A Matter for the Jury (41 page)

58

3 August

‘You wanted to
dictate a letter, Mr Sawyer?' Annette asked brightly as she entered his office.

‘Yes, thank you,' Jeremy Sawyer replied, waving her into her chair.

She took her seat, opened her notebook, crossed her right leg over the left, and was immediately poised for action, pen in hand.

As was his custom, Sawyer walked around his office while dictating, passing a small green rubber ball from hand to hand, and occasionally throwing it up into the air to catch it again.

‘It's to Martin Hardcastle QC, at his Chambers,' he said. ‘You will find the address in his file.'

He looked out over the river, playing with the ball.

Dear Martin,

The Lord Chancellor was saddened to hear of your plea of guilty, over the weekend, before the Clerkenwell Magistrates' Court, to an offence of being drunk and disorderly. As you know, as Head of the Judiciary, it is the Lord Chancellor's responsibility to uphold the standards of conduct which are expected of those who hold judicial office.
I am directed by the Lord Chancellor to inform you that, as a result of your conviction of this offence, he is obliged to withdraw the offer previously made to you of an appointment to the county court bench. I am sure you will understand that, in the circumstances, he has no choice in the matter.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Yours ever,

Jeremy Sawyer

He stopped.

‘That's it, Annette. Can it go out this afternoon?'

She smiled.

‘Yes, of course, Mr Sawyer.'

59

5 August

When his assistant
approached him with quiet, respectful steps, Arthur Ludlow was observing Billy Cottage at exercise in the yard. A window was cut into the wall of the execution suite, adjacent to the small exercise yard reserved for condemned prisoners. Its purpose was to allow the executioner to see the prisoner and make an assessment of his physical condition for the purpose of calculating the drop. Arthur moved slightly to his left to allow the younger man to stand alongside and share the view. The number two was a reliable fellow named Ken Aitcheson who hailed from Southend-on-Sea. It was the day before Billy Cottage's scheduled execution, and it was time to make their final preparations.

‘How does it look up there?' Arthur asked.

‘It looks good, Arthur,' Ken replied. ‘I've been up to the top and looked at all the tackle. It is in order. Everything is working. I've hung two ropes up with sandbags to stretch overnight, so you'll have your choice of the two in the morning. I checked the lever and the trap doors on the drop and there's no problem there. They are working.'

‘Good lad,' Arthur replied approvingly. ‘Now, take a look at Billy, and tell me what you see.'

‘He's well-built, isn't he?' Ken asked. ‘He looks strong. Good muscles.'

‘Aye,' Arthur replied. ‘He looks right strong. He's a lock keeper, apparently, lots of hard physical work. So you'd expect him to be in good shape. And his neck is right thick, an' all.'

Ken nodded.
‘
Yes, I see that.'

‘Good. So, what would you give him for the drop?' Arthur asked.

Ken produced a small notebook from the breast pocket of his jacket.

‘Well, yesterday he weighed in at 180 pounds.'

‘Right,' Arthur confirmed.

‘So according to the Home Office table, we would need a drop of 5 feet 7 inches.'

Arthur nodded. ‘But today…'

‘But today, we would add 9 inches to that so that gives us…' He paused to check a calculation he had made in pencil. ‘If we add 9 inches, that gives us a drop of 6 feet 4 inches.'

Arthur nodded again.

‘That's right enough, and I don't think you would have any problem with it. But looking at his build, I think we would be safe with 6 feet 1 inch or thereabouts. Remember to always err on the side of shorter, as long as you don't go too far. I'm going to say 6 feet 1½ inches. Any problem with that?'

‘No problem at all, Arthur,' Ken replied.

‘Good,' Arthur said. ‘That's all till tomorrow morning, then. And now it's tea time. Let's go and see if they've got any of that fruit cake left.'

* * *

After his period of exercise, the prison officers took Billy Cottage back to the condemned cell. He was to have a visitor. Eve had made an appointment to see her brother for the last time. For one last time, she had made her way to Bedford Gaol by train and bus, and had patiently submitted to every security check at the prison, including a demeaning personal body search. At long last an officer admitted her to the condemned cell. She looked around sadly. The cell seemed drab, hopeless, and an officer was standing just a few feet away from where Billy sat at the small table. There was to be no privacy as they said their goodbyes.

She seated herself across from him at the table.

‘It doesn't look very nice in here, Billy,' she observed, without rancour. ‘How are they treating you?'

‘It's not very nice,' he replied. ‘The worst thing is, they leave the lights on all day and all night, so it's not easy to get to sleep at night. I get tired.'

‘Well, that's not right,' Eve said, eyeing the officer critically. ‘There's no reason to leave the lights on all the time, is there? Quite apart from the money it must cost.'

He did not reply.

‘Are you eating properly?' she asked.

‘Yes. The same as usual.'

A silence.

‘How about you? All right?'

She looked down at the table and held both hands in her lap.

‘Well, the money is still very short,' she said. ‘It's not the same as when you were working. I'm worried about the bills. I don't know how long I can make ends meet. There are some things that need doing around the house, and I can't afford anyone to do them. You know, the roof at the back needs some new slates. And there are some pipes that need lagging, and I don't know what all.'

She looked up.

‘And they are still saying that I won't be able to stay on in the house after… if you can't come back to work. They will need it for a new lock keeper, you see.'

She suddenly put her hands on the table and became animated for the first time.

‘Have you spoken to Mr Davis, Billy? What did he say?'

Billy looked down uncomfortably.

‘Mr Davis said it's up to Mr Henry Brooke now,' he replied. ‘He can stop them from hanging me. Mr Davis has given him some papers, and my second barrister Mr Schroeder has looked at them as well. And Mr Sydney Silverman, the MP, said he would help. He is going to talk to Mr Henry Brooke.'

‘He hasn't got much time left, has he?' she said, without thinking. ‘What I mean is, Billy, I hope he's getting on with it quickly. Is he?'

‘Yes, of course he is,' Billy replied hurriedly. ‘I'm expecting to hear from him this evening.'

She nodded.

‘That's good, Billy,' she said. ‘Even so, you will be here in prison for a long time, won't you?'

‘Yes. It looks like it,' he replied.

‘So you won't be back to work. Not unless they can prove you didn't do it after all.'

‘No. Not unless they can prove that.'

‘I'm sorry I didn't give evidence for you, Billy,' she said suddenly. He saw tears in her eyes.

‘No. You mustn't worry about that,' he replied. ‘My main barrister, Mr Hardcastle, told me we didn't have to. He said it was our best chance not to say anything.'

‘He was wrong though, wasn't he?' she replied. ‘I could have said you were at home all night.'

He leaned forward in the hope that the officer would not hear. If the officer was listening, he gave no sign of it. He was staring away from them across the room, as if he was unaware they were even there.

‘They would have asked you about us,' he said.

‘I would have told them,' she replied. The tears were in full flow now. ‘I wouldn't have cared. What difference would it have made? What would it have mattered?'

He shook his head.

‘It wouldn't have done any good,' he said. ‘He was my main barrister. We had to trust him.'

He waited for her to dry her eyes. It took a long time for her to compose herself.

‘Is the River Board still making sure to cut back the rushes?'

‘Yes. They do it every week,' she replied. ‘A man comes. He's very nice. Fred, he's called.'

‘Because if you don't do it at least once a week, it gets out of hand, and it's the devil's own job to get it clear again once it gets away from you.'

‘Yes, I know,' she said.

She suddenly stood.

‘I'm going now,' she said. She stood, walked around the table and kissed him once on the cheek.

‘Billy,' she said. ‘Tell me the truth. That cross and chain you gave me. Where did it come from?'

‘I told you,' he replied. ‘I found it.'

She was looking straight into his eyes.

‘Did you?' she asked. ‘Did you, Billy?'

He looked down at the table and said nothing. She walked slowly to the door, turned, and faced him.

‘You were always good to me, Billy,' she said, as she left the condemned cell. ‘Thank you for that.'

‘Goodbye, Eve,' he said, long after she had closed the door behind her.

60

Barratt Davis had
asked Ben to come to his office in Essex Street for what he called ‘the wake' by 6.30 that evening. The application for leave to appeal to the House of Lords had been dismissed two days earlier. When he had found out Ben had called Barratt, who sounded distracted, but not particularly surprised. Ben had always known that that result was inevitable, but the receipt of the formal notice from the Appeals Committee had still felt like a hammer blow. He had been sitting in his room, fretting helplessly, for most of the afternoon, despite Harriet's best efforts to distract and calm him. At 6.25 he gratefully set out for the short walk up Middle Temple Lane. He arrived exactly on time.

Barratt's office, when Ben entered, bore no resemblance whatsoever to the scene of a wake. Papers and books were scattered over his desk and, on the two small side tables, even more were piled on chairs. Barratt was in his shirt-sleeves, the sleeves rolled up. Jess also looked as though the day had been a frantic one. Her hair was coming down and her blouse was uncharacteristically crumpled. John Singer alone seemed calm and somehow removed from the fray. He was sitting quietly, wearing his suit jacket and with his tie firmly in place, on Barratt's sofa.

‘Welcome, Ben,' Barratt said. ‘Excuse the mess. We have been going over the paperwork, just to see if we have missed anything. I don't think we have. If we find anything now, it would have to be sent over to the House of Commons without delay, but we can arrange that. John was kind enough to take everything over there for Sydney Silverman this afternoon. Just as you saw it. We haven't changed anything.'

‘This afternoon?' Ben asked. ‘Isn't that a bit…?'

Barratt nodded.

‘Yes. It is a bit late by normal standards. Usually the Home Secretary's people want it all several days in advance. But in this case Brooke could not meet Sydney Silverman until this afternoon. Sydney asked us to leave the paperwork with him so that he could take the Home Secretary through it personally. We have to rely on him as our guide, of course. It's not exactly voluminous, so it won't take him all that long to go through it. Sydney believes Brooke to be conscientious. He will read every word before he makes a decision. It may be late this evening, but better late than never.'

Ben turned to John Singer.

‘Did Silverman make any comment on the papers?'

‘No. Not really,' Singer replied. ‘Not surprisingly.' He paused. ‘I mean, let's be honest, we've done our best. But we are not dealing with Derek Bentley or Ruth Ellis, are we? Today, if we had one of those cases, in the context of what's happening now, we might…'

‘Yes, point taken,' Barratt agreed.

‘I had hoped to come up with something useful in St Ives,' Singer continued. ‘I spoke to everyone I could find – teachers, people who knew him on the river, his sister Eve, of course. They all seem to agree that he's not the brightest candle on the altar, but there's nothing about his mental state which cries out for a reprieve.'

‘I'm sure Sydney is pinning most of his hopes on the abolition argument,' Barratt said.

‘Well, we have given him plenty of ammunition for that,' Ben said. ‘He's got the whole parliamentary history, current legislative plans, and a lot of evidence of how many MPs would support abolition if it came up before the House of Commons tomorrow.'

‘It's the House of Lords you have to worry about when it comes to abolition, more than the Commons,' Singer observed.

Barratt nodded.

‘Well, in any case we have done what we can,' he said. ‘At a certain point you have to stop or you risk weakening your case by diluting good arguments with bad ones. Essentially, I think Sydney is going to plant in Henry Brooke's mind the thought that he does not want to wake up two years from now with a guilty conscience, after the country has repudiated the death penalty and he could have spared one of its last victims. That's not an easy task, of course, given the uncertainty. But if anyone can do it, I fancy Sydney can.'

‘That's what we have to hope for,' Ben replied. He lowered himself into an empty armchair. ‘How do we find out?' he asked. ‘Does John have to go back to the House of Commons?'

‘No,' Singer replied. ‘Silverman said the usual protocol is that the Home Secretary communicates with the condemned and his solicitor – Barratt, that is – in writing. But in this case, because we are getting down to the wire, Brooke has agreed to have his Permanent Under-Secretary call Barratt here when they have a decision.'

‘At which point,' Barratt said, ‘we will hold a celebration or a wake, whichever is appropriate. Meanwhile, all we can do is wait and be prepared to spring into action if Brooke needs more information.'

John Singer stood.

‘Well, Barratt, I've made the only contribution I can and, to be honest, I don't have the stomach for waiting around under these circumstances.'

‘No, of course,' Barratt replied. ‘You've done all you could, John, and I really appreciate it. Take yourself off home. We will be in contact, of course, once we know.'

Singer picked up his briefcase and began to walk to the door. Then he hesitated.

‘Actually,' he said, ‘there is one other thing I have to tell you. I wish I could avoid it, but I'm afraid it's going to be in all the papers tomorrow, and I would rather you heard it from me, unpleasant as it is.'

The room suddenly grew silent.

‘Nothing to do with this case. You remember the Reverend Ignatius Little, I'm sure.'

Ben and Barratt exchanged smiles.

‘Who could forget?' Barratt asked.

‘I got a call while I was at Silverman's office this afternoon,' John continued. ‘The Diocese of Ely transferred him after the trial. I don't know whether you knew that?'

‘No, I don't think so,' Barratt replied.

‘Yes, well, it was with his full agreement. We all felt it would be best for him to make a fresh start somewhere else. The Diocese of Chester agreed to take him, and they gave him a curacy there, with a living in sight after a year or two if everyone was happy.'

‘But I take it not everybody is happy?' Ben asked.

‘The Queen versus Ignatius Little, number two?' Barratt asked. ‘Isn't Chester off circuit for you, Ben? Could you venture into the frozen north? Do you need permission from the powers that be?'

John Singer took a deep breath.

‘He was arrested last night in Liverpool for importuning a 12-year-old boy in a public lavatory. What Little failed to appreciate was that the boy's father was waiting outside and, as it turns out, he is a police officer – off duty at the time, but that didn't stop him making an arrest.'

‘God Almighty,' Ben muttered.

Barratt shook his head, smiling grimly.

‘But there won't be a trial in Chester – or anywhere else,' Singer added. ‘He was held in custody overnight before being brought before the magistrates this morning. But he never got that far. An officer found him when he took his breakfast into the cell. He had hanged himself with a couple of sheets they gave him for his cot.'

The room fell silent again. Jess collapsed on to the sofa.

‘Has anyone told Joan Heppenstall?' she asked quietly.

‘I don't imagine so,' Singer replied. ‘The Liverpool police would have no reason to know about her. I'm not sure what information his Bishop has. I suppose that is one more unpleasant job for yours truly.'

‘I would like to tell her myself, if you don't mind,' Jess said. ‘I should try to speak to her before the press gets hold of it.'

‘I would be very grateful to you,' Singer said. ‘I'm going to be fending off the Diocese of Chester for a few days, and it would be a blessing not to have to deal with her too.'

He left. Ben and Barratt looked at her.

‘I was the one who talked her into giving evidence for him,' she said simply. ‘I owe it to her.'

Quietly, she left the room.

‘Surely to God,' Ben asked, after some time, ‘it is not possible to have two clients hang in the same week?'

‘That would have to be something of a record, wouldn't it?' Barratt replied. He walked over to Ben's chair and put both hands on his shoulders.

‘Ben,' he said. ‘Listen to me. Not even you can blame yourself for the hanging of Ignatius Little.'

* * *

The call from Henry Brooke's Permanent Under-Secretary came at 11.15.

‘I see. Thank you,' Barratt said, replacing the receiver.

He turned to Ben and Jess, who were sitting, their nerves long since torn to shreds, on the edge of their seats.

‘The Home Secretary regrets that the law must take its course,' he said.

He walked behind his desk, opened a drawer, and took out a bottle of a fine whisky. In one fluent, violent movement he swept every last sheet of paper off his desk on to the floor.

‘I hereby declare the wake to be formally open,' he said, unscrewing the top of the bottle. ‘Glasses, Jess, if you please.'

The wake passed with little conversation. Ben would later remember a fragment, during the early hours, as he drifted somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.

‘Barratt, why are we having this wake?' he had asked.

Barratt had taken some time to reply.

‘Where do you stand on capital punishment, Ben?' he asked.

‘I never thought about it much before this case,' Ben admitted. ‘Now, after this case, if I was ever in favour of it, I have turned against it.'

‘Good,' Barratt said.

He stood and re-filled all the glasses, though Jess was asleep.

‘I know this is your first time – and hopefully it will be your last. But we have the wake in the interests of our reformation, our welfare.'

‘Reformation?'

‘Yes. We are a bit like Scrooge, Ben. During this night we will be visited by three spirits. For me, the Spirit of Executions Past and the Spirit of Executions Present. For you, mercifully, just the Present.'

He took a long drink.

‘The only good news in this miserable bloody drama,' he said, ‘is that, very soon, they may have some trouble casting the part of the Spirit of Executions Yet to Come.'

He raised his glass.

‘Let's drink to that thought, anyway.'

‘I can't do another of these, Barratt,' Ben said.

‘That's what I always say,' Barratt replied.