Blood on the Water (9 page)

Finally Hester made herself look up at the dock where the accused man sat, well guarded on either side by uniformed wardens. He was dark-skinned and his thick hair was black, gray at the temples. He appeared to be in his late forties, which she had not expected. Somehow she had imagined a younger, more fanatical-looking man. She could see no passion in his face, no fire at all. He looked more ill than frightened. It was hard to imagine that he had exacted such a terrible revenge on the people of a country he possibly hated. It seemed not to have brought him satisfaction. But then perhaps revenge never did.

At last the jury were sworn in and the proceedings began in earnest. Both prosecution and defense gave powerful and lengthy statements of their respective cases before Camborne called his first witness, a ferryman who had been on the river the night of the atrocity.

Hester found herself stiff, her hands clenched. This was where Monk should have testified. Would Juniver ask why he was not here? But then did any of this actually matter at all, or make any difference to the outcome? Or was it a charade to satisfy the law, so Beshara could be hanged and the public feel that justice had been accomplished?

The ferryman’s name was Albert Hodge. He stood uncomfortably in the high witness box above the floor of the court. He was an ordinary-seeming man, tired-looking and clearly a little frightened. His face was weathered from spending day and night in the open air, in all seasons. He wore what was probably his best coat. Even so, it strained a little across the breadth of his shoulders, which had been made powerful by a lifetime’s drag of the oars through the water, battling the current and the tides.

Camborne walked out into the middle of the floor, like an actor to center stage.

“Mr. Hodge,” he began smoothly, even sympathetically, “I’m sorry to ask you to relive what was probably one of the worst nights of your life, but you speak for all the brave men on the river that night who witnessed what happened, and worked until daylight and beyond, trying to rescue the drowning and bring back the bodies of the dead.”

Hester shivered. The emotion was already so highly charged in the room that she could feel it like a coming storm, heavy and churning with unspent electricity. In a few sentences Camborne had set the tone. Juniver must know that. If he tried to defuse it he would be guilty of seeming to diminish the tragedy, and that would be a fatal mistake.

Hodge began almost awkwardly, repeating himself and apologizing for it. He need not have; his simple language and obvious distress were far more affecting than any ease of vocabulary would have been.

In the gallery no one moved. There was just the occasional exhalation of breath and creak of a wooden seat.

As Hester listened to him speak, she heard Monk’s voice in her mind, saw him at the oars, straining his back to get to the drowning in time, peering through the darkness to see the white of a desperate face, the drift of a woman’s gown beneath the filthy water. She felt the helplessness Hodge tried to express, forgetting the present and the lawyers in their wigs and gowns, even oblivious of Ingram York presiding above them.

Hodge had worked all night, first receiving the desperate living, then hauling the tragic dead into his boat. Finally there were no more dead, only the shattered pieces of the boat.

When at last Juniver rose, he was facing hostility so strong it was palpable. It was unforgivable that anyone should try to excuse this or disregard the grief, and he had to know that.

Hester swallowed nervously, wondering what on earth he could say. Did he feel as lost, as overwhelmed as she did? From his face she could not tell. Even the way he stood revealed nothing.

“We thank you for your time and your honesty, Mr. Hodge,” Juniver
began gravely. “The experience is beyond anything we know, but you have made it as real for us as anybody could.” He cleared his throat. “You have said there were others who struggled to save anyone they could reach at the time, and long into the night after that, to find the bodies and bring them ashore. Did that include the police, do you know?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Hodge agreed quickly. “River Police was there all night. Saw ’em meself. Mr. Monk—’e’s the boss o’ them—’e were there right from the start, an’ even went down in one o’ them suits inter the wreck the next day, God ’elp ’im!”

Juniver’s thin face registered surprise. “Really? You’re sure of that?”

Hodge could not keep a flicker of anger from his face. “ ’Course I am. Anyone wot works the river knows ’im.”

“Can you think of any reason why he has not been called to give evidence here: an experienced river policeman who actually saw it all?” Juniver asked innocently.

York leaned forward as if to interrupt, but Hodge spoke before he did.

“No, sir, I can’t,” Hodge replied.

“Perhaps my learned friend has some reason that has not occurred to us?” Juniver looked across at Camborne. It was a small point, and in the heat of the moment it might mean nothing, but it was a valid one. Should there be an appeal, it would be remembered.

Hester looked at York and saw a flash of irritation cross his face, cutting the lines more deeply around his mouth.

Camborne affected indifference and did not respond. Instead he called his next witness, a bargee named Baker. He gave a similar account of the horror and pity he had felt at pulling bodies out of the water.

“Did you see the ship itself go down?” Camborne asked, his brows raised, his eyes wide.

There was not a movement in the room.

“ ’Appened in moments, sir,” Baker told Camborne. “One minute it was all lights and music an’ laughter I could ’ear from where I was,
mebbe fifty yards away. I were close. Then that terrible roar, an’ flames shot out of ’er bow, lit up the night.” He blinked. “ ’Urt the eyes ter look at it. An’ before yer could come to yer senses and realize wot yer’d seen, she up-tailed an’ plunged inter the water, an’ everything went dark—black dark like the night swallowed ’er up.” There were gasps around the room, and the sound of one person weeping with inconsolable grief.

“Thank you, Mr. Baker,” Camborne murmured quietly. “Your witness,” he offered Juniver.

Juniver had enough sense not to invite further disaster upon himself; he politely declined to ask any questions.

Baker left the stand. The court adjourned for luncheon.

The afternoon began with one of the doctors who had treated some of the survivors, and later examined the bodies of at least thirty of the dead. He was a quietly spoken, solid man with gentle eyes and thick, white side-whiskers. Gravely, his voice tight and cracking with emotion, he described what he had seen. He showed no hysteria, no anger, just grief.

Hester recognized Camborne’s skill. Anyone not moved by the account—the terrible state of the bodies, the range of victims from the youngest of the women to the white-haired men, all enjoying a summer evening on the river, when out of nowhere the party had been torn apart, drowned in the dark and filthy water, some washed to sea, never to be recovered—must be devoid of all human feeling; yet there was nothing for Juniver to inquire after, nothing to question or doubt.

It was early in the afternoon, but the entire courtroom was already exhausted from the emotion of it. It was both merciful to adjourn, and a wise tactic on Camborne’s part. No one who had sat through the evidence would sleep unhaunted by nightmares, or leave unaware of the precious fragility of such happiness as they had. All would ache for the small comfort that would be offered by knowledge that justice had been meted against the man who had caused such grief.

T
HE SECOND DAY BEGAN
with the testimony of the man in charge of raising the wreck of the
Princess Mary
and hauling it ashore. His name was Worthington. He was in his forties, lean and strong, his hair thinning a little, his face weathered dark by the elements. He looked uncomfortable in his suit. Several times he half lifted his head, as if to ease the high-collared white shirt around his neck, then changed his mind.

He told the story of hauling up the wreck with as little emotion as possible. He could have been speaking of raising any wreck: the practical difficulties, the skills and the equipment needed.

Hester sat in almost the same seat as she had the previous day, and listened as Camborne led the witness through the process of raising a shattered and sunken ship. The tension in the room eased a little as he allowed the people present to concentrate on the technical details. When this part was over he would ask about the bodies. She had watched him long enough to know that he would time it perfectly: asking enough to horrify the jurors, to draw every ounce of pity from them, but not so much that the listeners were exhausted and their emotions numbed. He would leave scope for the imagination to work.

She looked across at the faces of the jurors: twelve ordinary men. Except, of course, that they were not ordinary. They must by law all own property, which ruled out far more people than it included. They must be worthy citizens, themselves above reproach. That ruled out a few more. All women were excluded automatically. Was this truly a jury of peers? Hardly. Did it matter? Probably not at all in this case. For once there was no social division over the crime, no sympathy at all for the accused, no difference in the rage or the pain between rich and poor, man or woman, churchgoer or atheist.

They might register their feelings in slightly varying ways, but the result would be the same. Hester might be one of very few in the courtroom who realized that Camborne had not connected any of the events with the silent man who sat in the dock.

For the rest of the morning Worthington gave expert evidence on exactly what had caused the
Princess Mary
to sink so disastrously
quickly that only a few of those on deck at the time had managed to escape.

In the afternoon he told in specific detail how the explosion was caused by a heavy charge of dynamite, where it had been placed and how it ignited.

As to who had done it, that was entirely another matter, and Camborne said that would be explained when the trial resumed the following Monday.

York adjourned them for the weekend.

H
ESTER DID NOT DISCUSS
the trial with Monk over the Saturday and Sunday, and he did not ask her. She had told both him and Scuff that she had attended, but had heard nothing they hadn’t already deduced. They were not satisfied, but they did not press her, and she guided the conversation to other subjects: family things, and what Scuff was learning at school—a subject he avoided answering with some skill. She made a mental note to inquire further later on.

The conversation shifted to what they would like to do when they had a weekend free and could travel. Brighton was not far. Or Hastings? Scuff wished to see Leeds Castle, which, despite its name, was in Kent, not in Yorkshire. Perhaps they could go to Canterbury Cathedral and the high altar before which Archbishop Thomas à Becket had been murdered by the king’s men, seven hundred years ago. They discussed that at some length, and in detail, and the
Princess Mary
was temporarily forgotten.

O
N
M
ONDAY MORNING THE
whole tragedy returned with renewed force as Hester took her seat in the courtroom again. She had written once to Oliver Rathbone, sending the letter to Rome to await his arrival. She had done so largely because she wished to record her impressions while they were still fresh in her mind rather than remember them in the light of whatever should happen subsequently.

Listening to the conversations around her as the public waited for the proceedings to begin, she heard no arguments as to guilt or innocence, only anger that the whole series of events had occurred. In one or two instances there was a degree of irritation that Juniver should defend Beshara at all.

Hester had a considerable sympathy for Juniver. She did not imagine he was speaking for Beshara for any reason except that without a legal defense, there could be no conviction, and therefore no sentence. She had to exercise more control than usual over her tongue to keep from pointing this out to the people behind her. But experience had taught her that such arguments failed. You cannot tell people to take into account what they do not wish to know.

She sat silently, feeling extraordinarily alone. Was she the only person here who was even considering the possibility that Beshara was not guilty at all? There was no doubt as to the crime or its horror, but the prosecution had not yet produced any connection with the man supposedly guilty of the act!

The first witness to be called was Sir John Lydiate, the man who had replaced Monk at the head of the investigation.

To begin with Hester had been angry with him, until sense prevailed and she realized that he also had no choice in the matter. Now, looking at him in the witness stand, isolated from the rest of the court by the high box at the top of its own winding steps, and the fact that it was several yards from anyone else, stared at by all, she felt sorry for him.

Camborne was respectful of Lydiate’s rank and spoke with great courtesy, but he was very much in control of the entire exchange. He stretched it from the opening of the court on Monday morning, right through until the adjournment for luncheon on Tuesday. It was masterful. Every fact of the explosion was raised, every detail was dealt with regarding the entire investigation and every piece of evidence Lydiate’s men had found, every witness they questioned and every conclusion drawn.