Murphy A Matter for the Jury

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-84344-286-8
Verlag: No Exit Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 2, 416 Seiten

Reihe: A Ben Schroeder Legal Thriller

The Second Ben Schroeder Novel It is 1964 and Ben Schroeder, first introduced in A Higher Duty, is building his career at the Bar; juggling the demands of different challenging cases, while trying to allow a little romance into his life. Ben is already defending a vicar, accused of indecent assault on a choir boy, when he is plunged into a capital murder case. The accused is Billy Cottage, charged with murder after a frenzied attack on a young courting couple aboard a houseboat. The young man, Frank Gilliam, dies in the attack, while his girlfriend, Jennifer Doyce, is raped and seriously injured. The attacker steals a gold cross and chain from Jennifer, which makes the crime a capital offence. When the police recover the cross and chain from Billy's sister, and find his fingerprint inside the houseboat, things start to look ominous. But then comes the crucial piece of evidence of his propensity to sing a particular song. In his fight to save Billy Cottage's life, Ben finds that he has both the law and the facts against him; and the tide of public opinion has not yet turned against capital punishment. 'Utterly compelling' David Ambrose 'A gripping courtroom drama' Paul Magrath, ICLR

Born in 1946, Peter Murphy graduated from Cambridge University and pursued a career in the law in England, the United States and The Hague. He practised as a barrister in London for a decade, then took up a professorship at a law school in Texas, a position he held for more than twenty years. Towards the end of that period he returned to Europe as counsel at the Yugoslavian War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague for almost a decade. In 2007 he returned to England to take up an appointment as a judge of the Crown Court. He retired as Resident Judge and Honorary Recorder of Peterborough in 2015. Peter started writing fiction more than twenty years ago, but following his retirement from the bench he became a full-time author, often drawing on the many experiences of his former career. Two political thrillers about the American presidency: Removal and Test of Resolve were followed by eight legal thrillers in the Ben Schroeder series about a barrister practising in London in the 1960s and 1970s. Alongside those he also penned the light-hearted series of short story collections featuring Judge Walden of Bermondsey in the 'Rumpole' tradition, based in part on his own experiences as a lawyer and judge, and recently published A Statue for Jacob, based on the true story of Jacob de Haven. Peter passed away in July 2022.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Murphy, Peter

Leseproben

2

What Billy liked most about working in pubs was that it got him out of the house during the quiet evenings, when the memories returned with a particular vengeance. There was not much to do at home in the evenings. There was an old, temperamental wireless set which picked up signals spasmodically, but the programmes rarely interested him. His reading skills were limited. He could thread his way painstakingly through a simply written book, but he did not often find the patience for it in the dim gas lighting – Tommy had never seen the point in installing electric lights. It was easier for Billy to follow the example he had been set. Whisky was not a cheap commodity. He assumed that the nameless hooch Tommy and Marjorie had drunk every night must have been cheaper. No doubt it was produced locally, but Tommy had never divulged the source. So Billy had to hoard some money away for whisky or, occasionally, persuade a colleague at the pub to turn a blind eye while a bottle vanished from the cellar. But it was during those long evenings at home, with only the silent Eve and his bottle for company, that the memories were at their most potent.

It was not that sex had ever been much of a mystery to either Billy or Eve. Tommy and Marjorie had sex several times a week after two or three hours of drinking hooch, and never made any secret of it. Often they left the door of their bedroom open. Billy and Eve shared the other bedroom, occupying single beds. There was nowhere else for them to sleep. When the noise woke them up, they would often creep along the short stretch of corridor and peer in through the open door, to see Tommy and Marjorie naked on the bed, the covers thrown back, in the throes, or immediate aftermath, of sexual intercourse. Marjorie’s usual reaction, on seeing the children at the door, was to laugh. Sometimes she would seize Tommy’s penis and wave it in their direction.

‘Look at that,’ she would say. ‘Daddy’s giving Mummy a right bloody seeing to, isn’t he? Isn’t Mummy a lucky girl?’

‘Shut up, you silly bitch,’ Tommy would say. But this only made Marjorie laugh even more.

But the memories that truly disturbed Billy were of what came later. Later, when Marjorie was asleep, Tommy would start the singing. Tommy was a Lincolnshire man and made a show of being proud of it, though he had not returned to his native county once during the thirty-five years before his death. As a Lincolnshire man, more than any other song, he liked the Lincolnshire Poacher. Tommy knew every verse, of course, and as a child Billy could sing each one with him. But now he remembered only the first and the last.

When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire,

Full well I served my master for nigh on seven years,

Till I took up to poaching, as you shall quickly hear,

Oh, ’tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.

Success to every gentleman that lives in Lincolnshire,

Success to every poacher that wants to sell a hare,

Bad luck to every gamekeeper that will not sell his deer,

Oh, ’tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.

Often Tommy would sing during the day, while operating the lock or shovelling silt. But what Billy and Eve remembered most clearly was when he sang late at night. They would hear him singing softly as he lifted himself quietly out of bed, and during the short walk from his bedroom to theirs. When it started, Billy could never recall. It was a long time ago, that was certain. Eve could not have been more than ten or eleven. But once it started, it happened so often that no one occasion stood out particularly. Tommy would wear a cotton dressing gown, under which he was naked. He would point towards Billy’s bed.

‘You – turn the other way and go to sleep,’ he would command Billy. ‘Or else.’

Billy would turn the other way as commanded, but of course, as soon as Tommy’s attention was fully fixed on Eve, his curiosity made him turn back quietly to watch. The pattern never varied very much. First, Tommy would take off his dressing gown. By that time, if Eve had been asleep before, she would be wide awake. And the whole time, the singing, now almost a whisper.

When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire,

Full well I served my master for nigh on seven years,…

He would take off Eve’s nightdress and underwear and pull back the covers on her bed.

‘You are such a special girl. You are Daddy’s little princess.’

Then he would kiss her, up and down her body, as she lay in place on her back, frozen and motionless.

‘Daddy’s little princess. Be a good girl for Daddy. You know what Daddy likes, don’t you?’

Till I took up to poaching as you shall quickly hear,

Oh, ’tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.

Then he would take her frozen hand, unclench her fingers, which she held stiff without actively resisting, and place them where he wanted them. She never tried to remove them, but neither did she actively cooperate, so Tommy had to put his hand over hers and move it up and down until he was satisfied. When she was about twelve, he began to vary it sometimes by pulling Eve up off the bed and bringing her head down to his groin. Billy would see him holding her hair and moving her head up and down until his body suddenly went limp, he released her hair, and her body sank back down on to her bed.

‘You are such a perfect little girl. Daddy’s little princess.’

Once she was about thirteen, and her breasts had grown nicely, he began to lie down on top of her, just as he did with Marjorie.

Success to every gentleman that lives in Lincolnshire,

Success to every poacher that wants to sell a hare…

When it came time to return to the marital bed, he would place a finger over her lips.

‘Remember, princess, this is our secret. No one must ever know. My beautiful little princess.’

They would hear his footsteps retreat along the corridor outside.

Bad luck to every gamekeeper that will not sell his deer,

Oh, ’tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year.

Billy could never remember whether he had ever heard Eve protest or complain. If she ever had, she gave up at an early stage. She never cried, and she appeared to go to sleep soon after Tommy left. Whether his mother ever knew about Daddy giving Eve a right bloody seeing to, Billy never knew. If she did, he never heard her mention it, nor did he detect any change in her behaviour towards his father. Having no other frame of reference, Billy concluded that what he had witnessed must be normal behaviour for men and women. After all, his parents made no secret of it. Marjorie obviously enjoyed what Tommy did, so perhaps Eve did too. When this view took shape in his mind, Billy was seventeen and struggling to deal with his own emerging sexual desires. One night it seemed to him natural enough to approach Eve himself. She did not seem surprised, and cooperated by undressing herself and guiding him inside her.

‘I like it better with you,’ she told him, as he left her bed to return to his own. ‘You don’t smell of drink.’ It was the only comment she ever made to him about it.

Billy’s insight into human sexuality was now fully developed.

* * *

For some years, Billy had no real opportunity to meet women other than Eve and his mother. By the time his parents died, he and Eve had settled into a comfortable routine. But when he began to see young women in the pubs in St Ives, it seemed obvious that, just like Eve, they would be freely available to him if only he could arrange the right circumstances. Often the young women would be with young men. But Billy had no reason to see that as a drawback. The young woman would surely be available if he wanted her. He watched many of these couples closely, and sometimes followed them along the street when they left the pub.

One evening he followed a young couple for about half a mile to the girl’s home. They kissed and cuddled for a few minutes on the doorstep while Billy watched from behind a tree. When the young man left, Billy approached the house and hid in some bushes in the garden to the left of the front door. It was not the first time he had kept watch on a house, but it was the first time he had any real luck. A few minutes later the girl appeared at the window of an upstairs room, no doubt her bedroom. Billy watched, fascinated, as she undressed in the most natural way imaginable, utterly oblivious to his presence. She seated herself, naked, at a dressing table, still clearly visible. By now, Billy had unbuttoned his flies and was touching himself as she began to remove her make-up. He was summoning up his nerve to knock on the door and ask if he could come in. He was so absorbed that he failed to notice the approach of PC Willis. The officer happened on the scene purely by chance in the course of a routine patrol and, in the stillness of the evening, easily spotted the movement in the bushes as...