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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. E
ven 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.
