On the basis of the evidence that he had outlined, I couldn’t see how the jury could come to any other verdict but guilty.
I watched Simon’s reluctant rising. As he walked towards the jury box, the hopelessness was clear in his tread.
‘Members of the jury,’ he began. ‘This case revolves on the supposition that Sir Alfred Dreyfus went to great pains to hide the fact that he is a Jew, in the knowledge that if that fact were known he would lose his position as headmaster of the school. A man would hardly kill for that. Not a man of such reputation and integrity as Sir Alfred Dreyfus. The prosecution has presented no evidence that Sir Alfred has ever denied that he was a Jew. It is true that he has never advertised it, but I am sure that if ever he had been called upon to state his faith, he would have done so in honourable fashion. But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, he was never asked, so where is the evidence that he denied it? To kill a child is the most heinous crime. Nobody would gainsay that. But to kill a child for the sake of a job, even though that job was possibly not recoverable, that ladies and gentlemen, is inconceivable. Unimaginable. Sir Alfred has two children of his own. He knows what it is to be a father. He is not a man to inflict such grief on another parent. He is as broken by the tragedy as any of us.
‘Let us examine the evidence that has been brought against him. Does it not seem to you to be rehearsed? All of it? How well James Turncastle had learned his part. How diligently had PC Byrd studied his lines. How Mr Cassidy had learned it all by rote. How Mr Clerk knew his lines without need of prompt. I venture to suggest that even the officer from the Kent Constabulary was tutored in his part. Indeed, all of them were amateur actors, drilled acutely for their opening night. To say nothing of Mr Tweedie’s suspicious change of heart. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, does not all this play-acting seem to you like a conspiracy? Can you not sniff the intrigue behind it? The machinations that lie behind the plot? For that is what I am suggesting to you, ladies and gentlemen, that Sir Alfred Dreyfus is innocent and that for some reason he has been framed. When Sir Alfred says he is not guilty, those words come from the depth of the soul, laced with bewilderment that he has been charged at all. I ask you to listen to his words, ladies and gentlemen. “I am not guilty,” and to hear them resound with the man’s innocence. Poor George Tilbury is dead. Brutally murdered, and his body heinously planted in Sir Alfred’s country garden. There is someone who walks free today, through the streets, through the parks, the marketplace; perhaps he even sits in this courtroom, he who has young George’s blood on his hands. But that blood is not on the hands of Sir Alfred Dreyfus. Listen to his plea, “I am not guilty,” and let it echo and resound in your hearts as you reach your decision, and pronounce the only verdict that is true and just. That Sir Alfred Dreyfus is innocent.’
I thought it was a splendid try. At that moment, I even thought I stood a chance of acquittal. The conspiracy theory was certainly one to be seriously considered.
The judge’s summing-up centred mainly around points of law with which I will not burden the reader. It seemed fair to me, and in no way did he lead the jury. He summarised the speeches for both the prosecution and defence, but he made no comment on either. When he had finished, he instructed the jury to retire.
It was five o’clock when they left the courtroom. Five o’clock in the afternoon. The hour of the matador and his kill. And it was 5.30 when they returned. There was now no doubt about their verdict. In fact, on the basis of the evidence against me I marvelled that they’d taken so long to come to a decision.
I was asked to stand, and I clutched the rail in front of me as I envisaged my wretched future. The clerk of the court asked the jury foreman if they had reached a verdict. And at the affirmative answer, he said, ‘Do you find the prisoner, Sir Alfred Dreyfus, guilty or not guilty?’
I could have answered for him and in the voice of the whole jury.
‘Guilty,’ the foreman said.
A cheer went up around the courtroom, and would have continued had not the judge rapped his desk for silence. I looked up at the gallery and caught sight of a figure that was vaguely familiar. He was cheering with delight. His face suggested unpleasant recall. And then I remembered. It was our neighbour in our Kent village, John Coleman, he who spoke such impeccable English. I recalled that Christmas Day in our village when he had made his first visit. I remembered the distaste I felt for him. I wondered what he was doing at my trial, and why he was cheering its outcome. And with such indecent enthusiasm, one that almost signalled a personal involvement. The echo of his cheers, and his grin of delight, would haunt my nights in my cell.
The clerk turned to me and asked if I had anything to say before sentence was passed. I had nothing to say, except for my time-honoured mantra, and I saw no point in uttering it any more. I shook my head. I was too stunned to speak. I was in a quandary as to where to look. I didn’t think I wanted to see Simon again and I was afraid to look at my family. So I looked at the judge. I had no feelings for him. He was simply a man who was doing his job.
‘Sir Alfred Dreyfus,’ he said, and I was surprised that he still thought me worthy of title, ‘it is my solemn duty to pass on you the only sentence that the law permits for the crime of wilful murder. The sentence of this court is that you will go to prison for life and I recommend detainment for at least fifteen years.’
I did a quick sum. I would be of the age of sixty-two on release. I would possibly be a grandfather. More possibly I would be divorced and I wondered who would be around to visit me. And Matthew was the name. I sought his face in the body of the court, and lit on it immediately. I shut out Lucy on his one side, and Susan on the other. I saw only Matthew, and I knew that I would see him age along with me and that he would lighten my loneliness with his presence. I returned the smile he gave me as I was taken down. And then, blanketed, I was brought to this prison, and to this cell.
My first visitor after the verdict was the prison chaplain. He said he had come for a chat. Not a talk. A chat. He was being matey. I took one look at the cross that dangled from his neck and I asked him politely to leave. He was miffed I think, so I apologised.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but I’d be happier to see a rabbi.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said.
And a few days later, a rabbi paid me a visit.
‘I’ve never had call to come to this place,’ he said.
I sensed he wanted me to feel ashamed of myself, having so let him down as to break his record. I was angry.
‘I have shamed nobody,’ I said. ‘I want you to know that I am innocent and unless you believe that, sincerely and honestly, then I have no use for your visits.’
‘If you say that you are innocent, then I must believe you,’ the man said.
‘But do you believe me? In your heart do you believe me?’
‘If that is what you say,’ he parried.
‘I think you believe the verdict of the court,’ I said.
He was silent, and that silence of his was answer enough. I told him to leave. He made no protest. I think he was relieved to get away.
Matthew was my first real visitor, and I fell into his arms. At first we said very little to each other. We sat side by side in silent bewilderment. Then for no reason that I could understand, he laughed. It was a bitter laugh but a laugh nonetheless. I asked him what was so funny, and he told me that I had hit the headlines. Then he gave me a resumé of world reaction to my trial. The French papers, it seemed, had recalled my namesake, but had made no mention of his proven innocence. The German press wavered, as one might expect, but some papers applauded the verdict. One of their correspondents suggested that, since my crime was committed around Easter, it was a replay of the ritual murder that Jews were rumoured to carry out prior to their Passover feast. And the Austrian press, in follow-my-leader fashion, agreed. The Vatican condemned me outright, and it was their report that most offended me. How dare that office, which in its time had happily shipped my people to the ov
ens, which had provided Vatican passports for the murderers’ escapes; how dare they offer an opinion? Only the Dutch and Scandinavian press questioned the fairness of the verdict, and suggested a conspiracy that called for further investigation.
I shared Matthew’s bitter laughter, and we were silent once more. Matthew clearly found the visit as painful as I, and he made to leave long before his allotted time. He said he would come again soon. Lucy too, and he would arrange to bring my children. ‘I’ll get you out of here,’ he said. ‘I promise.’
He turned quickly away, then rushed back to embrace me. I watched him go, and I felt more sorry for him than I did for myself.
A week later, I received my first prison letter. It came from the offices of the Palace and I knew without reading it what news it conveyed. I let it lie for a while on my cot, recalling the joy I had felt when I had first received a letter from that same source. I opened the envelope. I knew I had to confirm what I already suspected. The letter informed me that, in view of the verdict against me, I had been stripped of my title. Dear Lucy is plain Mrs Dreyfus now.
And my name is Case.
Part Four
Chapter 26
HM Prison Wandsworth
London SW18
21 October 1997
Bernard Wallworthy, Esq.
Jubilee Publishing
London House
Sen Street
London W1
Dear Mr Wallworthy
What now, Mr Wallworthy? Where do we go from here? I have come to the end of my version of the ‘affair’. Yet I refuse to accept that there is no more to say. I dare not. I shall not allow myself to believe that I shall linger in this cell for the rest of my natural life. Today it is my birthday. I am fifty years old and it is the second birthday that I have marked in this place. I no longer say ‘I am not guilty’. I should never have said it in the first place. Guilt never came into it. Never. I am innocent. That’s all there is to it.
Here I sit, Mr Wallworthy, in the same cell allotted to me a year ago. You are entitled to imagine that I am familiar with it. But you would be wrong. I do not know it well, simply because I have never examined it in its particular. Until the moment of that unbelievable verdict I had looked upon it as a temporary dwelling, a stop-over to my freedom. But now that view is no longer feasible. For it relied on hope of which, at present, there is little vestige. I have paced my cell often enough but never with its footage in mind. Its width and its length have served as rhythms for my words of hope and despair. Now, as I pace, I count. I measure nine feet in length, and six across, a generous enough area, I think, for a grave.
My family are coming to visit today. Matthew too, though Susan and the children have gone to see her mother. I’m sorry about that. I haven’t seen Susan for a long while. The governor has set aside a room for us to be together and to eat the special tea that Lucy will have prepared. My children aren’t children any more. I am missing out on them growing up. I fear they are strangers. Peter is sixteen now. He’s in his final year at school. With his name it could not have been easy. I am very proud of him. But I can only tell him so. There is no way I can show it in daily contact, in touch, in caress, in teasing. Perhaps now he is too old to tease, too old to laugh at my silly jokes, and much too young so courageously to have endured his name. They assure me in their letters and visits that much is being done on the outside to secure a new trial. But they will come this afternoon with no news of progress. They will bring with them their hopes, their faith, their trust, and I shall be expected to share their optimism. I shall try, though in my heart I despair.
But I must pick up my pen. I must. Without it I close the final door on my escape, and I shall go to my grave, my innocence unproved. Somewhere I shall have to find the words for my fading hopes, and words too to feed my rage. For it is the waning of that rage that I fear, for if that dissolves, lethargy will take its place and with it, a permanent state of melancholy. So I shall pick up my pen again and wish it all speed on its perilous way. Bear with me, Mr Wallworthy.
Dreyfus
Chapter 27
My family were due to visit me. Apart from Matthew’s short call after the trial, it would be their first time since the verdict. And frankly, I was dreading it. I felt so deeply shamed.
I was led to the visitors’ room and seated at a table to wait. For the first time I viewed my gaol companions, and for the first time they viewed me. I felt that they were waiting for the arrival of my visitors. I have learned that you can tell a lot about the nature of an inmate by the visitors he receives. I hoped that mine would be dressed simply, that there would be no ostentation. Though none of my family are given to haute couture, I remember being deeply anxious about their attire. The fact that I had been condemned to this place for the rest of my life seemed of minor importance. What mattered most at that time was the general appearance of Lucy, my children, Matthew and Susan. I was ashamed enough of myself and presumed that they would be equally ashamed of me and I hoped to God that it would not show.
As I waited I noticed the others chatting to each other with a certain bonhomie which I both envied and feared. I envied their merriment but at the same time it worried me. They were old-timers, inured to their confinement, resigned to it, wholly institutionalised. I feared that in the course of time I might become a veteran too. I felt I ought to apologise to them for my misery. In fact I felt the need to apologise to absolutely everybody for simply being there at all. I didn’t know where to look. I was frightened of catching the eye of other inmates, so I looked at the table-top. I stared at it. I viewed the scratched vinyl of its cover, worn with the sweat of men’s hands as they waited for visitors who perhaps never came, or for visits that they would have been happier to do without. And I thought of all the funerals of kin that were unattended, of all the weddings of sons and daughters shrieking with an absent guest. And I thought of all the marriages that had dissolved over that vinyl and I found myself forgiving Lucy for leaving me. And then I saw her, or at least her hand across the table as it covered my own. I looked up and she was smiling. I felt suddenly so sure of her but at the same time I sensed that I had no right to such loyalty. And I have to confess that as I looked into her face I began to dislike her a little.
I looked at them all in turn, my children, Matthew and Susan, and I wished that they would all go away. I think that they must have sensed my unease.
‘Are we too many for you?’ Matthew asked, and how could I tell him that just one of them was too many and that I wanted to be alone and bury myself in my shame.
‘You are innocent,’ Lucy whispered. ‘We all know that.’
‘That’s what makes it so difficult,’ I said.
Peter pulled up chairs around the table, and we sat there positioned for a round table discussion, but we were a group in search of a subject.
‘You mustn’t lose hope,’ Matthew said after a while. ‘We’ll work for an appeal. There’s a positive feeling abroad that justice has not been seen to be done.’
I was bewildered by his terminology. He was already talking like a lawyer, that dear brother of mine who had never talked very much at all and whose conversation was one of monosyllabic loving. I wanted to embrace him. I swallowed the lump in my throat.
‘Talk to me Peter,’ I said. ‘And Jeannie. What are you doing with yourselves?’
And then I regretted my question. What on earth could Dreyfus children be doing at this time except keeping themselves to themselves, shielding their ears from the taunts and insults that must be echoing their footsteps wherever they turned?
‘You know I’m innocent, don’t you?’ I said to them.
They nodded in unison.
‘Never forget that,’ I told them. ‘It will help you on your way. I’ve done nothing of which you would be ashamed.’
‘You don’t have to tell us,’ Peter said.
‘What can we bring you?’ Lucy asked after a while.
‘I don’t know yet what I’m allowed. But
books, if it’s possible.’
I was glad when the bell rang to signal the end of the visiting hour. It was too much of a strain for all of us.
‘Don’t worry,’ Matthew kept saying. ‘We’ll get you out of here.’
He was desperate to comfort himself and I wished that I could console him.
When they had gone, it occurred to me that during the whole hour Susan had not once opened her mouth. And I knew from her studied silence that sooner or later, and in her own way, she would betray me.
Chapter 28
Rebecca Morris had been very busy. Over the past months she had uncovered many leads. But she was a barrister with a living to earn. She needed a private eye to follow up her investigations, so with Matthew’s permission she hired a detective. She gave him much ground to cover and many suspects to follow, but her one lead, and in her mind possibly the most fruitful of all, she kept for herself. She would make it her personal business to investigate James Turncastle.
A psychiatrist acquaintance had given her an introduction to the social services centre in Devon. She visited the centre claiming she was doing research on after-care facilities offered to psychiatric patients. She owned to being a barrister and said that she wanted to specialise in the laws pertaining to mental health. She was invited to accompany one of the centre’s workers to the clinic where James was a patient. It was the only psychiatric hospital in the county, so she ran no risk of being side-tracked. During her visit she took care to make no mention of James and was at pains to point out that her enquiries were general. To this end she investigated the histories of a selection of patients and on subsequent visits she talked to those whose backgrounds were known. It was not until her fifth weekly visit that she casually included James in her research. In his file he was diagnosed as a depressive. His family showed no interest in his welfare and apart from an aunt who lived locally and who had come only once he’d had no visitors since his arrival. He was a voluntary patient but he seemed to have little appetite to discharge himself. When such a discharge had been suggested, he had attempted suicide. He was treated to daily therapy but showed himself to be surly and incommunicative. There was the occasional tantrum which waned as quickly as it flared.
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