Chapter 11
The Bailiff
Tom Rudd found him at the kitchen sink, a little after eight, washing a single cup.
Daniel had not wanted to be found. He had come away from the infirmary as soon as Helen's color began to come back, and had stood in the corridor for a while with his forehead against the cool panelling. Then he had gone to the kitchen, because there was nowhere else. He had run the tap. He had taken a cup from the shelf and washed it, carefully, outside and in, and was washing it a second time when he felt the floor tremble under a heavy step.
"Mr. Wells."
"Tom."
"Can I have a word?"
"I'm busy."
"You're washing a cup that's clean." He did not say it unkindly. He came and stood in the middle of the floor, a big man in a gray uniform that had been slept in, with his hands hanging at his sides and his head a little bowed, as if in a low doorway. "I'd like to say something. I've been trying to say it since Wednesday. I've, it's been hard to find the way in."
"Then don't."
"I've got to."
"Not tonight."
"There isn't a better night," said Tom, gently. "It's got worse every day. I keep thinking I'll get the right moment, and what I get is another one that's worse."
Daniel turned off the tap.
He dried his hands on a gray cloth. He did it with great care, finger by finger. The kitchen was a long dull yellow room with a steel counter, and a clock over the door, ticking, and the smell of boiled rice. The clock said ten past eight. It was the one that ran too fast.
"I remembered," said Tom.
"I thought you might."
"It came last night. In the lounge, when you were asleep. You said a thing." He looked at the floor. "You said, Hurry. We have to finish. And I was sitting there, by the door, and it came up, sudden. The way a smell does. I could see the corridor outside the jury room. The brown linoleum. A man in a gray suit, standing with his back to the radiator, with a, with a sort of look on him. A tired look. He was looking at his watch."
"Tom."
"You told me she'd been using a phone."
Daniel said nothing.
"In the washroom. Juror Nine. That's what you told me. You said it quiet, in the hall, with your hand on my sleeve. Mr. Rudd, I think I ought to say. I think Number Nine's been on her phone in there. You looked worried. You looked, I remember, like a man who didn't want to say it." He raised his eyes. They were brown, and very large, and wet. "I said, are you sure, sir? And you said, I heard her. You said you'd heard a voice. Through the door."
"I know."
"I took it to the judge."
"I know."
"They had her out in twenty minutes." He rubbed his face with one big hand. "The judge didn't question her. He didn't ask to see a phone. A phone was, in those days it was automatic. If a juror's on a phone, she's out. It's not a thing you argue with. He said, Mr. Bailiff, would you see Juror Nine from the building. And I said, Yes, Your Honor. And I went and got her."
"Tom, don't."
"She was in the jury room. Sitting at the table, by herself. They'd all gone out for the break. She had a notebook open in front of her. She was writing." He swallowed. "She looked up when I came in. She had pale eyes. She said, Oh. Is it time? Like she'd been expecting it."
"Please."
"I said, This way, please, ma'am."
He stopped. He stood still. The big square face was shining, and he did not wipe it.
"She asked me what it was for," said Tom. "In the hall. She said, What have I done? Could you tell me, please? And I said I didn't know. And I didn't. I swear I didn't." He drew a ragged breath. "But I found out, later. That afternoon. A sheriff's deputy had been through her bag. There wasn't a phone. There was no phone in the building. She didn't carry one. She said she didn't believe in them."
"She didn't."
"I know she didn't. I should have, I could have said. I was standing right there. I said nothing. I thought, the foreman said it. The foreman's a decent man. He's got a wife in the hospital. I'll keep my head down." His voice broke. "I was three years off a pension. I had a boy starting college. I thought, it's not my business. It's a jury thing. It's, I only carry the messages."
"You carried one."
"Yes."
"And I wrote it."
They stood in the yellow kitchen, a yard apart, and for a long moment there was no sound but the clock.
"I knew you'd remember," said Daniel.
"Why?"
"Because you were the only one who ever looked at me." He found that his voice had gone flat. "Everyone else looked at the table. Or the door. You looked at me, in the hall, with your hand on my arm. You said, are you sure. I've heard you say it every night for nine years."
Tom put his hand over his mouth.
It was a very large hand. It shook. He stood in the middle of the kitchen with it pressed across his face like a man trying to stop a cough, and the tears ran down between the fingers.
"I'm so sorry," said Tom.
"What for?"
"For not asking you again."
"It wouldn't have made any difference."
"It might have."
"I'd have said the same."
"You'd have said it and I'd have known." He lowered his hand. "That's all it would have taken. One more time. Are you sure? And you'd have gone red, and I'd have seen it, and I'd have walked back in and told the judge. And she'd have been in her chair. And then." He stopped. "I don't know what then. But it wouldn't have been this."
He turned away.
At the door he paused. He did not look round. He said, in a thick low voice, "They ought to know. The others. They've got a right."
"I know."
"I'll not say it, if you'd rather say it yourself."
"I haven't got the words."
"Then I'll help you," said Tom. "But tonight. I'm not waiting for another game."
They sat round the oak table at nine.
He did not decide it. Tom said it. He stood at the end of the long room, under the strip light, with the water stain above him, and told them, in his slow deep voice, to sit down. They sat. All of them, even Greg, who had been sulking on a cot. Frank took the chair at the opposite end. Nora, white and silent, came in with a mug of tea and set it by Helen's place and stood behind the chair. Helen was propped upright, wrapped in a blanket, with her hair combed back and two spots of color on her cheeks. She had insisted on coming. She had said, If there's going to be a trial, I'd like a seat.
The little screen was open in the table. The red clock showed 10:41:22.
"It was nine years ago," said Tom.
Nobody moved.
"March. I was working this room. I was on the stand-in list. They'd had a bailiff who broke his hip, and I was doing double. It was a, it was a case. In Courtroom Two, on the first floor. State of Marlow against Martin Lowe."
Daniel closed his eyes.
It was only a name. It came into the room as a plain brown moth comes in, quietly, from nowhere, and hung in the light. Martin Lowe. It was no louder than any other. He felt it go round the table. He felt them hear it, one at a time.
Frank Ross made a small sound, like a man pricked by a pin.
"A hit-and-run," said Tom. "A girl, nineteen. Emily Starr. On Pike Road, ten to midnight on a Friday in October. She was walking home. She was thrown in the ditch."
"I remember," said Helen, very low.
"A blue car. The paint chips were blue. They had a witness, who saw it."
"Ray," said a voice, from the end of the table.
They all looked round. It was Nora. She had not meant to speak. She had both hands to her mouth, and her face, in the strip light, was completely white.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I was thinking of him. In the cage. He told us."
"He did," said Tom, gently.
"I didn't mean to say it aloud."
"It's all right, miss."
"Go on," said Frank. His voice was harsh. He had put both hands flat on the table. "Say the rest. I'll say if you've got it wrong."
"You were the lead detective," said Tom.
"I was."
"You took him in. Lowe. He was a teacher. A mathematics teacher at Lincoln High, who coached the chess club on Fridays. Forty-one. A widower, I think. No, he had a wife. And a little girl." Tom looked at the table. "He had a blue sedan with a dent in the wing. He said he'd hit a deer."
"He said he was playing chess," said Helen.
She said it in a flat dry whisper. She had gone the color of the wall. She was staring at the center of the table, at the long smooth ring of polish where the little screen had been, and her thin hand was twisting the edge of the blanket round and round.
"I defended him," she said.
"I know."
"He said he was at a tournament. At the Marlow Chess Club. Round four, till midnight. There were a dozen people there. I, I didn't. It's no excuse. I had thirty cases. I had a, I was drinking, I've told you." She drew a rattling breath. "I should have called the club owner. I had the name. It was on my pad. I should have, there was a scoresheet."
"Helen," said Tom.
"I meant to call him. I put it off. I thought, there's a week. And then it was the trial and I had a hangover and I, I thought, the jury won't believe a friend of his anyway."
"Don't," said Nora, faintly.
"I let it go. I let the, it will do. I said it to myself. I said it all through."
Nobody said anything. In the silence, Greg Pruitt moved. He did it clumsily. He pushed back his chair, and it scraped, and everybody jumped.
"I was on the jury," he said.
He had gone a sickly yellow. He sat bolt upright, with his hands under the table, and his eyes were fixed on a point about a foot in front of his face.
"I was, not the. I was the alternate. I didn't. I mean I didn't know." His voice rose. "I was only called on the last day. They took a woman off. A juror. They said she was, she'd broken a rule. And I was sitting in the back, in the thirteenth chair, and the judge said, Mr. Pruitt, would you take Number Nine's place? And I thought, oh, thank God, it's nearly over. I said yes. I said it to the whole room. I sat down. They had been going, they'd been going for four days. They all looked, they were so tired."
"Did you read the exhibits?" said Frank.
"What?"
"Did you read the, the evidence. In the box. Before you voted."
"I'd been in the room an hour!"
"So no."
"I thought, they'd done it. I thought the, they'd been through it. Eleven of them." He shook his head. "It was a, I just said guilty. It was the only thing to say. There was nobody saying anything else."
"Because they'd taken out the one who was."
"I didn't know that!"
"No," said Tom. "I know you didn't."
Greg put his head in his hands.
"I was the one who took her out," said Tom.
He said it in a very level voice, looking at nothing. "I was the bailiff. I took her down the stairs, and I held the door. And I've had it, it's been in my head, for nine years, how she turned round at the bottom, and looked up. She didn't say a thing."
He lifted his eyes, at last, slowly. They went round the table, to Frank, and Helen, and Greg, and rested at the far end.
"We were all in that case," said Tom. "Every one of us. That's what this is. I couldn't tell you why. But I think that's what he's built."
"And you, Daniel," said Helen.
She said it softly. It was not an accusation. She was looking at him with her bright feverish eyes, over the rim of the blanket, and there was no surprise in them at all.
He opened his mouth.
He had had the words ready. He had been working at them since the kitchen, turning them over and over, like a man shaping a stone. They were simple. I was on the jury. It was not a lie. It was not even a particularly hard thing to say.
"I was juror seven," said Daniel.
The silence in the room was very deep.
"They made me the foreman."
"Why?" said Greg. He had lifted his head. His mouth hung open, and his eyes were red. "Why you?"
"Because I was on time."
It was true. It was so small a truth, and so exactly the kind of truth that had ruined everything, that he nearly laughed. They had needed somebody. There had been a minute of embarrassment, round the long oak table, in the first hour. A woman in a green cardigan had said, Well, someone's got to, and a man by the window had said, The young fellow. He's been punctual. Eleven faces had turned. He had said, If nobody else wants to.
If nobody else.
"And you," said Frank. His eyes were pale and fixed. "What did you do?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"There was a juror. A woman. She was taken off."
"Yes."
"You were the foreman. It would have been your call, to tell the, to make the report. Wouldn't it? You'd have been the one to say."
"Frank," said Helen.
"I want to hear it."
"It was a, I'll tell you," said Daniel. "I will. But I can't. I can't do it now." He heard his own voice, breaking. "I've got to find my daughter first. If I say it, in here, it'll be, I'll lose the, I can't think. I can't breathe. You can have all of it. I promise. I'll sit in the chair. But not before I know she's out."
"That's convenient," said Greg.
"It's not."
"It's a hell of a thing, to ask us."
"It's all I've got."
"It's a lie. You're lying. You've been lying for three days. Ray's dead." His voice cracked. "A man's dead because of whatever you did. We've a right."
"You have," said Daniel.
They all looked at him.
"You have. I know it. You have every right in the world." His hands were trembling on the oak. "I'm not asking you to forgive it. I'm not asking you to wait because I deserve it. I'm only asking because there's a child in a room, and I haven't the right to tell it, and I can't tell it, and I can't not. I'm sorry."
Nobody answered.
Across the table, very slowly, Helen Marsh reached out her thin hot hand. It lay on the oak between them, palm up. She did not say anything. She only left it there, like something put out for a bird. After a moment, he took it.
"For the record," said White.
It was almost a relief. It came out of the speakers with the old soft precision, and for one strange moment the whole room seemed to unclench. They were all so tired. They were glad to be told, by a voice, what to do.
"I wish to read something. I find it appropriate. It is from the transcript of the proceeding which has just been mentioned. I typed it myself." A faint dry sound, the turn of a page. "Volume Four. Page one hundred and forty-one. It is the morning of the fourth day of deliberations."
"You typed it?" said Frank.
"I have a great respect for accuracy."
"You were the court reporter."
"I was many things." The voice paused. "I have been asked to read a short passage. I will not do it in character. I am not an actor. I will read it as it was taken down."
There was a pause. It was a long one, very still. When the voice began again it was altered. It was flatter, plainer, free of any warmth. It was the voice of a man reading a form.
"THE COURT: Mr. Bailiff, I have been informed by the foreman that Juror Number Nine has been in communication with an outside party. Would you please see her from the building.
"THE BAILIFF: Yes, Your Honor.
"THE COURT: She is excused. The clerk will note it. Mr. Pruitt, would you take the seat.
"MR. PRUITT: Yes, Your Honor.
"THE COURT: Thank you. We will resume."
A paper turned.
"There is one further line," said White. "It is not in the transcript. It was not spoken in the courtroom. It was said in the corridor, on the stair, at ten-forty that morning, and I did not take it down." The voice softened. "I have it from the person to whom it was addressed. She said it to me on the telephone that evening. She wrote it in her notebook. She said, He said, 'This way, please.'"
Tom Rudd made a low wounded sound.
"That is the last thing she was told in this building," said White. "I thought you might like to know."
The speakers clicked.
For a long time nobody said anything. In the middle of the oak table, under the strip light, the little screen glowed. A small girl sat at a desk, looking at the clock. The red figures dropped one by one. Beside her lay a yellow notebook with a cat on the front, closed, and a pencil.
10:03:16.
10:03:15.
"It was never about the Pen," said Nora.
She said it quietly, in a stunned, empty voice. She was staring at the table. "It was never about who could take the cold. It's, we're, it's the jury. Isn't it? He's put us in the, we're sitting in the room. We've been in it since the beginning. We vote. He makes us say it, in order. The foreman reads." Her voice shook. "He's making us do it again."
"Yes," said Daniel.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"I think you do."
He lifted his eyes. She was looking at him across the oak, white and small, and her face in the light was young, and very open, and utterly without guile. She looked like a girl who had just been told the end of a story she had begun to dread. There was something in her expression that he could not name. It was not fear. It was something closer to grief.
She's only twenty-four, he thought. She wasn't there. She was fifteen. She's got nothing to do with it.
Why is she looking at me like that?
"I think we were chosen," said Daniel slowly, "because of what we did."
"Or didn't," said Helen.
"Or didn't do." He looked round the table at the five of them, the old man, the heavy bailiff, the lawyer, the car dealer, the girl. Six including himself. A jury and a half. "Nine years ago. In that case. Every one of us made some kind of, one small move. And we've been brought to the room where it happened. To make them again."
Nobody spoke.
He sat in the head chair, in the old oak room that smelled of radiators, with the water stain over his head and the twelfth chair, and the fallen black king, at the far end of the table. And he thought, clearly, in the silence, as one hears the first thing in a dream: Seven names. Five chairs. And only one of them is empty because someone has died.
Ray.
Ray and Martin Lowe.
And a woman in a green cardigan, who is a good deal more than a name.