The habit of coppers of wishing or being ordered to ‘hunt in pairs’ has one great disadvantage to lone-wolves and philosophers in the Force. Long hours shared in isolation with one single other man will cause all but the most resolute or bone-headed to exchange confidences (which they should or would have preferred to have kept to themselves) with their momentary companion. So does the warder chat with the condemned prisoner, the isolated soldier with his erstwhile foe, or do the husband and wife who’ve already signed the deeds of separation if circumstances force them to be alone together.
The star sleuth sat with Edward in the bread-delivery van: and even his resilient spirit was cracking beneath the strain. He deeply resented, in the first place, that the Detective-Sergeant had given him (him!) this flatfoot job to do. And as for Edward, if the boy had been really stupid as most of them were, or really inspired as he himself was, his company would have been at any rate tolerable. But Edward’s mixture of brains and of professional ignorance and ineptitude (for so the star sleuth esteemed him) were nicely calculated to irritate an expert performer who had but recently himself fathomed many of the major mysteries of the copper’s art.
‘Another one going in,’ said Edward, making an entry in his notebook.
‘You can see in the dark?’ asked the star sleuth.
‘I’ve trained myself to write without a light,’ said Edward.
‘Well, you’re wasting your time. I fill up my notebook after the event by use of my well-trained memory, and keep my brains cool for the event itself.’
‘Maybe,’ said Edward, who was growing sure enough of himself to resent the star sleuth’s patronage quite a bit. ‘But we’ve got to make certain your evidence and mine are going to tally.’
‘Time enough for that. Though I might tell you one thing, youngster, that you don’t know yet. They’ll tell you the evidence of two officers will always nail a conviction. Well, in a magistrate’s court that may be so but not, believe me, with a judge and jury – of which I don’t think you’ve yet had a very vast experience.’
‘Why?’ Edward asked, vexed not to know.
‘Here’s why. Let’s say you and I are on a case – see? – and we’ve both cross-checked our evidence. Right. When I go in to give mine, you have to stay outside. And when you come in to give yours I can stay in court but I can’t speak to you, or alter what I’ve already said.’
‘And so?’
‘And so this. The defending counsel if he’s got any brains, and most of them have or they wouldn’t earn their huge fees, will ask me a-hundred-and-one questions about circumstances we just didn’t think of – like was the prisoner wearing a cap or was it a hat? – and then when you come in, ask you the same questions and very probably get a rather different set of answers. This sows quite a bit of doubt in the jury’s mind. I’ve often seen an acquittal got that way.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘That’s it. One prosecuting witness is often better than two, even if uncorroborated. You can’t contradict yourself, see: that is, provided you remember all you said if there’s a re-examination.’
Edward Justice pondered. ‘The courts are very tricky,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’m beginning to realise what goes on in them’s a much bigger battle than all that takes place before you and the prisoner get there.’
‘Ah! The light’s dawning on you at last! My goodness! If only one young copper in a hundred realised what you’ve just said!’
Edward was silent.
‘I’ll tell you something,’ said the star sleuth. ‘Our real enemy isn’t the criminals: it’s the courts.’
‘Our enemy?’
‘Yes. Here’s how I see it. We are the law. I say this because in the whole United Kingdom we’re the only people who really know – and I mean know – what actually goes on. You admit that’s so?’
‘And then?’
‘Well – picture this. The set-up in the Force we can manipulate, once we know how. And the criminals – well, as you know, there’s a thousand and one ways of controlling them. Even in the courts, so long as it’s only at the lawyer level, there are pressures that can be brought to bear. For instance: suppose you’re a barrister who sometimes prosecutes, sometimes defends. If you win a lot of acquittals you’re not likely to get a lot of prosecuting work to do, are you?’
‘I suppose not, but …’
‘Or take solicitors. Most of those the criminals use are living on criminal money themselves and often getting more of it than they should, in ways their professional bodies mightn’t like to hear about. Now, they know this, they know we know it and pressures can be brought to bear.’
‘Yes, I see that. But when …’
‘All right, I’m coming to that. But, as I said at the outset, in the courts there’s one thing we can’t get at all – except in a way that I’ll explain to you: and that’s the magistrates and judges – certainly, at any rate, the judges – and also to a certain extent the juries. Except – and mark my words – for this: we can get at all three by working on their ignorance, fear and vanity.’
‘We can. As for ignorance, remember this. Judges used to be lawyers, and in their careers there’s not much they haven’t learnt about by seeing it passing before them when they were working in the courts.’
‘And so?’
‘But seeing a thing is not the same as living it. When you go to a theatre you see the show: in fact it’s put on for you, and you’re in the best seats with the actors all facing you and smiling. But you’re still not an actor, are you? You can see a thousand shows, and still know nothing about show-business whatever. Well, with the judges it’s the same: they don’t really know; and if they don’t know you can blind them, if only to a limited extent.’
‘But fear, you said. They’re not afraid of us …’
‘No? You’d think so, wouldn’t you? The justices, here in England, are the top men in the land: way up above the generals and admirals and cabinet ministers, even. But – never forget – judges in history have been tried themselves. In fact, over on the Continent it’s happened in our lifetime – very often, too. They’re way up there, but they’ve got very far to fall! And if ever they do, who do you think will call round in the small hours to collect them?’
‘Us?’
‘Exactly. We, boy, you see, are even more permanent than they are and they know it. They’re not fools, and because of this somewhere deep down they fear us.’
‘And their vanity? They’re vain, you’d say?’
‘Well – I ask you! What’s the big, big bribe here in England? Come on – tell me! Is it money? Not a bit of it! Once you get above a certain level it’s honours, man, and fancy-dress. You think I’m just being sarcastic? No, boy! To be dressed up in wigs and gowns and call himself lord and be surrounded by pomp and circumstance is worth millions to almost any Englishman. And judges – well, they love it! And if a man deep inside himself is vain, and what is worse – or better, from our point of view – publicly vain, then you can always play upon that weakness. “Yes, my lord. As you say, my lord.” And, “As your lordship please.”’
Edward reflected deeply, then said to the star sleuth, ‘You don’t think, then, that beyond us and beyond the courts and judges there’s anything like an actual justice involved?’
‘No.’
‘It’s all just personalities and procedure?’
‘It’s conventions: social customs, you might say. These change and alter, often radically, as anyone who’s studied history a bit will know. But only one thing doesn’t alter – and that’s us: the men who enforce the laws, whatever they may be. And so I tell you: we are the courts, we are the judges, we are justice!’ Edward, though highly excited by all this, was not sure by the soft, icy tone of his companion’s voice whether he had a madman or a genius (or both) sitting beside him. Now the star sleuth’s voice dropped to its normal mumble as he added, ‘And even the stupid public and those fools in parliament, in their own way, admit this. Because according to the acts they’ve passed, if anyone shoots a lawyer – even a judge – and not for robbery, it isn’t capital: but if a man kills one of us for any reason in the world, then – boy, he’s hanged! This sets us up above the rest – above the lot of them, top men and all! Our lives are protected by the hangman’s rope!’
Edward said deferentially but with considerable reserve (as one does when making a remark to anyone which one both wants him to believe and also be able to say, afterwards, one did not mean), ‘So according to you, you should make a suspect feel that we, “the law”, are the law.’
‘Yes.’
Then Edward said, ‘That’s not how the Detective-Sergeant sees it, I imagine.’
‘I don’t suppose so. That pensionable clot!’
‘They don’t serve their purpose then, according to you, his type?’
‘Yes – for all sorts of things that don’t really matter. Like clearing the public off the streets as they did so well when old Tito came here, or marshalling crowds when they indulge in political demonstrations, or for horseback parades in Hyde Park when we’re drawn up just as if we were soldiers! for a royal inspection. For all that, yes. But for the real work: well – what do you think?’
‘I quite like the old boy,’ Edward said.
‘I’m not talking about liking. Do you respect him?’
‘You’ve got to make up your mind,’ the star sleuth said, ‘right from the outset which kind of copper you’re going to be: a robot or a man with power.’
After a short pause Edward said, ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve found the Detective-Sergeant helpful to me.’
‘Yeah? Well, I see nothing against that …’
‘No. He’s put me on guard against one or two little things he’s mentioned.’
‘He has? Such as what? Do you mean that I found out about your girl?’
‘So it was you.’
‘No secret about it, matey. I’m bound to investigate you a bit, aren’t I, if you join our little lot and I’m going to have to put my own life and professional career to a certain extent into your two clumsy hands …’
‘But did you have to tell anyone?’
‘I didn’t: nothing reported, I mean: I just mentioned it.’
‘I don’t see the difference.’
‘You don’t? There’s a lot of difference, as you’ll grow to learn.’
‘Is there? Well, here’s something for you to learn please, too. I resent your interfering with my private life, and I’ll ask you here and now to stop it.’
‘Oh! So I’m being threatened! Well! Listen to me, boy, I’m not in the habit of giving advice because it’s a thing much too precious to give away and anyhow, the kind of person who needs advice never knows how to use it if you give it to him. But I will tell you this, and it’s entirely for your own good because personally I just don’t care a fuck. Drop that girl. Look at it any way you like, if you want to get on – in fact if you want to stay with us at all – well, boy, it’s your only logical solution.’