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It was the following morning before he drew from Orme an account of how the case was taken from them and given to the Metropolitan Police, under Lydiate.
“Do you remember that, Mr. Orme?”
“ ’Course I do.” Orme said it quietly, but there was a darkness in his voice, a strain anyone could hear.
“Do you know why that was?” Brancaster asked.
Pryor rose to his feet. “Objection, my lord. Mr. Orme, for all his worthiness, is not privy to the command decisions of the senior police officers in charge of—”
“I apologize, my lord,” Brancaster said with spurious contrition. “Mr. Orme, may I put that a different way? Were you informed of the reason for this decision?”
“No, sir,” Orme replied. “Didn’t see a reason for it, myself.”
“And then the case was given back to you?” Brancaster asked. “After Habib Beshara had been tried, found guilty, sentenced, and then reprieved, that is?”
Orme’s face was a study of disgust. “ ’Cos by that time it were a first-class mess no one wanted to tangle with,” he said heavily.
There was a murmur of sympathy around the gallery and several jurors clearly felt the same.
Brancaster proceeded to draw from Orme an account of the evidence he and Monk had gained from witnesses that clearly exonerated Beshara from having placed the dynamite on the Princess Mary, or having been on board the boat himself.
Pryor appeared to consider questioning Orme, and then decided against it.
Throughout the rest of that day, and the next, Brancaster questioned more witnesses, always careful to stick to material facts. Where an eyewitness observation was unavoidable, he had at least two separate people speak.
Pryor attempted to discredit them, but after the third time he appreciated that he was losing more than he gained. The jury might not remember the detail, but they would not forget that he had lost the point.
By the fourth day a picture had been created of a carefully planned crime involving at least two people, more probably three. It was supported by interlaced facts, details that did not depend upon anyone remembering a face or a walk, exact words or the clothes a person was wearing. Orme had described the boat he and Monk had seen on the night of the sinking. The ferryman, still with a splint on his broken forearm, described exactly the same boat, and his glimpse of the seahors
e emblem. Pryor tried to shake his testimony, but he could not.
Hooper was called. He told briefly and powerfully how he had seen the boat on the Isle of Dogs, and found Sabri and arrested him. Witnesses were produced who could connect Sabri to the boat, not on one occasion but a score. Pryor failed to discredit Hooper at all.
Brancaster was careful not to suggest Beshara was a good man, or innocent of any involvement in the sinking, only that he had not been placed on or near the Princess Mary himself, and Sabri had.
The court was adjourned for the weekend.
“Not a completely unassailable case,” Rathbone said as he and Brancaster walked out of the Old Bailey and down the shallow steps to the noise and bustle of the street.
“I know,” Brancaster admitted, turning to go down toward Ludgate Hill. He fitted his step automatically to Rathbone’s. “It could be enough for any other case, but not this. They’ll still take reasonable doubt—it’s easier. Nobody wants to think the justice system is so fragile we could have hanged the wrong man for this. We were all so sure.”
“It’s not only a matter of not hanging the wrong one,” Rathbone argued. “It’s about hanging the right one. Did you see Camborne in court today?”
Brancaster drew in a sharp breath. “No, I didn’t. Of course he’ll fight pretty hard not to have Beshara vindicated.” They reached the corner and turned into Ludgate Hill, the sun at their backs. The traffic was heavy in the late afternoon. It was Friday. There was a weariness in the air.
Rathbone debated with himself whether to raise the subject that was clamoring in his mind. Was it a weakness to mention it now, or cowardly not to? It would have to come, if not today, then on Monday.
“And York,” he added. “He won’t want to be effectively reversed.”
Brancaster shot a sideways glance at him.
Rathbone wondered how much he had guessed, or deduced, about his feelings for York’s wife. Was he as transparent as he felt?
They walked fifty feet without speaking.
“They’ve all got reasons,” Brancaster said at last. “Pride, fear, money, advancement, something.”
“Protecting somebody,” Rathbone added.
