The Unbelievers (27 page)

As he tried to picture what might happen next, though, he felt a sudden hot fever. He imagined these warders seizing him and dragging him away towards the scaffold. He felt the abrasion of the rope's knot being tightened round his neck and the rough pinioning of his arms behind his back. He imagined a pause, then a searing burn and a jerk as his body fell through the trapdoor followed by a last struggle for breath, his eyes popping and his tongue swelling. As he thought about it he felt his bowels liquefying.

And then what? Still part of his mind – habit, he supposed – was praying for God's forgiveness of his sins (pathetic and few though they seemed in balance with his fate) and his reception into a kingdom where all would be just and compassionate and where, soon enough, Josephine would join him for an eternity of joy. But a stronger voice was telling him that the brutal, industrial efficiency of execution would render him as dead as the animals despatched in their hundreds every day in the city's abattoir. All that would be left of him would be a carcass dissolving in its quicklime grave.

He was clutching his cramping stomach. Breathe deeply, he thought. Breathe slowly. Don't give these wretches the satisfaction of seeing you crumble.

And remember hope. Hope in this life if not the next. There's still time for a last-minute reprieve if Josephine has persuaded the Secretary for Scotland to review the case.

He reached out towards the gin then stayed his hand. No, he thought, I'm not going to stagger drunkenly towards my fate. His hand clutched instead round the envelope which Josephine had given, which she said had words which would give him strength and comfort if all other hope was lost. I'm either going to walk out of here a free man, or these pitiful men are going to have to drag me, in dignified non-co-operation, to the gallows. I refuse to cooperate in my own murder.

He looked at each of the warders' pale, poor complexions. Why should they be allowed to go home untroubled to wives and families after their complicity in putting an innocent man to death.

“You are the murderers here,” said Arthur, looking directly at each of them in turn. “My blood will be on your hands.”

The warder opposite leaned back in his chair and pulled out a fob-watch he'd concealed until now. He glanced at it and looked across at Arthur, his face as compassionless as stone.

“You want to be careful what you're saying, Reverend. Less than five minutes now before you'll have to account for it to your Maker.”

He put the watch away. Arthur swallowed and took Josephine's envelope from his pocket.

Allerdyce ran from the darkroom. He couldn't waste time making a print from the plate – the image would have to sit there in its chemical bath until he'd stopped the execution. There would be plenty of time after that to make it permanent and deal with the consequences.

It was nearly perfectly light now in the studio. The main gate of the prison was barely three minutes run away, but he wished there was some instant way the message could be transmitted through the ether like lightning. His own paces, bursting though the French windows and leaping down the steps to the street seemed painfully slow compared to the fatal revolution of the earth, nearly a thousand miles an hour, as the sun rose behind the prison.

Dear God, he thought, for once I know clearly what is right and what I must do. I don't know who the woman is – I don't want to think that it's Antonia – but help me to do what's right and save this innocent man. If you could just stop the sun from rising further and halt the clocks for an instant. I must save this man.

Arthur opened the envelope and unfolded the fragrant paper. He saw four words, written in what appeared to be his own handwriting.

‘
The Leap of Faith.
'

“No!” he shouted. “Not that! Not her!”

He tried to rush for the door. The warders grabbed him. He kicked out against them and against the table and the walls but their grip tightened.

The cell door opened. The Governor and the chaplain stood there. The Governor nodded at the warders. They turned him round, lifting him so that he was kicking into empty space. He was facing a cupboard which he'd barely noticed, having sat with his back to it for the whole deathwatch. A warder pushed it with his foot and it slid easily aside on rails to reveal an open door.

And beyond it the gallows.

Allerdyce shouted as he ran, hearing the tolling bell resonate with the pounding of his blood.

“Stop the execution! Open the door! For God's sake stop the execution!”

He reached the metal-studded wooden gate of the jail and beat at it.

“Police! Let me in! I have new evidence!”

He pounded with his fists till he saw his own blood on the door.

“Open Up! Now!”

A grille opened in the door at eye level and a warder looked at him suspiciously.

“Who are you, sir?”

“Police. Inspector Allerdyce. Just let me in.”

He heard a rattle of keys. As the warder worked the lock he turned to look at the east tower. Please, let there be time.

The bell sounded its last toll and a black flag ran swiftly up the flagpole.

He knelt, his face in his hands, and wept.

The warder led Allerdyce through clanging gates down twisting and narrowing corridors, and up a whitewashed staircase. As they marched briskly towards the condemned cell Allerdyce felt as if he was hastening towards his own execution.

The warder showed him into the cell from which Arthur had just been thrust into eternity. The door from the cell to the scaffold was open and the rope hung limply from the gallows.

The Governor was standing at far side of the door, looking down into the trapdoor through which Arthur had fallen to his death. He turned to face Allerdyce, his grey-bearded face looking heavy and old.

“Who's this?” asked the Governor.

“Inspector Allerdyce of the police, sir,” said the warder. “Says he wanted to stop the execution.”

“Bit late now.”

Allerdyce heard a heavy sliding noise in the other room. Dear God, he thought, they're dragging Arthur's body into his shroud.

“Are you sure he's dead?” Allerdyce asked.

“The surgeon has already satisfied me that the prisoner died almost instantly,” said the Governor. “A highly scientific and efficient execution.”

Allerdyce felt his whole body shivering and sweating and felt sick.

“He was innocent,” he said.

“What?”

“I found new evidence in the past few minutes. I ran here as fast as I could. He's innocent.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

The Governor sat down at the table. He rested his head in his hands for a moment before, slowly, looking up at Allerdyce.

“You're telling me that we've just hanged Scotland's premier Duke because the bloody police can't find evidence until the moment before his execution?”

“It's something that didn't come to light until now.”

The Governor poured himself a mug of gin from the pitcher on the table.

“What's this evidence, then?”

“A photograph. We've just found a photograph taken which shows a woman in the act of firing a gun at the scene of the crime.”

“By God, you mean the murder was even photographed and yet no-one thought to mention that before now?”

“I'm sorry. We had no idea until a few minutes ago.”

“And where is this photograph? Can I see it?”

“I don't have it. It's still sitting in the developing bath.” The Governor stood, his hands resting on the table. His voice trembled as he spoke.

“Mr Allerdyce, words cannot convey my horror at the inefficiency of a police service which consigns a peer of the realm to the ultimate punishment of the law, belatedly asserts that it is in fact mistaken, and even now is unable to produce evidence to establish its case. I will protest to the Chief Constable in the strongest possible terms about the conduct of this case. In the meantime, Inspector, I suggest that you retrieve the evidence which may yet save His Grace from the final ignominy of burial in a murderer's quicklime grave.”

Allerdyce stood outside the open French windows of the studio. He drew on the bitter smoke of his pipe. He'd thought a moment of smoking and contemplation would steady his mind before he went back in to look again at the image in the chemical bath, but it wasn't working. The tobacco tasted like ash and whatever way his mind turned it saw horror.

Poor Arthur, the warmth still leaving his scientifically-murdered body at this very moment. Antonia dragged through the courts whether she was guilty or not. And Margaret. She'd be horrified and humilated if she found out that her husband had been close friends with a prostitute for all the years of their marriage. And if Allerdyce was suspended or dismissed because of the company he'd kept they'd be destitute.

McGillivray would be here in a few minutes to corroborate the photograph. Allerdyce had sent a cab from the prison to McGillivray's house to collect him. No doubt the sergeant would treat him with a hostility and recrimination which he deserved.

If he'd been religious he'd have described his thoughts as prayer. But he knew they were just the anguished cry of a mind which wanted to save itself and the people it loved from the horrors which would follow with the inevitability of an algebraic sequence. If only the past hour could be reversed, the photographic plate destroyed, and the case left closed.

For an instant, he wondered about going into the darkroom before McGillivray arrived and destroying the negative. But both duty and prudence told him not to. He'd already admitted the existence of the photograph. There was no escape.

He knocked the ash out of his pipe against the brickwork surround of the French window. As he did, he looked at the door. It was only slightly ajar.

Strange, he thought. I'm sure I left it wide open when I ran out.

He opened the French window and stepped into the studio. It looked entirely undisturbed. He stopped and listened, but there was no sound above the birdsong which flowed in through the open window.

As he stood and listened again, though, he thought he heard a slight noise, no louder than the gurgling of a drink from bottle to glass, in the darkroom.

He paced as lightly as he could across the carpet, conscious even of the slight swishing of his soles across the pile. He reached the darkroom door and placed his ear to it, his hand on the doorknob.

The sound was more distinct this time, like a stopper being squeezed back into a bottle. He turned the doorknob, wishing as he did so that he was armed against whoever was in there.

He opened the door and stood for a second as his eyes adjusted to the dim red light. As the clouds of colour faded from his retinas he saw a figure standing beside the developing tray, his hand on a bottle.

Warner.

He saw Warner pick up the bottle. He dodged aside as Warner threw it and heard it smash against the wall beside him. He rushed at Warner and pushed him against the back wall of the darkroom.

“What the hell do you think you're doing, Warner? You're destroying police evidence. You're under arrest.”

“No I'm fucking not.” Warner pushed back against him.

Allerdyce grabbed Warner's throat and pinned him back against the wall.

“Who are you doing this for? Who's the woman in the photograph? Is it the Duchess?”

“You'll never bloody know,” gasped the valet, a fine haze of spittle hitting Allerdyces's face.

“Why did she send you? Why are you helping her?”

Warner's right arm was flailing towards the workbench as he tried to draw breath. I don't care about your pain, thought Allerdyce. I just need you to answer.

Allerdyce didn't see Warner's hand close round a bottle on the bench, but he screamed as he felt the acid burn into his eyeballs and skin.

“Help! I can't see!”

He struck out blindly but his fist hit the wall. He felt Warner punch him on the chest and trip him behind the ankle and fell to the floor, landing heavily on his half-healed arm. He recoiled from two sharp kicks to the stomach then heard the valet's retreating footsteps.

His face felt as if it was on fire. He grasped towards it with his fingers as if he could pull the heat and pain away, but the slightest touch redoubled the searing pain. He felt hot tears in burning rivulets down his cheeks and thought they were his melting eyes.

Only coolness could bring relief. He would crawl towards the open door.

He turned onto his hands and knees. Even in the pitch darkness of his blindness he could sense his directions from the garden-scented breeze.

As he found his way across the linoleum floor of the darkroom his right hand was stabbed by glass from the broken bottle, cutting deep into the flesh of his palm. He lifted his hand to his mouth and tasted blood mingled with an acid tang that stung like vinegar.

Pressing on, he felt his shoulder brush against the heavy black curtain before he reached the softness of the studio carpet. His burning eyes were closed but there was a kaleidoscope of colour and pain in his brain. The breeze was stronger here and he set his direction.

His forehead struck something hard. He reached up and felt the polished edge of the big wooden table in the centre of the studio. Lowering his head he carried on, praying that he could just leap into some chill vat of water and let the agony dissolve. At last a coolness blew over his face as the gravel of the path outside the French windows bit into his palms. He lay down on his side, hearing his rasping breaths and groans.

Jesus, he thought. What use am I going to be to Margaret if I'm blind?

He couldn't measure time. All he knew was that each beat of his heart brought a fresh pulse of pain. The stream of birdsong around him seemed to mock his agony. He had no idea how long it was before a gentle hand shook his shoulder.

“Sir?”

“Sergeant?”

“Are you all right, sir?”

“I can't see.”

“What happened?”

“It was Warner. He threw acid in my face and ran away.”

He felt himself being lifted.

“Come on, sir, we'll get you to a doctor.”

“No!” He struggled in the sergeant's arms.

“You need help, sir.” McGillivray grasped him more firmly.

“Not yet. You must go into the darkroom. There's a photograph in the developing tray. It shows who shot Arthur Bothwell-Scott.”

“Can't it wait, sir?”

“No. I think Warner poured something in to destroy it. The image could be fading as we speak.”

He felt McGillivray hesitate for a moment then lower him back to the ground. The door of the French window rattled as the sergeant barged past. He counted seventy of his laboured breaths before the sergeant came back.

“Well?”

“Nothing, sir. There's a glass plate in the bottom of the tray but it's completely clear.”

He lay his head down on the gravel. He was completely defeated. Warner had wrecked the evidence. Without the photograph he could never make a case against the murderess. He couldn't even corroborate the fact that Warner had destroyed it. He'd let an innocent man hang while his murderer inherited a wealth beyond belief.

The Duchess of Dornoch. There couldn't be any doubt that she'd sent Warner. The woman he hadn't been allowed to interview, because of the Chief Constable's delicacy about her female sensitivity. The woman who must have murdered her way through an entire family to get what she wanted.

Allerdyce was surprised to feel a smile starting to spread across his face. Every now and then in a police career you found someone so far above the usual banality and chaos of the criminal mind that you had to admire them. If he could, he'd like to get up right now and ask her how she had managed to murder four Dukes without detection. It was a crime, but it was also genius.

And he'd done the right thing. He'd risked everything – his marriage, his family, his career – to follow his conscience and find out this morning who'd shot Arthur. He'd even, in the darkroom, risked his life. And by some strange providence he'd survived.

He opened one eyelid slightly. It felt like the tearing of delicate flesh, and it was too painful to open the chink for more than a second. But in that second he could at least see light, and vague forms of what could be bushes.

“I'll help you up, sir. You really must see a doctor right now.” The sergeant's voice was close – he must be kneeling.

He let himself be lifted, and as he stood he held onto the sergeant's arm. He was amazed at the gentleness and strength of this man he'd wronged so badly. Grace – it was the only word for it, the power to do the right thing even to those who wronged you. And, he thought, may I have that grace too.

“I'm sorry, Sergeant.”

“Sorry, sir?”

“I'm sorry I suspected you. It was very wrong of me.”

“You did what seemed right to you from the evidence at the time, sir. I can't blame you.”

As he rested in the sergeant's grasp his eyes watered, the tears washing the acid from his corneas. The shapes before him resolved themselves into rosebushes, a wall, and the pink gravel of the path, all swimming before him as if they were eddying in some dense fluid.

I'll see again. I'll work again. My friends are safe and innocent. My marriage is safe. And think of what I've gained over these weeks. I've realised through those awful days of Alice's fever who I live to love and serve – not Helen's memory, not Antonia, but Margaret and the children. I've felt things with an intensity – a reality – which I've never felt since Helen died. I've experienced a deeper forgiveness from this good man who's holding me than I have ever known before. I know what my life is for from now on – to be an honest man, a good husband and father and a loyal comrade. He laughed, feeling a strange welling of joy from part of his mind that he hadn't known existed. Perhaps it was a form of madness, but if so it must be something like the madness which had made Patrick Slater want to pour out the remainder of his life in the service of the poor. It was the madness of grace, flooding his soul in a way he had never thought possible.