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“We shall show you how this crime was committed using evidence you can see: physical objects rather than people’s recollections from what must have been one of the worst nights of their lives. We will not ask terrified and bereaved people to remember what they saw or heard. We know that they must have been suffering appallingly.”
He inclined his head a little. “No one man did this. It was a conspiracy of, at the very least, two men. Habib Beshara may have been one of them, but he was not the man who took the dynamite on board the Princess Mary, or the one who ignited it. Whatever he is guilty of, he is now facing God’s judgment for it. Gamal Sabri is the one who set off the dynamite that blew the bow off the Princess Mary and sank it, and all who were on board, to the bottom of the Thames.”
Brancaster returned to his place.
Pryor rose to his feet, still pink-faced with anger. He paced back and forth as he spoke, recapitulating the leading testimony of the first trial, painting a picture of the devastated survivors and their grief. He mentioned only the points on which the witnesses had agreed.
Rathbone, listening intently to every word, realized that what he was actually doing was reminding them of the horror of the event, moving them gently, step by step, to see themselves, their families, and friends as the victims of the nightmare it had been. It was not reason he was appealing to, it was their terror and grief, and he did it well.
By the time Brancaster stood up again, Rathbone could feel the fear in the courtroom like thunder in the air.
Brancaster called his first witness. No matter how much it played into Pryor’s hands, he was forced to establish the facts of the case, and that included details about the explosion and the sinking itself. He kept it as technical as possible. Rathbone had warned him that if he did that, he might seem cold, even unsympathetic to the victims, as if this were all an exercise in law, not the stories of the awful deaths of nearly two hundred people.
Now he folded a blank piece of paper, and passed it forward.
Pryor saw him. He rose to his feet.
“My lord! I see that we have in court a very distinguished visitor, Sir Oliver Rathbone, who has just passed a note to my learned friend. I regret having to remind the court of the tragic and rather grubby facts, but Sir Oliver is no longer permitted to practice law. I believe Mr. Brancaster defended him at his own trial here, and cannot therefore be ignorant of that fact.”
There was an instant, total silence.
As one man, the jury turned to stare at Rathbone, who felt as if he were a butterfly pinned to a board.
It was Brancaster who spoke, even before Antrobus could intervene.
“My lord, Mr. Pryor is within his rights, of course, but I believe he has exceeded even his own boundaries of good taste. The piece of paper he refers to is blank.” He held it up, turning it over so they could all see both sides of it. Brancaster offered it to the usher. “If you wish to examine it, my lord?”
“No, thank you,” Antrobus declined. “But perhaps you would tell us the purpose of such a note?”
Brancaster smiled self-deprecatingly. “I imagine, my lord, it is to tell me that my remarks have no substance, which I regret is true. Sir Oliver has from time to time warned me about giving the court more technical detail than it requires, and failing to give them the emotional side of things, which my learned friend Mr. Pryor is so skilled in doing.”
“Indeed,” Antrobus said with a slight upward curve of his lips. “It is good advice, Mr. Brancaster.”
“Thank you, my lord. If I may continue?”
“Please do.”
Brancaster resumed, this time being sure to speak of the fear that saturated the night of the sinking and to talk about people’s wonderful eagerness to help catch the perpetrator—which perhaps led some of them to be less than accurate, and understandably so. He was detailed but sympathetic. It was a fine performance.
Nevertheless, Pryor was on his feet after the luncheon adjournment. In covering the evidence yet again, he managed to refer to the note that Rathbone had slipped to Brancaster—not for what was in it, but for the necessity of passing it at all.
“It seems my learned friend has become a pupil of Sir Oliver, or should I say a puppet? Sir Oliver is accepting his banishment from the courts with an ill grace.”
Rathbone felt a chill as if he had been robbed of some necessary garment. There was a cruelty in Pryor he had not foreseen. Was it a taste of how bitter this battle would become?
Antrobus thought for a moment or two, and the look on his face could have been irritation or distaste.
Most of the jurors seemed to be staring at Rathbone as if they expected him to defend himself, not understanding what was going on and seeing him painted as some kind of villain.
Brancaster was obviously taken by surprise.
It was Antrobus who spoke. “Mr. Pryor, as you are well aware, grace of manner or judgment is not a requirement in court. Were it necessary, you would not find yourself here either. Sir Oliver may attend the court, and listen, as may anyone else who does not interrupt the proceedings.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Brancaster said. He hesitated a moment, then took a deep breath, and called his next witness.
This time Pryor did not interrupt him.
Brancaster had a slightly different list of witnesses from those at Beshara’s trial, as he had indicated in his opening address. He did not call Monk regarding his witness of the actual explosion and the long night of work afterward; he chose Orme instead, as Rathbone had suggested. Orme was a quiet man, born and bred on the river. He spoke with a soft voice and with the local accent. His anger and his distress found no words, bringing barely a change in the dignity with which he answered Brancaster’s questions. Rathbone had known that, to the jurors, who were unfamiliar with the working life of the river, this would be more authentic than if the testimony had been expressed in Monk’s more educated accent, or with his confidence and his rank behind it.
