Authors: Hammond Innes
I laughed. ‘With the police after me?’
‘Better the police than a bomb – or a shot in the back.’
I stared at her, shocked by her words. ‘So you were in Northern Ireland.’ Why else would her mind run on bombs and murder? ‘You’re crazy,’ I said, seeing the wildness of her eyes, and the distortion of the pupils. ‘Your imagination always did run away with you when you got yourself –’
‘Oh, my imagination, is it?’ Her voice was high and strident. ‘And you accusing me of being drugged. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? You always accused me of that when you couldn’t think of anything else to say, when you’d lost your temper as well as the argument.’ Her tone had become
venomous. God! it took me back. ‘One day,’ she breathed darkly, ‘I’ll tell you why I do it. Then, Mother of God, maybe you’ll understand.’ She was staring up at me, breathing heavily. ‘But why should I bother? Why the hell …’ And then in a quieter voice: ‘Just so long as you’re out of the way. That’s all that matters.’ She said it like somebody in a dream, but when I asked her what she meant, she shrugged and turned away. ‘Go to hell!’ she said in a choking voice. ‘And don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ And she left me then, walking listlessly down the corridor. It was almost empty now. I watched her go, thinking about what she had said.
There’s nobody to stop you. But after this afternoon
… I was still thinking about that, wondering how she knew and who had sent her, when Hall returned. ‘He says we’ll just have to see what the defence has turned up.’
‘But what about the other witnesses?’ I demanded.
‘I’m afraid they didn’t stand up too well under crossexamination. I told you Mendip had something of a reputation. Old Mrs Rogers from No. 7 became a little flustered and confused. She was wearing glasses and Mendip concentrated on that, finally getting her to admit her sight wasn’t all that good, especially at night. Sayre didn’t press her very hard on re-examination. He was relying on you.’
‘And what about the witness who saw them park their car?’
‘A young man standing against some railings with his girl friend. It’s not conclusive, and Mendip leaned on him heavily, getting him to admit that he was otherwise occupied. He thought they went into Washbrook Road, that was all, and he was vague about the time.’
So it was as Stevens had said – my word against that of this new witness. I asked Hall who he was, but he didn’t know. ‘Better get yourself some lunch. The court resumes at two.’
I think at that stage I still believed Sayre could dispose of a witness I knew to be lying. But when the court resumed and I saw the man in the dock I wasn’t so sure. His name was Edward Bradshaw, a pale, rather gaunt man with thinning
hair and a hesitant, slightly earnest manner. He claimed he had watched it all from the front room of No. 8. Prompted by counsel, he gave his evidence in a quiet voice that had hardly any trace of a local accent, and his evidence was totally different from mine. No, he had not seen either of the accused that night. ‘There was only one man in the garden across the road.’ And he added, ‘I remember quite clearly. He stood up suddenly from a crouched position, and I saw his arm swing back, then he threw something and the window shattered. I thought it was some hooligan heaving a brick – then the flames started leaping and spreading. The curtains caught fire and I saw the little girl’s face at the upstairs window.’
Counsel stopped him there. ‘You’re certain only one man was involved?’
‘Definitely.’
‘And you saw his face?’
‘Not in the garden, but when he came up the street.’
‘You saw him in the street light?’
‘That’s right. He was the same side of the road as me then and I saw him plain as – well, very clear. I was a bit nervous laike, so I was watching him and thinking he might –’
‘Never mind what you were thinking,’ counsel’s voice cut in quickly. ‘Do you see him in this courtroom?’
‘He’s raight there, behind you.’ He lifted his arm, his finger pointing at me.
‘Thank you. That’s all.’ Lawrence Mendip sat down.
Sayre did his best to discredit the man. Under cross-examination Bradshaw admitted he was not the owner of No. 8, or even a visitor. He had happened to be passing, had seen the gate open and had gone in out of curiosity.
‘I think you said you were actually in the house when observing what happened at No. 5 opposite. How did you get into the house?’
‘Well, the back door was open, you see.’
‘So you entered the house – out of curiosity.’
‘That’s raight.’
‘
Where were you when you saw Mr Randall pass under the street light?’
‘In the front room.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Just looking round.’
‘Casing the joint would be a more accurate term, wouldn’t it?’ There was a moment’s silence, and then Sayre said, ‘This is not the first time, is it? You’ve been caught breaking and entering before.’
‘I didn’t steal anything, not a thing. You can’t pin that on me. An’ I wouldn’t be here but for a sense of pooblic duty. When I read that these two young men had been arrested for something they never did –’
‘You admit you went into that house with the intention of thieving.’
‘Just looking for some spare cash, that’s all. You’d do the same, I wouldn’t wonder, with five kids and no work because of the strike.’ He was facing towards the jury then, not Sayre. ‘All raight. I would have taken any cash left lying about. I admit that. But if some fool leaves his door open …’ He turned back to Sayre in answer to a question. ‘No, I never used force on it. The door was open, I tell you, and then I was in that room, in the dark, when I heard his footsteps. That man –’ He nodded towards me. ‘I didn’t know what he was. And then standing in the shadows opposite, naturally I watched to see what he was up to. That’s how I saw what happened, an’ that’s the man sitting there.’
Sayre was able to show that in one particular Bradshaw’s evidence was inaccurate – the curtains could not have caught fire because Mrs Entwisle had taken them down for cleaning two days before. He also got an admission out of him that he had served a sentence for theft. But he could not shake him. The man stuck to his story, and the fact that the occupants of the house were away and that he had entered with intent to commit a felony seemed somehow to make it all the more convincing. It explained his reluctance to come forward. It
made his presence in the witness stand, at the risk of prosecution, an unselfish act that called for some sympathy, not disbelief.
Re-examining, counsel for the defence was able to drum these points home. No other witness was called. Neither of the accused gave evidence. And in his first words to the jury, Mendip emphasized that, though they might have reservations about accepting the evidence of a man who admitted he had once been convicted for theft, they had to bear in mind that the main witness for the prosecution had also been in prison, though for different reasons. ‘So you have two witnesses, two entirely different statements, both given under oath. They are absolutely contradictory. You are not required to decide which is the truth. All that is required of you is that you determine whether, in view of the fact that there is no satisfactory evidence to support either testimony, you can possibly convict these two young men, both protesting their innocence. I say you cannot. You cannot convict when doubt – extreme doubt, you may feel – has been cast on the case for the prosecution.’
The judge in his summing up took a similar line, but less firmly and with some reluctance. ‘Of one thing there is no doubt. The witness, Michael Randall, entered the burning house and rescued Amelia Entwisle at some risk to himself. If the other witness is telling the truth, then you may reasonably ask yourselves why he did not attempt to rescue the child himself, or at least to offer assistance to the man who did. After all, once he was out of No. 8 he ceased to be a trespasser and became just a passer-by. There is, therefore, no reason at all why he should not have gone to Randall’s assistance. Instead, according to his evidence, he remained concealed, a watcher, taking no part, offering no help. You may feel that only proves him to be a nervous, perhaps frightened man at the time. Or you may feel it indicates that his testimony is false. Are you to believe him, or are you to believe Randall? It is not easy for the jury when the two main witnesses are
suspect. One of these men is a liar and it is for you to decide which.’
But then he added, ‘However, this is not your prime responsibility. Your prime responsibility is to the prisoners – are they guilty or not guilty? Here doubt alone is sufficient. If such conflicting testimony raises a doubt in your mind – a reasonable doubt – then you must give the prisoners the benefit of that doubt. But if you accept Randall’s testimony, then there is no doubt, just as there is no doubt about his rescuing the child. You will now retire and consider your verdict.’
The jury were out barely ten minutes. They found both the prisoners Not Guilty and there was a murmur of approval from some of the public. And as the judge dismissed the case and ordered the prisoners to be released a constable appeared at my side. I was hurried out of the building by a back entrance and into a police car.
I wasn’t taken back to my hotel. I was driven instead to Hull Central Police Station and put in a room with a uniformed constable. I didn’t argue. I think I was too shocked by what had happened. I have always differentiated in my mind between law and justice. The law is part of the Establishment, the rules by which the System perpetuates itself – but, strangely, I had always respected British justice. The laws might be wrong, but within the limits set by those laws, I believed British men and women did dispense justice. Now a lying witness, suborned to pervert the course of justice, had led judge, jury and lawyers by the nose, convicting me there in that court, though I was not on trial.
And Fiona had known. She had warned me.
You shop those boys and they’ll nail you
. She had known that justice, like truth, could be turned upside down, an image in a distorting mirror. And I hadn’t believed her. I had let slip the opportunity to escape, convinced that justice could recognize truth, and Sayre hadn’t even recalled me to the witness stand. The rules of the game did not allow it. Instead, he had thrown in his hand, and in doing so had branded me a liar.
The door opened and an officer in plain clothes came in and sat down at the table opposite me. He had the usual form. ‘Name please …’ and he began filling it in as I answered his questions. And when that was done, he said, ‘Are you prepared to make a statement?’
‘My statement is in the court records.’
But that wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted a completely new statement, and he cautioned me.
‘Are you going to charge me?’
He shrugged. ‘That will depend on your statement. In any case, it’s not for me to decide.’
And so I went over it all again and he wrote it down laboriously in longhand, then took it away to be typed. When he returned and I had signed it, I said, ‘I want to speak to Inspector Garrard.’ And I gave him the slip of paper with the number on it. ‘I think he’s a Special Branch officer.’
He looked at it and then at me. ‘It’s unusual …’
‘So is what happened in court today,’ I told him angrily.
‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He nodded to the phone on the table. ‘We’ll put it through here if we get him.’ He left me then and I was alone in the room. Maybe I could have walked out, but it never occurred to me. I was too busy thinking what I would say to Garrard if they managed to get through to him.
It was a long wait, and then suddenly the phone rang and I picked it up. ‘Inspector Garrard?’
‘Yes.’
‘Randall,’ I said. ‘You told me to ring you –’
‘Go ahead.’
I began to explain what had happened in court, but he said, ‘I know all about that. What is it you want to tell me?’
I told him then about the man calling himself Stevens, how he had come on board the
Fisher Maid
in Aberdeen. And then about the second meeting when we were anchored off Ham in Foula. The name meant nothing to him, but when I had given him a description I thought I detected a sudden interest. ‘You say it’s Villiers he’s after?’
‘Not Villiers personally, but his reputation. It’s the rig chiefly.’
‘What can he do to the rig?’
I tried to explain, but sitting there in an office in a police station, the rig sounded very remote, the loneliness of the sea area west of Shetland impossible to convey. And then I asked him about my father. ‘Is he still alive, do you know?’
‘Have you any reason to believe he is?’
‘Only that you were right when you said he was brought out of Norway in 1942. The
Duchess
picked him up and Stevens implied that you would know.’
There was a moment’s silence. ‘What exactly did he say?’
‘That rehabilitation is a long process and not many survived. I think he was referring to men returned to Russia after the war.’
‘What else?’
‘Nothing, except he suggested it might make a difference if I were able to talk to him.’
‘But you haven’t?’
‘No, of course not. Otherwise I wouldn’t be asking you for confirmation that he’s still alive.’
There was a pause. Then he said, ‘I can’t answer that. I’m not sure.’ And then I heard him murmur reflectively, ‘He couldn’t possibly – he’d be too old.’
‘Too old? For what?’ I asked him.
But all he said was, ‘No, it’s out of the question. And this man Stevens – where’s he operating from?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And you don’t know his real name.’ A faint sound like a sigh came over the line. ‘Well, I’ll have the local police check on Sandford. At least we know where to find him. But –’ Another long pause, and then he said, ‘Look, I’ll be honest with you. I talked with Detective-Sergeant Gorse. You’re suspected of committing perjury. When was your meeting with this man Stevens – weeks ago, wasn’t it? Well, wasn’t it?’ And when I admitted that it was over six weeks ago, he said,
‘Then why the devil didn’t you contact me before?’
‘I tried to,’ I said. ‘I rang the number you gave me from the rig, but you weren’t there.’