Dick Francis - Silks

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Every lawyer, myself included, knew that most of the clauses were now either obsolete, or had been repealed or replaced by new legislation.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.

As I waited on the platform at Slough my phone rang in my pocket.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘What does it take to get you to do as you’re told?’ said the whispering voice.

‘More than you could ever know,’ I said, and hung up.

What he probably didn’t realize was how frightened I had been at what he might do. In fact, I still was.

I called Eleanor.

‘Are you free from now on for the night?’ I asked.

‘All weekend,’ she said happily.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Please will you pack a bag now. Put everything from your room that you absolutely couldn’t bear to lose in your car and go to Newbury station and wait for me there.’

‘Geoffrey,’she sounded worried. ‘You’re frightening me again.’

‘Eleanor, please,’ I said. ‘Do it now and quickly. Get away from the hospital and the house and then call me.’ I was thinking fast. ‘Are you in your room or in the hospital?’

‘In my room,’ she said.

‘Is there anyone else with you?’

‘No. But there are still a few in the hospital.’

‘Call them,’ I said. ‘Get as many as you can to come over to the house and be with you while you pack. Ask someone to get your car to the door and then go. Do it. Go now.’

‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’m on my way.’ The urgency of my voice had clearly cut through her reservations.

‘And make sure you’re not followed,’ I said. ‘Go round roundabouts twice and stop often to see if anyone stops behind you.’

‘Right,’ she said again.

‘I’ll be at Newbury in forty-five minutes,’ I said. ‘Try and keep on the move until then and don’t take lonely lanes. Main roads only.’

‘OK,’ she said. ‘I get the message.’

Good girl, I thought.

I sat restlessly on the train until Eleanor called to say she was safely away from Lambourn and she was now on the M4, travelling eastwards between junctions fourteen and thirteen.

‘Is anyone following you?’ I asked her.

‘Not that I can see,’ she said.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you at Newbury station.’

‘Right,’ she said. ‘There are two exits at Newbury. Come out of the station on the same side as the platform you get off the train. I’ll be there.’