Chapter Twenty-One

Oliver sat in a small room until twenty past four, when a middle-aged court official came to fetch him. ‘Mr Meadows? You’re to be called in a minute or two. It’s rather later than we expected, so I’m afraid it’ll just be the formalities today. Then, first thing tomorrow, you’ll be on the witness stand and the day will be yours.’

‘Just one day, do you think?’ His heart was fluttering uncontrollably, as he walked beside the man down the deserted corridor. ‘Is that all it’ll be?’

‘It’s never easy to say, but from what I can see of it so far, that should be about the size of it.’

Just one day, after nearly sixty years of hatred and fear and a burning lust for vengeance. ‘It hardly seems enough,’ he murmured.

They made him read the words of the promise to be truthful; checked his name and address; waved a document at him which was the original statement of accusation against Cedric. They were patient and softly spoken, even the barrister defending his brother, who got up once to make a comment that Oliver could not fully understand. Raised above them all, like God, was the judge, at whom Oliver barely glanced. There was no time to worry about what he might be thinking. Several of the wigged and gowned lawyers were female, but gender seemed irrelevant. They all rustled papers and stood up and sat down in turn, like a dance. People whispered, on all sides. In the rows of the public seating, whispers seemed to go on constantly. Oliver forced himself to breathe slowly and deeply, to maintain control whatever might happen.

Because Cedric was sitting there, to one side, The Accused, looking impossibly old and small and lonely. Cedric who had frightened and hurt him so much that the injury never faded, but mutated gradually into disgust and shame, and then a burning rage. Cedric, whose face swam before Oliver’s eyes whenever he came close to venturing on an intimacy with anybody, man or woman. Cedric who had told him repeatedly that he enjoyed sex with a man, that he had loved it. Look at how his body had responded to it. Obviously, it was something he would never forget, never know again in such vivid physical colours. Cedric had been twenty and Oliver fourteen. As far as he knew then, everything his brother said was true.

They had last met at their father’s funeral, ten years before. It had been possible to avoid any direct conversation, especially as Cedric had seemed more than happy to cooperate with the estrangement. It had been a huge affair, with black horses and a glass-sided carriage, and half the population of Stepney had lined the streets to watch it pass. Prior to that, many years earlier, their mother’s funeral had been only slightly less of an occasion, and again, Oliver had remained in the background, speaking not a word to Cedric, despite the absence of Fraser – claiming not to be able to afford the fare from Australia.

How was Cedric feeling, he wondered. How was he enduring the humiliation, as a slavering public lapped up the details of the case against him? There were other accusers, whose testimony Oliver was not supposed to hear. But none of them were from any later than the nineteen fifties, a fact that Oliver found troubling. He would rather his brother had continued his sinful practices throughout his life, in order to justify this public retribution. If he had stopped of his own accord, packing the whole thing away as a youthful error of judgement, it made Oliver seem to himself as unacceptably vengeful. What good could it do at this stage? Despite the consoling and encouraging words of his lawyer, it seemed perhaps that he was behaving with less than full integrity now.

Cedric had been the top man at an undertaker’s that served the polyglot community to the east of the City of London. His father had taught him to adapt their services to embrace a variety of ethnicities. When it came down to it, a cremation was a cremation and a burial was a burial, and the trappings around the edges were easily accommodated. The style of coffin, the preparation of the body, the sweetmeats afterwards were the chief variants. Oliver had lived with it all for eighteen years, and remained unsqueamish about death as a result. Death was a much lesser evil than humiliation, pain, cruelty, even ridicule. Death had a dignity all of its own, and Oliver never forgot that.

Inevitably, he was forced to send his mind back through all those long decades, to bodily encounters that no longer seemed real to him. The bodies in question had changed beyond recognition. The urges and responses were long ago lost, leaving traces in the mind, not in the flesh. Perhaps, he thought, he was wrong to seek punishment now. Looking at his brother, he could not but think he was. When he ventured a glance at the avid faces of the public and the reporters, he was in very little doubt indeed.

But it was too late now. The juggernaut was rolling, and even if he backed out and refused to speak, there were others who would say the same things, and lead to the same conclusion. Cedric had, after all, been monstrous. He had raped a lad two years younger than Oliver, predating on him, terrifying him into silence. Malcolm, his name was, and a year ago he had visited Oliver and told the whole dreadful story. They persuaded themselves that they felt better afterwards, for the sharing of a secret that had most definitely ruined their lives. And there was an even more wretched victim, who Oliver had known at the time was being treated with real cruelty by Cedric. Bertie had been soft in the head, a grinning simpleton who hung about the streets hoping for casual tasks that would earn a shilling now and then. The child of an aged, arthritic mother, he was a figure that should have long ago disappeared from society, a figure classically designed for victimhood. But news headlines right up to the present day indicated otherwise. However the language might change, the pack continued to attack the weak and foolish with appalling viciousness. Cedric had thrust into the boy’s uncomprehending body, telling him it was a secret brotherhood practice that would make him special. Cedric whispered of love as he wounded poor Bertie. Oliver had on one occasion been outside the sordid little shed, listening with helpless horror. He wondered, even then, whether this might be the worst injury of them all – to him, not to Bertie. To render him complicit, because he lacked the courage to even try to prevent the torture.

And then, seemingly overnight, Cedric had reformed. He had pulled himself around, with a gruesome complacency, finding Sylvia and marrying her within a few months of meeting her. If the girl looked pale and sore at times, she never made any complaint. Oliver suspected that Cedric was secretly vile to her, but she had few options but to endure, and there was money in plenty to assuage any injuries. After twelve years together, they produced a son, Henry, who was raised for ambition and respectability.

Oliver was invited to descend from the witness box and find a seat while proceedings for the day were drawn to a close. He was told to present himself the following morning, ready for the real meat of the business, with questions from prosecution and defence. He listened calmly and tried to imagine the night to come.

As the courtroom slowly emptied, he realised a young black woman was standing in front of him, blocking his way and asking if he was Mr Oliver Meadows. She drew him aside and showed him a card in a plastic holder. ‘Detective Sergeant Button,’ she introduced herself. ‘I’ve been asked to speak to you on behalf of the police in Gloucestershire. Would you come with me, sir, please?’