Frances Fyfield
Blood from Stone
In memory of Magdalen Nabb.
Acknowledgements
With heartfelt thanks to Ian Goldup, and Rebecca Cobb, Coroners, for facts and information.
Thanks also to Judith Dorey, for giving me the atmosphere of a place where clothes are lovingly restored.
All errors are my own.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Scene 1
Following his acquittal, which happened without too much of a fanfare but with dramatic abruptness on the fourth day of the sixth week of his postponed and protracted trial, the Defendant waited outside Court Three in the Central Criminal Court long after everyone else had departed. He was admiring the older part of the building. He had been granted the accolade of the original, seventeenth-century courtroom that had once led, via a trapdoor in the floor, to the cells of Newgate Gaol beneath. Two centuries ago, prisoners would enter the court via this hole in the ground; it was said that the judge would hold a perfumed nosegay to his face to mask the smell of incarcerated humanity. Ring a ring o’ roses, a pocket full of posies, Atishoo, atishoo! We all fall down. Or maybe, as Ms Shearer, QC, his learned Counsel for the Defence had said, this ditty referred to the plague years.
He was waiting specifically to say goodbye to her. He knew very well she detested him as thoroughly as anyone of her bloodless and ruthless temperament could entertain such an emotion. He had his own, foul smell. She would be better at carefully concealed contempt than she would be at affection and as for sentiment, Jehovah forbid. She was fifty-one, walked like an aggressive ballerina, acted like a wheedling prima donna specialising in outrage on behalf of her clients, and had the ability to make herself believe in them absolutely for as long as it took. Her desire to win was lethal. He had charmed her at first, but that was a long time before. Ms Shearer had got what her ugly face deserved.
The trial had gone wrong on her, with the right result, certainly, one achieved through exploitation of weakness, legal argument, bullying, manipulation and luck. The suicide of the prime witness could only be called a misfortune. A thoroughly professional hatchet job on her part, in other words. It was for the prosecution to prove their case and for her to destroy it; she had done the latter but the result would not cover her with glory simply because it would be seen as an outrageous piece of cruel luck, rather than advocacy.
She would not want to say goodbye. She would never want to see him again, but he was fresh out of jail and for the first time he was leaving the court via the front door and not via the prison van. The prison van, he had told her, was an exquisitely uncomfortable mode of transport, like travelling on the inside of a human time bomb complete with moulded plastic seats and manacles.
Freedom could wait. He knew she had to come through that door over there in order to find her own way out and he knew she would be hoping he was long gone, never to be seen or heard of again, but he wanted a chance to stress to her how much they had in common, to thank her, of course and above all, to let her know exactly what they had achieved between them. As if, after all those hours spent together, she did not know already.
She wore her high heels as if born in them, clicking over the tiled floor, hesitating when she saw him, alone apart from the security guard who waited to see them out. The space was suddenly vast. His small legal team had melted away as soon as the Judge left his seat. No one else wanted to say goodbye. The Prosecution’s pathetic posse of lawyers and disgruntled police had exited stage left, shepherding away that bitch of a girl with a bag who would have spat at him in passing if not held back. They might all be elsewhere, rending their garments like biblical penitents. So, it might just be the two of them, then; after all those hours spent together saying goodbye.
Her hesitation, a slow little click-clack of the black shoes, as if pausing in a dance, turned into certainty. Ms Shearer would never give herself the option of running away.
‘Still here, Richard?’ she said. ‘Doesn’t the fresh air beckon or something? It’s over.’
‘I wanted to thank you.’
She was standing back, but he reached forward and touched her arm above the elbow. She was heavily laden with leather panniers of paper over each shoulder; her face was old and cold, paler than his prison pallor, a face devoid and exhausted and still ugly.
‘No need to thank me. I was only doing my job.’
‘So you were. Can I carry your bags, miss?’
‘No. My luggage is my own.’
She began to steer her way round him, her distaste palpable. He was furious. After all those hours.
‘I only wanted to walk out of here with you. My saviour. And you can’t even bear to do that?’
She put down the document bags and rubbed her right shoulder, weariness overcoming her. Spoke loudly in her harsh voice.
‘No, I don’t want to walk out of here with you, even if it’s the wrong time of day for the newspapers. You wanted to say goodbye, so goodbye, Rick Boyd. I’ve done the job and I’ve got another. Another innocence to prove.’
‘Shake hands, then.’
In an automatic gesture of politeness – she was good with gestures – she extended her right hand towards him. He glimpsed the long, ringless fingers with the talon nails he had seen so often turning the pages of paper in his presence, looking for the weaknesses in the words and always finding them. In the last second, her hand trembled and he imagined what she would want to do after she had shaken his. She would want to wipe away all traces, stroke her damp palm on the cloth of her skirt to get rid of the slime of him and maybe she would not even wait until he was out of sight. He seized the proffered hand in both of his own and bent back the first finger until he could hear the crick of bone.
‘Beautiful hands,’ he murmured. ‘I got the dear Angel to display hers on the kitchen table. I do so love a woman’s hand. She’d varnished her fingernails for me. She was admiring herself, hands splayed on the wood, when I took off the first digit. The blood went in the soup and salt went in the wound. She slept very well, I assure you. I’m sure she doesn’t miss it. Anyway, I really did want to thank you for springing me. Magnificently done. Every single trick in the book.’
He struggled with pride, straightened his shoulders.
‘I suppose we killed her, really,’ he murmured. ‘But I didn’t mean it. I’ll find that other bitch. Anyway, thanks.’
The hand he relinquished fell to her side. She flexed nerveless fingers, took a deep breath, hoisted her bags of robes and papers and clicked her way across the floor. From a safe distance, she half turned, checked the mobile phone in her breast pocket, spoke over her shoulder, ‘I’ll put it all in my memoirs, Mr Boyd,’ and then she went out. The guard followed her, leaving the Defendant alone.
He did a little dance on the central design of the tiled floor.
Free.
Conscience was something which belonged to other people. The hot summer sunshine outside on the street was as sweet as she had promised, not that he noticed the seasons. Truth never hurt anyone except his victims, and victims lied, did they not? Lied, while only one of them had died. Who cared? They were cut from the same cloth, Ms Shearer and he. They didn’t do suffering.
Rejoice.
Only, out in the daylight, he knew she had not done it right. She had not proved he was INNOCENT. What memoirs? What book of revelation of all those long hours? She never loved him and she still had his life.