In Search of the Blue Tiger (28 page)

The trial is the biggest event to hit the town since the tidal wave of fifty-nine. Everyone has a view, no conversation ends without speculation and hearsay.

‘I knew that family would cause trouble,' says Mrs Butcherhook to Miss Spinster on the way to market, tying the knot of her headscarf tight against the bitter northerly wind. ‘What with their rat-a-tat on the door and “Here's the good news of the new order.” Fornication and murder, that's what that's all amounted to. Fornication and murder.'

Big black clouds roll in from the sea like a massive carpet being unfurled for a State occasion. Miss Spinster shivers and shudders, her tiny body recoiling against the onslaught of weather and words.

‘Who would have thought it of Mrs April?' says Mr Clerk in the snug warmth of the Town Hall. He sips his eleven o'clock tea and nibbles on a flapjack as he spies Miss Spinster and Mrs Butcherhook scurrying past on the opposite side of the street.

‘Not me,' replies Miss Shorthand, filing a nail during her break from filing correspondence. ‘Only last week I was standing next to her at the Donkey Derby. And, Mr Clerk, do you know what she was talking to me about?'

‘No, I do not,' answers Mr Clerk, the cake crumbs clinging to his lips as he speaks.

‘Trellising. She was telling me how the strong, unseasonal winds, that's what she called them, “unseasonal winds”, were causing mayhem in the garden. She said the winds were playing havoc with the new trellising she'd put up near to her conservatory.'

Mr Clerk stares out of the window, conjuring up the scene at the Donkey Derby. In his mind's eye he sees all the children of the town, innocent as the sands, waiting on the beach for their turn to take part in the races. The doughnut sellers and tombola stalls lining the course. And there, amongst the excited cheering crowds, Mrs April, the fornicator, about to incite murder.

‘Unseasonal winds,' ponders the Town Hall official, ‘now there's an interesting turn of expression.'

Behind closed doors, for she has been asked to take leave from library duties, sits Mrs April. The black clouds covering the town darken the room. She contemplates lighting a candle, but it is late morning and she would rather sit in semi-dark for a while than confuse the flow of the day. Anyway, it is her experience that everything passes and soon enough it will brighten up. In her hand she holds the photo of her husband. As in his brief life, he smiles up at her, holding her in his gaze.

‘Dear, fine man,' she sighs gently to herself. ‘What a veritable pickle I've gotten myself into here.'

His smile flickers. She smiles back at him.

‘Who would have thought it,' she whispers, holding the photo close to her cheek, ‘murder and intrigue.'

She thinks of the last time Oscar sat beside her, his face and clothes smeared with mud. The tears streaking his cheeks, his small frail body shaking and shivering with the cold and fear of it all. He had told her what happened in the hall. The play, the fire, the sacrifice. As he cried he spoke of blood on the wall of his mother's bedroom, the baby burnt in the flames of the coach-house, animals and spectres stalking the night, and the resurrection of sorrowful children and long-dead mothers.

In the face of all the shock, the intense enormity of it all, all she could do was to hold him close to her, to protect him from the ferociousness of the world. So she did, rocking him back and forward until he slipped deep into sleep. The clock on the mantlepiece ticked and tocked away the seconds, the minutes, the hours. At some point she eased him onto the sofa, covering him with a blanket.

She had sat waiting for morning to arrive. She thought of Mr Fishcutter and the strange, sudden end of the affair. She had known for some time the end was likely, although a part of her, the part not wanting to be lonely, denied it, hoping it could be different. But a certain predictable pattern had been unfolding for some weeks. His quiet moods. His reticence to commit to the next meeting. The sense of his guilt pervading their recent times together. She had seen it all before in her relationships with other married men. She, believing in choice, felt no sense of wrongdoing or shame. But they, once the blindness of passion receded, always slipped into a malaise of conflict and confusion. Yet none before had ended like this. In a burst of flames, uncontrollable and all-consuming, just like the passion that had ignited this whole trail of events. Poor dear Mr Fishcutter, thought Mrs April as the long night receded, combusted in the blue-flamed chemistry of passion, guilt and sacrifice.

As the dawn chorus, innocently, obliviously, took up its song, Mrs April picked up the phone, ran her fingers along the scar on the table leg and dialled the police.

‘Conspiracies no sooner should be formed than executed.' Addison

The public gallery at the Crown Court is full, save for two empty seats. No one sits next to Mrs April, but all eyes, ears and lips are on her as she takes her place.

‘The brazenness of her,' whispers one, cupping the ear of her neighbour.

‘A real woman in black,' scythes another.

The judge enters the court, garbed in purple robes, fringed with the fur of a black bear. He holds in his hand a golden orb, as befitting his status, the severity of his office and the gravity of the crime before him. He is tall and old, with a face lined with each sentence he has passed, eyes dulled by the call to execution and the sight of the gallows. The clerk stands before the bench. He opens a huge ledger book, places a pair of wire-rimmed glasses on the tip of a tiny nose and reads from the handwritten entry of the last page.

‘This court is convened to deliberate on the untimely and unlawful killing of Mr Fishcutter, late of the parish of St Anthony. Let all those present give witness to the fairness and impartiality of these proceedings, in accordance with the laws of this just land.'

In the Moslem faith it is believed Allah gave the tiger to the world to look over his special followers. Tigers guard the graves of holy Muslims. The tiger punishes anyone who breaks the Islamic laws. In an Islamic area of Sumatra, 100 people were killed by tigers in a single year. It was believed to be at the behest of Allah for misdeeds. Only those who had committed evil sins were actually eaten by the tiger.

In my little room above the courtroom I sit at the table, chewing the end of a coloured pencil. The police took my scrapbook away for evidence on orders of Judge Omega, but the guard said I could have as much paper as I wanted to write on. True to his word, there on the table are two new pencils (with rubbers on the end) and a thick pile of loose-leafed paper that has been hole-punched and held together by garden twine.

I like the way the pages turn and fall open: loose and free, unglued and unbound.

I write a heading at the top of the first page.

The Scrapbook of Oscar Flowers: Cahier number 25

I know I've only written one scrapbook so far, but I want to see my lucky number on the front page. I saw the word ‘cahier' in my dictionary and I like the strangeness if it.

Then, to keep me company, I draw a picture of Stigir, Mrs April, Blue Monkey and me, flying a kite on a windy beach. After each day in the court I get some chocolate biscuits and a glass of milk. I fancy myself as the court reporter, writing for a crime magazine. On the next page I draw a tall detective dressed in a large trenchcoat. He wears a black trilby on his head and holds a huge magnifying glass to his eye. In bold blue capitals I write the words:

MURDER CASE REPORTS

Each evening I imagine I have to rush to the telegraph office to file my story. I eat my biscuits and drink my milk and then settle down to recap the day's events.

While the court is in session I'm put in a box, hidden from the view of the public gallery. They tell me I am just a boy-child who should be heard and not seen. Perch and Carp are in a little box next to mine. I can't see them, but I hear them whisper every now and again. Our little cubbyholes remind me of beach huts, but without the sand, the candyfloss and the promise of the rollercoaster at the end of the pier. In the third row from the back, I see Mother and Great Aunt. Mother holds a handkerchief to her eyes; Great Aunt holds a snuff-box in one hand and an ivory fan in the other. Between them is an empty chair.

MURDER CASE REPORTS:
THE FISHCUTTER TWINS & OSCAR FLOWERS

Day One: TRIAL OPENS

The trial of who killed Mr Fishcutter opened today. The two who stand accused are Perch and Carp Fishcutter, as they are of an age where responsibility begins. Their accomplice, and some might think the mastermind behind the plot, is Oscar Flowers. He is too young to be accused of the crime, being of an age where responsibility has not yet begun (but no one told him that as he was growing up). But he is the key witness (as he was there at the scene) and has been kept in solitary confinement so he cannot be tampered with, and can have a break from the crazy house of his parents and Great Aunt. The defendants, it is said, have admitted the crime (remorselessly, says the Judge), and guilt will be guilt. Oscar Flowers is hidden in a specially built box. This is because he is so young, and if he is freed no one will be able to recognise him when he is out in the town with his dog. Judge Omega will be in charge of the case. He made clear in his opening statement he will ask all the questions, decide who is guilty and what should happen to them.

Day Two: MRS APRIL TAKES TO THE WITNESS BOX Judge Omega asks Mrs April if it is usual for librarians to take young boys she meets in the library home for tea? Furthermore, is it befitting a woman of her stature to arrange to meet young boys in the park? She says it is a pity if it is unusual, but she thinks it probably is. She wears a blue woollen dress, a flamingo pink scarf, and delicate emerald and silver earrings hang from her ears. Her hands rest gently on the polished wood of the witness box.

The judge asks her if she knew the deceased, Mr Fishcutter? She says she did. Was she having an affair with him? Yes, she was, she says. There are hisses and cackles from the public gallery. But, she says, she felt the affair was drawing to a close. Did Oscar Flowers come to her home on the night of the thirty-first? Yes, she says, he did. How would you describe the way he was that night? asks the judge. Mrs April pauses. She looks at Oscar Flowers in his hidey-box, smiles a friendly smile, and says he seemed like a beautiful boy who was trying hard to make sense of the mad world created by adults. More hisses and jeers from the geese in the public gallery. The clerk calls for order.