Birdcage Walk (33 page)

Muir was rendered speechless by this statement while Mr. Windsor, George’s own counsellor, looked over at him in confusion before shuffling through his own papers urgently. In the gallery, there was much whispering and George could see that Miss Clemmie’s hands were clasped tightly together, her cheeks stained by two rosy spots. Eventually Muir gathered his wits and approached the stand once again.

“What time was it that you arrived at the Park Hotel?”

“Must have been about ten. I’m not sure, to be honest, I don’t carry a watch.”

“So, on Christmas Eve, at ten in the evening—or thereabouts, as you say—you had only just decided to go out for a drink?”

Hannaford looked puzzled and then his face cleared.

“Ah, well you see I’d already had a couple in Edmonton. That’s where I work, in Silver Street. But I said I’d meet my cousin Ned in the Park Hotel later on, see in Christmas with him.”

“When you say you’d ‘had a couple’, Mr.Hannaford, do you refer to drinks? Alcoholic drinks such as beer?”

“Of course. I’d had a couple of pints, that’s all. It were no more than two, perhaps three, but anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m hardly the worse for wear after six.”

“I see. And would you say it was dark in the lane where you saw the deceased and the gentleman you say is not the accused?”

“Pretty dark, yes. There’s no lamps down there. But I could see well enough. I could see his hand going up to touch her cheek as I came up to them, which is why I took them to be sweethearts. Lamps or no lamps, I remember that face of his, you don’t forget a face like that.”

“And yet you initially identified the photograph of the accused as that man you saw in the dark lane?”

“I’ve explained that already. I read about the story in the papers and I wanted to help, that’s all. I went along and I weren’t feeling myself that morning, if the truth be told. The police says ‘we’ve got him already but have a look at this if you like’ and I did and said it was him. But it weren’t and I don’t think it’s right to keep quiet about it.”

“One last question, just to be as precise as we can be. Was it in fact two or three pints of beer you had taken when you witnessed the couple in the lane?”

“I don’t exactly remember, sir. I am fairly certain it was no more than three.”

Muir paused before replying.

“Thank you, Mr. Hannaford, that will be all.”

Windsor took his time finding his spectacles amongst the papers strewn across his desk and George wondered if the small victories of Annie’s testimony and Hannaford’s change of heart would now be unpicked.

“Mr. Hannaford,” Windsor finally said. “This question of identification is very important.”

Hannaford nodded sagely.

“Can you once again describe the man you saw in the lane and why you now say he is not the prisoner here in court today?”

“This man was a head taller than the prisoner here. I couldn’t tell that from the sketch I was shown at the police station and I couldn’t get away from work to go to the identification parade there, though I was told of it. Besides, the drawing was not a good likeness to this man. It was done from the side.”

“And the man you saw in the lane?”

“I can see his face in my mind now and it’s not the prisoner. He had a cap on, but the light caught it for a few seconds and it’s stuck fast in my head now, the picture of it.”

Windsor consulted his piece of paper. “During questioning by Mr. Muir you described his face in a particular way.”

“Yes,” Hannaford was nodding again. “He had a face like a boy’s even though he had the figure of a man. I remember it clear because of it. It was like his face didn’t match the rest of him. I can’t put it any better than that.”

“How dark was it down the lane?”

“Well, as I said before, to the other gentleman, there isn’t no gas lamps down there but there was a clearing of the clouds and the moon come through quite high and bright and shone on his face as he looked up from under his cap. It was only an instant but it was enough.”

“Lastly, Mr. Hannaford, would you say you had had too much to drink that evening to be a reliable witness?”

George cringed at the word ‘reliable’ and looked towards the jury for their reaction. All leant forward slightly in their seats, quite intent on the unfolding scene, but he could not read any more from their expressions.

“I wouldn’t, sir, no, absolutely not. Every man has his limit and perhaps mine is too high than is good for my health at times. But I had all my wits about me that night. The cold by itself would have made a far drunker man than me sober. I know what I saw, and who I didn’t,” he gestured towards George.

A succession of witnesses then passed in a blur, at least to George. A conductor on one of the omnibuses he and Charlotte had taken towards Tottenham in near silence; a theatre-goer who said he’d seen them exchange hard words outside the Britannia; another drinker from the Park Hotel—all these came and went and still George sat and puzzled over Hannaford’s words.

Contrary to what everyone else thought there was no confusion, he knew that for fact: he had not spoken to Charlotte in the lane after he had slammed out of the saloon door. She had only caught up with him on the marshes. Whoever Hannaford had seen her talking to, whoever had been touching her face, it wasn’t him. It was this stranger who had done it to her, he knew it. Though the image of her alone in the lane with him made George queasy, knowing what would happen to her after he’d left her to fend for herself, he couldn’t help feel a dawning of faint hope.

After the last of the prosecution witnesses had left the courtroom, the judge, who had remained quiet for some time—some of it with his eyes closed—abruptly banged his gavel. George, still immersed in his own review of the day’s proceedings, unsure whether it could be considered to have gone well but tentatively aware that it had gone better than expected, jumped.

“I think that is enough for one day. I adjourn this court until nine o’clock tomorrow.”

With that, he rose and took his leave without a backwards glance. George looked over to the public benches and saw that Clemmie was looking right at him, a small, tight smile on her face. She raised a small gloved hand in something of a wave and then looked down, suddenly nervous. Next to her, Mr. Booth nodded solemnly towards George and then took his goddaughter’s arm. As they walked slowly out, the chattering crowd taking its time to siphon through the doors to the court, George felt a firm grip take his arm. Soon he was being marched along the tunnel of brick once again.

It seemed no time at all since he had been walking the other way. He still puzzled over the day’s revelations. During the long, sleepless hours at dawn that morning he had imagined the worst, though he had tried to picture the very opposite as hard as he could—that the case would dramatically collapse as a stranger came to light who pleaded his guilt and he would see the joy and relief on his family’s faces. In the event it had not been like either, not at all. First the courtroom had been smaller and meaner than it had ever been in his head. Then there was the absence he had not had the sense to anticipate of his father and sister in the gallery, those anchors of familiarity he had thought would be a comfort. If Mr. Booth had not been there with Miss Clemmie he didn’t know how he could have stood there and borne it at all.

From the outset, the second day had a different rhythm to that of the previous one. The sky outside was perfectly clear, the sunlight a golden portent of a summer George wondered if he would see. It streamed in blearily through the grimy windows and lit upon the varnished wood of the courtroom benches, turning them the colour of burnt oranges. George scanned the gallery as soon as he sat down and was unnerved not to see the reappearance of Miss Clemmie and Mr. Booth. Where they had sat there were now two elderly ladies who had fixed him with gimlet stares, their hands clasped piously over their capacious stomachs. Behind them sat Annie, her face ashen against her stiff mourning dress, and Ted, who was reading a newspaper. In his own gut, George could feel the small breakfast he had forced down begin to churn and liquefy. To try to distract himself, he looked towards the sunlit windows and watched the swarm of dust motes there turn lazily in the light. His head felt as heavy as if he had taken drink.

He seemed to be the only person in a daze, however. Even Justice Grantham appeared to have lost a decade overnight, his eyes alert and his step brisk as he stepped up to his high chair.

“We have much to get through today,” he said when the room had quietened. “Nevertheless, I intend that we will conclude both case and sentencing this afternoon.”

A ripple of whispers eddied along the gallery and George felt more than saw many of the faces there turn to look at him. Though his stomach lurched anew at the judge’s words, he was also grateful that he would know that day. By the time he saw that brick tunnel again; by the time he saw Sam again, he would know. Then it occurred to him that he wouldn’t see Sam if he was proved innocent, because he would be a free man, and the thought made his heart hammer in his chest, his hands dampen with sweat. It seemed too much to be possible.

Today marked Mr. Windsor’s opportunity to present the case for the defence. Though he still seemed frighteningly vague and doddery in comparison to the hawk-eyed Mr. Muir, he was more alert than the previous day as he called his first witness.

It was Cissy. She looked even slighter than usual walking amongst the high wooden panelling of the courtroom. When she was seated in the witness stand, only her head and shoulders left visible, she sought out George’s face opposite and smiled bravely at him. He couldn’t help but smile back though he knew that it came out lopsided from holding back a sudden swell of tears. Of all the people crushed into the room, she was the only person who really knew him, who really believed he could never have committed such a terrible crime.

Windsor’s questions were predictable, even dull for those who had queued outside the court since early morning for some free entertainment, but Cissy answered them dutifully in a clear voice. They concerned his good character, his unwavering devotion to her as a brother, his reliability to bring home money from the print, to have remained loyal and strong in the face of his mother’s fatal illness. Despite all this, George could see that Windsor’s circuitous manner of questioning and re-emphasis had the jury shifting slightly in their seats, adjusting their suit lapels and fiddling with their notebooks and pencils, one even dropping his with a startling clatter at one point. After Cissy had detailed her brother’s evident distress and shock on Christmas day at the disappearance of Charlotte, Windsor seemed to run dry of questions for her altogether and it was the prosecution’s turn.

As Muir rose, George sensed a new sharpening of the atmosphere in the room, like the delicate breath of cool air on a turgid August day. Though there was little sound, it was as if those on the public benches had collectively said ‘now, this will be more like it.’

The lawyer seemed congenial as he approached Cissy, but his first question was sharply put.

“Miss Woolfe, how well did you know the deceased?”

“Quite well. She’d come by now and then and we’d talk, though I wouldn’t say we were close.”

“Apart from the note, did you know of any trouble between the two of them of late?”

Cissy hesitated before she spoke, her face sharp in the bright light at the windows. Her voice, when it came, was still clear and strong.

“Not as such, no.”

At that, Muir produced a folded piece of paper and handed it to her.

“Can you say whether you recognise the hand-writing on this note?”

Cissy hesitated before answering.

“It’s my brother’s writing.”

“Have you seen the note before?”

“No, I have never read it.”

“That is not what I asked you, Miss Woolfe. Did you not deliver this note for your brother to where the deceased lived with her sister Annie Matthews?”

Cissy looked down.

“It was never supposed to be delivered. It was my fault it was and I never asked George if he wanted me to, I just took it. It was written when he was angry about something else. He never meant me take it round. I should have minded my own business.”

She looked at George as she said it and he shook his head at her in forgiveness.

Muir took the note back and turned to the rest of the court.

“For the court’s benefit I will read it aloud.
‘Miss Cheeseman, just a line. Recently I made the acquaintance of a young lady I admire much better than you. Therefore you had better do the same and think no more of me, if you haven’t done so already. I hope you will take this as goodbye for good. G. Woolfe. PS: I hope I shall never hear of you or see you again, and I am thankful I got rid of you so easily. I have got the date I went with you, so if you find yourself in trouble, or I mean in a certain condition, it will do no good to put the blame on me. I pity the man who ever gets tied to you, but I am glad that I am free at last and now have a chance of being my old self again.’
”

Muir turned back to Cissy.

“The prisoner refers to a young lady he admires ‘much better’ than Miss Cheeseman. Do you know who this might refer to?”

“I don’t think it was anyone. I think it was written in temper because Lottie had hurt George’s feelings over something and he wanted to make her feel bad like him.”

“Are you saying that he invented this other girl?”

“I am. There was no one else for George.”

“Why, then, had the deceased hurt your brother’s feelings, as you put it?”

“He found out she’d got a letter from an old sweetheart of hers. It was only a friendly letter, but George took it the wrong way.”

“He lost his temper?”

“I suppose, in a way, and he wrote the note when he’d had too much to drink. Then I took it round before he’d had a chance to throw it away or burn it.”

“Does your brother often lose his temper when he’s been drinking?”

Cissy coloured and for the first time her voice shook.

“No.”

“Have you ever seen him lose or known him to have lost his temper when he’s been drinking?”

Cissy paused again.

“Not that I can remember, no.”

“Not that you can remember. I see. Perhaps the prisoner has got in a fight before, after drinking?”

“Once he got lost coming home and went into a rough place by accident and . . . but I don’t really remember.”

“He got lost coming home? Where had he been?”

“I don’t know where he is every minute, do I? I’m his sister, not his keeper.” Cissy hung her head.

“But he got in a fight?”

“Yes, but he couldn’t help it, he said. He went in to ask where he was and they started trouble because he was a stranger.”

“And was he angry about this fight when he returned home?”

“Yes, though you could understand why. He’d been hurt for doing nothing. That’s why he was so angry when he wrote the note to Charlotte.”

Muir stopped his slow pacing at that.

“The prisoner wrote the note the same night he was in a pub brawl?”

“Yes, but—”

“Thank you, Miss Woolfe. Just a few more questions now. When did you last see the prisoner?”

Cissy had looked confused at the speed of the last exchanges. Now she looked defiant again.

“At Kingston Barracks on the Sunday after Christmas. Chief Inspector Pearn took me there and I had to identify him, my own brother.”

“What did you think when you heard that the deceased had gone missing?”

“I was worried for her, though not at first. She was no fool, Lottie, so I thought she’d turn up soon enough.”

“And when she didn’t?”

“I was sorry for it, really sorry. I liked her and I knew well enough how much my brother cared for her.”

“What did you think of your brother’s involvement in her disappearance?”

“I didn’t think there was no involvement. I knew George would have had nothing to do with it.” Cissy’s cheeks were still aflame, her chin sharp in her fury and anxiety.

‘Even when he disappeared himself; enlisted without a word to you or your father?”

‘George had talked about enlisting before, lots of times. My father weren’t keen on the idea but when he went, I knew it was that. Straight away I knew it.”

George’s hand, which he had been resting his chin on, dropped and he stared at his younger sister. He had never mentioned the Army or any desire to enlist in it in his life. She glanced briefly at him and then continued in the same determined tones.

“Just a few weeks before he had said to me, ‘Cissy, you know I’ve grown tired of working at the print. I can get good money in the Army and I think I might just enlist after Christmas.”

Muir walked slowly back to his bench and then abruptly turned on his heel.

“Did you tell the police this? When they came to question him and found him gone?”

“No I didn’t.”

“And why not?”

“I didn’t know for sure and I didn’t know where he would be. Besides, that inspector had already decided he was guilty before he’d even laid eyes on him.”

Muir’s face turned a mottled red though he attempted a weak laugh.

“Now, Miss Woolfe, this is too much. Are you saying you lied to the policemen who interviewed you, for your brother’s sake? Your brother who may have murdered a girl not much older than yourself?”

“He didn’t murder her. This is all a fix-up. George would never hurt anyone.”

“Miss Woolfe, are you accusing the Metropolitan Police of falsifying evidence and witnesses, of pursuing a vendetta against him? These are very serious accusations. What is your proof?”

For the first time, Cissy lost her composure and George felt his own temper rise up in him when he saw it. She cried into her hands and George knew it was frustration as much as fear. The judge watched her for a short time and then spoke more softly than he had done before.

“Miss Woolfe, you must understand that in a court of law no one can be permitted to shout out accusations such as yours without proof. Are you truly saying you believe the police to have ‘fixed’ this, as you put it?”

Cissy shook her head and half-removed her hands from her flushed face.

“I don’t have any proof but I saw it in that Inspector Pearn’s face. He thought it was George from the beginning.” She took a deep, shuddering breath and managed to regain some of her former calm. “I’m not making any accusations and I’m sorry if I sounded like I was.”

Mr. Muir began a new line of questioning but the judge interrupted him.

“I think Miss Woolfe has answered enough questions for the court, Mr. Muir. Perhaps it’s time you moved onto your next witness.”

Cissy was still pink in the face as she walked out but she managed to give George another small smile as she passed him. He wished he could hold out his hand to her—she was close enough to have touched it—but he didn’t dare.

Mr. Woolfe was called next to the stand. He looked fatigued but determined when he shuffled slowly in, a constable gently supporting him. The unseasonably strong sun had moved round so that its rays now spilled directly onto the witness box. Under its glare, Mr. Woolfe’s face was cadaverous, the skin papery and almost translucent.

Windsor asked similar questions of the father as he had of the sister, establishing the character of a steady young man. As with Cissy, the lawyer skirted around the period of George’s disappearance and sudden recruitment to the Army, concentrating instead on George’s behaviour before the events of those fateful days around Christmas.

“Would you say your son had any . . . violent tendencies, Mr. Woolfe?” he asked after some ten minutes of roundabout questioning that George feared the jury were not wholly concentrating on.

Mr. Woolfe’s face cleared at a question he could answer with more than a bare yes or no.

“No, I certainly wouldn’t. I would say the opposite, in fact. He was a gentle child and is a well-mannered young man. I used to take him up the marshes when he was a boy to help me catch birds to sell with the cages I make as my trade. Even as quite a little boy, he was as patient as an old man, like I am now.”

The courtroom had grown stiller now, and Mr. Woolfe addressed his words to them rather than Windsor himself.

“Catching birds needs a great deal of patience. You’re lying in the grass for half an hour sometime, waiting for them to come to the trap. George never scared one of ‘em away for shouting or fidgeting. He was a gentle lad. Once I asked him to take a bird out of its cage and move it to another to use as a lure. I usually did it, but he wanted to try and so I let him. I didn’t warn him how fast their hearts go when you’ve got them there, cupped between your hands, and how soft their bodies are, like they’re no much more than warm feathers and a fluttering heart. He was so afraid of hurting the bird that he let it go free. It took us I don’t know how long to catch it again, skittering around the ceiling. If he couldn’t hurt a tiny bird worth a penny do you think he could hurt his sweetheart?”

Mr. Woolfe shook his head and grew silent. The jury had been engrossed, now they scribbled in their notebooks. George bit down on the soft flesh inside his mouth shut to stop the tears he felt rise again. He could see them as clearly now as if he was still there, just a boy, his mother’s lips a thin line of disapproval, but his dad laughing as they clambered on the furniture trying to catch that bird.