‘You did your best, sir,’ he said disappointedly.
I tapped my fingers on the table. ‘Even if she were found guilty, there may just be ways of stopping her from being hanged. The jury might be persuaded she was mad, she could even claim she was pregnant, then she couldn’t be hanged till the baby was born. It would buy us time.’
‘Time for what, sit?’
‘What; Time to investigate, find what really happened.’
He leaned forward eagerly, nearly knocking over his tankard. ‘Then you believe she is innocent?’
I gave him a direct look. ‘You do. Though her treatment of you, in all honesty, is cruel.’
‘I believe her because I know her. And because, when I see her there, I see—’ He struggled for words.
‘A woman whose air is of one who has been done a great wrong, rather than one who has committed a great crime?’
‘Yes,’ he said eagerly. ‘Yes. That is it exactly. You feel it too?’
‘Ay, I do.’ I looked at him evenly. ‘But what you or I feel is not evidence, Joseph. And we may be wrong. It is not good for a lawyer to base his work on instinct. He needs detachment, reason. I speak from experience.’
‘What can we do, sir?’
‘You must go and see her every day between now and Saturday. I don’t think she can be persuaded to speak, but it will show her she is not forgotten and I feel that is important, for all that she ignores us. If she says anything, if her manner changes at all, tell me and I will come again.’
‘I’ll do it, sir,’ he said.
‘And if she still does not speak, I will appear in court on Saturday. I don’t know if Forbizer will even hear me, but I’ll try and argue that her mind is disturbed—’
‘God knows, it must be. She has no reason to treat me so. Unless—’ he hesitated - ‘unless the old woman is right.’
‘There’s no profit in thinking that way, Joseph. I’ll try to argue that the issue of her sanity should be remitted to a jury. I am sure there are precedents, though Forbizer doesn’t have to follow them. Again, that would buy us time.’ I looked at him seriously. ‘But I am not optimistic. You must prepare your mind for the worst, Joseph.’
‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘While you are working for us, I have hope.’
‘Prepare for the worst,’ I repeated. It was all very well for Guy to talk of the merit of good works. He did not have to come before Judge Forbizer on gaol-delivery day.
Chapter Four
I RODE FROM NEWGATE TO my chambers at Lincoln’s Inn, just up the road from my house in Chancery Lane. When King Edward III ordered that no lawyers should be allowed to practise within the precincts of London, necessitating our removal outside its walls, he did us great service for the Inn was semi-rural, with wide orchards and the space of Lincoln’s Inn Fields beyond.
I passed under the high square towers of the Great Gate, left Chancery at the stables and walked to my chambers across Gatehouse Court. The sun shone brightly on the red-brick buildings. There was a pleasant breeze; we were too far from the City walls here for London smells to penetrate.
Barristers were striding purposefully around the precincts; the Trinity law term began the following week and there were cases to set in order. Among the black robes and caps there were also, of course, the usual young gentlemen in bright doublets and exaggerated cod-pieces strutting around, sons of gentry who joined the Inns only to learn London manners and make social contacts. A pair of them walking by had evidently been rabbiting in Coney Garth, for a pair of hounds frisked at their heels, their eyes on the furry bodies dripping blood from poles slung over their masters’ shoulders.
Then, ambling down the path from Lincoln’s Inn Hall with his customary amiable smile on his beaky features, I saw the tall, thin figure of Stephen Bealknap, against whom I would be pleading in King’s Bench in a few days. He halted in front of me and bowed. The courtesies require that barristers, even when opponents in the bitterest of cases, must observe the civilities, but Bealknap’s friendly manner always had something mocking in it. It was as though he said: you know I am a great scamp, but still you must be pleasant to me.
‘Brother Shardlake!’ he declaimed. ‘Another hot day. The wells will be drying up at this rate.’
Normally I would have made a curt acknowledgement and moved on, but it struck me there was a piece of information he could help me with. ‘So they will,’ I said. ‘It has been a dry spring.’
At my unaccustomed civility, a smile appeared on Bealknap’s face. It seemed quite pleasant until you came close and saw the meanness in the mouth, and realized the pale-blue eyes would never quite meet yours no matter how you tried to fix them. Beneath his cap a few curls of wiry-looking blond hair strayed.
‘Well, our case is on next week,’ he said. ‘June the first.’