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Brancaster sighed. “The rage is against us for having got it wrong in the first place,” he said gravely
. “We offered them an answer—a murderer to hang—then we took it away by saying he was ill and we wanted to cure him first, when what we probably meant was that we needed him alive to get more information from him. Now we’re saying he’s the wrong man and they need to start all over again with somebody else. You can’t blame them for directing their fury at the one source that is certain: us! Whoever else is at fault as well, we have no escape. The grief is stirred up all over again.”
“Do you want to pass it to someone else?” Rathbone asked, afraid that, if he were honest, Brancaster might admit that he did. He was young, in his late thirties. He had an excellent practice and was respected by the legal community in general. He had enough imagination to succeed where others might have failed. This was a risk he did not need to take. Rathbone’s own experience should be enough to warn him off crusading!
Perhaps some of the disappointment Rathbone felt was shadowed in his eyes.
Brancaster shifted slightly and raised his chin. “No, thank you. I don’t know of anyone else who could do it better. Do you?” He smiled suddenly, showing strong teeth. “Because I’ll have you to help me—won’t I?”
Rathbone felt the color burn up his face momentarily. The praise should not have meant so much. He was too vulnerable. “Indeed …” he said drily. “And Monk.”
Brancaster was instantly sober again. “They’ve given me a lot of evidence, this time largely bolstered by facts, and—where it’s observation—we’ve got several people who all saw the same thing. But it was unarguable that Beshara is a very nasty piece of work, and likely that he knows Sabri and could have had knowledge of what Sabri was doing. Unfortunately, we have no specific motive for Sabri.”
“I know,” Rathbone agreed. “But before we get that far, we have to explain why Lydiate’s men slipped up so totally. Why the men in charge behind him gave the orders they did. Why did the legal system convict and damn nearly hang the wrong man? Nobody wants to believe that could happen. It’s a very frightening thought. It’s like taking a step and realizing the ground in front of you has disappeared and you’re hanging over a chasm. Beshara could be everyman. In a way, he is!”
Brancaster looked down at the floor. “I know that. That’s the main thing I haven’t worked out how to use—the fear.”
Dover came in and coughed discreetly, then announced that dinner was served. They went through to the small dining room with its window overlooking the square and the trees.
“You can guarantee that Pryor will use it,” Rathbone answered the remark as they began the first course. “He will make it seem as if the safety of the whole system depends upon upholding the original verdict. The details might be wrong, but the conviction wasn’t. The jurors will want to believe him. Don’t ever forget that. They won’t care who’s right or wrong, whose reputation falls, but they’ll want desperately to be safe. They’ll want it for themselves and for those they love. And Pryor will know that as well as you do. He’ll play on their fears that justice and law will collapse if you prove they were wrong the first time. He’ll frighten them out of thinking clearly at all. And once you’ve lost them your chance is pretty slight of getting them back.”
Brancaster nodded grimly. “I know.”
“Who is presiding?” Rathbone asked, feeling his muscles knotting as he approached the subject he dreaded.
“Antrobus,” Brancaster replied. “That’s something in our favor, I think. From what I’ve heard, he isn’t afraid of anything, which should make for a fair trial. And he’s reputed to have a hell of a temper if he’s crossed.”
Rathbone smiled. “That’s right. Don’t even try to put anything across him.” He hesitated. “I understand Ingram York presided over the first one …” He left the sentence unfinished. Suddenly he was embarrassed, not sure how much Brancaster knew or guessed about his past with York.
Brancaster’s expression did not change at all. “I’ve read and reread those transcriptions,” he said thoughtfully. “I think in a different, less highly charged case there would even have been error sufficient to appeal. But then considering the degree of the atrocity, and public feeling at the time, anyone else might have ruled similarly. They all appeared to believe Beshara was guilty.”
“It also seemed as if they didn’t look very far beyond him,” Rathbone pointed out. “Did anybody at all assume that he could have done it alone?”
“That’s the whole other issue,” Brancaster replied. “They were happy to settle for someone to blame and not dig any deeper.”
Rathbone thought for a moment.
The manservant cleared the dishes and brought the main course.
“Sabri is being defended by Pryor,” Rathbone resumed as soon as the door was closed. “Who is paying him?”
For an instant Brancaster looked startled, his eyes widened. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s possible Pryor is doing it for nothing, or at least for nothing that we can see. But it would be most interesting to know.”
“Favor for favor?” Rathbone wondered. “It should be looked into. Discreetly, of course. Now let’s get down to tactics, because that’s where it will all lie. The evidence is for us, but the emotions are against.”
Brancaster smiled and obeyed. He did not comment on Rathbone using the word “us,” although he undoubtedly heard it. He began to lay out the ground plan of his prosecution.
Rathbone listened and commented here or there.
They had dessert, then coffee and brandy, and sat far into the night, debating facts and tactics.
It was Brancaster who finally put words to the question Rathbone had been skirting around.
“What if Pryor can prove that Sabri has no connection with Suez or anything to do with it? Or worse, that he has some interest in its success? Why on earth would he kill two hundred British people he doesn’t even know?”
“For money,” Rathbone replied, although that was merely opening the door to the answer they both feared. “But I have heard no proof that anyone paid him. If they did, it will have been in some way we can’t trace, probably all done in Egypt.”
“Why?” Brancaster said simply. “And probably far worse than that, who? Even if nobody else wants to know, Pryor is going to ask, because he’ll know damned well that if we don’t say who, it’s because we don’t know.”
