Brian Freemantle - The Namedropper

The smiling, head-nodding David Bartle was a large man, too, although physically overwhelmed by his client. Bartle had the sun weathered face indicating that he, too, might have been a yachtsman, the colour emphasized by an unruly mop of prematurely white, unrestrained hair. It was not as long as Beckwith’s but it appeared to be because Beckwith had his held at the nape of his neck by a securing band. Apart from the restrained hair there was nothing of the Wild West imagery, either. Beckwith wore a conservatively striped suit, shoes and a striped club tie beneath the collar of a crisp white shirt.

There was a similar, although more subdued, reaction to the judge’s pressure from the furthermost table to the right of the court, at which Leanne Jefferies and her lawyer sat heads also tightly together. As close as she now was to him Jordan decided that the apparent similarity between Leanne and Alyce was misleading to the point of there being no resemblance at all, limited to the blondness of their hair colouring and the style in which both wore it. Leanne was much sharper featured and could not have risked the minimal make-up with which Alyce succeeded. Leanne wore a powdered base and darkly shadowed eye mascara and the redness of the lipstick was close to being too harsh: the woman looked every day of her five years seniority over Alyce, the age Jordan knew the woman to be from his sessions with Reid.

‘I fear I am inadequately expressing myself, your honour, for which I apologize most profusely,’ said Beckwith, without the slightest indication of apology in his voice. ‘The leniency I seek is not out of the expected sequence that would normally govern a dismissal submission?’

‘Why should I be expected to agree to any such course!’ Pullinger broke in once more and Jordan decided that his mental analogy of a constantly pecking, flesh ripping vulture was an apposite one.

‘To prevent yourself and this court, even at this early stage, progressing further with such preliminary evidence which is, in my contention, inadequate, and risks being misleading unless now addressed and which, if not addressed, seriously endangers the arguments I intend making on behalf of my client…’ Beckwith’s pause was clearly timed as an invitation for another interruption, which this time didn’t come, creating the silence that hung in the court like the belated rebuke that Jordan was sure Beckwith intended. There were no longer any satisfied expressions from the tables on the other side of the court, either.

‘Mr Beckwith?’ prompted Pullinger, finally.

‘Your honour, I seek your guidance,’ said Beckwith, refusing to expand, and Jordan felt a frisson of alarm that his lawyer was pushing his false humility too far, a concern that was almost immediately confirmed by Pullinger’s further silence.

Breaking it, as he had to do, Pullinger said, ‘Are you moving towards inviting this court to find impropriety, Mr Beckwith?’

‘I am asking this court to allow me to proceed in a way different from a normal submission of its type,’ avoided Beckwith, adeptly.

Pullinger went to the opposite side of his court. ‘Mr Bartle? Can you help me with this set of circumstances?’

The now serious-faced Bartle was on his feet before Pullinger finished the question. ‘Your honour, I am at as much a loss as I fear you are. I have not the slightest idea to what counsel is referring or alluding. Because of which I formally ask for the court’s protection.’

‘Mr Wolfson?’ switched the judge.

‘I am equally at as much of a loss as my colleague, your honour, and ask as anxiously as he for the protection of the court,’ responded Wolfson. He was a small man compared to those immediately adjacent to him, with a moustache and Van Dyke beard so immaculately trimmed that both looked artificially stuck to his lip and chin, furthering Beckwith’s earlier theatrical comparison.

Looking between the two lawyers, the judge said, ‘I give both of you the guarantee of such protection -’ coming around to Beckwith as he spoke – ‘and warn you, Mr Beckwith, of the irritation of this same court if the allowance you request emerges in any way whatsoever to be a frivolous manoeuvre.’

‘I am grateful for such an allowance, your honour,’ responded Beckwith, who had remained standing throughout the exchanges.

‘Remain extremely careful, Mr Beckwith,’ repeated the emaciated man. ‘Extremely careful indeed.’

‘Which is precisely what I hope you will find I am being at the end of this consideration,’ said Beckwith.

Jordan thought, Shut the fuck up! Don’t gloat at having got what you wanted.

Dr Abrahams was at the rail gate before Beckwith completed the summons, not needing the prompt from the usher to complete the oath. The man was equally well prepared listing his qualifications, but Beckwith stopped him halfway through the recital, taking him back to identify in full every acronym, particularly Abrahams’ qualification as a veneralogist. That established, Beckwith went with the man’s impatience to record the length of his experience and the extent of his microbiological specialization.

‘Qualified as you are as a microbiologist also means that you are equally qualified and practised as a serologist?’

‘It does,’ replied Abrahams, in his clipped, formal manner.

‘For the benefit of the laymen among us in the court, what is serology?’

There was the vaguest sigh from the man. ‘Technically the study of serum. In practise the study of the blood to identify bacteria and viruses, in effect, identifying antibodies and antigens prevalent in communicable diseases and infections.’

‘Continuing in laymen’s terms, infections caused by bacteria?’

‘Not always, but predominantly.’

‘Virally created infections?’

‘Yes.’

‘What are antibodies? And antigens?’

‘Bodies that form in the blood to resist a toxin.’

‘Formed how? By what?’

‘I am sure the court is fascinated by this expedition into the mysteries of microbiology and serology,’ broke in Bartle, noisily grating back his chair as he stood. ‘But is there to be a practical point to emerge from this dissertation?’

‘A question that was beginning to exercise my mind,’ said the judge. ‘Mr Beckwith?’

‘A very practical and relevant point indeed, your honour,’ responded Beckwith, at once. ‘It is to establish the importance of the

…’ The pause was intentional, a verbal marker as all the man’s other theatrical hesitations had been. ‘… omissions to which I wish to draw the court’s attention.’

‘My patience is limited, Mr Beckwith,’ reminded the judge.

‘And will not be stretched much further,’ promised Beckwith. Going back to Abrahams the lawyer said, ‘You were about to help the court with an explanation of antibodies and antigens.’

‘Both are traceably formed – created – within the blood by a patient’s natural immunity or resistance to a disease or infection, as well as by the induced resistance of antibiotics,’ said Abrahams.

There was a lot of movement now – sufficient to attract the judge’s frowned attention – between the two lawyers to the right of the court and the people directly behind them, Bartle finally getting up from where he sat to lean over the rail for closer consultation.

As aware of the activity as Jordan, Beckwith stopped his examination, looking between the animated groups and the judge and said, ‘Your honour, does the court require a recess here?’

‘I do not intend a recess but I might very well require an explanation,’ said the judge.

Bartle turned, startled, back into the court, standing fully. ‘I apologize if I have caused the court inconvenience, your honour.’

‘You have and it will not be tolerated again,’ snapped Pullinger, the redness of his irritation pricking out on his bloodless cheeks. ‘Any more than I will tolerate ill-prepared cases being prematurely brought before me or much more deviation from expected presentations. You will precede, Mr Beckwith, with the limitations of my patience in the forefront of your mind.’