Death of a Bookseller by Bernard Farmer

Author:Bernard Farmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-12-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The Sands Run Out

On the day that Sergeant Wigan finished his service as Aid to the C.I.D. and rejoined the uniform branch, Fred Hampton’s appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal was heard and dismissed. The decision was final, with the exception that the Home Secretary could, if he thought proper, grant a reprieve from the capital sentence. Harland the solicitor, who was now firmly Hampton’s friend, did all he could and at once wrote to the Home Secretary, stating that in his opinion there was, through extraordinary circumstances, a gross miscarriage of justice. But Harland didn’t think it would help to organise a petition in any way; and he had to say this to Fred, who was nearly frantic with fear.

“You won’t take the trouble,” said Fred.

“I will take any trouble. But we need positive proof that you are innocent, and it’s that we can’t get.”

Fred wept. “I can’t think any more. That bloody copper has forsaken me.”

Wigan, on his leave-day, got another order to visit Hampton. He found the death-watch exhausted with the effort of trying to interest the man in some small game, like draughts, and trying to calm his fears.

“We can give him a cup of something before the end,” one of them said privately to Wigan, “but even then I dread the job.”

“I’ve got to die! I’ve got to die!” shouted Hampton to Wigan.

Wigan swallowed. Speak he could not. At last he said: “I’ve come to ask you more questions. For God’s sake answer them, man. I’ve worked and worked and made no headway. The Ferrows weren’t seen at Sun on the day of the crime. Neither was anyone else connected with books, so far as I can find out. Can you think of any other person who may have killed Mike?”

“How the hell do I know? I’m not the——police. The devil may have killed Mike for all I know.”

“The devil—what do you mean?”

“What I say. He was trying to raise the devil, you know; ‘Resurge, Satanas, et omnes diaboli,’ and all the rest of it. And if he did raise the devil, the devil may well have killed him. And left no fingerprints.”

“It’s fantastic,” said Wigan.

“So’s the whole bloody case. Little did I think, when I tried to chisel a book out of Mike, that I should come to this.”

Wigan remembered that others had hinted at the same thing. “I’ll look into it.”

Fred turned his white face with its feeble little beard up to Wigan. “You might hurry yourself,” he said.

Wigan changed the subject. “I hear your family are doing fine,” he said. “They are living in the country now and Harland drives the girls to town every day. He’s being a real friend to you, Fred.”

At once Fred grew calmer. The thought of his wife and children, safe from this appalling mess, was the only thing that could calm him.

“He tells me Winnie’s making progress,” he said. “The viola’s a good one.”

“She may get on the B.B.C. There’s no saying how high she may rise.

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