This Mortal Boy

by Fiona Kidman

  And here was another thing. A fifteen-year-old girl was found further down Queen Street the same night, selling herself. When the police stopped her in the middle of a blow job, she said she was raising money for Johnny McBride’s funeral.

  Everyone, it seemed, was suddenly McBride’s best friend.

  CHAPTER 18

  The hour is upon them.

  Gerald Timms rises to make his closing speech for the prosecution, summarising evidence that he suggests is proof of what he describes as the premeditated murder of Johnny McBride by Albert Black. As the two men approached the jukebox in Ye Olde Barn cafe, nobody saw McBride strike the accused on that evening of the twenty-sixth of July 1955, he tells the jury. The defence of provocation should be put aside. No such thing happened.

  ‘Look,’ he says, ‘there was a quarrel over the affections of the young lady who has given evidence at this trial. A brave young woman. It takes courage to come to this court and recount the events of the night before a murder. Imagine, there she was, torn from her friends, finding herself alone with a raging, angry man planning to kill his rival.

  ‘It’s plain from her account,’ he says, nearing the end of his remarks, ‘that the accused was so incensed with the deceased man paying attention to the witness that he killed him at the first available opportunity. A cold-blooded murder, committed by a man this country could do without.’

  Timms nods to the judge as he makes this comment, as if offering endorsement of what had been put before the Grand Jury, an opinion that has now travelled the length of the country. ‘This,’ he concludes, ‘is simply the case of a violent young man who brooded over an affront to his self-conceit.’

  The courtroom is hushed. Rita Zilich, dressed again in her black suit, her beret slouched over her right ear, tilts her head, chin up, as she squeezes closer to the young man beside her.

  Pearson, Black’s senior counsel, begins his closing address. Albert looks straight ahead as the lawyer walks to face the jury bench, some four feet away from the jurors, his feet planted a little apart to give him balance. Buchanan finds himself holding his breath. He has prepared a brief for Pearson, who is busy on other legal matters besides this case, and wishes that he could deliver the address, but it is not the place of junior counsel. He is not sure that Pearson is as passionate about this case as he is. Although Black had chosen to be represented by him, the system has selected Pearson to deliver justice on his behalf.

  ‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ Pearson begins, ‘the charge against the prisoner is one of murder, and the punishment for murder is death. That simple statement is sufficient to remind us of the awful solemnity of the occasion that brings you and me face to face.

  ‘Albert Black is a twenty-year-old youth who has never faced a criminal charge in his life until the events of the twenty-sixth of July this year.’

  He pauses to let this register. It is a good start. The members of the jury shift uneasily in their seats.

  The lawyer asks them to inquire of themselves whether they really believe, in all sincerity, that the motive for the actions of the accused was rivalry over the affections of Rita Zilich. He puts his hand on his chin, as if searching for the answer to a puzzle. ‘That is learned counsel’s argument. But, you know, if you stop and think about it, that doesn’t make sense. The witness suggested that she was forced against her will to spend the night with the accused, and that, on this night, he made death threats against McBride. But the accused says this isn’t true, apart from a vague remark about wanting to kill McBride. Remember, this was after McBride had severely beaten and wounded him. It’s a remark that many of us might make in the heat of the moment, given the circumstances. He denies that he discussed any method of killing McBride. It’s one word against another, isn’t it? On the issue of whether Miss Zilich was forced to stay with Black on the night in question, this, too, is one word against another. Whose evidence to believe? Miss Zilich wasn’t exactly truthful with her parents on the night in question. Can you rely on her evidence?’

  In the gallery there is uncomfortable rustling. An older woman stifles a cry, her hand over her mouth. She looks across the room towards Rita, her cheeks channelling tears. Rita turns, startled, and sees her mother.

  ‘Let’s look at this matter in more detail,’ Pearson says. ‘She tells us she was forced from the car by Black’s associates. But then, removed from the car, she walks back into the house, without asking for help from any bystanders, and there she has stayed with Black until everyone leaves. As she enters the house, her girlfriends are still collecting their coats. She doesn’t ask any of them to rescue her. Presumably she says goodnight to them. The accused lies down on the bed while she picks up a few glasses here and there. It’s quite a domestic little scene. When Black asks for a mirror, she gets one down off the wall. It’s heavy, an effort for her really. Now remember, there is nobody else in the house and Black is lying down. She doesn’t have to do this. Black takes one look at himself and his bruised face and drops the mirror, although she says he throws it. When he asks her to spend the night with him, she tells him she can’t stay the whole night, which of course we understand because she needs to be back at home when her parents wake up. Finally, she lies down on the bed where there is a failed attempt to have sexual intercourse.’

  Paddy’s face shows a flicker of emotion; his head droops for an instant.

  ‘None of this occurs because the witness has been forced to stay. Clearly she was not. When she makes the decision to go home, Black lends her ten shillings and walks her to a taxi stand.

  ‘Of course, if you are looking at all of this from a moral perspective, you may find it reprehensible that Black already had a girlfriend whom he was attempting to betray. But moral failings are not evidence of murder. However much you may have heard about and read of moral disintegration amongst the young in this country, you cannot draw on the perspective of Mr Mazengarb and his colleagues to determine the guilt or innocence of Albert Black. I venture the opinion that monogamy is a habit instilled in us by society, not one that all of us are born to; young people may decide to mate without great discrimination before they settle on a partner for life. Black had tried his luck with the witness, and you might say he had won, in the sense that she had chosen him, rather than McBride. So why on earth would the accused decide to go to Ye Olde Barn cafe the following day and kill the man she had spurned in his favour? This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, nor should it to you.’

  Pearson pauses so long that the audience might wonder if he will continue. Buchanan is watching the men in the jury, trying to see what is going on behind their eyes. Some of them have lowered their glances.

  Pearson resumes, almost weary in his tone, as if what he is about to say hardly needed explaining. ‘Albert Black says he was afraid of Johnny McBride. Well, that’s reasonable, surely? You may have some sympathy for the deceased, McBride, or to give him his true name, Alan Jacques, and it may not be entirely misplaced. After all, he’s dead. And, as it turns out, he was younger than the accused, though he didn’t look it, and claimed to be much older. He arrived in New Zealand as a child migrant, something he didn’t choose. Nor did he want to stay in this country. Like many young people who were and continue to be subjected to forced migration, he simply wanted to go home. But make no mistake, Jacques was a streetwise, bitter young man who had had military training and an aptitude for violence that he employed when things didn’t go his way. He read not just for entertainment but in order to find justification for his own violence. His hero was a cult figure, the central character in a fiction called The Long Wait by the writer Mickey Spillane. He adopted the name of this character as a fictional representation of himself, the unhappy youth who was in fact Alan Jacques. He discovered, too, new ways to hurt and humiliate his victims. Jacques, or McBride, as you will, accepted hospitality from Albert Black when he found himself without shelter. But the accused could only shelter him for so long, and when it came time for him to leave, the deceased refused a
nd turned on him. This is what the fight was about, not the girl. Jacques beat Black until he couldn’t stand up, kicked him on the ground, would have kicked him in the head had he not been prevented, and he kicked him in the testicles. Albert Black, the accused, tells us he doesn’t have a taste for fighting and has not fought since schoolyard scraps in faraway Belfast. He had good reason to be afraid of Johnny McBride.

  ‘So, fearing for his life, he slips a knife, an ordinary kitchen knife that he uses for peeling potatoes, into his jacket pocket. That is not a sensible decision, but one driven by his fear. Members of the jury, we expect somehow that young men will be as wise as we are when we are old. Sadly, that is not always the case.’

  Buchanan feels himself relaxing. These are his words and Pearson is delivering them with eloquence.

  ‘You have heard from various young men who were present in Ye Olde Barn cafe on the night Alan Jacques died. Black says that the deceased came into the cafe, punched him in the face and invited him outside. These witnesses have a common story that is at odds with his version. They say they did not see this action. They saw nothing. Their heads were turned away. They were talking to their girlfriends, or they had gone outside to the lavatory. They had been drinking that day, all of them. Who is to know who saw what and who is telling the truth, the witnesses or the accused? And what are you to make of the evidence of Jeff Larsen, the man who got up and went after Albert Black and walked with him to the police station? As it happens, this young man tried to evade appearing in this court. The police had to go and bring him here in order for him to give any evidence at all. Sometime after the arrest of Black, Larsen’s car was interfered with. Is it possible that his version of events was closer to Black’s story, that he saw something they didn’t or weren’t prepared to acknowledge? You might like to consider the possibility that Larsen was intimidated by his see-nothing friends.

  ‘Members of the jury, this is life and death.’ Pearson rocks back slightly on his heels.

  Some of the men sitting before him return his gaze, or else stare at their fingernails, rub stubble on their chins or glance sideways at the gallery, as if to wish themselves away from probing eyes. Some are beginning to look unwell, even feverish.

  ‘You have before you this mortal boy, one who has made a mistake, unintended, but a mistake nonetheless, with terrible consequences. Death is forever,’ Pearson says, ‘as Albert Black now understands better than most of us. All around you, in this courtroom, you are surrounded by the beauty and vitality of youth, as well as its vanities and arrogance. The young occupy an uncertain universe. Mistakes can be made in the heat of the moment by the vulnerable young. Who amongst us has not had the thoughtless moment that cannot be recovered? Yet none of us have had to pay with our lives. In the clear, long light of all the days that lie ahead of these young people, most of their mistakes can be overcome and forgiven. As we grow older, we put behind us the belief that we are immortal; we gain a greater sense of wisdom and understanding of consequences. Our passions turn to questions of truth and justice as well as the passions of the flesh. As people who pray for forgiveness for yourselves, you have now the opportunity to forgive another. May you be guided by goodness and mercy.’

  Words, good words, flying out and around the courtroom, whispering their way into the ears of their audience. Words that would make you weep if you were a good-hearted man or woman, as some of those present do, while others turn their faces away.

  Buchanan looks at the jury. Some of the men have quivering faces. He knows already the ones they can count on. There is one surprise among them. But there are not enough. There are simply not enough.

  CHAPTER 19

  ‘Well, Black,’ the judge says, as his summing-up comes to an end, ‘you have had a long, anxious and careful trial. There is only one sentence that can be pronounced. You are either guilty of murder or not. It is up to the jury, twelve good men and true, to decide on your innocence or guilt.’

  Of course, Ken McKenzie thinks, they have been deliberating all along. At the Station Hotel, minds had been made up before the closing addresses. These words have wrung his heart, but not those of his fellow jurors, or not many of them. And whatever good words Black’s counsel has had — some of the hard and fast among his fellow jurors might have been momentarily swayed — the judge has put short work to that. He has effectively ruled out manslaughter, saying that it is applicable only if provocation can be proven and, given the time that had elapsed since the fight at 105 Wellesley Street, they should be cautious about such a verdict.

  Once they are inside the jury room and the doors close, James Taylor says, ‘This shouldn’t be difficult, gentlemen. Let’s start with a show of hands to see who thinks Albert Black is guilty.’

  ‘It’s irrefutable,’ says the accountant.

  Heads nod around the table. Hands are raised, eight in all.

  Ken, Jack Cuttance the butcher, Arthur the lecturer, and Marcus from men’s wear, who has hardly spoken at all except to the night watchman and the grocer in the intervals between their duties, keep their hands in their laps. Ken sees that Marcus’s face is set in a frightened grimace as if he can’t believe he is doing this.

  ‘How can he not be guilty?’ Wayne the gasfitter asks. ‘A knife in the back of the neck is murder.’

  ‘But it was a fluke,’ Ken says, recalling the words of the pathologist. He is endeavouring to sound calm, hoping they might still listen to reason. ‘Remember, he said even he couldn’t have hit the exact spot the first time, even if he’d tried.’

  Neville Johns speaks then. ‘The judge clearly believes he’s guilty. You can make all the fancy excuses you like, a good New Zealand man wouldn’t do a thing like that.’

  So it is there again, Ken thinks, the prejudice against the outsider that the judge expressed to the Grand Jury. It is alive and well in the room; it has been there all along.

  ‘Irish. One of those Mickey Doolans,’ Wayne says.

  ‘He’s an Ulsterman,’ Arthur remarks quietly, ‘a Protestant lad. Not that it should matter what his religion is.’

  ‘He speaks like a bog-trotter.’

  So they range, backwards and forwards, reliving the moments of the trial that have struck them the most. The girl is pretty and well spoken, don’t they think? An impressionable girl who’d done a silly thing, going to that party, but she was brave all right, and you could see she has a bit of spirit.

  ‘Larsen wasn’t brave,’ Ken says. ‘I read that bit in the paper about Larsen being bound over to give evidence, just a little item.’ It’s something that’s been buzzing around in his head like a blowfly in a bottle. ‘They found him and brought him back. Like Mr Pearson said, he must have been scared of giving evidence. The others wanted to shut him up. Why would they do that?’

  ‘Mr McKenzie,’ Taylor says, any friendliness of the past days evaporating like cold mist in the hot room, ‘that did not form part of the evidence. They didn’t recall Larsen to the stand. It’s too late to speculate.’

  ‘I tell you, it was in the paper, they put sugar in his petrol.’

  ‘That leads us nowhere.’

  ‘But it does, don’t you see that? Those witnesses, they want to be on the right side of the law. I reckon they’ve all got things to hide.’

  ‘It’s a little late to play Sherlock Holmes.’ Taylor’s voice is cold.

  ‘Don’t you care if there’s a miscarriage of justice?’ Ken’s voice is anguished. ‘This is a man’s life.’

  ‘Gentlemen, we need to move along,’ Taylor says. He speaks as if Ken is a recalcitrant child. ‘I believe most of us are of like minds. Sir,’ he says, turning to Marcus, ‘I’m surprised that you don’t share our views.’ He nods to the other men from Queen Street. ‘Your friends seem sure enough.’

  ‘They think it’s not worth arguing over.’

  ‘Is that true?’ Taylor says.

  There are shrugs and silence. Marcus casts his eyes downwards, his fingers knotting and unknotting.

&nb
sp; ‘You don’t seem very sure about this.’ Taylor looks around at the man’s friends.

  ‘We all have our secrets,’ the night watchman says.

  ‘You mean he’s a faggot, and you’re not,’ Johns says, with quiet menace.

  ‘I’m not,’ Marcus says in a high, terrified voice.

  ‘You know what happens to faggots if the law gets hold of them, don’t you?’ the banker says. ‘Perhaps you fancy Black.’

  Marcus raises his hands in a gesture of submission. Ken closes his eyes. There is a thick smell of men’s bodies around him, sweat, tobacco, an ugly tension that has descended. He supposes he has known that Marcus is a queer man, perhaps everyone has. It is not something he had dwelt on during the course of the trial. But he sees that Marcus’s friends knew and have been afraid for him all along.

  ‘Guilty,’ Marcus says in a whisper.

  ‘That makes nine of us in agreement. Come on, my friends, what’s the worst that can happen to Black? Yes, he can be put to death, but I expect there will be a plea for leniency. He’s young, he’ll probably get shipped off back to Ireland after he’s served a long term in prison.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Arthur says. ‘You’ve invented a scenario that suits you, so you can go home and sleep easy and not think about it again. If you find him guilty, the judge is bound to pass the death sentence once the verdict is delivered. All the rest is speculation on your part. Suppose you’re wrong and Black is put to death, will you still be so sure of yourself? Some of us beg to differ with you.’

  ‘It’s true, Black did stick it to Johnny McBride,’ Jack Cuttance says, as if he is beginning to waver. ‘The trouble is the death penalty. I do it to animals and that’s hard enough. It’s worse to think of it done to a man.’