Escape by David McMillan

illusion caused by his scalp and face being repositioned over the remains of his skull.
    A small group of prisoners rose toward the body and were then quickly herded back by a guard who shouted orders to his trusties to remove the body.
    ‘Bravo! Well done.’ Daniel complimented the deceased. ‘Did you see that? No fear at all, just concentration on his face.’ Daniel must have been watching him for some time.

    The judge hearing my case was giving my lawyer, Montree, a puzzled look as though asking: What’s this performance for? Montree had risen from his chair and swaggered toward the witness like Clarence Darrow. Quaking behind a small podium in the centre of the court stood a Thai immigration officer. He need not have worried. The performance was for me.
    ‘Now tell me, officer. Can you remember this particular passport? I mean, how can you tell if it was the one my client had?’
    The arrivals clerk flicked a glance at Montree before responding. ‘Oh, well, that’s because it has my number on the stamp. It must be me.’
    ‘But how many passengers would you stamp on a shift? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands?’
    ‘Maybe a hundred. Eighty?’
    ‘So that’s just one day. One day from over a hundred days ago. Thousands of people before and after my client?’
    ‘Yes—’ The officer shrank farther into his ill-fitting uniform, wishing someone could have told him more of the answers before this had begun.
    ‘So since nothing special happened that day, you can say only that this passport has a stamp with your number on it,’ Montree then nodded to himself. ‘Nothing you can remember tells you that Westlake was actually there that day. The passport and the stamp could both be forgeries. Is that correct?’
    ‘Yes, it’s not easy to tell if a passport is a forgery.’
    At this Montree smiled at me in victory. The judge looked to the heavens and the prosecutor closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose with one finger.
    ‘Anything further, Khun Montree?’ The judge reached for the microphone of his dictating machine.
    ‘I think not,’ beamed Montree. ‘This witness has said all he can.’
    The judge then spoke into his tape recorder: ‘On cross-examination the witness said that fake passports can easily be forged. The witness is free to go.’ This then became the court’s record of my lawyer’s most excellent cross-examination.
    Montree was a gentle, round-faced man in his thirties. His college training was in microbiology and after taking on lawyering, he had contracted for hustler Abe Souzel until a money dispute pushed them apart. I thought it kind of Montree to put on a show for me, even though it would have no effect on the final verdict. He didn’t ask for much money and he was happy to provide as many delays as I needed.
    Village folk with flaming torches rampaging behind the high priest; ivy-league gentlefolk murmuring to gowned nobles at the Supreme Court bench. Between these variants are the courts we know well and a Thai court appears as others, with black robes and players working each side of the room. The accused is either damned or dismissed, the judge’s way of calling the match. In Western courts, tradition demands an occasional release of the puck to give the contest credibility. Thai judges are not so burdened with any quota of acquittals.
    Witnesses’ testimonies, prosecutors’ claims, the defence’s pleas and views of exhibits are all transformed into the judge’s words as he speaks into his tape recorder. A typist knocks these out while wearing headphones as the trial is heard. Everyone concerned is then required to sign a copy of his honour’s thoughts at the end of each session. After the guilty verdict and sentence (the maximum is always given first, often halved for a guilty plea; the minimum for any amount of heroin seized at the airport is twenty-five years) the appeal courts take on the bargaining. In trials with many accused in the dock, some are later acquitted