And Is There Honey Still For Tea? (6 page)

‘You said in your letter that you have worked with Mr Overton before,' Hollander said, ‘so you must have great confidence in him.'

‘Miles is one of the best,' Julia replied, without hesitation. ‘I should warn you that he is not the easiest of men to get on with. He can be rather brusque and direct. He's not what you would call a natural diplomat. But he is very effective in court, and he is well respected by the judges. He is just the man for this case.'

‘What about his junior?'

‘I don't know her personally yet,' Julia replied. ‘But I do know her by reputation. Her name is Virginia Castle. She has only been at the Bar for a few years, but she is making a name for herself. Her job will be mainly to do the legal research and help Miles to prepare, but she is more than capable of holding her own in court if we need her to.'

‘That sounds very encouraging,' Hollander said, finishing his soup and setting his spoon inside the bowl. ‘It is good to have the best.'

‘We will need the best,' Julia responded forcefully. ‘We are up against some of the best on the other side. Digby's solicitor is Herbert Harper, the senior partner of one of the most highly-regarded firms in London. Herbert has been doing this for a long time, and he doesn't miss a trick. And as for barristers, as a QC himself, Digby would probably have had his choice of QCs to represent him. He has chosen Bernard Wesley, who is every bit as good as Miles. He would probably have been my second choice if Digby had not collared him first. His junior is a young man called Schroeder; again, I don't know him, but I understand he is also making a name for himself.'

The waiter came to remove the soup dishes.

‘It sounds as though we will have a good fight on our hands, then,' Hollander said.

‘Francis,' Julia replied, ‘in Sir James Masefield Digby, you are taking on the British Establishment. The Establishment never gives up without a good fight. Even with whatever help the Service can offer, we are going to have our hands full.'

8

Miles Overton QC stood as Julia Cathermole and her client were shown into his room in chambers.

‘Julia, welcome. Do you know our junior, Virginia Castle?'

‘By reputation only, until today,' Julia replied, taking Miles's hand and kissing him lightly on the cheek.

She turned to Virginia, who had made her way across from her seat by the side of Overton's chair, her hand outstretched. ‘But I am pleased to have the chance to instruct you at last. Your reputation precedes you.'

‘As does yours, Miss Cathermole,' she smiled.

Julia laughed. ‘So people are forever telling me. And it's Julia, please.'

‘Ginny,' she replied. ‘Only Miles insists on Virginia.'

They shook hands warmly, understanding and liking each other instantly. Ginny was seen as a rising star in Miles Overton's chambers. As a woman of decidedly left-wing views, the product of a girls' grammar school in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the London School of Economics, she might well have expected to find it hard going in one of the more conservative sets of chambers in London. But Ginny had simply refused to expect – or accept – any such restrictions. She had a formidable legal mind which was envied by most of the men in chambers; she was known as a resourceful advocate, and a calm but tenacious fighter in court. She also had a charm and an engaging wit, with which she had learned to disarm even those who were least disposed to like her. She was popular in chambers as well as successful.

Julia Cathermole admired those qualities, because they closely mirrored her own. At thirty-nine, Julia was six years older than Virginia Castle. In little more than a decade after being admitted to practice as a solicitor, she had built her firm, Cathermole & Bridger, into a force to be reckoned with on the London legal scene. The two partners and six associates were becoming accustomed to dealing with high-profile cases almost as a matter of routine. Julia had a gift, which she loved to exploit, of causing opponents to underestimate her. Her record at Roedean and Girton – where she had taken a starred First in law and played a hard game of hockey – spoke for itself. But it was surprising how often that record was overlooked. She had a cheery, outgoing manner which suggested that she might be just as much at home with horses at a country show as representing clients in difficult court cases in London. Opponents frequently misread her, to their cost. At some point they inevitably discovered that the breezy solicitor with the wild hair had a photographic memory, a gift for reducing complex cases to an understandable, manageable simplicity, and a steely determination to win for her clients. Often her opponents recognised these qualities only when it was too late.

‘This is Professor Francis Hollander,' Julia said. With a nod, Hollander shook hands with Miles and Ginny. Miles seated Hollander and Julia in chairs in front of his desk and took his own seat.

‘I hope Vernon offered you a cup of tea or coffee,' he said.

‘We are fine. We had coffee after lunch, thank you,' Julia replied.

Overton nodded and was silent for some moments before beginning.

‘Well, Julia, even by your standards, this is – how to put it… a challenging one.'

Julia smiled. ‘That's why I am here, Miles. I need the best. Not only is it a challenging case, but against us we have Harper Sutton & Harper and Bernard Wesley.'

‘So I understand,' Overton replied. ‘That, of course, only makes our task even more difficult. Not only does Professor Hollander make an extremely serious charge against a distinguished member of the Bar, a Queen's Counsel, but he does so, as far as I can see, without any real evidence to support the charge. You must forgive me, Professor Hollander, but there is no point in beating about the bush. I hope you will forgive me if I speak bluntly.'

‘I would prefer it.'

‘Good. Then I must tell you that, as the case stands now, neither Miss Castle nor I see any way to defend you against liability for libel. Our best course would be to offer an immediate apology and retraction, and mitigate the damage to Digby's reputation as much as possible. I can talk to Bernard Wesley. I doubt that Digby is interested primarily in money. His family is wealthy, and he has a good practice at the Bar. He is interested mainly in his reputation, and it may well be that there is still time to salvage it.'

Hollander shook his head.

‘That is not what this is about, Mr Overton. I went into this with my eyes open. It was not my intention to smear a man's reputation unjustly. Digby has betrayed his country. I know it.'

‘What you think you know is neither here nor there,' Overton replied.

‘But …'

‘Let us assume for a moment that you are correct: that James Digby has been passing secrets to the Russians for some years. God knows how, and God knows why, but let's assume he did. Who knows about it? Who can prove it in court? On your account of the matter, it may be that Viktor Stepanov knew it, but unfortunately Viktor Stepanov is no longer with us, and even if he were, we don't know how credible he would be. Virginia, I believe you have looked into the possibility of getting any statements he may have made into evidence?'

‘Yes,' Ginny replied. ‘A judge has some power to allow some hearsay under the Evidence Act 1938, but the Act was not intended to take the place of oral evidence, and I can't see any judge letting in such important evidence when the other side would have no means of challenging it.'

‘If Digby sues,' Hollander said, ‘it will all come out.'

‘Oh? And how exactly will that happen?'

‘Quite naturally,' Hollander replied. ‘Do you recall the case of Oscar Wilde?'

For some moments Overton stared at him blankly before he burst out laughing.

‘Oscar Wilde?'

‘Wilde brought everything on himself in the end, didn't he?' Hollander said. ‘If he had not had Queensberry prosecuted for libel originally, the truth would not have emerged. If the truth had not emerged he himself would not have been prosecuted. The authorities would never have disturbed him. His position in Society would have protected him. He was one of their own. It is the same with Digby. He is part of the Establishment. They would never go after him on their own initiative, left to their own devices. It goes too much against the grain. But I believe that he will not be able to resist suing me and, once he does, the truth will come out. That will leave the authorities with no choice.'

‘So you see yourself in the role of the Marquess of Queensberry, Professor, do you?' Overton asked. ‘Not a particularly worthy role model, I should have thought.'

‘Even a Marquess of Queensberry may have a good cause, Miles,' Julia suggested.

Overton shook his head.

‘I know you relish a good fight, Julia, but it's not like you to point an unloaded weapon at Harper Sutton & Harper and ask them to put their hands up. What am I missing?'

She smiled. ‘I don't give up just because a case is a challenge, Miles, you know that. I understand your reaction to this article. My reaction was exactly the same when I first read it. But even having known Francis for as short a time as I have, I think I can shed some light on what led him to publish it.'

‘I would be delighted to hear it,' Overton replied.

She nodded. ‘My experience of academics is that there are essentially two kinds,' she said. ‘The first kind is the ivory tower brigade, who shut themselves away and pursue esoteric subjects and write abstract treatises which are of little use to mankind, and which very few people outside their own specialism even bother to read. Why they do that I have never personally understood, but they seem to derive some satisfaction from it. The second kind is the crusader brigade, who think that their research and teaching should serve a useful purpose in the real world. Francis falls into the second group. He needs to feel that his work makes a difference.'

‘That's all very well,' Overton protested. ‘But the only difference he is making here is that he is going to bring a ruinous lawsuit down on his own head, and that of his University. I am not sure what useful purpose is served by that.'

‘The University is not involved in this,' Hollander pointed out. ‘The Journal is entirely independent of the University. I founded it with two friends just over three years ago, and we run it on a shoestring. We have no assets. They can sue all they want, but there is no money for them there.'

‘That does not give you a licence to publish libel,' Overton said.

‘I don't believe my article is libellous,' Hollander retorted.

‘A jury will almost certainly find otherwise, unless you can produce some evidence. What did you expect to gain from this?'

‘I have already told you. I am trying to expose truths that need to be exposed.'

‘Think about it for a moment, Miles,' Julia persisted. ‘Francis is a patriotic American. The concerns he raises are real concerns, which affect both his country and ours. You know what's been going on these last few years. Our security services are out of control. Even now, after Burgess and Maclean, after Philby, after Blake and the others who have been convicted, our Government either doesn't know, or is refusing to tell us, how much damage has been done, what advantage we have handed to the Soviets through their treachery and our sheer incompetence. It is time someone stood up and said so. If we remain silent, we have only ourselves to blame when Russia starts pushing its empire even further in our direction.'

Overton pulled himself up in his chair, and placed his hands in front of him on his desk.

‘I understand that, Julia,' he said, ‘and I am the first to agree that something must be done about the incompetence of the Security Services. If you had written about Burgess and Maclean, if you had written about Philby, if you had demanded a public inquiry – not that you would have been the first to do that – no one could have any possible complaint. But …'

‘It's not just about the incompetence of the Security Services,' Hollander interrupted, his voice animated. ‘It's not even about the fact that your Government covers everything up, that it instinctively protects everyone who wears the old school tie, or comes from the right kind of family – bad as all that is. The fact is, Mr Overton, that this treachery has cost lives. How many, I don't know. But when agents are betrayed behind the Iron Curtain, they are tortured, and then either killed or sent to the Gulags. We don't even know how many Digby betrayed every time he went to Moscow.'

Overton did not reply immediately. As a Silk, he was unused to being interrupted during a consultation. Moreover, he had no doubt about what he had already said – the case was legally indefensible, and Hollander's stance was almost suicidal in terms of legal strategy. But Overton found it impossible to ignore the sincerity of his manner. Hollander deserved to be heard, as well as told what was best for him. He decided to try another approach.

‘Leaving Stepanov aside,' he asked of the room in general, ‘what do we have?'

Ginny spoke up. ‘Digby did make a lot of trips to the Soviet Union,' she pointed out, ‘and I imagine they would be easy enough to document?'

‘Absolutely,' Hollander replied. ‘For one thing, he would have needed a visa to visit the Soviet Union. And he did in fact send back articles to the newspapers and chess magazines. No, he was there. There is no doubt about that.'

‘Can we put him together with Stepanov?' Ginny asked.

‘I am sure we can. They were together at many tournaments, including the 1948 World Championship. Stepanov wasn't a great player, but he was one of the Soviets' fixers. He was one of the people they relied on to smooth things over with FIDE and tournament organisers.'

‘Smooth things over in what way?'

‘The Soviets like to think they dominate world chess,' Hollander replied. ‘In fairness, they do, in terms of playing strength. They have almost all the strongest grandmasters. But they try to dominate in other ways also. There have been persistent rumours that they fix tournaments – I mean, they order some of their players to lose to or draw with others to achieve a particular result, or to promote a particular grandmaster popular with the Government. Chess is a highly political issue in the Soviet Union because they like to hail their successes as proof that the Marxist-Leninist system works. They have a record of non-cooperation with the International Federation. But however dominant they are over the board, they have problems in terms of the world game. They need a few diplomats like Stepanov, men who speak other languages and know how to talk to foreigners in a civilised way, to sort things out for them. So Stepanov was a regular at international tournaments, as well as the Soviet championship. There is no doubt that we can put him with Digby – on many occasions. There are probably photographs.'

‘That's something,' Ginny said. ‘But we would still need a connection …'

‘That may be possible,' Julia said. She hesitated. ‘I can't say any more at present, but I believe it is possible that we may soon have access to some evidence to support Professor Hollander's article.'

Every eye in the room was on her. Hollander, in particular, seemed taken aback.

‘Are you going to tell us what this evidence consists of?' Overton asked quietly.

‘I don't know,' she replied candidly. ‘But I will know within a few days, and I will make it available to you as soon as I can.'

Overton considered for some time.

‘Well, I suppose there is no need to do anything at this precise moment. The ball is in Digby's court. But I fully expect that Harper Sutton & Harper will issue a Writ and serve a Statement of Claim for libel within a matter of a few days. You should tell Herbert Harper that you will accept service on Professor Hollander's behalf. But then, once that happens, we will have to make a very serious decision. Virginia…?'

‘The only possible defence we see to this claim is one of justification,' Ginny said.