The Wench Is Dead (6 page)

He could still see in his mind's eye the painting on
the cabin in which he'd travelled, with its lake, its castle, its sailing boat, and range of mountains -all in the traditional colours of red, yellow, green. But what was it like to
live
in such boats? Boats that in the nineteenth century had been crewed by assortments of men from all over the place: from the Black Country; from the colliery villages around Coventry and Derby and Nottingham; from the terraced cottages in Upper Fisher Row by the terminus in Oxford – carrying their cargoes of coal, salt, china, agricultural produce… other things.
What
other things? And why on earth all those 'aliases'? Were the crewmen counted a load of crooks before they ever came to court? Did every one on the Canal have two names – a 'bye-name', as it were, as well as one written in the christening-book? Surely any jury was bound to feel a fraction of prejudice against such… such… even before… He was feeling tired, and already his head had jerked up twice after edging by degrees towards his chest.

Charge Nurse Eileen Stanton had come on duty at 9 p.m., and Morse was still sound asleep at 9.45 p.m. when she went quietly to his bedside and gently took the hospital menu from his hand and placed it on his locker. He was probably dreaming, she decided, of some
haute cuisine
from Les Quat' Saisons, but she would have to wake him up very shortly, for his evening pills.

The following morning (Wednesday) was busy and blessed. Violet's early offerings of Bran Flakes, semi-burnt cold toast, and semi-warm weak tea, were wonderfully welcome; and when at 10 a.m. Fiona had come to remove the saline-drip (permanently), Morse knew that the gods were smiling. When, further, he walked down the corridor now to the bathroom, without encumbrance, and without attendant, he felt like Florestan newly released from confinement in Act 2 of
Fidelia.
And when with full movement of both arms he freely soaped his hands and face, and examined the rather sorry job he'd earlier made of shaving, he felt a wonderfully happy man. Once out of this place (he decided) he would make some suitable, not too startling, donation to the staff in general, and invite, in particular, his favourite nurse (odds pretty even for the moment between the Fair and the Ethereal) to that restaurant in North Oxford where he would show off his (limited) knowledge of modern Greek and order a Mezethes Tavernas menu, the one billed as 'an epicurean feast from first dip to final sweet'. Ten quid per person, or a little more; and with wine – and liqueurs, perhaps – and one or two little extras, £30 should cover it, he hoped… Not that the creamy-skinned Eileen would be on duty that night. Some domestic commitments, she'd said. 'Domestic?' It worried Morse, just a little. Still, so long as Nessie wasn't going to be prowling around… because Morse had decided that
_;
in the interests of his convalescence, he might well twist the little bottle's golden cap that very night.

Back in the ward, the time passed, one could say, satisfactorily. A cup of Bovril at 10.30 a.m. was followed by a further recital from Mr Greenaway of his daughter's quite exceptional qualities – a woman without whom, it appeared, the Bodleian would have considerable difficulty in discharging any of its academic functions. After which, Morse was visited by one of the ten-a-penny dieticians in the place – a plain-looking, serious-souled young madam, who took him
seriatim
through a host of low-calorie vegetables on which he could 'fill up'
ad libitum:
asparagus; bamboo-shoots; beans (broad); beans (French); beans (runner); bean-sprouts; broccoli; Brussels sprouts; cabbage (various); cauliflower; celery; chicory; chives; courgettes; cucumber – and that was only the first three letters in the eternal alphabet of a healthy dietary. Morse was so impressed with the recital of the miraculous opportunities which awaited him that he even forbore to comment on the assertion that both tomato-juice and turnip-juice were wonderfully tasty and nutritious alternatives to alcoholic beverages. Dutifully, he sought to nod at suitable intervals, knowing deep down that he could, should, and bloody well
would,
shed a couple of stone fairly soon. Indeed, as an earnest of his new-found resolution, he insisted on only one scoop of potatoes, and no thickened gravy whatsoever, when Violet brought her lunch-time victuals round.

In the early afternoon, after listening to the repeat of
The Archers,
the most pleasing thought struck him: no work that day at Police HQ; no worries about an evening meal; no anxieties for the morrow, except perhaps those occasioned by his newly awakened consciousness of infirmity – and of death. But not that even
that
worried him too much, as he'd confessed to Lewis: no next of kin, no dependants, no need for looking beyond a purely selfish gratification. And Morse knew exactly what he wanted now, as he sat upright, clean, cool, relaxed, against the pillows. Because, strange as it may seem, for the present he wouldn't have given two Madagascan monkeys for a further couple of chapters of
The Blue Ticket.
At that moment, and most strongly, he felt the enthusiasm of the voyager – the voyager along the canal from Coventry to Oxford. Happily, therefore, he turned to
Murder on the Oxford Canal,
Part Two.

Although at the time there were a few conflicting statements about individual circumstances in the following, and fatal, sequence of events, the general pattern as presented here is – and, indeed, always has been -undisputed.

The 38-odd mile stretch of the Coventry Canal (of more interest today to the industrial archaeologist than to the lover of rural quietude) appears to have been negotiated without any untoward incident, with recorded stops at the Three Tuns Inn at Fazely, and again at the Atherstone Locks, further south. What can be asserted with well-nigh certitude is that the
Barbara Bray
reached Hawkesbury Junction, at the northern end of Oxford Canal, an hour or so before midnight on Monday, 20th June. Today, the distance from Hawkesbury Junction down to Oxford is some 77 miles; and in 1859 the journey was very little longer. We may therefore assume that even with one or two protracted stops along the route, the double crew of the 'fly' boat
Barbara Bray
should have managed the journey within about thirty-six hours. And this appears to have been the case. What now follows is a reconstruction of those crucial hours, based both upon the evidence given at the subsequent trials (for there were two of them) and upon later research, undertaken by the present author and others, into the records of the Oxford Canal Company Registers and the Pickford & Co. Archives. From all the available evidence, one saddening fact stands out, quite stark and incontrovertible: the body of Joanna Franks was found just after 5.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22nd June, in the Oxford Canal – in the triangular-shaped basin of water known as 'Duke's Cut', a short passage through to the River Thames dug by the fourth Duke of Marlborough in 1796, about two and a half miles north of the (then) canal terminus at Hayfield Wharf in the city of Oxford.

For the moment, however, let us make a jump forward in time. After a Coroner's inquest at The Running Horses Inn (now demolished, but formerly standing on the corner of Upper Fisher Row by Hythe Bridge in Oxford) the four crew members of the
Barbara Bray
were straightly charged with the murder of Joanna Franks, and were duly committed to the nearby Oxford Gaol. In the preliminary trial, held at the Oxford Summer Assizes of August 1859, there were three indictments against these men: the wilful murder of Joanna Franks by throwing her into the canal; rape upon the said woman, with different counts charging different prisoners with being principals in the commission of the offence and the others as aiders and abettors; and the stealing of various articles, the property of her husband. To a man, the crew pleaded not guilty all charges. (Wootton, the boy, who was originally charged with them, was not named in the final indictments.)

Mr Sergeant Williams, for the prosecution, said he should first proceed on the charge of rape. However, after the completion of his case, the Judge (Mr Justice Traherne) decided that there could be no certain proof of the prisoners having committed the crime, and the Jury was therefore directed to return a verdict of 'Not Guilty' on that charge. Mr Williams then applied to the Court for a postponement of the trial under the indictment for murder, until the next Assizes, on the grounds

that a material witness, Joseph Jarnell, formerly a co-prisoner in Oxford Gaol, and previously committed for bigamy, could not be heard before the Court until he had obtained a free pardon from the Secretary of State. Oldfield, the boat's captain, was understood to have made some most important disclosure to Jarnell while the two men shared the same prison-cell. Although this request was strenuously opposed by Oldfield's Counsel. Mr Judge Traherne finally consented to the suggested postponement.

The Judge appointed for the second trial, held in April 1860, was Mr Augustus Benham. There was intense public feeling locally, and the streets leading to the Assize Court in Oxford were lined with hostile crowds. The case had also excited considerable interest among many members of the legal profession. The three prisoners appeared at the bar wearing the leather belts and sleeve waistcoats usually worn at that time by the canal boatmen, and were duly charged with "wilful murder, by casting, pushing, and throwing the said Joanna Franks into the Oxford Canal by which means she was choked, suffocated, and drowned". What exactly, we must ask, had taken place on those last few fatal miles above the stretch of water known as Duke's Cut on the Oxford Canal? The tragic story soon began to unfold itself.

There are more than adequate grounds for believing that the journey from Preston Brook down to the top of the Oxford Canal at Hawkesbury was comparatively uneventful, although it soon became known that Oldfield had sat with Joanna in the cabin while the boat was negotiated through the Northwich and Harecastle Tunnels, However, from the time the
Barbara Bray
reached the lonely locks of Napton Junction – 30-odd miles down from Hawkesbury, and with Oxford still some 50 miles distant – the story appears to change, and to change (as we shall see) dramatically.

William Stevens, a canal clerk employed by Pickford
&
Co., confirmed
^[2]
that the
Barbara Bray
reached the Napton Locks at about 11 a.m. on Tuesday 21st June, and at the boat remained there, in all, for about an hour and half. "There was a woman passenger on board", and she complained immediately to Stevens about "the conduct of the men with whom she was driven to associate". It would, he agreed, have been proper for him to have logged the complaint (the
Barbara Bray
was, after all, a Pickford Co. transport); but he had not done so, confining his advice to the suggestion that the woman should report forthwith to the Company offices in Oxford, where it should be possible for her to switch to another boat on the last leg of her journey. Stevens had witnessed some shouted altercations between Joanna and a member of the crew, and remembered hearing-Joanna speak the words: "Leave me alone – I'll have nothing to do with you!" Two of the men (Oldfield and Musson, he thought) had used some utterly disgraceful language, although he agreed with Counsel for the defence that the language of almost all boatmen at these times was equally deplorable. What seemed quite obvious to Stevens was that the crew were beginning to get very much the worse for drink, and he gave it as his opinion that they were "making very free with the spirit which was the cargo". Before setting off, the woman had complained yet again about the behaviour of the men, and Stevens had repeated his advice to her to reconsider her position once the boat reached the terminus of the Oxford Canal – where a partial off-loading of the cargo was officially scheduled.

It appears, in fact, that Stevens's advice did not go unheeded. At Banbury, some twelve miles further down the canal, Joanna made a determined effort to seek alternative transport for the remainder of her journey. Matthew Laurenson, wharfinger at Tooley's Yard, remembered most clearly Joanna's "urgent enquiries" about the times of "immediate coaches to London – and coaches from Oxford to Banbury". But nothing was convenient, and again Joanna was advised to wait until she got to Oxford – now only some 20 miles away. Laurenson put the time of this meeting as approximately 6.30-7 p.m (it is hardly surprising that times do not always coincide exactly in the court evidence – let us recall that we are almost ten months after the actual murder), and was able to give as his general impression of the unfortunate woman that she was "somewhat flushed and afeared".

As it happened, Joanna was now to have a fellow passenger, at least for a brief period, since Agnes Laurenson, the wharfinger's wife, herself travelled south on the
Barbara Bray
down to King's Sutton Lock (five miles distant); she, too, was called to give evidence at the trial. Recalling that there was "a fellow passenger aboard who looked very agitated", Mrs Laurenson stated that Joanna may have had a drink, but that she seemed completely sober, as far as could be judged – unlike Oldfield and Musson – and that she was clearly most concerned about her personal safety.

The tale now gathers apace towards its tragic conclusion; and it was the landlord of The Crown & Castle at Aynho (just below Banbury) who was able to provide some of the most telling and damning testimony of all. When Mrs Laurenson had left the boat three miles upstream at King's Sutton, it would appear that Joanna could trust herself with the drunken boatmen no longer, according to the landlord, who had encountered her at about 10 p.m. that night. She had arrived, on foot, a little earlier and confessed that she was so frightened of the lecherous drunkards on the
Barbara Bray
that she had determined to walk along the tow-path, even at that late hour, and to take her chances with the considerably lesser evils of foot-pads and cut-purses. She hoped (she'd said) that it would be safely possible for her to rejoin the boat later when its crew might be a few degrees the more sober. Whilst she waited for the boat to come up, the landlord offered her a glass of stout, but Joanna declined. He had kept an eye on her, however, and noticed that as she sat by the edge of the canal she appeared to be secretly sharpening a knife on the side of the lock (Musson was later found to have a cut on his left cheek, and this could have been, and probably was, made with the same knife). As the boat had drawn alongside Aynho wharf, one of the crew (the landlord was unable to say which) had "cursed the eyes of the woman and wished her in hell flames, for he loathed and detested the very sight of her". As she finally re-boarded the boat, the landlord remembered seeing Joanna being offered a drink; and, in fact, he thought she might have taken a glass. But this evidence must be discounted wholly, since Mr Bartholomew Samuels, the Oxford surgeon who conducted an immediate
post-mortem,
found no evidence whatsoever of any alcohol in poor Joanna's body.