This Mortal Boy

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘Oliver Buchanan,’ he says, offering his hand.

  ‘I know you,’ Laurie says from along the counter. ‘Can’t keep away from the scene of the crime, eh?’ He turns to Henry. ‘He’s Paddy’s lawyer.’

  ‘One of them.’

  ‘You haven’t saved him from the noose, have you?’ Laurie hands Buchanan the coffee and walks away. As if to liven the place up, he takes a coin from the till and wanders down to the jukebox. The Ink Spots are singing ‘We’ll Meet Again’.

  Henry says quietly, ‘I’ve been at sea these past months. I heard what’s happened to Paddy.’

  ‘It hasn’t happened yet,’ Buchanan says, sipping the scalding treacly liquid. ‘Tomorrow, I expect. You knew him?’

  ‘He was my friend. I stayed with him a time or two.’

  ‘You did? How did you find him?’

  ‘Paddy? He’d give you the shirt off his back. He was a good bloke, kind-hearted. I was in here the night McBride was killed. I was sitting just near Paddy. He didn’t see me when he came in. I was supposed to have gone to sea the night before, the night he had his party. I went down to the ship, but sailing was delayed for a couple of days. It was too late to go to the party, so I turned in for the night. Next day, we did some work on board ship and then I came up here for a coffee before we sailed. I was in my seaman’s clothes, so perhaps it didn’t occur to him to look my way. He was in a state, I could see that, and Johnny was rarking him up something awful, so I thought just let them sort it out.’

  ‘In what way was he rarking him up?’

  ‘Oh, you know, Paddy was trying to play “Danny Boy” on the jukebox over there. You can override that Wurlitzer, so when Paddy put his money in Johnny keeps wanting to play “Earth Angel” and cuts him out.’

  ‘Nobody told me that. There were other witnesses. That’s not what they said.’

  ‘Well, it’s what I say. He cut him out two, maybe three times. Perhaps his mate Jeff saw it too. Jeff Larsen, that is, though I wouldn’t know. I haven’t clapped eyes on him again.’

  Buchanan stirs his coffee, pausing before he speaks. ‘Why didn’t you tell the police?’

  ‘They didn’t want to know. We stood there, there were three of us who saw it happen, the whole thing, eh Laurie? You saw us.’

  Laurie busies himself with folding some tea towels, as if he hadn’t heard.

  ‘We waited. The police came in. We said we were here when it happened. They told us they were busy, it was a crime scene, and we should get on out of it. Perhaps it was our accents that put them off. I’m a Pom, you know — well, I guess you’ve worked that out. They’d rounded up plenty of good Kiwi blokes. They must have thought they had enough witnesses.’ His tone is bitter. ‘Later that night my ship sailed.’

  ‘Did you see Johnny hit Paddy?’

  Henry sits thinking, tracing a muddy pattern in spilled coffee essence on the counter. ‘I didn’t, to tell you the truth. I’ve heard since that that’s what he said to Larsen on the way to the police station. But I didn’t see that. Things happened too quick. Paddy sat down, then got up again, and next thing Johnny’s dropped against that post, and Laurie here is yelling blue murder and there’s chaps rolling him over on the floor. I reckon that wasn’t the best thing either. All they did was stick the knife in deeper.’

  ‘But you did say Johnny was provoking Paddy?’

  ‘Oh yes. You know, I think Paddy was sick of getting hidings. He wasn’t a big guy, not a fighter. Look, would it have made any difference to Paddy if I’d spoken up more? Not gone to sea that night?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Buchanan says. ‘It might have made a difference to what the other men said. But perhaps they were all telling the truth the way they saw it. In which case I doubt it would have made much difference. The thing is, your story is closer to Paddy’s than that of the others.’

  Henry’s face pales. ‘I could have done more. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re not on your own there. But thank you for telling me.’

  ‘If he hangs, it’ll haunt me the rest of my days,’ Henry says, ‘I can tell you that.

  ‘I fear that’s a fate we’re bound to share,’ Buchanan says, offering his hand.

  And so the night passes. It’s lights out as usual. Paddy stays awake so that he can savour the minutes, one by one. He has been shifted to a ground-floor cell near the kitchen. It is also alongside the courtyard area where the gallows stand. Knowles watches over him, or at least he is supposed to, although now and then he dozes off.

  Before Paddy left the upper cell he wrote two letters. When Peter Simpson gets his, he will see that the ink is smudged over his name and above it there is a mark that looks like the shape of a teardrop.

  ‘Dear Peter. No doubt you have read in the press of the Executive Council’s final verdict and have guessed what my fate is to be. I should like to take this opportunity to say goodbye, and to wish you many years of future happiness. You have been a very staunch friend of mine.

  ‘I look back to many days of good fun we had together. Ah yes, one always thinks of happiness never the unhappiness. I too remember our first Christmas together in New Zealand. You know Peter, I always thought you would outlast me in life. I did not take the latter seriously enough, but Peter, I guess this is God’s will that my time is up and I have come to accept that. Well, I always believe the shortest goodbyes are the best, so I shall close forever, always remembering our friendship. I guess it’s goodbye.

  ‘Your friend always, Albert.’

  When it came time to write to his mother, the letter he had left for last, he found there was nothing to say. Mam, he had said in the silence of his cell. Oh, Mam. How could he explain to her that which he could not explain to himself? Instead he had written some lines of the song she had sung to him so many times, the one about the wild mountain thyme on the moorlands. When he came to the lines Let us journey together, Where glad innocence reigns he faltered. Had there ever been a time of innocence? The two of them together perhaps, picking berries in the sun, not knowing what was coming, before the bombs and the blazing streets and the wartime shelters. Or that time at Ballycastle when the four of them stood side by side, one happy family. The face of his brother Daniel swam before him, trusting and innocent, believing that he would always be there, the big boyo who would look out for him. Well, Daniel would know better now. He couldn’t write the last line, his Mam knew it anyway. He hesitated before writing a p.s. ‘Love to my da.’ He put the sheet of paper in its envelope, wrote the address and put it with his letter to Peter to be posted.

  CHAPTER 27

  5 December 1955. The Sheriff of Auckland who is also the Registrar of the High Court is designated to conduct the hangings in Mount Eden prison in an orderly fashion. He is the man who will give the signal for the release of the trapdoor through which the prisoner will fall. Only, when it’s Albert Black’s turn, the registrar is absent because the last two hangings have precipitated a nervous breakdown. It’s over to his deputy this night.

  Albert has been offered a sedative in the morning but has turned it down. Likewise, he has turned down the offer of a meal of his favourite food. ‘The asparagus season is over,’ he had said. ‘But thank you.’ Up until around four in the afternoon, he has spent the day playing draughts with Knowles or one of the three other guards assigned to assist in rotation. He feels sorry for them, because he beats all of them and he doesn’t want them to think that he sees himself in any way superior; he’s just no good at losing. He would have preferred to sit in silence, left to his own thoughts, but it doesn’t work like that. His mind must be kept off what lies ahead. It worries the guards that he has turned down the pill to make him oblivious. You never know how the condemned man might behave on the gallows. Think of Frederick Foster, fighting for his life at the last.

  At five o’clock Father Downey comes in to anoint him before he is prepared for death. The priest asks him if he has any special words for those he will leave behind.

  ‘I have said
all I have to say, Father. And thank you for everything. I’m at peace.’

  ‘I sense that.’

  ‘If only I had known what I now know, things would have turned out differently. But it’s too late for regrets.’

  ‘The love of God will keep you safe, Albert.’ At this point he had to leave Albert and retire to the superintendent’s office to await the formal proceedings.

  Father Downey joins the procession of witnesses making their way to the yard. A fellow priest, a justice of the peace, a doctor, a coroner and a variety of lay people that includes a newspaper reporter have joined him. They have been advised late in the day that the execution will happen that evening, so that there isn’t time for word to get around. The party is warned to walk quietly in single file through the long stone corridor, keeping to a strip of coconut matting laid in the centre to muffle their footsteps. On each side of the corridor stand a line of boots and shoes outside the cell doors. The Judas holes have been covered over. They proceed down a short flight of stairs, gripping the steel railings that protect it. The execution yard, when they reach it, is covered with wire netting, over which canvas has been laid.

  The party assembles along one wall, facing the scaffold. There is a wind that evening, a noisy buffeting wind that lifts the canvas like a ship’s sail in a storm. The scaffold is a high steel structure, with a platform reached by way of seventeen steps. Around the supports at the bottom of the gallows canvas has been lashed to conceal the space beneath. The whole scene is lit by a powerful electric light. The light shines on the white rope coiled beneath the gallows and on the noose hanging over the trap. The hangman stands waiting at the back of the platform, his back to the observers.

  Albert appears, led by his guards. He doesn’t walk along the polished corridor; rather, he shuffles because his body is harnessed by broad leather straps. The straps are crossed around his arms at the elbows, his crossed hands strapped in front of him, and his legs pinioned above the knee. In some ways he resembles a log of wood, or a five foot eight tree stump. To further ensure that his body is as rigid as it can possibly be made, he wears a stiff canvas coat and a pair of heavy boots provided by the prison.

  He ascends the stairs slowly, and the hangman turns to meet him. In the bright light Father Downey sees that the hangman is dressed in a felt hat pulled low over his brow, sunglasses hiding his eyes. His chin is sunk in the collar of a long topcoat buttoned all the way up the front.

  Albert is facing Horace Haywood. ‘Have you anything to say, Black?’ Haywood asks.

  Albert turns and looks down on those assembled beneath him. In a grave voice, he answers: ‘I wish you all a merry Christmas, gentlemen, and a prosperous New Year.’

  His legs are quickly pinioned, the noose dropped around his neck, and Haywood slips a white hood over Albert’s head, which a guard tucks in beneath the noose. Haywood and the guards move aside, and for a moment Albert stands there alone in the blinding overhead light, while the canvas above them bangs and thumps and strains to rise from its mooring into the wind. The deputy sheriff raises his hand, the hangman releases the trapdoor and Albert has gone. The rope goes taut, skips for a moment like a child’s rope, there is a thud.

  Two minutes and seven seconds have elapsed between Albert leaving the door of the death cell and his exit from the top to the bottom of the gallows. The wind continues to rise, and blows hard in the courtyard, lifting the bottom canvas. Only Horace Haywood approaches the body to check that death has occurred. As is the law, the body must lie for an hour before it is moved. Father Downey and his fellow priest begin to pray. Lord, those who die still live in Your presence, their lives change but do not end. Father Downey’s voice is so cracked and sad the words come out as little more than a whisper. In the corner of the yard the gravedigger stands, shovel in hand, ready to begin his task. The crowd is ushered quickly away, lest they catch sight of the dead, the glimpse of a boot now showing.

  At the door of the recently vacated cell stands a pair of empty shoes like those outside all the other doors in the prison.

  ‘He died game,’ the justice of the peace says.

  There is a murmur of assent from those around. Yes, he died game.

  CHAPTER 28

  A telegram comes in the early morning to the house in Gay Street off Sandy Row. Kathleen has stayed home from the mill every day this week, waiting for it to arrive. To hell with the money, she has said to Bert. Who cares? The telegram boy cannot look at her as she opens the door. She takes the envelope slowly and offers the boy a sixpence, but he shakes his head.

  Her neighbour Clodagh has seen the boy too. After a decent interval she will come over and put the kettle on.

  The husband has already left for work and the small boy, Daniel, for school. ‘You should find Bert,’ she says.

  Kathleen shakes her head. ‘It’s all right,’ she says. ‘I’ll be all right after a bit.’

  Later that day she puts on her coat and sets off for a walk. It’s a very cold day.

  Bert will find her, as he has always done, sooner or later. She is sitting in the Botanic Gardens, on a bench near an archway. She sees her son, the one that went to New Zealand. He is small and playful and he puts his arms up as he runs towards her. The beds of pruned roses are mounded up. When spring comes, sometime next year, although right now she can’t think that far ahead, the roses will bloom, and out on the downs the heather will turn purple again. Light snow falls in flurries around her.

  Her husband gives her his hand and draws her up, putting his arm around her waist. There they are, the two of them, walking off into their own history of sorrow.

  And what of Bessie Marsh? Well. Ready or not, she is moving into the story of women’s lives. Where there are women there are usually men. There is always the chance then of love, its possibilities, and its anguish. For a time, after her baby has been given away, Bessie will be alone. But not always. Bessie is a stead fast woman, one of the strong ones. She’ll survive on her own terms.

  She won’t forget. Not ever.

  Sometimes in nights to come she will see the face of the Irish boy, and she will say his name to herself.

  Albert Black.

  AFTERWORD

  The Hon. J.R. (Ralph) Hanan continued to campaign for the abolition of the death penalty. A tide of disgust against the penalty overtook public perception after the hanging of Albert Black. One more person was hanged before the election of the 1957–1960 Labour Government. During that term all death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. In 1960 a National Government took office again. In 1961 Hanan, by then the Attorney-General, introduced legislation to withdraw hanging as a punishment. The Hon J.R. Marshall put forward six reasons why it should be maintained. The Bill was debated on non-party lines.

  Hanan said, at the end of the debate: ‘Justice is due to all men, murderers as well as the rest of us, simply because we are men. The situation through the vagaries of party politics in New Zealand for the last twenty-five years has, therefore, violated justice.’

  Ten members of the National Party voted with Labour to abolish the death penalty for murder.

  Hanan died suddenly in 1969. He was sixty years old.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book could not have been written without the generous gift of research material by Redmer Yska. Redmer not only provided trial transcripts and notes of his own earlier interviews with now-deceased figures associated with Albert Black, but also gave practical support and advice throughout the writing of the book. I cannot thank him enough. I wish to acknowledge that chapter 27 is based on a searing eyewitness account of Albert’s death written by Truth reporter Jack Young, and that some of the phrases used are his. Although the account appeared without a by-line, Young’s identity was later revealed. His story stirred the public conscience and made a significant contribution to the abolition of the death penalty in New Zealand.

  The Quintal brothers, Rainton Hastie and Laurie Corrington were real people, but the names of other tria
l witnesses, and their personal circumstances, have been changed, as have those of the lawyers and all of the jury.

  I thank many people who have provided information, advice and assistance with research. They include Ross Brown, Richard Douglas, Peter Farrell, the late Ian Kidman, Joanna Kidman, Peter Larsen (author of the play Albert Black), Nana Matenga at the Auckland High Court, Greg Newbold, Jill Nicholas, Vincent O’Sullivan, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Pete Smith and Desley Watkins of the Department of Corrections Ara Poutama Aotearoa, who arranged my tour of Mount Eden prison, and also staff at Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision (the New Zealand Film Archive). Thanks to the several people who provided me with copies of Albert Black’s letters to Peter Simpson. Some contributors have requested anonymity: I am particularly grateful to E.H., Albert’s daughter, who was born in March 1956, and also to a member of Albert’s Naenae ‘family’. I acknowledge many hours of assistance provided to me at Births, Deaths, and Marriages in Belfast, and at the Linen Hall Library, Belfast. I was a guest of the Belfast Book Festival in 2016, and thank the organisers for their hospitality. My publisher, Harriet Allan, contributed local knowledge of Belfast, and also travelled with me to meet some informants. I am grateful to her, Stuart Lipshaw and Jane Parkin for their editorial skills and warm encouragement.

  Last, but never least, thank you to Creative New Zealand for a grant to assist with the writing of this work.

  During my research the following books and texts were invaluable:

  Jerry Adams, Falls Memories: A Belfast Life, Roberts Rinehart, 1993.

  Geoffrey Beattie, Protestant Boy, Granta Books, 2005. Department of Justice, Crime in New Zealand: A Survey of New Zealand Criminal Law Behaviour, Government Printer, 1974.

  Rt. Hon. Sir Geoffrey Palmer QC, Law and Life, New Zealand Centre for Public Law, Occasional Paper No. 21.