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The telephone rang.
“Brett, would you be free next Sunday night to be an expert witness in the ‘Lady Macbeth’ murder trial at the Royal Courts of Justice? I'm defending her.”
“Excuse me?”
“It's an event for charity. The Criminal Bar Association … to raise money for young barristers. It will be great fun.”
The caller did not identify herself. She did not have to. I recognized the unmistakeable Scottish lilt immediately as that of Helena Kennedy, Q.C., Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, one of the finest legal minds in Great Britain, or indeed anywhere. I have had the pleasure and privilege of having known Helena for many years through our mutual interest in the forensic mental health field. A great advocate of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis for offender patients, Helena has pioneered a closer collaboration between mental health professionals and the law, and has defended many grossly battered women in criminal trials. An inspiring human rights lawyer as well as a criminal lawyer, Helena sits in the House of Lords as a Labour Peer, and has performed yeoman service for our country as a great social reformer. I certainly could not refuse her.
“Come to my house next Saturday morning at 10.30 a.m., and we'l l work on our defense. Lady Macbeth will be there too.” Helena put down the telephone receiver, and I instantly became panic-stricken, wondering what on earth I had just agreed to do.
After a cup of coffee and a slice of toast with Helena and her husband, the preeminent maxillofacial surgeon Professor Iain Hutchison, a world pioneer in facial reconstruction for