Dead Men's s Boots

‘The issue, your honour, is the transferral of Mister Ditko from the Stanger Home to a separate secure facility under the management of Professor Mulbridge – the Metamorphic Ontology Unit at Saint Mary’s in Paddington.’

‘I’m aware of the issue, Mister Fenste#82Mister r. I asked about the recommendation.’

‘Of course, your honour. But as you’ll also note from that document, the tribunal did not in fact manage to complete its deliberations. Miss Bruckner, who represents herself here today –’ he glanced across at Pen ‘– was also in attendance, and claimed – somewhat forcefully – that the tribunal was not properly convened.’

The Honourable Mister Runcie had found his place now. He scanned the pages in front of him, tight-lipped. ‘Yes,’ he said. And then, a little later, ‘Oh yes.’ After reading on for a good half-minute longer, while the rest of us examined our fingernails and the paint on the walls, he put the paper down and stared at Pen.

‘You disrupted the hearing, Miss Bruckner,’ he said, with a slightly pained emphasis. ‘You’re facing criminal charges as a result.’

Pen stood up again. ‘I had to, your honour,’ she said, levelly. ‘They were going to break the law. I needed to stop them.’

I listened carefully to her words, or rather to the tone of them, trying to assess how tightly she was wound up. I estimated about three to four hundred pounds of torque: not terrible, for this stage of the proceedings. If anything she managed to get an apologetic note into her voice, and she bowed her head slightly as she spoke, in an understated pantomime of guilt. She knew she’d blown it at the Stanger hearing, and she was trying to undo the damage she’d done there.

‘You needed to stop them,’ Mister Runcie repeated. ‘Indeed. Well, I’ve no doubt you feel very strongly about this. But still – the transcript suggests that you shouted and scattered documents, and you’ve been accused of actually threatening Doctor Webb, the director of the Stanger Home.’

‘I’m really sorry about that,’ Pen said meekly. ‘The threat, I mean. I did say all those things. But I didn’t mean half of them.’

For a moment I could see the proceedings being derailed by an itemised discussion of which threats Pen did mean: the one about breaking Webb’s arms and legs, or the more elaborate ones involving objects and orifices? But the barrister interposed smoothly to keep things moving along.

‘That case is pending, your honour, and it will be decided elsewhere. The crux of the matter here is that Miss Bruckner was asserting a power of attorney over Mister Rafael Ditko’s affairs and estate, and therefore over the legal disposition of his person.’

‘On what grounds?’ the magistrate asked, still looking at Pen. He was obviously trying to square the butterwouldn’t-melt picture of penitence in front of him with the written account of her exciting adventures at the Stanger. It didn’t compute.

Pen answered for herself, again with really impressive restraint and civility. ‘On the grounds that I’m the one who signed the forms committing Rafi to the Stanger in the first place, your honour,’ she said. ‘And I pay his bills there, along with a Mister Felix Castor. Doctor Webb has dragged me in every other week for two years, whenever he needed a signature on something. The only reason he doesn’t want me to have a power of attorney now is because it’s not convenient any more. Because now he wants to sign Rafi over to that woman, and he doesn’t want anyone to be able to say no.’

On ‘that woman’ she flicked a glance across the court at Jenna-Jane Mulbridge, the demure mask slipping just for a moment ,&#for a mas her eyes narrowed into a glare. Jenna-Jane inclined her head in acknowledgement, the ironic glint in her eye barely perceptible.

‘I see,’ said the magistrate. He turned to the barrister now. ‘Well, if this is a Section 41 case, the safety of the public is the overriding consideration. Consent isn’t necessarily going to come into the equation. Is that the only substantive issue, Mister Fenster?’

‘Your honour, no,’ the barrister said, waving his wodge again. ‘Miss Bruckner further alleges improper collusion between Doctor Webb, Professor Mulbridge and Doctor Smart, who as the medical member of the tribunal would have been making the initial recommendation as to its decision. That is where I come in, since the authority – which convened the panel – feels compelled to rebut these charges.’

‘Charges of collusion?’

‘Just so, your honour.’

The magistrate looked back at Pen with a frown.

‘Miss Bruckner,’ he said, with very careful emphasis, ‘may I ask on what basis you are questioning the credentials and integrity of –’ He scanned the paper that was still in his hand. ‘– of a judge, a doctor and a trained psychologist?’

It was time for me to take some of the pressure off Pen before she could get any closer to blowing. I stood up and gave the bench a friendly wave. ‘Can I answer that one, your honour?’ I asked.