AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Indeed? So you know of criminal matters and did not inform the police?”
Spiller was confused. “Yes …”
“Yes or no?” Pryor demanded. “Make up your mind, sir!”
Brancaster shot to his feet. “My lord! Every decent citizen reports criminal offences to the police. My learned friend is making it sound as if the witness is lying when the question is unclear. I myself no longer know what he means. There is a world of difference between a police informer and a citizen who reports a crime, and he is deliberately obscuring it.”
Pryor turned back to Spiller. “Perhaps you can explain yourself so we can all understand?” he challenged him.
“Only a fool works the river and don’t keep on the right side of the police,” Spiller replied, his face tight and angry.
“My conclusion exactly,” Pryor said with a sneer. “And was helping them get their revenge on the Metropolitan Police for taking their case from them part of ‘keeping on the right side,’ Mr. Spiller?” He held up his hand as if to silence Brancaster, and even prevent Spiller replying. “I withdraw the question. I don’t wish to confuse you any further.” It was an insult, an implication that Spiller was lacking intelligence.
Spiller flushed with humiliation, but he did not speak.
The afternoon and the following day continued in the same vein. Brancaster called another ferryman who had been working the night of the explosion. He had not been questioned by Lydiate’s men either. He was a good witness, but Pryor attacked him also, and ended by leaving the man angry, which destroyed his value with at least some of the jurors.
Rathbone could see it, and feel the advantage of Brancaster’s argument slipping away. Pryor had not disproved any facts, but he had managed to make it seem as if the new evidence was born of troublemaking, invented by men with their own grudges to exercise.
“You live and work on the river, don’t you, Mr. Barker?” he said to the last witness Brancaster called.
“Yes, sir,” Barker answered.
“And to do that successfully, as you told us, you know the River Police and stay in their good books?”
“Yes, sir. It’s natural.”
“Of course it is. I’m sure the gentlemen of the jury will well understand the need to have the favor of the police, their help, from time to time, even their protection. Life on the water can be dangerous. As we know only too tragically, a man who falls into the Thames will be lucky to come out alive. It’s deep, its tides can be swift and erratic, its mud can hold a man fast. Its waters are enough to poison you, even if you can swim. And that does not take into account the thieves and pirates who infest the worse parts of it, the rotting slums, the wrecks, the marshes, places like Jacob’s Island. Of course you need the River Police as your friends. They are hard, skilled, and brave men, suited to their jobs. I imagine the weak don’t even survive! Thank you, Mr. Barker.”
Rathbone looked at the jury’s faces. He saw the fear in them, the understanding of all that Pryor implied without ever crossing the line of propriety so Brancaster could interrupt him and break the spell.
Rathbone stood up slowly as the court was adjourned. He found he was stiff, as though he had been sitting uncomfortably for a long time and he realized his body was aching from clenched muscles, and the inner effort to hold onto a victory that was sliding out of his grip.
He glanced across at Pryor, and knew with bitter certainty that it was going to get worse.
CHAPTER
18
HESTER WAS IN COURT the following day when Pryor began his defense of Gamal Sabri. The courtroom was respectfully silent. The jurors were wide awake and intensely interested. From her place in the gallery, Hester could see that many of them had now lost all certainty as to who was lying, mistaken, or driven by motives one could only guess at. Looking at them, studying their faces, she could see that this was not a situation that sat well with them. There were unanswered questions regarding the first trial. How could so many mistakes have been made, and then compounded? It was anxiety she saw, and rising fear. They glanced at one another and then away again hastily. They moved minutely as if unable to find a comfortable position.
Hester had deliberately chosen a place from where she could see the accused man, though it was not a good view. She had to twist round and stare upward at the dock, which was at a considerable height above the main courtroom floor. She saw a dark, somber man with a narrow face. He was clean-shaven and smartly dressed. From her sideways view it seemed as if his eyes moved along the faces of the jurors, studying them, as she had been doing.
Pryor stood up and also looked at the jury. He had been handsome in his youth, and now was slightly corpulent, but his white wig became him and he was immaculately dressed. His voice was excellent, an instrument to be played with skill.
“Gentlemen,” he began gravely. “You are faced with some terrible decisions, and I am going to add to them. I am going to confirm to you just how muddled this whole case really is, how many mistakes have been made by men who may well have believed passionately that they were right—when in truth, they were not. So much you may already have gathered. I regret that not all errors were innocently made. There are rage, fear, self-preservation, and revenge, too.
“No one here will suggest for an instant that the sinking of the Princess Mary was not a crime, in fact an atrocity the like of which we have not seen within our lifetime. Such horror can frighten people, warp judgment, and tear at the emotions until wisdom is lost. Men may think they are seeking justice, when in truth it is vengeance they want.
“Is that understandable? Of course it is. It is only human to wish to see such brutal violence punished. Is it right? No, it is not. It is a blind reaction, born of pity and outrage: two very human passions that we all feel—indeed, we need them. It is part of our humanity that we should be racked with horror when such a nightmare occurs. What would you think of a man who felt no pity for the maimed and the drowning? You would judge him less than human!
“What would you think of a society that was not outraged by such an act of barbarity? You would not want to own yourselves part of it.
“Is it justice?”
He gave a very slight shrug: a small gesture of his hands. “No. Justice requires understanding, and above all it requires tr
uth. Listen to the case I will present to you, and judge the truth. That is what you are sworn to do, and that is what people require of you. It is in your hands alone. You speak for all of us: the survivors, the bereaved, all men and women who hope for justice in the future.”
