Blood on the Water (29 page)

Even though he could not speak in court until his punishment was served and he had reapplied to be accepted again, he could attend court, as could anyone else, and he could certainly assist Rufus Brancaster in this vital prosecution.

Assist! Brancaster would once have been honored to be his pupil, to be permitted to occupy the second chair next to him! Oh, “how are the mighty fallen!” Humble pie had a bitter taste, but much necessary medicine did. You could swallow it with a good grace, or a poor one, but taking it was the only way back to where he wished to be.

He sat down at the walnut desk and wrote a brief, gracious letter to Rufus Brancaster asking him when it would be convenient for them to meet and discuss this most interesting case. If Brancaster wished, he was welcome to come to Rathbone’s apartment for dinner, and speak at leisure, neither unobserved nor commented on by others.

He sealed it, placed a stamp on it, and rang the bell for his manservant to take it to the postbox. He realized as he did so that there was a
knot of anxiety inside him, almost an excitement. He cared that Brancaster had asked for his help. He was touched with fear that he would not justify the expectations. Did he still have the imagination, the confidence to win the seemingly impossible?

W
HEN
B
RANCASTER ARRIVED FOR
dinner, carrying a briefcase full of papers, he looked nervous. This case was one of the most important of the decade, if not of the half century. His own reputation was only a small part of what would be made, or ruined by the result.

Did Rathbone envy him? Yes. Yes, he did. To use the skills nature had given you was necessary, as a horse must run, or a bird must fly.

It was the measure of himself how he helped: to do the very best he could do, and none of it for personal reward, even in admiration. Far more was at stake than any man’s vanity.

“Come in,” he invited, standing back. Dover, his only manservant now, was in the kitchen. Serving a good meal was his pride as well as his duty.

Brancaster followed Rathbone into the sitting room and accepted a fine, very dry sherry, which Rathbone poured from the silver-mouthed decanter on the sideboard.

Brancaster smiled. “Should I ask you about your trip around Europe?” he said, his voice only barely showing the tension he felt. “Or shall we turn to business straightaway?”

“My trip around Europe was marvelous,” Rathbone replied smoothly. He understood what Brancaster was feeling. In fact, since his own trial, and his experience of prison, he was aware of a great many things he had failed to grasp before. It was almost as if a film had been lifted from his eyes. Everything was both uglier and more precious. Life itself was shorter. Every hour should be cherished.

The sun through the window shone on their sherry glasses, and it was as if they had been carved out of topaz.

He smiled. “But having dispensed with that, we can turn to the most pressing areas of business.”

Brancaster relaxed. “I’ve received a lot of background on people from both Lydiate and Monk. There seem to be a score of little inconsistencies, but they are errors anyone might make. Nothing even remotely indicates deliberate complicity in a crime of this magnitude.”

“Are you satisfied beyond any reasonable doubt that Gamal Sabri is the man who detonated the dynamite on the
Princess Mary
, and then leaped overboard to escape the explosion?” Rathbone asked.

Brancaster did not hesitate. “Absolutely. And I rest on provable facts, not eyewitness accounts. And that boat is unquestionably the one that rammed the ferry. They pulled the ferry up and examined it. Apart from the accounts of both Monk and the ferryman, the structural damage is there for anyone to see. We have experts who can swear to the pattern of damage. For that matter, we could bring the thing itself into court. But that won’t—”

“I know,” Rathbone agreed. “Emotions are too high for sense to override them. Trying to force belief won’t work. You need to lead them gently until they are ready to accept the truth. In fact, until they want to. It will be a long and very careful task, and there’ll be many people who will try to sabotage it. One of the dangers is that you could draw it out so long that the jury loses the thread, and—worse than that—loses the rage and grief. There comes a point of exhaustion beyond which all one wants is to end the matter, and escape.”

He wondered how far he dared tell Brancaster the far deeper issue that troubled him. Was it wiser to address the conviction of Sabri first, and leave the corruption until that was established in law? Or did they necessarily proceed together, locked in step toward one conclusion?

Was it his responsibility to make that decision? Or was he succumbing to arrogance?

Brancaster sighed. “The rage is against us for having got it wrong in the first place,” he said gravely. “We offered them an answer—a murderer to hang—then we took it away by saying he was ill and we wanted to cure him first, when what we probably meant was that we needed him alive to get more information from him. Now we’re saying
he’s the wrong man and they need to start all over again with somebody else. You can’t blame them for directing their fury at the one source that is certain: us! Whoever else is at fault as well, we have no escape. The grief is stirred up all over again.”

“Do you want to pass it to someone else?” Rathbone asked, afraid that, if he were honest, Brancaster might admit that he did. He was young, in his late thirties. He had an excellent practice and was respected by the legal community in general. He had enough imagination to succeed where others might have failed. This was a risk he did not need to take. Rathbone’s own experience should be enough to warn him off crusading!

Perhaps some of the disappointment Rathbone felt was shadowed in his eyes.

Brancaster shifted slightly and raised his chin. “No, thank you. I don’t know of anyone else who could do it better. Do you?” He smiled suddenly, showing strong teeth. “Because I’ll have you to help me—won’t I?”

Rathbone felt the color burn up his face momentarily. The praise should not have meant so much. He was too vulnerable. “Indeed …” he said drily. “And Monk.”

Brancaster was instantly sober again. “They’ve given me a lot of evidence, this time largely bolstered by facts, and—where it’s observation—we’ve got several people who all saw the same thing. But it was unarguable that Beshara is a very nasty piece of work, and likely that he knows Sabri and could have had knowledge of what Sabri was doing. Unfortunately, we have no specific motive for Sabri.”

“I know,” Rathbone agreed. “But before we get that far, we have to explain why Lydiate’s men slipped up so totally. Why the men in charge behind him gave the orders they did. Why did the legal system convict and damn nearly hang the wrong man? Nobody wants to believe that could happen. It’s a very frightening thought. It’s like taking a step and realizing the ground in front of you has disappeared and you’re hanging over a chasm. Beshara could be everyman. In a way, he is!”

Brancaster looked down at the floor. “I know that. That’s the main thing I haven’t worked out how to use—the fear.”

Dover came in and coughed discreetly, then announced that dinner was served. They went through to the small dining room with its window overlooking the square and the trees.

“You can guarantee that Pryor will use it,” Rathbone answered the remark as they began the first course. “He will make it seem as if the safety of the whole system depends upon upholding the original verdict. The details might be wrong, but the conviction wasn’t. The jurors will want to believe him. Don’t ever forget that. They won’t care who’s right or wrong, whose reputation falls, but they’ll want desperately to be safe. They’ll want it for themselves and for those they love. And Pryor will know that as well as you do. He’ll play on their fears that justice and law will collapse if you prove they were wrong the first time. He’ll frighten them out of thinking clearly at all. And once you’ve lost them your chance is pretty slight of getting them back.”

Brancaster nodded grimly. “I know.”

“Who is presiding?” Rathbone asked, feeling his muscles knotting as he approached the subject he dreaded.

“Antrobus,” Brancaster replied. “That’s something in our favor, I think. From what I’ve heard, he isn’t afraid of anything, which should make for a fair trial. And he’s reputed to have a hell of a temper if he’s crossed.”

Rathbone smiled. “That’s right. Don’t even try to put anything across him.” He hesitated. “I understand Ingram York presided over the first one …” He left the sentence unfinished. Suddenly he was embarrassed, not sure how much Brancaster knew or guessed about his past with York.

Brancaster’s expression did not change at all. “I’ve read and reread those transcriptions,” he said thoughtfully. “I think in a different, less highly charged case there would even have been error sufficient to appeal. But then considering the degree of the atrocity, and public feeling at the time, anyone else might have ruled similarly. They all appeared to believe Beshara was guilty.”

“It also seemed as if they didn’t look very far beyond him,” Rathbone pointed out. “Did anybody at all assume that he could have done it alone?”

“That’s the whole other issue,” Brancaster replied. “They were happy to settle for someone to blame and not dig any deeper.”

Rathbone thought for a moment.

The manservant cleared the dishes and brought the main course.

“Sabri is being defended by Pryor,” Rathbone resumed as soon as the door was closed. “Who is paying him?”

For an instant Brancaster looked startled, his eyes widened. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s possible Pryor is doing it for nothing, or at least for nothing that we can see. But it would be most interesting to know.”

“Favor for favor?” Rathbone wondered. “It should be looked into. Discreetly, of course. Now let’s get down to tactics, because that’s where it will all lie. The evidence is for us, but the emotions are against.”

Brancaster smiled and obeyed. He did not comment on Rathbone using the word “us,” although he undoubtedly heard it. He began to lay out the ground plan of his prosecution.

Rathbone listened and commented here or there.

They had dessert, then coffee and brandy, and sat far into the night, debating facts and tactics.

It was Brancaster who finally put words to the question Rathbone had been skirting around.

“What if Pryor can prove that Sabri has no connection with Suez or anything to do with it? Or worse, that he has some interest in its success? Why on earth would he kill two hundred British people he doesn’t even know?”

“For money,” Rathbone replied, although that was merely opening the door to the answer they both feared. “But I have heard no proof that anyone paid him. If they did, it will have been in some way we can’t trace, probably all done in Egypt.”

“Why?” Brancaster said simply. “And probably far worse than that, who? Even if nobody else wants to know, Pryor is going to ask, because
he’ll know damned well that if we don’t say who, it’s because we don’t know.”

“Worse than that,” Rathbone added. “Who colluded to frame Beshara, and why? Lydiate? Camborne? Even York? Who put pressure on Ossett to direct it as he did, or to get Monk back on it after the case against Beshara collapsed?”

Brancaster did not even attempt to answer.

O
VER THE NEXT WEEK
, Rathbone learned everything he could about the main players in the trial of Habib Beshara, and those like Lydiate and Lord Ossett who had been instrumental in handling the whole tragedy. He contacted Alan Juniver for much of the background. It was a difficult meeting, as it always was for Rathbone when encountering anyone he had known prior to his fall from grace. Before it he had been one of the most senior lawyers, and later, briefly, a judge. His downfall was spectacular, because it had been from such a height.

Had his long trip to Europe been an escape, a running away that had only made his return harder? Possibly. But whatever the cost now, he would not regret it. The time with his father had been beyond price.

Juniver was embarrassed to see him, but he concealed it moderately well. He had once admired Rathbone immensely, and told him so. Now he was uncertain, and that, too, was in his face.

“You’re looking well,” he said with sincerity. Rathbone’s skin had been burned brown by the Mediterranean sun. He was leaner and he knew it. He had had to ask his tailor to alter some of his suits by a couple of inches to fit his shape, having lost the softness he had gained from too many good lunches and hours sitting at a desk studying depositions and briefs.

“Thank you.” Rathbone accepted the compliment. “Good travel broadens the mind and narrows the waist.”

Juniver smiled. “I hear you were in Egypt. Was it all that the romantics say? Newspapers, travel books, novelists, and poets seem to be full of it.”

“More than all,” Rathbone said sincerely. The memories of it were sharp in his mind: not just the grandeur to the eye but the tastes and smells, the sting and heat of the sun, the murmur of the Nile fingering its way through the reeds. It was not hard to think of the basket with the infant Moses caught up in those reeds, or, centuries later, the gilded barge with the young Cleopatra returning to her capital after lying with Caesar.

“And Italy,” he added. “No visit there is long enough. Must be one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. But there is much to return to here.”

Juniver bit his lip. Now he was wrong-footed. He did not know what Rathbone was going to say next, so he did not know what reply to prepare.

“I need your help,” Rathbone said, concealing his faint amusement. For all his potential, Juniver was not as quick, as intuitive at questioning, as he would need to be.

Juniver saw it in his eyes and caught the lesson.

“Of course,” he said quickly. “You want to know about the Beshara case. I assume there is no doubt this time that Sabri is guilty?”

“None at all,” Rathbone answered. “But that is only part of the issue, as I imagine you must know. I’ve read the transcript of Beshara’s trial. There was never any possibility that you could have got him off, unless you had had the evidence that Monk later discovered. Even then I am not certain. The emotional tide might have prevailed, even so.” He looked steadily at Juniver, seeing the uncertainty in his eyes, and finally the acknowledgment that he himself had believed Beshara guilty. That had inevitably colored his voice, his face, the way he stood. The jury had read that too.