‘Quite a meeting,’ Cy said.
Mary stood on the veranda in her tennis skirt, a white sweater knotted round her shoulders. ‘Quite a meeting,’ she said, sipping a long glass of iced fresh orange.
‘I didn’t get a chance to say thank you for your vote,’ Cy said.
‘It’s not really a matter of thanks.’
‘Sure,’ he said, ‘but… I’d like to do something. Maybe drive up to Woodstock, buy you lunch.’
‘That would start the tongues wagging,’ she laughed.
‘What the eye doesn’t see the tongue can’t wag about.’
She felt her neck flushing. She was desperately tempted. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t be right, Cy.’
His blue eyes opened wide. ‘Of course it wouldn’t. Otherwise we’d be talking about having lunch here. In plain sight.’
Her legs seemed to be trembling. ‘You’re not talking about lunch.’
‘Not just lunch.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said involuntarily. It was of course why she had encouraged Fin to go away for the weekend. But now that the moment had come she found herself as off-balance as any teenager.
‘Oh my God yes. Or, oh my God no?’ Cy lifted his eyebrows.
She took a deep breath. ‘No, Cy. Definitely oh my God, no.’
Chapter Thirteen
In the wide, ornate courtroom of Cahn Roc, the trial of Monsieur Quatch opened at midday. The invited journalists sat behind a rail in an enclosed area on the left which may have been the jury box in the distant past. Among them interpreters were arranged at intervals. As the court assembled Max watched from his corner seat in the railed box as Nan Luc entered by the rear swing doors.
She was wearing a high necked dark green shirt and black linen trousers that outlined her legs as she walked. Reaching the rail she ducked under it and took the seat beside him, then she turned and without speaking raised her eyebrows to him in greeting.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I was wondering where you were going to be sitting.’
‘Next to Mr Benning,’ she said, ‘for however long the trial lasts, I’m afraid.’
There were no spectators. When the three judges had taken their seats and Van Khoa and his assistant prosecutors and the recording clerks were in position, the courtroom still seemed empty. For the moment no one seemed prepared to begin the proceedings then, from the corner of his eye, Max saw a movement at the back of the court. A small man, tieless, in a pale suit and with thinning grey hair, gave a brisk nod of his head. Professor Cao, the presiding judge, seemed to acknowledge it. He cleared his throat and lifted his head importantly. ‘The court is in session,’ he intoned. ‘Bring in the prisoner.’
Max sat hunched forward over his notebook. The rain which had started again during the night now beat incessantly on the court-room windows. Within the high ceilinged room an expectant silence directed all faces towards the tall double panelled door at the side of the judges’ bench. Max turned his head to Nan Luc beside him but her eyes too were fixed on the door.
‘Members of the Western press,’ Professor Cao said. ‘It has been decided, for your benefit, that his trial shall be conducted as much as possible in English. The reason for this is simple. In the climate of calumny and distortion that surrounds every peace-loving act of the Vietnamese Republic, the government wishes it to be clear that the prisoner Quatch is receiving a fair trial. We rely on you, distinguished members of the Western press, to report a fair trial fairly.’
Pleased with his short speech, the Professor called again: ‘Bring in the prisoner.’
For a moment the rain stopped beating against the windows, the sudden quiet compounding the silence in the courtroom. Footsteps on flagstones in a distant corridor announced the approach of the prisoner. The panelled door now opened and a young Vietnamese police officer entered the courtroom. A long thin chain swooped from a hook on his belt through the open doorway. Brought to a halt as the chain tightened, the young policeman turned with a peremptory high-pitched order and jerked hard twice on the chain.
Vo Tran Quatch stumbled forward, regained his balance and shuffled to the judges’ bench. He was chained at the ankles and wrists. His cheeks, no longer plump, hung below the jawline in folds of loose flesh. He wore no jacket or tie but his white shirt was clean, the collar barely concealing the knotted scars that ran like a line of medallions round his throat.
Nan Luc’s face was fixed with a look of loathing. For a moment it seemed as if the burden of hatred was too much for her and with a sudden movement she dropped her head and stared at the planked floor at her feet.
The presiding judge was leaning forward, whispering to Quatch and writing details as Quatch answered in an equally low voice. When Quatch was led away to stand behind the single, waist-high rail, the president said almost carelessly: ‘The People’s Court of Cahn Roc Province states that the prisoner Quatch pleads guilty to the charges of corruption and betrayal of the interests of the revolution.’ Quatch stood at the bar flanked by two policemen. At the judge’s words his mouth moved and he seemed to incline his head in agreement.
Van Khoa had risen to his feet. Reading from a script, his laboured English contrasting with the fervour with which he spoke, he denounced Quatch for bringing disgrace and dishonour to the Republic of Vietnam, of abusing the authority vested in him, and, for good measure, of being responsible for the scurrilous news stories in the Western press accusing the Vietnamese government of condoning the corrupt practices of provincial officials.
Max had met Van Khoa the night before at the Grand Hotel. With Nan Luc’s translations supplementing his limited English he had seemed to Max to be one of those tough, resilient cadres who had formed the backbone of the Vietcong during the past war. Now, in the echoing courtroom, he found it difficult to reconcile the Van Khoa of the night before with the ranting figure in the well of the court.
‘God knows how long we’ve got of this,’ Hunter muttered, ‘and not a decent looking woman in sight. Except one, of course.’ He nodded almost imperceptibly in the direction of Nan Luc. ‘And she’s spoken for.’
‘Spoken for? Who by?’ Max’s voice was loud enough to cause Cao, the president, to lift his eyes towards the press section. ‘Who by?’ Max leaned close to Hunter.
‘By the State Prosecutor of course.’ Hunter kept his voice low. ‘Did you see the way he acted towards the girl? Very polite.’
‘So?’
‘In this part of the world the men of power are even less deferential than where we come from. No, he’s laying her. And he’s enjoying it. Which,’ Hunter added, ‘comes as no surprise to anyone. She’s delicious. Bad luck, sport.’
Van Khoa’s opening denunciation lasted almost two hours. From what seemed a mass of speculation and abstractions, Max distilled the charges of betrayal of the revolution by the export and sale abroad of the nation’s cultural heritage. There was no respite. After a short break in the early afternoon when tea and a hard, sour-tasting biscuit was served, the prosecution’s denunciation of Quatch continued for another three hours, empty assertions unsupported by evidence. By now Van Khoa was alternating with his principal assistant, a small and unusually bald headed man in white shirt and grey shorts. His sandals clacking across the tiled courtroom floor he would run forward to hurl abuse at Quatch, then step quickly back as you might from a chained Doberman.