Babbicam

by Rod Madocks

  Turnings

  Life has a way of suddenly turning belly over. Things aren’t what you thought they were and nothing is forever. When I was a kid I kept wanting to fix or freeze stuff to stop the world from changing. The trouble was that whatever I did everything glided on regardless. After the funeral we went out on Grandpa’s boat, an old Lund he’d had for years. It was painted pale blue inside with mahogany seats. It was the same one we used for fishing big mouth bass and muskies in the cloudy Lake Pewaukee waters. My parents often came to the lake on weekends, walking and feeding the geese. Pa wasn’t much of a fisherman. He was happy to wave me off on my boating trips with Grandpa. Still, we chose the lake because it was a special place for both my parents. We glided through the weed in the shallow parts until we were quite far out. Grandpa cut the engine: small waves were slapping against the hull and gulls were rising and falling. He opened the stopper on the big plastic urn thing and sprinkled the contents. Some bits sunk straight away and flecks of gray ash floated for a while. It was all that was left of them. He helped me throw in some flowers and we watched them drift off.

  “That’s it, son,” he said.

  Spool Three

  The jury makes their finding

  St Marychurch, November 1884

  —Back in the Market Street clink in Torquay I’d go through the long day’s doings in court. How it would all puggle up in my young wits. No one would ever know what happened on that night, no one could know. The memory could not admit it. What could one say of the evil of it?

  Doctor Kaiser: I assure you it would be best to let it out, to say what it is that has been troubling you.

  —I’m trying to, believe me. But, Lord, it’s hard because I’ve buried it deep. That night in Babbicam burnt a brand onto my mind: the horrible roaring of the flame, so much blood, black as ink in the orange light. It took two flints to make that fire, aye, true enough. Oh, my dead mistress. My head drummed as with a fever, ’n I kept thinking of when I was hurt as a boy and I in turn would thrust beetles into Ma’s bee skeps to be killed by the swarm. My bones ached as they used to after Bartlet or Pa had done kicking me. The drop, drop, drop of the cab horse hooves coming back from the inquest knocked in my brain. While I slept my dreams wove with the racket in the cells. I dreamt of walking with Katie on the cliffs above a heaving bad sea; I saw again Granfer tapping with his heavy hammer. I used to scream out for them to be quiet there. Always racketing in the cells. Whenever I closed my eyes I saw the bees swarming in fury. They would kill all that were strange. The bucket delved down the Ladywell, I was afeared of what it would bring forth. I kept asking myself why would none ask me what I has to say in my defense. You remember Teacher Cornish once told me, “Man is wolf on man”? I saw that truth played out in the Marychurch Town Hall. Where was Lizzie? Why she was not locked up like me? And that Harrington? Not a sign of him in the crowds though I looked for him each day. Most painful was poor Katie who wept every time I saw her.

  Doctor Kaiser: Was there no-one who spoke up for you in the inquest?

  —Big old Dr Chilcote with his brushy hair and red face took the stand three or four days in. I thought when I saw him that now at last came one who would speak the truth. He spoke about the wounds on the Missis’ body. Much I could not understand but he was clear there were two great wounds on the head and the throat cut so hard that it left a notch on the backbone. He said the burning happened after death. He used to nod his head in a funny way whenever he spoke, like a blackbird dabbing at a worm. He told them the head blows were what really killed her, the throat cut was done when life had all but gone. I could have hugged him for that. He said the head wounds were done with something heavy and rounded like a knob stick. He kept on bobbing his head when he said it. “Great force,” he kept saying, “the murderer used great force”. Nott showed him a small table knife. I recognized it at once as my lamp trimming knife. Nott asked if this could have been used on Miss Keyse’s neck. Chilcote looked doubtful and said it was unlikely. Nott kept on at him about it saying it had been found wrapped in bloody paper in the butler’s room. That knife was blunt as a bean. It could hardly cut string but still the coppers wanted it tied to my neck. The good gennelman doctor stuck by his judgment though and said that was not the knife and I was thankful. Nott then picked up the black rag and asked what Chilcote made of it. The doctor said that it was a chair covering and he thought it had been used to stem the flow of blood from the old lady’s neck. It was a wonderment how clear-sighted he was in that.

  It was only then that I began to dimly see what a role Sergeant Nott had in fixing everything against me. It was not that bold, loud Hacker who made the case against me but the slow-spoken Nott who had so quietly asked me to walk down to Market Street with him on that Saturday morning. Nott had come to me in the cells earlier, saying that Mary Ann Fey has gone missing and did I know anything about it. I told him that I knew nothing about the girl beyond she was not right in the head, a bit mazy. He said that lots of bad things were pointing at me. I said he should not speak to me like that and I would have my say in court. He said something like, “We will see about that.” That showed his bad intent to me.

  Doctor Kaiser: You think that Sergeant Nott was determined to prove you guilty?

  —That damned peeler led Dr Chilcote on, to build a hanging case agin me. Chilcote, he stood bravely on the stand but I think now he was a man who was in truth afeared of making mistakes and unsure of his own judgment. His answers, though all wrapped up in fair speech, seemed cloudy and doubtful to the sharp ears of the jury. He couldn’t make his mind up if the man who hurt Miss Keyse was right or left handed. He said it could even be a woman. He was not sure how long dead the old lady had been when he first saw her and was unsteady about what weapon might have been used. He did alright by me in talking of the deep cuts to my arm and saying that they would have been caused by breaking the window as I had said but he got me into deeper trouble when Nott took out a shirt, my best blue shirt for special occasions. Nott asked if the blood stains on the chest area and right shoulder of that shirt could have come from my arm wound. Chilcote looked at me sadly for a moment then back to the shirt. He shook his head, and said they must have come from some other source of blood.

  Doctor Kaiser: Were you able to state your case? [immediate croaky laughter from Lee]

  —No, sir. It was all sewn up already. A crowd of witnesses pressed on: Gasking, Richard Harris, the custom bluebottles, indeed it seemed every busybody in Babbicam had something to say against me. The inquest stretched out over three weeks and as the evidence began to pile, I took to playing with the crowd during the breaks. I pulled faces at them and once I wound a window sash cord around my neck and yelled, “This is what you want, ain’t it?” Foolish young napper that I was. I think I’d nearly lost my wits by then.

  They buried Miss Keyse half way through the first week of the inquest. The court had closed for the day. Bastin told me about it when delivering my dinner in the cells. Apparently a great crowd had gathered on the Downs. Gasking made a special coffin of three types of wood for the ole dumman. It was funny what care he took of her then after all their quarrels. The coffin was taken up Beach Road on the fishermen’s shoulders, then Gaskin led a great procession with many gentry following in carriages and the whole jury marching along as well. They said that the Necks went to the funeral but Lizzie was not allowed—Mr Whitehead’s orders. All the house blinds were drawn down Fore Street and the businesses closed. That was wunnerful, I thought. And that Gasking directing everything. Just wunnerful. With all the jurors at the funeral? Oh, what a perfection.

  Doctor Kaiser: How did it end?

  —There was a surprise for me before it was wound up. I had a visitor in my cell. It was most strange. Of all men it was solicitor Templer that had come to see me. His handshake was like a damp rag. He told me he was to defend me in court. I asked how this had come about ’n he said he was doing it as we owed it to Miss Keyse to see the truth come out. I found it h
ard to believe. I thought of Templer as an enemy, could he really be a friend? I remembered that Lizzie was afraid of him. He said it was his duty, the county did not like to see me undefended. He wanted no money for it and said I was not to trouble myself but I said I did trouble myself mightily. I was young. I did not know what I was doing. There were many there fit to hang me for what I have not done. I feared that the evil has been said in the court room that could not be unsaid. I had seen the faces of that there jury, I knew most all of them and they did not like me and never had done. What chance did have I now? They just wanted it finished. They had started clapping to hurry the Coroner back from the adjournments so they could get on with the verdict. Templer said I had every chance, it was an inquest not a trial.

  Well, to me it felt like a damn trial. Who would speak for me? Miss Keyse would have but she was no more. That Harrington needed to be found but I knew not how to do it. Later, after Templer left, I puzzled over it. With Templer as a friend I thought that I must have enemies indeed.

  Doctor Kaiser: This lawyer must have made some arguments in your defense?

  —I wonder now if he took my case to do me harm. I sat back in the inquest after that as my sister, Gasking, Richards the postman and the police wove a four-ply hanging noose for me. Templer seemed to conduct matters very poorly, calling out in a shrill voice at the wrong times, always dabbing at his brow with a handkerchief, stammering like a village fool, seemingly angry and suspicious about small things and missing the big picture. He complained about the coroner to me in the holding cell then proposed all manner of grand plans to call this or that witness but he never actually did anything.

  The witnesses kept pouring through. There were over thirty of them called. Gasking was the first, humpy-backed, all in mourning with a crepe band on his arm, his sly face fixed on Hacker. He could say nothing really bad agin me but told of me trying to fight the fire and moving Miss Keyse’s body as if I was unwilling and fearful. He left an impression that I was a wrong ’un by the way he spoke of me. He said that he had to order me about to fetch water and such because I was so unwilling.

  The customs also took the stand, four of five of them in their best uniforms. They said nothing too bad though they kept mentioning the damned hatchet, that one I used to chop the firewood. The customs men said how I had fetched it out so quickly to fight the fire as if I had it to hand all the time.

  Richard Harris came to court still dressed in his sea clothes. He looked across at me and I seemed to see puzzlement and shame in his eyes. He tried to help but got me into further into trouble by making it seem that I had cut my arm deliberate-like. He told the inquest that I kept on mentioning that I had cut my arm that night. I suppose the idea of the jury was that I had hurt my arm to hide any other bloodstains on me.

  Worst was that crow Bill Richards, the postman. Damn him in navy blue, all straight and stiff, the idle rogue. He swore that I had said to him that I was tired of the Glen and if the mistress did not give me a place she would bloody soon wish she had. Richards dragged up all sorts of other bad things I was supposed to have said. I forget them now but a tremendous commotion broke out in court when he said those things. I laughed it to scorn and tried to get Templer to do something. But Richards went on piling up evil stories about me and my knob stick. Hacker asked where this knob stick was. Nott said it was not in the house. I called out that I had thrown it away in Mr Horn’s garden. Horn, sitting on the jury benches, shook his head as if to signify that this was untrue. Hacker began writing down more notes.

  Then was George Russell, the chimney rat, making more of my words when I met him near Compton on that Saturday morning, telling I had said that Miss Keyse was burnt to death, that I was very sorry for it but as she was dead we shall never know how ’twas done. The jurors whispered together when they heard that.

  That Nott is the one I remember most, moving to and fro in front of the jury, heaping up the evidence against me. Although nothing could be nailed onto me directly, each object that Nott presented seemed to point to my guilt. It was Nott after all that started that damned “only man in the house” label they stuck on me. He also showed how my pantry room was so narrow that it was hard to think of any person fetching out the oil cans in the night without me being woken. The sergeant was like the conductor in a House of Horrors. Everyone watched as he lifted up the exhibits, the hellish black stiffened rag of chair covering, the hatchet with blood spots on it, pieces of window shutter with blood and skin on it. Nott was the blood man. He spoke of spots on the hall door and the passage way outside. Blood on the door handles. A big pool of it in the hall at the foot of the stairs. Blood was everywhere, on the water barrel, on the nursery door, smears on the rock work in the garden and two bloody hand prints on the gateway to the Cary Arms. He kept pointing out the smears down the corridor near to my room, and blood on the drawers in the pantry by my bed as if they were red signs of my guilt.

  Dr Steele pitched up also. Word at Babbicam was that he’d been taking Dr Chilcote’s patients. He joined the crowd giving evidence against me and hammered in some of the last nails, although Lizzie was saved up for a final show. He took the stand with his gert turnip head and fussy little beard hanging below. Some said he used more modern methods than dear old Chilcote. He certainly made it plain he didn’t agree with Chilcote about the nature of the old lady’s wounds. He found an extra wound to the head not seen by Chilcote and he had stronger ideas about how guilty I was. He was happy to match the hatchet and the trimming knife to the fatal wounds. He speedily announced that the knife they were supposed to have found in my pantry was the one that cut the throat even though it was clearly so blunt it couldn’t cut a fart in the wind. He also said that the hatchet head fitted the wound in the ole dumman’s head. Both things were tied to me and it did not look well.

  They brought Lizzie back but kept me in the cells that morning so I had no idea what she said against me. Templer told me about it later. I asked him why Lizzie was allowed to give evidence without me being present. Templer answered that the coroner felt that I had been threatening in the court when she spoke before. I was supposed to have tried to boss her by staring and by shouting out when she spoke. Templer said that Lizzie said bad things about me that second time. When I asked what things, he said something about Lizzie saying that I made threats against the life of Miss Keyse. “But no proof, no proof” he kept on saying.

  Doctor Kaiser: It certainly seems an unsatisfactory business, this inquest.

  —That’s one way of putting it. All things end and that inquest finally wound up too. The jury were in such a stewer about the delays that they stamped on the floor to hurry Hacker to take his place in the hall. He still made a very long speech about all the evidence agin me. The only bit of it that I remember was when he talked of “the prisoner’s menaces and threats”. I turned off after that and stared out the windows. A sort of weak feeling came over me. Templer said nothing to defend me. At last the jury were told to do their duty and tramped out. I was taken to a back room in the town hall and asked Bastin how long it would take. He just laughed and said, “Not long, boy.” He was quite right. Before half an hour was up Foreman Hanbury was standing before the coroner to say they had found that I had murdered Miss Keyse by beating her on the head and cutting her throat. The crowd gave out a beast of a roar and I was dragged away.

  As I came past Katie I said, “Goodbye, my dear. We’ll not meet again.”

  Doctor Kaiser: And did you? Meet again, I mean.

  —Nay, not never.

  I Invoke the Muses

  Jenna’s back.

  I still like to call in at Picks of an evening but I don’t really talk to her because I think the owner watches on security cam and I don’t want to get her into trouble. She gives me a nice smile when she hands out my change and once she asked me if I was feeling better. I’ve taken her for my muse though. Have a passion for a woman? Then she can be your muse. My Erato, that’s what Jenna is. She can join Kimmie, who will a
lways be my main muse.

  Jeez, I need some help, faced with this mountain of riddling stuff about John Lee. You need the precision of an artist to get through it. I’m also trying to deal with my own shit. Lee’s description of his problems seems like a sort of lesson to me as well. Everything happens for a reason, right? He’s teaching me something but I don’t know exactly what it is yet. I’m getting anxiety dreams trying to handle it all. Last night I dreamt I kept a goldfish, one of those fat golf ball shape ones with flappy fins. I left its tank over a gas ring and I was boiling the goddamn thing up. I tried to rescue it and pulled it out of the hot liquid and ran with it flapping and gasping in my hands. I was fumbling with a faucet, trying to fill a container while the fish writhed in mortal agony but I’m not sure if I ever rescued it before I woke covered in sweat. My interpretation is that I’m screwing up this investigation of John Lee, it’s turning out to be a botch, a total flub-out. Lee has led me into a maze. If I had a lick of sense I wouldn’t have started this: that’s why I need my muses to help me. Noli timere.

  These tapes might seem a window on the past but they leave out a hell of a lot. For one thing Lee makes no mention at all of the other stuff he went through at Torquay after the killing of Miss Keyse. Fortunately I’ve got this heap of papers that tell the story from another perspective. Some of the newspapers gave a word-for word run down of what went on in court.

  Let’s try and get it straight. It seems that Torquay magistrates were really riled by Coroner Hacker. It is obvious that they thought he had been grandstanding to the press. The dragged-out inquest had grabbed the national news and had held up proceedings against Lee, so the magistrates rushed through Lee’s appearance before them at a fast pace. The cops also came in for criticism. Their presentation of evidence at the inquest had been contradictory and confused at times. There had been talk that they had fixed on Lee early on as being guilty as hell and had cut out the possibility of others being involved. They didn’t follow up any stories about that shady sister of his and her links to smuggling gangs. Instead they relied on her as their main witness. What also told against the police was that some of the evidence items at the inquest were produced late. There was confusion between the weeding knife and the lamp trimming knife as to which was the murder weapon. Lee’s clothes mysteriously smelt far more strongly of kerosene days after the crime than they did on first examination. Something sure was fishy about that. Maybe someone had been faking up the evidence?