Jeffrey Archer - A Twist in the Tale

Michael was the boy’s godfather.

Michael Gilmour could not have been a greater contrast. On leaving school, where Philip had been his closest friend, he had drifted from job to job. He started out as a trainee with Watneys, but lasted only a few months before moving on to work as a rep with a publishing company. Like Philip, he married his childhood sweetheart, Carol West, the daughter of a local doctor.

When their own daughter was born, Carol complained about the hours Michael spent away from home so he left publishing and signed on as a distribution manager with a local soft drinks firm. He lasted for a couple of years until his deputy was promoted over him as area manager, at which decision Michael left in a huff. After his first spell on the dole, Michael joined a grain-packing company, but found he was allergic to corn and, having been supplied with a medical certificate to prove it, collected his first redundancy check. He then joined Philip as a Ready-Fix kitchen rep but left without explanation within a month of the company being taken over. Another spell of unemployment followed before he took up the job of sales manager with a company that made microwave ovens. He seemed to have settled down at last until, without warning, he was made redundant. It was true that the company profits had been halved that year, and the company directors were sorry to see Michael go — or that was how it was expressed in their in-house magazine.

Carol was unable to hide her distress when Michael was made redundant yet again. They could have done with the extra cash now that their daughter had been offered a place at art school.

Philip was the girl’s godfather.

‘What are you going to do about it?’ asked Carol anxiously, when Michael had told her what had taken place at the club.

‘There’s only one thing I can do,’ he replied. ‘After all, I have my reputation to consider. I shall sue the bastard.’

‘That’s a terrible way to talk about your oldest friend. And anyway we can’t afford to go to law,’ said Carol. ‘Philip’s a millionaire and we’re penniless.’

‘Can’t be helped,’ said Michael. ‘I’ll have to go through with it, even if it means selling up everything.’

‘And even if the rest of your family has to suffer along with you?’

‘None of us will suffer when he ends up paying my costs plus massive damages.’

‘But you could lose, ’ said Carol. ‘Then we would end up with nothing — worse than nothing.’

‘That’s not possible,’ said Michael. ‘He made the mistake of saying all those things in front of witnesses. There must have been over fifty members in the clubhouse this morning, including the president of the club and the editor of the local paper, and they couldn’t have failed to hear every word.’

Carol remained unconvinced, and she was relieved that during the next few days Michael didn’t mention Philip’s name once. She hoped that her husband had come to his senses and the whole affair was best forgotten.

But then the Hazelmere Chronicle decided to print its version of the quarrel between Michael and Philip. Under the headline ‘Fight breaks out at golf club’ came a carefully worded account of what had taken place on the previous Saturday. The editor of the Hazelmere Chronicle knew only too well that the conversation itself was unprintable unless he also wanted to be sued, but he managed to include enough innuendo in the article to give a full flavor of what had happened that morning.

‘That’s the final straw,’ said Michael, when he finished reading the article for the third time. Carol realized that nothing she could say or do was going to stop her husband now.

The following Monday, Michael contacted a local solicitor, Reginald Lomax, who had been at school with them both. Armed with the article, Michael briefed Lomax on the conversation that the Chronicle had felt injudicious to publish in any great detail. Michael also gave Lomax his own detailed account of what had happened at the club that morning, and handed him four pages of handwritten notes to back his claims up.

Lomax studied the notes carefully.

‘When did you write these?’

‘In my car, immediately after we were suspended.’

‘That was circumspect of you,’ said Lomax. ‘Most circumspect.’ He stared quizzically at his client over the top of his half-moon spectacles. Michael made no comment. ‘Of course you must be aware that the law is an expensive pastime,’ Lomax continued. ‘Suing for slander will not come cheap, and even with evidence as strong as this’ — he tapped the notes in front of him — ‘you could still lose. Slander depends so much on what other people remember or, more important, will admit to remembering.’

‘I’m well aware of that,’ said Michael. ‘But I’m determined to go through with it. There were over fifty people in the club within earshot that morning.’

‘So be it,’ said Lomax. ‘Then I shall require five thousand pounds in advance as a contingency fee to cover all the immediate costs and the preparations for a court case.’ For the first time Michael looked hesitant.

‘Returnable, of course, but only if you win the case.’

Michael removed his checkbook and wrote out a figure which, he reflected, would only just be covered by the remainder of his redundancy pay.

The writ for slander against Philip Masters was issued the next morning by Lomax, Davis and Lomax.

A week later the writ was accepted by another firm of solicitors in the same town, actually in the same building.

Back at the club, debate on the rights and wrongs of Gilmour v. Masters did not subside as the weeks passed.

Club members whispered furtively among themselves whether they might be called to give evidence at the trial. Several had already received letters from Lomax, Davis and Lomax requesting statements about what they could recall being said by the two men that morning. A good many pleaded amnesia or deafness but a few turned in graphic accounts of the quarrel. Encouraged, Michael pressed on, much to Carol’s dismay.

One morning about a month later, after Carol had left for the bank, Michael Gilmour received a call from Reginald Lomax. The defendant’s solicitors, he was informed, had requested a ‘without prejudice’ consultation.

‘Surely you’re not surprised after all the evidence we’ve collected,’ Michael replied.

‘It’s only a consultation,’ Lomax reminded him.

‘Consultation or no consultation, I won’t settle for less than one hundred thousand pounds.’

‘Well, I don’t even know that they—’ began Lomax.

‘I do, and I also know that for the last eleven weeks I haven’t been able to even get an interview for a job because of that bastard,’ he said with contempt. ‘Nothing less than one hundred thousand pounds, do you hear me?’

‘I think you are being a trifle optimistic, in the circumstances,’ said Lomax. ‘But I’ll call you and let you know the other side’s response as soon as the meeting has taken place.’

Michael told Carol the good news that evening, but like Reginald Lomax, she was skeptical. The ringing of the phone interrupted their discussion on the subject. Michael, with Carol standing by his side, listened carefully to Lomax’s report. Philip, it seemed, was willing to settle for twenty-five thousand pounds and had agreed to both sides’ costs.

Carol nodded her grateful acceptance, but Michael only repeated that Lomax was to hold out for nothing less than one hundred thousand. ‘Can’t you see that Philip’s already worked out what it’s going to cost him if this case ends up in court? And he knows only too well that I won’t give in.’

Carol and Lomax remained unconvinced. ‘It’s much more touch and go than you realize,’ the solicitor warned him. ‘A High Court jury might consider the words were only meant as banter.’