The Guardian of Secrets: And Her Deathly Pact (27 page)

“My Lord, I object!” Mr Burns screamed now.

“Overruled,” the judge replied.

Bats continued. “Do you want to know why you were found out, Mr Pickens? Why you couldn’t sustain your lies?”

Joseph nodded, seeming hypnotised by Mr Bats’ accusations.

“Because Celia Merrill and her father’s farm were too good for you! She was high class, and Merrill Farm was admired and respected. I know you tried your best, but how could someone like you rise to that challenge? How could you keep the lies about yourself from crumbling? Just look at you. You’re nothing! You’re a lying, cheating, arrogant impostor who stole an identity from a dead man in some cemetery. You’re dirt! That’s why you’re so angry—because you know it’s the truth. That’s why you killed Peter Merrill. You knew that eventually he would find out exactly who and what you are! And he’d have thrown you out, just like your mother and father did, because you’re the scum of the earth.”

Mr Burns jumped up from his seat, horrified that his client was being slaughtered.

“Objection! Counsel is baiting the witness! Argumentative! My Lord, you must stop this,” he pleaded.

Joseph looked dazedly around him and stupidly smiled at the jury and the audience in the public gallery. His head was spinning with the lawyer’s words. He wasn’t dirt! He was Joseph Dobbs! he kept shouting inside his head. He was a clever and respected card player, and he owned Merrill Farm. He was the envy of everyone! He couldn’t let this bastard get away with it. He wouldn’t listen to his insults any longer or put up with the condescending stares from a fickle jury who’d been on his side only the day before.

He stood alone against the world, just as he always had. Nobody could possibly understand the hardships he’d had to endure all his life. It wasn’t fair, any of this. He’d make sure they knew all about his suffering. He wasn’t guilty; his parents were the ones who had started all of this.

“What do you know?” he shouted, showing his contempt for the first time. “What gives any of you the right to judge me? You don’t know me! You don’t know what I’ve had to put up with. Well, let me tell the lot of you. I’ve had to put up with bloody Bible pushers all my life! I had a father who beat me with a belt if I didn’t say his stupid prayers, not to mention a mother who never stopped touching me! She’s the abuser, not me. They didn’t understand me. They didn’t care about what I wanted. They made my life a living hell!

“And as for Celia Merrill, she’s nothing but a snivelling slut who nagged me from the first day we were wed till the day she walked out on me! She’s no angel either, you know. How would you feel if you had to put up with people looking down their noses at you all the time? Saying I wasn’t good enough for her! Of course I bloody was! She was lucky I wanted her, and as for her bitter, twisted old spinster of an aunt, she tricked me into believing that she liked me. She even gave me money and then sent in the bailiffs to rob me of my possessions. Yes, that’s her, sitting there all prim and proper like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Ask her where she got her money. She’s a whore, I’ll bet, just like her niece! Well, I deserved the farm because of what I had to put up with. Peter Merrill was too busy licking the arse of his daughter and fucking a woman in the village to see what she was doing to me. Celia tortured me. I worked hard on that farm and never got any thanks, and that bitch would have turned her father against me, just like she turned everyone against me with her lies!”

“You’re the liar!” Mr Bats shouted back.

“You shut your fucking mouth! I am not a liar! I just couldn’t take any more! She was driving me crazy. I had no peace from the woman. I couldn’t think, couldn’t live my bloody life without her telling me what I should do, how I should think! I didn’t want to kill Peter. It was a mistake. She drove me to it! She was going to make him take the farm from me! Don’t you understand… ?”

Bats said nothing, and for once an eerie silence reigned as the shocked court waited expectantly for someone to speak. Joseph began to cry and sway like a drunken man in the witness box. He was alone again. No one else existed. No one cared about his feelings.

“Why are you judging me? It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault… It wasn’t my fault.”

The judge had been as surprised as anyone to hear Joseph’s admission of guilt; he had never heard anything like it in all his years on the bench. He had thought about interrupting Bats on numerous occasions, but he knew exactly what Bats was trying to achieve, and secretly, he knew he would have done the same thing had he been in the same situation. He immediately adjourned for the rest of the morning. Publicly, he would not condone Bats’ methods, but they had been successful in achieving a swift end to the case, and he had to admit that this trial was beginning to leave a bitter taste in his mouth.

He sat in his chambers drinking a hot cup of tea and ordered his clerk to call in the lawyers. The jury had been sent away, and of course they would have to come back with a verdict of guilty. With a bit of luck, he thought looking at his watch, it’ll be all over by dinner time.

Marie and Mr Ayres took lunch at Claridge’s. They’d both been stunned into silence and played with their unwanted food. Marie couldn’t quite believe what had happened, and images of Joseph’s outburst were emblazoned in her memory, making her relive the whole bizarre episode.

“Marie… Marie?” Simon said loudly, interrupting her thoughts.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Simon. I was just picturing Joseph, or Michael, I should say. I’ll never forget the look on his face. I’m shocked, shocked to my very core. I mean, what if he had killed Celia too? We didn’t know that he was not who he said he was, and I’m sure he did kill his father as well as Peter! Oh God, this is all too awful.”

“Hush, Marie. It’s all over. Joseph is going to hang, and Celia will be free of him. It’s time for you and me to get on with our lives.”

“Simon, his mother… that poor woman… It will never be over for her. What sort of life has she to look forward to? Can you imagine the pain and suffering she must have endured at his hands? It doesn’t bear thinking about. Did you know about her?”

“Yes,” Simon told her, nodding his head slowly. “She approached Bats two days ago and told him everything. He in turn told the defence.”

“But I don’t understand. Joseph looked as surprised as everyone else.”

“Yes, and that’s because the defence lawyer decided to tell him after he’d finished with his testimony. He didn’t want Joseph to crack under the pressure of knowing that his mother was going to appear after him. She was due to testify today, you see, but Bats very shrewdly moved her testimony forward. Not very ethical, of course, but then, he never is. We had a weak judge nearing his retirement. Bats knew he’d let it pass, so he sprung it, exactly what I would have done.”

“So what happens now?” Marie asked him.

“Now we wait for the judge to sentence him. Joseph will hang, no doubt about it.”

“I’ve been thinking, Now that we know Joseph is going to hang, I think it would be a good idea to halt the divorce proceedings.”

“Why?” Simon asked, taken aback by the idea. “The divorce will secure Celia’s freedom. It’s being processed now and will be finalised within weeks. I even got Justice Thompson, my old friend, to rush it through. Anyway, the marriage might not even be legal. I have to discuss it with him.”

“It is legal as far as Celia’s concerned. And she must never find out that her marriage may have been illegal! That would kill her and make her son a bastard; is that what you want? Simon, she married in a church under the eyes of God. She signed her name on the marriage certificate. It will always be legal in her eyes and in the eyes of the Church. So at the time of Joseph’s death, I want Celia to be Joseph’s wife, not a woman who has already divorced him or a woman who had a child by him out of wedlock because of some legal technicalities. There will be no investigation or proceedings to annul this marriage, and as her aunt, I have the final say in this matter.”

Marie crossed the room to the bay window, lost in thought and highly agitated. She looked down on the street below and then lifted her glass and gulped down her brandy in a most unladylike fashion. She had thought about this matter only now, but she knew in her heart that Celia wouldn’t want to be branded as a divorced woman, especially whilst living in Spain, a very Catholic country. A widow was much more acceptable to society, and she had great plans for Celia now. She was still young, not even twenty, and she would have no end of opportunities to remarry, but not so many if she was a divorced woman with that stigma attached to her.

Marie Osborne “If you really feel this way, I’ll do as you ask, but I will approach Justice Thompson only after Joseph dies,” he finally said, breaking the silence. “We shouldn’t jump the gun here.”

She sat beside him on the sofa. “Thank you, Simon. I’m very grateful to you for all you’ve done, but I would like you to stop the divorce as soon as Joseph has been sentenced. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. I want to be able to go to Spain when this is all over and tell Celia that she is a widow. Remeber she doesn’t know anything about divorce proceedings, You said yourself you put so many documents in front of her the morning she left England, she didn’t know what she was signing and she will
never
know, not from my lips… I just thank God she was so nervous at the time, she never stopped to read a word on any of the papers. Now had she? Well that would have been a disaster. Anyway, your friend the judge might finalise it any day now. You can’t guarantee that it will take months or even weeks. Can you?”

“No, but—”

“No buts, Simon. Please do as I ask. Do it now.”

Chapter 27

J
oseph rocked back and forth on the hard, narrow bench in his tiny cell. His eyes stared unseeing at the sky, just visible through the small stone window covered with bars. His body trembled with cold and fear as he tried desperately to remember where he’d gone wrong, where he had lost control of the game. If it hadn’t been for his mother, he thought, he would have walked away a free man. He cursed her for not dying in the fire. This was the end. He knew he was going to die unless he could find a way out.

He had thought all during the night, until he thought his brain would explode, and the only thing he had come up with was a plan to tell his lawyer that Celia had driven him insane. They didn’t kill mad people, did they? They put them in asylums. That wasn’t so bad, was it? He’d probably find some retard to play poker with. He could teach the idiot. He was too young to die. He didn’t deserve to die. They wouldn’t hang him; he was only twenty-two years old. He had his whole life ahead of him, for fuck’s sake!

The verdict was an obvious one, and the jury needed no time to debate it. The judge had already reminded them in his closing statement that Joseph had admitted to the murder, and they were all agreed that the accused was as guilty as a man could ever be. But it had to be read out nonetheless, and at three o’clock they returned to their seats and waited patiently for the judge to arrive.

Joseph held his head in a low, shifty position, looking around him in search of a friendly face. The judge took his seat and called for order. The courtroom grew still.

“Members of the jury, have you reached a verdict on which you are all agreed?” he said in a sombre voice.

The jury foreman stood, coughed, and then looked briefly at Joseph before answering.

“Yes, My Lord, we have.”

“On the charge of wilful murder, how do you find the defendant: guilty or not guilty?”

“On the charge of wilful murder, we the jury find the defendant, Joseph Dobbs, guilty.”

The voices in the bulging courtroom grew louder, but Joseph couldn’t quite take it all in. He was guilty; it had been confirmed. The bastards hadn’t felt sorry for him—no one did—but it couldn’t really be happening, could it? He wasn’t really going to die, was he? He looked at the judge.

“Please don’t do it.” Tears fell silently down his cheeks, and his wide eyes pleaded with him to be lenient.

Justice Henry Peak placed the black cap on his head and didn’t prolong the question of Joseph’s fate any longer. “Michael Pickens, also known as Joseph Dobbs, you have been found guilty of the crime of wilful murder. This being the case, you will now be taken from this place and will remain in custody until a time set for your execution, which will be within two weeks from today. At the appointed time, you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead.”

He paused, allowing the courtroom to take in this information. When it had quietened down again, he said, “I find you to be a man completely devoid of conscience, an evil man who is unfit to walk this earth. You have shown no remorse towards your mother; to the family of the victim, Peter Merrill; or to this courtroom. Furthermore, this is possibly one of the vilest cases I have ever had to deal with. You will leave a repugnant taste in the mouths of all persons present at this trial. Indeed, I am sure that your notoriety will live on long after your death. May God forgive you and may he have mercy on your soul. Do you have anything to say?”

Joseph’s hand trembled as he put it on his chest, pumping it like a heart. His tears fell, and he slumped in his seat. He tried to stand again, but his legs wouldn’t hold him. He swayed in the chair and then rocked back and forth.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please don’t do this, Judge. Mum, don’t let them do this to me. Please, Mum, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it… It was Celia. She made me do it. She drove me mad! I’m mad, Judge! I didn’t know what I was doing!”

Justice Henry Peak addressed the policemen: “Take him down.”

Doreen Pickens stared at her son and showed no emotion when he was taken from the dock. Each policeman held an arm when his legs gave way completely. A pool of urine was left on the floor where he’d stood, and urine dripped behind his dragged body.

Marie watched Joseph’s pathetic figure disappear down the steep flight of stairs that led to the underground cells, and for a brief moment, she felt pity for the man who had caused havoc and destruction on all their lives. She determined now that Joseph’s downfall had been caused by the vanity and arrogance for which he was well known. Nonetheless, his death would be a waste of a young life and a great tragedy for baby Peter, who would never know his father. Joseph had always believed that he was the best of gamblers, yet he had lost everything. The judge had been right in saying that Joseph was evil, but where had that evil come from? she wondered. Did it stem from his greed and lust for power, as Mr Bats had stated, or did people like Joseph Dobbs take their evil characters from their mothers’ wombs, unable to detach from them at birth? She didn’t know, but part of her grieved for a life that might have been.

Joseph remained in his cell in His Majesty’s Pentonville Prison for two weeks, the allotted time for sentencing to be carried out. His lawyer, Mr Burns, had tried to appeal to the court for leniency, saying that Joseph had cracked under the pressure of being married to a mentally abusive wife, and therefore couldn’t be held responsible for his actions. He also put the motion forward that the trial had been too much for Joseph, that he didn’t fully understand or know what he was saying because of the severe pain to his leg. And finally, Burns suggested that Mr Bats had been guilty of entrapment. But deaf ears met his pleas.

Joseph couldn’t sleep. He didn’t eat and had no visitors. Day after day, he watched the sunrise and shafts of light that glinted through the small window. In the evening, he watched it set from within the small room bathed in an orange glow. He hated the nights more than anything, for that was when dark shadows hanging on the walls mocked him, when the only sound he heard was that of his own breathing, and when his imagination was so vivid that his fears became a living reality. He needed a drink. He needed one to stop his body from shaking and his gut from cramping up. He had no money to bribe the guard. Money was everything in this life; he’d always known that. He passed his time playing with a pack of cards. He pretended he was playing poker with someone, but even his passion for the game didn’t bring any comfort.

The night before his hanging, he reflected on his short but full life. He wasn’t a bad man, he concluded. He’d been trapped by a conspiracy of rotten people and wasn’t to blame for the cruel turn of events that had led him to this. They had been his downfall, all of them. If he’d been treated better, with more respect, he would have returned the favour, but they’d looked down on him, just as his parents had, and they had made him the man he was.

He tried to imagine what the tightening grip of the noose would feel like, and he shuddered at the very thought of it. Would it be quick? Or would he dangle there like a limp rag doll, doing a ridiculous jig until the life was sucked out of him? Would he pee his pants again as he had in the court? Would it hurt? He’d never known anyone to die at the end of a rope. No one ever talked about things like this… Would Celia and Marie Osborne be there gloating at his defeat?

“You have a visitor, Pickens,” the guard told him, appearing at the bars. “It’s your mother.”

“Tell her to fuck off! I don’t want to see her,” Joseph told him.

“She’s insisting. Anyway, I thought you’d be pleased to see a friendly face since no other bugger has come to see you.”

Joseph tucked his shirt into his trousers but then rebelled and ripped it out again. If he had a sharp object, he’d stick his mother with it. If he could squeeze the life out of her with his bare hands or spend five minutes tormenting her, he’d do it.

“Okay, bring her in and get it over with,” he told the guard.

Doreen Pickens stood hesitantly behind the guard and said nothing when he ushered her forward. “Seeing as how you’ve only got one more night, she can stay for a half hour. I’ll give you some privacy and come back and get you when it’s time. All right, missus, in you go.”

Doreen Pickens lifted her gloved hand, and gestured that she understood. Then she raised her faceless body to full height, whimpering with pain, and stretched out her arms towards Joseph.

“Why have you come here?” Joseph asked her suspiciously, dodging her arms. “Is it to gloat? I bet you’re really happy. I bet you think I deserve what’s coming to me. Well, don’t bother giving me any of your sermons. I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”

“Michael,” Doreen Pickens said quietly before sitting down on the thin mattress. “Even after everything that’s happened, after everything you’ve done, I’m still your mother, and I still love you. You’re my only child, and I forgive you everything, as a good mother and good Christian should. I’m here to save you.”

“Don’t give me that old rubbish! I don’t want you or your God to save me! And if you forgive me, why did you turn up at court and ruin my chances? Why didn’t you just die like you were supposed to in that fire?”

“I just wanted to see you, to save you. I thought that maybe you would repent, show me some kindness or apologise. I didn’t want this to happen to you, but I couldn’t lie; the lawyer said that it would be worse for you if I didn’t tell the truth.”

“If you hadn’t come, I wouldn’t be in here now, you stupid cow… You’ve killed me!”

“No, no, please don’t say that. I had to come; I had to see you again… make things right between us. Son, please, I love you… Look.” She was fiddling with a brown paper parcel. “I baked your favourite cake. Remember, the fruit sponge that you used to like so much? I put it in your lunch box every day when you went to school, remember, son?” She lifted her veil and tried to smile.

Joseph tried not to look at his mother’s disfigured face, but he was drawn to it. She was supposed to be a corpse. She was disgusting, he thought, shuddering with revulsion as he watched her rip off a large piece of cake with her gloved hand.

“I don’t want it,” he said. “I want nothing from you. I wish you had died. Look at you! You’re fit for nothing but the bloody circus!”

“Michael,” she pleaded, her eyes filling with tears. “This is the last time we’ll ever see each other. Won’t you be civil to me? Won’t you eat with me? Please. You don’t need to talk… Just eat with me… like we used to… you, me, and Dad.”

The sight of her ugly, distorted features was making him feel sick to his stomach, but at the same time, he also heard a whisper of guilt flit through his mind. It was his fault that she looked like she did. She’d always been ugly, but he’d played his part in making her into the monster she was now. He’d eat the cake and tell her what he thought of her, and then she’d be gone forever.

“Right, give us a bit, then get out of here. And I don’t want to see your face tomorrow at the thing they’re going to do to me.”

She handed him the cake, and they began to eat in silence. He swallowed the first mouthful, and its taste reminded him of the past. He was a young boy, and his mother was looking after him, caring for his every need. He suddenly remembered all the other food she used to make for him… his clean clothes ironed and placed in neat piles on the bottom of his bed… the coins she used to steal from his father in order to keep him happy on boiled sweets. If he closed his eyes, he could even allow the thought of her bathing the nasty cut he’d got when a tree branch had given way and he’d plummeted to the ground. The sweet taste of the fruit and sugared sponge melted in his mouth, and as they sat on top of the thin mattress together, he unconsciously smiled.

“You always did make a good sponge, Mum.”

She smiled back and looked deep into his eyes, caressing his face with her gloved hand. “I still love you, Michael.”

He swiped her hand away as though it were a bothersome fly, remembering abruptly where he was. “Shut up! I don’t want to hear that… and don’t touch me again.”

A mutual silence ensued then. Joseph realised that he was famished. He was going to die the next day, but he was now thinking about food. How fucked up was that? He grabbed the remainder of the cake and bit into it.

“Mind if I finish it?” he asked his mother with his mouth full.

Doreen Pickens smiled a wide smile, displaying the contentment of a happy mother, and then she stood up and walked hesitantly towards the bars of the cell, peering right and left through them. She stood there for a moment, listening for something. Joseph watched her, thinking that she was going to leave. She turned slowly and dropped her walking sticks to the ground.

“Here, put these on, son,” she said, stripping off layers of clothing.

“What?”

“Hurry, put on my clothes. I won’t let them kill you. I told you, I’m here to save you.”

Joseph opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He threw the cake aside and in complete silence grabbed the mountain of black garments now lying on the ground. He dressed quickly in the long skirt, blouse, jacket, coat, shawl, and gloves, balancing on his one good leg. His mother placed the hat on his head, held in place by an elastic band and black ribbon, and then took the veil and covered his face from sight. She touched his face with her disfigured and scarred hand. Joseph recoiled but then moved forward again and allowed her to stroke his cheek. She handed him the walking sticks and took a step backwards to look at him.

“Take the sticks and stoop low—and remember to hobble like this.”

Joseph watched, still in shock, as his mother waddled around the tiny cell like a lame duck. He couldn’t quite believe what was happening. He felt as though he were in a dream and hoped he wouldn’t wake up. He shook his head, trying to clear it. He was going to go along with the plan his crazy mother had obviously thought up weeks ago. He would hobble, just as she did. He would stoop low and be ushered out of the prison in the same way she got in. If he got out of the cell alive, he’d be saved; nothing would stop him after that. They would have to kill him on the run because there was no way he was coming back to hang.