Empress Bianca (32 page)

‘You are aware that it is our client’s case that the system of Nominees was purely a device to avoid Foreign Exchange Controls in case one of you got in trouble as you moved money from country to country without the permission of the states involved, and that the system of Nominees was never intended to indicate true ownership?’

‘You’re very naïve if you think we could’ve moved large sums of money from country to country undetected and without the knowledge of the said countries’ banks.’

‘Of course, you would say that, wouldn’t you? The fact is, the system
of Nominees could just as easily be read as your brother being the true beneficial owner of the companies. The paperwork, to the contrary, is nothing but a dodge concocted by dishonest business people to subvert the laws of various governments and to deprive a devoted widow of her rightful inheritance.’

In response, Clara just stared at Sir Alfred.

‘Cat got your tongue?’ he said with vicious glee. ‘Well, I can understand your reluctance to reply. You don’t have very much sympathy for your sister-in-law, do you?’

‘No, I don’t suppose I do.’

‘Don’t you think that someone who has lost her husband in the awful way your sister-in-law did would warrant sympathy from her unfortunate husband’s only sibling?’

‘I think any sister would find it very difficult to sympathize with a sister-in-law who cleared out the house of all staff so that her brother would be there alone, only to be discovered an hour or so later with two bullet holes through his heart.’

‘Your dissatisfaction is not really about money, isn’t it?’

‘It’s really about how my brother died. Money plays a part, a small part, but the larger issue, so far as I’m concerned, is how my brother can be said to have committed suicide in circumstances which make it clear that he could not have killed himself.’

‘Marchesa,’ Sir Alfred said, ‘am I right in thinking that the Mexican police investigated your brother’s death?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was their conclusion?’

‘That he had committed suicide, but this was preposterous since no right-handed human being can shoot himself once, much less twice, through the heart with his left hand.’

‘Of course we all sympathize with the distress of a sister whose brother died in horrific circumstances,’ Sir Alfred said, trotting out the odious hypocrisy for which the British legal profession is so famous, ‘but the death certificate clearly states that your brother died by his own hand, doesn’t it?’

Clara remained silent.

‘I’ve asked you a question,’ he barked. ‘You are obliged to answer it. What is your answer?’

‘Yes,’ Clara said, her expression one of supreme distaste for the man who was asking her these questions.

‘Incidentally, Marchesa,’ he said, as if he had just remembered something, ‘your correct title is Marchesa d’Offolo, is it not?’

‘That’s correct,’ Clara said.

‘You’re quite sure?’ Sir Alfred said.

‘Yes.’

‘Your husband is a marchese?’

‘Yes.’

‘“Marchese” is Italian for what we would call a marquis in Britain, I believe.’

‘Yes,’ Clara said, seeing where Sir Alfred is heading.

‘You would have this court believe you are a woman of credibility, I take it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You wouldn’t claim to be something you’re not, would you?’

‘Obviously not, Sir Alfred.’

‘You are not a marchesa in your own right, are you?’

‘No.’

‘I take it that the reason why you are Marchesa d’Offolo is because you married the Marchese d’Offolo.’

‘That’s right.’

Looking triumphant, Sir Alfred waved a piece of paper. ‘How very peculiar, then,’ he continued, pressing home his point, ‘that the Italian authorities state that there is no citizen of Italy by the name of Rodolfo d’Offolo who is a marchese and that you are nothing but Signora d’Offolo. It would appear that even your claim to being the Marchesa d’Offolo is without merit. That will be all, Mrs d’Offolo.’

Smiling dismissively, Sir Arthur looked over at Conkers to see whether he wished to re-examine his witness.

Conkers got to his feet. ‘I know this is difficult for you, so I’ll limit myself to one question only. Why do you believe that Madame Antonescu is entitled to only a minority share of your family’s assets?’

‘Because that’s the way my father set up the companies. That’s the way my brother and I ran the companies. And that’s the way it is, both morally and legally.’

‘Thank you,’ Conkers said, smiling wanly at Clara as he turned to the
judge to dismiss Clara. Realizing that he had no intention of addressing the issue of her title and that he was therefore prepared to allow the judge to accept Sir Alfred’s contention that she was a phoney, she said: ‘Before you sit down, Lord Ralph, possibly you, as an aristocrat who presumably knows something about the way titles work here and elsewhere, will give me the opportunity of explaining to the court that there are Papal titles and Italian titles. The Vatican is a sovereign state, and the Pope is the elected monarch of that state. As such, all Papal titles have as much force and validity as any other title granted by a monarchy. I don’t suppose Sir Alfred considers himself a fraud when he’s in Italy just because his title is English, and what applies to him applies to me. My husband is a Papal marchese. His title has as much official recognition as Sir Alfred’s, or indeed, yours. While it is true that Italy voted to become a republic in 1946, and it withdrew official recognition of all Italian titles at that time, it did not abolish foreign titles. I trust this addresses the issue of my correct style and title.’

‘Thank you for that explanation, Marchesa. You have saved me the task of asking you a question upon which I had no instructions, but which I would have liked to have addressed myself,’ Conkers said smoothly and, turning to the judge, bowed his head and said: ‘That will be all, My Lord.’

‘Thank you, Marchesa. You are excused,’ said Mr Justice Landsworth, looking at the clock obsessively as Clara stepped out of the witness box.

‘And now, if it’s agreeable with Counsel, I suggest we break now and return at ten-thirty tomorrow morning.’

Both Silks stood up and, in unison said ‘My Lord,’ with an exaggerated respect that struck Clara as ludicrous theatricality.

‘Everyone be upstanding in the court,’ declared the Clerk of the Court stentoriously, maintaining the tone set by the Silks.

At that, everyone stood up. Mr Justice Landsworth rose with a flourish, swishing his robes as if he were a drag queen sashaying across the stage of a dingy nightclub in Lower Manhattan. All the members of the legal teams bowed exaggeratedly towards the departing judge as if they were Catholics genuflecting before an altar dedicated to the Holy Trinity.

As soon as the door to the judge’s chambers swung shut, Conkers turned around to Clara. ‘I thought that went jolly well,’ he said within earshot of Bianca and Philippe, who were sitting side by side no more than four feet away from his client. ‘Well done, Marchesa. You certainly gave as
good as you got.’ With that, he laughed appreciatively.

Before he had even finished laughing, Sir Alfred tugged Conkers’ sleeve. ‘I’ll catch up with you later,’ he said.

This was just a bit too cosy for Clara, who felt a surge of anger well up within her. ‘It’s so refreshing to see how civilized the English legal system is,’ she said, removing all trace of anything but approval from her voice. ‘There you are with Sir Alfred, such good friends, representing sworn enemies like my sister-in-law and myself.’

‘It’s the civility of it all that makes this the best legal system in the world,’ Conkers said, unaware of the irony and failing to appreciate that Clara was being sarcastic. ‘I know you’re smarting under the lash of Sir Alfred’s tongue. All his victims do. But don’t underestimate the power of a reasoned argument. He may be all thunder and lightning and insinuation, but that doesn’t necessarily sway judges the way it does juries. I think you’ll find at the end of the day that our way is the winning way. What say you, Clewth?’

‘I’d say so,’ Adrian Clewth agreed, nodding his bewigged head as he gathered up his papers and stuffed them into a well-worn brief case that he then proceeded to put underneath the table where he was sitting.

‘You’re surely not leaving those there?’ said Rodolfo.

‘There’s no danger. The court will be locked within minutes. No one will have access until tomorrow morning.’

‘But what happens if we come back later than the other side?’

‘Oh, they’d never look at our papers. It just isn’t done.’

Rodolfo shot Clara a doubtful look. Was he being overly suspicious or was Adrian Clewth being incredibly naïve? Clara agreed with her husband that these English legal practitioners were expecting reasonable people to suspend an unreasonable degree of disbelief in the probity of humankind but indicated by the flicker of an eyelid that he was to leave the subject alone. The British system, she concluded, certainly was bizarre.

But was her trust in it misplaced?

That night, as Clara and Rodolfo were dining together in an exclusive little restaurant in Knightsbridge, Mary Landsworth was introducing Bianca Barnett Calman Piedraplata Antonescu to her good friend Clarissa Coningby. ‘Lady Ralph Coningby, Madame Antonescu,’ she said in those braying tones for which the upper-middle classes of the day were renowned. ‘I know you ladies have a lot to talk about, so I’ll leave you to
it while I circulate.’

After the usual niceties, Clarissa came straight to the point. ‘Mary tells me you want to sponsor our little cause,’ she said brightly and appreciatively.

‘It’s such a worthy one,’ replied Bianca, careful to present herself as the quintessence of benevolence. ‘You and Mary should be congratulated for starting it up. I was amazed to discover the trouble you’ve been having with funding.’

‘Not everyone cares about Distressed Gentlefolk,’ said Her Ladyship plaintively, ‘especially when you narrow it down, the way we have, to the widows and orphans of judges, barristers and solicitors who have fallen on hard times.’

‘I’d have thought you’d get a lot of support from the legal profession,’ Bianca said astutely, getting to the heart of the matter.

‘To an extent, we do. They’re always happy to lend us venues such as Lincoln’s Inn or Gray’s Inn for our fundraising efforts, but the legal profession in this country is not rich the way it is in America. By the time you’ve bought the wine and laid on food, you’re lucky to break even, much less make a profit.’

‘I know from experience of my own country how difficult fundraising can be,’ said Bianca, who had never done a stroke of charity work in her life. ‘That’s why, when I saw the brochure for the Distressed Legal Gentlefolk Society in Mary’s waiting room, I decided to offer my support.’

Bianca had actually noticed it on her second visit to Darter and Co’s offices, around the corner on Chancery Lane from the High Courts of Justice in The Strand. It was prominently displayed on the coffee table in front of the large red Chesterfield sofa in the waiting room, where it had been laid out beside the latest copies of
Tatler
and
Harper’s & Queen.
This had been done by Mary Landsworth’s secretary on her instructions.

Rightly concluding that the brochure was bait, Bianca had sweetly asked Mary for a brief explanation of the Distressed Legal Gentlefolk Society as she was ushered into her office. Mary had launched into an enthusiastic explanation about its aims, stressing its nobility of purpose, as if these relicts of prosperous legal practitioners could ever qualify, in real terms, as hardship cases, and had given her client a brochure to take home so that she could familiarize herself with the work they were trying to do.

Back at the Dorchester, where she and Philippe had the old suite she
and Ferdie used to share, while Ion was in the suite beside it - the one that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton used to occupy in those days – Bianca discussed what to do about the Society with her lover. ‘Of course, your solicitor’s doing nothing less than subtly soliciting your support for a cause she has control over,’ Philippe observed. ‘Presumably its true purpose is to advance her career and that of her colleagues by currying favour with their superiors in the legal profession. I gather the English legal profession is like that. It’s an old boys’ network. They all know one another and further one another’s careers with the proviso, of course, that you play ball with them. Not only does she have her own career to consider - and the best way of getting work and becoming an eminent solicitor is to obtain good results by befriending judges, with the possibility of even ending up as Solicitor General - but her husband’s a judge. As you know, the other co-founder, Lady Ralph Coningby, is married to a Queen’s Counsel, who’s a hotshot barrister. Both husbands are tipped for high office, which means that they’re moving heaven and earth behind the scenes to achieve their goals. It is said that Mr Justice Landsworth aims to become Lord Justice Landsworth, a Court of Appeal Judge or a Law Lord, while Lord Ralph Coningby hopes to move up the scale from being just another Queen’s Counsel to a judge and preferably a senior one at that. And how, my dear, do you think they’ll get there? I’ll tell you. They’ll earn and peddle influence. That’s how it’s done in England.’

‘You make it sound even more underhand than the Mexican judiciary,’ Bianca said.

‘It is. The way barristers’ and judges’ careers are advanced in England is shrouded in secrecy for the simple reason that the legal profession doesn’t want to create influential judges and advocates whom it can’t control. The ultimate goal of the legal profession in England isn’t the administration of justice. It sees to it that the justice system is administered by tame judges and lawyers who protect the interests and the power of the legal profession.’

‘Are you saying that the real pay-off isn’t money - it’s power?’

‘That’s right. And I’ll tell you how they do it too. Promotion from a junior barrister to a Silk, or from a Silk to a judge, and from the more junior levels such as District Judge through the more mundane levels such as Circuit Judge to the senior levels such as High Court judge, comes from secret meetings of the most senior members of the legal profession. Ability
has little or nothing to do with advancement. Playing ball with the powers-that-be is the only way a barrister will move up the professional ladder. It’s also the way he wins his cases. Most judgements have little or nothing to do with the merits of a case. They’re determined by who is most in favour with the Judge. That’s why I directed you to Mary Landsworth. She has what the English call “impeccable connections”, which means that she knows which strings to pull. My take on what’s happening is that she’s giving you a message: “Support my charity, and I’ll go that extra mile for you.” Your father was right to despise the English, Bianca. They’re real hypocrites. My advice is to ring Mary Landsworth up tomorrow and tell her that you’re very moved by the objectives of her charity. You want to become a supporter and so you’ll make an initial donation of £20,000. Then dangle a carrot in front of her. Say you’ll endow her society to the tune of £20,000 per annum over the next five years, as long as she keeps you abreast of her plans for the charity. Lay on your own brand of heartfelt moralizing with a trowel. She’ll like that.’