by Anna Mazzola
Yet another piece of evidence the police had failed to mention. Edmund sat down and read the notes to himself.
When I got to the house, I found everything was packed up: boxes, bedsteads, and bedding, all bound and ready. Greenacre was very much agitated at the time. He was assisting me to tie the things in the truck. After the things were tied up, he said, “Now I am going to leave the country. All is right.” The woman Gale was by the side of him. And when he made that observation, Gale exclaimed, “Ah! You have done for yourself.”
“Well,” Edmund said, “if she did indeed say that, then she must have known Greenacre was fleeing from justice. But she may not have known what charge he was fleeing from.”
“Strange that she said it out loud, though, wasn’t it? A woman who has since been as quiet as a rat asleep in its hole.” Spinks paused. “There is a different way of reading it.”
“And what might that be?” Edmund said, annoyed that the clerk seemed to be testing him.
“Perhaps she said it on purpose to incriminate Greenacre.”
“Why would she do that?” Edmund said.
“To deflect attention from herself.”
“You’re implying she murdered the woman.”
Spinks tilted his head to one side. “She had a motive, hadn’t she? Hannah Brown had stolen her paramour.” He put an unpleasant emphasis on the last word.
“Then why, Mr. Spinks, would Greenacre himself have sought to extricate her?”
“Because he himself didn’t know she was responsible. Remember that he said at the trial that he returned to the house to find Hannah Brown dead.”
Edmund shook his head. “I don’t think that’s plausible. If she really did say those words in order to incriminate Greenacre, why would she later deny all knowledge of the crime rather than claiming he had murdered the woman? No, I’m sorry: it doesn’t piece together.”
Spinks raised his thin eyebrows. “Merely a theory, sir. No doubt you are correct. But in any event, I thought you would want the notes.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you.” Edmund’s mouth smiled, but his eyes did not.
“I presumed you would also want to know that the Home Secretary has refused Greenacre’s petition for mercy. He will hang next week.”
“That’s no great surprise, but Lord Russell decided the matter very quickly.”
The clerk’s smile reminded Edmund of the snarl of a wolf. “The Minister needs to have a good reason to commute the sentence of the court. A very good reason.”
• • •
When Edmund showed Spinks out, he found Morris leaning against the outside wall, eating walnuts out of a paper bag.
“Have you heard about the topping, sir?” Morris said, as he watched Spinks retreat into the distance.
“The topping?”
“The nubbing. Greenacre’s to be topped on Monday. He’ll be on his way to the salt box by now, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Edmund grimaced. “Oh, the hanging. It’s a horrible thing, Morris.”
“I don’t know, sir. There are worse ways to go. If the executioner calculates the distance you have to drop right, it’s over in a trice, your ’ead snapped sideways by the knot. Not that it’s much fun for the audience if they go that quick. Depends how much Greenacre’s got to tip Calcraft with. Get it wrong and they can wriggle like a fish on a hook for several minutes.”
“Delightful.”
“And ’e’s croaked.”
“Croaked?”
“Confessed, probably to try and get a last-minute reprieve.”
“What? The Home Secretary’s clerk didn’t mention this.”
“No, well, it’s only just ’appened. I got word from my man at Newgate.” Morris tapped the side of his nose. “’Parently Greenacre admits now that he killed Hannah Brown but says it were an accident. According to my man, Greenacre told one of the turnkeys that he walloped her and she fell backward off ’er chair and hit ’er head or something. Then he says he panicked and cut ’er up. Still claims your Gale woman knew nothing about it.” Morris popped a walnut into his mouth. “He’s certainly a rum customer, that one.”
“Thank you, Morris. I need to talk to Greenacre again. I’ll go to him straightaway.”
• • •
James Greenacre had been moved to one of the condemned cells and was no longer allowed to attend the visitors’ rooms. The brick-roofed cell was empty save for a wooden bedstead, a table, a stool, and a slop bucket. One of the warders brought in a chair for Edmund and then took up his seat again outside the cell. Greenacre was now under constant watch. He was thinner than when Edmund had last seen him, but his pale gray eyes were clear and he was freshly shaven, with his hair combed back.
“I was sorry to hear your petition had been refused,” Edmund said, although he thought nothing of the kind.
“There’s still time for the Home Secretary to change his mind,” Greenacre replied.
“I understand you’ve given a new version of events in which you admit to having killed Hannah Brown.”
“Yes, she attacked me and I retaliated, but I didn’t intend to kill her. She fell.”
“I see.” Edmund did not in fact see how the injury could possibly have been caused by a fall. “Can I ask why you decided to confess at this hour?”
Greenacre smiled slyly. “Perhaps I have found God.”
Edmund ignored this. “And does the rest of your story stay the same? Do you still say that Sarah knew nothing of it?”
“I see you are on first-name terms now. How pleasing. She’s an alluring woman, isn’t she? Not pretty exactly, but there’s something about her.”
Edward tensed. “Can you answer my question?”
Greenacre gave an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, my story in that regard remains the same. I assume hers does too. But of course you wouldn’t be here asking me that question if she’d said anything else.” Greenacre spoke as if to a child. “I say, as I have from the very beginning, that she knew nothing about Hannah Brown’s death or of my disposing of the body.” He paused. “Sarah loves me, you know. It would never have occurred to her that I could have killed another woman.”
Edmund could not resist. “Even though you regularly beat her?”
Greenacre’s smile vanished. “Is that what she said?”
“It’s simply what I have inferred.”
“Investigators don’t infer. They analyze the evidence and sift the facts from the fiction. I looked after Sarah. I’m looking after her now.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“That I’m trying to get it into your dull brain that she played no part in the death.”
“Tell me, Mr. Greenacre,” Edmund said crisply, “why are you so insistent on that fact, when you evidently cared very little for her?”
“If I were you,” Greenacre said, “I would not presume to understand another man’s relationship. You’re married, aren’t you? Do you think your friends or relatives have any idea what goes on between you and your pretty blonde wife when the doors are closed and the curtains drawn?” Edmund grew suddenly cold.
“It is not,” he replied stiffly, “my relationship with my wife that is at issue here. I am asking you why, in your final days, you continue to maintain the innocence of a woman who you cast out of your house the moment a better proposition came your way? A woman who you mistreated to such an extent that she lost all sense of her self-worth. Could it perhaps be that you are attempting to disguise the fact that you bullied her into silence? That you are guilty not just of murder, but of threatening the only witness to your horrific deed?”
Greenacre clapped his hands slowly. “Oh, very good, Mr. Fleetwood. Very noble. But entirely wrong. You will not help Sarah, nor damage me, with your theorizing; you’ll succeed only in making yourself look a fool.” He stood up so that he towered over Edmund. “You’ve tr
ied to be too clever. The truth has been staring at you since the beginning. Sarah simply did not know. If she’s now suggesting something else, it’s because you, not I, have persuaded her of it.”
He walked over to the door of his cell. “Guard! Mr. Fleetwood wishes to leave now.”
Edmund remained seated. “Did I say that I had finished questioning you?”
Greenacre smiled. “I’m not a witness for you to cross-question. You have no power to compel me to answer your questions. I spoke to you only because I wished to help Sarah, but you’ve now exhausted my patience. This interview is over.”
Edmund stood up and gazed levelly at Greenacre. “They will not pardon you, no matter what you say now.”
“No? Well, then I had better get on with praying to God to have mercy on my eternal soul, hadn’t I? I will pray for you also, Mr. Fleetwood. ‘To open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light.’”
Greenacre put out his hand and gave a slight bow as if showing Edmund from his parlor. “Good day, Mr. Fleetwood.”
22
“I promise before Almighty God that the evidence which I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
—The Promise, English law
“What are you playing at, eh?”
Groves stood in the doorway, her large frame filling most of the space, her arms folded.
“Why d’you still not speak out, you foolish woman?” she hissed. “You’d be out of this place in a week.”
“It’s no business of yours.”
“Oh, but it is. Because it’s me who’ll have to prepare you for the scaffold. Any idea what it’s like, Gale? To ’ave your arms pinioned against your back? To ’ave the hood placed over your head so you can scarce breathe? The rope tightened beneath your chin? To feel the trickle of piss running down your leg?”
Sarah shivered. “It will not come to that,” she said quietly, more to herself than to the warder.
“No, you’re right; it won’t. Not if things carry on as they ’ave been.” The warder tilted her head to one side. “You wouldn’t be the first prisoner that’s met her maker at the hands of another convict.” She paused. “Not by any means.”
Sarah felt her heart thumping in her chest.
Groves shook her head. “I don’t know what your game is, Gale, but right now you look set to lose.”
Groves closed the cell door and, as Sarah listened to the clipping sound of her footsteps receding, she felt fear rising within her, hot and dark, stifling her, constricting her chest, and choking her. She’s right, Sarah thought. I will die in this place. I will be stabbed in my bed or strung up by the neck and I will never see my son again. She felt again the noose tightening around her neck, the fibers cutting into her skin, felt the cloth of the hangman’s hood against her lips as she struggled to breathe.
She slid to her knees and clasped her hands together.
“Please, God, teach me to do what is right. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me.”
• • •
Less than an hour later, Sarah sat opposite Edmund at the small table. His face was pale and creased with agitation.
“Sarah, I have only forty-eight hours left to submit my report and at the moment we have you in Greenacre’s bed shortly after the murder, surrounded by Hannah Brown’s belongings, and without a credible explanation for how you could not have known what he had done.”
Sarah could feel sweat prickling on the back of her neck.
“I cannot recommend that you be pardoned unless I can show that you had a reason for not speaking out. Did he threaten you, Sarah?”
She felt her heart hammering against her chest. “I’ve told you: I wasn’t there; I knew nothing of what had happened.”
“But no one believes that, Sarah. No one believed it at the trial. They took all of fifteen minutes to convict you. You have to do better than that.” He removed the notes of Thomas Clissold’s interview from his bag and read the passage to her.
“‘You have done for yourself.’ How do you explain that?”
“I didn’t say that. He’s lying.”
“Why would he lie?” Edmund asked. “He had no reason to lie. You do.”
Sarah did not reply.
“You cannot keep silent for Greenacre forever,” Edmund went on. “He will hang next week in any event.”
Sarah looked up. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sorry. I thought you would have been told. The date has been set for Monday.”
Monday. Five days. Five days and he would be dead. All at once, the room pitched and tilted. Sarah leaned her head forward and closed her eyes, seeing darkness swirl beneath the lids.
“I’m sorry,” Edmund said again. “The Home Secretary refused his petition for clemency. And Greenacre has confessed.”
“What do you mean?”
“He admits that he killed Hannah Brown, albeit unintentionally. He says that he struck her and she fell, hitting her head on the floor.”
“Why would he say this now?”
“Sarah, you must have known.”
She did not respond. She did not know what to think.
Edmund put out his hand as if to take hers, but then let it drop. “People often confess at the last minute in the hope that their sentence will be commuted. In Greenacre’s case, however, I think it very unlikely that the Home Secretary will lift the death sentence. It is too little, too late.”
Sarah felt a heaviness seeping through her. After a few moments, she became aware that Edmund was gently touching her shoulder. “If you would like some time alone…”
“It’s all right, Mr. Fleetwood. In the circumstances, I think you’re right. We had better get on with it. What is it you need me to say?”
Edmund put his notes back down and smoothed his hair. “You have to tell me what he did to you, Sarah. He coerced you, didn’t he? Made you go along with what he said. What happened?”
She bit her lip until she could taste the blood.
“Sarah, let me explain something to you: the law in this country makes merciful allowance in dealing with the female offender where it can be shown that she has been impelled to act under masculine influence. Had you been married, you might even have had a complete defense. You weren’t lawfully wedded to Greenacre, but you lived with him as his wife, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I believed him to be my husband, or close to it. I’d always hoped that he’d ask me to actually marry him, but he never did. That’s why it was so painful when he chose to marry Hannah Brown.”
“Yes, yes. And you were under his control?”
“He had a certain power over me. I was afraid of him. I’m afraid of him now.”
“I understand that, Sarah, but you must tell me what really happened. This is your last chance to save yourself. I cannot help you if you will not help me.”
He was right. This was it. She had come this far. She might as well finish it. She dug her nails into her palms.
“All right,” she said. “I will tell you how it was. Late Christmas morning, about eleven o’clock, James came looking for me at the house in Walworth. He told me he’d thought better of his marriage to Hannah Brown as it turned out she had no money after all. It was me he wanted, he said, and he was very sorry for the way he’d treated me those past weeks. He’d brought a bag with him containing some food, some paper hats, and a small parcel. We were to have a superb Christmas dinner together, he said: a leg of pickled pork, a pair of roast stuffed fowls.
“I know I should have thrown him out and told him it was too late. I can’t quite believe that I didn’t. But I was very lonely then and I didn’t believe anyone else would have me. My situation was precarious. I’d nearly exhausted our supply of money and would have had to turn to the Parish for assistance shortly. So you see, I was relieved that he wanted me back. I sup
pose that had been James’s intention: to wear me down until I was willing to accept anything. I cooked the food on the little stove in my room and we ate it with some port, James trying all the while to be jolly. It was an odd sort of Christmas.”
“When did you go to his house?”
“The following day. I knew as soon as I stepped over the porch that something was wrong. Hannah Brown’s boxes were still there, all bound up with cord. When I asked why, James told me she’d left them in payment for money she owed him and that she’d gone to stay with her family. However, I knew from my few awkward conversations with Hannah Brown that those boxes contained all the property she possessed in this world, and I knew also that she didn’t have much of a relationship with her brother and sister—they hadn’t even been invited to the wedding.”
“So you knew he’d killed her?”
“Not at first, but then I noticed the sharp smell of chloride of lime. He’d cleaned the floor, and very recently. James never cleaned the floor. He never cleaned anything. It was clear to me then that something awful had happened there.”
“Did you confront him?”
“No. I was too afraid to do that, but I told him I wasn’t staying in that house. I tried to leave, taking George with me. James begged first: grabbed my hands and said it had all been a terrible accident, that he’d been a fool to throw me away, and that he needed me now more than ever. His grip on my hands grew tighter and he said, ‘If you love me, Sarah—and I know you do—you’ll be a good girl and keep quiet about this. Then we can get on with our lives.’
“When I refused, he became angry and shook me, accusing me of betraying him. I tried to pull away from him, all the while trying to get him to lower his voice so as not to alert the neighbors and not to distress poor George, who was watching from the other side of the room.