Turn a Blind Eye

7

Beth poured him a second cup of coffee, surprised that he hadn’t touched his bacon and eggs. William seemed preoccupied, even anxious, and at times like this she felt shut out.

She tried an old ploy. ‘What’s the problem, caveman? It’s not as if you haven’t appeared in a witness box before.’

‘But this could be my last appearance. If I make a balls-up of it and the jury decide that Rashidi is a decent, upstanding citizen who’s been wrongly arrested by an over-zealous copper.’

‘That seems a little far-fetched,’ Beth said, as she started to feed the twins.

‘Far-fetched is Booth Watson’s stock in trade. And don’t forget what he hinted at when I last faced him in the witness box...’

‘And don’t you forget, he lost the case,’ said Beth, ‘and Faulkner ended up getting eight years.’

‘Which will only make him more determined to—’

‘But you spent the whole of yesterday afternoon being grilled by your sister, and Grace doesn’t take prisoners.’

‘True, but even she can’t always second-guess what Booth Watson will come up with, and it’s me who has to face the grand inquisitor.’

‘Why isn’t Lamont giving evidence instead of you? After all, he was the senior officer on the case.’

‘Booth Watson took him apart last time, and he’ll know only too well why Lamont retired early.’

‘Did your father give you any advice?’

‘He never left his study the whole afternoon. He was preparing his cross-examination of Rashidi. When I left, all he said was to look out for Booth Watson’s googly.’

‘What’s a googly?’

‘As you’ve never shown any interest in cricket, my darling, it would take me a week to explain,’ said William, picking up his knife and fork and poking at a yolk that had gone hard.

‘You’ll be fine,’ said Beth, trying to reassure him. ‘The jury won’t be in any doubt which one of you is telling the truth. A notorious drugs baron, or the Choirboy.’

‘I wish it was that simple.’ William gave up and pushed his plate aside. ‘Booth Watson is a past master when it comes to planting doubt in a juror’s mind, whereas my father, as prosecution counsel, has to prove his case beyond reasonable doubt.’

‘How come Booth Watson is representing Rashidi?’

‘Because of a mistake we made, and didn’t give a second thought to at the time,’ said William after taking a sip of his cold coffee. ‘They put Rashidi in the same prison as Faulkner, so it was only going to be a matter of time before the magnet attracted the filings.’

‘I wonder if Rashidi’s having bacon and eggs this morning.’

‘Another cup of coffee, Mr Rashidi?’ asked one of the officers.

Rashidi nodded, as he broke into his second three-and-a-half-minute boiled egg.

‘What do you want me to do while you’re at the Old Bailey?’ asked Tulip, now a regular at the top table.

‘Just keep things ticking over in my absence. You can bring me up to date every morning at breakfast, and at church on Sunday. Meanwhile, have you dealt with the officer who was skimming?’

‘He’s been transferred to another prison. In Wolverhampton.’

‘But have you found someone to take his place?’

‘There was a queue, boss, and all of them have worked out the consequences of crossing you.’

‘Brief me fully tomorrow morning.’

‘You may not be coming back,’ said Tulip, grinning. ‘The case might be thrown out of court.’

‘Don’t count any chickens,’ said Rashidi, checking the marmalade was Frank Cooper’s Oxford before he removed the lid. ‘Although my QC says the biggest problem has been taken care of, as Warwick will discover when he takes the stand.’

‘I’m surprised he’s still alive.’

‘Booth Watson didn’t give me a lot of choice. But once the trial is over...’

‘What about the good doctor? He might still prove a problem?’

‘Not when the jury discovers just how bad a doctor Sangster was. I’m more worried about my tailor,’ said Rashidi, touching the lapel of his jacket, to check the initials A.R. were sewn on the inside.

‘Don’t worry, he’s been well stitched up,’ said Tulip, laughing at his own joke.

‘Your car has arrived, Mr Rashidi,’ said a duty officer, appearing by his side.

‘Remember to send my mother some flowers,’ said Rashidi before he drained his coffee.

‘Will she be in court?’

‘I hope not,’ said Rashidi.

Rashidi got up from the table. ‘What’s my escort looking like?’ he asked one of the officers who accompanied him out of the canteen.

‘Three armoured cars, a dozen outriders and a helicopter. No one’s had that sort of treatment since the Kray twins were on trial.’

‘It doesn’t matter who drives me there,’ said Rashidi. ‘Only who drives me back.’

‘Sorry about this,’ said the warder, clapping a pair of handcuffs on the prisoner. ‘Regulations.’

As Rashidi stepped out into the prison courtyard, two police officers took him firmly by the arms and led him towards the second of three armoured cars.

Grace skipped breakfast so she could be in chambers before her father arrived. She knew she’d have to be up very early in the morning to achieve that. It didn’t help that he had a comfortable flat in Lincoln’s Inn that he always stayed in the night before a major trial.

Her partner, Clare, would have chastised her for skipping breakfast — Go to work on an egg was the first advertisement Grace remembered as a child — but Clare had already left for Brent, where she was appearing in a child-protection case, so she’d never know. Clare had called to wish her luck just before Grace left for chambers.

It was still dark when Grace closed the front door of her flat and headed for the Tube station. The sun was only just making an appearance when she stepped out at Chancery Lane twenty minutes later. She cursed as she hurried across Lincoln’s Inn’s cobblestone courtyard in her high heels, not because of the slight drizzle but the sight of a glowing lightbulb in the head of chambers’ office.

When she reached 1 Essex Court, she dashed up the stairs to the third floor and knocked on senior counsel’s door, as she always did, before entering her father’s domain.

Like a Roman orator, Sir Julian was proclaiming his opening lines to the rising sun.

‘M’lud, members of the jury, I appear before you today on behalf of the Crown, while my learned friend Mr Booth Watson QC represents the defendant. I would like to open the Crown’s submission by declaring that in all my years at the Bar, I have never come across a more dastardly criminal.’

‘Almost your exact words when you prosecuted Faulkner,’ said Grace, as she began to unpack her bag in search of her amended copy of the opening address.

‘A different judge and a different jury,’ said Sir Julian, ‘so no one will be any the wiser.’

‘Except for Booth Watson. And “dastardly criminal” sounds Victorian, not Elizabethan. I’ve suggested “evil individual” instead,’ said Grace.

Sir Julian nodded, and made the change. ‘Assem Rashidi,’ he continued, ‘is a well-educated and gifted man who could have succeeded in any profession he chose, but decided instead to use his undoubted talents not to benefit his fellow men, but to—’

‘And women?’ suggested Grace. ‘There will be several of them on the jury.’

‘—fellow men and women, but to harm them. Never forget, members of the jury, his sole and single purpose was to—’

‘Sole and single are synonymous. You should ditch one of them.’

‘His only interest was to make more and more money while showing no interest in the suffering he caused to others.’

‘You’ve used “interest” twice in the same sentence. His overriding desire?’ suggested Grace.

Her father nodded, and made a further emendation to his script, before continuing. ‘Mr Rashidi was the chairman of a respectable family company that already made more than enough profit for him to enjoy a way of life far beyond most people’s wildest dreams.’ He jotted down, Look directly at the jury. ‘However, that was not enough for this greedy and self-indulgent man, who chose instead to lead a double life. A respectable tea merchant by day, and a merchant of death by night. A modern Janus.’

‘Will the jury know who Janus is?’

‘Possibly not, but His Lordship will,’ said Sir Julian. ‘One always needs the occasional line for the judge,’ he said before continuing. ‘Every Monday afternoon he would leave his office in the City, and without any of his colleagues or his secretary knowing, would travel to Brixton by Tube, where he entered his other world. But such was his vanity and arrogance that he could not forgo life’s luxuries, and that will surely prove to be his downfall. On the nights he remained in Brixton, he lived in a millionaire’s apartment in the next block to his drugs factory. Members of the jury, once you have seen photographs of that apartment for yourselves, you will be in no doubt about how much he was making from the alternative life he chose to lead. And perhaps more importantly, who lived there?

‘On the top three floors of the adjoining block, a world away from his luxurious apartment, were the squalid headquarters of his illegal drugs business. Not one that specialized in importing selected grades of tea from Malaysia and Sri Lanka for sale in the high street, but one that imported heroin, cocaine and cannabis resin from Colombia and Afghanistan for sale in the back streets.

‘In the City he employed thirty people who returned to their families at five o’clock every evening extolling his virtues. In Brixton, he imprisoned thirty illegal immigrants who toiled for him through the night, fearful of being reported to the police if they did not carry out his bidding.’

‘Carry out his demands,’ interrupted Grace. ‘ “Bidding” is too old-fashioned. More F. E. Smith than J. N. Warwick.’

‘At that moment I will pause,’ said Sir Julian, ‘which should give you enough time to put the large floor plan of Rashidi’s drugs factory on an easel so I can describe what was taking place there, while you point to each of the rooms in question. That way the jury can’t fail to appreciate the sheer size of the operation. Be sure to put the chart at an angle so they and the judge can see it clearly. No one else matters.’

Grace nodded.

‘The twenty-third floor of that block,’ continued Sir Julian, turning a page of his script, ‘was where the sordid deals were carried out. Cash changed hands, and in return drugs were supplied. An average day’s takings were around ten thousand pounds. Ten times as much as Mr Rashidi could expect to earn in a week as chairman of Marcel and Neffe. And don’t forget, not a penny would be paid in tax.’

‘That allusion has always worried me,’ said Grace. ‘It hints, if somewhat obliquely, that you might approve of the sale of drugs as long as the profits were taxed. I came up with an alternative last night that I hoped you might consider.’

Sir Julian raised an eyebrow.

‘In his position as chairman of a respectable tea-importing company in the City of London, Mr Rashidi’s business was conducted in the open and above board, while in his role as a drugs baron in Brixton, it was conducted in the dark and out of sight.’

Sir Julian crossed out the passage and replaced it with his junior’s words. ‘Thank you, Grace,’ he said, giving her a warm smile.

‘M’lud, members of the jury, the Crown will demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that this cynical and corrupt individual, while posing as the respectable chairman of a City company, led a double life as an international drugs baron, taking advantage of the vulnerable and the wretched in our society. He cared nothing for the consequences even when his actions resulted in innocent human beings losing their lives.’

‘You’ve already said that in so many words, Father. Why repeat it?’

‘Because it’s the image I want to leave in the jury’s minds, as well as ending up on the front pages of tomorrow morning’s papers. So when Booth Watson tries to convince the jury of the virtues of his churchgoing, charity-donating client, universally admired and respected by his fellow men, the seed of doubt will already have been sown, and all the press will have to do is water the plant. So, if BW goes on to suggest that his client was nothing more than an occasional smoker of pot in the privacy of his own home, and was innocently caught up in the crossfire that night, the jury will dismiss the idea out of hand.’

‘I presume you’ll ask why Rashidi even had a flat in a tower block in Brixton, when he could have lived in the West End, or with his mother in The Boltons?’

‘He could also have rented a flat nearer the City. I can’t wait to find out how Booth Watson tries to wriggle out of that one. However, I fear he won’t allow Rashidi anywhere near the witness box, and neither would I. By the way, how did William get on under your cross-examination yesterday?’

‘He’s well on top of his brief, and I’ve no doubt the jury won’t find it difficult to choose between a corrupt drugs baron and the Choirboy.’

‘We can’t afford to take anything for granted while Booth Watson is involved,’ said Sir Julian as he returned to the first page. ‘One more time.’

‘M’lud, members of the jury, I appear before you today...’

Booth Watson was seated at his usual table in the Savoy Grill devouring a full English breakfast while reading The Times. Just a few column inches alerted the paper’s readers to the upcoming trial of the Crown v Rashidi that would be heard before Mr Justice Whittaker in court number one of the Old Bailey that morning. Booth Watson was sure that at that very moment Sir Julian Warwick would be rehearsing some pithy rejoinder in the hope that it would not only influence the jury, but guarantee lurid headlines in the more sensational rags the following morning, which he feared most of the jury would probably read, despite the judge instructing them not to do so.

Booth Watson had warned his client that after Sir Julian had delivered his opening statement, the jury would be convinced he was the Devil incarnate. But, he reminded him, it was defence counsel who had the last word.

‘More coffee, sir?’ enquired an attentive waiter.

Booth Watson nodded, before filling in six more squares of the Times crossword. About the only thing he had in common with his esteemed colleague. Was it possible for one’s innermost thoughts to be sarcastic? he wondered.

Any other customer who noticed Booth Watson tucking into a hearty breakfast that morning might have been surprised to learn that in a couple of hours’ time he would be appearing at the Old Bailey, defending a man who on the face of it looked as if he might be spending the next twenty years in prison. However, Booth Watson was well aware that only the first salvo would be delivered that morning, and he was unlikely to be called upon until later in the afternoon, when he would cross-examine Mr Cyril Bennett, the Crown’s first witness — a hapless tailor from Savile Row. If the little ploy he had hatched with his client overnight worked, it would leave the jury puzzled and unsure about who to believe.

Next would come the turncoat who was hoping to save his own skin by turning Queen’s evidence in exchange for a lighter sentence. However, his junior had done some in-depth research on Mr Gerald Sangster and had come up with a couple of gems that even the General Medical Council had missed.

Next to appear in the witness box would be Detective Inspector Warwick, who he suspected would be cross-examined by his sister, not their father. A decision he hoped to make them regret. Sir Julian may have thought he had a smoking gun, but he would discover otherwise when Booth Watson pulled the trigger. If his second bullet hit the mark, there would be no need to call his client to give evidence, because the trial would be over and Assem would be free to leave by the front door, at which point Booth Watson would double his fee.

‘Another coffee, sir?’

‘No,’ said Booth Watson. He folded his newspaper, checked his watch and said, ‘Just the bill.’