A Place of Execution (1999)

by Val McDermid

  ‘I’ll keep you company,’ Clough said. They left their cards and glasses on the table, Clough telling Doreen they’d be back. It was a warm summer evening, the city centre empty now except for the occasional person kept late at the office by some pressing task. It was still too early for any cinema-goers to be about, and the two men had the square more or less to themselves. They paused under a statue of George II, leaning against the plinth while they smoked yet another cigarette. ‘I’ve never felt so tense in all my life,’ George said. ‘I know what you mean,’ Clough said.

  ‘You? You’re as relaxed as a three-toed sloth, Tommy,’ George protested.

  ‘It’s all show, George. Inside, my stomach’s tying itself in knots too.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m just better at hiding it than you. You know you were saying earlier you didn’t know what you’d do if Hawkin gets off? Well, I know exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to hand my papers in and get a job that doesn’t give me ulcers.’ He tossed his cigarette butt away with a vicious sweep of his arm and folded his arms across his chest, his mouth a thin line in his broad face.

  ‘I…I had no idea,’ George stammered.

  ‘What? That it bothered me this much? You think you’re the only one that lies awake wondering about Alison Carter?’ Clough asked belligerently.

  George rubbed both hands over his face, pushing his hair awry. ‘No, I don’t think that.’

  ‘She’s got nobody else to fight her corner,’ Clough said angrily. ‘And if he walks out of that courtroom tonight, we’ve let her down.’

  ‘I know,’ George murmured. ‘You know something else, Tommy?’

  ‘What?’

  George shook his head and turned away. ‘I can’t believe I’m even thinking like this, never mind saying it out loud. But…’ Clough waited. Then he said, ‘Thinking like what?’

  ‘The more I read in the papers that I was supposed to be this bent copper who fitted up Hawkin, the more I kept thinking that maybe I should have done what I could to make the whole thing more watertight,’ he said bitterly. ‘That’s how much this bloody case has got to me.’ Before Clough could reply, both men realized there was an exodus from the Lamb and Flag, led by the barristers, their gowns swooping around them like black wings in the speed of their passage. Behind them, journalists were tumbling through the doors, some still pulling on their jackets and cramming their hats on their heads. Clough and George looked at each other, both taking a deep breath. ‘This is it,’ George said softly. ‘Aye. After you, boss.’

  Suddenly the square was alive with people. Carters, Crowthers and Lomases were approaching from the west, where a café owner had realized it was a profitable idea to stay open for as long as Scardale wanted to drink tea and eat chips. Hawkin’s mother appeared from the south with Mr and Mrs Wells from St Albans. Everyone converged at the side entrance to county hall, where the bottleneck forced them into uncomfortable proximity. George could have sworn Mrs Hawkin took the opportunity to give him a sharp dig in the ribs, but he was past caring. Somehow, they all squeezed through and into their allotted places in the courtroom. As they settled like a flock of birds in city trees at sunset, Hawkin was led in between the same two police officers who had stood beside him for every day of his trial. He looked sombre and more tired than he had the week before, George noticed. Hawkin looked around him and managed a little wave for his mother in the public gallery. This time, there was no smile for George, just a cold inscrutable stare. Everyone shuffled raggedly to their feet for the return of the judge, resplendent in his scarlet and ermine, and the High Sheriff. Then, at last, the moment everyone had been dreading for their own particular reasons.

  The jury filed in, studiously looking at no one. George tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. The conventional wisdom was that a jury who wouldn’t look at the accused were going to bring a guilty verdict. His own experience was that no jury ever looked at the accused when they returned to the box. Whatever the verdict, it appeared there was something shaming about having sat in judgement on a fellow member of society.

  The elected foreman, a middle-aged man with a narrow face, pink cheeks and horn-rimmed glasses, remained standing when the others took their seats. He kept his eyes firmly fixed upon the judge.

  ‘Members of the jury, are you agreed upon your verdict?’

  The foreman nodded. ‘We are.’

  ‘And how say you on Count One?’

  ‘Guilty.’

  A collective sigh seemed to whisper through the air of the court. George felt the knot in his stomach begin to relax.

  ‘Count Two?’

  The foreman cleared his throat. ‘Guilty,’ he said. A rising mutter filled the air like the buzz of bees round the hive at evening. George felt no shame at the pleasure Hawkin’s devastated expression gave him. The colour had drained from those handsome features, leaving his face as stark as a pen and ink drawing. His mouth opened and closed as if he was gasping for air. George peered through the animated Scardale crowd, looking for Ruth Carter. At that moment, she turned to him, her eyes filled with tears, her mouth a gash of relief. He saw her lips form the words, ‘Thank you,’ before she turned away towards the welcoming arms of her relatives. ‘Silence in court,’ the clerk thundered.

  The murmuring died away and everyone turned to the bench. Mr Justice Fletcher Sampson was grim-faced. ‘Philip Hawkin, have you anything to say before sentence is passed on you according to the law?’ Hawkin got to his feet. He gripped the edge of the dock. The tip of his tongue appeared at either corner of his mouth. Then, with desperate intensity he said, ‘I never killed her. Your Lordship, I’m an innocent man.’ For all the effect of his words on Sampson, he might as well have saved his breath. ‘Philip Hawkin, the jury by their verdict have found that you raped your stepdaughter Alison Carter, a girl of only thirteen years, and that you subsequently murdered her.

  That you used a gun in the commission of this crime permits me to pronounce the sentence which the law allows and justice requires.’ In absolute hush, he reached for the square of black material and carefully draped it over his wig. Hawkin staggered slightly, but the policeman on his right gripped him by the elbow and forced him upright.

  Sampson glanced down at the card in front of him that held the fateful words. Then he looked up and met the frantic eyes of Alison Carter’s killer. ‘Philip Hawkin, you shall be taken to the place from whence you came, and thence to a place of lawful execution, and there you shall be hanged by the neck until you be dead, and afterwards your body shall be buried in a common grave within the precincts of the prison wherein you were last confined before your execution; and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.’

  There was a stunned silence in the courtroom. Then a woman’s voice screamed, ‘No!’

  ‘Officers, take the prisoner down,’ Sampson ordered. They almost had to carry Hawkin from the courtroom. Shock seemed to have destroyed his ability to walk. George could understand the reaction. His own legs seemed unwilling to support him. Suddenly, he found he was at the centre of a group of people who all wanted to shake his hand. Charlie Lomas, Brian Carter, even Ma Lomas were shouting their congratulations. All the buttoned-up restraint he’d come to associate with Scardale villagers had dissipated with the judgement and sentence on Hawkin. Pritchard’s face swam into view. ‘Phone your wife and tell her you’re staying in Derby,’ he shouted. ‘We’ve got champagne across the road.’

  ‘All in good time,’ Ma Lomas shouted back. ‘He’s drinking with Scardale first. Come on, George, we’re not letting you out of our sight until you’ve had a drink off each and every one of us. And bring that big ox of a sergeant of yours along with you.’

  His head spinning, his stomach swimming, George Bennett was carried off into the night. Against all odds, he’d triumphed. He’d given Alison Carter the justice she had demanded of him. He had challenged his bosses, the tenets of the English legal system and the vile slanders of the press, and he had triumphed.

  38

  A Pla
ce of Execution

  On the evening of Thursday, 27th August 1964, two men descended from the train at Derby station, each carrying a small suitcase. None of their fellow passengers had given them a second glance, but a police car stood ready to carry them through the streets to the prison where Philip Hawkin sat in a cell with the two prison warders appointed to the death watch. Later that evening, the older of the two men slid open the oiled flap that allowed him to look into the condemned cell. He saw a moderately tall man whose medium frame had clearly shed every spare ounce of flesh. He was restlessly pacing the floor, a cigarette burning between his fingers. He saw nothing to contradict the calculations he had already made based on the piece of paper he had been handed which said, ‘Five feet ten inches, nine stone ten.’ A seven-foot drop would do nicely. Hawkin spent the night awake, devoting some of the time to writing a letter to his wife. According to Detective Sergeant Clough, who was shown the letter by Ruth Carter, it maintained his innocence. Whatever wrongs I may have done you, killing your beloved daughter was not one of them. I have committed many sins and crimes in my life, but not murder. I should not hang for something I have not done, but my fate is sealed now because other people have lied. My blood is on their conscience. I do not hold it against you that you were taken in by their lies. Believe me when I say I have no idea what happened to Alison. I have nothing left to lose now except my life and that will be taken from me in the morning, so there is no reason for me to lie now. I am sorry that I was not a better husband.

  Less than five miles away on the other side of the city, George Bennett was also awake. He stood smoking at the open bedroom window of the house that had been their home since his transfer from Buxton a month 284 before. But it was not Philip Hawkin’s destiny that was interfering with his sleep. At seven fifty-three the previous evening, Anne had straightened up in her chair and gasped with pain. She had staggered to her feet, George at her side with breathtaking swiftness. It was clearly the moment he’d been anticipating for the two weeks since Anne’s due date had passed without a sign of labour. Everyone had told him first babies were often late, but that hadn’t made it any easier. Now, before they had reached the living room door, suddenly, mystifyingly to George, clear liquid was pouring out of her. She’d stumbled to the bottom of the stairs and slumped down, reassuring him that this was perfectly normal, but that it was time to take her to the hospital. She’d pointed to the small suitcase, packed and ready in a corner of the hall.

  Half-crazy with worry and concern, George helped Anne out to the car and ran back for the suitcase. Then he drove like a maniac through the quiet streets, attracting sharp glances from respectable gardeners and admiring ones from lads lounging on street corners. By the time they reached the infirmary, Anne was shrieking with pain every couple of minutes.

  Almost before he could register what was happening, Anne was whisked away from him into the alien world of the maternity wing, a place where no man who lacked a stethoscope would ever be heeded. In spite of his protests, George was firmly herded to the reception area where he was told by a staff nurse who wouldn’t have been out of place in Superintendent Martin’s regiment that he might as well go home since he was neither use nor ornament to his wife or the medical staff.

  Stunned and bemused, George found himself outside in the car park without quite knowing how he’d got there. What was he supposed to do now? Anne had been busily reading books about how to prepare for motherhood, but nobody had told George what he was supposed to do. Once the baby was born, that was all right. He knew about that. Cigars all round for the lads in the office, then down to the pub to wet the baby’s head. But how was he to fill the time until that moment? Come to that, how long would it take? With a sigh, he got back into the car and headed home. When he reached the smart little semi, the identical twin of the one in Buxton except that it lacked the advantage of a corner garden, his first act was to grab the phone and call the hospital.

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen for hours yet,’ a nurse told him crossly.

  ‘Why don’t you have an early night and call us in the morning?’

  George clattered the phone back into its cradle. He didn’t even know anybody well enough in the city CID to ring them up and suggest a drink. He was about to raid the bottle of whisky in the sideboard when the phone rang, startling him so much he dropped one of the crystal tumblers they’d been given for a wedding present. ‘Damn!’ he exclaimed as he picked the phone up.

  ‘Bad moment, George?’ Tommy Clough’s bantering tone was as welcome to his ears as the confession of a grass.

  ‘I’ve just taken Anne to the maternity ward, but apart from that, I’m fine. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ve just managed to swap my shift for tomorrow. I thought I’d come down and make sure they hang that bugger in the morning. And then I thought we could go out and get drunk as skunks. But it sounds like you’re otherwise engaged.’

  George clutched the phone like a drowning man would a life belt. ‘Come down. I could use the company. Those nurses act like men have got nothing to do with babies.’

  Tommy chuckled. ‘There’s an answer to that, but you’re a married man so I won’t sully your ears with it. I’ll be there in an hour or so.’ George filled some of the time by walking down to the local pub and buying bottles of beer to supplement the whisky. In the event, they’d drunk very little, both affected in their different ways by the magnitude of the events that were unfolding around them.

  Some time after midnight—and George’s fourth call to the maternity ward—Clough had bedded down in the spare room. But it wasn’t the soft grumble of his snoring that kept George awake. As the long night unfurled into dawn, he found the images of Alison Carter’s ordeal intermingling with what he imagined Anne was enduring until he could no longer separate the sufferings. Eventually, as the eastern sky lightened, he dozed off, curled like a foetus in one corner of the bed. The alarm roused him at seven and his eyes snapped open, his mind fully conscious. Was he a father? He uncoiled his legs and half ran across the room, almost tripping as he hurried downstairs to the phone. The tone was the same, even though the accent was different. No news. The subtext: stop bothering us.

  Clough’s tousled curls and bleary eyes appeared over the banister.

  ‘Any news?’

  George shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Seems weird,’ Clough yawned. ‘Anne going into labour now.’

  ‘Not really. She was already two weeks overdue. Anxiety can sometimes bring on labour, according to one of her books. And she’s had more than her fair share of anxiety out of this case,’

  George said, walking back upstairs. ‘First she has to cope with me working all the hours God sends on the initial inquiry, then she has to read all that stuff in the papers about how I’m so corrupt I’d send an innocent man to the gallows, then she had to read it all over again after the appeal, and now she’s had to think about a man hanging because I’ve done my job.’ He stood on the landing and shook his head, his rumpled fair fringe swinging with the movement. ‘It’s a miracle she’s not lost it.’

  Clough put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on. Let’s get dressed. I’ll buy you breakfast. There’s a café not far down the road from the prison.’ George froze. ‘Are you going to the prison?’

  ‘Were you not?’

  George looked surprised. ‘I’m going to the office. Somebody'll phone me when it’s all over.’

  ‘You’re not coming to the prison? They’ll all be there, the Lomases and the Carters and the Crowthers. You’re the man they’ll want to see.’

  ‘Am I?’ George said with an edge of bitterness in his voice. ‘Well, they’ll just have to make do with you, Tommy.’

  Clough shrugged. ‘I’ve always reckoned if I’ve done my bit to send a man to the gallows, I should take the consequences.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve not got the stomach for it. I’ll buy you breakfast in the police canteen, then you can go over there if you’ve a mind.’<
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  ‘Aye, fine.’

  George turned away and made for the bathroom.

  ‘George?’ Clough said softly. ‘There’s no shame in it, either way. There’s nothing worse in this job, not even telling a mother her child’s dead. But you have to survive it. I’ve got my way, and you’re finding your way. Never mind breakfast. I’ll catch up with you later, and we’ll go out tonight and get slaughtered.’

  Eight fifty-nine, and George watched the second hand of his watch stutter round the dial. The priest would be finished with Hawkin now. George wondered how Hawkin would be. Terrified, for sure.

  He thought he’d probably try for dignity.

  The hand swept up towards twelve and the nearby church clock boomed out the first stroke of nine o’clock. The double doors in the condemned cell would be swung open and Hawkin would walk the last twenty feet of his life. The hangman would be wrapping the leather strap round his wrists.

  The second stroke. Now the executioner is walking ahead of Hawkin, his assistant behind, keeping the pace as even as possible, the official killers trying to act as if this were another stroll in the park.

  The third stroke. Hawkin is on the drop now, feet planted one on each side of the double doors of the trap that will fall away and take his life with it.

  The fourth stroke. The hangman will be turning to face the condemned man, holding out his hands to halt his progress while his assistant squats and straps Hawkin’s legs together.