The Inheritance

by Simon Tolkien

  Inside the prison Mary waited with the other visitors in a whitewashed room dimly lit by a dusty tube of fluorescent lighting that flickered overhead as if it was just about to give up the ghost. All the walls were decorated with poorly typed notices about what could not be brought into the prison and what could not be taken out, and the biggest sign over on the far wall listed the penalties for assisting a prisoner to escape. Underneath it a young mother with an old face was trying to calm a screaming undernourished baby, while a warder sat behind a metal desk near the door reading a tabloid newspaper with his blue cap tipped down over his wide forehead.

  Time passed slowly, and Mary counted out the minutes on the old black institutional clock hanging above the warder’s head. One, two, three, four, five, until exactly half past six when an invisible bell rang and everyone got to their feet, shuffling out into the main courtyard of the prison. It was almost dark now and Mary stayed at the back, following behind two local South London women who seemed to know each other well.

  “That’s where it happens. That’s where they do it. Florrie told me when I was last here,” said one, adopting a theatrical stage whisper as she pointed excitedly over toward a two-storey red-brick building close to the west side of the perimeter wall. Its ordinariness was what made it noticeable. That and the lack of windows. There was only one, high up near the roof.

  The unit, as it was known, was approached through a door in a wire fence, to which had been affixed a prominent “No Entry” notice. The instruction did not seem necessary. Everyone in the courtyard, prisoners and warders alike, seemed to instinctively avoid going anywhere near the death house.

  “I know all about it. I’ve been here a lot more times than you, you know,” said the other woman irritably. “I’ve seen them putting up the notices on the prison door in the early morning, and I’ve watched the families waiting outside, which is more than you have, Ethel. Huddled up in their cars in the cold. Some days they don’t let us in when there’s been a hanging. The prisoners get restless and the screws can’t control them properly. My Johnny’s told me what happens.”

  “Is that when they do it then? At dawn?” asked Ethel, who was obviously used to accepting her friend’s sharp words without complaint.

  “No. It’s usually seven or eight o’clock in the morning, after the poor sod’s been nicely softened up by a night in the death cell, vomiting up his last meal if he was stupid enough to eat it in the first place. And stop bloody talking about it, Ethel. People don’t do that in here. You should know that.”

  Ethel was silenced, and the two women covered the rest of the walk to the visitors’ block in silence, leaving Mary alone with her thoughts. She had known, of course, that they carried out executions here, but she had successfully managed to avoid identifying the actual place where it happened during her previous visits. She’d somehow assumed that it would be out of sight, but now she knew better. Ethel and her friend had seen to that, and Mary accepted the knowledge like an obligation.

  At the door to the visits hall she paused, blinking in the sudden bright artificial glare of the overhead lights. There were no dark corners here where contraband could be passed across, under, or around the wooden tables, which were ranged in long rows from one end of the hall to the other. And along each wall warders in blue serge uniforms stood watching, occasionally stepping forward to enforce the rules forbidding any form of physical contact between inmates and outsiders.

  Waiting in line for her pass to be checked at the front desk, Mary thought that the ceaseless unified drone of all the voices in the hall made the place seem like a vast beehive, but then she realized the comparison was far from apt. There was nothing productive happening here, and for most of the people in the room the short time together only made the subsequent separation from their loved ones even harder to bear. In the grip of a sudden claustrophobia, Mary half wished she hadn’t come.

  Directed to a table at the far end of the hall, Mary caught sight of Stephen before he saw her. His bright blue eyes were wide open but clearly unfocused on his present surroundings. Always the dreamer, she thought as she walked toward him down the aisle.

  He had changed out of the suit he’d worn for court into the standard-issue prison uniform of blue-and-white-striped shirt and jeans, and he was now sitting in a characteristic pose: his elbows resting on the table, his head resting on his hands, and his long, tapering fingers interlaced as if in prayer, while his thumbs rhythmically caressed his Adam’s apple and the stubble on the underside of his chin. The top of his shirt was open, exposing the whiteness of his throat, and Mary suddenly stopped in her tracks, fighting to hold back images of the executioner fitting a noose around her lover’s neck, of the snap as the trapdoor opened beneath his feet, of Stephen hanging in the air, twisting and turning this way and that. All trussed up and dead. Everything around her suddenly seemed too real, too brightly lit, and she steadied herself for a moment against an empty chair.

  I shouldn’t have listened to those bloody women, she thought as she caught Stephen’s eye and drew the outline of a smile across her suddenly pale face.

  But for Stephen there was no effort. His face lit up as soon as he saw her. And the sudden glow transformed his features. The stubborn line that sometimes seemed fixed around his mouth disappeared in the radiance of his smile as he got up to pull out the chair on the other side of his table and instinctively brushed it down with a prison-issue handkerchief extracted from the pocket of his trousers.

  “Quite the gentleman,” said Mary.

  “It’s the training,” said Stephen. “English public schools, dinner parties at home, you know.”

  “Not exactly the ideal preparation for life inside this place,” she said, looking around her at the lines of broken-down men in their ill-fitting prison uniforms. Stephen’s, surprisingly, fitted him quite well. He seemed to have the knack of making any clothes he wore seem like they were tailor-made.

  “Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” he said, smiling. “My school had a lot in common with prison as a matter of fact. Lousy food, endless rules and regulations, an all-male population thinking about what they can’t have. And a whole lot of men in uniforms making sure they don’t get it.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Mary, laughing. “This is Wandsworth Prison, for God’s sake.”

  “True. And I’m sorry. I’m not thinking as usual. I hate you having to come here. It’s a horrible place. I wish they’d let me see you at court.”

  Instinctively Stephen stretched out his fingers and touched the top of Mary’s hand for a moment. She looked up into his eyes for the first time since her arrival and thought how strange it was that he should be so concerned for her welfare when he was the one shut up inside this God-forsaken place, on trial for his life. He’d changed since Oxford, she realized. He wasn’t a boy anymore; prison had made him a man.

  “Kissing’s not allowed, I’m afraid,” he said, holding her gaze. “Strictly against the rules.”

  Mary could understand why. She could hardly fail to have noticed the lust in many of the prisoners’ eyes when she’d walked past them. Sexual frustration hung in the air like a cloud of atmospheric pressure.

  “You looked good in court today,” she said. “I liked the suit.”

  “I’m glad. Can’t say I did much. Made me feel like I was going to my own funeral.”

  They were silent for a moment, both back in the courtroom with the dwarflike prosecutor relentlessly outlining the evidence against the accused.

  “You mustn’t worry, you know,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “I’ll be all right. Truth will out, you’ll see. Old Murder can do his damnedest, but it’s not his decision at the end of the day.”

  “Old Murder?”

  “Oh, sorry—that’s what they call our judge in here. They say he’s the worst of the lot. But the nickname’s pretty good, don’t you think? He looked at me today like he’d got half a mind to come down off his bench and throttle me himself. God kn
ows why. It’s not like he even knows me.”

  Stephen fell silent, as if frightened at how doubt had so quickly replaced his earlier optimism. But then his lips tightened in defiance. “I didn’t do it, you know,” he said suddenly. “I couldn’t have killed him even if I’d wanted to. He was my father, for Christ’s sake. It’d be like murdering part of myself.”

  “You said you hated him,” she said.

  “Yes. And I loved him too. Love and hate aren’t so far apart, you know.”

  Stephen was silent again for a moment, and there was a faraway look in his eyes when he went on: “There’s not a day goes by that I don’t feel guilty about leaving him alone that night. Opening the door for whoever it was to walk straight in there and put a bullet through his head.”

  “How were you to know?”

  “I wasn’t. I just wish I hadn’t left him, that’s all. No one deserves to die like that.”

  “What about that family in France?” asked Mary, leaning forward across the table. “He herded them into a church like cattle. That’s what you told me. Did they deserve what happened to them?”

  “No, I know. You’re right. There are just too many ghosts. That’s the trouble. Too many unanswered questions,” said Stephen, returning to the present with a half-forced smile. “Like who killed my father. My defence team doesn’t seem to be getting too far with that one unfortunately. And there’s not much I can do to help them while I’m sitting here.”

  “You’ve got to trust them,” said Mary. “You’ve got a good barrister. Everyone says so.”

  “I know, I know. You’re right as usual. But enough about me. Tell me about yourself. Are you working?”

  “No, of course not. How could I come to court if I was acting as well? The stress is bad enough as it is.”

  “You’re right. It’s not easy.”

  Mary bit her lip, unable to understand her irritation. What was she doing complaining about stress when Stephen was on trial for his life?

  “How’s your mother?” asked Stephen, trying to keep up the conversation. “Is she any better?”

  “A little, maybe.”

  “I’m sorry. Have you been to see her again?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your brother. Did he go too?”

  “No. Yes. What do you want me to say? Why do you always keep asking me about Paul?” asked Mary, irritated again.

  “Sorry,” said Stephen defensively. “I guess it just felt a bit strange that you never wanted to introduce him to me. That’s all. It doesn’t matter now. Let’s talk about something else.”

  But there was no time. A speaker on the wall crackled into life giving a two-minute warning. And it had the same effect as on Mary’s previous visits, pressurizing them both into an awkward silence.

  “I love you, Mary,” said Stephen.

  “And I love you too,” she replied.

  But it was too pat. The place robbed their words of meaning. And there was no time left to explain, to connect, to try to work out where everything had gone wrong.

  Mary got up to go. And afterward, left on his own at the table, Stephen followed her with his eyes until she disappeared into the throng of other visitors leaving through the door at the back of the hall. And involuntarily he wondered whether she would be driving away from the prison alone or whether there would be someone waiting to meet her on the other side of the high wall surmounted with barbed wire that separated him so entirely from the life he’d left behind.

  THREE

  In court the next morning, Gerald Thompson watched his opposite number get slowly to his feet. John Swift was a tall, willowy, good-looking man in his late forties. He’d been a pilot in the war, one of those who’d led a charmed life, guiding his Spitfire through everything the Germans and later the Japanese had been able to throw at him without once being shot down. Things came easily to him. As a barrister, he had an instinctive ability to see what mattered, to find what was persuasive in a case and get it across to a jury in a way that they could understand. Except in this case. Here, everything seemed to point toward the defendant’s guilt, and on top of that Stephen Cade was his own worst enemy. He was headstrong and unmalleable. And his interview with the police was a disaster.

  Swift was the son of the second to last lord chancellor, born with a solid silver spoon in his mouth. He’d been educated at Eton and Oxford. He was rich and well liked. A true war hero. He was, in short, everything that Thompson was not, and Thompson hated him for it, hated him secretly and with a passion. This high-profile case was exactly what Thompson had been praying for. He’d get his conviction, and he’d make a fool of John Swift in the process. No one would call him Tiny Thompson after this or poke fun at his working-class origins behind his back. Swift sensed the prosecutor’s malevolence, but there were other more-pressing things on his mind as he began his cross-examination of Inspector Trave. He couldn’t get a handle on the case. He needed a way in and he couldn’t find one, though it wasn’t for want of trying.

  “My client was arrested on the same night that his father’s body was discovered. Is that right, Inspector?” asked Swift.

  “Yes. On the fifth of June. He was arrested on the basis of what we were told by Mr. Ritter at the scene. That the defendant had unlocked the door of the study from the inside to let him in.”

  “And Mr. Ritter was the first to respond to my client shouting in the study?”

  “I don’t think I can answer that, I’m afraid. I can only tell you the reason why we arrested Stephen Cade. I can’t give direct evidence about what happened in the house before I arrived.”

  “Of course he can’t. You shouldn’t need a policeman to tell you that, Mr. Swift,” said Judge Murdoch irritably. “How can the inspector know who shouted, or if anyone shouted for that matter?”

  “He can’t, my lord. I’m sorry. Let me ask you about the cause of death, Inspector. Only one bullet had been fired from the pistol that you found on the side table. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it had entered the professor’s forehead?”

  “Yes. And lodged in his brain.”

  “To use a popular expression, he’d been shot between the eyes.”

  “Just above a point between the eyes.”

  “Thank you. It was an execution-type shooting. That’s my point. Would you agree with that description?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “To achieve that kind of precision with a bullet, wouldn’t you need considerable skill as a marksman?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not an expert.”

  “No. Quite right, Inspector. You’re not,” said the judge. “Is there evidence of the distance from which the shot was fired, Mr. Thompson?”

  “About twelve feet according to the report, my lord,” said the prosecutor, reading from a report in one of his many files.

  “I see. Not exactly a great distance, Mr. Swift.”

  “No, my lord. I’ve made my point. I’ll move on. You’ve told us about Mr. and Mrs. Ritter, Inspector. Who else was in the house on the night of the murder?”

  “The defendant’s girlfriend, Mary Martin; his elder brother, Silas Cade; and Sasha Vigne.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “She was Professor Cade’s personal assistant. The professor had a large collection of valuable manuscripts, which were housed in a gallery on the second floor of the main body of the house. It’s my understanding that she helped the professor with cataloguing them and with research for a book that he was writing on medieval art history.”

  “I see. Now where were these other people located in the house?”

  “Everyone was in the drawing room when I arrived. Awaiting questioning.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant, Inspector. Where were their bedrooms?”

  “All on the second floor of the west wing. Only the Ritters and Professor Cade himself slept on the east side.”

  “And what about the grounds? They’re quite extensive, aren’t they?�
�

  “Yes. There are stone terraces around the house with lawns beyond.”

  “And quite a lot of trees as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “The drive is tree lined, is it not?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “We don’t need a National Trust tour of the Moreton Manor gardens, Mr. Swift,” interrupted the judge. “What’s the point you’re trying to make?”

  “That an intruder could hide in the trees, my lord.”

  “If there was an intruder. You’d better ask the inspector about the security system. It looks fairly state-of-the-art in the photographs.”

  “I was just about to,” said Swift, keeping a smile stretched across his features by an extraordinary effort of will. “Please do as his lordship asked, Inspector. Tell us about the security system.”

  “The main gate is the only exit from the grounds,” said Trave. “A Tarmac drive leads up to it from the courtyard. Otherwise there’s a high brick wall surmounted by broken glass and electric wiring surrounding the estate. The wiring is connected to an alarm system operated from inside the house.”

  “I see. The professor must have been very worried about the possibility of a break-in. Would you agree that the system would have cost a lot of money?”

  “Yes. I’d say so.”

  “And what about the main gate? How is that opened?”

  “It’s also operated electronically either from a unit beside the gate or by remote control from inside the house.”

  “Was the gate open or closed when police arrived?”

  “Officers Clayton and Watts were the first to attend. It’s my understanding that they found the gate closed.”

  “And what about the doors of the house itself?”

  “I entered through the main front door, which was half open when I arrived. All the other exit doors of the property were locked except for the french windows in the professor’s study, which were also partially open, and the door at the front of the west wing, which was closed but not locked.”