said – and later he did say – that he spent all those hours, from the evening before to this Thursday afternoon, making up his mind. When he told Hotchkinson that he had not ‘quite decided’, he wasn’t pretending; he believed that to be the truth. And yet the decision had been made hours before, probably in Mark’s drawing-room (there isn’t a precise time for the first crystallization of a decision), certainly by the time he had spoken to Tess on the telephone.