“Mr. Winchester?” The judge raised his eyebrows.
Winchester smiled. “I admit, my lord, I was attempting to show for members of the jury what a particularly repulsive character the victim was, before Sir Oliver would do it for me, as I fear he will, so that we may all appreciate that he is likely to have had a great number of enemies, and very few friends indeed.”
There was a sigh of relief in the public gallery and a few faint titters of laughter. Even the jurors seemed to relax a little in their high-backed seats in the double jury row on the opposite side of the floor.
Rathbone could do nothing but concede the point.
The judge looked at Monk. “I hope you are not going to describe these acts, Commander Monk? If you intend to, I shall have to clear the court, at least of all ladies present.”
“I did not see them performed, my lord,” Monk said stiffly. “If I had been present, they would not have been. I was going to say that they were photographed, and the resulting pictures used to blackmail the wealthier men taking part.”
The judge frowned. “I was not aware that it was possible to photograph people who are moving, Mr. Monk? Does it not take between five and ten seconds exposure, even with the very latest equipment?”
“Yes, my lord,” Monk replied. “These pictures were posed for, deliberately. It was part of the initiation ceremony into the club. An added element of risk that, for these men, heightened their pleasure, and their sense of comradeship.”
“Did you know this at the time?”
“No, my lord, but because of previous experiences on another very similar boat farther down the river, I suspected much of it.” He looked at the judge coldly, his face hard and hurt.
“I see.” The judge turned from Monk to Winchester. “I shall expect you to prove every step of this, Mr. Winchester, beyond reasonable doubt.”
“Yes, my lord. I shall leave the jury with no doubt at all. I wish that none of this were so.” He turned to the jury. “I apologize, gentlemen. This will be distressing to all of you, but for the sake of justice, I cannot spare your feelings. I …” He spread his hands helplessly.
Rathbone knew exactly what Winchester was doing, and there was no way Rathbone could prevent it. He had expected Winchester to be clever, but had hoped he would be sure enough of his case to be careless now and then, and take one or two things for granted, where Rathbone could trip him. So far he was treading almost softly, and it made the details all the more terrible. There was nothing for Rathbone to attack, nothing hysterical, nothing unnecessary. To question it would seem desperate, the first sign that he himself was not sure of his case.
He could not turn to look for her in the gallery, but he knew that Margaret would be watching him, waiting in an agony of tension for him to do something, anything but sit there helplessly. Rathbone was allowing Winchester to go on and on as if he, Rathbone, were tongue-tied. How could Rathbone explain to her, and her mother, that to make useless attacks weakened himself, not Winchester?
He should put her out of his mind; all else must be forgotten, except the defense. The battle was everything.
Monk was talking again in a low, shaking voice, describing the photographs he had seen.
Winchester held a packet in his hand. “My lord, if you believe it necessary, they can be shown to the gentlemen of the jury, just so they are without doubt that what Mr. Monk says is indeed quite a mild description of the terrible truth.”
The judge leaned forward and held out his hand.
Winchester walked across the floor and gave him the packet. His lordship opened it and looked.
Rathbone had not actually seen the pictures, but looking at the judge’s face was perhaps more powerful a flame to the imagination, a pain sharper than the actuality could have been, because it was a living thing in his mind, a monstrosity that changed and that he could never control.
Damn Winchester!
He looked across at the jury and saw their expressions. One man was white, his eyes blinking fiercely, not knowing where to look. Another kept rubbing his face with his hands, as if embarrassed. One man coughed, then blew his nose hard. Others were looking around the room, staring at the judge, fidgeting, breathing rapidly.
“Sir Oliver!” the judge said sharply, as if he had said it before and Rathbone had not heard him.
Rathbone rose to his feet. “Yes, my lord?”
“Are you content that the jury does not need to look at this … material?”
Rathbone knew he must answer immediately. He must be right. Had the suggestion, the emotional charge in the room, made the pictures seem worse than they really were? Perhaps the reality would be an anticlimax.
“If I may see them, my lord? And I presume Mr. Winchester will demonstrate to us how he knows beyond doubt that they we taken on the boat belonging to the victim.”
“Naturally.”
The judge’s face tightened, but he beckoned the usher over and gave him the packet to pass to Rathbone.
Rathbone took it and looked at the first two pictures. They were pathetic and obscene beyond anything he had expected, but what had not even occurred to him was the worst of all: He recognized the man in the second one with a shock that brought the sweat out on his body, burning and then cold. Should the jury see it? Would it work in their favor, raise a reasonable doubt as to Ballinger’s guilt, because surely a man who would do this to a child, for pleasure, would stoop to anything at all, even murder?
But the man in the photo was a public figure. How would the jurors respond to having their illusions so terribly crushed, torn apart, soiled forever? Rathbone could not know.
“Sir Oliver?” The judge’s voice cut across his racing thoughts.
“I feel …” He had to stop and clear his throat. “I feel, my lord, that because of the men also depicted here, and the ruin it would bring upon them, and their families, that that is a separate issue, and not one I wish to pursue-at least not here. I would ask only that your lordship would inform the jury that, hideous as they are, none of them, in any way whatsoever, involve Mr. Ballinger.”
The judge nodded slowly, and turned to the jury. “That indeed is so, gentlemen. And, no doubt, Sir Oliver will reaffirm that when he questions Mr. Monk. Please proceed, Mr. Winchester. I think you have more than adequately established for the jury that Mr. Parfitt was occupied in a trade vile beyond the imagination of a sane man. Although that fact seems to some to serve the defense rather more than the prosecution.”
Winchester smiled ruefully, as though he had been caught out. “Perhaps I have not served my own interests as well as I hoped.” He gave a very slight shrug. “I am obliged to go where the facts lead me.” He looked up at Monk.
“Where did you find these photographs, Mr. Monk? Indeed, how do you know they have anything to do with Mr. Parfitt? Is he shown in any of them?”
“No. It is possible he was behind the camera,” Monk replied. “We found that on the boat, but not immediately. It was very carefully concealed in what looked like a piece of nautical equipment.”
“Would these men be likely to know that they were being photographed?” Winchester asked.
“Not unless they were told,” Monk answered.
“Where did you find the photographs that you have shown us?”
“With the equipment.”
“I see. And do they depict the inside of the boat you saw?”
“Yes.”
“To your knowledge, Mr. Monk, was Mickey Parfitt alone in this ghastly trade?”
“No,” Monk replied, his mouth tight. “He had at least three men we have been able to question, who worked quite openly for him, but of course there may be many others that we have not found.”
“Really? What brings you to that conclusion, Mr. Monk?” Winchester continued to look innocent.
Rathbone felt himself stiffen in his seat. This was what Winchester had been leading up to, and Monk even more so. Rathbone had to make an intense effort to look unconcerned. Any anxiety, confusion, or surprise they saw could be read as guilt.
The silence of strain in the room was palpable.
“The photographs,” Monk replied to Winchester.
“But you said you thought Parfitt took them himself?” Winchester sounded surprised.
“Probably,” Monk conceded. “But not merely for his own pleasure.”
