Arthur watches Brian talk animatedly at a pay phone. Caroline, maybe, or their counsellor.
“Let us have some give and take, Buddy. You consent to my independent analysis and abandon the idea of calling Ms. Angella, and I will not argue insanity.”
Buddy’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “You’re willing to throw away the one hope you’ve got?”
“An insanity verdict means a mental institution. Could be forever, who knows. A pyrrhic victory for us but a loss for the Crown.”
“I smell a rat. If you’re that scared of Angella, I’m hanging on to her.”
Ultimately, Buddy consents to further testing of the diminishing sample of Faloon’s precious bodily fluid. Arthur will abandon insanity.
A stirring from the press table as Arthur enters court. The provincial judge, Iris Takahashi, is working her way through a long list, the daily menu of remands, bail applications, and guilty pleas. She nods at Arthur as if recognizing him, though he can’t remember where they met.
“That worked out very well,” he tells Brian as they settle on the chairs reserved for counsel. “He’s going to give me a second chance at Adeline Angella.”
“Don’t look now, but she’s third row from the back, on your left.”
Arthur resists an itch to turn.
“Regina versus Faloon,” the clerk calls.
Arthur’s client comes into the room blinking. As his eyes settle on Arthur, a puckish smile.
Brian rises. “Your Honour, I had this case brought forward so I could apply to withdraw as counsel. A matter has arisen…I can’t say more, let’s just say there are some friendly differences of opinion between counsel.”
A fine, understated performance for Angella. Arthur comes forward. “May it please the court, I apply to go on record as counsel.” There is not usually such rigorous formality in the changing of the guard in criminal matters, but he has decided to milk it. “Arthur R. Beauchamp of Tragger, Inglis, Bullingham.”
“I know,” Takahashi says. “I articled there, Mr. Beauchamp. You tutored me in criminal law.”
It comes to him just in time. “Ah, yes, the studious young woman at the back-more observant than her tutor, it must be admitted.” She smiles. More proof of his decrepitude, he once had an acute memory for faces.
“Very well, Mr. Pomeroy, you are discharged.”
Arthur chances a look at Angella as Brian leaves. She packs away her notepad and rises in pursuit of him. A short-legged woman with a penguinlike waddle. Late thirties-ten years older than when he last saw her-smartly dressed and coiffed, not a hair out of place. So earnest and self-effacing when she was on the stand.
“May I also put on record that the defence of insanity is being withdrawn. In its stead, I shall be seeking a full verdict of not guilty. Circumstances have come to light that impel me in that direction.”
Reporters write furiously. Buddy, unhappy that Arthur has got the first punch in, must be prodded to record his consent to the independent analysis of the semen sample.
A date for the preliminary hearing is set, the last two weeks of June. The trial itself will likely be another six months away. Arthur will rent a comfortable suite, persuade Margaret to accompany him, a break from the farm. Assuming she’s down from her tree. (“DAY SIX!” cried the Times-Colonist in its daily front-page countdown. Such encouragement could incite her to stay up there in perpetuity.)
A van awaits to convey his client away, so Arthur has only a few moments with him in the cells. Faloon apologizes for dragging Arthur from his life of ease, and hopes his friends didn’t lean on him too hard. He will be in Arthur’s debt “for all eternity, and then some.” He adds: “I like Mr. Pomeroy, don’t get me wrong, but maybe he’s a little too imaginative when he’s falling apart like that.”
“I understand your friend, Claudette, is being very supportive.”
“Non-stop. It would be a lot better if we didn’t have to meet in the nut house.”
“We’ll get you out of there within the week.”
Arthur will interview him at length another day, but now must hurry off to the injunction hearing-it is probably long over now, but he wants to learn the result.
As he emerges from the elevator, he hears a voice call out, “Here he is.” Santorini’s agitated clerk. She hurries him into the courtroom. “The judge is fit to be tied. This was to have come on at ten o’clock.”
Confused, Arthur makes his way toward the counsel table. Selwyn Loo again picks up his presence from imperceptible clues. “Good morning, Arthur. The judge seems to think we can’t go on without you.”
“He wants you to get a grip on your wife,” says Lotis, deadpan. No challenging hairdo, a touch of makeup today. Ankle-length fawn dress. This petite actress (“actor,” she insists) knows she must dress for the role if the revolution is to be won.
When court assembles, Santorini fixes on him icily: “You had more important business, Mr. Beauchamp?”
“Merely a murder case. I wasn’t aware I was required here. I still don’t know why.”
“To explain this.” Santorini hold up a page of newspaper. “‘Fat Chance, Says Tree Sitter.’ I take it that is Mrs. Beauchamp’s response to my offer?”
Arthur wonders if he lost at golf yesterday. “Margaret Blake made an unguarded comment, not intended to offend.”
Selwyn rises. “Milord, no harm is done if the defendants remain where they are. Logging can’t proceed anyway-that’s clear from the act. An eagle habitat cannot be disturbed.”
Garlinc’s counsel, Prudhomme, rises wearily. “It’s not a habitat if the nest is abandoned, the court has already ruled that.”
“Milord, eagles don’t easily abandon nests that have been maintained over the years…”
Santorini interrupts. “Eagles aren’t the problem. The problem is I’ve held out the hand of conciliation, and it has been summarily rejected. I’m going to give the respondents two more days, and I want you to know, Mr. Beauchamp, that my patience is wearing thin.”
The matter is being taken as a personal slight; Arthur is the blameworthy party, he has failed to govern his wife.
“I mean it. There’s a serious contempt-of-court issue here. I won’t be afraid to order incarceration. And if anyone else tries to go up that tree, I’ll have him or her arrested on the spot.” Santorini slams his desk book shut and walks out.
Santorini’s ultimatum will get Margaret’s back up; Arthur has a discomforting vision of her in the women’s lockup, stubborn, refusing to apologize and purge the contempt.
In the barristers’ lounge, Lotis seeks the bright side. “We bought two more days.”
“Eagles mate for life,” Selwyn says. “A solitary parent can’t raise a brood. These developers may not be beyond shooting one. Even if we have a nesting pair, that only wins us the summer. The fledglings leave the nest in September, in go the loggers.”
“Selwyn, stop being a bringdown.” Lotis brushes hair from her eyes. Arthur wants to send her off to a salon, or buy her a clip. “This is guerrilla warfare, man, you’ve got to fire up the troops.”
After Selwyn heads off to a meeting, she says, “He hates shrinks, won’t do tranks. Generalized anxiety disorder. I talked to him about it, you can see where it comes from. His mom was a Chinatown junkie, a hooker. Throw in the blindness. Throw in extreme environmental angst. I shouldn’t be so hard on him.”
Arthur doesn’t know what to say but express sympathy-he understands anxiety. His chauffeur, Brian Pomeroy, has unaccountably disappeared from the courthouse-cornered by Angella? — so he invites Lotis to join him in a taxi to the ferry terminal.
“Yeah, I can make the three o’clock.” Unenthusiastic.
“You do have a residence on the mainland? Or do you live out of that?” A heavy packsack.
“Got evicted last week. Too many meetings, too much shouting. I couch-surf.”
Arthur assumes there’s some kind of radical underground where beds are freely available to itinerant urban guerrillas. He remains leery of this woman, distrustful-revolutionaries reject that most precious of concepts, the rule of law.