by Arnot, Tim
‘Stand up, Miss, and hold your arms out,’ the sergeant instructed. He was completely business-like, no smiles or friendly gestures.
Flick stood, wobbling slightly, her mind back in the cell, heart pounding, and eyes darting from one to the other. Corporal Ross took some handcuffs and locked them around her wrists. He looked embarrassed as he did it.
‘Sorry Miss,’ he muttered. ‘We don’t like it any more than you do.’
The narrow staircase the two men led her up doubled back on itself, emerging through a door into a corner of the upper room. As Flick entered, the room hushed into silence. She blinked in the brightness of the light streaming in through the large windows that dominated three of the four walls. The two Watchmen walked her firmly the three paces to the dock, unlocked the handcuff from one hand and locked it to a metal railing. They then stood at attention either side of her.
Once she was seated, Flick took in her surroundings. On her right, in front of two large windows was an ornate wooden desk, with an equally ornate chair behind it. On her left, in front of the other big windows were two rows of benches, on which sat about a dozen people. Maggie was there, and Mary, the mayor’s wife, and Joe. This was the first time that she’d seen him since she’d screamed at him that day just after the fire. He glanced at her, a fixed expression on his face, showing no emotion or even recognition. The others were all strangers to her.
Two large men wearing the new Griffin uniform came up the stairs, followed by Mayor Griffin himself, in full regalia and carrying a bundle of papers. He was in turn followed by two more thugs. Everyone in the room stood, and the sergeant pulled Flick to her feet. There was silence, and all eyes followed him as he crossed to the desk, without even glancing in Flick’s direction. The thugs positioned themselves one on either side of the desk, and the other two against the wall opposite Flick. One cracked his knuckles noisily.
The mayor sat, and everyone else followed suit. Flick started to sit, but the sergeant stopped her.
‘Not you,’ he growled.
Mayor Griffin looked around the room. Nobody spoke. He banged his gavel. ‘This court is now in session. First case: Felicity Carter. You are hereby charged with the murder of Nicholas Carter and the murder of Rosemary Carter, and of the wanton destruction by fire of the Crown Inn.’ He looked her straight in the face. ‘How do you plead?’
Flick blanched. Now I know. There was no doubt in her mind that they intended to find her guilty and kill her, no matter what she said.
‘Not guilty.’ Her voice was little more than a whisper.
‘I’m sorry, we didn’t catch that,’ said the mayor, theatrically.
Flick raised her head. Her face was tear stained, bruised and filthy, her borrowed clothes looked a mess, her arms covered with dirt and blood and bruises. But her eyes were defiant, as she looked straight at the two thugs standing opposite her. ‘Not guilty!’ Her voice was clear.
The room erupted into a mess of shouting and baying.
The mayor banged his gavel, ‘I will have silence!’ he shouted.
Gradually the room quieted down, and the mayor turned to Flick. ‘Sit down, Miss Carter,’ he said.
Flick sank down onto her chair and waited.
‘Let’s get this over with quickly,’ the mayor announced. ‘I’ve got more important things to be getting on with. Now, this court intends to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Felicity Carter did in fact deliberately burn down the Crown Inn, in full knowledge of the presence of her father and sister, and did thereby commit two acts of murder, for which the penalty is death by hanging.’
There was more noise from the crowd, but rather more subdued this time. The mayor banged his gavel again and called for silence. The banging continued even after he’d put down the gavel and there was a moment of confusion, until Flick realised it was coming from downstairs. People were shouting outside.
Mayor Griffin pointed at the two thugs standing opposite Flick. ‘You: go and see what’s happening.’
The pair reached for their persuaders and went down the stairs. Flick heard the door open and the voice of one of the thugs.
‘Wot the ‘ell…’
There were two thumps, like the sound of wood hitting leather, followed by two thuds, like the sounds of bodies hitting the ground, and then silence.
The mayor smiled. ‘Perhaps now we can continue,’ he said. ‘Now, the first witness…’ He consulted one of the papers on his desk. ‘Ah. I appear to have just sent him downstairs to sort out that little fracas. Well, I suppose he will re-join us shortly. So let us go on to the next witness…’
There was the sound of the door opening below, and several pairs of boots coming up the stairs.
‘Never mind; here he comes now. The court will recognise… Who the hell are you?’
‘Nobody move!’
Three Kingsmen, big men in black body armour and helmets, had rushed into the room. They each held a large handgun, clearly visible. Two moved to cover the mayor and his remaining henchmen, who were already halfway around the table and pulling out their persuaders. They looked at the guns, now pointed at them and decided the odds were not in their favour. They dropped their sticks and backed up against the wall. The third Kingsman covered the spectators on the benches, who just sat and stared in stunned silence. None of them paid any attention to Flick, chained to the dock.
The mayor jumped to his feet. ‘This is preposterous…’ he blustered, his face turning red. ‘This is a legally appointed court of law, governed by the king, no less, and…’
‘I said, nobody move! Now sit down and shut up,’ the first Kingsman growled, waving his gun at the mayor.
He sat, still fuming.
‘Now do correct me if I’m wrong…’ This was a new voice, a fourth Kingsman had entered the room, a woman judging by the voice, and an officer, judging by the bits of uniform Flick could see under the body armour. She took off her helmet to reveal a head of shoulder length auburn-red hair. She placed her helmet on the desk, and peeled off her black gloves before she continued.
‘In a court governed by the king, the king has the right to have a representative present to see that the justice dispensed is indeed the king’s justice.’
‘Yes, but the king never…’
‘Silence! I did not give you leave to speak. Now, I am Lieutenant Dixon, and I represent the king. Here is my warrant.’ She produced a large scroll of parchment with an ornate seal on it, which she casually tossed onto the desk.
The mayor reached for the parchment and broke open the seal. He then unrolled and read the document, visibly blanching at what he saw there.
‘Very well,’ he said, eventually.
‘Now, I will have this chair,’ she said, pointing to the chair the mayor was sitting in. ‘You may sit beside me.’ Then she called out ‘Someone get a chair for the mayor!’
No one moved. ‘Well, get on with it, we haven’t got all day!’ She glanced around the room then pointed at the corporal guarding Flick. ‘You. Go!’ she barked.
‘Yes ma’am,’ Corporal Ross saluted and rushed off.
The room remained silent while he was away. The Kingsmen stood alert, weapons drawn, watching for the slightest hint of dissent. Flick glanced at the lieutenant, sitting in the chair the mayor had so recently vacated, and saw that she was studying her intently, with a scowl on her face, her bright blue eyes, cold and humourless. There was no ray of hope there; the Kingsmen were not noted for their leniency.
A few minutes later Corporal Ross came back with a three-legged stool. Flick recognised it as the one from her cell and knew intimately the filth and dirt that must still be on it. The corporal winked at her as he went past, and she caught a hint of the aroma wafting by. She cracked the merest hint of a smile, the first in goodness knew how many days. If she wasn’t so deep in the shit, she thought, this would be funny.
‘This was all we could find, ma'am’ he said.
The mayor caught sight of the stool, or possibly his nose caught
the smell of it. ‘I’m not sitting on that,’ he bellowed.
Three guns rapidly pointed in the mayor’s direction.
‘I think,’ Lieutenant Dixon said in measured, even tones, ‘that if your prisoner could sit on that for the past three days, it shouldn’t be too big an imposition for you to sit on it for an hour or two.’
Dixon looked at her, and Flick thought she saw something in those eyes, almost a sparkle.
Maybe, just maybe…
The mayor grumbled something under his breath and sat down.
‘Now,’ Dixon said, ‘let’s get on with it, shall we?’
The mayor turned and whispered something to her.
‘Oh, that’s most… unfortunate. Well, I believe he will recover in time, but too late I fear to be of any use to these proceedings. I suggest you go on to the next witness.’
The mayor consulted the papers on the desk. ‘Ashley Stevens. Do we have an Ashley Stevens here?’
One of the two remaining henchmen cautiously raised a hand. ‘That’s me,’ he said slowly, ‘but I calls myself Ash.’
‘Very well. Ash. Please relate what you saw or heard.’
‘Well, me and some mates was drinking in the Crown that night, before it burnt down, and we heard the accused–that’s her in the dock,’ he pointed at Flick. ‘She was serving the beer. Anyhow, we hears her talking to this other villain, saying they was going to burn the place down and run away together.’
Flick jumped up. ‘I did no such thing!’ she protested.
The mayor banged his gavel. ‘Sit down and be quiet!’
Flick sat, scowling.
He turned back to the henchman. ‘Did you get a name for this other… person?’
‘Yeah. She called him Shea. Shea O’Connell.’
‘I see, thank you. Anything more you wish to add?’
‘Yeah, we was outside later, after closing, and we saw her through the window. She was torching the place.’
‘Did you try to stop her?’
‘Of course. We banged on the door and shouted, but it was locked.’
‘That’s a lie!’ protested Flick, jumping up again, ‘I couldn’t possibly have started the fire. I was asleep in bed.’
Mayor Griffin banged the gavel once more, ‘Miss Carter, I do not want to tell you again!’
Flick sat, and grumbled. ‘I’m just saying. If he saw someone, it couldn’t have been me. Might have been him for all I know.’
The mayor scowled and pointed his gavel at Flick, before consulting the papers again. ‘Now it says here that your occupation is “Henchman” and it lists Mayor Griffin–me–as your employer. Tell me what that entails.’
‘Well. The mayor, er, you, your eminence, tell me to do stuff, and I do it, no questions asked. Pays well. Look, I ain’t proud, but I got a missus to support and a kid on the way.’
‘And are you a good henchman, would you say?’
‘Well I ain’t had no complaints. Not from you anyway.’
There was nervous laughter from the gallery.
‘Thank you. That will be all.’
The next witness came as a complete surprise to Flick; it was Maggie. She was seated on the back bench of the gallery, and stood in response to the mayor’s request, answering her name, without looking in Flick’s direction. Then he asked her what she saw.
‘After the May festival, Flick, er, Felicity that is, and me were talking in her workshop…’
‘Workshop?’
‘Yeah, she makes stone tools–knives, axes, arrows, that kind of thing–and sells them.’
‘Okay. Continue.’
Maggie spoke hesitantly, looking straight ahead and never turning her head towards Flick. ‘So we were talking and she hears someone outside. Well she goes to see who it is, and makes a big show of it being Rosie–her sister–and then she gets rid of me pronto, so I reckoned it was this outlaw, Shea O’Connell, and so I snuck back and overheard the two of them plotting. They were going to run away together.’
‘I see. And did she mention anything about the inn?’
There was a long pause.
‘Mrs Watson, please answer the question.’
There was another long pause before Maggie spoke quietly. ‘Yes, she said she’d have to burn it down first.’ She stared at the floor.
‘Thank you. You may sit down,’ Dixon said.
‘Maggie, how could you?’ Flick didn’t even try to stand up. She looked away. She saw the mayor was staring at her with a big grin on his face, and she knew that somehow the mayor had got to Maggie. Whatever she said, she had been forced to say it. She wondered what he’d done to have such power over her.
Lieutenant Dixon glared at her but said nothing.
Flick pointed at the mayor, ‘He did it!’ she shouted. ‘He killed them! Oh, not himself, oh no, but he gave the order!’
‘Miss Carter, be silent,’ Dixon said, the annoyance clear in her voice.
‘How could you even suggest that?’ The mayor ignored the Kingsman’s warning. ‘After I took you in, and tended to your injuries. And how did you repay me? You tried to burn down my house too!’
Dixon glared at the mayor. ‘That goes for you too,’ she growled.
‘He’s got a room,’ shouted Flick. All that mattered now was that someone heard the truth. ‘A room in his house that’s full of glowing pictures and people in faraway places, and…’
People started murmuring, but the mayor cut in, raising his voice in order to be heard. ‘Preposterous! The product of a fevered imagination, brought on by the heat and smoke…’
Lieutenant Dixon banged the gavel repeatedly.
‘Enough!’ she roared, and the room quieted. ‘Miss Carter, if I hear one more word out of you, I will have you gagged. And you,’ she turned to the mayor, ‘will conduct yourself properly.’
She cast her eye around the room, daring anyone to make more noise.
‘Now, is Mary Griffin present? The mayor’s wife?’
Mary raised her hand from the front bench of the gallery.
‘Please stand and tell us what happened in your house.’
Mary stood and recounted her story, ‘My son Joe found Felicity lying on the cobbles outside the inn. It was obvious that she’d got too close to the fire having started it. He brought her up to the house and we tended and bandaged her. When she had recovered enough to be up and about, I found her trying to burn our house down. She’d poured lamp oil onto the carpets and was trying to set light to them.’
‘But that’s not what…’ Flick started.
‘Silence!’ bellowed the lieutenant.
Several other witnesses were called, but they all told a similar story of how they’d overheard Flick plotting, or seen her acting suspiciously, or seen her lighting the fire. Flick just sat and stared dejectedly at the wall opposite. The mayor had done a good job; nobody would speak for her, or against him.
Eventually the mayor banged the gavel one last time. ‘We have heard all the evidence and testimony presented here. The prisoner will return to the cell and we will consider our verdict.’
The sergeant and corporal took Flick back down to the cell and locked her in. She crawled into the corner and sat on the hard floor, now that there wasn’t even the filthy stool to sit on, and sobbed.
23
Cadet Carter
PHASE ONE OF basic training was over, and Adam had been passed as capable of knowing how to stand up straight. Phase two was about to begin. Camp Churchill was a few miles north of the city, and he was in a classroom; a rare chance to sit down and not be running or jumping or crawling through mud and dirt or doing push ups or sit ups or pull ups, all the while being shouted at by a drill sergeant. In this particular session, the instructor had been droning on and Adam’s mind had started to wander; it was just like being back in school, apart from the uniforms.
The door opened, and the camp second in command, Captain Scott Ward entered the classroom. The room was brought to attention, jolting the class out of its tempo
rary reverie.
‘As you were,’ the captain dismissed the room and went into a huddled conversation with the instructor. Several times they looked in Adam’s direction, and he wondered what was going on. The instructor saluted and the captain left.
Then the instructor turned to him. ‘Cadet Carter, you are to report to the C.O.’s office immediately.’
‘Yes, sir!’ Adam jumped up, saluted and left the room, wondering what he’d done wrong; he hadn’t had time to get into trouble–basic training barely left time to eat or sleep, yet alone get into mischief. Maybe they’d decided he was the wrong person and it had all been a mistake and were going to send him home. Several cadets had already been summoned to the C.O.’s office and not been seen again, presumably discharged. But they had been struggling. Adam wasn’t top of the class, but he wasn’t bottom either. He really hoped they weren’t going to send him away, he liked it here. He’d made new friends; he was living the life.
There was an aide seated at a desk outside the C.O.’s office door. Adam reported nervously to him, ‘Cadet Carter to see Major Shaw.’
The aide looked up. ‘You are expected,’ he said. ‘Please wait here and I will inform the major that you have arrived.’
He knocked on the door and slipped into the room. Adam stood at ease, and looked at the pictures on the wall. He realised he was sweating and his hands trembling ever so slightly, but after a few moments the aide came out.
‘He won’t keep you long,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you take a seat while you’re waiting?’
Adam sat down uncomfortably and waited.
And waited.
Now his mouth had gone dry, to add to the butterflies in his stomach. Nearly an hour went by before the aide finally deigned to notice him again. ‘The major will see you now,’ he said.
Adam knocked on the door.
‘Come!’ came from inside.
Adam went in and closed the door behind him. He saluted, trembling slightly. Major Lee Shaw was standing at a large table, covered in maps and documents. Also at the table were Captain Ward and the red-haired Kingsman–Lieutenant Dixon, as he’d later learned–that had spoken to him at the museum in Faringdon.