I looked down at the table, at his pale hand on mine, my fingers against his skin. "No, I wouldn't."
"If you think about it," Frost continued, "the rape accusation is also meant to make you doubt us."
I nodded. "Maybe, but to what purpose?"
"I don't know."
"Unless he has taken leave of his senses at last," Doyle said, "he has a purpose to all of this. But I confess that I do not see what it could gain him. I do not like that we seem to be deep in a game and I do not know what we are playing."
Doyle stopped talking, and looked across the table at the lawyers. "Forgive us, please. We forgot where we were for a moment."
"Do you believe that this is all some sort of inter court politics?" Veducci asked.
"Yes," Doyle said.
Veducci looked at Frost. "Lieutenant Frost?"
"I agree with my captain."
Last he looked at me. "Princess Meredith?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Veducci, whatever else we are doing, it is most certainly inter court politics."
"His treatment of Ambassador Stevens makes me begin to wonder if we are being used here," Veducci said.
"Are you saying, Mr. Veducci," Biggs said, "that you are beginning to doubt the validity of the charges made against my clients?"
"If I find out that your clients did what they are accused of, I will do my best to punish them to the greatest extent that the law allows, but if these charges turn out to be false, and the king has tried to use the law to harm the innocent, I'll do my best to remind the king that in this country no one is supposed to be above the law." Veducci smiled again, but this time it wasn't a happy smile. It was more predatory. That smile was enough; I knew who I feared the most on the other side of the table. Veducci wasn't as ambitious as Shelby and Cortez, but he was better. He actually still believed in the law. He actually still believed that the innocent should be spared, and the guilty punished. You didn't often see such pure faith in lawyers who had spent more than twenty years on the bar. They had to give up their belief in the law to survive as a lawyer. But somehow, Veducci had held on. He believed, and maybe, just maybe, he was beginning to believe us.
WE HAD ADJOURNED TO A DIFFERENT ROOM. THE ROOM WAS smaller than the conference room, but then so were some single-family homes. There was a huge mirror on one wall, the glass of which held small imperfections, bubbles near one corner. The mirror had an almost smoky quality in a few spots. Its frame was gilt edged, and worn with age. It had belonged to the original Mr. Biggs's great-grandmother. We were here, in Mr. Biggs's inner sanctum, to make a phone call of sorts, though no phones would be involved.