The Edge of the Fall (56 page)

‘She might be. She's usually very busy with the children. But you could come and say hello.'

‘If it wouldn't be an intrusion?' His American accent was so much lighter now. Or perhaps she'd become more used to American accents, hearing them around London, sometimes on the radio.

She shook her head and they set off up to the flat. He asked her other questions, pretending, she supposed, not to have read every detail about them in the newspapers. She told him about Stoneythorpe as a hospital, Emmeline's twins and Euan. Not the other things – Louisa, Arthur, how Tom had been one of the men who'd killed Michael. He told her a little about New York and his family there, his sisters and their children. She tried to pay attention.

Almost as soon as she arrived back at the flat, she realised that the visit had been a mistake. She could hear Euan screaming and Lily making a fuss about something or other. She stood outside the door, hearing the shouts and knowing Emmeline would be harried and cross, not wanting a visit.

‘Perhaps it isn't a good time,' said Jonathan. ‘I'm sure the children are tired.'

‘No, no,' she replied, against herself. ‘Come on in.' She pulled open the door and Lily was on the floor, kicking at the sofa. Emmeline was jogging Euan, trying to get him to take some milk from a bottle. Albert was sitting apart from them all, playing with a toy car.

Emmeline looked up. ‘Celia! I've been waiting for you.' She gazed at Jonathan. ‘Who are you?'

‘It's Jonathan, Emmy, Michael's friend. Don't you remember?'

She was staring at him, the milk bottle in her hand. ‘It's like seeing a ghost. I haven't seen you for years.'

‘Not since before the war. So much has changed.' He reached out to shake her hand. ‘We all miss Michael so much.' Euan started screaming again. Emmeline looked back at her baby, tried to jog him again.

Celia held out her arms to Emmeline. ‘I'll take Euan. You're exhausted.' She sat on the sofa with him, red and bawling, patting his forehead. She felt a little ashamed, but she didn't think she loved him as much as she had Albert and Lily when they were born. Perhaps it was because she'd been there at the time, but still, she found Euan cross and more difficult to soothe. She patted his forehead again.

Jonathan had found a wooden clothes peg on the side. He'd taken out a pen and he was drawing a face on it. ‘See,' he said to Lily. ‘I'll make you a doll.'

Even Albert was looking, watching Jonathan draw on a face. ‘Do you have a piece of material?' he said. ‘I could make it a dress.' Emmeline looked around and found a red scrap.

‘See,' said Jonathan. ‘You shall go to the ball.' He pulled out a piece of string from his pocket, and a knife, and cut a small piece, tied it around the peg and in a bow. ‘The finest gown.'

Lily picked up the doll, smiling.

‘Does she have a name?' said Jonathan.

‘Princess,' she pondered. ‘Princess London.'

‘Princess London it is. Do you think she would like to drive around in your brother's car?'

She nodded. ‘I think so, very much.'

Celia watched as he charmed the children, made Lily talk, made Albert share his toy. Emmeline took Euan off to settle him. ‘What do they usually have for supper?'

‘Chicken, maybe.'

‘Let's have a look.' He hauled Lily up into his arms and they set off to the kitchen.

‘Where did you learn this?' Celia asked, following him with Euan.

‘What?' he said, perching Lily on the side and peering into the cupboard.

‘This. Children.' He looked so incongruous in the kitchen, like a giant.

He shrugged, pulled out some eggs, broke them in a bowl. ‘I help my sisters sometimes.' He held the bowl out to Lily. ‘Want to beat the eggs?'

She took it from him.

Two hours later, the children were settled in bed and Emmeline was asleep on the sofa. ‘Incredible,' said Celia, looking around. ‘I've never seen it so quiet here. It takes us hours to get Albert into bed. You're a magician.'

He laughed. ‘They're cute kids.'

‘You really came all the way over from New York to put the children to bed?'

‘Why not?'

She laughed.

‘I think Emmeline will sleep properly now. Poor thing, she's exhausted.'

‘She's fast asleep.' He paused. ‘So why don't we go out?'

She gazed at him. ‘Well.' She wasn't doing anything else. She normally went to bed with Emmeline, in case one of the children woke in the night. But they looked sound asleep. ‘I don't know. I never go out.' She had with Tom in Baden Baden, with Arthur. The VAD dance didn't count, not really. ‘I don't think I should. What if I'm seen?'

‘Well, I could find somewhere quiet. And if you put on your hat, no one will see.'

‘I should go to sleep.'

‘Just for a little while. There must be places around here. And you haven't eaten. Nor me.'

She shook her head. She hadn't, that was true. She didn't normally, usually ate some bread and cheese after the children were in bed.

‘Come on, it won't be long. Let's go out. Just for a little while.' She nodded. He'd come so far. And part of her thought that if she went with him, they could be like they were, young again, how she had been before she found out how her brother died – and everything that followed. She went to the bathroom, plumped her hair. They left quietly. She closed the door softly behind her.

They went to a small restaurant he knew, near his hotel. It was run by a jolly Italian man who called Jonathan
signor
, Celia
signorina
. They ate the fish and sauce, and a pudding of pastry and cream. She drank wine. ‘I don't want to talk,' she said. ‘Not really. You talk to me. Tell me about America. What it looks like.'

So he did. He talked about New York and skyscrapers and places where people danced to fast music, dark doorways, shops full of things, the museums and the art. She listened, let his voice flow. She thought of when she offered herself to him at the Ritz, after seeing the pretty girls like butterflies. He said no, you're not like them, and she supposed she wasn't, but she had wanted to be like them for a moment, happy, free.

‘What are you thinking?' he said.

She blushed, looked down at her coffee. ‘About the Ritz.'

His face flushed too. She saw his eyes change.

‘I remember it,' he said. ‘Everything.'

She met his eyes.

The sky was lowering when they came out of the restaurant. ‘It's about to rain,' he said.

She shrugged. ‘I like the rain.'

They set off towards Bedford Square. At a corner, he clasped her hands. ‘Come back with me?' he said. ‘Please.'

And she did. She couldn't stop herself from going into the hotel room with him, hurrying past the man on the desk, up the dingy stairs and into a shabby-looking bedroom, probably how they all were in Bloomsbury. ‘Come,' he said. ‘Sit here.'And she did, next to him on the bed. If she did it, put out her arms to him, then she'd forget the others, forget everything. Be new.

After a week, they were back in the Old Bailey. Mr Bird had asked to interview Mr Werth once more. He was called and went through his story again, just as he had the first time. Mr Werth's declaration that Arthur had pushed Louisa was even more cataclysmic for the gallery now. Someone shouted, ‘Shame!' and another, ‘Murderer!' The policeman signalled up at his colleague in the gallery and the clerk banged his hammer for silence.

Celia tried to concentrate. She flushed miserably. How could she have gone back with Jonathan to his hotel? When her brother was close to being hanged. What if a newspaper had heard of it? Then they would have written about her: decadent, disgraceful. She felt sickened by herself. He'd come to call twice after that night, played with the children. But it was strange, awkward, and she felt even more that she had been in bed with ghosts. He was in the gallery. He'd asked to accompany her, but she'd said it was better not to. She fixed her gaze on Arthur, not looking up. She supposed Tom was sitting up there too, shook the thought away.

Then Mr Bird came forward. He looked at the jury. The clerk banged again. Mr Bird cleared his throat.

‘So, Mr Werth, you have given us well – quite a story.'

Werth didn't reply.

‘Quite a story, have you not?'

‘It is all true, sir.'

‘Well, I wonder at that. You know, we all remember matters differently. Last week I said to my wife that we had walked home past two friends. But we hadn't. There'd only been one. But I
could have sworn it was two. These things happen, do they not, Mr Werth?'

‘Not on this occasion, no, sir. I remember what I saw.'

‘But do you remember exactly? Can you tell me – say, using this courtroom – exactly where in relation to you were Mr de Witt and Mrs de Witt when you first saw them walking near the cliff? For example, were they as near to you as I am?'

Mr Werth shook his head. ‘No.'

‘Where, then? The distance of Mr Cedric and his esteemed friend?'

He shook his head again. ‘A little further.'

‘Then perhaps the officer at the back of the room?' Mr Bird pointed towards a constable leaning against the panel. The man stood up, looking surprised. Celia could see the people above them craning to get a glimpse of the constable, trying to work out the distances.

‘I suppose so. Yes. That's probably about right.'

‘But we cannot deal in suppositions here. We need certainty. We could adjust and alter the distance all afternoon and indeed tomorrow, if it is necessary. We all have plenty of time.' The constable was blushing with the attention focused on him.

Celia saw a flicker in the judge's eye, a grimace. As a spectator, she supposed, she would have found it vaguely amusing. Now it made her angry.
You can watch until we get the facts right
. It was alright for him. No one was going to hang
him
.

Mr Werth was silent. ‘No, sir. I think that is correct. The distance of the constable.'

‘Very well. The distance of the constable it is. Certainly, you are indeed close enough to see some – facial expressions. And probably close enough to hear some sort of cry.'

‘Yes, sir.' Celia could see that Mr Cedric was gesturing at the judge, trying to catch his attention.

Mr Bird forged on. ‘Could you oblige us, Constable? A small cry if you would?'

The judge leant forward. ‘I take it that this spectacle has a point, Mr Bird?'

‘Of course, my lord. I assure you.'

‘I will allow it to continue then. For the moment.'

The constable was staring at Mr Bird in consternation. Celia felt for him.

‘Come now, officer. I am sure you can oblige us with a slight cry.'

The man nodded, dumbly.

‘Do go ahead. We await it.'

The constable, red-faced, made a small, strangled noise. It sounded more as if he was choking on a piece of fruit than blind panic, Celia supposed, her heart sinking at the horridness of it all, the fact that some strange man was pretending to be Louisa.
Boy my greatness
. Hadn't Shakespeare's Cleopatra said that? It was all horrible.

‘Well, I could hear that rather well,' said Mr Bird. ‘And I am only a little nearer the constable than you, and considerably older than you. My wife tells me I never hear her.'

There was an appreciative chuckle from the gallery. They liked the joke, Celia thought, defusing with its ordinariness the strange horror of asking a stranger to cry out as if falling over a cliff.

‘So we can conclude that you could hear Mrs de Witt perfectly well.'

‘I said I could,' replied Mr Werth. He looked annoyed already. Mr Bird was getting to him.

‘Now. Could you hear it over wind, Mr Werth? For my understanding is that the day was very windy. And by the cliffs, it must have been awfully so.'

‘It was a little windy, yes. Not by me.'

‘Not by you?'

‘No, sir. It was windy beside Mr de Witt. But not me.'

‘Really? For surely if you were on the same cliff, you must be subject to the same weather conditions?'

‘We were not on the same spot of land.' Mr Werth was exasperated now, spat out the words. The jury members were writing fast.

‘Oh. You were not on the same spot of land? I see. But would we not say, if this were grass under my feet, that our constable and
I were on the same patch of grass? I feel sure that if he was to sense wind in his hair, then so should I,' Mr Bird patted his head. ‘Of course I have very little hair these days.' The gallery laughed again. They were siding with him and his little jokes, leaving Mr Werth and his cross replies.

‘There is still a distance,' Mr Werth said, almost sulkily.

‘Well, you know, I am confused, Mr Werth. On one hand, you tell me you are so close to our constable that we can see his facial expressions. But then you say you don't feel the same wind. To me, I have to say, that is a mystery. Something – something does not add up.' He tapped his pen on the wood. Celia cringed a little. Surely this was too obvious. But the gallery above were enjoying it – and the jury were watching intently.

‘You see, Mr Werth, I suggest that you were much further from Mr de Witt than you remember. It is my proposal that you were at least twice the distance that you are now from the constable. And in that case, since it was so terribly windy, I propose that it would have been almost impossible to hear anything. And I also suggest that you could have barely seen the faces of either Mr de Witt or Mrs de Witt. When the wind gets in my eyes, I squint and can't always see. I expect the same is true for you.'

‘I saw them.'

Are you sure?'

‘Yes.'

Mr Bird paused, walked a little to the side. ‘But, you know, Mr Werth . . . when one reads the police reports of the afternoon, they are terribly clear. Now, we can assert that before you ran forward, you were standing more or less in the spot where the police officer found your wife sitting?'