The Blighted Cliffs (5 page)

He
tilted his head, and I felt those pitted eyes fix upon me.

'Lieutenant
Martin Jerrold?' His voice was higher than I had expected from so
large a man, and gratingly slow.

'Yes.'

'Lieutenant
Jerrold, you are brought here under suspicion of murder. What have
you to say?'

'Whom
is he accused of murdering?' cut in a voice before I'd a chance to
compose myself. I saw Crawley stepping forward on my right.

'You
know that full well, Captain Crawley,' sneered the magistrate. 'The
corpse found on the beach this morning.'

'Come,
Sir Lawrence.' Crawley affected good humour. 'You and I
both know that one cannot murder a corpse.'

'The
name of the body is as yet unknown,' Sir Lawrence conceded.

'And
he carried nothing on his person that hints at it. But it shall be
unearthed.'

'And
how is the lieutenant alleged to have killed this unknown victim?'
Crawley was still smiling like a simpleton.

Sir
Lawrence lazily flicked a hand towards the man on his left.

'The
deceased died of a broken neck,' he croaked, almost whispering. I
guessed him to be the coroner.

Sir
Lawrence opened his mouth to add some comment, but Crawley was ahead
of him. 'And is it not conceivable, your honour, that a man at the
bottom of a three-hundred-foot cliff might not have needed Lieutenant
Jerrold to break his neck for him? Or do you suggest that the
lieutenant pushed him off the top and then raced down to admire his
handiwork?'

'We
do not believe,' retorted the coroner, 'that '

Sir
Lawrence cut him short. 'You yourself discovered Lieutenant Jerrold
with the body, Captain Crawley.' There was something sinister in his
tone, as though he were privy to some nasty joke. 'Tell the court -
where did the corpse lie?'

'Near
the water.' Crawley looked a little anxious now.

'And
the tide was...?' Sir Lawrence tapped his fingertips together.

'On
the ebb. Half out, perhaps.'

Sir
Lawrence's lip curled upwards. 'Half out,' he repeated slowly.

'So
at what distance from the foot of the cliff would that place the
body?'

Crawley
shrugged. 'Thirty, maybe forty feet. Why?'

'Because,
Captain, unless the late victim had attempted a running jump from the
cliff-top, and been of an athletic disposition at that, which I am
assured he was not' - the coroner nodded his agreement -'then I do
not believe he could have propelled himself so far. Nor that any man,
even one of Mr Stubb's physique, could have launched him there.'

'There
was an offshore breeze that night,' tried Crawley, but Sir Lawrence
swatted the objection aside.

'He
was a man, Crawley, not a sail, and from my report of him he would
have fallen like a stone. If he had fallen from the cliff. Which he
did not.'

'It
is my verdict,' confirmed the coroner, without emotion, 'that the
deceased’s neck was broken by a violent blow from a blunt
object.'

'And
it is my testimony,' retorted Crawley, his voice rising, 'that when I
found Lieutenant Jerrold he had no such object about his person.'

I
sensed Sir Lawrence's eyes roll back in mock horror under their
hoods. 'And where indeed,' he asked with high rhetoric, 'might
Lieutenant Jerrold have found such a weapon? Surely, Captain
Crawley, even he could have contrived to do so on a beach covered
with rocks of every size and weight? And found a convenient way of
hiding it afterwards. I do not see that the facts admit of any other
explanation.'

So
that was it. They were going to hang me because I'd been found with
an unknown body, and because they had not the energy to find out even
who he'd been, let alone who might have killed him. I felt my legs
begin to weaken, but Crawley had not yet surrendered.

'Pure
circumstance,' he shouted, all quarterdeck thunder. 'Have you even a
motive? No, sir, because you do not even know the victim, any more
than Lieutenant Jerrold did when his stroll chanced to bring him to
the place where the man had died. This is a judgment of convenience,
Sir Lawrence, and it will not stand before a jury. You cannot hang a
man because he is your only suspect.'

It
seemed a poor time to mention the smugglers who had also been there.

The
magistrate shrugged his hunched shoulders. 'The victim might well
have been known to Lieutenant Jerrold, if not to us.' He spoke with
deliberate carelessness, enjoying his victory over the raging
captain. 'And I assure you, Crawley, that a jury will convict
Lieutenant Jerrold on this evidence, if six months in the gaol do not
wring a confession from him first.'

Crawle
y's
face was very white; he seemed to be trembling with fury. I feared he
might physically lash out and find himself condemned into my company;
indeed, it seemed he would do just that, for he suddenly strode
across the room, straight for Sir Lawrence. But there was no
explosion. Instead, he bent his head close to the magistrate's car
and started whispering, his head jerking forcefully.

I
looked about me. Ducker stood to my left, impassive as ever. The
clerk still scribbled away in a mist of ink, and the coroner sat
motionless as one of his cadavers. Outside the sky had darkened
again, and beads of rain began to settle on the window panes. It made
the candles seem suddenly brighter, though their light did little to
warm the room. My ribs felt close about me, crushing my breath. I
ached to be out of that miserable place, away from those three black
fates, away from this horrid town.

Crawley
straightened and walked back towards me, his face set hard. I could
read nothing into it, but I presumed the worst. The magistrate rose,
pulling himself to an imposing height under the mountainous cloak,
and began to deliver his sentence.

'Lieutenant
Jerrold,' he intoned soullessly, 'it is the finding of this court
that the evidence against you, on the charges of having murdered a
man not known in this parish, under the eastern cliffs, is purely
circumstantial, and that you should not be committed for trial, nor
detained any longer. Though I may add, Lieutenant, that should
further evidence against you come to light, our justice will be
swift, and severe.' I felt the bitter disappointment in his voice,
and the cold anticipation of his final words. 'That is all.'

So
completely had I written my own epitaph that it took several moments
for the actual words to sink in. My blood raced, and I felt an
enormous release, as though great boulders had been lifted off me. I
could have cheered, or screamed out some gleeful gibberish, but in
front of Sir Lawrence I made do with the idiotic smile that gripped
my face. I saw Ducker nodding with a slow satisfaction, but Crawley
was already out of the door and down the stairs. We made no delay in
following him.

When
we caught him, on the far corner of the square, I was surprised to
see him frowning in his triumph.

'What
in heaven did you say to him, sir?' I asked, astonished at the turn
of events he had manufactured. 'It must have been inspired.'

'I
explained,' said Crawley, bringing me up by his stern tone, 'that if
Sir Lawrence wished to maintain the benefits of the several lucrative
contracts he enjoys with the navy, and for that matter with the army,
he would stop this nonsense forthwith. It is not a threat I enjoyed
making,' he added, though surely that could only have been half true,
'especially on behalf of your poltroonery, but if I had allowed one
of his Majesty's officers to be thrown in gaol for murder, I doubt we
should ever have caught another smuggler on these shores again.' Not,
I assumed, from the loss of my own contributions.

'The
reproaches of them that reproached the fall on me", Lieutenant.
We would have had corpses at our feet everywhere we looked, and a
full wardroom in the gaol.'

In
my current mood I could shrug off his gloom. 'Whatever your motives,
sir, I am in your debt. And grateful beyond words.'

Crawley
scowled still deeper. 'Then you can repay me, Lieutenant, by staying
out of further mischief. And by devoting your time, and allowing me
mine, to the task in hand.'

I
nodded soberly. 'I shall indeed, sir.' I might have added more, but I
already felt slightly ridiculous before his unforgiving stare. '

'Then
go back to your inn and give yourself a thorough scrubbing. I do not
wish to find you giving my crew the gaol fever.' He looked at the
clock on the church tower, which confirmed the settling gloom about
us as the onset of evening. 'You may report to me in my rooms
tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. Punctually.'

'Yes,
sir,' I said, suddenly realizing how much I craved a warm bed. 'Nine
o'clock, sir.' I turned to go.

'Lieutenant,'
Crawley barked, and I looked back to see him with his arm
outstretched. 'My coat, if you please.'

I
returned to the inn, shouted for one of the servants to fetch me a
bath, and climbed the twisting stairs to my garret. It seemed an age
since I had descended them for that fateful call of nature. I would
have to remember a chamber pot this time, I thought, fumbling with
the door. Remembering again to duck my head, I stepped in, and almost
immediately wondered whether I was in the wrong room. The chest at
the foot of the bed looked like mine, as did the coat thrown over a
footstool. The half-drunk bottle on the floor might well have been my
unfinished business. But none of that explained the girl- unless, I
thought vaguely, she was unfinished business too.

I
tried surprise, for it came naturally. 'What the devil are you doing
here?'

She
looked up from where she was curled on the bed. 'You're always
welcoming me like that.' Her voice was curiously mellow for one so
young.

Those
words brought me up short. So much had passed since the morning that
I'd quite forgotten the events of the previous evening, but now they
started to return. A hostelry, of dubious custom and worse
refreshment, yet packed to the rafters, the sort of place where
conversation is so completely impossible that drinking becomes the
only diversion. A girl had approached me, or perhaps I had made the
advance, and I believe we had negotiated a fee, though in the hubbub
our contract might have been open to misconception. And then...

'You
were in my bed this morning.' It sounded lame even as I said it, and
I did little to redeem myself when I added, 'And you're in it again
now.'

Her
young eyes looked at me with concern. 'Do you ... have trouble ...
remembering things?' she asked, slow and earnest. 'There was a man
here once got dropped on his head, and he talked a bit like you. Soft
Mick, they called him.'

I
frowned testily. 'I am not the village idiot, if that's what you are
asking. I was simply the worse for drink last night, and the worse
for an exceptionally trying day now.'