Lost At Sea Part 30

"OK, sorry!" Charles calls back, and scuttles off.

"I don't care how many Mensa badges he's wearing," mutters Robert. "On the eight-thousand-pound question he could hardly remember that Emmental cheese was from Switzerland."

I laugh.

"Does all this remind you of Macbeth?" says Robert. "The bluff soldier, with the pale, mysterious woman behind him?"

We regulars spend much of our time psychoa.n.a.lyzing the Ingrams. This is because their demeanors are so uncriminal. Even the police get involved in the speculation.

"The major is a strange character," says one arresting officer during a press briefing. "Puzzling. I can't figure him out. There have been some comments in court about Diana being stronger ..." He pauses. "I don't understand that sort of relations.h.i.+p. I'm not part of a relations.h.i.+p like that."

"You're a lucky man!" shouts a journalist.

At 2:15 p.m. on March 23, a miracle occurs that might just save the defendants. Tecwen Whittock takes the stand, and he is brilliant. He begins with a tour of his harrowing childhood: born in a psychiatric hospital to a mother with behavioral problems, whom he never saw again, and an alcoholic father he never knew.

"I have a recollection of seeing him once when I was seven," he says.

He was raised in foster care, and pulled himself up through hard work to become head of business studies at Pontypridd Polytechnic, now known as the University of Glamorgan.

"Would you jeopardize all you've worked for to get involved in something like this?" asks his barrister, David Aubrey.

"Of course not," says Tecwen. "I wouldn't do that. It's against all my morals, all I do. I wouldn't put my family on the line for this. I know I'd land up in jail." It is a convincing moment. And then comes the bombsh.e.l.l. "Look closely at the photograph," says David Aubrey-it was a long-lens photograph of Tecwen on his way to work, head bowed, that appeared in the Sun on September 25.

"What have you got in your hand in that photograph?" asks David Aubrey.

"Some work files," replies Tecwen.

"And in your other hand?"

"Two five-hundred-milliliter bottles."

"Bottles of what?"

"Water. Tap water."

"Why?"

Tecwen has his entire life suffered from a persistent cough. Water helps. He carries some everywhere, and fruit juice, and inhalers and cough medicine. It's a ticklish cough, like a frog in his throat, very phlegmy. A stream of doctors and friends take the stand, attesting to Tecwen's irritating cough.

Aubrey sums up by saying, "So, when was this plan supposedly hatched? During a late-night telephone call, on 9 September, lasting less than five minutes. Is it really likely that Mr. Whittock would take part in such a hastily conceived scheme? Wouldn't he have said, 'You can't count on me. I'm liable to cough at any time!'"

MY RELATIONs.h.i.+P WITH the Ingrams has suffered a dreadful blow. Not only does Diana think I glower at her with a crazed expression, but the Ingrams have now appointed a media agent called David Thomas. These days, every time I b.u.mp into them at Starbucks or in the corridor outside Court 4, Thomas is there, saying "h.e.l.lo, Jon" in a snarly manner. The rumor is that Thomas is going to handpick one journalist, and the rest of us will get nothing.

"Can I have just five minutes with the Ingrams?" I ask him.

"I'm mentally logging your request," says Thomas.

"All I want is for them to be able to tell their side of the story," I say.

"So your pitch is 'I'm Honest Jon,'" he replies.

"Yes."

"It's mentally logged," says Thomas. "You've batted your corner very well."

I tell him my one question: "What was that thing that happened back in our childhoods with the watch straps and the number plate APOLLO G?"

"Your question is logged up here," he says, pointing at his head. I spend the next three days sitting in the corridor, waiting for him to come back with an answer.

The jury retire to consider its verdict, and the corridor outside Court 4 becomes a frenzied bazaar. While everyone else crowds around Thomas, telling him how much they love dogs too (Thomas is a dog lover) and explaining that all they want to do is let the Ingrams tell their side of the story (he tells them they batted their corners well), I sidle up to Diana.

"I'll tell you the one thing I really want to know ..." I begin breezily.

"Have you met David Thomas?" she replies, looking frantically around for him.

Robert Brydges hears that John Brown Publis.h.i.+ng-the company that had once planned to publish Diana and Adrian's book-is now interested in reading the ma.n.u.script of The Third Millionaire.

Suddenly, there is drama. Judge Rivlin calls us all back in. "A very serious matter has arisen that does not concern the defendants," he says. The jury is temporarily discharged. We file back out into the corridor, bewildered. It turns out that a juror was overheard holding court in a pub, saying how fantastic it was to be on the Millionaire trial jury. For a day and a half, the various parties debate whether to start the trial again with a new jury. In the end, Judge Rivlin decides to allow the eleven remaining jurors to continue.

"Well, that," Charles mutters to himself, "amounted to the square root of f.u.c.k-all."

So this trial, which was all about entertainment, is almost chucked out because one of the jurors found it too entertaining.

When the guilty verdict comes in, after nearly fourteen hours of deliberations over three days, Diana closes her eyes and looks down. Charles holds her hand and kisses her on the cheek. Tecwen doesn't respond in any way. The only noises in court are tuts-the kind of tuts that mean "It's all a bit of a shame."

Charles and Diana have three daughters, two with special needs.

Judge Rivlin has the reputation of being tough when sentencing, but says, "I'm going to put you out of your misery. There's no way I'm going to deprive these children of their parents."

The defense barristers stand up to make their mitigation pleas. In the public gallery the defendants' family members strain to hear what's being said. We can just make out, "His career in the army is at an end... . Their home was provided by the army, so they've lost their home... . The children are suffering from panic attacks... . All three will have to leave their schools... ."

The reason why we can only barely hear this is because three pensioners in the public gallery are coughing uncontrollably.

Judge Rivlin says it was all just a shabby schoolboy trick. He says he doesn't think this crime was about greed, it was about wanting to look good on a TV quiz show. He says the fact that their reputations have been so publicly ruined is appropriate punishment-and I remember what Charles said about how he hates to be thought of as stupid. Judge Rivlin hands out suspended sentences and fines totaling 60,000. On the courthouse steps, the paparazzi cough theatrically when Tecwen and his quiet son, Rhys, walk out.

The scrum is even more dramatic for Charles and Diana. Cameras and tripods and photographers crash to the floor in the violent scuffle to get pictures. "I've seen child murderers get more respect than that," says one journalist. Other journalists and some nearby builders scream with laughter at Charles and Diana and chant, "Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!"

(An Indian diplomat named Vikas Swarup is at home watching the news reports on TV. Suddenly he has an idea for a novel. He will call it Q & A. The movie adaptation will be called Slumdog Millionaire. Later Swarup will explain his moment of inspiration to the Guardian: "If a British army major can be accused of cheating, then an ignorant tiffin boy [urchin] from the world's biggest slum can definitely be accused of cheating," he'll say.)

I phone David Thomas to ask if Diana can give me the answer to my question. He says, "You've not fallen off my mental list." I never hear from him again.

Instead I phone childhood friends to ask if they can remember anything about it. Most of them can. There were two Pollock brothers, they tell me. Bill and Arthur. They were in a family business together, making leather watch straps. There was a big falling-out in the family, and Arthur left the company. Bill became rich, driving around in a fancy car with the personalized number plate APOLLO G. His family were the ones who lived near me, in a big house in Lisvane. They had a son called Julian. Arthur Pollock never really recovered. He was left penniless and in ill health. His children vowed to pull themselves back up and never suffer the indignity their father endured. They would make something of their lives, they promised themselves. So Adrian and Marcus set up an estate agency together, and Diana married an army major. The estate agency failed. In fact, the whole thing failed.