Birdcage Walk (32 page)

Mr. Muir sat down and then, as though roused from an illicit nap, Mr. Windsor leapt up.

“Did you remain with the body while you waited for a constable?”

The boy nodded earnestly.

“I stayed with her . . . I stayed with the body until the policeman come back with Jack.”

“And did you interfere with the body during that time?”

Visibly blanching, the boy shook his head.

“No, I did not. I only touched the hat to see her face.”

George thought Windsor would have something to say about this, but he sat down and the witness was dismissed, his cheeks pale as he passed by the dock and his eyes trained on his feet so he wasn’t tempted to look at the prisoner again.

The witnesses, some only required to answer a single question, continued to come and go, and George found his mind wandering back to the series of images of Charlotte that had become so familiar. Some of them were real memories of her, others were imagined. The boy’s description of the muddy green jacket he now added to his mind’s picture of her poor body in the ditch; the umbrella another detail he had until now not thought of.

As he thought this, the name ‘Edward Matthews’ was called out. It took George a second to realise that this was Ted, the man who had led to his capture, the man who always seemed to know more than he should about everyone’s business. George stared at the familiar bulk of him as he came in and took his place on the elevated platform, his nonchalance apparent in his easy posture. His voice, when it came, was low and unhurried. He might have been at the bar of the Rosemary Branch.

“I live at 10 Avebury Street, Hoxton. I married Annie Cheeseman—the deceased was my wife’s sister and she lived with me. She worked from time to time at Freeman’s, the cigar factory, when she could get a shift.”

“When did you first miss her?” Mr. Muir smoothed his brillantined moustache and looked eagerly up at Ted.

“She had a latch-key of her own. She came and went as she pleased. It was Annie who missed her first, on Christmas Day.”

“Explain to the court the nature of your sister-in-law’s relationship with the accused.”

Ted’s steady tone did not falter, though he had yet to look towards George in the dock.

“I have known the prisoner about twelve months. He stepped out with the deceased, I don’t know how long for. The prisoner said he meant well by her and that he would marry the girl, but there was a rumour about that he had done with her what he should not have done.”

George saw a glimmer of a smirk surface on Ted’s face and felt his fists clench. He kept them out of sight.

Muir, however, looked deliberately thoughtful.

“Was there anything else that made you doubt the prisoner’s intentions towards the deceased?”

“The prisoner and me once had a talk as we walked home from work and he admitted to me that he was paying visits to someone up Highbury way. He wouldn’t say who.”

George felt his fury rush up to his face and colour it, but he willed himself not to shout aloud and denounce Ted for lying and twisting the truth, just as he always did.

He was glad when Ted was finally done, but the next person to be ushered in was Annie, the person George had most been dreading to see again. She had lost some weight since he had last seen her, and he could see the lines on her face from where he stood. Her arms were wrapped around her body protectively and he couldn’t understand why it looked so familiar until he remembered that Charlotte held herself in exactly the same way when she was frightened, as though her arms would keep her together in one piece.

She looked over at George as she spoke her name and he couldn’t read her expression; it was neither vengeful nor hysterical, both of which he’d feared from her. As she continued though, her emotions gradually began to master her.

“I last saw . . . the deceased about six, it was already dark by then of course . . . She was wearing her green jacket and her best hat . . . She was excited about making it up with him after them falling out and she rushed out to meet him on time. But she did not come home again that night and I never saw her again.”

She half stumbled then, and a clerk rushed to steady her. She dabbed at her eyes with a worn handkerchief. Muir waited until her ragged breathing had calmed with an approving expression.

“How long have you known the prisoner, Mrs. Matthews?” he asked.

“I can’t remember exactly. Must be near a year. I introduced my sister to him when she came to live with me.”

“And what did you think when he started taking your sister out?” Muir’s tone was smooth, almost oily, and he was reading the questions off the paper in front of him.

Annie shrugged. “I was glad. Lottie had had a bad time of it when our mother died and I was glad to see her out in company.”

“Even company such as the prisoner’s?”

“Yes. George was a steady enough sort and quite quiet. I thought he would be good for her.”

Muir pursed his lips. ‘Mrs. Matthews, let us move on to the time of the murder.”

Annie gripped her handkerchief tighter.

“When did you first see the prisoner after your sister had gone missing?”

“Well, I went round his father’s place in the morning but George was still asleep then. He couldn’t be woke as he’d come in late. I left a message for him to come and see us when he got up and he did, before noon.”

“Did he seem surprised or worried that the deceased had not returned the previous evening?”

“He was more worried than surprised, I would say.”

Muir smiled encouragingly. “And what did he say of their previous evening together?”

Annie’s face darkened. “I asked him what had happened, thinking they might have had another fight and they had, so George said. They’d met at the canal bridge and then walked to the Britannia Theatre to see the evening show but he said that when they got there, were about to go in and pay, Lottie—the deceased—changed her mind, said she didn’t want to any more. Didn’t want to be cooped up in there, I think he told us she’d said. They rowed about that and George said he went off on his own.”

“What time would this have been?”

“Not too much later than seven as that’s when the show starts.”

Muir paused and looked towards the jury before turning back to Annie.

“But the prisoner’s father told you the next day that his son had got in late . . . ?”

“Yes, I asked him about that. Well, my husband did. He said that when he left her at the theatre he went off to see the World’s Fair by himself.”

“Did you believe him?”

“I had no reason not to. I had never taken George for a liar and, besides, he knew all about it, how much the entrance was, what acts he’d seen. My husband asked him about it and he knew.”

“Did he tell you anything about the World’s Fair that he could not have ascertained from a newspaper?”

Annie’s faced flushed with incomprehension.

“What do you mean, sir?”

“I will put it a different way. Could the prisoner have found out the cost of the World’s Fair’s entrance fee and the kind of acts that would be put on there from a newspaper advertisement?”

“I daresay he could have done. I never thought of it.” Annie looked down, as though the fault was her own.

“Not too many more questions now, Mrs. Matthews. Did the prisoner suggest where your sister might have gone after he left her alone close to the theatre?”

“Not as such, though he did mention the name of an old sweetheart of hers, Joe Bruce. Even then I thought it was just jealousy making him say it but I couldn’t not go and check.”

“So you went to see this Joe Bruce?”

“He’s a soldier, Joe. He’d written to Lottie recently, saying he was coming home. I think he was still sweet on her, if truth be told. I knew it was daft, but going to the Bruces’ to see if Joe was home and might have seen my Lottie felt like my last hope.”

“But he had not seen her.”

“I didn’t see Joe but his mother swore that until he’d gone out just then, on Christmas afternoon, she’d not let him out of her sight at all and he’d given no mention of Charlotte. He had been at home from lunchtime on Christmas Eve and not gone out at all that night. The whole family were there with him, all night. That was when I decided I had to report her missing to the police and did it straight away.”

Muir changed his expression to one of deep thoughtfulness.

“You said that George must have spoken the name Joe Bruce out of jealousy.”

“Yes, he was like that. Lottie had said he used to get the hump about her having stepped out with someone else before him.”

“So you would describe the prisoner as someone prone to fits of jealousy?”

Annie frowned. “It seems a bit strong putting it like that but yes, I suppose he was, in his way.”

“Just one more question now, Mrs. Matthews. We have proved with witnesses that the prisoner was in Tottenham with your sister until late in the evening, close to the place her body was found. Why then do you think he lied to you about the time and place he last saw the deceased?”

For the first time, Annie looked straight at George. He realised he hadn’t experienced her direct gaze since he’d sat opposite her in her small, stuffy house on Christmas day, her hope of Charlotte walking in the door unharmed visibly ebbing away.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly, her eyes still on him in the dock. “I’ve thought about it a good deal since. I think perhaps he was like me—he knew in his guts that something bad had happened to her. My husband thought I’d lost my senses worrying so much when she hadn’t even been gone a day but I knew it as soon as I saw her bed wasn’t slept in. I think George knew it too, and he knew how it looked that he was with her so late and up there in Tottenham, where they’d never gone before. So he got scared and he lied. That’s what I think.”

George exhaled heavily, her words repeating in his ears. Annie didn’t really believe he’d killed Charlotte. He wasn’t sure why, but this was more precious to him that he could have guessed.

Muir went and sat down, his face covered with his displeasure. Despite the unexpected relief Annie had bestowed on him, George sighed as Windsor got to his feet and cleared his throat.

“Mrs. Matthews, when your sister was first introduced to the prisoner, did you believe him to be of good character?”

Annie nodded decisively. “I did. I encouraged Charlotte to get to know him. I didn’t know him well, but I’d always taken him to be a quiet, thoughtful sort, quite gentle like his father.”

Windsor nodded shortly. “When you saw George Woolfe on Christmas Eve, when he asked you to ask the deceased to meet him on the canal bridge, what did you think of his manner?”

“In truth, I couldn’t say. As I said, he wasn’t too big on words. He was very definite about his message though. He was sorry about the note, she wasn’t meant to get it at all and would Lottie meet him that evening so he could make it up to her.”

“Did you have any reason to believe that he was lying and that he intended anything other than making it up with her?”

Annie shook her head and let her eyes stray towards the dock once again. “None. If anything, he looked worried. I took that at the time to mean he was worried she wouldn’t forgive him, take him back.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Matthews.”

Windsor returned to his seat and George found he was clutching the wooden rail in front of him again, but this time it was with shaky hope. The emergence of the lie he thought would undo him—that he had claimed to see Charlotte last in Hoxton instead of Tottenham—had not sounded quite as dreadful as he had feared.

George watched Annie being led slowly out though she didn’t look at him again, her thoughts elsewhere. Some of those crammed onto the public benches stretched and yawned in the lull, other craned to see the last of the sister of the deceased, her tear-blotched face drawn and exhausted.

Mr. Muir’s next witness was a man George had never heard of before and when Frederick Hannaford walked to the stand, George could see nothing familiar in his features. Perhaps he was one of the men who had sat near him at the Park Hotel; he had been so bound up by his own concerns there that he probably wouldn’t have remembered.

Mr. Muir looked confident as he approached the witness and began questioning him.

“Where were you on Christmas Eve last, Mr.Hannaford?”

“I was on my way to the Park Hotel in Tottenham. I was meeting a mate to have a drink or two, you know how it is at Christmas.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Muir with a touch of impatience. “Now, you made a statement to the police that as you approached the hotel you saw the deceased, talking with a man there. Is that correct?”

“It is, but . . . ”

“If you don’t mind I will ask the questions, Mr. Hannaford.” Muir smiled towards the gallery, through which a weak titter ran.

“You have already identified the deceased as the girl you saw, using a detailed sketch provided to you at the Stoke Newington Police Station. For the benefit of the court, can you now identify the man that she was talking to that night?”

Hannaford paused and there was not a sound to be heard as he did, all the minute coughs and rustlings of stiff fabric entirely ceasing.

“No, sir, I cannot.”

Muir had almost asked the next question on his list before he digested the answer. He stopped and turned and then spoke very quietly.

“I beg your pardon, but what do you mean by that?”

“I can’t identify him because he’s not here.”

Again Muir paused, apparently lost for words. Pushing his half-moon spectacles up his nose, he studied his papers again, apparently hoping that a logical explanation would be written there.

“Mr. Hannaford, let me clarify, perhaps you do not understand the question put to you. You have already made your statement to the police, identifying the accused as the man you saw with Charlotte Cheeseman that night.”

“I know I did, but I’ve changed my mind. The sketch I was shown weren’t a good likeness. It’s not him. I got it wrong. The chap I saw was taller than this fellow. His face was round, not sharp like this one’s. He was unnatural boyish in his face, I remember that quite clear.”