mean that. I mean this charge: it’s bogus. Just look at it!’ (He held up the brief.) ‘It stinks to high heaven!’
‘You think this boy’s telling the truth – or part of it?’
‘I think he’s telling the whole of it. I pressed him hard at our little interview, as you saw. And what did he do? He lost his temper! I’ve never seen such righteous indignation! I’m always impressed by honest fury in a defendant.’
Mr Zuss-Amor nodded, frowned, and scratched his bottom. ‘Why do they do it, Mr Vial?’ he said.
‘Why do who do what?’
‘Why do the police bring these trumped-up charges?’
‘Oh, well …’ The advocate sighed with all his bulk, and hitched his robe. ‘You know the familiar argument as well as I do. The accused’s generally done what they say he’s done, but not how they say he’s done it. The charge is usually true, the evidence often false. But in this case, I think both are phoney … Well, we’ll have to see …’
The two CID officers were having a cup of tea in the police room. ‘It’s your first case with us in the vice game,’ said the Inspector, ‘but you don’t have to let that worry you. The way to win a case, in my experience, is not to mind from the beginning if you lose it.’
‘But we shouldn’t lose this one, should we, sir?’
‘I don’t see how we can, Constable. But just remember what I told you. They’ll keep you outside until I’ve given evidence, of course, but you know what I’m going to say in its essential outlines. If they ask any questions in examination that we haven’t thought of, just say as little as possible: take your time, look the lawyer in the eye, and just say you don’t remember.’
‘He’s rough, isn’t he, Inspector, this Wesley Vial?’
‘That fat old poof? Don’t be afraid of him, son. He’s sharp, mind you, but if you don’t let him rattle you, there’s nothing he can do.’ The Inspector lit his Dunhill pipe. ‘It’s obvious what he’ll try,’ he continued. ‘He’ll make out that he accepts our story, but he’ll try to shake us on the details, so as to put a doubt into the jury’s mind.’
The Constable sipped his beverage. ‘They’re not likely to raise the question of that bit of rough stuff at the station, are they?’
‘Vial certainly won’t – he knows no jury would believe it. But the boy might allege something, even though Vial’s probably told him not to. Let’s hope he does do. It’d make a very bad impression on the court. Drink up now, Constable, we’re on in a minute or two.’
The Constable swallowed. ‘I’m sure you know best about not calling that girl Dorothy, sir. But don’t you think if we’d had her to pin it on him good and proper …’
‘Mr Gillespie said no, and I think he’s right. I’ve told her to keep out of the way and keep her trap shut till the trial’s over – and she will. You never know how it will be with women in the box: she may love this boy, for all we know, and might have spoken out of turn; and if we’d called her for the prosecution, we might have found ourselves with a hostile witness on our hands.’
In the public gallery, a little minority group of Africans was collecting: among them Laddy Boy, who’d brought an air cushion and a bag of cashew nuts; the Bushman, who’d got a front seat, leant on the railing and immediately gone to sleep; and Mr Karl Marx Bo, who planned to send by air mail a tendentious report on the trial to the Mendi newspaper of which he was part-time correspondent, if, as he hoped it would be, the result was unfavourable to the defendant.
Theodora and Montgomery arrived much too early, and sat in great discomfort on the benches that sloped steeply like a dress circle overlooking the well of the court. They wondered if they could take their overcoats off and, if so, where they could put them.
‘It doesn’t look very impressive,’ said Theodora. ‘It’s much too small.’
‘It looks exactly like Act III of a murder play. Which is the dock?’
‘Just underneath us, I expect.’
‘So we won’t see him.’
‘We will when he’s giving evidence,’ said Theodora. ‘That’s the witness-box there on the right.’
‘Box is the word for it. It looks like an upended coffin.’
Mr Wesley Vial met Mr Archie Gillespie in the lawyers’ lavatory. ‘I do hope, Wesley,’ the