Dead in the Water

speciality of the house.”
    “That will be fine.”
    Hewitt ordered for both of them, and the waitress brought them cold bottles of beer.
    “Well, we have a decision to make,” Stone said.
    “What is that?” Hewitt asked.
    “Whether to call Allison to the stand.”
    “Of course we must call her,” Hewitt said.
    “But why? Sir Winston has no case at all, as far as I can see. We should simply rest our case and move for an acquittal, and I think we’d get it.”
    “We shall certainly move for an acquittal, as a matter of form,” Hewitt replied, “but it is unlikely in the extreme that we would get it.”
    “Even when the prosecution has offered thin evidence, and that evidence has been refuted in court?”
    “I can see where you might not wish to call Allison, coming from the American legal tradition, as you do.”
    “She’s not required to testify, is she?”
    “Not legally, no; she has a right to forgo questioning by invoking her right against self-incrimination. But unlike in America, in St. Marks the jury may consider that an indication of guilt.”
    “Oh.”
    “What’s more, if we didn’t call Allison, Sir Winston would reopen his case and call her himself, you see.”
    “I see.”
    “In any case, Allison is her own best witness, don’t you think?”
    “Yes, I do think that, but it troubles me that Sir Winston has brought this case with no more evidence than he has.”
    “You must understand that in our legal tradition, although the presumption of innocence is given lip service, in fact even the insinuation of guilt must be answered in order to convince a jury that the accused is innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. Even the term ‘reasonable doubt’ has a different meaning here, as you will learn when the judge charges the jury. It more or less means that if a juror, after hearing the evidence, thinks the prisoner is probably guilty, then he votes that way. Only if he seriously doubts guilt will he vote for acquittal. I know you think all this is very quaint, but that is the way the law has developed here in the years since the British left. Of course, it has been steered that way by the likes of Sir Winston, the prime minister, who was a barrister and a judge, and Lord Cornwall. The system is very much more comfortable if it is easier to find the accused guilty instead of innocent. And, of course, they have no written constitution or Supreme Court looking over their shoulders.”
    “That’s just wonderful,” Stone said glumly. He began to feel a real longing for the vagaries of the American system of justice.
    Their food came and they ate slowly, not talking much. The seafood stew was, indeed, good, Stone thought. “What do you suppose they’re giving Allison for lunch?” he asked.
    “Oh, the food is better there than you might imagine, since the prisoners prepare it themselves in their own little kitchen. They give the warden a grocery list, and he gets them whatever they want. Since they’re not paying a cook, it’s cheaper letting them cook for themselves, no matter what they’re cooking.”
    “I haven’t heard much about the prime minister,” Stone said. “What is he like?”
    “He is exactly my age, which is eighty-nine, if you were wondering, and in better health than I.”
    “How long has he been prime minister?”
    “Since 1966, when the British left.”
    “That’s rather a long time in office, isn’t it?”
    “The people have always liked him. He is not in the way of being oppressive, and he has never been too corrupt.”
    “Just a little corrupt?”
    “Oh, well, you know how government officials are. They are paid very little, really. Do you think Sir Winston pays for his Savile Row suits from his meager salary?”
    “I thought perhaps his beautiful wife had money.”
    “She does, in fact; her father held Sir Winston’s job for more than twenty years.”
    Stone laughed aloud.
    “I know you may think our country amusing, Stone, but it really does work very well, you know. Mostly we live and let live, and if some of us live better than others, well, that’s the way of the world, isn’t it? Sometimes I think we are able to be viable as a country because of our climate.”
    “Your climate?”
    “It’s warm year-round, you see, and hot in the summer. When people are warm in winter, they tend to think that they are not so badly off. There are fish in the sea and work in the hotels and bars, and clothing, if one is not a member of the governmental or