The Testimony of the Hanged Man (Lizzie Martin 5)

Copyright ©
2014 Ann Granger

The right of Ann Granger to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2014

Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

eISBN 978 1 4722 0449 3

HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH

www.headline.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk

About the Author

Ann Granger has lived in cities all over the world, since for many years she worked for the Foreign Office and received postings to British embassies as far apart as Munich and Lusaka. She is married, with two sons, and she and her husband, who also worked for the Foreign Office, are now permanently based in Oxfordshire.

Praise for Ann Granger’s crime novels:

‘A host of entertaining and lifelike characters. And there is a satisfying and entertaining twist on the last page’
Mystery People

‘Characterisation, as ever with Granger, is sharp and astringent’
The Times

‘The plot is neat and ingenious, the characters rounded and touchingly credible, and the writing of this darkly humorous but humane and generous novel fluent, supple and a pleasue to read’
Ham and High

‘The reader can expect a treat. Lively, different and fun’
Yorkshire Post

‘Ann Granger’s skill with character together with her sprightly writing make the most of the story . . . she is on to another winner’
Birmingham Post

By Ann Granger and available from Headline

Inspector Ben Ross crime novels

A Rare Interest in Corpses

A Mortal Curiosity

A Better Quality of Murder

A Particular Eye for Villainy

The Testimony of the Hanged Man

Campbell and Carter crime novels

Mud, Muck and Dead Things

Rack, Ruin and Murder

Bricks and Mortality

Fran Varady crime novels

Asking for Trouble

Keeping Bad Company

Running Scared

Risking it All

Watching Out

Mixing with Murder

Rattling the Bones

Mitchell and Markby crime novels

Say it with Poison

A Season for Murder

Cold in the Earth

Murder Among Us

Where Old Bones Lie

A Fine Place for Death

Flowers for his Funeral

Candle for a Corpse

A Touch of Mortality

A Word After Dying

Call the Dead Again

Beneath these Stones

Shades of Murder

A Restless Evil

That Way Murder Lies

About the Book

When Inspctor Ben Ross is summoned to Newgate Prison by James Wills, a man about to face the gallows, Ben is shocked to hear his account of a brutal murder that he witnessed on Putney Heath on 15th June 1852, sixteen years ago.

Unable to halt Will’s execution, Ben is ordered to forget the matter and instead to investigate the suspected abduction of a wealthy London gentleman’s wife and child. Meanwhile, Ben’s wife Lizzie, who has a talent for unofficial detection, and her maid Bessie take a trip to Somerset House followed by a cab ride to Putney Heath that convinces them that the testimony of the hanged man was true and a murderess is roaming free. It may be too late for Wills, but it’s never too late for justice.

Author’s Note

A guidebook of 1818, in my possession, says of Putney: ‘a village in Surrey, four miles and three-quarters S.W. from London, is pleasantly situated on the southern bank of the Thames, over which there is a wooden bridge connecting it with Fulham.’ This wooden bridge had been constructed in 1729 despite opposition from the ferrymen who saw their livelihood disappear.

Fifty years later, in 1868, when this story takes Ben Ross and his wife Lizzie to Putney, the old wooden bridge was still in use. There had been changes in Putney and it was a growing community, but was still at heart a large village. Despite some great poverty in certain areas, it had always been favoured by the well-to-do and boasted a number of substantial houses with gardens. But it had to wait almost until the end of the century to see a stone bridge replace the wooden structure, and a major increase in population with all the changes that brings.

The problem for the writer of any historical novel is to recreate a place in a way that will bring alive the spirit of it; while taking into consideration the needs of the plot. I may have created a few footpaths where perhaps there were none. But who is to say? At any rate, I hope I have evoked the ‘feel’ of Putney while respecting the facts wherever possible.

I cannot finish without expressing my sincere gratitude to the Reverend Ailsa Newby and Michael Bull of St Mary’s Putney parish church. Both were kind enough to help me in my inquiries about Putney’s Victorian burial grounds.

Chapter One

Inspector Benjamin Ross

‘I FIRST set eyes on Francis Appleton while we were both up at Oxford, nearly forty years ago,’ James Mills said. ‘It was an uncommonly warm spring day, I recall, and I was walking by the Cherwell, not far from Magdalen Bridge. There were plenty of other people enjoying the sunshine, strolling on the college meadows as I was, and a varied collection of craft floated past me – rowing boats, punts and so on. Some were handled more dextrously than others!’

Mills paused, his gaze misting and focusing on some scene long gone by. Little light came through the tiny window and the candle, guttering on the table, sent both our shadows leaping fantastically about the walls. He’d lost weight in prison since I’d last seen him in the dock at the Old Bailey. He was still a sturdy man, though, robust for his sixty-something years.

I hoped the hangman did not bungle the job on the morrow. I did not like to think of Mills dangling, kicking and gurgling, as the life was slowly squeezed out of him. The Newgate hangman, Calcraft, was notorious for the high number of executions he’d carried out and the prolonged death agonies of the condemned. If the job were to be given to him, I could not hold out much hope for Mills having a quick and painless end. I had heard reports of Calcraft pulling on the condemned person’s legs to hurry things along. He probably justified that sort of behaviour as doing the prisoner a kindness. I had my own view.

It was not the only reason I had answered the call to Newgate Prison that evening with deep reluctance. The smell of the prison always takes a couple of days to wash away. It has a way of pervading everything. The sourness of unwashed humanity, the fatty stink of what passes for cooking in the great cauldrons, the staleness from lack of ventilation and, above all, the despair: for that has an odour all its own. All this seeps into your clothing, skin and hair. Even after it has been cleansed from these it lingers in the mind. The smell and atmosphere of the condemned cell, where I sat with Mills, was yet more sinister and unpleasant. It was as if Death himself sat with us in his rotting rags and smiled a ghastly grin at us as we talked.

Mills twitched and pulled his attention back to his present grim surroundings. ‘Are you listening, Inspector?’ he asked testily.

I assured him that I was and begged him to continue his story without unnecessary delays.

‘Ah,’ said Mills with a mirthless smile. ‘You wish to be back home with your wife – I suppose you to have one – and family. Sitting at your own table, eh?’

I almost snapped that I would, indeed, be comfortable at home if I weren’t sitting there in that wretched place at his behest. But I didn’t say so, because Mills, with his calm manner, made me feel somehow embarrassed. I could walk out of there and he could not. He saw I grew restless and returned to his memories.

‘Anyhow, Inspector Ross, I was telling you how I met Appleton. There I was, by the river, not a care in the world. Then a punt emerged from under the bridge, poled towards me by a young fellow I did not, at that time, know. He was about my own age, some twenty years, fair-haired and athletic in build. I admit I paid more attention to his passenger. A girl, and an uncommonly pretty girl, reclined in the punt, laughing up at him. She wore a white muslin gown, cut rather low, I recall. This was before the later ugly fashion for women to barricade themselves inside crinolines. Women then wore gowns with skirts billowing gracefully over layers of petticoats that rustled most delightfully as they walked. She had long white gloves, and wore a wide-brimmed hat of Italian straw, with blue ribbons, to shield her from the sun. Beneath it bunches of dark curls framed her face. She had a parasol, too. Oh, I dare say she was no better than she should have been; one of the town’s many ladies of easy manners and easier morals. There were enough of them in Oxford then and, I dare say, still are. For all the white gown and gloves, she was laughing at him in such an uninhibited way, casting up such roguish glances and twirling that parasol – I can see her now! He was grinning at her like a sailor on shore leave. I envied him.’

The speaker paused again to chuckle. ‘I never saw
her
again, more’s the pity. I did see Appleton, only a couple of days later, scurrying along the Broad late for some lecture, and alone. The student walking with me knew him and called out. He introduced us and that’s how I formally met Francis Appleton. It was an evil day.’

‘And now,’ I said, ‘you have requested I come here this evening in order that, even at this late stage of proceedings, you can tell me you didn’t murder him in a foul manner last Michaelmas – and I arrested the wrong man!’

‘Oh, no, Inspector Ross.’ Mills raised a protesting hand. ‘By no means. You arrested the right man. I confess freely that I cut his throat with a carving knife, the same one we had used to carve the Michaelmas goose sent round earlier from the cook shop. The cold remains of our meal stood on the table. I first snatched up the knife in a fit of rage and stabbed him in the throat. That didn’t kill him straight away so, needs must when the devil drives, I had to continue. I hacked at his windpipe a few times while he gurgled and flailed about, bloody bubbles of froth pouring from his lips. I severed the artery at last and that did it. Who would have thought it would be so difficult to kill a man? Oh, yes, I am a murderer; and in the morning I shall make the short walk from this condemned cell to the gallows here at Newgate. I understand the scaffold has been erected in the yard, inside the prison walls, not outside in the street. Is that so?’

‘It is so. You are among the first to benefit from the recent ruling by the government that hangings shall no longer take place in public.’

On my approach to the prison I had been struck by the absence of the black-painted barriers that would formerly have been set up the day before a hanging to control the mob come to view the show. Absent, too, were the eager visitors who had arrived early to secure the best places, and would pass the night drinking and gambling. But the crowd would gather, anyway, when dawn lightened the sky, I was sure of it. Even if they couldn’t see the process, they would be drawn there by the knowledge of what was happening inside the walls. They would wait until someone came out and nailed the notice of the completed execution to the gate. Then they would probably raise a
huzzah
! I wondered whether hangman Calcraft would improve his technique now he would no longer have an audience. He was undeniably a showman and the crowd had always liked to see a victim dangle kicking at the end of the rope.

‘Benefit?’ Mills gave me an amused look.

To my annoyance, I knew my face betrayed my confusion. ‘Forgive me,’ I said stiffly, ‘it was not a well-chosen word. I meant to say, you won’t have to see the mob baying at you.’

‘What a polite fellow you are, Ross.’ Mills gave me a gracious nod. Then he frowned. ‘There was a condemned man hanged outside in public view soon after I arrived here. That was in May. I heard the crowd roaring in delight. I even heard them singing.’

‘That was Barrett, for his part in the Clerkenwell bombings,’ I told him. ‘There was a crowd of some two thousand out there, so I’m not surprised you heard the noise.’

‘Ah, yes, Barratt, the Fenian. He killed twelve people of whom he knew nothing and who had done him no personal wrong. I killed only one who had greatly wronged me . . .’ Mills smiled at me but his eyes were cold. ‘Of course I am relieved I won’t have a drunken, stinking audience roaring their approval as they watch
me
dance.’

He leaned back against the wall. ‘I was able to hear them building the scaffold earlier today, so much sawing and hammering. The racket penetrated the walls and I dare say all in here could hear it. The prison chaplain – a most tedious fellow – visited me earlier this evening. He droned on about repentance. I told him I had confessed; and did not see that I was obliged to repent as well! He insisted that I should. I told him the only thing of which I repented, most heartily, was that I had placed my confidence, trust and money in the keeping of a man I believed my closest and oldest friend. A man I had never imagined might swindle me, ruin my fortune and good name, bring shame on my wife and children, leave them destitute . . .’

He was becoming agitated. From my arrival until that moment he’d been unnaturally calm. I can tell you that his earlier outward serenity had rattled me far more than this. Others in his situation I’d seen gibbering and raving. He had been, to all appearances, relaxed. I felt some sympathy for the chaplain.

‘So,’ I said crossly. ‘Why have you brought me across London, depriving me of my supper? To hear for myself this confession? I didn’t need the confirmation from your own lips. I am certain you are guilty and was so from the moment I arrested you.’

Mills relaxed once more and raised a hand, dismissing my protest. ‘I am sorry you have missed your dinner. They asked me if I had any special choice for my last meal. I told them I had no appetite and only required good, strong coffee – which they brought. Perhaps I should have asked for a beefsteak pie and presented you with it. However, I told them that I did have a last request and it was that a message should be sent to you, asking that you be kind enough to attend me here, as I had something to tell you. I couldn’t go to you, alas. I am obliged to you for coming.’

‘Get on with it, then!’ I snapped. I suspected he was taking some sort of revenge by wasting my time. A feeble revenge, perhaps, but in his situation, he could do little more.

I was wrong.

His manner changed again, becoming brisk and businesslike. ‘What a man declares on his deathbed, knowing that his end is near, is held to be admissible in a court of law, is it not?’

‘I have no experience of that in any case where I’ve been the arresting officer. Yet I have heard of it,’ I replied cautiously. ‘It would be in special circumstances, I expect. I am not a lawyer. I suppose it depends what is said, if it is before witnesses and whether the speaker, though dying, is of sound mind and not raving . . .’

‘I am of sound mind. I am not raving. I wish to tell you I witnessed a murder.’ Again he held up a hand to prevent my outburst. ‘No, not the one
I
committed. I saw someone else commit a murder. It did not suit me at the time to speak of it. But it lies on my conscience.’ He paused and frowned. ‘Call it my conscience. I feel I should tell you about it in order to set the record straight. Yes, that’s a better way of putting it.’

‘Go on,’ I invited without disguising my disbelief. He could still be playing at some form of revenge. He knew curiosity would make me ask more. It was possible he didn’t so much want to unburden his mind as to trouble mine. ‘Where and when?’ I demanded. ‘Who was the murderer? Who was the victim?’

‘Patience, Ross, I beg you. Perhaps you don’t believe me. But I have made great efforts to remain calm in my present distressing circumstances because I wish you to consider what I have to say as a declaration upon my deathbed. True, I am sitting at this table and not lying on that disgusting pallet over there. Also, I am in a good state of health, as we speak, for my age. None the less, please consider me a dying man. I go to the gallows in the morning so it comes to the same thing.’

The prisoner shrugged away the image. ‘I wish that you, Ross, shall take what I say seriously. You will write it down and I shall sign it, in the proper manner of statements made to the police.’

I admit his earnestness impressed me. I was at a loss how to respond. ‘Very well,’ was all I could manage, although I wondered if I were rash to promise it.

It was all he wanted to hear.

‘So, begin,’ he ordered and pushed towards me a sheet of paper, a pot of ink and a pen lying in readiness – I now realised – for this purpose. ‘I, James Mills, being of sound mind and aware I go to meet my Maker in the morning, declare—’ He stopped suddenly and frowned. ‘There must be a witness. Have the warder come in.’

The warder was duly summoned from where he waited outside the door. I think he had been listening at the grille because his face betrayed eager curiosity when he entered.

‘On the late afternoon of the fifteenth of June, eighteen fifty-two, I was returning alone, on horseback, from a business visit at Putney,’ Mills continued. ‘It was a Tuesday. You see, the date is fixed in my memory! I was riding across the heath. It can be a lonely place. The criminal element that used to be a feature of it still hadn’t entirely forsaken it sixteen years ago; so I had my eyes well open for thieves and vagabonds. Yet, in good weather, there are usually enough respectable people out there, taking exercise, or travelling across it as I was. Earlier, on my way to make my visit, I had even seen a drover herding cattle towards the metropolis for slaughter at Smithfield. But June is a fickle month. On that day it had been sultry and airless. Then, as I set out for home, and as bad luck would have it, a sudden summer storm blew up. The skies opened, sending down heavy rain, accompanied by a strong wind and great rolling claps of thunder. The heath was deserted. Any other travellers had been forced to seek shelter, and I knew I must do the same. It was all I could do to control my frightened horse. A clump of trees not too far away offered the nearest sanctuary and I turned towards it.

‘It proved a small coppice. I dismounted at the edge and led my horse forward under the branches. They did little to shield the pair of us. I then realised that there was a house nearby, just ahead of me, beyond the trees. I tied my horse to a suitable branch and set out on foot towards the place, hoping it would prove to be an inn, as I calculated I wasn’t far from the Portsmouth road. If so, I could retrieve my poor beast and the pair of us would find shelter. But it was a private house, of a style that suggested the earlier part of the last century. The eaves came down low and the windows were small. Smoke came from a chimney in fitful bursts when the rain didn’t go straight down and must almost have quenched the fire below. The sky was dark – not because it was late but because of the weather – and all around gloomy. A lamp had been lit in a room on the ground floor. I approached and first thumped the knocker on the main entrance. But no one came and I supposed that, with the noise of the storm, no one within could hear me. So I made my way towards the lighted window and peered in.’