The Unseeing

by Anna Mazzola

  • • •

  The following morning, they received the last of the prisoners: a further eleven women and one child from Newgate. Barrels of water and of salt beef were loaded onto the boat, together with the remaining livestock—cagefuls of squawking chickens and a tussle of goats. The crew ran about the decks calling to one another and preparing the boat for its voyage. The women, however, were unusually subdued and the air was heavy with fear.

  After the eight bells rang out there was a shrill cry: “Make sail!”

  Then came the running of feet, a race up the ratlines, and the unfurling of the topgallants high in the sky above them.

  The noise as the ship began to move was deafening: ropes creaked, sails flapped, men shouted and ran from one side of the boat to the other, their feet clattering on the boards. Behind that rose a low wail from the women who were leaving behind them everything they knew—homes, families, histories. They clustered together in groups, some supporting one another, some with their arms around their children.

  Sarah stood with George on the leeward side of the quarterdeck watching the retreating riverbank, feelings of relief and loss battling within her, droplets of rainwater hitting her face. She drew George closer to her and wrapped her woolen cloak about them both. Then, from the inside pocket, she removed the items that would remind them of home: the letter from Edmund, the coin from her sister, and a pair of earrings, red and gold.

  46

  “This above all: to thine own self be true,

  And it must follow, as the night the day,

  Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

  —Hamlet, act 1, scene 3, William Shakespeare

  9 December 1837

  Dear Father,

  I apologize for the delay in responding to your letters. Bessie and I have been traveling in Europe with Clem for the past month, having finally received full payment for my work on the Edgeware Road case. For that, if for nothing else, I must thank you.

  What you have heard is correct: I have accepted a position as legal reporter for the Times. I am fully aware of your views on journalism; indeed you have voiced them many times. All I can say is that our thoughts on this, as on many other subjects, differ, and that I must now live my life as my own.

  Contrary to your assumption, however, I am not leaving the Bar. Indeed, I have been instructed by a private individual on a significant new case.

  It follows that I am no longer in need of financial assistance and am therefore returning to you the check that you enclosed with your most recent letter. I would request that you instead use your money to increase Mother’s allowance. You have already punished her severely for mistakes far less serious than your own. I have asked you to do this several times before, and you have always refused. As I am now in possession of information that would cost you heavily, you can do me the courtesy of granting this one wish.

  Lastly, you asked about Miss Gale. I have heard nothing. By now, however, she must be nearly there: on the other side of the earth.

  Your son,

  Edmund

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  The Unseeing is a work of fiction, based on fact. All of the newspaper extracts used in The Unseeing are real, as are many of the details of the crime itself and the subsequent investigation and trial. However, at some points, I have—like Sarah—twisted the truth in order to make a better story.

  Although now largely forgotten, the murder of Hannah Brown caused a sensation at the time. It became known as “the Edgeware Road Murder” due to the first body part—the torso—having been found under a paving stone in a half-built house on the Edgeware Road on 28 December 1836. A week later, a lockkeeper at Regent’s Canal in Stepney recovered a woman’s head, the right eye “knocked out.” The head was taken to Paddington Green workhouse, where the parish surgeon, Dr. Girdwood, matched it up with the trunk, before preserving it in a jar. On 2 February 1837, two laborers found a pair of legs sticking out of a sack in an osier bed off the Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell. It was the writing on the sack that allowed the police to trace the murder back to James Greenacre and, from him, to Sarah Gale. When she was arrested, Sarah had in her possession several items said to belong to Hannah Brown, including two gold rings and some carnelian eardrops.

  During her final questioning by the magistrates, Sarah was reported to be shaking so much that she struggled to hold the pen to sign the deposition. At the trial, she gave only the short statement quoted in The Unseeing, and was said to have watched Greenacre intently throughout the proceedings. On 3 April 1837, Greenacre was convicted of Hannah’s Brown’s murder; Sarah, of aiding and abetting him.

  Opinion was divided as to whether Sarah was a knowing accomplice or unwitting dupe. She continued to claim that she had known nothing of the murder, but the Home Office rejected her petition for mercy. She was transported to New South Wales, together with her son George, on 17 July 1837.

  Sarah Gale’s petition has disappeared and I do not know who was appointed to consider the case. This gave me the freedom to create Edmund Fleetwood. Similarly, although there were some reports of Sarah having a sister, I know nothing about her. Therefore Rosina, too, is a piece of fiction.

  Sarah Gale survived the voyage to New South Wales. In 1849, she married a man called Job Noon and in 1850 she received a conditional pardon. She never returned to England. Sarah died in 1888, by which time she was said to have, “assisted hundreds of girls to lead a good life.”

  For those interested to know more about the Edgeware Road Murder, the transcript of the trial is available online (www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18370403–917&div=t18370403–917), as is James Greenacre’s entry in the Newgate Calendar (www.exclassics.com/newgate/ng622.htm). In addition to the contemporary accounts, various works have been helpful to me, in particular The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders (HarperPress, 2011), London in the Nineteenth Century: “A Human Awful Wonder of God” by Jerry White (Vintage, 2008), and Women, Crime and Custody in Victorian England by Lucia Zedner (Clarendon Press, 1991).

  I am grateful to the staff at the British Library, Southwark History Library and the National Archives who helped me with my search for the truth about Sarah Gale. For all my research, I remain uncertain as to what role Sarah really played in the murder of Hannah Brown. I am quite sure, however, that she knew far more than she claimed.

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  1. From the beginning, we know that the Edgeware Road murder is a huge case, drawing crowds of people with its sensational and gruesome story. Why do you think people are both repulsed and fascinated by true crime stories?

  2. Sarah uses her routine to cope with the fear and isolation of Newgate. Imagine you were in a situation where you were cut off from society and those you loved. What would you do to pass the time? How would you cope?

  3. Edmund Fleetwood, when talking to his wife, says, “Maybe in order to gain her trust, I need her to think I believe her.” Do you find this duplicitous? If you were in Edmund’s position, how would you get Sarah to tell her story?

  4. When do you think Edmund crosses the line between pretending to believe Sarah Gale and actually believing? Do you think he ever truly does trust her? Do you?

  5. At one point, while interrogating Sarah, Edmund tells himself that she does not look like a criminal, but then asks if it is really possible to tell. Do you think it is possible to tell who is a criminal? Do you think any person can become a criminal?

  6. Imagine you are Edmund investigating all of the witnesses. Who do you believe? Who do you think is lying? What are their motives?

  7 Sarah reflects on some horrible things that happened to her in childhood. Do you think what happens in childhood, good or bad, affects who we become later in life? Are we able to change? Has something from your own childhood, either positive or negative, affected you as an adult?

  8. Do you think James Greenacre is a villain
? Do you think Sarah is? Explain.

  9. When reading The Unseeing, we learn a lot about the court system during this time period. Can you draw any parallels between the system in place in London and ours today? Do you think there is justice for the innocent and guilty? Is the system corrupt or in place to serve the people?

  10. What did you make of Sarah’s involvement with Arthur Fleetwood? How does it color Edmund’s involvement with the case? What do you think of the father-son relationship here?

  11. We discover that Sarah refused to defend herself to save her sister from the gallows and her son from destitution. Can you understand this? Is there someone who you would protect no matter what? Where do you draw the line?

  A CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHOR

  The Unseeing is based on a true case. How much of the story is fact and how much your own imagining?

  The Unseeing is very much a work of fiction inspired by a true crime. The newspaper excerpts that appear in the novel are real, as is much of the detail, but Edmund Fleetwood was not a real person, and while I know that Sarah Gale had a sister, I know almost nothing about her. The motivations I have given the key characters came partly from the historical documents, but partly from my own imaginings. At some points, I diverged from the known facts of the case in order to make the story more compelling and surprising. I agonized over this for many months, and it is one of the reasons that a key theme of the novel is truth/deception. Some people will criticize me for playing with the truth, but, ultimately, I’m a storyteller, not a historian.

  What type of research went into this novel? Did you find it difficult to immerse yourself into this time period?

  I started off by researching the case itself (through newspapers, the National Archives, Old Bailey online, convict records, and pamphlets), then the criminal justice system and Newgate prison. I read prison diaries and parliamentary commissions, I searched for sketches and pictures, and I studied plans of Newgate to get a sense of what that prison might have been like. In terms of the streets outside, I read journalistic works such as Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor, the fiction of the period, guidebooks, newspaper reports, court reports, letters, and the journals and memoirs of those who lived in or visited London. Immersing myself in the time period wasn’t really the difficult bit—it was leaving it. I realized I had to stop myself from researching and finish the darned book.

  A lot of The Unseeing deals with the question of justice and what justice looks like. How would you define justice?

  It’s treating people fairly and transparently, not making decisions on the basis of preconceptions or prejudices. It’s ensuring that all are equal before the law. That’s far from the case in The Unseeing, of course, which is perhaps why I was attracted to the story in the first place.

  Do you see any parallels between the justice system from your novel and our own current justice system?

  In some ways, yes. The criminal justice system still has a long way to go in how it treats vulnerable people, the mentally ill, and victims of crime. There continues to be political and police corruption. The quality of legal representation you receive still depends on how much you can pay. But whatever we think of the justice system, we’ve come a long way from the early Victorian era!

  Which character was your favorite to write?

  It was Sarah. It took me a long time to get to know her, but, probably because of that, she’s stayed with me. I also had a lot of fun with Morris, Edmund’s clerk. I read lots of nineteenth-century slang to come up with his phrases.

  What does your writing process look like?

  It involves reading, writing, procrastinating, and panicking in about equal measure. The way I write has changed a lot as I’ve progressed as a writer, however. For The Unseeing, I created a relatively short synopsis and worked from that, but the novel changed drastically over the three and a half years in which I wrote the book, and I now know that I should have plotted it out in a far more detailed way and thought far more carefully about the characters’ arcs. Every writer is different, but I think I work best when I know where I’m headed, even if the plot later changes. For my second novel, I’m working from a far more detailed plot structure.

  Do you think, after the book ends, Sarah and George find a happy ending? What about Edmund?

  I learned from newspaper reports that Sarah remarried in Australia and died an old woman, by which time she was respected within the community. Of course, I don’t know whether that meant she was content, but it sounds like an improvement on her life in London. I would very much like to believe George led a long and happy life but have been unable to trace what happened to him. As for Edmund, I imagine him trying to make the best of things with Bessie and Clem, but I don’t think he’ll ever forget Sarah.

  Who are some of your favorite authors?

  Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Sarah Waters, Shirley Jackson, Graham Greene. My favorite books generally have a crime at their center but aren’t always classed as “crime” novels: they’re explorations of why people end up committing terrible acts.

  Are you working on anything new?

  I’m currently writing my second historical crime novel, set on the Isle of Skye in 1857, a few years after the Highland Clearances. It’s about a young woman named Audrey who goes to work for a collector of folklore and discovers that a young girl has gone missing, supposedly taken by spirits. Of course, that’s not what she believes is going on. Again, the idea was sparked by a real case, but I haven’t tried to base it on the case in the same way that I did with The Unseeing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book never would have been written without the support, encouragement, and patience of my family, in particular my mother, Elizabeth, and my husband, Jake (technical adviser, title creator, tea maker, saint).

  Thank you to Juliet Mushens for being the best agent in the business, and to Imogen Taylor for her editorial wisdom. Thanks also to my eagle-eyed copy editor, Yvonne Holland, to my wonderful publicist, Ella Bowman, and to the whole talented Tinder Press team.

  In the U.S., thanks to Shana Drehs at Sourcebooks and Sasha Raskin at United Talent Agency for their excitement about and contribution to this story.

  Thank you to Andrea Mason of Literary Kitchen for getting me writing in the first place and to Kirstan Hawkins and all at the Novel Studio, City University, for helping me through the first draft. Many people have been forced to read and comment on this book. Those who have given me particular assistance are Regina Alston, Athena Stevens, Eve Seymour, Steve Lambert and the Novel Studio crew, Hellie Ogden, and Sophie Lambert.

  I am grateful to the various professionals who have given up their time to answer my bizarre queries, including Dr. Tom Wedgwood, Professor Allyson May, Professor Philip Steadman, Simon Elliott, and Alan Moss of History by the Yard. Thank you in particular to Chris Rycroft who alerted me to several historical inaccuracies.

  Thanks, lastly, to Faith Tilleray for creating the most beautiful website for me and my book (AnnaMazzola.com).

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Anna Mazzola is from Camberwell, London, not far from where the murder at the heart of The Unseeing took place. While The Unseeing is her debut, it has already won awards, including the Brixton Bookjam Debut Novel competition and she was runner-up in the Grazia First Chapter competition judged by Sarah Waters. Anna studied English at Pembroke College, Oxford, before becoming a criminal justice lawyer. She is currently working on a second historical crime novel set on the Isle of Skye. Visit Anna at www.AnnaMazzola.com or on Twitter @Anna_Mazz.

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    Anna Mazzola, The Unseeing