An Innocent Man's Tale

London 1948

Jude Pierce sat at his desk, sorting through his letters. His mind wandered as he gazed out of the window at the children playing in the street. Suddenly, a loud crash snapped him back to reality as his front door fell to the floor, and five armed policemen charged through the  now empty doorway.

“Jude Pierce, you are under arrest for the murder or Callum James Buckley!” The Chief of Police barked as two of the officers seized his arms and snapped handcuffs onto his wrists before he could even stand up.

"I don't understand! I didn't do anything!"He looked his long-time friend and co-worker in the eye, "Please, Robert, you know that I'm innocent, you can't do this!"

"That's Officer Collins to you, and I'm doing my job."

Despite the harsh tone of his voice, Jude saw in  his eyes that it was killing him to do this. Just last week they had solved a burglary case together, and now he was arresting him on suspicion of murder.

Robert tore his eyes away from Jude's to search through the letters now spread out on the floor before nodding to the other officers, and Jude was dragged out of the room by his elbows.

As he sat in the London Court of Justice, his heart hammering against his chest, all he could think of was that all of the people in the room were his friends. He'd worked at Scotland Yard for almost ten years, a good portion of his life. As he looked around the room at all the normally-kind faces, memories of solving cases and celebrating with these men came flooding back. The Judge had invited him to his wedding, for God's sake! And now he was sat above him, noticeably avoiding eye-contact.

He was going to hang for a murder for a murder he didn’t commit, and it was his best friends sentencing him. After what felt like hours waiting in silence, the Judge finally looked Jude in the eye and said, "Detective Inspector Jude Pierce, you are charged with the murder of Callum James Buckley. Do you have anything to say to defend your case?"

"Philip, please! It's me, you know I'm innocent, you must know I am. Please don't-"

"Mr Pierce, you will refer to me as 'your honour' in this courtroom, do you understand me?"

"But Philip, it's-"

"Do not forget your place, Mr Pierce. You are here because we have reason to believe that you murdered a young man yesterday, not for a chat. The fact that you are part of the Police Force does not give you any more priviledges than any other murder suspect. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

"Yes, your honour." Jude sighed as his assigned lawyer stood up to plead his case.

His first witness was his next-door neighbour, Mrs Tracey. A kind woman in her mid-fourties, with a husband fighting over-seas.

"Mrs Tracey, can you confirm that Mr Pierce did not leave his house between the hours of 2pm and 8pm on the night of the 3rd of November?"

"Yes, I can. He stayed at home all afternoon, I'm sure of it. I brought him some carrots from my garden at about five o'clock that evening and I could tell by his eyes that he'd been working all day. He definitely didn't go out."

Finally, someone on his side. In that moment, he could have kissed her. But, the trial didn't end there. Anna Buckley, the victim's mother, was the other witness for the opposition. She was a widow, her husband taken by a terrible fever years ago. Callum was her only child, so with him gone, she was alone in the world.

As she walked up to the witness box,  tears continued to flow down her cheeks. She sat down slowly, and with her head lowered, she wiped away the tears brimming her eyes with a delicate white hankerchief. After a few sseconds of silence, she sniffed, raised her head and stared at Jude. The hatred in her eyes burned him, and as much as it hurt to see a mother in so much pain, he couldn't tear his eyes away.