Take No Farewell - Retail (52 page)

But the judge did not speak. Instead, the Clerk of the Court barked out: ‘Have you anything to say in stay of execution?’

Later, leaving the court behind two onlookers more knowledgeable than me, I discovered from their conversation that this question supplies condemned women with an opportunity to disclose that they are pregnant. If they are, they cannot be hanged. At the time, it seemed a cruel and pointless repetition of an earlier question. For answer, Consuela merely shook her head
.

Mr Justice Stillingfleet cleared his throat and said in a flat dismissive tone: ‘Take her down.’ He was eager to be on now, to be finished and away
.

The wardress stepped forward and Consuela turned towards her. Then, with one hand still resting on the rail of the dock, she paused, looked slowly round the court and said something in Portuguese that sounded like
‘Desculpo senhores nome Deus’.
Insofar as it was addressed to any of us, it was addressed to all of us, but, from the silence that followed, I do not think anybody present – apart from Consuela herself – knew what it meant. She inclined her head faintly to Sir Henry, then walked past the wardress and vanished from sight
.

With Consuela gone, all was confusion and anti-climax. Mr Justice Stillingfleet, now capless, thanked the jurors and excused them from further service, specifying a number of years – I cannot remember how many. Then, with a shuffling of papers and a gathering of robes, he was on his feet and hurrying out through the door behind the bench, leaving the rest of us to move, in hesitant disorder, towards the exit like a theatre audience filing out of an auditorium, reluctant to praise or decry what they have seen for fear that their companions will disagree
.

Not that, in this case, it would have mattered
. Rex versus Caswell
is over. Justice has been done. I was among those who saw it done. That, I think, is what makes it so hard to accept. I have stared Justice in the face today and I have not liked what I have seen. I wish to God I had never looked
.

‘’Ere, mate,’ snapped the news-vendor, breaking into my thoughts, ‘are you buyin’ or jus’ gawpin’? This ain’t a bleedin’ public library, y’know.’

‘What? Oh, sorry. Here—’ I handed him a penny and turned away, leaving the newspaper, absurdly enough, where it lay.

Sentenced to hang
. As I blundered across the road, those words remained before me, as if I were still staring at them, printed on a page.
Sentenced to hang
. The worst words, it seemed to me then, that I could ever read or hear. But I
was
wrong, as I was to discover later, when Imry told me what Consuela had said as she left the court. ‘
Eu desculpo os senhores, em nome de Deus
’
. Then I knew what was truly worst of all. She had forgiven them, in the name of God. But they had not understood.

Chapter Eighteen

THE RESOURCES OF
the human soul are as formidable as they are pitiful. The despair that closed about me when I learned that Consuela had been condemned to death was all-encompassing. Yet it was also short-lived. By the following day, I had carved from it something approximating to hope. Just as I had been unable to believe they would find her guilty, so, now they had, I refused to accept that they really meant to hang her. Her conviction would be quashed on appeal. Failing that, the sentence would be commuted. Somehow, by one means or another, her life would be spared.

God knows, there was little rational basis for such hope. The press echoed the judge’s depiction of Consuela as a cold-hearted murderess. There was no barrage of letters to the editor demanding mercy or denouncing capital punishment, no petitions, no marches, no questions in the House. The universal silence that greeted the sentence could only logically be interpreted as general approval of it. Yet I succeeded in resisting such an interpretation. Nor was I alone in doing so. Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett was confident that three appeal judges would see reason where twelve impressionable jurors had not. And Consuela, so he assured me, shared his optimism.

What Consuela really thought was, of course, unknown to me. Secretly, I suspected Imry was right when he said that she had
expected
to be found guilty, that she had begun her preparations for this ordeal from the moment of her arrest
and
was therefore better equipped to endure it than those of us who had preferred to believe she would never have to. Partly because I feared she might force me to face the truth in this regard, I was actually grateful now for her refusal to see me. Not to have to look her in the eyes, not to have to speak to her across a prison cell, made it easier to sustain the pretence to which I had succumbed: the pretence, that is, that she would not hang.

Imry, by contrast, entertained no such illusions. He had experienced the trial at first hand. He had felt the weight of legal process bearing down upon her. He had sensed what the outcome would be. And now, helpless to intervene, he could only await the slow and hideous pleasure of the law.

The effect of Consuela’s conviction on Imry was, in some ways, more profound than on me. It revived in him the depression and disgust with which he had returned from the war. And my confession of the part I had played in Rodrigo’s death seemed only to exacerbate the condition. I have never known him so bitter as in the days immediately following the end of the trial. Normally, at difficult times, it was
he
who had tried to lift
my
spirits. Now it was the other way round – and I had none of his aptitude for the task. In the circumstances, it should have been no surprise when he was struck down by bronchitis. His doctor blamed two weeks coming and going in the chills and smogs of a London winter. But whether this or his dejected state of mind was the cause hardly mattered: I was responsible either way. All I could do to salve my conscience was assist his housekeeper with the fetching and carrying while he was laid up at Sunnylea, using his health as an excuse for saying as little to him as possible about Consuela.

Not that there was, in all honesty, much I could have said even if I had wanted to. Consuela’s appeal was due to be heard on 7 February. Until then, a deliberate suspension of thought formed the only viable basis for day-to-day existence. Hope is a fragile commodity. It cannot bear too much analysis.

Silence was also the only way I could hold at bay the guilt I felt about Rodrigo. According to Windrush, news of his death had distressed Consuela far more than the possibility of her own. She could not understand why he should have broken into Clouds Frome. Nor could she believe the explanation given by Victor at the inquest a week later. What she deduced from police evidence that Rodrigo had spent two nights at the Green Man, Fownhope, with an unidentified companion I did not dare to ask. The coroner expressed bafflement both about this and Rodrigo’s intentions, but Victor’s evidence he seemed happy to accept.

Victor’s version of events was that he had been woken in the small hours by the sound of an intruder. He had roused Miss Roebuck and asked her to telephone the police whilst he went to investigate, taking the shot-gun with him for his own protection. He had found the intruder in a dressing-room and had fired in self-defence when the man lunged at him with a knife. He had only recognized him when he lay dead on the floor. Miss Roebuck explained that she had reached the scene of the shooting just in time to see it take place and the circumstances were exactly as Victor had described them: he had had no choice but to fire.

The police were not disposed to quibble with any of this. The knife they had found on Rodrigo’s body had been used to kill Victor’s guard-dog. There were traces of canine blood still on its blade. A man capable of despatching a mastiff in such fashion was, they implied, also capable of attacking its owner. He had entered the house through an unfastened first-floor window, reaching it with the use of a ladder stolen from a nearby farm. His motive, as far as they were concerned, was a total mystery. (Clearly the safe had been locked and hidden behind the mirror by the time of their arrival, though, even if it had not been, I doubt they would have been any the wiser.)

The only direct reference made to Consuela at the inquest was when the coroner conjectured that Rodrigo might have been seeking some misguided form of revenge on
her
behalf. He did not press the point, however, because of the inconvenient fact that the break-in had occurred
before
her conviction. In the end, he contented himself with the observation that Rodrigo’s intentions had died with him and could never now be known. He then offered Victor his sympathy ‘
for this additional unpleasantness at an already trying time
’ and urged the jury to return a verdict of justifiable homicide, which they did in short and obliging order. Victor’s exoneration was complete.

From Hermione I heard not a word. She too, it seemed, had taken refuge in silence, the better to bear our mutual helplessness. How Jacinta had reacted to events I could therefore only guess. I hoped she would pin her faith in my assurances that, somehow, we would save her mother. I, after all, was only doing the same. The worthlessness of those assurances I thrust into the deepest recesses of my thoughts, where they could be, if not forgotten, at least ignored. The future had become a black and unimaginable pit. As the brink drew ever nearer, I could only look away the more.

It was, I recall, the day after the newspapers carried reports of the inquest in Hereford that I was telephoned by Clive Thornton and invited to have lunch with him. His tone of voice suggested that we were old chums who had not seen each other for far too long. It was, of course, clear to me that Angela’s divorce action was what he wanted to discuss. If the subject had seemed more important to me than it did – which was not at all – I would probably have refused. As it was, it seemed easier to agree.

We met at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand. Even before Clive had come to the point – halfway through the soup – I had remembered every one of the reasons why I loathed him. Money, good looks and war-time heroics had transformed his stupidity into supreme confidence, his oafishness into braying arrogance. To listen to him was to wonder once more why some working-class private of socialist leanings had not put a bullet through his brain one day in France.

‘Divorce can be a messy business for all concerned. That’s why I thought we should have a word. To the wise, so to speak.’

‘I can’t see how it involves you.’

‘Angie’s peace of mind, old man. Always at the top of my agenda. You know that.’

‘She asked you to speak to me, did she?’

‘Good God, no. Strictly my idea. Mine and Pater’s, anyway. Fact is, we think you may not be seeing this thing quite straight.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, I gather you told Angie – hinted, that is – that you might drag poor old Turnbull’s name into the case.’

‘What if I did? It would be all she and he deserved.’

‘Look, old man. I know my big sister’s no angel. She never has been. Marriage to her can’t have been a bed of roses. Faults on both sides, I dare say. That’s taken as read.’

‘Not by the courts.’

‘Exactly. You’ve hit the nail on the head.
Not by the courts
. Cruelty’s the problem, don’t you think? Tricky word altogether. Leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. So, why put it there in the first place, eh?’

‘What precisely do you mean?’

Removal of the soup bowls imposed a brief silence. Then he resumed, in a more confidential tone. ‘Cards on the table, old man. None of us wants a contested action, do we? A whole lot of dirty linen flapping in the breeze. Not on. Simply not on. So, what I suggest is this. Give Angie her divorce – but discreetly. Undefended, on grounds of your adultery, if you’ll pardon the expression. You know what I mean, I’m sure. A pre-arranged weekend in Eastbourne. Your solicitor ought to be able to find a suitable girl. It’s much the most painless method. Over and done with before you know it. Then plain sailing for one and all.’ He beamed encouragingly.

‘You want me to take the blame?’

‘Only in the technical sense. Everyone will know it’s an
amicable
split. Happens all the time. Whereas, if cruelty’s cited … and accusations start flying thick and fast …’

The roast wagon hove to at that moment and Clive broke off to supervise the carving of his beef. When his plate had been piled high and I had been served with far more duck than I wanted, he speared a Yorkshire pudding with his fork, nibbled at it speculatively, then said:

‘What do you think, old man?’

‘I think I’d like to know what I have to gain from such an arrangement.’

‘That’s easy. Just look at what you’d lose by taking the other route. Reputation and money. Most of one and a great deal of the other.’

‘How does money come into it?’

‘Simple. If you … co-operated … Angie wouldn’t ask for any maintenance.’

‘I see. And she’s prepared to be this generous just in order to avoid the scandal of a contested case?’

‘Exactly.’ The Yorkshire pudding having been devoured, a gravy-soaked roast potato took its place on the prongs of Clive’s fork. ‘Fairer all round, don’t you agree?’

‘It might seem so – if I thought my defence wasn’t adequate.’

Clive paused in mid-chew and stared at me. ‘You’ll lose for certain. And be pauperized into the bargain.’ He grinned. ‘So, can I tell the dear girl you’ll play ball?’

I stared back at him, wondering if he could be made to understand that I no longer cared either way. What did reputation and money matter to me now? How would they enable me to save Consuela where every other device had failed? All I wanted of the Thorntons was to be left alone. For that reason and for no other, I was bound to accept their offer. ‘I suppose you can,’ I said at last.

‘Excellent, excellent. Felt sure you’d see reason. It’ll be a load off Angie’s mind.’

‘And how is Ang—How is my wife?’

‘Been distinctly mopish lately, don’t mind admitting.’ The
first
slice of horse-radish-smeared beef slipped onto Clive’s tongue. ‘Matter of fact, Celia and I thought we’d take her with us when we go away next week. Jolly her up a bit, don’t you know?’