Charles Snow - The Sleep of Reason

“Do you all get used to it?” asked Martin with hard sympathy.

“Do you imagine anyone ever gets quite used to something like this?” Bosanquet was as direct as we were. Despite his comfortable senatorial frame, there was not much padding about him. Young Rose, whose spirits were less heavy, tried to talk of another case. Bosanquet spooned away at a plate of soup.

He looked up.

“I’ve had about enough of it,” he said.

He went on: “I’m afraid I’ve got to bring it all out. I warn you, this afternoon isn’t going to be pleasant.”

A week before, he told us, he had thought that they could “smother some of the horrors”. They weren’t good for anyone to hear. But — he had to go on.

“Look here,” I interrupted, “I’ve been puzzled all along. What are the other side expecting?”

At that, Bosanquet and Rose glanced at each other, and Bosanquet suddenly got away from his revulsion and began to talk like a man at his ease. This was professional, this was clean. Neither of them could understand it. Something had gone wrong. The case was proved to the last inch. The defence counsel knew it, of course. Their only line was to make the best deal they could about the women’s mental states (“We shall go for them there, anyway,” said Archibald Rose). Ted Benskin was a first-rate lawyer. Bosanquet was certain that was how he wanted to plead. But something had gone wrong.

“I shan’t be surprised if they don’t cut their losses any moment now.” (That is, accept the prosecution’s case and make their plea.) “I tell you, no one will be better pleased than me. As it is, I’ve got to plod on through all this filth.”

He gave a sweet, irritated smile.

“And old Jumbo doesn’t make it any easier. I wish he wouldn’t try to run my case for me.”

“Old Jumbo” was Mr Justice Fane. This too was professional, this was clean — in a different compartment from blood, cruelty, the smell of death. Just as Mansel was intent upon his professional problems while I, in a different compartment, was speculating about going blind. Bosanquet was happier now. Everyone loved old Jumbo, he was saying. He had been kind to Bosanquet himself all through his career. But there was no doubt about it, he hadn’t much of a lawyer’s sympathy with a well-built case.

Bosanquet was assessing the old judge like a man who, in the nearish future, might become a judge himself. It would be a good end to his career: and, unlike Mr Justice Fane, he had no private means. As with a writer or an actor, he wasn’t secure from illness or old age. The barrister’s life had altered since my time, they told me. How much had I made in my first year? Under a hundred pounds. Nowadays one would make a decent income, getting on for two thousand. Rose said that he had done so himself. But he appeared to have some money — which surprised me, for his uncle had none, and his father was a suffragan bishop. Anyway, Rose had acquired a house in the country when he joined the circuit. He was inviting us all there, including the defence lawyers, in a couple of nights’ time.

Martin, lacking my nostalgic interest in legal careers, put in a question. He said, getting back to a preoccupation of his own: “Have you any idea which of those two was the prime mover?”

Bosanquet said, once more clouded: “No, we don’t know.”

“I suppose it might have been the butch,” said Rose.

“We don’t know,” said Bosanquet. He said it in a subdued tone, but with authority. “There are plenty of things about this case that we don’t know.” He addressed Martin, who might not have realised how much information police and lawyers possessed, but couldn’t prove or use: “But we do know two things. They had planned this, or something like this, literally for months beforehand. And they were going to kill, right from the beginning. That was the real point all along.”

Martin nodded.

“It’s ten past two,” said Bosanquet, without changing his tone. “We ought to be going.” He added, as old Herbert Getliffe used to say before going into court, like a captain calling to his team in the dressing-room: “All aboard.”

The afternoon began quietly. In the dock Kitty was sitting, pen in hand, but for the moment not writing. The first witness, examined by Rose, was an experimental officer from one of the Midland forensic laboratories, an unassertive friendly man, his manner similar to those of the meteorologists who predicted the weather before the television news. Yes, he had examined samples of blood after Eric Mawby’s body was discovered. These came from another laboratory (“We shall have a deposition to establish,” said Archibald Rose, more emphatic than his senior, “that these samples were taken from relics of dried blood still remaining on his head wounds and also on his clothes.”) It had been possible to determine the blood group. The blood group was the same as that already given in evidence for specimens of blood found on the floor and walls of Rose Cottage.

Another experimental officer. Blood found on a piece of clothing, a woman’s nylon blouse not completely burnt, in the garden of Rose Cottage. Identical blood group.

Deposition about taking samples of blood from K M Pateman, C H P Ross. Another witness, from another laboratory, tested these samples (at this stage, the scientific tests seemed mysteriously ramified). Neither belonged to the same group as that of the other specimens.

All muted, abstract as a chart of last year’s trade returns, except for Rose’s ringing voice.

A new witness mounted into the box, and Bosanquet stood up himself. Laurence McQuillin. Home Office pathologist. His arms were folded, he was short, sturdy, unvivacious as a Buddha. He was practised at giving evidence, and he also enjoyed exposition: so that, though he was extremely positive, people did not react against him, but wanted to listen. Bosanquet must have examined him before, and carefully let him give an answer about the problems presented by a body buried for three weeks. “In some matters,” said McQuillin, “there is an area of doubt. I shall indicate to my lord and the jury where the conclusions have to be tentative.”

“But you have reached some definite conclusions?”

“I have.”

One definite conclusion was that the boy’s body showed two types of injury. The first type was wounds which could not have caused death and which had, with reasonable certainty, been inflicted some considerable time before death. These wounds included lacerations on the back, buttocks, and thighs. The exact number could not be decided. Well over twenty. There were also cuts on the breast and groin. A number of burns on the upper arms and shoulders. Not less than ten. Marks on the ankles and wrists.

“What were these wounds inflicted with?”

“There must have been different instruments. The lacerations on the back and buttocks could have been caused by a stick. If so, it must have been used with severe force.”

“And the others?”

“The cuts would have needed a sharp instrument. A knife could have been used. Or scissors.”

“The burns?”

“I cannot be certain. They are quite small in area. Perhaps a lighted cigarette end, but that is only a speculation.”

The marks on the ankles and wrists were minor. They were consistent with the child’s arms and legs having been tied, but that also was a speculation.

“None of these injuries had any connection with the victim’s death?”

“None at all.”

McQuillin added to his answer: they would have caused extreme pain, but a healthy child, or a healthy adult for that matter, would have recovered physically in a comparatively short time.

“How do you reach your conclusion that they were incurred a considerable period before death?”