hour. The second item was the Moreton Manor murder. “Stephen Cade’s appeal due in court tomorrow,” announced a toneless voice from the dashboard. “Will death sentence be upheld?”
Sasha felt suddenly sick. She leant forward in her seat, clutching her knees as the world turned over. She was powerless to stop her brain from summoning up the same image that had come to her before: the image of Stephen sitting alone in his cell in the early morning, watching the clock for the appointed hour, waiting for the hangman to come. Her sense of responsibility clutched her like a vice. She thought fleetingly of telling the taxi driver to turn round, to take her to the police station so she could confess her sins to that weathered old policeman who had come to visit her at the manor house, pleading with her to tell the truth. But she knew she couldn’t. It was too late now. Perjury in a capital case was a serious crime: she didn’t need a lawyer to tell her that. They’d imprison her for what she’d done and the prize would slip from her grasp. She’d never find out what lay “in manibus Petri.” And anyway it would do no good. What was done was done. Stephen was beyond saving and her father was dead. The only way was forward: She had to go on.
Exhausted, Sasha wound down her window and lay back in her seat, letting the cold night air play over her face. The headlines were over on the radio, and she finished her journey to the accompaniment of an American called Elvis Presley singing something loud and insistent called rock and roll.
“At least it keeps you awake,” said the taxi driver, apologetically, as he took her money.
“Yes, it does that,” agreed Sasha with a thin smile, before she turned away with the bag containing the codex and its deciphered code held tightly in her hand.
TWENTY-TWO
Someone tapped Trave on the shoulder as he was waiting outside the Court of Appeal. It was John Swift, ready once more to go into battle. It wasn’t the first time the two had spoken: Swift had written Trave a note to thank him for the statement from the maid, Esther Rudd, and they had had a drink together after the verdict to commiserate on what had happened.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Inspector,” said Swift. “This hearing isn’t about the facts, remember, it’s about whether everything was done legally over at the Bailey. And Old Man Murdoch’s no fool. He kept everything on the legal side of bias just like he always does. We’re firing blanks, I’m afraid.”
Trave would’ve responded, but just then Tiny Thompson bustled past them through the door of the court, looking outraged at the spectacle of the officer in the case locked in discussion with his opposite number.
“Someone looks happy this morning,” said Swift, raising his eyebrows, and turned to follow Thompson into court. The case had been called on.
Trave barely had time to settle in his chair before the hearing began, and he was soon struck, just as he had been so many times before, by how remote everything seemed. There were no witnesses, no defendants being cross-examined-just lawyers arguing the legal rights and wrongs of what had already happened elsewhere. The three black-robed law lords sat far away on a high dais with shelves of antique lawbooks rising from floor to ceiling behind them, and green-shaded reading lamps threw pools of light on their old hands as they listened to the arguments of Thompson and Swift. It was a duel of words-cut and thrust, back and forth, which was obviously almost entirely incomprehensible to Stephen as he sat biting his nails in a caged dock at the side of the court. And to Trave too, except that he had the advantage of Swift’s warning of the likely outcome, which proved before the end of the day to be entirely accurate. It was still quite early in the afternoon when the Lord Chief Justice dismissed the appeal, upheld the mandatory sentence of death, and disappeared with his two colleagues through three separate polished mahogany doors at the back of the court.
Fifteen minutes later Trave and Swift stood on the courthouse steps and watched the prison van turn out into the Strand, ready to take Stephen back to Wandsworth Prison for the last time.
“God help him,” said Swift. “I need a drink.”
They ordered double whiskies in the pub across the road, and then Trave bought them two more. Swift was visibly upset, shaken by Thompson’s taunts in the robing room and his own sense of failure. Trave, as always, was doing a good job of keeping his emotions in check.
“They’re the worst, these kinds of cases,” said Swift.
“Which kind?”
“The ones where you know the defendant’s innocent and yet you can’t get him off, however hard you try. And when it’s a capital case it’s almost unbearable. Makes me want to give it all up sometimes.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Trave. “The evidence was overwhelming. That’s why I had to charge him in the first place.”
“Yes, but too overwhelming,” said Swift. “Too neat. Someone else committed this crime and set Stephen up. I know they did.”
“Yes, someone did,” agreed Trave flatly. “And his name’s Silas Cade.”
“Maybe; maybe not,” said Swift, sounding unconvinced. “He’s the obvious candidate, I agree. But part of me doesn’t buy it. He just didn’t feel guilty for some reason when I was cross-examining him. Scared and defiant, yes- but not guilty.”
“Well, he felt guilty to me,” said Trave, having none of it. “And his alibi’s rubbish. I know that much.”
“But that doesn’t mean he killed his father. The jurors sure as hell didn’t think he did or they’d have acquitted Stephen.”
Trave didn’t respond, and they were both silent, each turning over the evidence in their minds.
“What about the home secretary? Can’t you get him to grant a reprieve?” asked Trave, changing the subject.
“I’ll try. Of course I’ll try. But don’t count on it. We’re in the court of public opinion now and hanging Stephen’ll be a lot more popular with Joe Public than showing him mercy. You can be sure of that. Stephen’s not one of them, remember. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Much good that it did him.”
“Mercy! These bastards don’t know the meaning of the word,” said Trave bitterly, suddenly overwhelmed by disgust at the whole situation.
And yet as he spoke, he knew that it wasn’t disgust that was tearing him up inside. It was powerlessness. It reminded him of how he’d felt when his son died.
Trave’s depression lasted through the weekend, and Sunday evening found him out on the golf course, walking alone in the twilight. His head sunk in thought, he cut across the seventh fairway, making for the gate in the hedge. He had been thinking more often recently about getting a dog, a companion for his lonely evening walks across the deserted course. But he feared the attachment even more than he desired it, and he could always think of reasons to hold back from making the commitment. The dog would get bored sitting at home in the empty house, waiting for his master to return. He would bark at the neighbours and cause a nuisance, or he might wander out in the road and get run over. And Trave would be left alone all over again. Being alone was one thing; being left was quite another. Lifting the latch on the gate, Trave thought that he had had quite enough of being left behind for one lifetime.
The evening was cold and windy, and Trave had only come out because he felt so restless indoors. Sundays were always hard, but this one was worse. He’d gone out in the garden after he got back from church, but then the rain had driven him back inside. It was the Lord’s day, but he’d given into the need for alcohol by mid afternoon and taken a bottle of whisky into the front room and sat in the threadbare armchair, looking up at the framed photographs of Joe and Vanessa on the mantelpiece. What was she doing now? Making a new life with a man called Osman over on the other side of Oxford. It was all that Trave could do to resist the impulse to throw his glass at the wall. And so he’d got up and gone out, walking the golf course without dog or clubs, trying not to think about his wife or his son or Stephen Cade, sitting in his prison cell up in London, waiting for the executioner to come.
Now that Stephen’s appeal had been dismissed, Stephen would be moved into the Wandsworth death house, a two-storey red-brick building over by the perimeter wall. He had ten days left to live unless the home secretary granted a reprieve, which Trave agreed with Swift seemed unlikely with the government wanting to stay popular and law and order such a prominent issue. People needed to be protected from guns, and what crime could be worse than killing your father in his own home? It was a cold, premeditated act, and the murderer had shown no remorse.
