accused beyond doubt. He was trapped by the law that he wanted above all to serve.
He had the ugly sense that Phillips knew that just as well as he did himself. Indeed, that was why he showed no fear.
They adjourned for lunch before Tremayne was finished. Orme was one of his major witnesses, and he intended to gain every word of damnation from him that he could.
They resumed after the shortest adjournment possible, and began the afternoon with Tremayne asking Orme about Durban 's death.
“Mr. Durban died last December. Is that correct, Mr. Orme?” Tremayne asked, his manner suitably grave.
“Yes, sir.”
“And Mr. Monk succeeded him as commander of the River Police at the main station, which is in Wapping?”
“Yes, sir.”
Lord Justice Sullivan was beginning to look a trifle impatient. His frown deepened. “Is there some point to this, Mr. Tremayne? The succession of events seem to be plain enough. Mr. Durban did all he could to solve the case for the police, and did not succeed, so he continued on his own time. Unfortunately, he died, and Mr. Monk took over his position, and presumably his papers, including notes on unsolved cases. Is there more to it than that?”
Tremayne was slightly taken aback. “No, my lord. I believe there is nothing to contest.”
“Then I daresay the jury will follow it simply enough. Proceed.” There was an edge to Sullivan's voice, and his hands on the great bench in front of him were clenched. He was not enjoying this case. Perhaps to him it was simply a tragedy of the darkest and most squalid sort. Certainly there were no fine points of law, and none of the intellectual rigor Rathbone knew he liked. He wondered quickly whether Tre mayne knew him socially. They lived not far from each other, to the south of the river. Were they friends, enemies, or possibly not even acquaintances? Rathbone knew Tremayne and liked him. Sullivan he had never met outside the courtroom.
Tremayne turned back to Orme in the witness box. “Mr. Orme, was the case officially reopened? New evidence, perhaps?”
“No, sir. Mr. Monk was just looking through the papers to see if there was anything…”
Rathbone rose to his feet.
“Yes, yes, yes!” Sullivan said quickly “Mr. Orme, please restrict yourself to what you know, what you saw, and what you did.”
Orme flushed. “Yes, my lord.” He looked at Tremayne with reproach. “Mr. Monk told me ‘e'd found papers about a case we'd never closed, and ‘e showed me Mr. Durban's notes on the Figgis case. He said it would be a good thing if we could close it now. I agreed with him. It always bothered me that we ‘adn't finished it.”
“Will you please tell the court what you yourself did then? Since you worked on it with Mr. Durban, presumably Mr. Monk was keen to avail himself of your knowledge?”
“Yes, sir, very keen.”
Tremayne then took Orme through the trail of evidence. He asked about the lightermen, bargees, lumpers, stevedores, ferrymen, chandlers, landlords, pawnbrokers, tobacconists, and quayside news vendors he and Monk had spoken to in the endless pursuit of the connection between the boy, Fig, and the boat in which Jericho Phillips plied his trade. They were always looking for someone who could and would swear to the use of Phillips's boat, and the fact that Fig was there against his will. It was all circumstantial, little threads, second-and thirdhand links.
Rathbone looked at the jury and saw the confusion in their faces, and eventually the boredom. They could not follow it. The disgust was there, the anger and the helplessness, but the certainty of legal proof still eluded them. They were lost in complexity, and because they were still sickeningly aware of the crime, they were frustrated and becoming angry. The day closed with a feeling of hatred in the room, and the police crowded closely around Phillips as he was taken down the stairs to the prison below the court. The mood was ugly with the weight of old, unresolved pain.
Rathbone began cross-examining Orme the next morning. He knew exactly what he needed to draw from him, but he was also aware that he must be extremely careful not to antagonize the jury, whose sympathies were entirely with the victim, and with the police who had tried so very hard to bring him some kind of justice. He stood in the middle of the courtroom floor in the open space between the gallery and the witness stand, deliberately at ease, as if he were a trifle in awe of the occasion, identifying with Orme, not with the machinery of the law.
“I imagine you deal with many harrowing tragedies, Mr. Orme,” he said quietly. He wanted to force the jury to strain to hear him, to make their attention total. The emotion must be grave, subdued, even private with each man, as though he were alone with the horror and the burden of it. Then they would understand Durban, and why Monk, in his turn, had taken the same path. He had not expected to dislike doing this so much. Facing the real man was very different from the intellectual theories of justice, no matter how passionately felt. But there was no way to turn back now without betrayal. When he had to question Hester it would be worse.
“Yes, sir,” Orme agreed.
Rathbone nodded.
“But it has not blunted your sensibilities, or made you any less dedicated to finding justice for the victims of unspeakable torture and death.”
“No, sir.” Orme's face was pale, his hands hidden by his sides, but his shoulders were high and tight.
“Did Mr. Durban feel as deeply?”
“Yes, sir. This case was… was one of the worst. If you'd seen that boy's body, sir, wasted and burned like it was, then ‘is throat cut near through, and dumped in the river as if he were an animal, you'd have felt the same.”
“I imagine I would,” Rathbone said quietly, his head bent a trifle as if he were in the presence of the dead now.
Lord Justice Sullivan leaned forward, his face pinched, his mouth drawn tight. “Is there some purpose to this, Sir Oliver? I trust it has not slipped your mind which party you represent in this case?” There was a note of warning in his voice, and his eyes were suddenly flat and hard.
“No, my lord,” Rathbone said respectfully. “I wish to find the truth. It is far too grave and too terrible a matter to settle for anything less, in the interests of humanity.”
Sullivan grunted, and for a moment Rathbone was afraid he had taken his play too far. He glanced sideways at the jury and knew he was right. Relief washed over him with physical warmth. Then he remembered Phillips shivering in Newgate and his horror of dripping water, and his satisfaction vanished. He turned again to Orme. “You and Mr. Durban worked all your duty hours, and many beyond?”
“Yes, sir.” Orme knew not to answer more than he was asked.
“Was this same passionate dedication also true of Mr. Monk?” He had to ask; it was the plan.
“Yes, sir.” There was no hesitation in Orme; if anything, he was more positive.
“I see. It is not surprising, and much to be respected.”
Tremayne was fidgeting in his seat, growing restive at what seemed to be a purposeless reaffirmation of what he himself had just established. He suspected Rathbone of something, but he could not deduce what, and it troubled him.
The jury was merely puzzled.
Rathbone knew he must make his point now. One by one he touched on the evidence that first Durban and then Monk had pursued, asking Orme for the facts that specifically connected the abuse of the boys to Phillips's boat. Never once did he suggest that it had not happened, only that the horror of the facts had obscured the lack of defining links to Phillips.
The boat existed. Boys from the age of five or six up to about thirteen unquestionably lived on it. There were floating brothels for the use of men with any kind of taste in sexual pleasures, either to participate, or merely to watch. There were pornographic photographs for sale in the dark alleys and byways of the river. What unquestionable proof had Durban, Monk, or Orme himself found that the boys so abused were the ones to whom Phillips gave a home?
There was none. The horror of the cruelty, the greed, and the obscenity of it, had moved all three men so deeply that they had been too desperate to stop it and punish the perpetrators of it than to make certain of their facts. It was only too easy to understand. Any decent man might fall into the same error. But surely any decent man would also be appalled at the idea of convicting the wrong person of such a heinous crime, deserving of the
