The Sleep of Reason (45 page)

I scribbled on the top of a deposition sheet
We shall have to sit with him this afternoon
. As Martin read that, he nodded, his brow furrowed, all the previous night’s relaxation gone.

Benskin was asking, weren’t those opinions subjective, wasn’t it difficult or impossible even for an expert to be absolutely certain about some mental conditions? Could anyone in the world be certain about some mental conditions? Weren’t there features of the doctor’s observations, given in his examination-in-chief, which might be regarded as pointers to deep abnormality–? Just for an instant, Benskin (who often suffered from the reverse of
l’esprit de l’escalier
, who thought of the bright remark, made it, and then wished he hadn’t) was tempted away from his own strategy. He began to ask when “our expert” had last been in touch with professional trends? Had he read–? Benskin shook himself. The jury wouldn’t like it, this was an elderly modest man, the sooner he was out of the box the better. The tactic was to reserve the attack for the heavyweight witness. Disciplining himself, anxious at having to waive a marginal chance, Wilson kept to the same line. He asked a few questions about Miss Pateman’s state of health, her record of psychosomatic illness, and then let the doctor go.

The heavyweight witness was a Home Office consultant, brought in as a counterpoise to Adam Cornford. When Bosanquet asked “Is your name Matthew Gough?”, that meant nothing to almost everyone in court, and yet, before he answered the question at all, during the instant while he was clambering up to the box, he had been recognised, as no one else had been recognised in the whole trial. The fact was, he appeared often on television, under the anonymous label of psychiatrist, giving his views – articulately, but with as little fuss as Cornford in court – on crime, delinquency, abortion, homosexuality, drugs, race relations, censorship and the phenomena relating to Unidentified Flying Objects. On the television screen he gave the impression of very strong masculinity. In the witness box this impression became more prepotent still. He was dark-haired, vulture-faced, with a nose that dominated his chin. Despite his peculiar kind of anonymous fame, which brought him some envy, his professional reputation was high. He wasn’t such an academic flyer as Adam Cornford, but his practice – in a country which didn’t support many private psychiatrists – was at least as large. He was said to have had a powerful and humane influence upon the Home Office criminologists. I had heard also that he was – this came as a surprise in his profession – a deeply religious man.

In the box, his manner was kind, not assertive, but with a flow of feeling underneath. He had, he answered, spent a good many hours with each of the two women. He had found Miss Ross – in this he was odd-man-out from the other doctors – as communicative as Miss Pateman, sometimes more completely so. It was true that occasionally she put up total “resistance”: but his judgment was that this was deliberate, and could be broken when she wanted. Not that he blamed her, that was one of her protective shields, such as we all had. To the puzzlement of many, he differed flatly from the others in his attitude to Cora Ross; he seemed to find her more interesting, or at least more explicable, than Kitty. Miss Ross’ father had left her mother when she was an infant; not much was known about him, Miss Ross’ memory of him was minimal and her mother was dead: there was some suggestion that he had been (and possibly still was, for no one knew whether he was alive) mentally unstable. He had been an obsessive gambler, but that might have been the least of it. Miss Ross had been left alone in her childhood more than most of us: it had been an unusually lonely bringing up. Perhaps that had conduced both to her immaturity (about which he agreed with Cornford) and to the sadistic fantasies, which she had certainly been possessed by since an early age: but that was common to many of us, so common that the absence was probably more “abnormal” than the presence.

Without emphasis Bosanquet led Matthew Gough over the descriptions Cornford had given. It was a good examination, designed to show that Gough was as unprejudiced as the other men. Yes, Miss Ross had lived on the fringe of a free-living group. If she had been less timid or inhibited, that might have “liberated” her. Actually it had driven her further into herself. It was hurtful to live in a Venusberg without taking part oneself.

As for her relation with Kitty, he had some doubts about Cornford’s analysis. He wouldn’t dismiss it altogether: but “guilt” used in that fashion was a technical term. He wasn’t easy about this concept of the escalation of guilt. Many homosexual or perverse relations were quite free of it. “Bad sex”, in Cornford’s sense, was very common: it did not often lead to minor violence, let alone to sadistic killing; it was very dangerous, and unjustified, to try to define a simple causation.

Bosanquet
: You would not accept then, Dr Gough, that this relation in any way diminished their responsibility?

Gough
: No.

Bosanquet
: Or that any other feature of their personal history did so?

Gough
: No.

On Kitty Pateman, he said one puzzling thing (which I half-missed, since just at that time the judge’s clerk entered our box, giving me his lordship’s compliments, and asking if I would care to lunch with him on the coming Monday). He was speaking about her environment: while Cora had grown up solitary, Kitty had lived her whole childhood and youth in a close family life – as intense, I was thinking, as the fug in that stifling sitting-room. That was a good environment, said Gough. Stable, settled, affectionate. This must have been his own interpretation of Kitty’s account – or had she misled him? Gough was disposed to believe devotedly in family life, I was thinking. It was then that he surprised me. But even in a stable family, he said, there could be wounds – which only the person wounded might know. Was he being massively fair-minded, or had he picked up a clue?

In the specific case of Miss Pateman, it seemed that she might have had an excessive attachment to her father. But he, Gough, could not regard that as a cause of her later actions. That was over-simplifying. Her relation with Miss Ross, her part in the crime – no one could identify the origins.

Bosanquet
: You discussed the crime with her, doctor?

Gough
: With each of them. On several occasions.

Bosanquet
: Were they willing to describe it?

Gough
: Up to a point.

Bosanquet
: Will you elaborate that, please?

Gough
: They were prepared to describe in detail, almost hour by hour, how they planned to kidnap the boy. They told me about what happened at the cottage and how they brutalised him. But they wouldn’t go beyond the Sunday afternoon. Miss Pateman said they had finished punishing him by then. Neither of them at any time gave any account of how they killed him.

Bosanquet
: Were they at this stage still pretending that they hadn’t done so?

Gough
: I think not.

Bosanquet
: Why wouldn’t they speak of what they did to him after the Sunday afternoon, then?

Gough
: They each said, several times, that they had forgotten.

Bosanquet
: That is, they were concealing it?

Gough
: Again I think not. I believe it was genuine amnesia.

Bosanquet
: You really mean, they had forgotten killing that child?

Gough
: It is quite common for someone to forget the act of killing.

In his last question Bosanquet had, quite untypically, inflected his voice. For once he was at a loss. We realised that he was getting an answer he didn’t expect, and one that the defence might return to (Benskin was muttering to his junior). In an instant, Bosanquet had recovered himself: with steady precision he brought out his roll-call of final questions, and the doctor’s replies fell heavily into the hush.

“It has been suggested by some of your colleagues,” said Bosanquet, “that a sadistic killing of this kind couldn’t be performed by persons in a state of unimpaired responsibility. You know about that opinion?”

“Yes. I know it very well.”

“How do you regard it?”

“I respect it,” said Gough. “But I cannot accept it.”

“This kind of planned cruelty and killing is no proof of impaired responsibility, you say? I should like you to make that clear.”

“In my judgment, it is no proof at all.”

“People can perpetrate such a crime in a state of normal responsibility?”

“I believe so. I wish that I could believe otherwise.”

He added those last words almost in an aside, dropping his voice. Very few people in court heard him, or noticed the sudden lapse from his manner of authority. Later we were remarking about what had moved him: did he simply feel that, if to be cruel one had to be deranged, there would be that much less evil in the world? And he found that thought consoling, but had to shove it away?

“And that was true of the actions of Miss Pateman and Miss Ross?”

“I believe so.”

“You are certain?”

“Within the limits of my professional knowledge, I am certain.”

“You would not agree that either of them had a real abnormality of mind?”

“We must be careful here. In each of them there is a degree of abnormality. But not enough, in the terms of the Act, to impair substantially their mental responsibility.”

“Their responsibility was not impaired? Not substantially impaired?”

“No.”

“That is true of neither of them?”

“Of neither of them.”

That was the last answer before the lunchtime break. Hurrying out of court in order to catch up with George, we saw him walking away, not looking back. When I called out, it was some time before he heard or stopped. He didn’t greet us, but as we drew near him, stared at us with a gentle, absent-minded, indifferent smile. He gave the impression that he had not noticed we had been present in the court. Instead of insisting on showing us a place to eat, as he had done with Margaret and me on the first morning, he scarcely seemed to know where he was going. He was quite docile, and when Martin suggested having a sandwich in a snack bar George answered like a good child, yes, that would be nice.

As the three of us sat on backless chairs at the counter, George in the middle, he did not speak much. When he replied to a question, he did not turn his face, so that I could see only his profile. Trying to stir him, I mentioned that, the previous day, the defence doctors had given strong evidence, precisely contrary to what he had just heard.

“Yes, thank you,” said George. “I rather assumed that.”

He was just as polite when he replied to Martin, who made some conversation on his other side. I brought out the name of Bosanquet, hoping to hear George curse again. He said: “He’s leading for the prosecution, isn’t he?”

After that, he sat, elbows on the counter, munching. One could not tell whether he was daydreaming or lost in his own thoughts: or sitting there, dead blank.

When we led him back into the courtroom, Martin and I exchanged a glance. It was a glance of relief. There was a larger crowd than in the morning, but still the lower tiers of seats were not full, and we sat, George once more between us, three rows back from the solicitors, gazing straight up into the witness box. Then, the judge settled, the court quiet, Gough took his place. At once Benskin was on his feet, neat and small, wearing a polite, subdued smile.

“I put it to you, doctor,” he began, “we agree, do we not, that Miss Ross suffers from a defective personality?”

“To an extent, yes.”

“You agree that she has a defect of personality, but as a matter of degree you don’t think that it brings her within the terms of the Act?”

“I certainly don’t consider that she comes within the terms of the Act.”

“But it is a matter of degree?”

“In the last resort, yes.”

“I suggest, doctor,” Benskin said, “that any opinion in this matter of degree, about defect of personality or of responsibility – in the sense we are discussing them in this case – any opinion is in the long run subjective?”

“I am not certain what you mean.”

“I think you should be. I mean, that of a number of persons as highly qualified as yourself; some might agree with your opinion – and a proportion, possibly a high proportion, certainly wouldn’t. Isn’t that true?”

“I have said several times,” said Gough, showing no flicker of irritation nor of being drawn, “that I can speak only within the limits of my professional judgment.”

“And many others, as highly qualified as yourself, would give a different professional judgment?”

“That would be for them to say.”

“You would grant that neither you nor anyone else really has any criterion to go on?”

“I agree that we have no exact scientific criterion. These matters wouldn’t cost us so much pain if we had.”

“That is, your expert opinion is just one opinion among many? You can’t claim any more for it than that?”

“I am giving my own professional judgment.”

“I put it to you, doctor,” said Benskin, flicking his gown round him as though it were a cape, “that your judgment shows a certain predisposition. That is, you are more unwilling than many of your colleagues to accept that people can suffer from diminished responsibility?”

“I do not know that you are entitled to say that. I repeat, I have given my professional judgment. I am responsible for that, and for no one else’s.”

“But cannot a professional judgment betray a certain predisposition, doctor? Or prejudice, as we might say in less lofty circles?”

The judge tapped his pen on the desk. “I think you would do better to avoid words which might suggest that you are imputing motives, Mr Benskin. You are asking Dr Gough about his general attitude or predisposition, and that is permissible.”

“I am obliged to your lordship.” Benskin gave a sharp smile. “Then I put it to you, doctor, that you have betrayed a certain predisposition? That you never considered it probable that Miss Ross – or Miss Pateman – were not fully responsible? And you ignored important signs which point the other way?”