Evidence of the Accused

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘Never can tell, can you?’

  ‘What’s the best way to take a pheasant – put salt on its tail?’

  ‘Wouldn’t know. Ain’t seen a dead pheasant outside the market in years.’

  Pope brought out his cigarettes. ‘Here, try one of these.’

  Charnley hesitated, decided he’d lose nothing if he accepted. ‘I’ll just ’ide it if the boss walks round. Can’t stand smoking in the sheds, says they ain’t insured enough to make it worthwhile to burn ’em down.’

  They smoked.

  ‘D’you know Settle Wood?’ asked Pope.

  ‘Seen it,’ retorted Charnley.

  ‘Gone for a walk through it every now and then, I shouldn’t be surprised?’

  ‘There’s a right of way through the centre. Can’t stop the public using a right of way.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  They smoked.

  ‘Would you ’ave taken a stroll through last August, d’you reckon?’

  ‘Might have done.’

  ‘Game season hadn’t started then, had it?’

  ‘Wouldn’t know the dates of them things. They’re for the gentlemen.’ Charnley cleared his throat with a long-drawn-out rumbling sound, spat on the floor.

  ‘Since the season ’adn’t started, I suppose no one would’ve worried too much if you’d moved a little off the right of way?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘To pick some flowers.’

  ‘What flowers would you find in a wood in August?’

  ‘Let’s change to blackberries.’

  ‘They ain’t ripe by August.’

  ‘A real stickler for the facts which is as it should be. Facts are worth a fortune … This walk you took, then, was just for the walk?’

  ‘Bit of exercise. Having a look round the countryside, you might say,’ added Charnley in a sudden burst of honesty he instantly regretted. To a suspicious mind it might sound as though he’d been surveying the prospects for the coming season or even making some of the many traps that would be necessary.

  ‘Walking carefully as you’d be doing so as not to damage anything, I’d say you might come across odd things going on in the woods?’

  ‘You’d say just about right.’

  ‘Would you remember if you saw anything strange this day in August?’

  ‘What would you be calling strange?’

  ‘People you might not expect to meet behaving as you wouldn’t expect them to behave.’

  ‘Ah!’ Charnley searched deep within his throat with another drawn-out hawking. ‘Got your ’ooks on that?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Wondered what it was all about … I enjoy walks ’cause of the fresh air. Other blokes has their beer, I has me fresh air. Keeps the liver working. Being a careful bloke I tread lightly on me walks — don’t like to disturb all the wild things which ’as a right to peace and quiet — and sometimes on me walks I see some very strange things. In the countryside there ain’t any cinemas, and the dances in the village ’ut don’t take place more ’n once a week, as a consequence of which the young ’uns want something to do. They goes for walks and gets a little tired and sits down in the bracken. There ain’t nothing like bracken to make you forget yourself: something to do with them fronds so Bert says. They forget theirselves and before you can say what’s what … ’

  Pope spoke when it became clear the other was not going to finish his sentence. ‘Who was in Settle Wood last August?’

  Charnley dropped the cigarette butt on to the ground and stamped it out. He then bent down and picked it up, slipped it into his pocket, used his boot to scratch the ash into the dirt on the floor. ‘My old man always said if they can’t see it they don’t know … Saw two persons, I did, what I wouldn’t have expected to see.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mrs Cheesman and ’er friend.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Forgetting in the bracken.’

  ‘How far ’ad they got?’

  Charnley put his hands in his pockets, moved into a more comfortable position against the bags, looked down at his boots. ‘Don’t seem right to say. Kind of private they were being and it don’t seem right to make it public.’ He scratched his neck. ‘’Sides, it was ’er wood. Why shouldn’t she do what she wanted in it?’

  ‘Were they having sexual intercourse?’

  Charnley flushed. ‘How’d you like to be asked what you was up to when you was young and vigorous?’

  ‘I ain’t so old now that they’re digging my plot.’

  ‘You ain’t so young either, that you’d be able to stand up straight afterwards.’

  ‘Talk for yourself … Were they having sexual intercourse?’

  ‘They weren’t. But it wasn’t goin’ to take ’em long if things ain’t changed much since I was out and about.’

  Pope leaned over and stubbed out his cigarette on the heel of his shoe. About to drop the butt, he remembered and held it in his fingers. ‘How d’you know it was in August?’

  ‘I saw a strong covey of partridge in the first field. They come into season in September … ’

  ‘You learn fast, you do! At the beginning of our little talk you didn’t know anything about the seasons … Did you get ’em?’

  ‘Get what?’

  ‘The partridges.’

  Charnley grinned slyly. ‘Ain’t many people these days can take the ’ole covey by netting ’em,’ he said proudly.

  *

  Pope decided he would drive back. He climbed in behind the wheel, switched on the lights, started the engine, engaged first gear and drove off into the thickening mist. Initially, the car responded in a series of hops. He had never learned to be in sympathy with mechanical things.

  The dipped headlights pierced the billows of damp mist and picked out the brilliantly luminous eyes of a cat which skulked in the grass verge. As they passed it, it raced for the hedge.

  Ventnor spoke. ‘What d’you reckon the missus and her boy friend were doing when they took the trouble to go all the way to the wood? What was wrong with the house?’

  ‘Beryl Bishop worked there until four.’

  ‘Hadn’t thought of her.’

  ‘You’d make a dim sort of Casanova, you would.’ Pope increased speed. He rounded a sharp corner at too great a speed and half-skidded over to the wrong side. He seemed supremely unaware of the fact.

  CHAPTER XIII

  It was the day of Mark’s trial and the knowledge swung my mind back to the day Stuart’s trial had opened. In some ways it was difficult to believe there had been a shift of time. I was still using up a lot of energy as I tried to make Laws and Lawyers entertaining: the anecdotes were coming in small lots and there would have been a loss of revenue had I not been able to sell to the various Digests stories I had sold their competitors a couple of years back. I had had a royalty statement in from my publishers: the public had shown absolutely no desire, as always, to rush to read my works. The usual number of bills were waiting to be paid and would continue to wait until the last possible moment in an effort to ease the bank’s burden … Perhaps the only immediate difference in the house was the presence of Pears. She was still with me. Since Mark might not return home in her lifetime it looked as though she had a new master.

  I drank some coffee, lit my first cigarette of the day. After the trial, I must start a new book. What was it to be? What would attract and hold the public’s attention? … I laughed at myself. Hadn’t I yet learned I neither could nor would do more at writing than stumble along? The answer was, I hadn’t. It sounded paradoxical, but I still believed I might become successful even though I knew I never should. If I hadn’t thought so, I’d have given up. A writer had to be an incurable optimist or he’d never pass by a gas oven.

  Pears sat down and put her nose into my lap, stared mournfully at me with her big hazel-coloured eyes. She was asking for some breakfast. I buttered the toast crusts and gave them to her: she chewed them with an obvious and noisy enjoyment. />
  Twenty minutes before I need leave … How did Mark see time? Was he praying for it to rush by and show him the future: or did he long for it to slow down and keep him in the past? What did a condemned man do the last morning of his life? Did his mind revolt and tell him the whole situation was farcical?

  I shrugged my thoughts aside, stood up. Pears rushed off into my bedroom, came back carrying a slipper. She wagged her tail so much the whole of her backside vibrated and she ‘talked’ incessantly. I took the slipper from her, threw it across the passage into the kitchen. She watched it go but did not move until I gave her a ‘hie lost’. She was beautifully trained.

  The wireless programme was tuned to Today. A man was being interviewed who claimed he had discovered the basic pattern in all games of chance and that, using such pattern, he could guarantee to make a handsome profit from any form of gambling. Wisely, he skimped the details. I thought of Monte Carlo as I had last seen it eight years ago, the sun covering the white buildings and the blue sky and the blue sea and the timeless air of luxury that was only slightly tainted by a tang of commercialism.

  Later, I left the house after promising Pears I should not be long. Clarence from the Marsh Arms had promised to come over and let her out at midday.

  The door of the shed was reluctant to open and I had to pull so hard I thought, Samson-like, I’d bring the whole edifice down in ruins. In the end, the door gave way first. I climbed into the Old Girl and got the engine going at the fourth pull of the starter. There was the usual distinctive mechanical note that went with all the old-time Austins.

  The Old Girl backed into the road. The brakes squealed as I put them on. My pal in the garage said he’d never met an Austin whose brakes didn’t squeal.

  I drove down the road to the T junction, turned right, sounded the horn outside number five as I came to a halt. Perce Charnley hurried out of the house and along the path to the car.

  Perce had put on his best suit. He’d bought it from one of the Jew-boys in Ashford Market and no one would have imagined otherwise. He, himself, was very proud of it and was pleased to offer anyone a feel of the cloth provided the hands were clean of dung. At the time of the purchase he had been told, and he always firmly believed, it was a Savile Row suit made for a Norfolk nobleman who had died drunk in his bath the day before he was due to take delivery of the suit: the Jew-boys were adept at judging prospective customers.

  ‘Ain’t we late?’ asked Perce agitatedly as he eased himself into the front passenger seat and tried to stop his trousers creasing.

  ‘Dead on time, Perce.’

  ‘You said a quarter to. It’s gone ten to.’

  ‘We’ll do it in the hour.’

  ‘That paper I got calling me said I’d be judged for the rest of me natural if I didn’t arrive on time.’

  We drove along and came to the mushroom farm. Until I’d met the people who ran it I’d always thought humans had discovered all the diseases: we were tiros compared to mushrooms.

  ‘That’s a bloomin’ early covey,’ said Perce, a moment later.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the centre of the field on the right.’

  I looked quickly but saw nothing but grass and plovers. It didn’t surprise me. Perce could spot a pheasant through two brick walls and a haystack.

  ‘I wish I was at ’ome,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Worried?’

  ‘There’s a smell and a sound to a court that gets me knees knocking quicker ’n a woodpecker at an old plum tree.’

  ‘You’ve one consolation — they’re not gunning for you.’

  He looked leftwards. ‘Used to be a couple of hens out there but I ain’t seen ’em this side of a month. Wonder what’s happened to ’em?’ We climbed up the hill to the mainland, passed the house that was reputed to have belonged to one of Ransley’s lieutenants. He was shot in the front room by the law and his ghost could often be heard most annoyingly offering brandy at twopence a jugful.

  ‘Major Yates has planted kale,’ said Perce. ‘Looks like it could turn into a fine crop.’ We passed a row of bungalows that had gone up between the wars. They were a monstrous indictment on the authorities and builders, neither of whom had ever had any sympathy with the land of the countryside.

  Perce sighed once, settled firmly back in the seat and stared ahead. For the moment, we were out of his territory and he no longer kept a paternal eye on the hedges and fields. ‘Can’t ’elp feeling sorry for Mr Cheesman.’

  ‘I think we all do.’

  ‘It was all ’er fault. It’s always the women.’ Another deep sigh. ‘I could tell you stories about the ladies of our village that’d make your books red ’ot. I’ve come back home late at night and seen ’em walking the roads when their husbands ’ad to be elsewheres. Mark you, all respectable during the day and turn their skirts up at anyone they says ain’t proper. Come the night and they begin to walk … Ma Pauls. Won’t talk to Mrs Easy because the latest kid puts things back to the time when Easy’s old man was abroad if one takes no notice of the kid bein’ premature — premature at ’is weight! — but Ma Pauls ain’t the one who should throw bricks at wasps’ nests. Last summer I was coming back late at night and I saw Bert’s car parked along Mildew Field. “’Ullo,” I says, and very quietly I try to get by unnoticed so as to not spoil anyone’s fun, but I couldn’t help seeing, I couldn’t, that … ’

  I listened to Perce. I knew of no one with a more amusingly scandalous and slanderous tongue.

  *

  Stuart walked across to me as I stood in the wide corridor. He offered me a cigarette from his gold case. ‘All hope abandon, ye who enter here.’

  ‘Just about sums up the place, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It shivers to the memories of all those who’ve gone before.’

  I was astonished that Stuart should produce so fanciful a description.

  ‘Chap was telling me that in the old days they never condemned to death less than twenty-five people an Assize. I’d say some of them were still around.’ He shrugged his shoulders slightly as if to apologise for his seriousness. ‘It’s funny how we carry on. Mark’s up for murder, yet you and I pursue our normal courses except when we have to come here for the trial. No matter how close friends we were to him, his distress can’t really touch us. He’s been pushed back to a different life.’

  ‘You’ve seen both sides of the fence.’

  ‘I know, and can’t remember now what it was like when I was locked up waiting to be tried. That slice of life has become set back in my mind behind a hazy curtain. This morning, I lay in bed and deliberately tried to recapture that time. All I could remember was my dreadful longing for chocolate ice-cream and how I promised myself gallons of it when I was freed. I never had the ice-cream, of course. As soon as I was released, I didn’t want it. That’s life, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘that’s life.’

  Mr Justice Parkins cleared his throat. He was a large man with a round face which always seemed flushed and which was responsible for the recurring and wholly slanderous rumour that he drank to excess and was about to be removed from office by an address to Parliament. He was not popular with counsel: he asked too many questions of the witnesses and was, at times, inclined to take over the conduct of the case. However, the public and the press liked him. No one could more tellingly attack bureaucracy or officialdom when either of those twin states of procrastination attempted to delay or destroy the rights of an individual.

  Mr Justice Parkins cleared his throat. ‘Members of the jury, you have just been sworn in to try the case of The Queen against Mark Cheesman. Before counsel for the prosecution opens his case I wish briefly to say something to you. In this modern world of ours, members of the jury, we have to live with publicity. Little, if anything, of news value occurs without its being published somewhere, sometime. We may admire this state of affairs, we may abhor it: it matters not. It exists, therefore it exists … As you must know, since it is inconceivable that you have
not read about it, there has been a previous trial which is, one might say, intimately connected with this one. When reading the reports of this previous trial you may well have formed certain impressions in your mind which are in direct opposition to the duty you have to perform here today. Members of the jury, you must discard from your minds all thoughts and conclusions arrived at before you entered this court. The accused must be tried on the evidence that you hear here — and on no other evidence.’

  Mr Justice Parkins paused a moment, adjusted the right sleeve of his gown. ‘Remember what I have told you and continually be on your guard against forgetting it.’

  Gorton looked up and the judge nodded at him. He stood up, looked down at his notes, then at the jury. He reached behind him and flicked his wig tails away from his neck. ‘Members of the jury, your duty here today is to decide two things. Whether there has been a murder: who committed that murder … ’ Union was not bothering to listen. He was reading his brief in the next case: a civil matter that would last at least a fortnight.

  *

  ‘Must be terrible grim,’ said Perce Charnley. I agreed.

  ‘To be in there and know you’re going to cop it in the end. Why do they let things go on so? He’s admitted everything, ain’t ’e, so why not call an end and say ruddy good luck to ’em? She weren’t the first wife needed tossing over the banisters double-quick sharp, smash, bang, wallop.’

  ‘Mark pleaded not guilty so there has to be a full trial.’

  ‘How could Mr Cheesman say not guilty when he’s admitted he done it?’

  ‘It’s traditional and even encouraged in a murder case.’

  ‘Why? Wouldn’t be no good me sayin’ I ’adn’t touched a bird if I was to tell in the same breath as how a certain place in Hythe gives me a quid a brace.’

  ‘It’s the seriousness of the charge. The court likes to feel it’s enquired into every circumstance, so there can be no possibility of a miscarriage of justice. A man could plead guilty and yet be not guilty since although he caused the death, unknown to him he did not have the malice aforethought necessary legally to turn the act into a murder.’