The wheels of justice

Bones found beneath a Leicester carpark: Photographs by University of Leicester and Jeff Overs.

 

Last night we watched the DVD of "The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest", the third part of Stieg Larsson's trilogy about abuse and high-level corruption in Sweden.  Seeing Lisbet Salander acquitted and the villains arrested gave us the usual satisfaction of a happy ending to a cops-and-robbers type movie. 

 

An ending that, in these days of conspiracy theories and socalled investigative journalism, always seems to be postponed in real life, when the baddies appear to be winning.  Today, however, has produced a couple of satisfactory outcomes that lift the spirits in the same way as the goodies' triumphing at the end of a movie. 

 

First, the politician Chris Huhne has found himself obliged to enter a guilty plea to the charge of perverting the course of justice, following his lying to the police about who was driving his car when speeding.  I have heard stories in both France and the UK about people pulling strings (i.e. dropping names of friends in the police or gendarmerie) when caught speeding.  It gives me some satisfaction to see justice being strictly applied.  A custodial sentence seems likely, which is a mighty fall for an ex-Government minister.

 

The second event is in some ways more satisfying: the probable reinstatement of Richard III's good name, following the discovery of his skeleton beneath a carpark in Leicester.  Famously portrayed as the darkest villain in Shakespeare's chilling history play, he has been for most of us the incarnation of wickedness.  The possibility that he may have been the victim of Tudor propaganda has been around for decades - I remember reading Josephine Tey's book "The Daughter of Time" fifty years ago, and finding its arguments convincing.  It would have been exciting enough to find that the bones were those of the dead king; but to be able to deduce certain facts from them that could re-establish his reputation is a triumph of justice that warms the heart - particularly since we are talking about real life and not a Stieg Larsson fiction.  The wheels of justice may move at a very slow pace, but it's nice to think that, sooner or later, they arrive at the right place.  

 

Antony Mair