No Comebacks (24 page)

'Where are you going?' his wife asked.

'Just going down the road to get another paper,' he told her. 'Henry Carpenter says there's something in it about me.'

'Oh, fame at last,' said his wife. 'I'll get the breakfast.'

The corner newspaper shop had two copies left of the
Sunday Courier,
a heavy, multi-supplemented newspaper written, in Chad-wick's view, by the pretentious for the pretentious. It was cold on the street so he refrained from delving into the numerous sections and supplements here and then, preferring to restrain his curiosity a few minutes more and look at them in the comfort of his own home. By the time he returned his wife had the orange juice and coffee on the kitchen table.

He realized as he started into the paper that Carpenter had not given him a page number, so he began with the general news section. By his second cup of coffee he had finished that, thrown down the arts-and-culture section and similarly discarded the sports section. That left the colour magazine and the business review. Being a self-employed businessman in a small way on the outskirts of London, he tried the business review.

On the third page, a name caught his eye; not his own, but that of a company which had recently collapsed and with which he had had a brief and, as it turned out, costly association. The article was in a column that prided itself on its investigative intent.

As he read the piece, he put his coffee down and his mouth fell open.

'He can't say this sort of thing about me,' he whispered. 'It's just not true.'

'What's the matter, dear?' asked his wife. She was evidently concerned at the stricken expression on her husband's face. Without a word he passed her the paper, folded so she could not miss the article. She read it carefully, emitting a single short gasp when she reached the middle of it.

'That's terrible,' she said when she had finished. 'This man's implying that you were in some way a part of a fraud.'

Bill Chadwick had risen and was pacing the kitchen.

'He's not implying it,' he said, his anger taking over from his shock, 'he's bloody well saying it. The conclusion is inescapable. Damn it, I was a victim of those people, not a knowing partner. I sold their products in good faith. Their collapse cost me as much as anyone else.'

'Could this do you harm, darling?' asked his wife, her face creased with worry.

'Harm? It could bloody ruin me. And it's just not true. I 've never even met the man who wrote this. What's his name?'

'Gaylord Brent,' said his wife, reading the byline from the article.

'But I've never even met him. He never bothered to contact me to check. He just can't say those things about me.'

He used the same expression when closeted with his solicitor on Monday afternoon. The lawyer had expressed the inevitable distaste for what he had read and listened with sympathy to Chadwick's explanation of what had really happened in the matter of his association with the now-liquidated merchandising company.

'On the basis of what you say there seems no doubt that a prima facie libel of you has been uttered in this article,' he said.

'Then they'll damn well have to retract it and apologize,' said Chadwick hotly.

'In principle, yes,' said the lawyer. 'I think as a first step it would be advisable for me to write to the editor on your behalf, explaining that it is our view you have been libelled by the editor's employee and seeking redress in the form of a retraction and an apology, in a suitably prominent position, of course.'

This was what was eventually done. For two weeks there was no reply from the editor of the
Sunday Courier.
For two weeks Chadwick had to endure the stares of his small staff and avoid other business associates where he could. Two contracts he had hoped to obtain slid away from him.

The letter from the
Sunday Courier
eventually came to the solicitor. It was signed by a secretary on behalf of the editor and its tone was politely dismissive.

The editor, so it said, had considered the solicitor's letter on behalf of Mr Chadwick carefully, and was prepared to
consider
publication of a letter from Mr Chadwick in the correspondence column, subject of course to the editor's overriding right to edit the letter.

'In other words, cut it to ribbons,' said Chadwick as he sat facing his solicitor again. 'It's a brush-off, isn't it?'

The solicitor thought this over. He decided to be frank. He had known his client for a number of years.

'Yes,' he said, 'it is. I have only had dealings with a national newspaper once before on this kind of matter, but that sort of letter is a pretty standard response. They hate to publish a retraction, let alone an apology.'

'So what can I do?' asked Chadwick.

The lawyer made a move. 'There is the Press Council, of course,' he said. 'You could complain to them.'

'What would they do?'

'Not much. They tend to entertain allegations against newspapers only where it can be shown that distress was caused unnecessarily due to carelessness by the paper in its publication or by blatant inaccuracy on the part of the paper's reporter. They also tend to avoid claims of a clear libel, leaving that to the courts. In any case, they can only issue a rebuke, nothing more.'

'The Council cannot insist on a retraction and an apology?'

'No.'

'What does that leave?'

The solicitor sighed. 'I'm afraid that only leaves litigation. A suit in the High Court for libel, claiming damages. Of course, if a writ were actually issued, the paper might decide it did not wish to proceed, and publish the apology you ask for.'

'It might?'

'It might. But it might not.'

'But surely they'd have to. It's an open-and-shut case.'

'Let me be very frank with you,' said the solicitor. 'In libel there is no such thing as an open-and-shut case. For one thing, there is in effect no law of libel. Or rather, it comes under common law, a great mass of legal precedents established over centuries. These precedents may be open to differing interpretations, and your case, or any case, will be different from its predecessors in some slight shade or detail.

'Secondly, one is arguing about a state of awareness on your part, a state of mind, of what was in a man's mind at a given time, the existence of knowledge and therefore of intent, as against ignorance and thence of innocence of intent. Do you follow me?'

'Yes, I think so,' said Chadwick. 'But surely, I don't have to prove my innocence?'

'In effect, yes,' said the solicitor. 'You see, you would be the plaintiff; the paper, the editor and Mr Gaylord Brent, the defendants. You would have to prove that you were innocent of any awareness of the unreliability of the now-liquidated company when you were associated with them; only then would it be shown you had been libelled by the suggestion that you were implicated.'

'Are you advising me not to Sue?' asked Chadwick. 'Are you seriously suggesting I should accept being treated to a bunch of lies from a man who never bothered to check his facts before publishing; that I should even accept ruin in my business, and not complain?'

'Mr Chadwick, let me be frank with you. It is sometimes suggested of us lawyers that we encourage our clients to sue right, left and centre, because such action obviously enables us to earn large fees. Actually, the reverse is usually the case. It is usually the litigant's friends, wife, colleagues and so forth who urge him to go ahead and sue. They, of course, do not have to bear the costs. For the outsider a good court case is all bread and circuses. We in the legal profession are only too well aware of the costs of litigation.'

Chadwick thought over the question of the cost of justice, something he had seldom considered before.

'How high could they run?' he asked quietly.

'They could ruin you,' said the solicitor.

'I thought in this country all men had equal recourse to the law,' said Chadwick.

'In theory, yes. In practice it is often quite different,' said the lawyer. 'Are you a rich man, Mr Chadwick?'

'No. I run a small business. In these days that means I have to run on a knife edge of liquidity.

I have worked hard all my life, and I get by. I own my own house, my own car, my clothes. A self-employed person's pension scheme, a life-assurance policy, a few thousand of savings. I'm just an ordinary man, obscure.'

'That's my point,' said the solicitor. 'Nowadays only the rich can sue the rich, and never more so than in the field of libel, where a man may win his case but have to pay his own costs. After a long case, not to mention an appeal, these may be ten times the awarded damages.

'Big newspapers, like big publishing houses and others, all carry heavy insurance policies for libel damages awarded against them. They can employ the blue-chip lawyers of the West End, the costliest of Queen's Counsel. So, when faced with — if you will excuse me — a little man, they tend to face him down. With a little dexterity a case can be delayed from coming to court for up to five years, during which the legal costs to both sides mount and mount. The preparation of the case alone can cost thousands and thousands. If it gets to court, the costs rocket as the barristers take a fee and a daily "refresher". Then the barrister will have a junior tagging along as well.'

'How high could the costs go?' asked Chadwick.

'For a lengthy case, with years of preparation, even excluding a possible appeal, several tens of thousands of pounds,' said the lawyer. 'Even that's not the end of it.'

'What else should I know?' asked Chadwick.

'If you won, got damages and costs awarded against the defendants, that is, the newspaper, you would get the damages clear. But if the judge made no order as to costs, which they only tend to do in the worst of cases, you would have to carry your own costs. If you lost, the judge could even award the defendants' costs against you, in addition to your own. Even if you won, the newspaper could take the case to appeal. For that you could double the costs involved. Even if you won the appeal, without an order as to costs, you would be ruined.

'Then there is the mud-slinging. After two years people have long forgotten the original article in the paper anyway. The court case repeats it all again, with a mass of further material and allegations. Although you would be suing, the paper's counsel would have the task of destroying your reputation as an honest businessman, in the interests of his clients. Sling enough mud, and some will stick. There have been men, too numerous to mention, who have won their cases and emerged with very smeared reputations. In court all allegations can be printed publicly and do not have to be substantiated.'

'What about legal aid?' asked Chadwick. Like most people he had heard of it, but never investigated it.

'Probably not what you think,' said the solicitor. 'To get it you have to show you have no assets. That doesn't apply to you. In any case, legal aid is not available for cases of defamation.'

'So it looks like ruin either way,' said Chadwick.

'I'm sorry, truly sorry. I could encourage you to begin a lengthy and costly lawsuit, but I honestly feel the best favour I can do for you is to point out the hazards and pitfalls as they really are. There are many people who hotly entered into litigation and lived to regret it bitterly. Some never even recovered from the years of strain and the financial worry of it all.'

Chadwick rose. 'You have been .very honest and I thank you,' he said.

From his office desk later that day he rang the
Sunday Courier
and asked to speak to the editor. A secretary came on the line. In answer to her query he gave his name.

'What is it you want to speak to Mr Buxton about?' she asked.

'I would like an appointment to see him personally,' said Chadwick.

There was a pause on the line and he heard an internal telephone being used. She came back on the line.

'In what connection did you wish to see Mr Buxton?' she asked.

Chadwick explained briefly that he wanted to see the editor to explain his side of the suggestion that had been made about him in Gaylord Brent's article of two weeks earlier.

' I'm afraid Mr Buxton is not able to see people in his office,' said the secretary. 'Perhaps if you'd be kind enough to write a letter, it will be given consideration.'

She put the phone down. The following morning Chadwick took the underground into Central London and presented himself at the front desk of Courier House.

In front of a large uniformed commissionaire he filled out a form, stating his name, address, the person he wished to see and the nature of his business. It was taken away and he sat and waited.

After half an hour the lift doors opened to emit an elegant and slim young man shrouded in an aura of aftershave. He raised an eyebrow at the commissionaire, who nodded towards Bill Chadwick. The young man came over. Chadwick rose.

'I'm Adrian St Clair,' said the young man, pronouncing it Sinclair, 'Mr Buxton's personal assistant. Can I help you?'

Chadwick explained about the article under the by-line of Gaylord Brent and said that he wished to explain to Mr Buxton personally that what had been said about him was not only untrue but threatened him with ruin in his business. St Clair was regretful but unimpressed.