‘Mr Rainer to see you, Mr Sawyer,’ Annette said, smiling, and ushering him in.
‘Ah, Conrad,’ Jeremy Sawyer said, getting to his feet, ‘I’m so glad you could come. Would you like some tea?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘How do you like it, Mr Rainer?’ Annette asked.
‘Just a little milk, please, no sugar.’
‘Won’t be a jiffy,’ she said, breezing back out through the door.
‘Come and sit down here so that we can enjoy the view,’ Sawyer said, pointing to a sofa and two armchairs in front of the huge window at the front of his office. ‘Much nicer than sitting around a desk, I always think.’
Conrad took one of the armchairs. The view over the river was magnificent. He was still in something of a daze after losing his savings the previous night. Greta had cheered him up considerably at Knightsbridge, but when he arrived back at his flat, desperately tired and in the usual rush to shower and change in time to take himself into chambers, the exhilaration was quickly replaced by the reality of a new day, for which he felt unprepared. To make matters worse, just as he was leaving, Deborah had called about some domestic matter. As far as he could tell, she had not tried to call the flat the previous evening; at least, she didn’t say that she had. But then again, she didn’t say that she hadn’t, and the anxiety was still there. With such an unpromising start to the day, Conrad was taken completely by surprise when his clerk told him that Jeremy Sawyer wanted to see him at the House of Lords just after lunch.
He had heard about Jeremy Sawyer’s office from others in chambers – others who had gone on to a judicial appointment. Jeremy Sawyer was known as the Lord Chancellor’s right-hand man when it came to the appointment of judges, and his huge office with its commanding view of the Thames was something they all remembered. Conrad was astonished when he received the news. He had always considered himself judicial material, his practice in Silk more than justified an appointment, and he had hoped that one might eventually come his way; but with all the distractions in his life, in addition to his practice, it had been the last thing on his mind lately.
Annette served tea and retired discreetly.
‘Conrad, I asked you to come this afternoon so that we can have a chat,’ Sawyer said. ‘I’ll come straight to the point. The Lord Chancellor has taken soundings from the judges who know you well, and he is considering you for an appointment to the High Court bench – the Queen’s Bench Division. Of course, the appointment is actually made by the Queen, not the Lord Chancellor. But once the Lord Chancellor decides to recommend someone, the Queen always agrees, so as a matter of protocol the Lord Chancellor never makes an offer of appointment without first making sure that it will be accepted.’
He paused and drank from his cup.
‘So, I must ask you: if he were to make such an offer, would you be minded to accept?’
Conrad felt his whole body relax. He came alive again. The day had changed instantly from one of exhaustion to one of joy.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Yes, I certainly would.’
Sawyer smiled.
‘Excellent. The Lord Chancellor will be very pleased. We’ll be in touch about the paperwork in due course; no need to worry about that today. But there are a couple of other questions I need to ask you; all perfectly routine, nothing to be concerned about.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Firstly, as you know, all High Court judges are knighted on appointment, and the Lord Chancellor must make sure that the person appointed will accept the knighthood.’
Conrad’s first thought was for Deborah. She would become Lady Rainer. Perhaps that would be some compensation for all the nights he had spent away, and for all the sacrifices they had made over the years, and perhaps even for the absence of children. He found himself happy for her.
‘Why would someone refuse a knighthood?’ he asked.
Sawyer laughed. ‘It’s very rare. You occasionally have a chap who’s a bit left wing and fancies himself as a republican, or something like that, who turns his nose up at it; betrayal of his principles and so forth.’
‘What do you say to people like that?’
‘It’s only happened once on my watch. I told him that he couldn’t have the job without the K, and that I had any number of good chaps waiting in the queue who would be only too happy to step up if he really couldn’t reconcile it with his conscience.’
‘And what happened?’
‘It did the trick. He’s still on the bench, and doing a jolly good job, too.’
Conrad laughed.
‘Well, you won’t have any problem like that with me, I assure you.’
‘I didn’t think so. But I had to ask.’
He paused. ‘There’s another thing I need to ask, too.’
‘Please,’ Conrad said.
‘The Lord Chancellor must know if there’s any reason why it may be inappropriate for him to recommend you to the Queen.’
Conrad paused.
‘Inappropriate? In what way?’
Sawyer shrugged. ‘Well, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the Lord Chancellor expects the highest standard of conduct from judges. It’s particularly important at the High Court level. At the lower levels, the Lord Chancellor can dismiss a judicial office holder for misconduct. But High Court judges can only be removed by an address of both Houses of Parliament, which is something that has never happened to an English judge. That’s a record we’re rather proud of, and one the Lord Chancellor wouldn’t want to lose.’
‘Yes, I see that…’
‘There was a case a few years ago,’ Sawyer continued, ‘which was on my watch, I regret to say. It’s all in the public domain, and the man in question has retired, so it’s quite proper for me to tell you about it – and indeed, the Lord Chancellor has asked me to tell everyone in your position.
‘There was a man called Martin Hardcastle. I don’t know whether the name rings a bell?’
‘Yes, it does,’ Conrad replied. The story had made the rounds at the Bar at the time; it was hard to imagine that anyone had not heard it. But Sawyer was going to tell him, regardless, and he would not interrupt him.
‘Hardcastle was in Silk, and the Lord Chancellor offered him an appointment to the County Court bench, which he accepted. There had been rumours about the amount he was drinking, but neither I, nor the Lord Chancellor, had any reason to think that it would be a problem. I interviewed him in this very office, and the Lord Chancellor offered him an appointment.
‘But when his chambers gave him a farewell dinner, he got very drunk – so much so, that on his way home he was arrested for being drunk and disorderly, and obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty. A member of his chambers managed to get the obstruction charge dropped, but he was fined by the magistrates for being drunk and disorderly. Of course, yours truly then had to write to Hardcastle to tell him that the Lord Chancellor had withdrawn the offer. Not the kind of situation we like to be in.’
He paused to finish his tea.
‘Conrad, I’m sure there are no skeletons in your closet, but the Lord Chancellor insists on my asking now, in all cases. I have to advise you that if there is anything that might embarrass the Lord Chancellor at some future time, you must let me know now. Speak now, or forever hold your peace, as the saying goes.’
Conrad felt Sawyer’s eyes on him. For a moment he went hot and cold as images of Greta and the Clermont Club went through his mind. There was nothing illegal in any of that, and if the Lord Chancellor had taken soundings from judges who knew him, then the Lord Chancellor already knew that he had a reputation for liking a night out on the town. But he had never been arrested, or even stopped by the police. Martin Hardcastle might have been stupid enough to walk home after a dinner like that, but that was his problem. Conrad took taxis, and always would. Then he remembered his thoughts of the previous night about the house and Deborah’s – the future Lady Rainer’s – trust fund. The Lord Chancellor wouldn’t like that, not one little bit. But the chances of him finding out about that were negligible.
‘No; no skeletons,’ he replied.
‘Splendid,’ Jeremy Sawyer said. ‘Then we’ll put the wheels in motion. The only other thing I have to tell you is that your appointment has to be confidential until it’s announced publicly, which won’t happen until the Queen has agreed to sign off on it. At that stage, and not before, we’ll let you know, and we’ll announce it in The Times. Until then, I’m afraid, the convention is that you can tell your wife, your clerk, and your accountant; no one else; and you have to swear them to secrecy.’
‘Understood,’ Conrad said. ‘Thank you.’