the ghost and the darkness

Driving through the maelstrom of an Irish winter. My little car careening along the winding roads of the west. I am heading to the country house of an English lawyer friend whose name is Fortescue Smythe. Rain and wind and desolation. Blackest night. My thoughts match the mood of the elements. Here's what I'm thinking. Could I have been wrong? To defend Jimmy Savile? What if I was defending the indefensible? What if Rupert Murdock's Sun newspaper and the bankrupt Daily Mirror and the viewerless ITV and the bankrupt hind tit Me Too criminally owned Irish newspapers, what if they had all been right to try to ruin him from beyond the grave by paying dubious characters of low morals to impugn his integrity? What if they were right to vitiate his life and life's work and his family's dignity in a media show trial conducted by scoundrels? What if they were right and I was wrong? My car rounded a bend. There was another car in the middle of the road on its roof. Three men stood around the car frantically manipulating it. It was the oddest thing. Suddenly I was in a different universe. The rain still poured down. The elements howled. But I was in a new reality. I couldn't see any blood or anybody injured in the car. Very quickly something in the attitude of the three men caused me to frown. They were waving me on. And I knew. The men were hoodlums. I registered that almost immediately. I slowed and locked my door. I was taking in as much as I could and thinking about my options. The three men kept gesturing at me to drive on. They manually swung the car with its roof as an axle so that its bonnet no longer even partially blocked my passage. I drove through without a backward glance. About two minutes later I was at Fortescue's house. He was on the phone when I knocked. "My wife," he explained. "She's in Bolivia. Make yourself comfortable." "I need to use your phone." "You what?" "There's an accident about half a kilometre up the road. I need to call the cops." "Anybody hurt?" "I didn't see anyone hurt. There were three men there. One vehicle. A car. On its roof. I thought the men were gangsters." "Then leave it." "You know I can't do that." The Brit sighed. "I'm on the phone to my wife... She's in Bolivia," he repeated earnestly. "Have you got a mobile?" sez me. He pointed to it and I rang the cops. And that was that. The three men and their crashed car passed from my reality. The universe returned to what passes for normal down my way. When Fortescue finished on the phone to his wife, he served up a repast and we talked about old times. Nothing else happened of note that evening except the following inconsequential piece of conversation with mein host. "Heelers," he said, "can you keep a secret?" "Yes," I told him. "I'd need your word of honour," quoth he. "My yes means yes and my no means no," sez me. "I'd need your word of honour that you wouldn't write about this on The Heelers Diaries," insisted Fortescue. "Well if I say I won't do it, I won't do it," I answered. Fortescue took a breath. He seemed to be measuring his every word and thought. "You may have made a good call about Jimmy Savile," he said slowly and meditatively. "I had a visitor at my office in London last week. It was one of my clients. A woman. From a troubled background. Not entirely stable. She wouldn't be much good in the witness box. She'd been a pupil at that school for troubled teenagers where some of the women who are accusing Jimmy Savile of molestation were students. She knows them. She says she doesn't believe it's true. She remembers him coming to the school and she maintains there were never even the slightest rumours of misbehaviour afterwards. Everyone was just delighted to see him. Each and every time he visited. She says one of the girls wasn't even there during the years Jimmy Savile visited. She also says she thinks they've been planning this since 2007. And she says that the newspapers are now ringing her continuously asking her to make statements against Jimmy Savile but she doesn't want to have anything to do with it. What do you make of that?" "Fortescue," I cried. "Heelers," said he. "You can't ask me not to publish this," I pleaded earnestly. "You would be betraying my trust and losing my friendship," said he. "But Fortescue. A man is being destroyed. Before the eyes of the world. For no other reason than the profit motive of scoundrels. Think of his family and his relatives. We have an opportunity to do something about it. You couldn't expect me to keep silent. You couldn't." "No." "Think of our duty Fortescue. You and me. Our duty to the truth." "Heelers, you gave me your word." "You thought I was serious about that?"