Blood Roots: Are the roots strong enough to save the pandemic survivors? (25 page)

Mark was the first to leave. He hurried across Flag Court, Lawn Court and out through the West Gate into Haver Park. He needed to be alone.

His task seemed impossible; should he even try? Maybe Duncan was right, perhaps it was better to rid the world of the Chatfield brothers. It would provide a new start. They were nasty characters, particularly Jasper. But Mark reminded himself that life always included nasty characters. Get rid of Jasper and someone else would become Mr or Ms Nasty. There was already a candidate waiting in the wings — Rick Hoff — but there were some, particularly the women, who thought Rick was charming. One thing was clear: it didn’t matter what Mark said, Rick was going to vote for Jasper and Greg’s execution. Since the sentence was to be agreed by the jury by a simple majority, Mark not only had to convince Theresa to grant his earlier request, he also had to persuade at least four of the remaining six jurors to reject the death penalty.

He walked down the hill towards the main gates of Haver Park and then through the valley known as The Gallops to Abbot’s Gate, before turning and making his way up the gravel path back towards the West Gate. He passed the spot where the nightmare of Haver had begun for his son and himself — their ambush by Damian and Jasper. He recalled Damian firing at Steven and how Jasper had intervened, telling him not to shoot the prisoner. There was no doubt in Mark’s mind that Jasper had saved Steven’s life. It was time to try to repay the favour.

Everyone was back in the Great Hall waiting for the trial to begin by the time Mark walked through the West Gate. He hurried through the maze of corridors to the lobby at the foot of the Great Staircase from where the door led through to the dais in the Great Hall. Theresa and Duncan were waiting for him. Theresa’s face showed that she, like her mother, didn’t like to be kept waiting. It was a bad start.

Duncan handed Mark his gown, saying ‘We thought for a minute there that you had come to your senses and decided not to waste everyone’s time making this ridiculous plea for clemency.’

Mark took the gown and began to put it on. He had had time to fasten only one button before Teresa impatiently led the way into the Great Hall. Everyone rose including Jasper and Greg. Greg was red-eyed and had clearly been crying. Jasper’s face was stern. He held his head high but his arrogance had gone. The jury, with the exception of Rick, were grim-faced. Mark guessed they found condemning someone to death disturbing, however much they hated them. Rick stood, hands on hips, smirking at Mark, as if to say ‘Bring it on, buddy’.

Everyone followed Theresa’s lead and sat down. As Mark finished buttoning up his gown he had an idea — a refinement to his presentation.

‘The defence will now make its case for clemency.’

Mark barely heard the words. He had watched Duncan lose his way by departing from his prepared presentation, but …

He stood up and moved around to the front of his desk to be closer to the jury. He glanced briefly at the public gallery, but
decided he would not look at them again until he had finished his presentation. He would ignore Rick and look at Duncan only if he needed to drive home a point. His eyes focused on the seven people who would decide the fate of Jasper and Greg — the other six jurors and the judge Theresa.

As he walked round the desk, he unbuttoned his gown, slipped if off and threw it on the desk.

‘I don’t have the right to wear that gown,’ he began, pointing at what was now a crumpled bundle. He sat down on the corner of the desk closest to Theresa. He was no longer towering over the jury, but looking directly at them.

‘I’m not a lawyer. I’m just one of you. I’m just your father,’ he said, looking at Steven. ‘Your brother,’ he continued, looking at Paul. He turned his attention to Susan, Jennifer, Kimberly and Theresa, ‘Your cousin. And like all of you — with the exception of Rick,’ he paused, savouring the dig for a moment, ‘I have suffered at the hands of Nigel, Damian, Jasper and Greg.

‘I, like many of you, was branded on the orders of Nigel.’ He pulled back his shirt to reveal the scarred outline of the number one at the top of his arm. ‘Before I escaped from Haver I spent more time than most of you on the punishment treadmill. And I spent many days locked in Cromwell’s Tower in fear of my life.

‘Nigel ordered, and Damian carried out, the execution of my nephew Mathew and my Aunt Margaret. Damian kicked my wife Allison …’ Suddenly he was fighting back the tears. He hadn’t expected this reaction. He composed himself and carried on. ‘… almost certainly causing her death — and there’s the rub.

‘I’m no lawyer, but although I chose not to challenge Duncan when he included the terrible crimes of Nigel and Damian, I know enough about the law to recognise that we are not here to judge, or pass sentence on, those two. We are here to pass judgement on Jasper and Greg. We can only consider the crimes Jasper and Greg committed themselves. They should no more be held accountable for the actions of Damian and Nigel than Steven or Paul should be held accountable for my actions, or Theresa and Susan for Diana’s actions.

‘Also, Greg should not be judged for Jasper’s actions or Jasper for Greg’s. We must treat each of them separately, and we owe it to them and to ourselves to do it fairly.’

There was a huff from Rick.

‘I wish I were a lawyer. I wish for your sakes that I were a lawyer,’ he said, looking at Theresa and at each member of the jury in turn, except Rick. ‘You hold the lives of these two men in your hands. Whatever decision you make today, that decision will live with you for the rest of your lives.

‘Condemning a man to death is not something that can be reversed. You can’t wake up in two years’ time with your conscience troubling you, and undo it.

‘So let me deal with Greg first. He has pleaded guilty to being an accessory to the murder of Aunt Margaret and Mathew Grey. He was an accessory to those murders in as much as he was there on the gallows with his father and Damian.

‘I suggest that Greg isn’t particularly bright. He is the son of a bully, a young man who had learned the hard way to do as he was told. And I suggest to you that if any of us had had Nigel as a father we would have been terrified of him too, and we would have stood on the gallows and watched as the sentences were carried out.

‘Standing there and watching, powerless, as Greg was, does not warrant his life being taken away.

‘He has also pleaded guilty to the murder of Diana Morgan. I will deal with her murder in more detail later. But again Greg was simply on the platform with Jasper, who had the real power. At most he was an accessory to her murder. He did not murder her.

‘He has also pleaded guilty to the murder of Cameron Steed. I have read the transcript of the original trial.’

He took a piece of paper from his pocket and read the words, even though he had memorised them.

‘Greg said “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it. Jasper fired his gun and I just lost control”.’

He slowly folded the paper and returned it to his pocket before continuing.

‘I believe Greg. He should not have shot Cameron, but it certainly was not premeditated murder. Was it manslaughter, the spontaneous reaction of a nervous, frightened, clumsy oaf, whose father should never have put a gun in his hand? He is, as I have already said, not very intelligent.

‘Greg’s final admission is to the rape of four women. We all abhor rape, it is reprehensible, and it was a gross abuse of his power. Unfortunately, in times of war, and in extraordinary times such as those at Haver, these things happen. I am not defending those actions, and I’m not defending Greg’s actions.

‘We have all heard how Julie, Louise and Anne were subjected to rape in North America. These are extraordinary times. But even America, one of the few so-called civilised countries that still exercised the barbaric death penalty, did not prescribe the death penalty for rape.’

Mark stood up and pointed his finger at Greg.

‘Greg is an oaf, and not a very bright oaf. His actions have been appalling. They have been disgusting and are unacceptable, but I know he is deeply sorry for, and ashamed of, what he did.

‘I have suffered as you have suffered from the actions of him and his family, but I personally could not bring myself to condemn this … this oaf to death.’

He paused and walked away from the jury and back again, ensuring there was a gap between his submissions. He took a sip from his glass, giving the jury time to think about what he had said. The six who mattered looked serious. He knew he had got to them. Theresa was poker-faced; he couldn’t be sure how she felt. Rick was shaking his head ever so slightly, saying with his eyes, ‘I don’t care what you say, there’s no way you’re getting my vote.’

Mark sat down again on the edge of his desk.

‘Which brings us to Jasper!

‘I don’t like Jasper. He’s not an oaf. He’s an intelligent man. He is also, like his father, arrogant, and a snob who enjoys having the rest of us run around after him. But being lazy and a snob isn’t a capital offence.

‘Jasper, like Greg, has pleaded guilty to being an accessory to the murder of Aunt Margaret and Mathew. Unlike Greg, he probably had the wit to try to intervene on their behalf. It is his failing that he didn’t. In reality I don’t believe it would have made any difference had he tried. Those two murders lie squarely at the door of his father Nigel Chatfield.’

He took another sip from his glass. ‘The death of Warren Dalton is another matter. Jasper fired the shot that killed Warren. He may have been angry, he may have been frightened, he may simply have lost control, but undoubtedly he pulled the trigger and killed Warren. That is the one crime that rests squarely at Jasper’s feet.’

Mark was looking at Theresa when he uttered the next few words. He knew he was running a great risk.

‘And, of course, more recently Jasper killed Diana. Technically he didn’t murder Diana — I think we all know that she outwitted him and took her own life. However, he has pleaded guilty to her murder and I have no doubt that had she not outfoxed him, he would have ordered Damian to swing the axe. Had he done so he would have been guilty of murder. One way or the other, he was responsible for Diana’s death.

‘Murder, in a sense, can never be defended. Taking another person’s life …’ he paused, letting the words sink in. Then he repeated them to hammer home the double meaning of his words…. taking another person’s life, however it is taken, and for whatever reason it is taken, cannot be defended.

‘I do not condone Jasper’s actions, but I can understand the anger he felt at that time. He had discovered how his father had died. We all know Diana murdered Nigel. I can understand why Diana murdered Nigel — anger at, and revenge for, what he had done to both Theresa and herself the night before.

‘If Nigel had done what he had done to them to my wife or to my daughter, I too would have murdered him. And it is because I can accept my own capability to commit murder that I can understand Jasper’s anger and his wish for revenge when he discovered the details of his father’s death. Nigel’s death was barbaric. Diana drugged him,
trapped part of his body in the woodworking vice, wired it up and set the workshop alight. He had to amputate part of his own body to try to save his life. Duncan and Paul never corrected any of you when you assumed it was the charred remains of Nigel’s thumb that was found in the vice.’ He paused for a few seconds. ‘It wasn’t Nigel’s thumb, it was his penis.’ There were gasps from both the jury and public gallery. Only when all was quiet did he continue.

‘How would you react if someone had done that to your father?’ He gave them a few more seconds to ponder their answer.

‘Finally, there are Jasper’s ten cases of rape. These were in part revenge for the ten months of humiliation and imprisonment that he suffered at Diana’s hands, and in part the shocking actions that many men in positions of power the world over have been guilty of — but for which few have ever been executed.

‘So let me summarise.’

‘About time too,’ Rick muttered.

Theresa looked at him angrily and he pressed back into his chair.

‘You, members of the jury, have to make a terrible decision. Do you condemn these two men to death? You cannot hold either of them responsible for Nigel or Damian’s crimes. You cannot hold them responsible for each other’s crimes. You must consider each case separately.

‘Even if you believe they are guilty of all the crimes to which they have pleaded guilty, and I personally am not convinced they are guilty of them all, then there is still the question of what is a fair sentence.

‘I am not a lawyer. I’m just the same as you, a layman, trying to help decide the fate of these two men.’

For the first time in his presentation he looked at the prosecutor.

‘If you ask Duncan, honestly,’ he continued, looking his cousin squarely in the eye, challenging him to contradict him, ‘whether Diana ever intended to execute Jasper, Damian and Greg, he will tell you that she did not. She wanted to scare the living daylights out of them, and she succeeded. Damian literally shit himself. But she never intended that the death sentence be carried out.

‘Diana was a lawyer. She was also a very intelligent woman. The
first reason she commuted their death sentences was that she wanted their sperm, because she knew that genes are the key to our survival. The second reason she commuted the death sentence was because she saw them as a source of labour. They may have been idlers when they lived in the staterooms, but their legs drove this community forward and helped to provide us the life we are enjoying today when they were imprisoned.

‘But the third and most important reason she commuted the death sentence was because, as I said, she was a lawyer. Diana knew the law. She respected the law. She knew that the death sentence in England was illegal. And it is still illegal. Until and unless we change the law with our new constitution then the law of England as it was before the pandemic is the law by which we are governed now. If we do not observe the law then we are no better than Nigel or Damian. If we condemn these two men to death and take their lives we are breaking the law.’