Джеффри Арчер - Hidden in Plain Sight

‘Most certainly,’ said Sir Julian. ‘The husband is guilty of theft. But was the wife aware that he’d taken the daffodils from their neighbour’s garden?’

‘Yes, she was,’ said William.

‘Then she’s guilty of receiving stolen goods. An open-and-shut case.’

‘I don’t agree, m’lud,’ said Grace, rising from her place. ‘I think you’ll find the relevant word is “wild”. If all parties concerned were aware that the flowers were wild and had not been planted by the neighbour, my client was entitled to pick them.’

‘That was my answer,’ said William. ‘And it turns out that Grace and I are right.’

‘Give me one more chance,’ said Sir Julian, readjusting his non-existent gown.

‘At what age is a young person responsible for a criminal act? Eight, ten, fourteen or seventeen?’

‘Ten,’ said Grace, before her father could respond.

‘Right again,’ said William.

‘I confess I don’t defend many juveniles.’

‘Only because they can’t afford your exorbitant fees,’ said Grace.

‘Have you ever defended a juvenile, Grace?’ asked her mother, before Sir Julian could continue his cross-examination.

‘Yes. Only last week I represented an eleven-year-old accused of shoplifting in Balham.’

‘No doubt you got him off, after claiming he’d come from a deprived background and his father beat him regularly.’

‘Her,’ said Grace. ‘Her father abandoned the family home soon after she was born, leaving his wife to hold down two jobs while bringing up three children.’

‘It should never have come to court,’ said William’s mother.

‘I agree with you, Mother, and it wouldn’t have if the girl hadn’t unfortunately been caught stealing the finest cuts of meat from her local supermarket and dropping them into a foil-lined carrier bag, to evade the store’s security detectors. She then walked a hundred yards up the road and sold them to an unscrupulous local butcher.’

‘What did the court decide?’ asked Marjorie.

‘The butcher was heavily fined, and the child has been taken into care. But then, she didn’t have the advantage of being brought up by loving middle-class parents, in a comfortable country cottage in Kent. She’d never strayed more than a mile from her own front door. She didn’t even know there was a river running through the city she was born in.’

‘Should I be regarded as guilty, m’lud, simply for having tried to give my children a decent start in life?’ said Sir Julian, before adding, ‘Am I allowed one more chance before the examiners deport me?’

‘Pass him a violin,’ said Marjorie.

‘A publican becomes aware that some of his customers are smoking cannabis in his beer garden,’ said William. ‘Is he committing an offence?’

‘He most certainly is,’ said Sir Julian, ‘because he is allowing his premises to be used for the consumption of a controlled substance.’

‘And if one of the customers smoking the cannabis hands it to a friend, who takes a puff, is he also guilty of a crime?’

‘Of course. He is guilty of both possession and of supplying a controlled drug, and should be charged accordingly.’

‘Madness,’ said Grace.

‘I agree,’ said William. ‘Not least because the force doesn’t have the resources to pursue every minor crime.’

‘Hardly minor,’ said Sir Julian. ‘In fact, it’s the beginning of a slippery slope.’

‘What if the landlord or the customer wasn’t aware it was a crime?’ asked Beth.

‘Ignorance of the law is no defence,’ said Sir Julian. ‘Otherwise you could murder whomever you pleased, and claim you didn’t realize it was a crime.’

‘What a good idea,’ said Marjorie. ‘Because I would have pleaded lack of knowledge a long time ago if I could have got away with murdering my husband. In fact, the only thing that’s stopped me doing so is the knowledge that I’d need him to defend me when the case came to court.’

Everyone burst out laughing.

‘Frankly, Mother,’ said Grace, ‘half the Bar Council would be only too willing to defend you, while the other half would appear as witnesses for the defence.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Sir Julian, passing a hand across a furrowed brow, ‘am I right this time?’

‘Yes, Father. But don’t be surprised if cannabis is legalized in my lifetime.’

‘But not in mine, I hope,’ said Sir Julian with feeling.

‘It sounds to me,’ said Marjorie, ‘that even though your father would have failed the exam hopelessly, you must have passed.’

‘Despite kicking a protester in the balls,’ said Sir Julian.

‘No, I didn’t,’ said William.

‘No, you didn’t pass, or no, you didn’t kick the protester in the balls?’ demanded his father.

They all laughed.

‘You’re right, Marjorie,’ said Beth, coming to her fiancé’s rescue. ‘As of next Monday, William will be Detective Sergeant Warwick.’

Sir Julian was the first to stand and raise his glass. ‘Congratulations, my boy,’ he said. ‘Here’s to the first step on a long ladder.’

‘The first step on a long ladder,’ repeated the rest of the family, as they all stood and raised their glasses.

‘So, how long before you become an inspector?’ asked Sir Julian, before he’d even sat back down.

‘Pipe down, Father,’ said Grace, ‘or I might tell everyone what the judge said about you during his summing-up of your most recent case.’

‘Prejudiced old buffer.’

‘Takes one...’ said all four of them in unison.

‘What’s next on your agenda, my boy?’ asked Sir Julian, in an attempt to recover.

‘The Hawk is planning to shake up our entire department, now the politicians have finally accepted that the country is facing a major drugs problem.’

‘Just how bad is it?’ asked Marjorie.

‘Over two million people in Britain are regularly smoking cannabis. Another four hundred thousand are snorting cocaine, among them some of our friends, including a judge, although in his case only at weekends. More tragically, there are over a quarter of a million registered heroin addicts, which is one of the main reasons the NHS is so overstretched.’

‘If that’s the case,’ said Sir Julian, ‘some evil bastards must be making a fortune at the addicts’ expense.’

‘Some of the leading drug barons are coining literally millions, while young dealers, some of them still at school, can make as much as a hundred pounds a day, which is more than my commander is paid, let alone a humble detective sergeant.’

‘With so much cash swirling around,’ said Sir Julian, ‘the less scrupulous of your colleagues might well be tempted to take a cut.’

‘Not if Commander Hawksby has his way. He considers a bent copper worse than any criminal.’

‘I agree with him,’ said Sir Julian.

‘So what does he plan to do about the drugs problem?’ asked Grace.

‘The commissioner has given him the authority to set up an elite unit, whose sole purpose will be to track down one particular drug baron and take him out, while the area drugs squads concentrate on the supply chain, leaving the local police to handle the dealers on the streets, and the users, who are committing other crimes like burglary and theft to fund their addiction.’

‘I’ve defended one or two of them recently,’ said Grace. ‘Desperate, pathetic creatures, with little purpose in life other than getting their next fix. How long will it be before those in authority realize it’s often a medical problem, and not all addicts should be treated as criminals?’

‘But they are criminals,’ interjected her father, ‘and they should be locked up, not mollycoddled. Wait until it’s your home that’s burgled, Grace, then you might feel differently.’