Ironbark (65 page)

Jake bashed his head against the iron grill of the door like a trapped animal. Daniel overcame his instinct to hold Jake in his arms and comfort him. Instead he remained seated and kept his voice firm in an effort to restore Jake's confidence.

‘Jake! I promise you Joseph's doing everything possible to save her. He's discussing her case with that newly arrived English barrister, Robert Lowe. He's a half-blind albino but Joseph says he has the most brilliant legal mind he's ever encountered. And the Doc also has a plan. He says it goes against all his medical ethics but if push comes to shove, he'll keep her in a quieted state to prevent her condemning herself. The most damaging witness to testify against Keziah will be Keziah herself!'

Conscious of the guard in the corridor, Jake lowered his voice. ‘I can handle two years, even bloody Norfolk Island and survive, but if Kez goes to prison she'll go stir-crazy. Romanies are different to you and me. They're like Aborigines. They need freedom like air! Lock them up and they give up. They can't believe they'll ever be set free. For Kez gaol is a death sentence. Her father died in prison. Gem was killed escaping from Cockatoo Island. Everyone thinks Kez is a strong woman. She is. But I
know
her better than anyone. Lock her in the
sturaban
and she'll be lost to us.
She'll die inside!
'

Jake grabbed hold of Daniel's shoulders. ‘I'm begging you! Sell my land, lie, cheat, pay bribes. Break every bloody rule in the book. Just get my woman out of gaol!'

‘You can count on me, Jake. I'll do whatever it takes!'

Daniel spoke the words from his heart. He knew it was the closest he had ever come to a declaration of love.

Daniel counted the days. Only two weeks remained before the trial of Mrs Saranna Browne, the woman the colony's more lurid newspapers labelled ‘The Killer Schoolteacher'.

He tied his horse to the railing outside Berrima's Surveyor-General's Inn and looked up at the curtain in a second-storey window. Joseph Bloom's silhouette was pacing back and forth with Leslie Ross, no doubt preparing the case for Keziah's defence.

Daniel tried to dredge up his last reserve of courage to face the meeting their lawyer had called to brief Keziah's key supporters. As he mounted the stairs he prayed in his heart to Our Lady and made full confession of the crime of silence he had committed in England and for his rank cowardice at Gideon Park.

Holy Mother, you know the worst of me. Death prevented me righting the great wrong I did to Saranna and her father. For once in my life make me strong enough to perform an act of courage.

Daniel knew that this would also be a covert act of love to free the woman who belonged to his beloved Jake. He closed his eyes and his lips moved silently in fervent prayer. Would God offer him this last chance for redemption? He waited, but there was no answer to his internal agony, only the sound of drunken laughter from the saloon bar below.

When he entered the room, Joseph Bloom was seated beside Leslie at a mahogany gate-leg table piled high with law books and legal documents. Joseph wasted no time in outlining the case to them. He warned Daniel. ‘You must not even reveal your wife's true identity in your sleep. Never forget to call her by the name under which she is charged – Saranna Browne.'

Leslie underlined the need. ‘Aye, lad. Imagine how the colonial rags would savage her if they discovered in truth she's a Gypsy who stole a dead girl's identity!'

‘Theoretically under British law women –
white
women – have equality in sentencing,' Joseph added. ‘The reality? If a woman commits murder it's a heinous crime.'

Leslie's response was blunt. ‘Aye. Violence marks them as a traitor to the fair sex.'

Joseph nodded. ‘No doubt Lucretia Dunkley was convicted as much for adultery as for murder. It was her Irish lover, Beech, who actually butchered her husband but I suspect the jury condemned her at the first sight of the lovers in the dock. Now she will be the first woman to be hanged at Berrima. Who knows where the full guilt lay? The pair had no lawyer to defend them.'

Daniel was quick to interject. ‘But Saranna has
you
. Surely attempted rape is a strong enough motive?'

‘We must face reality,' Joseph said quietly. ‘Despite the death penalty for rape, why are men seldom brought to trial in this colony for the rape of
un
married females?'

‘Women are deemed to initiate seduction,' said Leslie.

Daniel gasped. ‘Do you mean they'll believe she enticed the Devil Himself?'

‘Your wife is young, a beauty and with child.' Joseph paused. ‘With a husband
who lived in Sydney Town
. If the press learns that a prisoner of the Crown, Jakob Andersen, was, excuse me, her travelling companion, she will be vilified. A judge is likely to make a moral example of her. Unless …?'

His question hung in the air. Daniel hesitated for barely a moment.

‘Jake is my friend. I'm ready to swear on oath my wife never committed adultery. I'll publicly stand by her side as her devoted husband and father of Jake's – of
my –
unborn babe.'

Leslie gripped his shoulder in gratitude. ‘Good man!'

When Daniel asked about the letter Keziah had given Kenwood, Joseph explained how this crucial evidence could work either for or against her in the eyes of the jury.

‘It raises the question. Why would she kill Iago
after
he signed it? It was to her advantage he remained alive to verify it. So what occurred in that final hour of his life? I understand you have both failed to gain her confidence on that point?'

Daniel gestured in despair. ‘Saranna says she can't remember.'

‘Aye, the lass is suffering from amnesia to block out a traumatic memory.'

‘My wife is the strongest woman I've ever known, why can't she face it?'

‘Even the strongest man has his breaking point,' Leslie said. ‘I am monitoring her behaviour and treatment but it is a difficult balance. Her imagination is so intense, her dream life so active. Small doses of laudanum usually have a calming effect, but the drug is known to affect people differently. Prolonged usage is dangerously addictive, but right now it is imperative to bring her safely through this trial without condemning herself.'

‘Agreed.' Joseph turned to Daniel, eyeing him over the top of his eyeglasses. ‘The key weakness in the prosecution's case is the absence of any murder weapon.'

Daniel remained silent but he felt a nervous tic in his cheek, aware that the lawyer suspected he'd disposed of the evidence.

Leslie Ross admitted he was confused by the colony's recent adoption of the English Prisoners' Counsel Act. ‘How on earth will this affect my patient?'

‘My
wife
,' Daniel corrected quickly.

‘The law regarding felony cases is in a state of transition. Previously the accused was allowed to stand and make a statement in his own defence, a ‘dock statement' that was not on oath and not subject to
cross-examination. Now some judges rule that if the defence counsel makes a speech on his behalf, the prisoner's dock statement is not allowed. Some judges follow the old rules and allow both – some do not.'

‘Which way is our judge likely to jump?' Leslie asked.

Joseph Bloom shrugged. ‘He's a new appointment. I won't know the answer until we appear in court.' He turned to Daniel. ‘But I'll do everything in my power to prevent your wife taking the stand.'

Daniel raised the question uppermost on his mind. ‘Would an all-female jury be more sympathetic to Saranna?'

‘Colonial precedent suggests otherwise,' Joseph replied. ‘In the early years of settlement a female convict jury sent a fellow woman prisoner named Davis to the gallows for petty theft.'

‘Surely we live in more enlightened times?' Daniel argued.

Joseph was sceptical. ‘That is no guarantee women are more merciful today. Take the case of Sarah McGregor. This girl claimed she was forced to have connection with her assigned master. She attacked him with her bare hands and as a result he died, probably due to a heart attack. The court empanelled a jury of twelve respectable matrons to examine her physically and verbally. Their verdict? “To the best of our opinion, not with child.” Sarah McGregor only escaped the gallows due to Governor Bourke's clemency.'

Joseph paused for effect. ‘Seven months later she gave birth to a son. A jury of good women had the chance to save her but did not choose to do so.'

Close to tears, Daniel remembered how he had been crushed by the system at the hands of Iago.

‘What if her jury consists of gentry, landholders, literate men who came free?'

‘Then God help the lass,' Leslie mumbled.

‘All jurymen are initially unknown factors,' Joseph said reassuringly. ‘It is my role to present your wife's defence in a way that will gain the jury's sympathy.'

Daniel seized on another point that worried him. ‘What happens if they claim Saranna deliberately set fire to Iago's house?'

Joseph sighed. ‘That is a most serious offence and there's a penalty of mandatory death “for maliciously and unlawfully setting fire to a dwelling-house, any person being therein”.'

Daniel looked from one to the other. ‘Mandatory. What does that mean?'

‘It contains a directive to the judge, in this case, to enforce the death penalty.'

Daniel stood up, agitated. ‘Do you mean she faces
two
chances of the death penalty?'

‘I simply want to prepare you for the fact it is a most complex case,' said Joseph. ‘But there's an old German proverb.
Gesetz was hat nicht ein loch, wer's finden kann.
This means there is no law without a loophole for him who can find it.'

Leslie did not hesitate to volunteer. ‘Aye, and you're just the man to find it! As her doctor I will do anything you advise. Say anything you tell me to say, aye, under oath!'

Daniel was conscious that both men waited for him to make the same commitment but he was so overwhelmed by fear he was unable to answer.

A knock at the door gave him an excuse to avoid a direct response. He moved to open the door. The publican's wife was full of apologies.

‘I am sorry to disturb Mr Bloom but this gentleman insists on seeing him.'

Immaculately dressed in pale grey, Caleb Morgan passed by Daniel without a glance and made straight for Joseph Bloom and presented his card.

‘Mr Bloom, you know me through my legal dealings in the matter of Gabriel Stanley. I come to offer my help to your client in any capacity you deem fit. I swear on my honour I have no ulterior motive. I am totally at your service, gentlemen.' Caleb Morgan bowed to them with
what appeared to be genuine respect.

The first to offer his handshake was Leslie Ross. ‘Welcome on board, Morgan.'

Daniel only nodded, stung by the contrast between his own ambiguous attitude and the forthright manner of the man he knew to be Gabriel's true father.

Joseph gestured to the Englishman to be seated. ‘Well, gentlemen, we now have another member on our team. I have some interesting witnesses lined up for the defence. Let us explore our tactics, shall we?'

Outwardly Daniel was in agreement, inwardly he felt more like a coward than ever before.

The final days before the commencement of Keziah's trial were a nightmare for Jake Andersen.

It was obvious to him their friends were so busy helping Joseph Bloom build a respectable public image for Saranna Browne to counter the lurid newspaper accounts of Iago's murder that they had virtually forgotten Jake's existence.

Now as he sweltered under the midday sun breaking sandstone blocks, he worked on his own plan to help his woman.
First I've got to find where the bloody warders have stashed her.

He went over in his mind every detail he'd learned about Berrima Gaol. He was aware that it was filled beyond its capacity of three hundred prisoners.
That's clear 'cos the bloody warders never stop complaining they're overworked.

He pieced together snippets of information he had gleaned from inmates and guards about the prison layout. During the short break his fellow prisoners drank a pannikin of water or relieved themselves. Jake chose the time to shelter in a patch of shade, covertly re-examining the rough blueprint he'd drawn and adding fresh details that had just come to light. Cells lined passageways that radiated like spokes from an octagonal wheel.
But where are the female prisoners' cells? There's only a small number of women here compared to men. Maybe they've put Kez in a cell on her own. That'd have to be better than locking her in with some ruthless inmate like Lucretia Dunkley.

He felt a sudden rush of panic.
Jesus wept! That Dunkley woman knows she's gunna swing for The Finisher – so she'd have nothing to lose by killing anyone that got in her way!

Jake forced himself to calm down and think of ways to aid his plan. He suspected there was one man inside Berrima who guessed the reason for his obsession with The Killer Schoolteacher, but being suspicious of all god-botherers Jake had managed to steer clear of him. When he was summoned to the chaplain's office within the hour, Jake gave a wry shrug.
Maybe this is what Kez would call
baxt
giving me a prod.

• • • 

Before him was a nuggety man with a barrel chest, resembling an ecclesiastical version of John Bull, minus the waistcoat made from the Union Jack. Seated across from Jake, the chaplain looked him in the eye as if he accepted the best and worst in him.

‘I'm Frederick Parsons, son, the relieving chaplain while my colleague is on leave.' He casually placed a bible on the table. ‘I take it you're not much of a church-going man, Jakob.'