The station master nodded. There were few mature men who hadn’t seen a dead body at one time in their lives, especially during the last war. It still came as a shock to come across one unexpectedly in peace time. “Stay with the driver, Robinson, and explain what’s happening and I’ll see you later. Come with me, Mr Donne, and we can get things on the march.”
Shutting the train door with his boot he set off back towards the platform gates with the station master in tow. He knew there was some kind of procedure for all this, but this was his first suspicious death as a Transport Police officer and his guess was that they weren’t geared up for this kind of thing. Organizing crowds when Winnie or Charlie Chaplin arrived off the boat train and sorting out tramps or drunks was one thing, but this was a totally different kettle of fish. So long as Donne did his job and got the train moved then at least they could get the station back to some kind of normality.
“Right, Mr Donne. I’m going to leave you in charge of the train movement. I’d be grateful if you could confirm with me when it’s finally in place in the yard. Meanwhile I’ll have a chat with the guard and get the ball rolling from the other end. Any problems – please phone me immediately, OK?”
The station master seemed to have regained his composure the further they moved from the train compartment. He entered the ticket booth and picked up the phone to contact the signalling box and arrange the movement of the train.
Turning to the guard who was still sitting, ashen-faced, by the ticket booth, Wilcox asked, “Where did this train come from?”
“Bath. Direct trains come into Paddington but this was on the loop through Salisbury. An early morning – the first out of Bath for the day – it arrives here at 9.03. Can get pretty busy during the week but on a Saturday there are probably just a handful of people using it.” The guard’s thinning hair was speckled with sweat.
“Were you on board all the way from Bath?”
“Yes”.
“Where did this passenger – the one in the compartment back there – get on?” Wilcox slung a thumb over his shoulder at the train behind him.
“I… I don’t know. I can’t remember.” Wilcox caught the guard’s hesitation.
“Well, you checked the tickets, didn’t you? Went up and down the train a few times between here and Bath? You would have seen her at least once and looked at her ticket. Yes?”
The guard lowered his head. “I didn’t check everyone’s.”
“So did you see where she got on, at least?” Wilcox’s voice took on a harder edge.
“Well… not as such. It could have been Salisbury or Trowbridge or…” his voice petered away.
“So, let me get this right… by the way, what’s your name?” Wilcox’s steely tone added a threat to the query.
“George Ruston.”
“So, Mr Ruston, let me get this straight then. You were on duty from Bath to Waterloo; you didn’t check the tickets, you didn’t see the deceased get on the train and you didn’t go up and down the train. Just what the fuck did you do for three hours?” Wilcox looked the guard squarely in the eyes.
“I may have fallen asleep. Had a bit of a heavy night last night and it was warm inside the guard’s cab. First thing I knew we was belting through Basingstoke. Oh God, I’m in trouble.” The guard put his hand to his head.
“You said it, Sunshine, you said it.” Wilcox nodded. “My advice to you now is to report to your superiors, let them know what’s happened and, be assured, you will be talking to me again in the very near future. Are you scheduled for a return to Bath today?”
“Yes, on the 10.20.” The guard looked hopefully for an escape route.
“You’re not going anywhere, matey. I want you here where I can find you easily. Stay within the staff quarters and wait. And don’t talk to anyone. Understand?” The sergeant turned to the station master who had just come off the phone. “All organized are we, Mr Donne?”
“Yes, the signaller is preparing to clear the way. I’d best let the driver know.”
“Fine. Thanks.” Wilcox gave him a quick reassuring smile.
“And you,” he turned to the guard, “had better start remembering something pretty damn fast. I’ll see you later.”
The call to his superior at King’s Cross had, as he suspected, drawn a blank. This was too big for them. He was advised to get the Met involved, especially as they would organize a forensic to check the body. As he lifted the receiver to dial Scotland Yard, Sergeant Wilcox could see from the window of his office that the train on Platform 10 was now being shunted backwards out of the platform. A few quick blows through the chimney stack, billowing smoke and steam into the rafters, pushed the engine and carriages through the eyelid of the canopy and out of sight.
Just under an hour later Wilcox found himself in the marshalling yards with Inspector Evans from the CID, two other officers and a doctor from Guy’s Hospital, Arthur Mant, who regularly did forensic work for the Met. Constable Robinson was standing by the third carriage and the engine driver was leaning against the tender, idly pouring himself a cup of tea from his billy can. Someone had thoughtfully provided a wooden step-up which allowed for easier access to the train now that it was no longer at a platform. Wilcox outlined the details of the discovery of the body, its position in the compartment and the box on the rack. He now watched as the CID team set to work.
Dr Mant was the first in after the door handle had been checked for prints.
Inspector Evans turned to Wilcox: “Probably useless. The guard would have buggered up anything from this side but we might have a better chance on the corridor door if, as you say, no-one else opened it after the murderer left.”
He pulled on a cigarette and waited patiently as Dr Mant checked over the body in the compartment. Wilcox had watched as the two other officers had climbed on the train further down and could now be seen making their way towards the third carriage taking fingerprints from the other side. After about fifteen minutes, Dr Mant descended awkwardly, stepping backwards out of the carriage, and came over to Inspector Evans and Sergeant Wilcox.
“Well, that’s a first.” The doctor removed his thick rubber gloves with a thwack as they released from his fingers. “Death by suffocation.” He paused for effect. “With what looks to be marshmallows. My guess is that there are over twenty of the dainty sweetmeats stuffed into her throat.” He raised an eyebrow. “Not, I might add, self-imposed, if that was going to be your next question, Inspector. Over-indulging in sweets is one thing, but this amount would definitely suggest someone had forced them down her throat. There are what looks like bruises on her cheeks caused by a hand or hands gripping her face while forcing the mallows in.”
“Will it be OK to have the body removed now, Dr Mant?” Inspector Evans asked.
“Yes, yes, nothing more I can do here. I’ll need to do a thorough examination on the slab. No sign of rigor yet but as you tell me the poor woman was only found about two hours ago and the train journey was a maximum three hours, I’m not surprised. I can tell you one thing, though. She was alive when she got on the train.” Dr Mant dropped the rubber gloves into his black case and snapped shut the lock. “I’ve got a spare hour this afternoon, so if you could arrange to have the poor lady with me at Guys by just after lunch I’ll be happy to give you a preliminary report by Monday.”
By mid-day the body had been photographed in situ from every conceivable angle and then discreetly removed in a van with blacked-out windows. The search of the compartment brought forth nothing more than the black box that Sergeant Wilcox had spotted earlier in the day and a small sepia photograph which had been found tucked in an inside pocket of the dead woman’s coat. Inspector Evans lifted up the photograph and showed it to Wilcox.
“Who’s this then, do you think, Sergeant?”
Wilcox looked closely at the photograph. Could it be the dead woman as a young girl? He doubted it. There was something about the hair style that didn’t look right. No-one he knew had their hair drawn up in plaits
like that.
“Whoever it is, she’s a looker. No doubt about that.”
Wilcox turned over the picture and noticed writing on the back. He peered at the handwriting, trying to decipher the words scrawled across the width of the photo.
“What’s this say? Doesn’t look English to me.” He handed it back to the inspector who squinted at the writing. He gave a grunt of recognition.
“No, it’s German. ‘Vergissmeinicht’ – ‘Forget me not’.” He flipped over the picture. “I’d say she was a fräulein, wouldn’t you?” Tapping the photo with his thumb nail he said, almost to himself, “There’s a story here, but what?
He slipped it into his wallet, hesitating momentarily as if vaguely remembering something he had read or heard. “Vergissmeinicht”. Something teetered on the edge of memory and then was gone. Never mind, it would come to him. He turned to the others. “Let’s see what we’ve got in here, then.”
Inspector Evans, Sergeant Wilcox and Constable Robinson now stood by the side of the carriage with the box lying on a sheet between them. The wording on the edge that had been indistinguishable to the sergeant now clearly read:
M. Eastman and Son
15 Silver Street, Bradford on Avon, Wilts
“Let’s take a little look inside, shall we, gents?” Inspector Evans snapped open a pen-knife and slid the point under the lid. Slowly lifting up the top he let it drop back over its hinges. There was a thin, decorative paper covering the contents which flapped a little in the warm breeze rippling over the marshalling yard. The inspector lifted the paper with the point of his knife.
“There’s interesting, boyos.” Evans reverted to his Welsh accent for affect.
The three of them looked down on a square box housing layers of pink and white marshmallows carefully dusted with icing sugar and arranged in alternate rows. The box was stuffed to the brim. Not one single marshmallow was missing.
Tuesday May 5th 1953
Court One, The Old Bailey. London
The Verdict
“Guilty.”
“You find him guilty and is that the verdict of you all?”
“It is.”
Henry, standing in the dock, looked vaguely towards the foreman of the jury who had just announced the verdict in a much louder voice than his diminutive stature would suggest. He heard the words resonate around the oak-panelled walls but took little interest. He didn’t notice the fine glaze of sweat that lay on the foreman’s bald head, the lowered heads of the rest of the jury studiously avoiding any visual contact with him, the claustrophobic intensity of the courtroom that trapped all the players in this final act. Looking up, his gaze caught the brightness flooding through the skylight dome. Of all the people in the court that day, journalists, lawyers, jury, the police and the gawpers in the public gallery, it was only Henry, found guilty of murder, who noticed the delicate puffy clouds, haloed in blue sky, drifting past the high windows, and it was he who first heard the bird. A sudden sweep of ecstatic release flooded his body, transporting his imagination out and away from the physical confines of the dock and the courtroom.
The Clerk of the Court had passed the jury voting slip to the Judge. He formally inspected the piece of paper, folded it in two and placed it on the desk in front of him.
Instinctively adjusting the bridge of his spectacles with a delicate push of his forefinger, the Judge looked towards the accused. “Henry Charles Eastman, you stand convicted of murder. Have you anything to say on why the court shall not give judgment of death according to the law?”
The provisional sentence hung in the stifling air. Eyes turned towards the defendant. A tenseness that had been building ever since the jury returned from its deliberation threatened to snap. From the public gallery came a single sob. The Judge tapped the jury voting slip on the desk in front of him, waiting for a response. His gaze had been momentarily diverted by the sob from the public gallery but now he concentrated on Henry and was surprised to see the accused looking up into the roof of the court with a smile on his face. From beyond the skylight, just out of view, there came the fluting whistle of a blackbird. Something about the acoustics of the courtroom, the angle of the window opening and the direction of the breeze all magnified the sound of the bird almost as if a radio had been turned on in court. Those who had been watching Henry were surprised to see him now raise his arms as if he were reaching up towards the sound, seemingly transported by the warbling of the invisible bird. The song halted momentarily as if the bird awaited a response.
“Take me!” Henry’s shout startled everyone in the court. “Take me!” He repeated.
From the public gallery came a cry, “Henry, my luff.”
The Judge, sensing that things might get out of hand, brought down his gavel and addressed the accused directly and insistently. “Do you have anything to say on why the court shall not give judgment of death according to the law?”
Henry, his head still turned upwards towards the sound of the bird, his hands raised above his head, hesitated and then, quietly but in a voice that echoed around the expectant courtroom: “I have nothing more to say.” There was a brief pause before he added. “There is nothing left for me.”
The bird-song ceased.
The Judge nodded to the clerk, who picked up the black cloth from the desk and lowered it carefully onto the wig of the Judge and stood back. The Judge, checking the wording on the sheet in front of him, looked straight at the defendant.
“Henry Charles Eastman, the jury has found you guilty of wilful murder, and the sentence of the court upon you is that you be taken from this place to a lawful prison, and thence to a place of execution, and there you suffer death by hanging, and that your body be buried within the precincts of the prison in which you shall have been last confined before your execution, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.”
Theatrically, he closed the folder lying on the desk in front of him and laid the pen across the pages. “Take him down.”
One of the two policemen behind Henry leaned forward and touched his arm. Henry turned, and without looking at the others in the court room, followed him down the steps towards the Old Bailey cells. As in a theatre when a play ends without a curtain fall, there was a slight hesitation in the public gallery and the press benches as the retreating footsteps of Henry and the policemen faded into silence below. The tension was finally broken by the Judge rising from his desk, picking up his file and bowing to the barristers of the court before leaving by the door behind his chair. The pressure dissipated like a punctured tyre, and the jury began to troop out. The press hurried to the telephones, counsel gathered up their papers and the public gallery emptied out into the corridor leading to the exit.
Only the woman whose sob and cry had echoed round the court remained seated, her head resting against the wood panelling of the wall next to her shoulder. Madeleine Reubens stared at the emptying well of the court, the abandoned desks, the benches and the spot in the defendant’s box where Henry had stood just moments before, as if in some vain hope that the actors would file back on stage and play out the tragedy once more, perhaps this time with a different ending.
She was overwhelmed by a profound emptiness. As a young girl, just before the war, she had felt a similar void opening up when her parents put her on a train at Vienna in January 1939 and waved to her from the platform as it slid backwards away from her gaze. She wasn’t to know that the sight of the waving figures, her mother crying as she covered her face, was to be the last. It had only been recently, after a long search, that she discovered their names among the victims of Sobibor. Henry had been her only friend in England in those early days with her new family. The growing realization that Henry was an outsider from the groups of her friends both in the school and in the town had driven a wedge between them. The more Henry moped after her, the more irritated she had become, but she always fell short of dismissing him completely. She’d confide in her friends and hope that her true feelings would eventually get back to Henr
y.
The murder and Henry’s arrest had shocked the people of Bradford on Avon and even though Madeleine was now married and lived in London, the news and gossip of the tragedy filtered up from her foster parents who still lived there. A needle of guilt had crept under her skin at the way she had dismissed Henry from her life and it had remained lodged, making her wonder if all this would have happened if they had stayed together. She had heard from those who still had some contact with Henry – however loosely – that he had been dismayed when he got news that she had married and moved away.
Picking up her handbag from beneath the seat and walking up the steps to the exit, Madeleine took one last look back at the silent courtroom. Her eyes were drawn upwards towards the open skylight and the memory of the sound of the blackbird’s song trilling on in an endless fluting. A flush of anger and tears welled up inside her and she covered her face with her hands just as her mother had done all those years ago on the platform of Vienna station.
The Execution
Monday, May 25th 1953
The night before the execution, Reg Manley, together with his assistant Jim Lees, used a lull in the prison’s activities to take a look at their man. Quietly moving along the corridor to the cell next to the execution chamber, Reg delicately swivelled the cover of the peep-hole upwards with his thumb, careful not to make any scraping sound and alert the prisoner inside. Even though the governor had given him the details of the prisoner’s height and weight, he always felt it necessary to take a look for himself. Quirks of shape could necessitate some vital adjustments to the rope or the length of drop. What he saw made him draw in his breath. He nodded to his assistant and stood back from the door.
A Coin for the Hangman Page 22