On Trial – Episode 15

On Trial – Episode 15

© Onyinyechukwu Mbeledogu

Koje’s fingers were clenched into a fist on each side of the arm chair as he wrestled with the anger burning within.

‘Any re-examination,’ Kaira continued, rising to her feet and crossing her desk to approach him. ‘The Prosecution objects to all re-examination questions as there were no ambiguities to clear. I humbly apply for the defendant to be discharged…You may return to the dock. Any further witness Miss Madukaife? Yes, my Lord, we wish to call DW2, Idris Adamu…’

She turned off the recorder. Koje glared at her as she flattened her palms against his fists and began to loosen his grip one finger at a time. If looks could ki*ll, Kaira would have died ten times over.

‘Ease up, man,’ she whispered into his ear, secretly noting the fragrance of his cologne and aftershave. ‘It was only a rehearsal.’

He was still uptight.

She walked behind him and put her hands on his shoulders, carefully working on the knots that had built in there.

‘It was only a rehearsal,’ she repeated.

As she felt him begin to relax, she walked away from him and headed for the fridge. She took out a bottle of water and handed it over to him, watching as he quickly drained it.

‘I’m glad it was only a rehearsal,’ she told him, grateful for more than that. Fortunately for him, the Nigerian judicial system still operated with the judge writing in long hand, meaning that the questions wouldn’t give room for sharp interjections from the prosecution because the judge would need the time to get every evidence down in his criminal record book. Had the services of a stenographer been engaged or were recorders used for proceedings, Quadri would have shot himself in the foot. ‘Had this been real, I would have had to feign mortal illness to secure a quick adjournment in order to put our house in order before you completely messed up your case.’

‘That wasn’t nice of you,’ he told her accusingly.

‘Welcome to the real world, Quadri,’ she told him. ‘The average woman wants you locked up for life. The average man who has a sister, mother, niece or female cousin he adores wants you locked away. Your business competition wants you gone. Neither the court nor the prosecution is interested in swooning over your good looks or the size of your pocket. The only one who would give a damn about you is the counsel you’re paying to keep you out of prison. When you are in court you are as common as the ordinary man who jumps into a molue bus every morning to and fro his place of work. And when you are in that witness box, all eyes will be on you and a lot of them will be judgmental.

‘The prosecution wants your head on a platter and if you so much as tilt your head in the wrong direction, the cleaver will gladly land on it. You have paid me to represent you and not to hold your hand and sympathise with you. Sympathy is not what you need from me. What you need is for people to look beyond your good looks and muscular build which to the average person in that courtroom would appear as reasons for you taking advantage of a woman who is petite and appears absolutely harmless! You need them to see a man, a human being with emotions. A man who was passionate about a woman but not to the point of hurting her, but rather passionate enough to walk away in order to protect her from the power of his passion. You need me to cover the field so that your date with the witness box will not be horrible.

‘Now, there are different Rules you must always have at the back of your mind. Rule number 1 : never lose your temper in the hot seat. That is tantamount to bathing yourself with a bucket of petrol and heading in the direction of a burning bush. When you lose your temper the prosecution will gladly fuel it and you’ll find yourself saying things that you ordinarily wouldn’t have said. For instance like saying ‘It was not my intention to rape her’ instead of ‘I didn’t rape her’. Rule Number 2 : you don’t have to immediately answer every question as they come. Sometimes, give a second to allow your lawyer object if she intends to. And I might object once in a while to give you time to think. Rule Number 3 : Never use specific time frames. Always use the prefix ‘about’ so that you don’t get yourself into trouble.’

‘And Rule number 4 ?’ Koje enquired, still visibly upset.

‘Your counsel has your best interest at heart.’

He gave a derisive snort.

‘Your counsel has your best interest at heart,’ she repeated. ‘You flunked in the cross-examination. That was not the sequence I use for such cases and this means that if I had thrown the questions the way I would ordinarily do in court, you would have gotten to a point where you would have confessed all your sins and asked for my forgiveness.’

‘And whose fault is that?’

‘Not mine. I have a lot of work to do on you before your case comes up. Fortunately I didn’t inherit this case when the prosecution had closed its case and you were about to be cross-examined. You would have been hopeless.’

Now the last part had been downright rude and uncalled for and she could tell that from the way he flinched. She wasn’t usually this rude but he struck a chord in her that she didn’t understand.

‘Forget I said that,’ she told him apologetically.

‘Why should I? After all, you just expressed your opinion of me. You think this is a hopeless case, don’t you? That’s why it took a Wunmi Adesina to get you to accept my brief.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘That’s the vibe I’m getting from here. You’d rather I just save your time and the time of the court and plead guilty to the offences for which I am standing trial so you can ask the court to grant me a lighter sentence for being truthful, wouldn’t you?’

She couldn’t answer not even to save her life.

‘You know something Ms Madukaife. I couldn’t care less what you think of me. What is important to me is that I get the full representation I am paying for. And with respect to my being hopeless during cross-examination, I’ll have you know that my former lawyer would never have put me in that witness box without coaching me on how to handle a cross-examination.’

That should have been obvious.

‘And he would never have insulted me without first letting me know what was expected of me.’

He couldn’t have made her feel any guiltier that she already did if he’d told her to apologise for the insult. What she’d done was unprofessional but she couldn’t for the life of her imagine why when she parted her lips to apologise, the words didn’t come out, at least not the words she’d intended.

‘I simply told you the truth, Mr Quadri. And like I said earlier, I would have a hard time preparing you for your defence but I intend to succeed. I have a reputation to maintain.’

‘Of course you do,’ he snapped caustically and she drew back her head as though he’d struck her. ‘And God forbid that my case should be the one case you lose. Don’t worry, I’ll save you from the humiliating experience of having to explain how a lawyer of your standing was embarrassed in court by her client being discredited and damaged during cross-examination, a skill you are excellent in.’

He rose to his feet.

‘I’ll call to book another appointment. As it stands, I am not in the frame of mind to continue with whatever this is. Besides, it would give you time to recover from the shock of my shortcomings. I won’t make it easy on you by debriefing you. If there’s going to be any rejection it would have to come from you. Enjoy the rest of your day, Ms Madukaife.’

She considered going after him but thought better of it. He wasn’t in a good mood and she figured it was a lot more than the effect of the ‘rehearsal’. He had been her client and she had worked closely with him for two months now and she could say with all boldness that he wouldn’t be this affected by her attitude unless he believed there was some truth in her words.

Had the roles been reversed, she was certain she wouldn’t react in the manner he had. She would have taken it upon herself to prove her counsel wrong. Make her eat back her words. He knew the circumstances under which she had accepted his brief. He had to know what it was costing her to represent a man being charged with the offence of rape when she had spent most of her career putting rapists away.

And yet he had to walk out on her!

I don’t like him and he knows that so he should be used to it by now, she thought. Then again, her attitude was unbecoming of a legal practitioner. Even Aunty Wunmi would have been shocked.

After all said and done she owed the man an apology. Pride or no pride. And apologise she would once she had given him time to cool off.

* * * * *

Kaira was still thinking about it when her door opened and Rashidat came into the office.

‘Madam at the top, what gives?’ she asked without wasting time with pleasantries.

‘What are you talking about?’ Kaira asked although she had an idea that this had something to do with Koje walking out of her office.

‘I’m talking about your boyfriend?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Koje.’

‘Boyfriend ko, manfriend ni.’

‘I’m just wondering why you are so convinced that he is guilty.’

‘I’ve told you before that my personal opinion doesn’t matter here. I’m being paid to get him out of prison for good and that’s what I’m trying to do.’

‘Just that?’

‘What other reason would I have?’ Kaira returned, wondering what was going on in that mind of Rashidat’s.

Rashidat had taken the seat Koje had vacated and was watching her.

‘I saw the way he left the office and there’s only one reason: you expressed a negative opinion of him.’

‘He should be used to it by now.’

Rashidat shook her head.

‘What are you thinking of?’

Rashidat smiled and said, ‘I might lose my job for this but you asked for it. I was thinking that the reason why you are so bent on believing in his guilt is because you are attracted to Koje and you don’t want to be.’

Kaira’s jaw dropped and Rashidat leaned forward to gently push it back up. That was the last thing she had expected. Attracted to Koje Quadri? Not even if he was the only surviving bachelor on earth!

Think about it, that annoying voice in her head started again. You might discover that it is actually true.

Don’t even go there, she warned the voice, silently. The man is standing trying for rape and assault.

Offences he might be innocent of.

I don hear you.

Okay, so in the last two months she had been working closely with him she had found seeds of doubt being sown into her conviction of his guilt but didn’t mean anything.

To Rashidat she said, ‘you know what your problem is? You are such a romantic. You always think there’s a romance brewing somewhere.’

Rashidat smiled. ‘You and Koje na bad combination. The man fine die . If you two get married, your children will be the envy of all…’

‘Hold your horses. Who said anything about marriage?’

‘I’m just thinking aloud.’

‘That’s the consequence of reading too many Mills and Boon novels in school. It tends to make you all mushy in the head. You see a man standing next to a woman and you begin to imagine the kind of children they would have.’

‘This scenario is a common one,’ Rashidat told her. ‘Although the man is usually the lawyer and the woman the culprit, in most cases, being on trial for the murder of her husband. The man acts according to the push of his hormones and goes beyond merely prosecuting the case to conducting his own little investigation in order to find out the real culprit which he always does. After all, that’s the only way there is going to be a happy ending. And then he tells the woman how he fell in love with her from the first moment he clapped eyes on her, dressed in her orange prison jumpsuit and she confessed to having fallen in love with him at that moment too but didn’t realise it and when she finally did, she couldn’t do anything about it because she couldn’t convince him of her innocence and then the books end with them sharing a kiss, sometimes tumbling in his bed and with the promise of a happily ever after.’

‘Well this is a real life scenario and so it wouldn’t happen, roles reversed or otherwise. The man is very handsome, I admit. I would have to be dead in order not to notice this but that doesn’t mean that I drool over him. After all, he’s not as handsome as my Erhus. And I also doubt if he’s attracted to me.’

‘Speak for yourself.’ Rashidat said, looking away as though there was something she knew that no one else knew.

Kaira looked at Rashidat. ‘Is there something you know that I don’t?’

‘It’s more like something I saw that you didn’t,’ was Rashidat’s response.

‘And what was that?’

‘The way he looked at you as you sashayed to the car while we met at the car park in court two weeks ago. He kept his eyes on you until you entered the car. His eyes were mainly on your behind.’

‘Which behind? This flat one?’ Kaira asked, turning her head partially to look at her backside.

‘Yes, that one.’

‘I hear you. There’s a reason why most Yoruba men marry Yoruba women. They love women with more flesh and fleshy backsides.’

‘Na you know that one. I know what I saw and the longing in his eyes couldn’t be mistaken.’

‘You saw all this from a distance of what? 30-40 metres.’

‘I have an eagle’s eyesight,’ Rashidat replied. ‘The man fancies you and I have no doubt that if you weren’t his lawyer or if this was a civil suit, he would have long asked you out.’

‘No he likes women a lot. Didn’t you notice the way he was flirting with you the other time?’

‘And I’m sure he could see the ring on my finger.’

‘Since when has that stopped a man who wants to chase a woman? There are men who would chase a pregnant woman despite the noticeable bump on her stomach.’

‘Well he likes you and my advice is this: keep your personal opinions to yourself and just do his case. For all you know he might be the man you’re destined to spend the rest of your life with.’

Just negodu, Kaira thought.

‘Unless cupid suddenly took up the hobby of smoking weed, that isn’t possible.’

‘Nothing is impossible,’ Rashidat smiled.

‘Even if cupid did smoke weed and shot me with his bow, I am older than Koje Quadri by at least a year or two and therefore cannot be involved with him.’

‘Never say never,’ Rashidat said with that annoying smile. ‘Besides, age is nothing but a number.’

And then going to business Rashidat said, ‘I’ve spoken to the intending client for that land dispute in Eliowhani and I think he has a terrible case. All the documents he brought work against him. He signed an agreement and he’s therefore bound by it. I would advise that he seek out of court settlement.’

‘So we do the usual. Do him a formal advice and await his further instructions on whether he would require us to initiate settlement and we fix our fees accordingly,’

The man had paid consultation fees earlier and so that entitled him to a formal advice in writing.

‘In case we don’t see before you leave on Sunday, have a safe flight to Abuja.’

Rashidat was appearing at the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Monday on behalf of the firm.

‘Thanks madam boss.’

To be continued

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