The Hobbema Prospect
Page 17
She had spent some months on remand in custody very shortly after the kidnapping, having overstretched herself while Basset was in gaol for the post-office job. She had battened on to an itinerant executive, who had thrown a surprise by having her brought in for fraudulent pretences. And it was when she was free again—some time after Basset reappeared—that he had travelled to Broadstairs to become known as Mr Camel-Leopard. A few years later she had received a substantial custodial sentence. She had been recruiting for Basset—and others—adolescent girls who were still getting themselves stranded in London in their hundreds. It was not known how Jean Cossey got to hear of that—she could have read it in the papers; what was significant was that that was the time that she had judged it safe to re-emerge from Slodden-le-Woods.
It was a curious situation. Basset had saved her from being Stella Davidge, not by taking her off the streets, but by putting her on them. But things had not taken long to change. Admittedly, the biggest crime had been at Edwin Booth’s instigation, but Swannee Foster had been the entrepreneur who had got things moving for him, and it was Angela who had ended up in command of Basset. The judge had some old-fashioned and hurtful things to say when he passed a life-sentence on the pair of them for the murder of Jean Cossey.
Booth was tried separately. His counsel made as much as he could of the prejudicial effect that the trial of Angela and Basset must have had on the minds of the jury. He had to: it was one of the few arguable points that he could spin time from.
He was overruled. In his charge to the jurors, the judge told them that they must put out of their minds anything they had heard about the case anywhere but in that court-room.
No one believed that they would or could—or that it would make an atom of difference. The identification of Booth by a stable security guard was one of those balance-tipping sensations that hit the headlines from time to time.
Angela and Basset, handcuffed to escorts, were rigorously kept out of sight of each other in the interval between giving their evidence—in which they disagreed in detail here and there: but not in direct incrimination of Booth.
Another life sentence—with one of those sour, mouth-downward-turning declarations from the Bench that he should serve at least twenty years. That would give him very little borrowed time to play with on his release.
Anne was allowed ten minutes with him in a cell under the court before they took him away. It was a meeting that she mentally refused to face up to until the final moment. She could have no love for him—only a curiosity so repellent that she could only regard it as an obscenity.
There was no rapport between them. Booth was as inarticulate as she was. He murmured something about at least not being a poor man, and he would see that she was recompensed. This seemed an even greater obscenity. It was remarkable—though no one who mattered remarked upon it—how closely the real facts had followed the theories that Kenworthy had propounded in Cawthorne’s office. There was one aspect that he had not been able to get right, and this was cleared up when a couple called Stableford were picked up close to Spalding. The Stablefords were principally smallholders, but he had been warden of Foster’s house in Spurlsby Drove for many years. He proclaimed that he did not know of many of the things that had gone on there, and in that he was probably telling largely the truth, for it would have suited Swannee to keep him ignorant. He had taken his wife away from the house the morning after Basset and Angela had left—but that was mainly to avoid questioning. And he did not go far. His gardening and caretaking were better than his criminal tactics. And he was able to shed a little light on Jean Cossey. It was during the shoot-out after the kidnapping that Jean had managed to save Anne’s life—simply by making sure that she was nowhere near the place where she had been told to keep her. Blood was found on the grass, it was true, but this was from no more than a cut produced in a tumble. And in that tumble they were recaptured by one of Basset’s mobsters, who drove them fast back to Lincolnshire to await Basset’s orders. It was then that Jean gave them the slip by a trick—and crossed the Drove.
Was it to be Brighton? Frinton? Felixstowe? It had crossed Howard Lawson’s mind that there might be some therapy in Broadstairs—but he had dismissed the thought before suggesting it. It wasn’t that they would not be able to go to the Costa del Sol again within the foreseeable future. The lawyers were taking their time over making over money from Booth to Anne. And Anne felt indifferent about the whole issue: but she would have something coming to her. And no disciplinary action was going to be taken against Howard—really that was because, for some reason, Cawthorne wasn’t taking any against Kenworthy.
The Lawsons went for a break to Southwold, where it rained for their three days. But they enjoyed it more than they had Horley, Surrey.
Copyright
First published in 1984 by Collins
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Copyright © John Buxton Hilton, 1984
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