At the top of the page was the number of the trial and the date. Below it were the words 'Eke Fairbairn, indicted for the wilful murders of Samuel Roebuck and Leonard Childe'. The judge was Justice MacDougall, while Mr John J. Dart, QC, MP conducted the prosecution, a revealing and apt choice of phrase, Foster decided as he read through his melodramatic opening statement. Good to see barristers have always sought to promote themselves as well as their cases. But it was not Dart's interpretation of events he was seeking.
The first witness was Mary Hesketh, the barmaid at the Clarendon Arms, who testified to the defendant being drunk and having a row with Roebuck before being thrown out of the pub.
The next witness was described as a local businessman and ombudsman of good standing; his name was Stafford Pearcey. On the night of 24th March he was taking a late-evening constitutional. As he passed the Clarendon Arms he saw a man dressed in work clothes leaving the pub, lighting a cigarette. He set off towards Holland Park. A few seconds later, he passed a man he now knew to be Eke Fairbairn, wearing a 'look of fury' as he watched the other man depart. Despite the best efforts of the defence during cross-examination, the witness maintained that despite the lateness of the hour, and the lack of light, he was absolutely sure that the man he saw in the shadows was Fairbairn. Furthermore, he claimed to have seen Fairbairn set off in pursuit of the man he had earlier seen leaving the pub. The defence brief then began to question the witness about his relationship with several members of the pohce force, not least the senior investigating officer, Detective Henry Pfizer, but the prosecution objected, sustained by the judge.
A similar template was followed for the second killing on the indictment, staff and fellow drinkers confirming that, after an afternoon and evening spent drinking in solitude, Fairbairn had been involved in a row with the deceased. This time there was no passing businessman to see him tracking his victim. More damningly, the next witness was the aforementioned Detective Henry Pfizer, who confirmed that the knife produced in court was one they had found in the digs of the defendant.
The defence brief's response intrigued Foster.
'Detective Pfizer, would it be true to say that these killings attracted the full attention of newspapers, both local and national?'
The detective agreed it had.
'And not all of that attention, none of it in fact, was complimentary. Indeed, it would be fair to say that most of the criticism of the police's handling of the case was trenchant, was it not?'
The prosecution objected, for reasons not given.
The judge urged the defence to ask its questions.
'My point is this, my lord. The date on which this knife was found was, somewhat conveniently one might say, the day after a fifth victim had been found and one newspaper was calling for the pohce to solve the case without delay.'
The prosecution objected; this time it was sustained.
The defence barrister's next comment was struck from the record and the jury dismissed while the judge spoke to the court. No reason or explanation was given.
The prosecution rested. The defence's case was meagre. The only witness was one who spoke of Fairbairn's good character. There was no attempt to try and support the previous inference that their client had been framed.
The judge, Justice MacDougall, summed up.
'When you come to consider your verdict I want you to forget the imputations by the defence concerning the conduct of the police investigation, in particular the wicked slur against the name of Stafford Pearcey, a man of high standing and repute within the local community. If you believe his testimony then that would be a major point in proving the prosecution's assertion.
'Likewise, I would ask you to discount the defence's inference that the pohce in some way planted the knife at the lodgings of Mr Fairbairn. We heard from the detective in charge of the case that the knife was found in the belongings of the prisoner at the bar, and there is no reason I can see to indicate that Detective Pfizer is guilty of fabrication. I have known him stand in this court for nigh on a decade and not once can I remember him being anything other than an honest and dedicated officer of the law.'
With directions like that, the verdict was a formality.
After sentencing, the defence made a quick plea, asking for leniency, claiming their client had a mental age of only ten, therefore did not have full comprehension of his actions, or their consequences, and was unfit for the gallows. The judge dismissed it at a stroke.
Foster finished reading. He was so engrossed, he had failed to notice Nigel leave and return with a bundle of documents. When he looked up, Nigel pushed a worn piece of stiff paper in front of him -- Eke Fairbairn's postmortem.
At the top was Fairbairn's name and his age. The examination had taken place at Newgate Prison and revealed that the deceased was 'well nourished', 6 feet 9 inches, 197 pounds. He had been dead one hour, and there was a deep impression around the neck from the rope, as well as signs of constriction in the surrounding area. There had also been frothing and bloodstaining around the mouth, the tongue forced outwards. The lips, ears and fingernails had turned blue. Foster had seen it in strangulation victims. He checked the internal examination: there was no fractured vertebra.
'How good were they at hanging people in 1879?'
he asked Nigel.
'Hit and miss,' he said. 'The long drop had only just been introduced. They broke the neck on some occasions but, on others, they didn't. One guy, called John "Babbacombe" Lee, survived three judicial hangings in 1885.'
Foster scanned down to the bottom of the page.
The cause of death was asphyxiation.
Foster rubbed his face with his hands, almost overwhelmed by the exhaustion that was clinging to him like a mist. A potentially innocent man had been hanged. The poor bastard had not even suffered an instant death. His spine had remained intact; instead, he was strangled by the rope and his own bulk. Foster knew that could have taken minutes, not seconds.
He supposed that was the way justice worked back then. Few convinced of his guilt would have cared about Fairbairn's suffering.
Yet what he discovered next was even more disturbing.
The pathologist noted the presence of a number of fractures, six in totaclass="underline" his right tibia and fibula, right wrist, collarbone, right ankle, a rib and the jaw. You didn't get injuries like that falling down the courtroom stairs. The injuries were estimated to have been inflicted approximately seven or eight weeks earlier; around the time he was awaiting trial. Foster knew, there and then, they had tried to beat a confession from him. To cause that amount of damage, they must have used him as a trampoline. How had Fairbairn even made it into the dock? He must have been strong as a bear not to collapse under the weight of agony. And they made this broken man stand trial.
History came to life: Foster conjured up an image of a towering mute with the brain of a child, bovine and silent as pohcemen rained down blow after sickening blow upon his body for a crime he knew he did not commit. Then, when the same man came to end his life, they left him to dangle and choke, legs kicking futilely in the air, seeking ground they would never touch. He felt his fists clench with anger, tempered by a sense of professional shame.
He knew then, they had their motive.
'I've seen this before,' Nigel said.
It took some time for Foster to return to the present and realize what he had said. 'What do you mean?'
'Not this, not an exact replica of these events.'
'Then what?' Foster said, screwing up his face in bewilderment.
Nigel's eyes did not blink. There was a zeal to him, hands dancing as he spoke. 'The past is a living thing: it's always present. Most of us are not aware of it, most of us ignore it, but it's there. You can't just sweep it away, forget about it. Look at this case. It's clear to me and, from what I can see, to you, too, that in 1879 a grave mis justice took place. The world then forgot about it, or tried to. Pretended justice had been done. But you can bet that anyone who seeks to forget the past has a corpse in the basement.'