Surprisingly, it was the young German Graf who objected most violently to the meagreness of the room on offer. Stating that its size was an affront to the seriousness of the case. His other complaint, that Hamzah Quitrimala’s arraignment should have been thrown open to the press, drew a snort of laughter from St. Cloud. Berlin wasn’t known for the transparency of its legal process.
El Iskandryia’s law courts were in Place Orabi, almost directly opposite the tomb of the unknown warrior and occupying what had once been the Italian Consulate. At ground level, the central Hall of Justice was three times the size of the courtroom Raf had chosen, and came replete with gilded chairs set out like small thrones for five judges, a seal of the Khedival arms hung behind the central chair and, above these, carved from Lebanese cedar and gilded with beaten gold, a tugra, the imperial monogram of the Ottoman Porte himself.
It was, Raf agreed, an altogether more imposing setting. It was also accessible from Place Orabi on one side and Rue el Tigarya on another, making it simple to attack and complex to defend.
“Defend from whom?” the Graf had demanded.
“You tell me,” had been Raf’s answer and he made the Graf, Senator Liz and St. Cloud, plus the ushers, the court stenographer and Zara climb three flights of marble stairs to a smaller courtroom usually used for family disputes.
At the top, just before he went into the room, Raf halted to yank open a steel fire escape. A helmeted Hakim stood on metal steps outside, clutching an old-fashioned Lee-Enfield. Next to Hakim was Ahmed, a Soviet machine gun resting heavy in the crook of his arm. The gun was chopped from sheet steel and finished on a lathe. It had the advantage of having only five moving parts, none of them involving electronics.
“If shit happens,” Raf said, “this is the way we leave. Don’t look back and don’t stop to help anybody else, just move . . .”
As Raf turned to go, an explosion ruptured the city’s nervous silence and flames boiled into the air from the deserted railyard at Kharmous.
“What perfect timing,” said a voice in Raf’s ear. It was St. Cloud, a smile on the old man’s weather-beaten face as he watched smoke stain the sky. “Almost too perfect,” he added.
Since then the Marquis had been watching Raf, his Cheshire cat smile coming and going, but never quite vanishing from the old roué’s face. Now St. Cloud had the defendant standing in the dock in front of him.
“Your name?”
Hamzah Quitrimala gave no answer.
“You will give the court your name.”
Eyes expressionless and mouth slack, the thickset industrialist looked as if St. Cloud’s order carried no weight against whatever was happening inside his head.
“Has this man been tested for mental competence?” the Marquis asked Raf.
“He has been examined by a doctor . . .”
“That wasn’t quite what I asked.” St. Cloud’s voice was silky. “Has he undergone the usual tests?”
“Obviously not,” said Raf. “Since we don’t have access to the usual machines.”
“All the more reason to hold the trial in Washington,” insisted the Senator and St. Cloud sat back with a smile. Winding up Elizabeth Elsing and letting her go was about as subtle as winding up an old clockwork toy and twice as amusing.
“That question has already been debated and decided,” Raf said flatly. “The trial takes place here.”
“Decided by you,” said St. Cloud.
“Yes,” said Raf, “decided by me.”
“In your capacity as governor of the city.”
Raf nodded.
“As is your right?”
Raf nodded once more.
“Remind me,” said the Frenchman politely. “In which of your capacities are you now answering my question about the defendant’s mental capacity?”
“As magister.”
The elderly Frenchman nodded and turned his attention back to the man in the dock. “We need your name,” said the Marquis. “We need to know that you understand our questions . . .”
Hamzah opened his mouth but no words came to carry his answer to the waiting court and seconds later the light went out of his eyes.
St. Cloud shrugged.
“Is there any man here who speaks for the defendant?”
“Yes,” came a voice from the back. “I do . . .”
Heads twisted but Raf didn’t need to look. It was his turn to smile.
“I said any man,” St. Cloud said gently.
“Whatever.” Zara walked to the front and stopped beside her father. “Let me speak for him,” she said. “God knows, he needs somebody.”
“The weight of a woman’s word is a third of that given to the words of a man . . . Isn’t that now the law in El Iskandryia? Come to think of it,” the Frenchman added softly, “I seem to remember that being the law across most of North Africa.”
“This court operates under the rules of The Hague,” said Raf firmly. “As you well know.”
St. Cloud nodded. “So you allow this girl to speak for her father?”
“Yes,” said Raf, without looking at Zara, “I allow it.”
“Remind me,” said the Frenchman with a sly smile, “in exactly which capacity did you make that decision?”
“A Grand Jury having unanimously decided that probable cause and sufficient reason exist to bring this case to trial, it is my duty as senior judge to apprise you of the formal charges . . .”
Pausing, St. Cloud reached for a glass and sipped, very slowly. The tumbler was smeared and the water it held tasted stale. Chances were, the water had been brought in a jug from a standpipe hastily erected in the square outside.
It was interesting just how much the people of any city relied on electricity without really realizing that fact. At least St. Cloud found it interesting; but then he found almost everything interesting, which had proved a salvation in his long and sometimes difficult life.
What interested him most, at least most for the moment, was how ready both the German boy and that irritating American were to agree that Hamzah Effendi was faking illness, when it was blindingly obvious that the defendant was crippled by despair. Not guilt, despair . . . The Marquis had been around enough of both to be able to tell the difference.
Also interesting was that the dutiful daughter who now stood beside the defendant spent more time watching Ashraf Bey than she did looking at her father or the judges. And that for his part, the young Berber princeling worked hard to do the opposite. So far he hadn’t looked at her once.
“The charge,” said St. Cloud as he carefully put down his glass, “is murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree and culpable homicide. The prosecution will bring a representative case for each of these charges. If all three charges are found, then a fourth charge will be considered to have been brought against you . . . That of a Section 3 crime against humanity . . .
“Under The Hague Convention you have a constitutional right to be represented. But I see that no law firm has been appointed.” The Frenchman made a show of consulting documents, if handwritten scrawls on cheap, lined paper could so be called. “Do you wish me to appoint counsel?”
St. Cloud took another slow sip from his glass. He’d first learnt of the trick as a young lawyer, watching an elderly judge in Marseilles. Every few minutes, the woman would stop to sip from a small glass of iced Evian. Rumour said the glass contained vodka but rumour lied. Water was all it ever was. The sipping existed to create natural breaks that let her words trickle into the bedrock of everyone’s thought. Faced with inexorable evidence and enough silence, defendants had been known to change their pleas midtrial, without consulting their lawyers and to their lawyers’ considerable horror. It had taken the Marquis months of watching the judge to work out how the old woman stage-managed it.