The role of chamberlain was created in medieval European courts, establishing the most important functionary in any royal household. A chamberlain was the buffer, and passport, to any king or queen. With his promoting approval, eager courtiers were guaranteed title, fame and wealth. By his obstructing disapproval, anxious fortune-hunters were forever doomed to oblivion and poverty.
Today there are few European royal courts and those chamberlains that remain do so largely in power-empty office from which they emerge bewigged, gartered and plumed for ceremonial occasions, in between which they shuffle back to memories of bygone ages and absolute authority rivalling that of the monarchs their predecessors served.
England is one of those few European countries in which a monarchy and the office of chamberlain still exist, one more of doubtful ceremonial value than the other. There are, however, four other very active courts in which operate chamberlains whose sacrosanct judgement is absolute and whose unwritten laws are as unchallengeable as their interpretation of enshrined British legislation.
They are the Inns of Court and the chamberlains of their members disdain any title loftier than clerk. They need nothing higher than that, which every sensible barrister knows. Those that don’t, learn fast enough. Or leave for other professions.
Bert (as christened, not Bertram) Feltham was the chief clerk of the Temple chambers of Sir Richard Proudfoot, QC, a fiefdom he ran with a ruthlessness that had been enviously likened by lesser chief clerks in other chambers to that of the principles by which the Borgias operated and Machiavelli would have admired. He submitted briefs to his barristers before formal acceptance, as protocol required, but every one of the chamber’s eight Queen’s Counsel – including Proudfoot himself – knew Feltham had vetted the case and personally selected to whom it would be presented in advance of the first discussion. And there was never any discussion about anything whatsoever that Feltham considered unsuitable. He selected his submitting solicitors with the care with which he accepted their cases. It was a network that had developed over twenty years and worked after so long more by instinct than by legal formalities. Those honoured with Feltham’s ex-directory home telephone number knew automatically what might be ‘something for Bert’. Those that didn’t have the knack only had the office number and Feltham rarely accepted their calls.
Humphrey Perry had the home number and he rang it that night from the car phone, before leaving the hospital grounds.
‘You can’t be serious!’ protested Feltham. He had asthma and wheezed.
‘Wouldn’t you like to hear about it?’
There was a long pause. ‘You know I don’t like wasting my time. And this is wasting my time.’
Perry felt a bubble of uncertainty, despite being in what he considered an assured bargaining position. ‘You have to eat lunch somewhere.’
‘I’m on a diet.’
‘Smoked salmon and Puligny Montrachet. El Vino. Tomorrow, twelve-thirty, before it gets crowded.’
‘I’m nor going to take it.’
‘Let’s just have lunch then. It’s been a while.’
‘Don’t be late.’
Perry arrived early to secure a basement table in the corner; the wine was already open when Feltham entered precisely at half past twelve. He was a man in need of a diet: case discussion usually began over lunch. His face had the reddening of blood pressure, too. It was an inverted snobbery – some even said Feltham’s personal joke – to reject the dark-suited uniform of law in the way he dressed. Today the brass-buttoned sports jacket was brown and black striped, with fawn trousers. The shirt collar was button down. There were perfunctory handshakes. Perry poured the wine.
As he did so he said, ‘You did well with the Hallett case.’ There was a ritual that had to be performed, but today there was reason additional to the expected flattery.
‘It was predictable we’d win.’ The case of Peregrine Hallett was the most recent cause celebre: Sir Richard Proudfoot himself had defended the society financier with minor royal friends against a charge of share-rigging a company take-over, exposed a flaw in the 1987 Banking Act that now needed Parliamentary legislation to correct, and gained Hallett an acquittal with costs and a public apology from the trial judge.
‘Not to most.’ It would have been Feltham who’d judged the potential from the beginning.
‘All good for the chamber,’ wheezed Feltham, reciting the inviolable credo. He did order smoked salmon, although a double portion, with a salad he soaked in dressing and a side order of new potatoes.
‘How’s the diet going?’
‘Slowly. There was a lot of press coverage about your business in the papers this morning.’
‘Attractive woman, isn’t she?’ Although there was no need for him to diet, Perry limited himself to a single order of smoked salmon, without extras.
‘I’m not interested, Humphrey.’
‘She’s the beautiful wife of a millionaire commodity trader.’
‘Whom, according to what you told me last night and what I read this morning, she killed because she’s a menopausal paranoid schizophrenic obeying the voice of his first wife.’
‘I didn’t say she was menopausal. She isn’t.’
‘The rest is more than sufficient.’ Feltham added more dressing to what salad remained.
‘You know John Bentley?’
Feltham nodded. ‘Headline hunter.’
‘Good copper though. Best murder track record in the Met.’
‘This isn’t going to be one he’s proud of.’
‘He thinks there’s another woman. And that the voice in the head is all bullshit, a prepared-in-advance defence.’
Feltham looked disappointedly at his empty plate. ‘It doesn’t matter which way you present it, Jennifer Lomax murdered her husband in front of sixteen people. She’s guilty. I’m not into formal pleas of mitigation and you know it. I’m surprised you called me, I really am.’ He nodded to cheese and port, vintage Warre in preference to the Dow.
‘She wants the best.’
‘She wants a miracle. Why are you trying so hard?’
‘Lomax’s American parent put all their European business through our corporate division.’
Feltham nodded, ‘I sympathize. And understand. And I’d do it as a favour, if it were possible. But look at it objectively, from my point of view. Even if the voice in her head is bullshit, we couldn’t win! I don’t take cases that are lost before they begin. I wouldn’t put this to any of my seniors. They trust me. They’d think I was the one who’d gone mad.’
‘You did do well with Hallett.’
Feltham looked steadily across the table for several moments. ‘We’ve already talked about that.’
‘There’s an Exchange inquiry going on, into some copper dealings Lomax fronted for some Far East dealers.’
‘How did it go wrong?’
‘A Tokyo dealer got over-extended. Went on buying to cover his losses, with money he didn’t have. Persuaded the finance minister in Bolivia to use government money for a private portfolio they asked Lomax to set up.’
‘Was Lomax part of it?’
‘No.’
‘Sure?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘But it’ll go to court here?’
‘Inevitably.’
‘How long?’
‘I’d say it’ll run for three months. Maybe four. Some Lichtenstein royalty were conned. And a Hollywood producer.’
‘High profile as well as a good earner?’
‘Guaranteed.’
Feltham sighed. ‘So we’ve got a problem.’
‘One that can surely be resolved.’
‘My seniors trust me,’ repeated Feltham. ‘It’s a matter of integrity.’
‘I understand,’ said Perry, who did and saw nothing hypocritical or even odd in Feltham’s remark. ‘What about Jeremy Hall?’
Feltham smiled. ‘You stay on top of things.’
‘We both do,’ said Perry, smiling back. Jeremy Hall was the newest arrival at Sir Richard Proudfoot’s chambers, the first barrister in ten years whose acceptance hadn’t been subject to Feltham’s veto. Hall was Proudfoot’s nephew.
‘He’s under my care.’
‘Aren’t all your people?’
‘Special care.’ Feltham gestured for a second port.
‘At its worst, she’s mad,’ said Perry. ‘She herself is demanding a psychiatric examination so we’ll know soon enough. At its best, it’s a cleverly planned murder. All right, so it’s guilty, whichever. But the money’s guaranteed and if there is another woman he’ll be able to push the spurned wife defence. And she is beautiful, so the publicity to the chambers is as assured as the fee. It wouldn’t hurt just occasionally to be on the side of the underdog, would it?’
‘She cut him to pieces, according to this morning’s papers!’
‘Temporary insanity. All part of the same mitigation.’
‘I’m still not totally happy.’
‘I’m not saying it’s perfect.’
‘How much prelim work would be involved in the copper case?’
‘Two months, minimum.’
‘And the case would run for four?’
‘At least. It’ll be very worthwhile.’
‘I’d have to explain the Lomax brief to Sir Richard.’
‘Of course.’
‘He was very pleased at the way the Hallett thing turned out.’
‘I’ve heard the Lord Chancellor was impressed.’
‘Sir Richard would make a good judge,’ agreed Feltham, smiling in acknowledgement of Perry’s preparation. ‘I’d be sorry to lose him, of course.’
‘Of course,’ agreed Perry. ‘The chamber accepting an obvious guilty plea wouldn’t go against the consideration, would it? The contrary, in fact.’
Feltham smiled again. ‘Good point, well made.’
‘Are we agreed then?’
‘I think so. I’m sorry if I was brusque at the beginning.’
Perry shook his head in dismissal. ‘What’s Hall like?’
‘Young. A little brash. Good pass marks. Not a bad court presence. It’ll improve when I’ve trained him up. Special case, as I said. Father was a Name at Lloyds: family was wiped out by the insurance crash. The old man killed himself. Sir Richard let Hall into the chambers literally as an act of charity: he didn’t have any money to go anywhere else.’
‘Riches to rags?’ smiled the bald-headed man.
‘Something like that,’ said Feltham, unimpressed by the attempted joke. ‘When’s the remand hearing?’
‘This afternoon, at the hospital.’
‘You want him to be there?’
Perry gave another dismissive gesture. ‘It’ll only be a formality.’
‘Properly handled, there will be some mileage in it for the chambers, won’t there?’
‘I’ll look after him,’ promised Perry.
‘It’s been a good lunch. Thank you.’
‘Best of luck with the diet.’
‘Thanks.’ Feltham rose but remained standing at the table. ‘Unwinnable cases are a bastard, aren’t they?’
‘An absolute bastard,’ agreed Perry.
‘All sixteen?’ queried Rodgers.
‘Until I get the name,’ insisted Bentley. ‘The place is a fucking goldfish bowl. Someone will know who he was screwing, like they knew he was popping Jennifer while his first wife was alive.’
‘When do you want to start?’
‘Directly after the magistrate’s hearing. It’ll be up and down, five minutes at the most.’
‘You want me to warn Lomax’s office?’
‘No,’ said Bentley. ‘Let’s surprise them.’