River Deep (19 page)

The inquest on Paul Haddonfield was opened two days later. As she had expected, the press attended in force. It was inevitable. A second murder in North Shropshire was bound to inspire more headlines and give rise to speculation. From their point of view, after the initial flurry of interest, Bosworth’s death had been disappointing.
Body flushed out by floods
and
Man stabbed in flooded cottage
had been a promising start, but the subsequent investigation had been arid, supplying few headlines. They had kept the secret of the double mistaken identity and the juicy titbit that the dead man’s wife had actually been summoned to the corpse of another man. So even the local papers had drifted on to other stories. However the discovery of Clarke Haddonfield’s body in similarly dramatic
headline-inspiring
circumstances was the opportunity for a second bite at the cherry and Bosworth’s murder was dragged out again, like a maiden aunt at a wedding; his case inserted at every opportunity in the discussion surrounding the murder and sad disposal of Clarke Haddonfield’s body.

More headlines. From the unimaginatively factual,
Body found in supermarket ragbank,
to the sensational,
Woman discovers window cleaner’s corpse with throat cut.
(Someone must have used a thesaurus to find alternatives for a place where you dump unwanted garments.) Never rob the papers of their drama.

Knowing that in court she would be referred to only as Doctor Gunn, the coroner, Martha had deliberately dressed down for the event so heavily as to be disguised. She was wearing her most dowdy suit, not quite black, but not grey or brown either. More the colour of dullness – of
oldness. It had a loose-fitting jacket that unflatteringly piled on the pounds, and a skirt to mid-calf, gathered around the middle adding yet more bulk. She had never understood quite why she had bought this suit except that an overbearing shop assistant had combined with a day commemorating the anniversary of Martin’s death to bring down a heavy curtain of depression which she had counter-acted with a sugar-lust so strong she had had pockets full of Woolies Pic’n’Mix. The Pic’n’Mix plus the suit had made her miserably guilty even as she had paid for it, knowing she would probably never wear it. So it had hung, like an albatross, not around her neck, but at the back of her wardrobe – to remind her of an indiscretion and an unhappy shopping trip. Still, it had its uses. And today was one of them.

To complete the transformation she had rigorously shampooed the hair dye out and tied her hair back in a floppy ponytail instead of the Lilac Clouds bouffant, or her usual look –
au naturelle.
She wore a pinky shade of foundation two shades paler than her usual tint, absolutely no lipstick, and to complete the disguise she had replaced her contact lenses with gold-rimmed glasses containing smoky-tinted lenses. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror. Maybe she should have been a character actress. Not a coroner. Martha Rees. Character actress.

Unfortunately Agnetha had caught sight of her just as she had been leaving the house that morning and had made a brief gesture of surprise. “Mrs Gunn, are you not very well?”

She had shrugged. “Just trying out a new look.”

“Well –” Agnetha had ventured doubtfully before remembering her position, smiling and saying she hoped she’d have a nice day.

So Martha had sneaked out, tossing back the lie that she also had a bit of a headache.

The personal comments dogged her all through the early part of the morning. When she reached the court Mark Sullivan gave her a startled stare as did Alex Randall. It was Sullivan who spoke first. “Are you all right, Martha?” Staring and frowning. “You look … different.”

Had it not been so vitally important that she
did
look different she might have been either flattered or insulted at the attention. As it was, it was simply a relief. Wendy Aitken gave her a sharp glance but said nothing. Jericho alone appeared to notice nothing and no one else passed comment on her appearance. Randall, however, continued to look puzzled and Martha felt he needed an explanation too. She gave him a tight smile. “Contact lenses irritating and …” she tapped the side of her head, “I have a headache.”

The policeman managed a grimace of sympathy and she breathed a prayer that Lindy Haddonfield would not recognise her. She needn’t have worried. Lindy Haddonfield turned up with just one minute to spare so there was no time for the usual pre-inquest interview, which Martha had been apprehensive about. In fact Lindy Haddonfield hardly looked at her. She kept her eyes on the floor as she stood at the back of the court, Jericho meeting her at the doorway.

Martha’s nerves were jangling. While she believed that her ‘disguise’ was good enough to deceive Lindy Haddonfield, the consequences of her realising that her client last Wednesday had been the coroner responsible for holding her husband’s inquest didn’t bear thinking about. So Martha watched her approach the front, led by the grizzle-haired Jericho, with a frisson of apprehension.

She had wondered whether the feeling of dislike for Lindy Haddonfield might have evaporated but as the widow drew nearer Martha felt a heightened sense of mistrust, like a waft of a cheap but subtle perfume. Today
Clarke Haddonfield’s widow was dressed not in her gaping white overalls but a modest black suit with a
knee-length
skirt – her only whisper to fashion the split to halfway up a plump thigh – high-heeled, knee-length, black leather boots and a slash of red lipstick. She also, curiously, wore a wide-brimmed black felt hat which hid most of the upper part of her face – less a fashion statement, Martha suspected, than a veil. She hardly glanced at Martha but sat down in the chair Jericho indicated without acknowledgement of the woman who sat, judge-like, on the platform. Maybe the reason she wasn’t looking at Martha was because she was leaning heavily on the arm of an expensively-suited Asian man, in his late twenties, who wafted exotic aftershave and was already suffering a weight problem around the middle. He was the one who gave Martha a sharp stare before taking his place in the front of the court, to the left of Lindy.

It is easy to jump to conclusions, easiest to jump to the wrong ones, and appearances can be deceptive. There are plenty of clichés to protect false assumptions but Martha had already formed the impression that the Asian man was more than close to the bereaved widow. Her instinct (still active) whispered they were lovers, in which case it was an audacious move to have him accompany her to her husband’s inquest. Particularly when her spouse had been murdered and as yet there had been no arrest.
She must have known the police would be here, antennae quivering. She must be very sure of herself. Or stupid.

Martha risked a glance at Alex Randall and had her suspicions confirmed. He was actually leaning forward in his seat, his eyes fixed on the square shoulders of Lindy Haddonfield’s escort. Wendy Aitken seemed more relaxed, sitting back in her chair, her eyes roving the room. Martha squared her papers up and moved her gaze across to Lindy to try and read her face. It was no good. She was
dipping her head so the hat-brim covered all but her lipsticked lower lip.
It was a very useful hat-brim.

Time to open the inquest. Inquests are formal, legal affairs; although many coroners do their best to put the relatives at ease by assuring them it is an informal proceeding. This is not the case. It is the most important consequence of a death. The verdicts available to her: suicide, homicide, misadventure, accidental, or open (when the exact events leading to a death were not clear), pointed fingers at the innocent, the guilty, the dead and the living alike without respect for status. The verdict is the last chance for a dead man to speak. If a coroner finds a result of accident, misadventure or suicide the police cannot charge anyone with homicide. So it is essential for police, pathologist and coroner to work in harmony towards the truth.

Martha leaned back in her chair, suddenly drawing back from the brink. It is unusual for a coroner to face someone they believe is guilty of a crime and it unnerved her.

She cleared her throat and opened the proceedings, explained to the court the purpose of an inquest – to ascertain, as far as possible, who had died, when they had died, where and how they had met their death. She asked Lindy Haddonfield to take the witness stand, listened to her high heels clacking up the four steps, watched her take the oath and begin her statement. The widow spoke with dignity, in her Barbie-doll voice, of the last time she had seen her husband. It was easy now to peer beneath the
hat-brim,
watch the heavily mascarared eyelashes quiver with emotion. Grief? Nervousness? She continued speaking and was surprisingly good at sticking to the facts, her gaze fixed on the dark eyes of the guy on the front row, her expression inscrutable – almost deadpan.

And now Martha felt no vibes. No guilt. No innocence. It
was as though the slate had been scrubbed clean. There was no writing on it. She frowned and struggled to concentrate, to extract the juice from Lindy’s words.

“Clarke realised he couldn’t clean windows that day – because of the rain – so he thought he’d drive into Shrewsbury to pick up a bit for his hi fi what he’d ordered at the shop …”

Martha was listening intently. As was the Asian man sitting on the front row. She could almost have thought he was a director checking his actress knew her lines. Acting as prompt. Martha took a better look. He had expressive, rather beautiful dark eyes, slightly greasy, olive skin, very good teeth, the blackest of hair. On closer scrutiny maybe he was thirty years old and quite a contrast to the dead man.

When Lindy reached the end of her evidence Martha directed her to sit down then called Wendy Aitken to relay the circumstances of the discovery of the body. She read out the witness statement, the origin of the
Body found in supermarket ragbank
headline. In fact, as usual, the newspaper facts were a little fable around the truth. The woman who had discovered the body had had a large binbag of old clothes which she had emptied in one by one. While the wide flap was open she had been alerted by the smell, had peered in, seen wispy brown hair and had shakily called the police from a mobile phone.

Martha thought for a moment. If Haddonfield’s head had been sticking out above the clothes he had probably not been buried too deep. How many garments were tipped there in an average week? Could Aitken not make a rough guess as to when Haddonfield’s body had been placed in the clothing bank? She made a note on her pad and looked up to see Alex Randall eyeing her with a glint of amusement in his eyes.
He knew exactly what she was up
to
. She laid her pen back down and sat back again, deliberately avoiding the policeman’s eyes.

It was Sullivan’s turn next to give the forensic evidence. Preliminaries first. “On Monday, March the 18th, at four pm, I was summoned by Detective Inspector Aitken to Aldi’s store in Oswestry. There I observed the body of a middle-aged man, naked but almost covered by clothing discarded by members of the public in their clothing bank. Once I had ascertained that the person was dead I made notes as to his position and contacted the coroner,” Martha kept her face impassive, “who allowed the body to be removed to the mortuary for further examination.”

She smiled.

“Under the coroner’s direction I carried out a post mortem examination on the following day and ascertained that the man, later identified by his wife as Clarke Haddonfield, had been dead for roughly a month and had had his throat cut. The incision had severed major blood vessels causing blood to fill the airways and the lungs. Death would have been through asphyxiation due to aspiration of blood.”

Martha glanced across at Lindy Haddonfield to see how this cruel evidence would affect her. But again her head was dipped, her face concealed. She was clutching the Asian guy’s hand as though it was her lifeline. Maybe it was. Then she noticed something.
Lindy’s fingernails were painted the exact shade as her own, filed in the same, square shape.
She coiled her own fingernails tightly inside her hands and dropped them down onto her lap, out of view and diverted her attention back to Sullivan. His evidence, as always, was clear and concise. She had to acknowledge that he was good at his job. And today he looked sober – bright-eyed, standing tall, reading clearly from his notes held in a steady hand. He was reaching the end of his
evidence
.

“The injuries were incompatible with life. Death would have been virtually instantaneous.”

“Was it your opinion that Clarke Haddonfield had died where he was found?”

Sullivan shook his head. “No, Ma’am. I believe his body was put in the clothing store after death.”

She waited.

“There was little blood found on the clothes in the store indicating that he had not died there. Due to the nature of the injuries there would have been considerable blood loss.”

Knowing the answer already Martha still had a duty to ask one question. “Is it possible that Clarke Haddonfield inflicted this wound upon himself?”

Sullivan looked straight at her. “Not possible at all.”

She directed her next question across to Wendy Aitken, another question to which she already knew the answer. “Are police enquiries still proceeding?”

“They are, Ma’am.”

“Then I adjourn this inquest pending police enquiries.”

Everyone in the courtroom relaxed. Except her.
Now she must speak to Lindy Haddonfield.

“Hello, Mrs Haddonfield, I’m Doctor Gunn.” She spoke in as different a voice as she could manage. Lower. Slower than Martha Rees.

Lindy shook the proffered hand then lifted her head. “Thank you for all you’re doing.” Now Martha had caught full sight of her face she had to revise her original impression. Lindy Haddonfield was upset. She was pale and her eyes were full. She certainly wasn’t up to studying the coroner’s face. The Asian man hovered in the background.

Martha ushered them into a backroom, wondering whether Lindy Haddonfield would introduce her escort –
and if she did, how. “I thought you might want to know what happens next.”