East End Jubilee by Carol Rivers

Author:Carol Rivers [Rivers, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857208651
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Chapter Fourteen

‘Mr Weaver, the facts relating to the robbery are not in dispute. The issue is whether you were one of those who participated in it.’ Charles Herring irritably shuffled the papers in front of him and looked up with an impatient sigh.

‘But I never saw the inside of that warehouse, Mr Herring,’ Eddie protested once more, wondering what he had to do to convince his counsel he was innocent. Eddie was beginning to think that the brain of Mr Charles Herring, acting for Mr Lance Puckley-Smythe his defence QC, was as impenetrable as the grey November mist outside.

‘But you were in the area at the time, you admit to that?’ demanded the clerk again.

‘Yes, I told you, I’d been up West for the day.’

The severe-faced young man with neatly oiled dark hair and pince-nez spectacles who sat on the other side of the small table, raised his shoulders in a dismissive shrug. ‘The newspaper vendor identified you. As a witness for the police – a surprise witness may I add, his testimony is critical to the charge of handling stolen goods.’

Eddie wondered if he’d needed his brains tested on that early spring night in May. Fancy buying a paper when he hadn’t even intended to read it? But he’d felt conspicuous walking up and down waiting for his punter. Maybe he should be relieved that his man hadn’t turned up and he’d returned home empty-handed. If the newspaper seller had noted a transaction taking place, then he really would have landed in the proverbial soup. ‘I just bought a newspaper,’ Eddie said brightly. ‘It was a coincidence I was in the area.’

‘A coincidence indeed,’ the young man sniffed.

‘Coincidences happen all the time,’ Eddie answered dismissively. ‘Anyway, do you think I’d really have been daft enough to flog me neighbour a telly that I’d nicked from this Whitechapel job?’

‘It’s not up to me to surmise,’ was the curt reply from a deadpan face. ‘But the prosecution are attempting to link your presence in the area to the warehouse burglary and subsequently the sale of the television to Mr Parker. We have to account for your movements on the day of the Whitechapel burglary. This is our foremost concern.’

Eddie listened vaguely to the imperious voice ringing in his ears. He was weary of the constant use of ‘our’ and ‘we’ when it was he alone who was being accused of crimes he didn’t commit. It was even more ridiculous that he couldn’t tell the truth about what he was really doing on that day. Eddie was forced to smile at the irony.

But the young lawyer scowled, glancing at Eddie as though the cat had dragged him in. Eddie felt hot and uncomfortable in his shabby suit, which was suffering the creased effects of five months’prison storage. It was his old demob suit, the one that had been donated to him at the end of the war, along with an overcoat, a shirt with two detachable collars, a tie, two pairs of socks, a pair of shoes and a hat.

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