Sculby drifted into sleep to catch the first gleam of the silver blade in the crook of the officer’s swinging arm as he stormed across Red Square in search of him. Throughout the night the dream intermittently returned, and this was typical. The most he could achieve was a light doze, interspersed with periods of wakefulness whenever the officer with his flashing sword came too close for comfort. All the details in the dream were clear by now. Only the face was still missing. Every time Sculby dropped off the sword gleamed brighter in the piercing sunlight, until it almost blinded him. An inner reserve of fatigue was building up inside him much as other men acquire reserves of courage or moral strength.
He woke to find Judy’s letter still beneath his hand where it lay on the quilt. He had come home the night before to find it pushed through the letterbox, unstamped. The long scrawl was rambling and difficult to read but its general message was clear enough. We are not suited. Goodbye.
Sculby screwed up the letter and tossed it down the loo. He had to flush it three times before the heavy, water-logged paper disappeared round the bend, taking Judy out of his life.
That morning he was too tired to be conscious of any particular emotion, other than a mild annoyance at one of the phrases she had used in her letter. ‘I don’t mind trendy lefties,’ she had written. ‘God knows, I’ve had enough of them, and they’re okay as long as you don’t take baby seriously. But pseudo-trendies, playing at playing at it, no darling…’
Playing at playing at it; that’s what got up Sculby’s nose. He wanted to believe that Judy would someday find out about the work of national importance he’d been doing for Royston over the last six years, would come grovelling to him in abject, humiliated apology, ‘Laurie, I never realised…’
He saw where his thoughts were leading and angrily brushed them aside. Fantasies could be damaging. Pathos crippled. What he needed was breakfast.
While he made the toast Sculby forced himself to concentrate on Loshkevoi.
Today the magistrates would finally decide whether to commit him for trial by jury at Inner London Crown Court. Sculby had consulted Spencer Gyddon and together they had decided to allow the case to go through on the nod, without challenging the written statements provided by the police. This was called a ‘Section One’ committal.
‘They’ve got just enough there to open the case to the jury,’ said Gyddon. ‘Don’t worry, Laurie, I’ll get it knocked out at half time.’
On the whole Sculby agreed with that assessment, but in the taxi to Lavender Hill he couldn’t help wondering whether they oughtn’t to have been submitting today that there was no case to answer. Spencer Gyddon was unavailable, however, and Sculby neither wanted to take in another barrister at this late stage nor to risk doing the case himself, so a Section One committal it was.
He met Loshkevoi in the foyer and took him to an interview room. The first thing his client said was: ‘I tried to call you last night, Laurie. I didn’t want you to come. It’s all off.’
Sculby sat down and said nothing for a moment. He took out a cigarette, lit it and enjoyed a long drag while he thought about his next move.
Royston had never so much as hinted that this might be in the pipeline. Sculby had no instructions to drop the case.
‘What’s up, Victor?’ he asked gently.
‘I don’t need you any more, Laurie. I’ve decided to go it alone. I’m pleading guilty.’
‘What?’
‘I did it, you see.’
Loshkevoi darted a sharp look at Sculby as he spoke these words, and the solicitor had a sudden hunch that his client knew perfectly well what the effect would be. No lawyer who was advised of his client’s guilt in that way could thereafter put forward a positive case of innocence to the court.
‘But why, Victor? Why save it up for now?’
Sculby was genuinely astonished. He had known clients do all kinds of crazy things, but nothing as outlandish as this.
‘Have they threatened you? Have they promised you a deal?’
Loshkevoi merely shrugged and looked away.
‘I can’t just take this lying down, you know. In your own interests, I’ve got to try to talk you out of it.’
‘You’ll be wasting your breath. Leave it out, please Laurie. You can’t do any more to help me now.’
Sculby considered his client. Loshkevoi seemed preoccupied, distraught; something far outside this courtroom was preying on his mind. The lawyer was conscious of a barrier between them, a wilful refusal on Loshkevoi’s part to meet his situation face to face. Yet underneath it all he was scared out of his wits. Somewhere very near the surface was the jerky madman who had screamed from the dock on the day of the first hearing. If only Sculby could get through to him…
‘You could go inside, you realise that, don’t you?’ Sculby’s voice was suddenly hard. ‘Doing bird is no fun, Victor. You don’t want to get involved with that. Remand in Brixton, that was nothing, that’s a doddle. Have you ever really been in prison before? Three men to a cell, and they all shit?’
‘Laurie, I…’
‘The smell at night, have you thought about that?’
Loshkevoi stood up and banged his clenched fists on the table in front of him.
‘Get out!’
‘Now look…’
‘You’re sacked, you hear me? Sacked!’
Sculby gave him a long, cool look, then packed up his briefcase and made for the door.
‘I’ll be in court,’ he said just before he went out. ‘If you change your mind, all you’ve got to do is say.’
Once outside Sculby thought about phoning Royston, actually went as far as the phone-booth, before deciding he couldn’t go through with it. He had a ‘life or death’ contact number but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to use it. Three months was the most Loshkevoi could expect, even if the worse came to the worst, and besides it was P.4’s function to watch, not manipulate. Its members were ‘spies’ rather than ‘agents’, their powers limited.
Sculby reluctantly put the change back into his trouser-pocket and entered the court.
Today there were a number of matters to be dealt with before Loshkevoi’s case was called on. Sculby sat in the solicitor’s row and doodled in the margin of his notebook. At last he heard his ex-client’s name and turned to see him in the dock, hands resting on the bar in front of him. The clerk to the justices ran through the formalities like an announcer reeling off stations. Loshkevoi declined to apply for Legal Aid, opted for summary trial, waived any claim to trial by jury. At a sign from the chairman of the magistrates Loshkevoi sat down.
‘Sergeant?’
Detective-Sergeant Fitzgerald rose to his feet.
‘Sir, normally there would be no objection from the police to summary trial on these charges. But there has been a slight complication…’
Sculby looked up from his notebook to see that Fitzgerald was suffering from an advanced case of policeman’s smirk.
‘Owing to information very helpfully supplied by the accused himself, and I want to say now that the police have received the very fullest co-operation, certain other offences have come to light.’
Sculby turned to the dock, willing Loshkevoi to look him in the eye, without success. His former client was alert but relaxed, and again Sculby was conscious of a feeling that he knew what he was up to, almost as if acting under advice.
Fitzgerald handed a typewritten list to the bench. The chairman looked up from reading it and said sharply, ‘Two of these offences were allegedly committed while the accused was on bail pending these present charges, the ones with which we are concerned today.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The chairman’s lips puckered. To Sculby he seemed mildly embarrassed at finding himself in such low company for the discharge of a public duty. ‘Well-meaning’ was the phrase the Divisional Court would use when quashing his decisions.
‘Er… Mr Loshkevoi, perhaps you’d like to reconsider your position. You’re not legally represented…’
‘It’s okay.’ Loshkevoi was standing again. Sculby, who had long ago ceased to write, sat with his mouth open.
‘…I just want to get it over with. Finish. You understand?’
The bench went into a huddle. Sculby knew what would happen and it did.
‘Put these further charges,’ said the chairman. The clerk ran through the same rigmarole all over again and Loshkevoi renewed his guilty plea.
‘Anything known?’
Fitzgerald stood up.
‘No sir. The accused is a person of hitherto good character. There are no antecedents.’
Again the chairman’s lips puckered.
‘Mr Loshkevoi, do you wish to call character evidence or say anything on your own behalf?’
Sculby half rose to his feet, thought better of it, and subsided.
‘Not really. It’s the temptation, you see. I mentioned this to the sergeant there and he agrees. Very easy in the used car trade.’
The chairman looked incredulous. ‘Is that all you want to say?’
Loshkevoi shrugged. ‘Sure. Why not?’
‘Do you regret having committed these offences?’
‘Oh sure. Pity I got found out, eh?’
And Loshkevoi laughed, a hearty, booming sound which caused everyone in court to stop whatever he was doing and look at the prisoner in the dock, amazed.
Sculby put away his notebook and reached for his coat. The proceedings were now drawing to a close which he regarded as inevitable. The bench went into its usual huddle; then the chairman was speaking again.
‘We do not think we have adequate powers to deal with you. We therefore propose to commit you to the Crown Court for sentence, in accordance with the warning which the clerk read to you earlier.’
As Sculby left the courtroom the last thing he heard was the magistrate refusing Loshkevoi bail for which he had not actually applied.