by Anne Perry
“The surgeon didn't testify to that,” Tremayne pointed out reluctantly. His body was oddly stiff as he stood, his usual grace lost.
“We didn't ask ‘im, sir. It isn't medical, it's common sense,” Orme told him.
“I see. Did that cause you to look anywhere in particular?”
“We tried lots o’ places up and down the river. It's our job to know where they are.”
“And did you find out where he came from?”
“No, sir, not for sure.”
“Only ‘sure’ will do here, Mr. Orme.”
“I know that!” Orme's temper was suddenly close to the surface, the emotion too raw to govern. “We know that Jericho Phillips kept a lot o’ boys, especially young ones, small as five or six years old. Took them in from wherever ‘e found them, and gave them a bed and food. Lot of them lived on a boat, but we'd never find anything there. He had lookouts, and they always knew who we were.”
Rathbone considered objecting that Orme was stating an opinion rather than presenting evidence, but it was hardly worth making a fuss over. He decided against it.
“So you never saw anything amiss on his boat?” Tremayne concluded.
“No, sir.”
“Then why did you raise his name at all?” Tremayne asked gently, as if he were puzzled. “What was it that drew him to your attention, other than a growing desperation to find at least a name for this dead boy?”
Orme let out his breath in a sigh. “An informant came to us and said that Jericho Phillips was keeping a kind o’ cross between a brothel and a peep show on his boat. He ‘ad young boys there and forced them to perform certain … acts …” He stopped, obviously embarrassed. His eyes flickered to the public gallery, aware that there must be women there. Then he looked away again, angry with himself for his weakness.
Tremayne did not help him. It was clear from the expression on his face, the slight downturn of his mouth, that he found the subject repellent, and touched on it only because he owed it to the dead, and to the truth.
“Unnatural acts, with children,” Orme said miserably. “Boys. ‘E used cameras to make pictures, so ‘e could sell them to people. Get more money than just from those who watched.” His face was hot, the color reaching all the way up to his hair.
Tremayne was exquisitely careful. “That is what this man told you, Mr. Orme?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I see.” Tremayne shifted his balance a little. “And did you request that he take you so you might ascertain for yourself if this were true? After all, he could have invented the entire story, couldn't he?”
“Yes, sir, ‘e could. But ‘e refused to take us, or to testify. ‘E said he was being blackmailed, because ‘e'd looked at the pictures. It was my opinion that ‘e'd probably bought some as well. ‘E was scared stiff.”
This time Rathbone did rise to his feet and object. “The witness may be of that opinion, my lord, but that is not evidence.”
Tremayne inclined his head in acknowledgment, smiling a little, then turned again to Orme. “Did he say so, Mr. Orme?”
“No, sir, he wouldn't even give us ‘is name.”
Tremayne shrugged in a very slight, elegant gesture of confusion. “Was there any purpose in his coming forward at all, if he was prepared to say so little, and not to swear to any of it?”
“No, sir, not really,” Orme admitted. “Maybe it just helped us narrow the search, so to speak. Mr. Durban was rather good at drawing. He made a sketch of the dead boy's face, and then a picture of how he might ‘ave looked standing up and dressed. We took it around for a couple of weeks or so, to see if anyone could give ‘im a name, or say anything about ‘im.”
“And could they?”
“Yes, sir. They said ‘e used to be a mudlark. A young lad came and told us they picked coal up off the tideline o’ the river when they were six or seven years old. He just knew him as Fig, but he was certain it was ‘im, because of the funny way his hair grew at the front. Never knew his ‘ole name, or where he come from. Maybe he was a foundling, and nobody knew much more. He disappeared a few years ago, but this mudlark wouldn't say exactly where or when. Couldn't remember, and it wasn't any use pushing ‘im. We went and found a few more lads, and they confirmed what ‘e said. They all knew ‘im as ‘Fig.’”
Tremayne turned towards Rathbone, but there was no point contesting the identification. Whether it was the same boy or not was immaterial to the charge. He was somebody's child.
Tremayne led Orme in some detail through the process of the various other people who had confirmed that they knew the boy. One had added that his whole name was Walter Figgis. Others, through a laborious process that Rathbone allowed Tremayne to abbreviate, confirmed that there were boats on the river that gave shelter to children. On some of them the boys were appallingly misused. But of course there was no proof. Tremayne, wisely, barely touched on that. The generality was enough to shake the jury, and the audience in court, to a revulsion so deep that many of them were physically trembling. Some looked nauseated to the point that Rathbone was afraid they might not be able to control themselves.
Rathbone himself was aware of a depth of distress he had seldom felt before, only perhaps in cases of the most depraved rape and torture. He looked up at Phillips and saw nothing in him at all resembling human pity or shame. A wave of fury almost drowned him. The sweat broke out on his body, and the wig on his head was like a helmet. The black silk gown suffocated him as he held his arms to his sides. He was imprisoned in it.
Then he was afraid. Was Phillips beyond human emotions, unreachable? And Rathbone had promised to use all his skills to set him free again to go back to the river. He had no escape from doing it; it was his covenantal duty, which he had already accepted, and he had given his word, not only to the court, but also to Arthur Ballinger, and thus obliquely to Margaret. To refuse now would suggest to the jury that he knew something that condemned the accused beyond doubt. He was trapped by the law that he wanted above all to serve.
He had the ugly sense that Phillips knew that just as well as he did himself. Indeed, that was why he showed no fear.
They adjourned for lunch before Tremayne was finished. Orme was one of his major witnesses, and he intended to gain every word of damnation from him that he could.
They resumed after the shortest adjournment possible, and began the afternoon with Tremayne asking Orme about Durban's death.
“Mr. Durban died last December. Is that correct, Mr. Orme?” Tremayne asked, his manner suitably grave.
“Yes, sir.”
“And Mr. Monk succeeded him as commander of the River Police at the main station, which is in Wapping?”
“Yes, sir.”
Lord Justice Sullivan was beginning to look a trifle impatient. His frown deepened. “Is there some point to this, Mr. Tremayne? The succession of events seem to be plain enough. Mr. Durban did all he could to solve the case for the police, and did not succeed, so he continued on his own time. Unfortunately, he died, and Mr. Monk took over his position, and presumably his papers, including notes on unsolved cases. Is there more to it than that?”
Tremayne was slightly taken aback. “No, my lord. I believe there is nothing to contest.”
“Then I daresay the jury will follow it simply enough. Proceed.” There was an edge to Sullivan's voice, and his hands on the great bench in front of him were clenched. He was not enjoying this case. Perhaps to him it was simply a tragedy of the darkest and most squalid sort. Certainly there were no fine points of law, and none of the intellectual rigor Rathbone knew he liked. He wondered quickly whether Tre mayne knew him socially. They lived not far from each other, to the south of the river. Were they friends, enemies, or possibly not even acquaintances? Rathbone knew Tremayne and liked him. Sullivan he had never met outside the courtroom.
Tremayne turned back to Orme in the witness box. “Mr. Orme, was the case officially reopened? New evidence, perhaps?”
“No, sir. Mr. Monk was just looking thro
ugh the papers to see if there was anything …”
Rathbone rose to his feet.
“Yes, yes, yes!” Sullivan said quickly “Mr. Orme, please restrict yourself to what you know, what you saw, and what you did.”
Orme flushed. “Yes, my lord.” He looked at Tremayne with reproach. “Mr. Monk told me ‘e'd found papers about a case we'd never closed, and ‘e showed me Mr. Durban's notes on the Figgis case. He said it would be a good thing if we could close it now. I agreed with him. It always bothered me that we ‘adn't finished it.”
“Will you please tell the court what you yourself did then? Since you worked on it with Mr. Durban, presumably Mr. Monk was keen to avail himself of your knowledge?”
“Yes, sir, very keen.”
Tremayne then took Orme through the trail of evidence. He asked about the lightermen, bargees, lumpers, stevedores, ferrymen, chandlers, landlords, pawnbrokers, tobacconists, and quayside news vendors he and Monk had spoken to in the endless pursuit of the connection between the boy, Fig, and the boat in which Jericho Phillips plied his trade. They were always looking for someone who could and would swear to the use of Phillips's boat, and the fact that Fig was there against his will. It was all circumstantial, little threads, second-and thirdhand links.
Rathbone looked at the jury and saw the confusion in their faces, and eventually the boredom. They could not follow it. The disgust was there, the anger and the helplessness, but the certainty of legal proof still eluded them. They were lost in complexity, and because they were still sickeningly aware of the crime, they were frustrated and becoming angry. The day closed with a feeling of hatred in the room, and the police crowded closely around Phillips as he was taken down the stairs to the prison below the court. The mood was ugly with the weight of old, unresolved pain.
Rathbone began cross-examining Orme the next morning. He knew exactly what he needed to draw from him, but he was also aware that he must be extremely careful not to antagonize the jury, whose sympathies were entirely with the victim, and with the police who had tried so very hard to bring him some kind of justice. He stood in the middle of the courtroom floor in the open space between the gallery and the witness stand, deliberately at ease, as if he were a trifle in awe of the occasion, identifying with Orme, not with the machinery of the law.
“I imagine you deal with many harrowing tragedies, Mr. Orme,” he said quietly. He wanted to force the jury to strain to hear him, to make their attention total. The emotion must be grave, subdued, even private with each man, as though he were alone with the horror and the burden of it. Then they would understand Durban, and why Monk, in his turn, had taken the same path. He had not expected to dislike doing this so much. Facing the real man was very different from the intellectual theories of justice, no matter how passionately felt. But there was no way to turn back now without betrayal. When he had to question Hester it would be worse.
“Yes, sir,” Orme agreed.
Rathbone nodded.
“But it has not blunted your sensibilities, or made you any less dedicated to finding justice for the victims of unspeakable torture and death.”
“No, sir.” Orme's face was pale, his hands hidden by his sides, but his shoulders were high and tight.
“Did Mr. Durban feel as deeply?”
“Yes, sir. This case was … was one of the worst. If you'd seen that boy's body, sir, wasted and burned like it was, then ‘is throat cut near through, and dumped in the river as if he were an animal, you'd have felt the same.”
“I imagine I would,” Rathbone said quietly, his head bent a trifle as if he were in the presence of the dead now.
Lord Justice Sullivan leaned forward, his face pinched, his mouth drawn tight. “Is there some purpose to this, Sir Oliver? I trust it has not slipped your mind which party you represent in this case?” There was a note of warning in his voice, and his eyes were suddenly flat and hard.
“No, my lord,” Rathbone said respectfully. “I wish to find the truth. It is far too grave and too terrible a matter to settle for anything less, in the interests of humanity.”
Sullivan grunted, and for a moment Rathbone was afraid he had taken his play too far. He glanced sideways at the jury and knew he was right. Relief washed over him with physical warmth. Then he remembered Phillips shivering in Newgate and his horror of dripping water, and his satisfaction vanished. He turned again to Orme. “You and Mr. Durban worked all your duty hours, and many beyond?”
“Yes, sir.” Orme knew not to answer more than he was asked.
“Was this same passionate dedication also true of Mr. Monk?” He had to ask; it was the plan.
“Yes, sir.” There was no hesitation in Orme; if anything, he was more positive.
“I see. It is not surprising, and much to be respected.”
Tremayne was fidgeting in his seat, growing restive at what seemed to be a purposeless reaffirmation of what he himself had just established. He suspected Rathbone of something, but he could not deduce what, and it troubled him.
The jury was merely puzzled.
Rathbone knew he must make his point now. One by one he touched on the evidence that first Durban and then Monk had pursued, asking Orme for the facts that specifically connected the abuse of the boys to Phillips's boat. Never once did he suggest that it had not happened, only that the horror of the facts had obscured the lack of defining links to Phillips.
The boat existed. Boys from the age of five or six up to about thirteen unquestionably lived on it. There were floating brothels for the use of men with any kind of taste in sexual pleasures, either to participate, or merely to watch. There were pornographic photographs for sale in the dark alleys and byways of the river. What unquestionable proof had Durban, Monk, or Orme himself found that the boys so abused were the ones to whom Phillips gave a home?
There was none. The horror of the cruelty, the greed, and the obscenity of it, had moved all three men so deeply that they had been too desperate to stop it and punish the perpetrators of it than to make certain of their facts. It was only too easy to understand. Any decent man might fall into the same error. But surely any decent man would also be appalled at the idea of convicting the wrong person of such a heinous crime, deserving of the gallows?
The court adjourned for lunch with quite suddenly a complete and awful confusion, a knowledge that all the certainties had been swept away. Only the horror remained, and a sense of helplessness.
Rathbone had accomplished exactly what he had intended. It was brilliant. Even the subtle and clever Tremayne had not seen the trap before he was in it. He had left pale-faced, angry with himself.
Hester was waiting to testify to her part in the investigation when Tremayne came to her during the lunch adjournment. She was sitting in one of the public houses that provided food, but she was too tense to do more than take an occasional bite of her sandwich, and then found it difficult to swallow.
He sat down opposite her, his face grim, his manner apologetic. He too declined to eat more than a sandwich and drink a glass of white wine.
“I'm sorry, Mrs. Monk,” he said immediately once they were alone. He spoke quickly, so as not to be overheard by others passing close to them. “It has not gone as well as I had hoped, in fact, rather as I had taken for granted. It is proving harder to make the connections between Phillips and the victims of his depravity than I had expected.”
He must have seen the surprise on her face. “Sir Oliver is one of the most brilliant attorneys in England, far too clever to attack us openly,” he said. “I knew there was something wrong when he played up the horror of the crime. It should have warned me of what he was doing.”
She felt a chill of dismay. “What is he doing?”
Tremayne blushed, and the last shred of irony vanished from his face, replaced by gentleness. “Did you not know he was defending this case, Mrs. Monk?”
“No.” Then instantly she saw the understanding in his face and wished she had not admitted it. He must have known or have sensed so
mething of her friendship with Rathbone, and had seen her sense of betrayal.
“I'm sorry,” he said quietly “How clumsy of me. He is suggesting that the police were moved as much by pity and outrage as by logic. They proved the crime was committed, but forgot the finer elements of connecting it unarguably with Jericho Phillips.”
He took a sip of his wine, his eyes not leaving hers. “He has made it obvious that so far we have provided no motive for him to have tortured and murdered one of his own boys—assuming we can ever prove Figgis was one of his. And he is quite right that we have not so far done that beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“Who could doubt it?” she said hotly. “It all fits together and makes the most excellent sense. In fact, it is the only answer that makes sense at all.”
“On balance of probability it does,” he agreed. He leaned across the table a little. “The law requires that it be beyond all reasonable doubt, if we are to hang a man for it. You know that, Mrs. Monk. You are not a novice at the law.”
Now she was shivering, in spite of the heat inside the stuffy room with its gleaming tankards on the bar, its sawdust floor muffling footsteps, and the smells of ale, food, and too many people crushed together.
“You don't mean he's going to get away with it?” she asked huskily. It was a possibility she had not even considered. Phillips was guilty. He was brutal, sadistic, and profoundly corrupt. He had abused numberless children, and murdered at least one. He had nearly murdered a lighterman, simply to divert the river police so he could escape. Monk and Orme had seen him do it.
“No, of course not,” Tremayne assured her. “But I will have to describe some very violent and offensive scenes, and ask you to relive on the witness stand things that I am sure you would rather forget. I apologize for it, because I had hoped to spare you.”
“For heaven's sake, Mr. Tremayne,” she said sharply. “I don't care in the slightest what you question me about, or whom! If it is unpleasant, or discomfiting, what on earth does that matter? We are talking about the misery and death of children. What kind of person is concerned about such trivialities as comfort at such a cost?”
