Birdcage Walk (31 page)

Sam Jelsey had told George that the walk from Newgate to the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey was the longest he had ever taken.

“You’ll feel like time has got stretched out, like a man on the rack,” he’d nodded the previous day, his features indistinct in the gloom of the exercise yard they traipsed around. George thought he’d miss Sam’s snoring; as on other occasions it was something of a comfort to George that night, when he had remained awake until the moon was high enough to scale the prison walls and illuminate the dark cell with a striped bar of cold light.

In the event, the walk seemed far too short, the bricks of his cell only briefly replaced with those of the narrow corridor between prison and court. All too soon, he and the accompanying constables had reached a large wood-panelled door, its varnish and lustre shockingly vivid to George after his daily diet of mildewed brick and filthy stone. For a moment it reminded him of the apprehension he’d felt at the heavy door to Captain Drew’s study.

The courtroom itself, revealed as the door was pulled back smartly by another constable, was far less grand than he had imagined. Beneath the shock and horror of being there at all, he felt something that might have been disappointment. From outside he could discern the sounds of building work; the new courthouse was going up to replace this one, Sam had told him. A façade of Portland stone would be topped with an enormous dome while at the very pinnacle would stand a gold-leafed statue of Justice. Inside, the grand staircases would be laid with cold, smooth marble.

“The money they’ll spend on it you couldn’t get your head round,” Sam said. “No wonder we’re near as sitting here in our own shit. There’s no coin left to clear up in here. ‘Course, I won’t get to sit in some swank new courthouse.” He chuckled and slapped his leg appreciatively. “I’ve finally used up my nine lives, Georgie boy.”

The cramped dock, when George was shut inside its wooden box, was the brightest spot in the entire room. Two large gas-lamps hung above him and they were turned up high. It was not a clement day outside and the glass panes of the courtroom were almost opaque with grime. George struggled to make out the faces of the people who had crammed into the gangway, few seats having been provided for members of the public.

At the very back, he saw a figure that might have been his father’s but it was obscured and he soon lost it. Perhaps he, along with Cissy, would be a witness and therefore be held somewhere else. He felt entirely alone at the thought and continued to search the dimly lit faces in increasing desperation. At last his gaze lighted on two who had secured seats, perhaps by arriving very early. They were better attired than the working men and members of the press who still jostled in the aisle. As before, his view was partially blocked, this time by a lady wearing a large ruin of a hat. He peered harder and a flash of pale dress and gloves answered his question. It was Miss Clemmie and the gentleman sitting beside her was surely her godfather, Mr. Charles Booth. At this sight he felt as though someone had turned a handle inside him and let some of the fear drain out. He remembered Miss Clemmie’s words in her last letter to him, telling him that Mr. Booth believed the case to be flimsy. He had clung to that word as though it were driftwood in a fast-moving Thames.

His gaze moved now to the benches reserved for the jury. Though he stared hard at the dozen men there, George didn’t think he could have picked many of them out of a crowd of strangers. As one they sat upright, as if the importance of their duty had turned their backbones to iron. One was half a head taller than the rest and his dark brown suit seemed to have been made for another, squatter man, the sleeves a shade too short and the shoulder seam drooping where his frame didn’t fill it. Some of them, the tall fellow not among them, met his eyes as they travelled along the line but their faces remained stolid, impassive.

The counsel had by now entered, their powdered wigs dull and yellowing in the gaslight, some of their curls unravelling and unkempt. George glanced over at Mr. Windsor, speaking for his defence, but he looked only at his papers or conferred quietly with a colleague, a florid looking man who was unfamiliar to George. He had met his defence counsel for the first time only the afternoon before.

Mr.Windsor had entered the cell slowly, distractedly. When George had approached to shake his hand, he had started in apparent surprise. They had spent scarcely more than an hour in each other’s company, and George had been alarmed at how few notes Mr. Windsor had made.

“Do you think there’s a chance, sir?” George had asked as the older man reached the door and rapped on it for the guard.

Windsor had turned and looked blearily back at him as though he had already forgotten who he was. Just then the guard unlocked the door. Windsor left without answering.

Back in the court, a scraping back of wooden chair legs and a collective clearing of throats from the cramped gallery made George start. The judge walked slowly in, his expression one of contempt and, possibly, boredom. As he sat down heavily, his rheumy eyes swivelled in George’s direction, who, to his own frustration, found himself looking down. ‘You’re not guilty, you fool,’ he muttered under his breath. Under the bench, out of sight, he legs shook.

The case for the prosecution was soon underway, and with little ado. The prosecution lawyer, an impeccably turned out Mr. Muir, had a neatly waxed moustache beneath which he occasionally smirked. He was as comfortable in the courthouse as a seasoned actor on the stages of Covent Garden, the watered silk of his cravat shimmering as he stood to call his first witness with a flourish.

Chief Inspector Pearn marched in with his customary determination. In the box, his expression was inscrutable, though the way in which he twisted the ring on his little finger betrayed some internal excitement. Muir smiled conspiratorially at Pearn as he approached.

“Chief Inspector Pearn, am I correct in thinking that you have led the police investigation into the dreadful murder of Charlotte Cheeseman?”

“You are, sir,” Pearn replied with a twitch at the corner of his large mouth. “I have led the investigation from the very start.”

“What were your first impressions of the crime when you saw the body of the deceased?”

“I thought that whoever had killed her had done so with great violence. Her injuries were very severe and mostly confined to her face and head.”

“At this time, did you have any clues to lead you to the murder?”

“There were no immediate clues to be seen, but my years of experience as a detective threw up many likelihoods. I knew immediately that whoever had done it must know the deceased, and know her very well.”

An audible hum ran through the gaggle crammed into the public benches at this and Pearn glanced over them appreciatively.

“How did you deduce this?” asked Muir after a speculative pause.

“I saw that the deceased’s hat had been torn off her hat and replaced so it covered her face. Only a man who had been intimate with this woman would have felt such shame and revulsion at his terrible act.”

A murmur went up in the court again and the judge roused himself to rap smartly on his bench with the gavel.

“It is also true that the majority of these crimes,” Pearn continued, “are committed by those known to the victim. Armed with this knowledge, I knew my next step was to identify the deceased and, from this, identify her husband, lover, or sweetheart.”

George forced himself to keep still and not look back at Pearn as he spoke, though he could feel the inspector’s eyes boring into him.

Once Muir had ascertained how George was captured and taken to Stoke Newington police station, the questioning moved onto Pearn’s interrogation and what it had uncovered.

“During the interviews with the prisoner held by yourself, did he at any time admit to any guilt?”

Pearn frowned, his signet ring turning faster.

“No, he did not. However, the multitude of discrepancies in his story told me a clear story of guilt.”

“What sort of discrepancies?” asked Muir.

“The most important was when the prisoner admitted he had lied to the deceased’s sister about where and when he had last seen the deceased. Mrs. Matthews was understandably frantic with worry when her sister didn’t return to the house on Christmas Eve but when she spoke to the prisoner, who had gone round to her house, he said he had left her at the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton around seven o’clock. The truth of the matter came out during questioning, however, and in fact the prisoner accompanied the deceased all the way to Tottenham, close to where she was later found brutally murdered.”

The judge was again forced to bang his gavel, as shocked tones echoed out from the back of the court. Pearn went on to list further ways in which he had cornered and trapped the devious prisoner and George heard them as a stranger might, and realised how damning they sounded. He looked over at the jury as Pearn spoke on and he saw how they were enraptured by the rich assurance of Pearn’s voice, and by the cunning of the detective’s fine mind.

Eventually Muir was finished and it was the defence’s turn to cross-examine. Windsor took his time in getting up and shuffled over to where Pearn looked imperiously on. Windsor’s spectacles had apparently got smeared and he removed them slowly, putting down his papers to clean them with a creased handkerchief. George bit down on his bottom lip to keep from crying out in frustration. The judge checked the time on the large clock at the back of the court before returning to idly stare out of the windows. Finally Windsor spoke.

“Mr. Pearn, you stated that the majority of crimes such as this are committed by those known to the victims. Is that correct?”

“It is,” said Pearn.

“In using the word ‘majority,’ you admit that not all such crimes are committed by people known to the victims. Is that also correct?”

Pearn’s nostrils flared minutely. “I suppose it is, yes.”

“So there is the possibility that Miss Cheeseman was murdered by a stranger, then?”

“A very small possibility, but all the evidence in this case points to a man who also happens to have been the sweetheart of the deceased.”

Windsor coughed. “Indeed, indeed. But it is not also possible that the murder was committed by someone other than the prisoner who also knew the deceased?”

“Are you thinking of anyone in particular?” returned Pearn with the trace of a sneer.

Windsor searched through his papers for a time then, and George wished he would just sit down. One of the members of the jury had begun absently drawing loops and swirls on his notebook, George could see it from where he sat.

“Mr. Windsor, do you have any further questions or not?” asked the judge finally.

“I do, your honour. Ah, here it is.” He pulled a leaf of paper from his messy sheaf and straightened his spectacles.

“Mr.Pearn, did you ever consider anyone else as a suspect during your investigations?”

Pearn shifted uncomfortably before answering.

“There was no one else to consider. As I have explained to Mr.Muir, all evidence clearly pointed towards the prisoner.” He gestured towards George impatiently.

“What about the deceased’s brother-in-law, for instance? Perhaps he didn’t welcome his wife’s wayward sister in the family home.”

Pearn smiled condescendingly. “Mr. Matthews spent Christmas Eve first at the Southgate Arms and later the Rosemary Branch, his wife joining him for an hour or two. His alibi was solid; Mr. Matthews is well-known there and if you wish me to I can call a dozen witnesses to attest to his being there, and not on Tottenham’s marshes.”

Windsor shook his head. “That will not be necessary, thank you. No further questions.”

George wanted more than anything to place his head on the cool wood of the bench and sleep until it was all over. Forcing himself to concentrate on events around him, he heard the police surgeon announced, a Dr. Wainwright. He looked like a kind man, Wainwright, and he did not remain impassive as he read out his report of the post mortem.

He talked on for a long time though the gallery remained hushed, the air thick with their straining to catch every grisly word. George tried to concentrate on the most innocuous words or those he didn’t quite understand, to better block out those he didn’t want to think of at all. Some of the medical words seemed quite mysterious to him, even pleasant-sounding. Words such as ‘auricle’ and ‘semi flexed’ and ‘mala’. Nevertheless, some of those he understood perfectly still penetrated. Short, vivid phrases that made him want to cover his ears: ‘covered with blood’; ‘not quite cold’; ‘exposing the bone’; ‘she was not pregnant’. George felt utterly callous for thinking it but he couldn’t help feeling grateful that Miss Clemmie was here to hear the last.

Again, Windsor had little to say after Muir had finished his questions and so the doctor was allowed to leave the stand. In the brief lull before the next witness was called, an excited hum rose up from the public benches. George looked over to scan the faces there again, hoping to see someone he recognised besides Mr. Booth and Miss Clemmie, but there was no one else and he realised with a churning sensation that almost everyone he knew would probably be called as a witness. That Booth and the Drews had not yet been called for the prosecution was a crumb of comfort.

A blur of witnesses was then brought forth; people George didn’t recognise but who had still become intimately entangled in the case. One was just a boy, who couldn’t seem to stop himself from peeping at George as he was led to his place.

“Speak up, lad,’ Justice Grantham scolded as the boy, announced as Harold Edwin Owen, began to recount his discovery of the body, dead in the frozen earth of the marsh.

“I was playing with a football on Tottenham Marshes on Christmas morning,’ he repeated, with another quick glance in the direction of George. ‘It was near the Great Eastern Railway line, not far from the shunter’s box. I kicked the football into a ditch. I followed it up and found it lying near the dead body of a woman who was lying in that ditch. She was holding an umbrella and had on a green jacket, though it had got dirty. I was with a lad named Fox, Jack Fox, and he came up and then went and found a constable.”