Birdcage Walk (37 page)

The rest of George’s first full day in the condemned cell passed surprisingly quickly. His father and Cissy came for an hour in the middle of the afternoon but were so choked with emotion and fear for George that he was almost relieved when they left. His predicament seemed easier to bear alone, or as alone as he could be with a couple of guards sharing the cell with him.

By and large the guards in this part of the prison were more amenable than those George had encountered while waiting to go on trial. He had learnt that the guard with the broad shoulders was named Reynolds, and that he usually worked the night shift paired with a wiry man called Pitt. Horwood had relieved them during the morning, after Annie’s departure, and George hadn’t caught the other guard’s name. Reynolds liked cards, George quickly discovered, but the day guards preferred to talk quietly amongst themselves, or took turns to doze.

Though the two-man guard had been deemed necessary some years before, to prevent the condemned escaping their just punishment by taking their own lives first, George couldn’t make much sense of it. Within the spartan cell there seemed scarcely any means to cause harm to anyone. Apart from the bench the guards used, his own bed, some writing materials and a slop bucket, there was not a stick of furniture to be seen. He doubted the frayed and half-rotten laces from his boots could have been fashioned into an effective noose. Even if he had managed to tie them to the thick metal window grates, his weight would have severed the threads before he’d felt so much as a tightening around his throat. Besides, even if a man did manage to hang himself in his cell one night, how was that any less of a punishment than being led to the execution shed the next day? As George saw it, the result was the same.

The next morning, after another meagre breakfast, George was told he must take his exercise for the day. It had been forgotten yesterday, what with his visitors and his recent introduction to the condemned corridor, and so he hadn’t been out under the sky since before the trial. He wondered momentarily if he might catch a glimpse of Sam Jelsey but then dismissed it. Sam had never pointed out any condemned prisoners to him before; they were probably taken out at different hours.

In fact, he wasn’t to go to the yard he had plodded around before at all. Instead he was taken to a narrow walkway with flagstones underfoot and bare bricks at the sides. The roof was formed by a latticework of wooden struts that admitted the light from above in thin, uniform bars. As he was led up and down what was no more than a corridor of thirty feet in length, the intermittent slanting of the light across his face made him feel dizzy. It was then that he remembered what Sam had told him in his first week at Newgate. This was the place Sam had called Birdcage Walk.

“Of course the ones who’ve been found guilty and sent to the condemned cells have it very differently,” he’d said, as he and George climbed the stairs to the uppermost gallery where their cells lay. “The food’s a sight better, or at least there’s more of it, but you never get a minute to yourself. The turnkeys don’t even let you piss on your own in case you try and drown yourself in it. You don’t go in the exercise yard like us either. We might not like going out there much when it’s brass monkeys but all those poor sods get is Birdcage Walk.”

George had felt a wrench when Sam said the words, his mind going straight to those childhood days on the marshes and the image of his father at work with his cutters and files. “That’s a strange name for it,” he’d said sadly.

“Not if you’d seen it,” replied Sam, shaking his head sagely.

George didn’t see how Sam himself could have seen it and lived to tell the tale and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, I’ve got my sources, lad. The thing about Birdcage Walk is that it’s just like them long, squared off cages you see at the bird market down Sclater Street. You been there?”

George nodded. “I know what you mean.”

“At first it looks like it’s just a corridor,” continued Sam. “But then you look up and there ain’t no proper ceiling, it’s opened up to the air, d’you see? Going across is it is rows and rows of thin beams, just like the bars of a birdcage—or the bars on our cell windows, come to that—so that even when you’re outside you ain’t really.”

Now seeing it for the first time with his own eyes, George had to marvel at the accuracy of Sam’s description. One of the guards with him, the one whose name George didn’t know, took him firmly by the arm then and, in this manner, he took his paltry exercise. After twenty minutes he was taken back to his cell, the hour when he might receive a visitor scarcely any closer.

In the hours that followed, George tried to occupy himself by drawing, the first he’d done in some time. His pencil was blunter than he’d have liked and Horwood had shaken his head and laughed loudly when George had asked for a knife to whittle it into a sharper point. Sitting on his bed, he leaned against the wall and drew the most interesting part of the cell: the windows and the pattern of light their bars created on the floor. The sky was hazier than it had been the previous day, but the contrast between the places where the light pooled and the shadows encroached was still stark.

Just as he had found in the rooms above the Regent’s Canal, time moved at a different pace when he was occupied in a sketch. He was just making the last strokes to his picture, rubbing and softening the cross-hatchings of the shading with his thumb, when he heard the key being turned in the lock. Horwood leapt up from his doze and crossed to the door.

After an exchange with the guard there he looked back over his shoulder. “Seems you’ve got a whole visiting party out here, Woolfe,” he said. “You’d better tuck your shirt in and put them drawings away.”

George got up and, once again, tried to make himself look decent as he wondered who it could be. He’d expected his father again, and perhaps Cissy too, but no one else.

Charles Booth strode in first, the metal tip of his umbrella ringing on the flagstones. Close on his heels was George’s lawyer Mr. Windsor, whom George had never thought to set eyes on again, while Mr. Woolfe and Cissy made up the rear of the party, Cissy’s eyes red-rimmed and round like saucers in the intimidating surroundings. She rushed forward when she caught sight of George and as he held her tightly he could feel her tears soak through his shirt.

“I hate to see you like this, in here,” she whispered. “I can’t bear it.” Mr. Woolfe stepped forward then and gently pulled her away.

“Now Cissy, come away,” he said. “George don’t want to see you all upset, does he?”

“Besides,” Mr. Booth said, removing his hat and looking in vain for somewhere to hang it, “we may be bringing George some good news. Or at least what we hope will be good news.”

As George stood there not knowing quite what to do, Booth bustled about, finally depositing his hat on the bed and then instructing the guards to fetch chairs for them to sit on.

“And a table if it isn’t too much trouble,” he called after their retreating backs. George was amazed at their acquiescence, even the bluff Horwood only rolling his eyes before doing as he was bid. Within a few minutes the three older men sat perched on rickety wooden chairs while George sat side by side with Cissy on the bed. No table had been forthcoming but Mr. Woolfe and Mr. Booth had between them dragged the guards’ bench over, on which they now laid a pile of papers.

George looked between Booth and Windsor expectantly but the latter kept his eyes lowered. Booth spoke first.

“Now, Master Woolfe, you will be wondering why such a strange party as ours has come today,” he said. “I will explain as quickly as I can, we do not have too long before your visiting time is over. In short, I have consulted Justice Grantham, as well as Mr. Windsor here, about the possibility of mounting an appeal.”

George looked confused. “An appeal, sir?”

Booth nodded sternly. “Yes. A petition against the verdict of the trial. I, and others who bore witness to it believe it was no less than a travesty of justice. Every last piece of evidence brought against you was circumstantial. The prosecution did not have a single, indisputable fact that makes you the murderer beyond doubt.” He paused and looked hard at George. “I presume you maintain your innocence.”

George nodded fervently. “Oh yes, sir. I’ve never said anything else, even when Pearn had me in that room for hours on end without a moment to think straight.”

“Yes, I can well imagine,” Booth said wryly. “I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Pearn myself. As I view it, your presence in Tottenham on the night of the murder, your courtship to Miss Cheeseman, and a tool in your pocket does not a watertight case make. The verdict, as it stands, is unsafe. Would you agree, Mr. Windsor?”

The old lawyer flinched as if he had been pricked with a pin. “Yes, yes,” he muttered. “I’m sure you’re right.”

“Grantham is an acquaintance of a good friend of mine and I took the liberty of using that connection after the conclusion of the trial,” continued Booth. “When I heard he had allowed your father and sister to have a short interview with you after the sentencing was read, I wondered if he might be pressed into privately admitting any doubts in the way the trial was presented. We talked over the matter for some hours in his club.”

George looked even more bewildered and Mr. Woolfe cleared his throat. “If the petition goes in,” he said softly to George. “There’s a chance of a reprieve. Or else the sentence could be . . . commuted, I think it was called, or reduced so you wouldn’t serve so long.”

“You mean, I might not hang?” asked George, his limbs suddenly weak.

“We shouldn’t be too hasty,” said Booth, frowning slightly. “It might come to nothing and you’ll have to be prepared for that. To have your hopes put up only to be dashed in a few weeks’ time will be a terrible thing to bear, but there is a small chance of a different outcome. There is no hope of a new trial, only a judgment on a point of law which we hope will lead to a reprieve. In this case, it is two-fold: the circumstantial nature of the evidence and the retracted identification of the prosecution witness Hannaford—though the former is much stronger, of course, and may be more persuasive by itself.”

George stood up and put his hand out to shake Booth’s.

“Thank you, sir. I’m not sure I know why you have decided to help me and my family, but I am very grateful for it. I am willing to take any chance if it means I might . . . might show that I am innocent. I know why it might look like I did it, but I didn’t. That is the truth of it. The real murderer goes free while I am in here, in a condemned cell.”

“I happen to believe your plea,” said Booth. “But that is only part of the reason I am here. I do not wish to serve a country that deems it acceptable to hang a man who has not been sufficiently proved guilty. Of course,” and his eyes began to twinkle, “my goddaughter would never forgive me if I didn’t at least try to help her friend George Woolfe using what small influence I may have.”

George smiled shyly back at Booth, the movement of the muscles in his face feeling rusty and unfamiliar. “Please thank her for me. She’s been so very kind. She has never doubted me.”

“Once the petition for reprieve is lodged, we can only wait,” continued Booth. “I have stated my views in a strenuously worded letter, which I have asked Mr. Windsor to include in his submission to the Lord Chief Justice and the Court for Crown Cases Reserved, from whence it will be considered by the Home Office.”

It wasn’t until they had left, the two guards resuming their posts close to the locked door, that George allowed himself to absorb the significance of Booth’s words. He himself knew nothing of legal procedure and he struggled now to understand the difference between circumstantial evidence and any other kind. He had a vague notion that it was like those clues you were given by the author in a mystery—enough to rouse suspicion and apparently damning in any quantity, but which could quite possibly turn out to be a red herring in the end. That was what he was in all this: a red herring. The one set up to look as though he must have done it, arguing in public with the victim, writing her a spiteful note, leaving work with a sharpened file in his pocket. No reader would credit it if his story was just that, a fiction; he was far too obvious.

Booth hadn’t said much more about the petition, not yet knowing the intricacies of its procedure himself. British law stated that three Sundays had to pass between the sentencing of any condemned man or woman and their execution; Booth seemed to think that the result of the petition would be decided within this period and not exceed and prolong it.

George remembered how he had felt sitting in the dock, knowing that he would shortly be told whether he was found guilty or would be set free. When he’d heard the foreman of the jury say ‘guilty’ he had thought the not knowing, and its sensation of being suspended in mid-air, was over. Now he had just over three weeks to wait to find out if he would live or die, with nothing but the monotony and horror of Newgate to distract him from counting down each and every minute. He would never have declined the chance, and he could not have been more grateful to Booth, but yet, at the same time, he wasn’t sure he would be able to bear it.

A brisk knock at the door roused Charles Ritchie from his doze. He rubbed his eyes and looked about him blearily. It was Monday, he remembered. It had grown dark as he slumbered in his chair and the one desk lamp that was turned up in the room was casting menacing shadows on the walls. The knock came again, slightly louder this time.

“Come,” said Ritchie, his voice thick with sleep. He struggled to rise from his chair, cursing the effects of England’s chilly evenings on his joints. Crossing the room, he began to turn up the gas lamps mounted on the walls flanking the fire, which had almost gone out.

“Good evening, Home Secretary,” said Perks as he came in. “I’ve brought your evening drink, just as you like it. Let me see to the fire, sir.” He put the tray and its cut glass tumbler of Scotch down on the desk and hurried over to the marble fireplace.

Ritchie allowed Perks to fuss around the room, lighting the rest of the lamps and stoking the fire until it roared up the chimney. When he had left, closing the door silently behind him, Ritchie went over to the window. He could feel the wind’s sharp fingers stealing in through the casement. Below him, Whitehall was busy with carriages and men walking purposefully away to catch their trains. He glanced over at the clock to see it was just past five. He had slept for two hours. Beyond Whitehall, he could make out the dark stripe of the Thames, and the specks of light that must be the last of the day’s river traffic. Beyond it was the southern bank, and the dimly glowing bulk of Waterloo station.

Taking the papers he’d been working on over to the fire, he lowered himself into a leather armchair and groaned softly as the heat of the flames seeped into his bones. He would be glad when spring had deepened into summer and he could take his usual month in Biarritz. He felt like a young man again there, able to get out of bed as soon as he woke, with none of the gradual and tentative persuasion his joints required on a cold, grey morning in London.

He turned to the front page of the document before him and began leafing through the pages, wondering how much of it he had managed to absorb before his nap. Woolfe, the young man due to hang, was from Hoxton. Ritchie’s constituency was now Croydon but the first seat he was returned to Parliament for was the Tower Hamlets, not too far away from Hoxton, both in terms of geography and social conditions. His eyes skimmed down the pages of depositions, taking in the confused matter of Woolfe’s identity. The petition for his reprieve had mentioned it, citing a Frederick Hannaford as the key witness; a man who had sworn under oath that George Woolfe was not the man he saw at close quarters with the victim on the night of the murder. A murder that took place on Christmas Eve, Ritchie noted for the first time. He reached for his glass of whisky.

Hannaford, on balance, did not seem a credible witness. Ritchie scrawled a question mark in the margin next to his transcribed statement. He was clearly a heavy drinker and there was a good chance he was mistaken on the night. Other witnesses placed Woolfe in Tottenham at the right time and there was the matter of the scratches on his face, of course. What man scratched another’s face in a brawl? Only a woman would scratch, with her long nails. Ritchie crossed through Hannaford’s words with his pencil.

The question of the evidence being circumstantial was more difficult. It was undeniable that it was and yet . . . who else would it have been but the poor girl’s sweetheart? As far as Ritchie could see, there was such a great deal of circumstantial evidence that it quashed all reasonable doubt. The jury had certainly thought so too. Nevertheless, the fact remained that, strictly speaking, the law required more. As he pondered, the whisky soon drained from his glass, another knock sounded at the door. Ritchie sighed.

“Come,” he said, knowing who it would be before he entered. Jakes, Ritchie’s least favourite under-minister, scuttled in, smiling obsequiously.

“I am sorry to disturb you, Home Secretary,” he said, his dark eyes flicking towards Ritchie’s empty glass for an instant. “Unfortunately it could not wait any longer. The press have grown most insistent.”

“I presume you refer to the Woolfe petition?” Ritchie said wearily. “I have it here. I have been working on it this afternoon.”

“I’m sure you have. As you know, the boy is due to hang tomorrow morning. The press are agitating for a decision on it so they can insert it into their late edition.”

“He is not a boy, Jakes. Woolfe is 21.” Ritchie looked back down at the sheaf of papers spread across his lap. “My feeling is that it could only have been him. It is true, according to the letter of the law, that the evidence is strictly circumstantial but I do not think that in itself warrants a reprieve. There is no other suspect and no new evidence—alibis for Woolfe and so forth—has come to light.”

Jakes stood patiently as the Home Secretary talked on. It was clear he was trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.

“All in all,” Ritchie concluded, “I can find no clear reason to go against the jury’s original decision and Justice Grantham’s subsequent sentencing. We cannot allow ourselves to be swayed by the prisoner’s relative youth, nor Mr. Charles Booth’s curious involvement—which I can only assume stems from a misguided—perhaps even dubious—attachment formed in the course of this . . . survey of his.” He sighed and absentmindedly began to smooth down his dark moustache, a gesture that belied his apparent decisiveness.

“Is that how you would like your statement to the press to read, sir?” Jakes stood poised with a small notebook and a sharpened pencil.

Ritchie tutted impatiently, his hand still at his upper lip. “It needs to sound more thorough than that, and of course Booth mustn’t come into it. Write something like, ‘Having considered—having carefully considered all the depositions and . . . documents concerned in the case, I can see no ground for interfering with the due course of the law.’ Say nothing of the hanging itself. Let the newspapermen do that. Will that do for you, Jakes?”

“Very good, Home Secretary.” Jakes backed towards the door, half bowing as he did. The smile was back.

When he had gone, Ritchie returned to the window. Despite the warmth of the fire, which was still high and fierce thanks to Perk’s expert ministrations, he felt old again, chilled through to his very core. He thought he would scarcely have the energy to leave the room and order his carriage home. Looking north-east he could make out the sharp bend in the river and Balzalgette’s Victoria Embankment, with its necklace of ornate lamps. Further on, the electric light of the Savoy Hotel blazed out gaudily. East of that, he knew, lay Newgate. He wondered how long the news of his decision, made in this comfortable room over a glass of Scotch, would take to reach Woolfe.