He had trailed his chair towards the pile in the corner, where the R v Boyd transcript spilled out in disarray from where Thomas had selected the afternoon’s reading material. Next to this mess which Peter had an automatic desire to tidy, there stood the lopsided brown paper sack with labels on that Thomas had pointed towards earlier, securely fastened with staples.
‘I think,’ Peter said, ‘it can wait for a minute. First, I’m going to tell you about Marianne’s last trial. Save you the reading. You really shouldn’t judge her by it, you know.’
Thomas winced.
‘Be brief, dear. Please be brief. I’ve read enough and it sounds unpleasant. I only want to know why she might have been ashamed of it.’
‘As I said, Boyd’s a fantasist, and I suspect a revengeful one. Basically, a no-hoper without much education but plenty of high life dreams. Not much going for him but the looks and charisma you noticed, plus an enormous amount of perverted cunning. He’s plausible because he believes himself. Always on a power kick and full of injured innocence. He’d probably been robbing women for years, believed his own fantasy of life owing him a living. Basically, he got jobs in clubs or colleges where he could meet the right kind of girl. He’d pick the dumbest or the most vulnerable, overwhelm them, persuade them to run away from home with him, and he knew how to pick. I should tell you about the trial, rather than him. Originally there were three sets of counts on the indictment. Three victims. The identities of the first two only came to light through correspondence taken from a flat in Birmingham by Angel Joyce and her sister. Three women, kidnapped by deception. Boyd persuaded the first that he was on the run from the Mafia and not only did he love her, but he needed her protective cover and her money to stay in hiding. Then he put her on the game to finance him. The second believed there was a price on his head because he had informed on the Mafia; she too was besotted and agreed to move cities and live with him. The deceit with Angel Joyce was less dramatic. Angel had money from her parents that she gave to Boyd on the understanding that they were going to resurrect a business he had inherited and already owned. In fact it was a disused factory where he had a squat. God alone knows why any of them believed him, but his plausibility and sexual prowess, perhaps, made them credulous slaves. They were overwhelmed. They went to work for him. If they questioned him, he beat them, or worse. All three had scars. All three of them were going to give evidence. It was going to be a sensational trial, tales of sex slavery and cruelty, plus fascinating psychological insights. Scenes of torture and two lost fingers.’
‘What?’
Thomas had been looking sceptical. Now he looked faint. The whisky had gone to his head.
‘What happened next?’ he said.
‘Marianne happened, but the texture of this extraordinary evidence was already wearing thin before she did. The first trial began. Then Boyd sacked his Counsel and the whole thing was postponed for months. That happened twice. No one else wanted to defend him. There was this overwhelming similarity of evidence and despite the whole scenario being unbelievable, it had to be believed. He frightened people. The next defence team withdrew. Then Marianne took up the baton. She would always take on the untouchable. Remember? That brutal paedophile, the robber, the rapist? That’s what she wanted. Anyway, the witnesses were dreading their turn in the witness box long before Marianne appeared. What woman is going to look forward to admitting being brainwashed and duped? Especially when terrified of the Defendant. They got weaker with every delay. Then Shearer got started.’
Thomas groaned.
‘She’d managed to draw the weakest and most nervous of judges on some political basis. He couldn’t cope and he wouldn’t withstand her. Then she claimed Boyd had a heart murmur. More delay. He looked like butter wouldn’t melt. He was groomed to look like a waif. Then she sprang legal arguments at the last moment and got away with it. The jury would be sent away again and the witnesses left waiting. She got the Judge to agree that the screens used in court to protect vulnerable witnesses should be dispensed with. They were all grown-ups, she said. The first two victims received mysterious, intimidating letters, hinting at knowledge of their sexual preferences. Shearer denied these could possibly have come from Boyd, saying they must have made them up. She argued away some of the charges. She argued away kidnap; she argued away the law on similar fact.’
‘The two missing fingers?’
Peter sipped the whisky Thomas handed to him. He was going on too long because he needed to rehearse it to himself. Connect. Revenge. Why would Boyd want revenge?
‘I can’t be brief, because that wretched trial went on and on. Charges were knocked out before evidence really began to be heard. Rumours abounded about how Shearer was going to lay into these girls once they were in the box. The diminishing of the charges meant Shearer had a case for Boyd to be let out on bail. She applied for it, failed for once, but the first girl, the other with the missing finger, got wind of it and just quietly disappeared. She’d been summoned to court five times and never called. She sent a message saying she wasn’t coming back. So, the similar fact evidence went out of the window. Sorry, I’m losing the thread, and that’s another long story. We all lost the thread, except Boyd and Shearer. The second victim withdrew her evidence rather than give it. She had a nervous breakdown and couldn’t be forced. So the trial of the century was left with only two important witnesses. The third victim, Angel Joyce, and her sister. A trial that should have lasted three weeks had gone on for eight months. We were left with their word against his.’
‘A question of interpretation. Which of them was the fantasist?’
Thomas lit another cigarette and coughed, pointedly, to spur him on.
‘Marianne insisted that the Prosecution called Henrietta Joyce first. I don’t know why my learned leader agreed, but he’d lost the will to live by that time. Shearer did a hatchet job on the first Miss Joyce. It was as if she had been instructed to exact personal revenge on her, which makes sense, because after all, it was her intervention that led to the charges in the first place. Also, Hen had something to hide. Marianne could find the smallest untruth like someone else finding a needle in a haystack. It was vital to undermine her and she did. Then she had a whole two days with Angel Joyce in the witness box, toying with her like a cat with a mouse. Angel Joyce went home with her parents on the second night and, either by accident or design, killed herself. Some variation of shame, or just too tired. Case collapses, end of story. It was a brilliant job. Sorry not to be brief, but it has occurred to me in the telling why Rick Boyd might have come here today. What it is he might really want, apart from revenge.’
‘Revenge on whom, dear boy? Surely he’d got it? He was acquitted, wasn’t he? And it sounds as if he’d driven his accusers demented. Isn’t that revenge enough?’
Peter shook his head.
‘No. Not for a man like that. He might have been acquitted, but he wasn’t proved innocent. He wasn’t exonerated, he was merely let out of prison, and that wasn’t enough for his pride. Plenty of hubris, this man. Acquitted, but exposed,’ he slapped his hand on the desk so hard that Thomas jumped and Peter winced. That hurt. He was so clumsy, always bruising himself, not good in a courtroom. His nephews loved it, but no one else laughed. His sister said he was a man who could cut himself on paper.
‘Sorry. Two things. Connect. What is the connection? Boyd, here. Boyd everywhere. Boyd hates Marianne, because although she’s done a great job, she hasn’t restored him, and never cared about him anyway, because she never cared for anyone.’