Rathbone looked also at Sylvestra Duff and saw her lips puckered with horror as a world opened up in front of her beyond anything she had imagined, women whose lives were so utterly unlike her own they could have belonged to a different species. And yet they lived only a few miles away, in the same city. And her son had used them, could even, for all she knew, have begotten a child upon them.
Beside her Fidelis Kynaston looked pale, but less shocked. There was in her already a knowledge of pain, of the darker side of the world and those who lived in it. This was only a restatement of things she already knew.
On her other side, Eglantyne Wade was motionless as wave after wave of misery passed over her, things she had never imagined were rehearsed before her in sickening detail.
The following day the stories became more violent. The witnesses still carried the marks of beatings on their blackened and swollen faces, showed their broken teeth.
Ebenezer Goode hesitated before questioning each one. None of them recognised their assailants. Every brutal act only added to his case.
Why should he challenge any of it? To demonstrate that the women were prostitutes anyway was unnecessary. There was not a man or woman in the room who did not know it, and feel their own emotions regarding their trade and its place in society, or in their own personal lives. It was a subject of emotion rather than reason anyway. Words were only a froth on the surface of the deep tide of feeling.
A particular wave of revulsion and anger swelled when the thirteen-year-old Lily Barker testified, still nursing her dislocated shoulder. Haltingly she told Rathbone how both she and her sister had been beaten and kicked. She repeated the grunted words of abuse she had heard, and how she had tried to crawl away and hide in the dark.
Fidelis Kynaston looked so ashen Rathbone thought she suffered more in hearing it than Sylvestra beside her.
The judge leaned forward, his own face tight with distress.
"Have you not established all you need, Sir Oliver? Surely no more can be necessary. This is a horrifying matter of escalating violence and brutality. What more do you require to show us? Make your point!”
"I have one more victim of rape, my lord. This one was in St.
Giles.”
"Very well. I realise you need to establish that your assailants have moved into the relevant area. But make it brief.”
"My lord." Rathbone called the woman who had been raped and beaten on the night before Christmas Eve. Her face was bruised purple and swollen. She had difficulty speaking through her broken teeth. Slowly, her eyes closed as she refused to look at the people who were watching her as she rehearsed her terror and pain and humiliation. She began to describe being accosted by three men, how one of them had taken hold of her, how all three had laughed, then one had thrown her to the ground.
In the dock Rhys was grey-skinned, his eyes so hollow one could almost visualise the skull beneath the flesh. He leaned forward over the rail, his splinted hands stiff, shivering.
The woman described how she had been taunted by the men, called names.
One of them had kicked her, told her she was filth, should be got rid of, the human race cleansed of her sort.
In the dock Rhys started to bang his hands up and down on the railing.
One of the warders made a move to stop him, but the muscles of his body were knotted so hard he did not succeed. His face was a mask of pain.
No one else moved.
The woman in the witness stand went on speaking, slowly, each word forced between her lips. She told how they had knocked her over till she was crouching on the cobbles.
"They were 'and, an' wet," she said huskily. "Then one of'em leaned on top o' me. "E were 'cavy, and 'e smelled o' sum mink funny, sort o' sharp. One o' the others forced me knees up and tore me dress.
Then I felt 'im come in terme It was like I were tore inside. It 'urt sum mink terrible. I…”
She stopped, her eyes wide with horror as Rhys wrenched himself from the warders, his mouth gaping, his throat tortured with the sound it could not make, as if inside himself he screamed again and again.
A warder made a lunge after him and caught one arm. Rhys lashed at him, his face a paroxysm of terror and loathing. The other warder made a grab and missed. Rhys overbalanced, hysterical with fear, teetered for a moment on the high railing, then swivelled and fell over the edge.
A woman shrieked.
The jurors rose to their feet.
Sylvestra cried out his name and Fidelis clasped her arms around her.
Rhys landed with a sickening crash and lay still.
Hester was the first to move. She rose from her seat in the back of the gallery, on the edge of the row where she could be reached were she needed, and ran forward, falling on her knees beside him.
Then suddenly there was commotion everywhere. People were crying out, jostling one another. Others had been hurt, two of them badly. Press reporters were scrambling to force their way out to pass on the news.
Ushers were trying helplessly to restore some form of order. The judge was banging his gavel. Someone was shouting for a doctor for a woman whose leg had been broken by an overturned bench.
Rathbone swung around to make his way towards where Rhys was lying.
Where was Corriden Wade? Had he been seized to tend to the woman?
Rathbone did not even know if Rhys was still alive or not. With the height of the fall he could easily be dead. It is not difficult to break a neck. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps it would be a merciful escape from a more prolonged and dreadful end.
Was it even suicide, in hearing the full horror of his crime told from the victim's view, her feelings of shame, humiliation, helplessness and pain? Was this the nearest he could come to some kind of redemption?
Was this Rathbone's final failure, or perhaps the only thing he had truly done for him?
Except that Rhys had not raped the woman! He had been playing cards with Lady Sandon. It was Leighton Duff who had first raped and then beaten her. Leighton Duff… and who else?
The uproar in the courtroom was overwhelming. People were shouting, trying to clear the way for a stretcher. Someone was screaming again and again, uselessly, hysterically. All around him people were pushing and shoving, trying to move one way or another.
Bent over Rhys's body, Hester, for one desperate moment, had the same thought that passed through Rathbone's mind… was this Rhys's escape at last from the pain of body which afflicted him, and from the greater agony of mind which haunted even his sleep? Was this the only peace he could find in a world which had become one long nightmare?
Then she touched him and knew he was still alive. She slid her hand under his head, feeling the thick hair. She felt the bone gently, exploring. There was no depression in the skull. She pulled her hand clear. There was no blood. His legs were twisted, but his spine was straight. As far as she could tell he was concussed, but not fatally injured.
Where was Corriden Wade? She looked up, peering around, and saw no one she recognised, but there was a huddle of people where the bench was overturned and someone was lying on the floor. Even Rathbone was beyond the crowd jostling beside and in front of her.
Then she saw Monk and felt a surge of relief. He was elbowing his way forward, angry, white-faced. He was shouting at someone. A large man clenched his fist and seemed intent on making a fight of it. Someone else began pulling at him. Two more women were crying for no apparent reason.
Monk finally forced his way through and knelt beside her.
"Is he alive?" he asked.
"Yes. But we've got to get him out of here," she responded, hearing her voice sharp with fear.
He looked down at Rhys who was still completely insensible. "Thank God he can't feel this," he said quietly. "I've sent the warder for one of those long benches. We could carry him on that.”