The Last Horseman (3 page)

Kingsley hesitated a moment and then added thoughtfully, ‘And this other fella they’re hanging, O’Hagan, wouldn’t be much older than your own son, would he?’

‘I have made an appeal for clemency,’ Radcliffe told him.

‘There’s a chance the murdering little shite will get off?’

‘He’s a boy,’ said Radcliffe.

‘Didn’t a decent man die at their hands!’ Kingsley blustered; then he turned and spat on to the cobbles.

‘He’s a boy,’ Radcliffe repeated evenly.

Baxter could see the rancour would soon escalate and interrupted. ‘Joseph, as you know I want to buy horses for the campaign. I’ve not yet made any decisions, but this one seems to be a beauty,’ he said, turning to the horse.

Most of the British horses were supplied by the Irish and this gelding looked to be a fine example. Radcliffe nodded to the groom, who walked the horse around the yard. Radcliffe’s eyes studied the horse’s gait and watched as it shifted its weight.

‘He’s taken a fall at some time; he’ll weaken under you, Alex.’

‘And wasn’t I about to tell Colonel Baxter that myself,’ Kingsley said with a smile.

Baxter extended his hand to Radcliffe. It was a gesture of silent thanks. ‘Then we’ll talk again, Kingsley, I’m sure I’ll find what I want in your stables,’ he said, and added, ‘with due care and consideration, when I have more time.’

Kingsley gestured for a stable lad to bring Baxter’s horse across the yard.

‘And I’ll be sure to have your best interests at heart, colonel.’

‘And at a price that befits the quality of the horse,’ Baxter answered. He turned to Radcliffe. ‘You’ll ride back with me?’

‘Not today, Alex,’ Radcliffe answered without further explanation.

Baxter eased into the saddle and gathered the reins. ‘You and Mr Pierce will be at the regimental dinner? I expect you.’

Radcliffe didn’t answer. Baxter was aware of his reluctance. ‘No excuses, Joseph.’ He pressed his heels into the horse’s flanks and nodded his farewell.

Kingsley walked across the yard with Radcliffe and held the bridle as Radcliffe pulled himself into the saddle. ‘You’re a strange fish, Radcliffe. A widow man from America with a black fella for a secretary and a son who rides like the devil’s burning his arse while his daddy defends murdering Fenians. We get some strange people in these parts. A man has to ask himself if much good would come from it.’ He released his grip. ‘Be careful how you go.’

Radcliffe wondered if the benign comment was a threat. He eased the horse forward and knew, without looking back, that the man would watch him depart until he was out of sight.

Benjamin Pierce sat at a fine old oak desk mellowed to a warm honey patina from a hundred years of use. Radcliffe had bought it at some expense when they first arrived in Dublin. How long ago had that been? Damned near half his life if he remembered correctly. He and Radcliffe were still young men when they turned their backs on a war against the American Plains Indians and searched out a new life. A year in London had given Radcliffe the qualifications to practise law and they would have stayed in that cosmopolitan city had Radcliffe not met a woman there who seized his heart. Kathleen was beautiful, Pierce had to admit that. He had argued with his friend that London offered them more opportunity. That and more. It was the British who had abolished the slave trade and, being a black man, Pierce drew fewer stares in London than when they first arrived in Dublin. But Radcliffe followed his heart and Pierce, as always, followed his friend.

The scratches and chipped corners devalued the oak desk in the eyes of the auctioneer but Radcliffe had bought it anyway, paying too much and ignoring Pierce’s admonishments that he was a damned fool. They had little money to set up the practice, let alone for squandering on a desk big enough to sleep on. But within a year that broad expanse of sawn, hand-polished oak was covered in documents tied with red ribbon. Injustice knew no boundaries and Radcliffe took the cases that were most pressing, and which usually offered little payment, if any at all. Landowners and shopkeepers were charged more to fund the truly needy. But, now that he had defended Fenians, clients had drifted away. It was only by good fortune that they had paid their rent on the townhouse six months in advance. Pierce and Radcliffe had once endured the harsh life of soldiering but the chill that hung forever in the Irish house, and the sky that seemed constantly grey and frequently deluged them, made the house unwelcoming and cold. As the months had gone by they determined to save money, and in order to pay the coal merchant’s account they burned only one fire in the drawing room, and the other in Radcliffe’s study.

Pierce’s fingers protruded through woollen mittens as he held the document; it was Radcliffe’s appeal for clemency for the young Daniel Fitzpatrick O’Hagan. Its articulate request for mercy had to break through a judicial system renowned for its harsh penalties for crimes against the Crown.

A door slammed below. There was no need for Pierce to move to the window, he knew it was their housekeeper punctuating her resignation with a bang. And who could blame her? The daubed front door bore a message of hate:
Death to the Finians
.

Pierce understood hatred, but having been educated by a God-fearing Presbyterian abolitionist he did not appreciate an incorrectly spelled death threat.

*

Cell D1 was on the ground floor at the end of D wing; the hang house was immediately across the landing. So short a distance between life and death. The condemned cell had once been two cells until it was knocked into one but offered no comfort despite there being a fireplace at each end. Two guards sat at their posts, part of a rotating eight-hour shift, ever watchful so that the condemned could not commit suicide – and cheat society of its revenge. It was their duty to report anything said by the prisoner to the governor but Daniel O’Hagan had not spoken since they had moved him there. His mind had gone blank, lost in the silence of crippling fear. He could not even remember the Our Father. But the Catholic chaplain would come when it was time and confession would be heard, and then the two guards would move to the far side of the cell, and catch only the numb whispering of a boy unable to imagine his own death was now upon him.

*

The prison governor’s office had the same cream-painted bricks as the rest of the prison. The small ornate fireplace glowed with a meagre heap of coal and the sparseness of the room reflected the man’s austere attitude to personal comfort and anything not entirely essential. No feminine touches, no softening of the stark lines – no rug on the floor, no cushions on the two hard-seated chairs that visitors were obliged to use. The governor had no wish to encourage outsiders to stay long.

Radcliffe could barely contain his anger. The frock-coated and bewhiskered Governor Havelock had barely responded to the American’s impassioned plea that O’Hagan be returned to the juvenile wing of the prison.

‘You have no right to place him in the condemned cell. His sentence is under appeal.’

The governor was known to be a fair-minded but unyielding man. ‘He is under sentence of death.’

‘But the lad shouldn’t be put in there. It’s for those men who are to be hanged within days.’

Havelock showed no sign of displeasure or irritation; Radcliffe’s well-intentioned plea was reasonable. ‘His stay of execution has already given him extra time. I will have the matter in hand; I will not allow any last-minute bundling with a condemned man. It’s a stay, Mr Radcliffe, not a reprieve. We’re not inhumane. Do I make myself clear?’ the governor said, not unkindly.

Radcliffe’s sense of standing alone against the might of British bureaucracy had, he realized, allowed his emotions to get the better of him. He lowered his voice. It was important not to antagonize a man who could deny him access to the condemned boy.

‘I apologize, governor. I too seek only the best for O’Hagan’s welfare.’

‘I understand your concern, Mr Radcliffe, as I hope you will appreciate mine.’ He straightened a square nib pen, and tweaked the angle of his blotter pad. ‘Very well. You shall see the boy.’

*

Radcliffe was escorted through the prison, past the sweeping curved iron staircase that brought prisoners down from the three upper tiers of cells. Each cell had a bucket for a toilet which the prisoners would empty each day. This ‘slopping out’, as the prisoners called it, added to the ever-present stench of urine and excrement that mingled with the clinging odour of carbolic disinfectant. Radcliffe’s escort ushered him through the corridor of D Wing, opening the red door that led to the condemned cell.

Daniel O’Hagan was not a bright lad and Radcliffe was under no illusion as to how easy it had been for Dermot McCann to dupe him into hiding their weapons.

‘I don’t think they can hang me for somethin’ I didn’ do,’ he said, hunching his body across the table, as close to Radcliffe as the guards would allow.

‘You were there when McCann killed the police officer. An Irishman like yourself,’ Radcliffe said.

‘I didn’ pull the trigger or nuthin’,’ the boy answered. ‘Honest to God, as He is my witness, I didn’. McCann shot the poor fella and then put a bullet in his head for good measure. Take this, Daniel, he said, take this and hide it in your lodging. So I did. I took the revolver and hid it. That’s all I done, honest, Mr Radcliffe.’

O’Hagan glanced over his shoulder at the door that led to the hangman’s rope. ‘I’m so scared, sir. I look at that door every minute of the day and I wish I were a blind beggar who could see nuthin’.’

O’Hagan reached out for the tin cup of water that stood on the table between himself and Radcliffe. The boy glanced at one of his guards who nodded his permission. O’Hagan needed two hands to steady the cup to his lips. Water spilled. Radcliffe reached out without permission and steadied the lad’s trembling. He swallowed what water there was.

‘Jesus, I’ve a thirst on me,’ he muttered. He couldn’t keep the desperation from his voice. ‘They can’t do it, Mr Radcliffe... it’s not right.’

Radcliffe would never give up hope, but truth could have a way of strangling a man’s faith. ‘You were an accomplice in a cold-blooded murder. Do you not understand that?’ he said quietly.

For a moment it seemed a glimmer of reality had seeped into the boy’s dull mind. There was a jangle of keys and Radcliffe’s escort stood ready at the door. Radcliffe reached out and touched the boy’s shoulder. O’Hagan’s eyes stared down at the table, his hands palm down on the scrubbed surface.

As Radcliffe stepped away the boy raised his head and said with genuine affection, ‘Mr Radcliffe, sir, happy Christmas to you and yours.’

*

Radcliffe stood over his desk, searching the trial notes for anything he might have missed in his defence of the sixteen-year-old. It was a fruitless search and he knew it.

Pierce folded a sheet of paper from the desk and wedged it between the sash and its frame to stop the window’s constant rattling. The wind had veered from the south-east; black clouds tumbled across Dublin roofs. Rain began to splatter against the glass.

‘We’ll need a bucket upstairs again for that damned roof,’ he said.

Edward was slumped in a chair by the dull embers of the coal fire. There was a question he had to ask his father and Pierce had already given his own opinion on what the answer would be.

‘Mrs Dalton left. She didn’t even hand in her notice,’ Pierce said.

‘We’ll get another housekeeper,’ Radcliffe answered.

‘That’s three this year,’ Edward said.

‘Cook’s still here, so we won’t starve,’ Pierce said, ‘at least for another couple of days. Says she can’t take the unpleasantness any longer. Good news is I’m interviewing another woman tomorrow. She cooks and keeps house, so that will save on one salary. She’d heard we needed someone. Times are hard so these women don’t waste time. She banged so damned hard on the door I thought it was the bailiffs. Her name’s Mrs Lachlan and she has a face like a bulldog that’s just sat on a thorn bush.’

‘If she gets past you then that’s good enough,’ said Radcliffe.

Pierce shrugged. ‘Said she thought I’d been touched by the sun. Don’t know whether she was referring to my state of mind or the colour of my skin. Either way she got it right, I reckon.’

He fingered one sheet of paper from the many on the desk. He handed it to Radcliffe. ‘There is another letter from the Charteris woman at the South African Women and Children’s Distress Fund.’

Radcliffe took it from him and glanced at it.

‘How are we to get anyone to work here when you defend the Fenians?’ Edward asked.

‘Due process of law takes precedence over bigoted housekeepers,’ Radcliffe answered, keeping his attention on the begging letter from an Englishwoman in South Africa who was asking for help in her ongoing endeavours to help Boer women and children during the conflict. ‘How do these people hear about me?’ Radcliffe asked Pierce, who plucked the letter from his hand.

‘Newspapers, where else?’ Pierce said.

‘The papers say you’re against this war,’ Edward said.

‘Some of the papers say I’m against it,’ Radcliffe told him, and gently pushed the boy’s legs from straddling the chair’s arms.’

‘But you support this distress fund,’ said Edward.

‘British women helping other women and their children in a war that shouldn’t be hurting them. You think that’s unpatriotic?’ Radcliffe said to his son. He gestured to the letter in Pierce’s hand. ‘Get it off to any newspaper who might print it.’

‘But still,’ said Edward, in a vain attempt to show his father that he was mature enough to take a keen interest in world affairs, ‘the Boers declared war on us.’

Radcliffe poured himself a small glass of sherry, and offered the decanter to Pierce, who shook his head.

‘Not the brightest of moves I’ll grant you – not that I think they had much choice. Bankers, financiers and underhand politicians have caused this war. Best you remember that. This is how empires are made, son, and fortunes.’ He threw a few pieces of kindling on the embers and watched as their smouldering veil created less of a smokescreen than Edward’s seeming interest in politics. He pre-empted his son’s expected question. ‘And while I’m busy upsetting the world in general, I might as well tell you that you’re not riding in the race,’ he said.