‘It’s all right, guys,’ I said, trying to lighten the moment. ‘He isn’t here. And he doesn’t know we’re here, or even that I know either of you.’
Neither of them was much mollified by my assurances. They went on looking scared and uncertain.
‘With your help,’ I said. ‘I can put this man behind bars where he can’t get at you.’
‘Julian Trent was behind bars,’ said Josef quickly. ‘But…’ He tailed off, perhaps not wanting to say that it had been he who had helped get him out. ‘Who says he can’t still get at us from there? Where’s the guarantee?’
‘I agree with Josef,’ said George with a furrowed brow. ‘Julian Trent would simply repay the favour and get him out, and then where would we be?’
I felt that I was losing them.
‘Let me first explain to you what I want to do,’ I said. ‘And then you can decide if you’ll help. But, I’ll tell you, I’m going to try and get this man, whether you help me or not. And it will be easier with your backing.’
Between us, Nikki and I told them everything we had discovered.
‘But why do you need us?’ said Josef. ‘Why don’t you just take all this to the police and let them deal with it?’
‘I could,’ I said. ‘But, for a start, in this sort of case the police would take ages to do their investigating and, in the meantime, Steve Mitchell would be convicted of murder. And, as you both well know, it is easier to get someone acquitted at the first trial than to have to wait for an appeal.’
‘So what do you intend to do?’ asked George.
I told them.
I had to trust them all, including Nikki, not to tell anyone of my plans. So I didn’t tell them quite everything. I did think about showing them the other photos, the ones of the wreckage of my house, which were still in my jacket pocket. Then Josef and George would understand that I was in the same position as they were. But it would also mean telling Nikki the inconvenient truth that I was being intimidated to influence the outcome of a trial, and that might put her under an obligation to tell the court, or, at least, to tell Bruce, who was her immediate superior. I didn’t want to have to ask her to keep more confidences than I already had, and certainly not to do so when it would be so blatantly against the law.
When I had finished, the three of them sat silently for quite a while, as if digesting what I had said.
Eventually it was George who broke the spell.
‘Do you really think it will work?’ he said.
‘It’s worth a try,’ I said. ‘And I think it might if you two play your part.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Josef, all his unease returning in full measure. ‘I’ve got to think of Bridget and Rory.’
‘Well, I’m game,’ said George, smiling. ‘If only to see his face.’
‘Good,’ I said, standing up. ‘Come on. Let’s go. There’s something I want to show you.’
Bob drove us the half a mile or so to the far end of Runnymede Meadow and then waited in the car while the rest of us went for a walk. It was a bright sunny spring day but there was still a chill in the air, so the open space was largely deserted as we made our way briskly across the few hundred yards of grass to a small round classical-temple-style structure set on a plinth at the base of Cooper’s Hill, on the south side of the meadow.
It had been no accident that we had come to lunch at Runny-mede. This was where King John had been forced to sign the Magna Carta, the Great Charter of 15 June 1215. The Magna Carta remained the basis of much of our common law, including the right to be tried by a panel of one’s peers, the right to trial by jury.
The Magna Carta Memorial had been built in 1957 and paid for by voluntary donations from more than nine thousand lawyers, members of the American Bar Association, in recognition of the importance of the ancient document in shaping laws in their country, and throughout Western civilization. The memorial itself is of strikingly simple design with eight slim pillars supporting an unfussy, flattish, two-step dome about fifteen feet or so in diameter. Under the dome, in the centre of the memorial, stands a seven-foot-high pillar of English granite with the inscription: TO COMMEMORATE MAGNA CARTA, SYMBOL OF FREEDOM UNDER LAW.
Every lawyer, myself included, knew that most of the clauses were now either obsolete, or had been repealed or replaced by new legislation. However, four crucial clauses of the original charter were still valid in English courts, nearly eight hundred years after they were first sealed into law, at this place, by King John. One such clause concerns the freedom of the Church from royal interference, another with the ancient liberties and free customs of the City of London and elsewhere, while the remaining two clauses were about the freedom of the individual. As translated from the original Latin, with the ‘we’ meaning ‘the Crown’, these two ran:
No freeman shall be seized, or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or in any way destroyed; nor will we condemn him, nor will we commit him to prison, excepting by the legal judgement of his peers, or by the laws of the land.
and
To none will we sell, to none will we deny, to none will we delay right or justice.
These clauses provided for freedoms that most of us took for granted. Only when the likes of Julian Trent or his godfather came along, acting above and beyond the law, did we understand what it meant to have our rights and justice denied, to be destroyed and dispossessed without proper process of the laws of the land.
I had spent the time we had been walking telling the others about the great meeting that had taken place so long ago on this very spot between King John and the English barons, and how the king had been forced to sign away his autocratic powers. And how, in return, the barons, together with the king, had agreed to be governed by the rule of law, and to provide basic freedoms to their subjects.
Now, I leaned against the granite pillar and its succinct inscription.
‘So will you help me?’ I said to Josef. ‘Will you help me get justice and allow us freedom under law?’
‘Yes,’ he said, looking me straight in the eye. ‘I will.’
Bob took Josef and George back to their respective homes in north London, while Nikki drove me to the railway station at Slough.
‘Mr Mason?’ Nikki said on the way.
‘Yes?’ I replied.
‘Is what you’re doing entirely legal?’ she asked.
I sat silently for a moment. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘In England, I know that it’s not against the law not to tell the police about a crime, provided that you didn’t stand idly by and let it happen, when informing the police might have prevented it. Other than where stolen goods are involved, and also for some terrorism offences, members of the public are not under any legal obligation to report something that other people have done just because they know it was unlawful.’ She sat silently concentrating on her driving, and probably trying to make some sense of what I had said. ‘Does any of that help?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s fine.’
‘Is there a problem?’ I asked her.
‘No,’ she said uncertainly. ‘I don’t think so. I just don’t want to get into any sort of trouble.’
‘You won’t,’ I said. ‘I promise.’ It was me, not her, who might get into trouble for not having told the court about the intimidation.
She dropped me at the station and gave me a small wave as she drove off. I wondered if she might go and talk to Bruce after all. I looked at my watch. It was quarter past four on Friday afternoon and the case would resume at ten on Monday morning. Even if she called Bruce now, would it stop me on Monday? Maybe. I would just have to take my chances. I had needed to tell Nikki my plans. I still wanted more help from her.