Past Caring (78 page)

We took the hint of probability. Would she have shot Sellick herself if I’d let her? She thought so. We felt we knew so. She spared herself—and us—none of the details of her grandson’s treachery or Sellick’s final demands. By the end, I saw in some of the jurors’

faces the thought that they might—just possibly—have done the same as me. We’d established a kind of fellowship.

“Your witness, Mr. Thorndyke.”

“No questions, m’lud.”

No questions? Cross-examining Elizabeth was bound to be a risky business—risky because, if she could have been rattled, it might only have heightened the jury’s sympathy for her. But surely the risk had to be taken? Suspicion grew in my mind.

However lax Thorndyke’s challenge to our evidence was, the burden of proof remained with us. Handwriting experts were called. Yes, the photocopied Postscript had been written by the author of the Memoir. The jury was given a weekend in which to read the telling extracts. But only extracts. Dane, Thorndyke and the judge had gone into a huddle and emerged with an agreement on that. “Best to keep it brief,” I was told. Of course. But somehow I suspected something else.

Strafford’s public career wasn’t so much as mentioned, far less any hint given that he might have been done down by political enemies. In return—or so it seemed—Thorndyke gave Elizabeth an easy ride and allowed Dane to lead the jury towards the desired verdict. His summing-up was, in its way, a triumph.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you to consider the salient features of this remarkable case. On the one hand, we have the deceased—Leo Sellick, an elderly, wealthy, South African businessman. Materially, he lacked for nothing. But, on a personal 486

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level, he was friendless, secretive and increasingly obsessed with the father who deserted his mother before he was born and condemned him to an orphan’s upbringing. When he finally traced his father, the man was dead and beyond his reach. Only his family remained to face his wrath.

“On the other hand, we have the defendant—Martin Radford, a young unemployed history graduate, hired by the deceased to provide the evidence with which to blackmail the Couchmans.

Not that my client knew that to be his intention. He embarked innocently on what he thought to be an exercise in historical research.

“We know from Lady Couchman’s courageous testimony what that evidence was. We know it may have played a part in her son’s death in a car accident on June 13th this year. We know that, only a matter of days after the accident, Sellick presented Lady Couchman with an ultimatum: to cooperate in a dubious literary exposé of her late husband’s youthful indiscretion, or let Sellick do his worst.

“My client had every reason to believe he had unwittingly imperilled the welfare of a woman whom he had come to admire—whom I think we have all come to admire. On the afternoon of June 21st he was forced to watch helplessly whilst Sellick abused and harangued Lady Couchman at her home, at one point throwing a glass of wine into her face. It was at that point that my client lost control of himself—momentarily, as any man might.

As it happened—solely as a result of his endeavours to protect Lady Couchman from herself—he had a loaded gun on his person. In the heat of the moment and goaded beyond endurance, he drew the gun and fired, killing Sellick instantly.

“So much he readily confesses. To term this murder is, I believe, to distort the truth. The prosecution has failed to challenge the evidence of provocation brought before you. I suggest that a verdict of manslaughter would be sufficient punishment for a man who has already suffered much. I suggest that to be, in the circumstances, your only proper verdict.”

So far so good. But the judge was no impressionable juror.

He’d scowled and grimaced silently through a week of Dane’s

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florid advocacy with every appearance of a man whose plain tastes were being painfully assaulted. Mr. Justice Keppel had the final say and didn’t intend to waste it.

“Members of the jury, it is my duty to remind you that your task is a serious and sober one, not to be addressed in an emotional or casual manner. Whatever may have been said against the deceased, remember that he is not here to defend himself.

“This case turns upon a straightforward legal point. It falls to me to offer you straightforward legal advice. The defendant admits homicide but denies murder. He pleads guilty to manslaughter on the ground of provocation, perhaps the least well defined of all the grounds for commutation of murder to manslaughter.

“I must therefore draw your attention to the relevant section of the Homicide Act of 1957, which reads as follows: ‘Where, on a charge of murder, there is evidence on which the jury can find that the person was provoked to lose his self-control, the question whether the provocation was enough to make a reasonable man do as he did shall be left to be determined by the jury.’

“The matter is therefore in your hands. However, I must first direct you on certain other points. The defence has produced sufficient evidence of provocation to warrant your serious consideration—that is unquestionable. I could have wished”—he shot a glare at Thorndyke—“for a more rigorous examination of that evidence by the prosecution, but no matter. The defendant killed the deceased in the heat of the moment. The absence of cooling time tells in his favour. He might not have done so had he not had a gun on his person at the time. He does not seem to have been carrying that gun with any sinister intent. All that too tells in his favour.

“Yet one factor tells against him. In common law, it is traditionally held that the mode of retaliation must bear a reasonable relationship to the provocation. Thus fists may be answered with fists, but not with a deadly weapon. In this case, mere words—and a technical assault on Lady Couchman—were answered with a bullet. Was such a response truly proportionate to the provocation? I think not. But it is for you to decide.”

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The jury were out for three hours. Dane and Tremlett came down to my cell to reassure me. Dane was ebulliently confident.

“Keppel’s last shot won’t shake them,” he said. “I have them in the palm of my hand. We’ll get the right verdict, Mr. Radford, never fear.”

It was Tremlett who uttered a level-headed word of warning.

“The judge seems more hostile than the prosecution. It’s worrying. Remember, whatever the verdict, he’s the one to pass sentence.”

“And what is the maximum sentence for manslaughter?”

“The same as for murder.”

The jury were as good as Dane’s word. They came back and brought in a verdict of manslaughter. Dane shook my hand vigorously. Elizabeth smiled encouragingly from the public seating above me. Yet Tremlett’s words hung in my mind. Keppel’s wig-framed, law-lined faced was a mask. He adjourned to consider the sentence overnight.

Lewes Crown Court. Tuesday, October 11th. A mild day, sunlight and birdsong venting through the high, open windows. The press gallery packed, awaiting the final pickings. Dane’s confident prediction: “He has no choice, Mr. Radford, believe me. A light sentence: three years or so. You’ll be out in two.” But Keppel, brooding and impassive on the bench, had the last word. Faced with his slicing eye and the thoughts I could read behind his censorious brow, I elected to say nothing.

“Martin Kenneth Radford, you have been found guilty of manslaughter. The jury have, in their wisdom, accepted your plea that this is a more appropriate verdict than murder. I agree with them, as I am bound to do.

“Nevertheless, a man has died. However sore his provocation of you, that cannot go unpunished. It is not my intention to allow the idea to gain ground that, simply because a man may seem, by contemporary standards, to be harshly—even brutally—motivated, his killer may excuse himself for that reason. When that

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day comes, civilized society—which relies upon legal redress for alleged wrongs—will have lost its head. This court, I can assure you, has not lost its head, despite all your learned counsel’s polished appeals to the hearts of the jurors.

“I accept that you were provoked into killing Leo Sellick.

For that reason—and only for that reason—a verdict of manslaughter and a sentence less than the maximum are appropriate.

I do not accept, however, that your retaliation to that provocation can fairly be said to have been proportionate. Amongst the many charges alleged against Leo Sellick, homicide does not feature.

That is your offence and the one for which I am bound to impose proportionate punishment. You will go to prison for fifteen years.”

“Proportionate punishment.”

I wanted to shout at him to stop. I wanted to shout: “You don’t understand. Leo Sellick murdered my closest friend on a railway line in Devon 26 years ago. Isn’t that proportionate?”

But I said nothing. Silence clamped me with the mute force of a dream. Keppel wouldn’t have understood. We’d told him nothing of Strafford. He was just a name, a shadow beyond the shafts of sunlight.

“Proportionate punishment.”

The moment had come and gone. The game was won and lost. A prison officer took my arm. Dane muttered a rounded, Q.C.’s response: “We’ll appeal.” I looked up at Elizabeth. She shook her head, as if to say her old, weak best hadn’t been good enough. But it had been. You could tell by the pressmen bunching at the exit.

Six months after Keppel had bludgeoned me with a fifteen-year sentence, the Appeal Court reduced it to ten. Dane, who’d have been appalled by even ten first time round, hailed it as a personal accolade. I suppose he had his career to think of. With maximum remission I only had to do another six years and my chances of parole even before that were pretty good. In the autumn of 1979, I was transferred to Ford Open Prison. After the bleakness of Lewes, it was like a holiday camp. I reconciled myself to keeping my nose clean and my head down for the rest of my time. What had once seemed unthinkable became first routine, then just tolerable and finally boring. In the last couple of years at Ford, the Education Officer used my teaching expertise to take the load off his shoulders and getting some of my fellow-inmates through C.S.E.s gave me more satisfaction than any of the work I ever did at Axborough.

My contact with the outside world diminished as my life inside became more self-sufficient. The big break came in the summer of 1978. Elizabeth, who’d written and visited me more than anyone, told me what she’d actually been planning for some time.

She’d bought Quinta do Porto Novo from Sellick’s estate after lengthy negotiations with a Capetown solicitor.

“I feel sure you, above all people, will understand why,” she wrote to me from Quarterleigh. “Life here can never be the same for me following the traumatic events of last year. I am glad to have stayed and done my poor best for you, but now that is set-

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tled—not to my satisfaction or, alas, yours—I want to make a complete break. If I wait I shall be too old and frail to do anything about it. I shall be ninety next year and have resolved to confront that milestone with a thorough change.

“So, where better than the equable climate of Madeira? I have been considering it for some time and, at last, all the legal and financial arrangements have been made. Mr. Tremlett has been there recently and assures me that the Quinta is in good order. Dora, bless her, has agreed to accompany me, though how she will get on with the Portuguese staff I dread to think. We are combining the journey with a cruise to the Mediterranean, embarking in early September. I shall, of course, be along to see you several times before then. And, when you are free, I shall expect regular visits from you in Madeira.

“I have not felt entirely at ease in this house since Mr. Sellick died here. In the house where Edwin found a form of happiness, I hope to regain the peace of mind that he tried so hard to win for me.”

Surprised though I was by the news, I found it easy to understand Elizabeth’s decision and wished her well, promising to be on hand in Madeira for her hundredth birthday, even though I couldn’t be there for her ninetieth. It didn’t turn out like that, of course, but it was a happy thought.

After Elizabeth had gone, my contact with her was reduced to regular, bulging airmail letters full of the relish with which she confronted the challenge of a new life so late in the day. “We still keep Edwin’s study exactly as it was. I am writing this at his desk.

Otherwise, you wouldn’t recognize the place. Sprucing it up seems to have given me a new lease on life” . . . “Gabriel (the estate manager) promises a fine harvest this year. Soon, I hope to be able to send you some madeira under my own label” . . . “Dora and Tomás have, I am glad to say, made up their differences” . . .

“I look often from this window at the sea and think of England, but without regret—I never expect to come home again now because, you see, I feel truly at home here” . . . “Time cannot erase the sadnesses of life, but it can help us to learn from them the hardest lesson of all: that even one’s mistakes are enriching.”

So she wrote to me on her 94th birthday. By then, the Parole 492

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Board had released me on licence. But I still wasn’t free to visit her. Until my normal release date with maximum remission, February 1984, I wasn’t allowed to leave the country.

All that changed in November of 1983. Word came from Madeira that Elizabeth had died peacefully in her sleep one night at Quinta do Porto Novo. It was only to be expected, of course, but I felt cheated by it, denied one last, deserved meeting by an un-feeling bureaucracy. The shock broke the trance into which prison life had lulled me. Whatever had then happened, I doubt I could have gone on as before.