Warder Jolly, Henry, and Miriama stared in horror at Burgess’s bare back. It was crisscrossed with raised scars and red welts.
“One ’undred lashes one time,” Burgess told them. “Gawd that stung!”
Henry had heard about prisoners being whipped as a punishment. Each stroke would bleed. Then another stroke would land on top of the raw flesh. And another. And another. But he had never seen the results on a man’s back. I feel sick. How can men be so cruel?
Burgess lowered his shirt and faced them again. “Half of them lashes was well deserved. I done some bad stuff. But the uvvers…” His voice cracked, and he shook his head.
WHACK!
In his head Henry heard it clearly: the sickening sound of rope on flesh.
“It were just three years ago,” Burgess went on. “Sydney Jail.”
Henry shut his eyes and imagined himself in the cold stone courtyard of an Australian prison.
“They tie yer up, good ’n’ tight,” said Burgess, “arms outstretched. Shove a stick between ya teeth, so’s ya don’t bite ya tongue… put a black ’ood over yer ’ead …”
Warder Jolly booted the wall of the cell. “We don’t need to hear all this, Burgess.”
“Yes, ya bloody do,” said Burgess. “These young ’uns need to hear what’s done in the name of law an’ justice.”
Jolly turned away and muttered, and Burgess continued his story.
“Then they wheel out this disgustin’ creature called a trusty – one of us, who’s sold out to the management for a few extra favours…”
He spat on the floor, and Henry put a protective arm around Miriama.
“An’ this trusty, this scum, ’e picks up ’is cat-o’-nine-tails, ’is weapon… an’—
“Whack!”
Henry and Miriam jumped.
“… an’ whack again!”
Henry and Miriama flinched again. Warder Jolly let out a rumbling growl from deep in his throat.
“The rope opens up ya flesh,” said Burgess. “Rope on bloody flesh, again and again. Whack, whack, whack…”
“Enough!” cried Jolly. He prodded Burgess in the chest with his stick, making him stumble back against the wall.
“The commandant loved it,” said Burgess. “ ’e would stand right there, watchin’ us poor creatures getting’ beat. What a sick worm ’e was.”
Burgess looked directly at Warder Jolly.
“I’ll tell yer somefin’ for nuffink,” he said. “I met more sadistic bastards in uniform than I ever met in prison garb.”
Warder Jolly squirmed.
“Me life’s been a rough one,” said Burgess. “I was treated worse than a mongrel cur of a dog. I swore by ’eaven above to take a ’uman life for every lash and indignity laid on me by the dogs who flogged me.”
Henry gulped. One life for every lash! How many lives did he take? Some people in town claimed the gang had killed twenty or thirty men during their travels around New Zealand.
Burgess picked up one of the pages he had been writing and half-recited, half-sang the words:
“Before you start to criticise, take a look and you will see,
“I’m a social end product, so don’t blame me.
“I’m a social end product: blame society.
“I didn’t need to end up like this, ’Enry, but the way I was treated in them prisons… I swore to take me revenge.”
No one spoke as they absorbed these chilling words. Then Miriama stepped forward, took the necktie from the warder, and put it around Burgess’s collar.
Their eyes met, hers pure, his disturbed.
“Every soul is a soul worth saving,” she whispered.
Burgess shot back, “The devil ‘as mine.”
“You can get it back,” said Miriama. Quietly, she put a folded note in his hand. “It’s never too late.”
Burgess glanced at the note, then tucked it under his blanket. Now he was cheery again. “Get on wiv it, ’Enry! Take me picher.”
Warder Jolly herded Burgess out of his cell, his leg chains echoing harshly down the corridor.
“I’m a free man, Sullivan!” Burgess yelled gleefully, in the direction of his accomplice’s cell.
“That’ll be the day!” roared Sullivan.
Warder Jolly prodded Burgess with his stick. “Enough, Burgess.” He bundled him into the storeroom where Henry had set up his camera.
Burgess took his waistcoat and jacket from Warder Jolly, put them on, and climbed onto the stool. He winked at Henry. “This picher’ll make yer famous, son, after the trial.”
Henry took refuge beneath the black cloth behind the camera and framed his shot. He’s so confident. As if he’s done something to be proud of!
“Would you straighten your necktie please, Mister Burgess?”
“Mister Burgess?” snorted Jolly. “Sonny, this low life don’t deserve no ‘mister’.”
Henry avoided looking into Burgess’s steely eyes. Such scary eyes! They were sometimes hazel and sometimes seemed black. He studied him through the lens. Is this how history will remember Burgess the murderer?
Burgess sat straight, one hand on his hip. Only the top button of his jacket was done up, in the fashion of the day.
He looks just like a businessman, mused Henry. You can’t tell a man’s character from his appearance.
He focused the shot. “Hold very still, Mister Burgess.”
Henry reached around and removed the lens cap. “Very still…” He counted to five and replaced the cap. “Thank you, sir.”
It was over.
Miriama removed the photographic plate holder and hurried off to develop the negative.
“Git them good clothes off,” ordered Jolly. He waited for Burgess to remove the jacket and waistcoat, then prodded him back towards his cell.
Henry took a deep breath, and was beginning to pack away his camera gear when he realised someone was standing outside the door.
“Doctor Smith!”
“Henry,” Smith greeted him in a brittle voice.
Henry saw Smith was holding the boxes that contained his fingerprinting gear. Before he could ask, the doctor headed down the corridor. He heard Burgess’s chains rattle.
“Ah, the good doctor,” Burgess chortled. “He reckons he’s gunna prove I killed his missus. Ain’t that right, Doc?”
Henry crept into the corridor and stood next to Sergeant Nash at the door to Burgess’s cell. They watched as Smith set up his fingerprinting gear.
Warder Jolly stood next to Burgess, his stick at the ready. Henry was surprised to see the doctor’s hands were trembling.
“No need to be scared o’ me, Doc,” said Burgess. “I ain’t got no beef wiv you.”
“I’m not scared of you, Burgess,” Smith fired back. “I simply find it hard to be steady in the presence of the insect that killed my wife.”
“I ain’t done no such fing!” Burgess protested.
“I believe you have – you did,” the doctor responded. “And I can prove it.”
Burgess looked closely at Smith, and asked, “Have our paths crossed before, guvnor?”
“Yes. When you sliced my throat.” Smith lowered his scarf to show the scar on his neck.
“Bah! That don’t look like my ’andiwork,” said Burgess. “And anyway, I never killed yer missus.”
Henry came closer to listen.
“I ’ave indeed finished awf a few gentlemen down the years,” said Burgess. “But I never done no ’arm to no lady.” His leg chains rattled as he spread his arms, Christ-like, as if to proclaim his innocence.
Henry could imagine Burgess doing the same in the Australian desert – a mad man dancing around a campfire, arms outstretched, spinning and firing his pistol in the air.
Suddenly Burgess was quieter. “Makes me fink of Carrie,” he said.
Carrie? Henry was curious. He had never heard this name before.
“Me missus.”
Everyone in the cell fell silent.
“I intended for ’er to share me bread for the remainder of me days. But I left ’er in ’Okitika.” Burgess lowered his eyes. “She was wiv child, too.”
Henry recalled Burgess’s own story: how his father in England had abandoned him. This seemed to set the course for his life. Now Burgess has done the same! Henry wondered what would happen to Carrie and her baby. Burgess’s baby.
Burgess looked directly at Smith, and repeated, “I never ’armed no lady.” He held out his hand. “Take me print.”
Smith rolled back Burgess’s sleeve. Then he stopped, frowning.
“Australia. Carbolic acid!” He stared at Burgess. “It was you!”
“Whaa?” Burgess looked blank. But Henry remembered: the grim story that Doctor Smith had recounted in the sergeant’s office. How he had treated an injured man who asked about carbolic acid, and how he removed a bullet from the man’s shoulder…
Clearly Smith had recognized that man as Burgess. But he said nothing more, and set about taking a print of Burgess’s thumb. He placed a piece of clean paper on a small box, to enable Burgess to place his thumb horizontally.
Warder Jolly, Sergeant Nash, and Henry crowded around him, keen to see this new science in action. Smith gripped Burgess’s hand and rolled his thumb onto the paper from one side to the other. This left a clean image of his thumb, complete with its complex pattern of lines.
Burgess whistled. “Bloody ’mazing!”
With great care, Smith took out the thumbprint of his wife’s killer: the precious clue he had carried with him on his long quest. Under a magnifying glass, he compared the two prints.
“This gadget would’ve been bloody useful back in London,” Burgess whispered to Henry. “I were framed for somefink I never done. I were just walkin’ down the road, innocent like, when –”
Clatter! The magnifier hit the floor, and Smith sank to his knees.
Henry stared at him. What’s happened?
Smith was shaking again.
Do the prints match? Did Burgess kill the doctor’s wife?
Sergeant Nash touched Smith’s shoulder. “Doctor Smith?”
Smith looked up at the sergeant, his face white. “It’s not him,” he said.