Friday 17 December 1971
The annual Christmas party at Two Wessex Buildings tended to follow a familiar pattern. Members of chambers were expected to be punctual and to entertain the numerous guests until 8.30, at which time the guests, with a few favoured exceptions, were expected to leave. Most members of chambers left shortly after, but there were a few who stayed on to enjoy a quiet drink or two afterwards. Bernard Wesley had started the tradition of inviting anyone who was still there at 9.30 into his room for a brandy. Gareth Morgan-Davies had continued the tradition. On this occasion, the cold and rain had driven most of the members of chambers and their guests away early, in the hope of getting home before the weather took the forecast turn for the worse. By 9.30, when Gareth Morgan-Davies produced his bottle of brandy, only Ben and Jess, Harriet, and Aubrey remained.
‘Well, I must say, you’re a dark horse, Harriet,’ Gareth said, toasting everyone. ‘We didn’t know about this man of yours. You’ve been keeping him up your sleeve, have you?’
‘She certainly has,’ Ben grinned. ‘We share a room in chambers, and I didn’t have a clue.’
‘Nor did your pupil-master,’ Aubrey added.
Harriet blushed.
‘When you grow up with a father who’s an ambassador, you get addicted to keeping secrets. I’ve been seeing Monty for about a year. He’s been keen to meet some of you, so I thought tonight I would take the plunge.’
‘I’m so glad you did,’ Jess said. ‘He’s charming.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And he’s a fellow in your father’s college?’
‘College fellow and University lecturer in anthropology.’
‘Well, it was a pleasure to meet him,’ Gareth said. ‘I’m sorry he had to rush off.’
‘Yes. He had to get back up to Cambridge for some faculty thing tomorrow morning. I’m going up there to spend Christmas, so he’ll have to endure Christmas dinner with my parents. Poor man. If he survives that, he can survive anything.’
‘I’m sure your father is delighted,’ Aubrey said.
She smiled. ‘If he is, he probably won’t tell me. I’ll find out about it from my mother.’
She saw the newspaper on Gareth’s desk and saw her chance to change the subject.
‘Did you see the Standard this evening?’ She stood, picked the paper up and turned to the page she wanted. ‘Here’s a name we all remember.’ She began to read aloud.
BERMONDSEY MAN SENTENCED FOR BLACKMAIL AND ASSAULT
A Bermondsey man who threatened a West End art dealer with violence, and assaulted him with a crowbar over an alleged gambling debt, was jailed at the Old Bailey today for seven years. Daniel Cleary, 38, also known as ‘Danny Ice’, was described by Judge Milton Janner as ‘an exceptionally vicious and ruthless man who preyed on vulnerable men and women in need of money’. Passing sentence, the judge added that a long prison sentence was needed to protect the community from Cleary and to deter others who might be tempted to commit similar offences. The judge cautioned members of the public to resist the temptation to borrow money from people they did not know.
Ben glanced at Jess.
‘Any mention of Henry Lang?’
Harriet scanned the article again.
‘No, not a word. The victim’s name is Evans.’
‘Barratt would have told us if Henry’s case had been brought up, surely,’ Jess said.
Harriet continued reading.
Virginia Castle, defending, told the court that Cleary had a long history of drug addiction, and had given in to the temptation to act as an enforcer for men involved with organised crime, to make money to fund his addiction. She added that Cleary hoped to get help for his addiction while serving his sentence.
Jess laughed.
‘Good for Ginny. I’m sure Danny Ice will emerge from prison totally rehabilitated.’
‘I’ll bet Ginny will be representing him again within six months of his release,’ Ben said.
‘You are such a cynic, Ben, aren’t you?’ Gareth said. ‘I’m sure he’ll be a model citizen.’
‘For six months, yes, he probably will.’
‘Talking of names, Harriet,’ Gareth continued, ‘is there any mention of Conrad Rainer, by any chance?’
Aubrey frowned and looked down at his shoes.
Harriet shook her head. ‘No. It only deals with this one case. Why do you ask?’
‘The Sunday Times mentioned him last week,’ Gareth replied. ‘There was a reported sighting of him in Brazil – São Paulo, if I remember rightly. Hearing about Daniel Cleary again reminded me of it.’
‘If you’re going on the run, Brazil is as good a place as any,’ Ben commented. ‘No extradition treaty with the UK.’
‘It’s all speculation,’ Aubrey said quietly. ‘There have been a lot of so-called sightings, but none of them has been verified, or anything close to it.’
There was a silence.
‘It was a strange business, Aubrey, wasn’t it?’ Ben asked.
‘In what way?’
‘Well, Rainer was being threatened by Cleary while he was trying a man who was also being threatened by Cleary. That’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I suppose you could look at it in that way.’
‘How else could you look at it? And he went through the whole trial without telling anyone, did he?’
‘Would you really expect him to, Ben? In the circumstances?’
‘I think he might have told Andrew Pilkington in confidence. Andrew is Treasury Counsel. He could have arranged protection for him.’
Aubrey shook his head.
‘But the whole story would probably have come out. He would have been taking a terrible risk.’
‘Perhaps so. But Cleary wasn’t just a personal problem, was he? He was also highly relevant to the case he was trying. Surely, at the very least, he should have – ?’
‘Recused himself?’ Aubrey laughed. ‘Yes, technically he should have, of course. But judicial propriety wasn’t the main consideration by then, was it? Conrad knew this was going to be his last case. If he’d told Andrew – or you – why he needed to hand the case over to someone else, that would have been the end of him, there and then.’
‘He could have found some reason, other than telling them that he was involved with Cleary,’ Ben replied. ‘A judge can always find a way out of trying a criminal case if he really wants to.’
‘But he didn’t want to,’ Aubrey said. ‘He thought that Henry Lang was provoked to kill his wife, and he thought a conviction for murder would have been a miscarriage of justice. He wanted to do everything he could to prevent that.’
‘In which he was successful,’ Gareth pointed out, ‘with a certain amount of help from Ben and Jess, of course.’
‘Yes, and I’m sure that the verdict would have eased his mind.’
‘Are you saying that Conrad was deliberately trying to steer the case towards manslaughter?’ Harriet asked.
‘That was obvious,’ Ben interjected, before Aubrey could reply. ‘Andrew Pilkington wasn’t pleased about it, and Jess and I were concerned that he was going too far, and that he might push the jury the other way. He had no criminal experience at all. It was sheer good luck that the jury came back with the right verdict.’
‘I don’t think that’s fair,’ Aubrey said morosely. ‘Conrad could have coped with any criminal trial, with help from the Bar. But he was under tremendous pressure. Even so, he did his best to get a just result. Some of us think that’s what judges are there for. I think you might at least give him some credit for that.’
‘And while we’re on that subject,’ Ben said, ‘Rainer knew all about the application we were going to make to admit Harriet’s evidence – the privilege question – because you had tipped him off about it.’
Aubrey smiled.
‘I believe I admitted that when you bearded me in my den at the time.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t know the whole story then, did I?’
‘Conrad may have consulted me about it and asked for my views, Ben. Judges are allowed to consult before making a decision, you know. If he hadn’t asked me, he would have asked one of the Old Bailey judges over lunch. It happens all the time.’
‘But you’d spoken to us about it before you spoke to Conrad,’ Ben replied. ‘There are rules, Aubrey, and the rules are there for a purpose.’
‘Are you going to shop me to the Bar Council, Ben?’
Ben shook his head. ‘No, of course not.’
‘Well, then…’
Gareth held up a hand.
‘All right. Let’s remember this is supposed to be a party. Everyone have another brandy.’
He refilled the glasses, and the tension slowly eased.
‘I have a different question,’ Gareth said, as they raised their glasses in a silent toast.
‘Off the record, Aubrey, you really don’t know where Conrad Rainer is?’
‘I honestly have no idea,’ Aubrey replied.
‘And you didn’t help him on his way?’
‘No comment.’
Gareth laughed.
‘I take it that you don’t think he was done in by Daniel Cleary?’
‘No.’
‘Or that Daniel Cleary murdered Greta Thiemann?’
‘No.’
‘Are the police ever going to find Conrad Rainer?’
‘No.’
They were silent for some time.
‘So what happened to Conrad Rainer, Aubrey?’ Gareth asked. ‘He’d been successful all his life: doing well at the Bar, nice home in the country, a wife with money. What on earth went so wrong for him?’
‘It wasn’t enough,’ Aubrey replied. ‘He wanted more. He wanted excitement, the thrill of gambling; and he found a woman who not only encouraged him, but made it all a lot more exciting – and a lot more dangerous – than he ever expected.’
He was silent for some moments.
‘But it was more than that,’ he added. ‘He wasn’t afraid of the danger. He courted it. He loved it. He loved every minute of it. He loved it so much that finally, he called down the storm, and he stood right in its path and faced it. And it carried him away.’