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“My lord.” Rathbone called the woman who had been raped and beaten on the night before Christmas Eve. Her face was still discolored. She had difficulty speaking through her broken teeth. Slowly, her eyes closed as she refused to look at the people who were watching her as she told about her terror and pain and humiliation. She began to describe being accosted by three men, how one of them had taken hold of her, how all three had laughed, then one had thrown her to the ground.
In the dock, Rhys was gray-skinned, his eyes so hollow one could almost visualize the skull beneath the flesh. He leaned forward over the rail, his splinted hands stiff, shivering.
The woman described how she had been taunted by the men, called names. One of them had kicked her, told her she was filth, should be got rid of, the human race cleansed of her sort.
In the dock, Rhys started to bang his hands up and down on the railing. One of the warders made a move to stop him, but the muscles of Rhys’s body were knotted so hard he did not succeed. Rhys’s face was a mask of pain.
No one else moved.
The woman in the witness stand went on speaking, slowly, each word forced between her lips. She told how they had knocked her over till she was crouching on the cobbles.
“They were ’ard, an’ wet,” she said huskily. “Then one of ’em leaned on top o’ me. ’E were ’eavy, and ’e smelled o’ summink funny, sort o’ sharp. One o’ the others forced me knees up and tore me dress. Then I felt ’im come inter me. It was like I were tore inside. It ’urt summink terrible. I—”
She stopped, her eyes wide with horror as Rhys wrenched himself from the warders, his mouth gaping, his throat tortured with the sound it could not make, as if inside himself he screamed again and again.
A warder made a lunge after him and caught one arm. Rhys lashed at him, his face a paroxysm of terror and loathing. The other warder made a grab and missed. Rhys overbalanced, hysterical with fear, teetered for a moment on the high railing, then swiveled and fell over the edge.
A woman shrieked.
The jurors rose to their feet.
Sylvestra cried out his name and Fidelis clasped her arms around her friend.
Rhys landed with a sickening crash and lay still.
Hester was the first to move. She rose from her seat in the back of the gallery, on the edge of the row, where she could be reached were she needed, and ran forward, falling on her knees beside him.
Then suddenly there was commotion everywhere. People were crying out, jostling one another. Others had been hurt, two of them badly. Press reporters were scrambling to force their way out to pass on the news. Ushers were trying helplessly to restore some form of order. The judge was banging his gavel. Someone was shouting for a doctor for a woman whose leg had been broken by an overturned bench.
Rathbone swung around to make his way towards where Rhys was lying. Where was Corriden Wade? Had he been seized to tend to the woman? Rathbone did not even know if Rhys was still alive. Considering the height of his fall, he could easily be dead. It is not difficult to break a neck. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps it would be a merciful escape from a more prolonged and dreadful end.
Was it even suicide, in hearing the full horror of his crime told from the victim’s view, her feelings of shame, humiliation, helplessness and pain? Was this the nearest Rhys could come to some kind of redemption?
Was this Rathbone’s final failure, or perhaps the only thing he had truly done for him?
Except that Rhys had not raped the woman. He had been playing cards with Lady Sandon. It was Leighton Duff who had first raped and then beaten her. Leighton Duff … and who?
The uproar in the courtroom was overwhelming. People were shouting, trying to clear the way for a stretcher. Someone was screaming again and again, uselessly, hysterically. All around him people were pushing and shoving, trying to move one way or another.
Bent over Rhys’s body, Hester, for one desperate moment, had the same thought that had passed through Rathbone’s mind … was this Rhys’s escape at last from the pain of body which afflicted him, and from the greater agony of mind which haunted even his sleep? Was this the only peace he could find in a world which had become one long nightmare?
Then she touched him and knew he was still alive. She slid her hand under his head, feeling the thick hair. She felt the bone gently, exploring. There was no depression in the skull. She pulled her hand clear. There was no blood. His legs were twisted, but his spine was straight. As far as she could tell, he was concussed, but not fatally injured.
Where was Corriden Wade? She looked up, peering around, and saw no one she recognized, but there was a huddle of people where the bench was overturned and someone was lying on the floor. Even Rathbone was beyond the crowd jostling beside and in front of her.
Then she saw Monk and felt a surge of relief. He was elbowing his way forward, angry, white-faced. He was shouting at someone. A large man clenched his fist and seemed intent on making a fight of it. Someone else began pulling at him. Two more women were crying for no apparent reason.
Monk finally forced his way through and knelt beside her.
“Is he alive?” he asked.
“Yes. But we’ve got to get him out of here,” she responded, hearing her voice sharp with fear.
He looked down at Rhys, who was still completely insensible. “Thank God he can’t feel this,” he said quietly. “I’ve sent the warder for one of those long benches. We could carry him on that.”
“We’ve got to get him to a hospital,” she said desperately. “He can’t stay in the cell. I don’t know how badly he’s hurt.”
Monk opened his mouth as if to reply, then changed his mind. One of the warders had come downstairs from the dock and was pushing people aside to reach Rhys.
