But, in truth, she was finding it hard to care about the pursuit of truth and justice. The police had talked to her endlessly the past few days, asking questions about Jonathan and his life. At one point, they even seemed to suspect that she and her boy weren’t close, and that all wasn’t well at home, but she didn’t care about that either. She’d been too tired to even get angry. Her neighbour had now all but taken over looking after Marie, but, so help her, she couldn’t even seem to care about that either.
The only thing she knew or cared about was that her son was gone and she’d never see him again.
Clement firmly moved his gaze on from Mavis McGillicuddy’s blank-eyed face as he called the court to order and proceeded along the well-worn and now-familiar path of opening a coroner’s court proceeding. Once the initial preliminaries were over, the members of the jury had been instructed as to what was expected of them, and the clerks were happy with the state of their paperwork, DI Jennings was called to the stand.
As expected, the policeman made short work of stating the facts surrounding the case, giving away as little as possible about what the police were thinking, and asked for an adjournment in order for the police to gather more evidence.
Clement succinctly gave it.
He nodded to the clerk to make a proper record of this concession and, as he did so, eyed the journalists and reporters scribbling in their notebooks with a jaundiced eye. Early on, when he’d first been appointed, one or two of them had thought they might be able to take advantage of his inexperience and get a few morsels of information out of him regarding one of his more lurid cases. His response had since become legendary, and now no reporter, even the most ferociously ambitious or impertinent, would ever dream of approaching him.
It was while DI Jennings was leaving the witness stand, and his eyes were roving generally around the room, that Clement first noticed the woman sitting in the public gallery. At first he couldn’t have said why she should have caught his attention. She was perhaps a shade better dressed than most of those in the packed room, but while she was handsome enough, she was hardly eye-catching. Perhaps it was the air of stillness that seemed to surround her, or the look of calm but razor-sharp focus in her gaze as she watched DI Jennings, that tweaked his inner radar.
Perhaps it was just instinct.
She certainly didn’t have the look of the average bystander, or one of those repressed members of the public who came in hopes of hearing some titillating secret being unearthed, or else gruesome descriptions of death and injury.
He was so busy trying to figure out why she interested him that it actually took him a moment to realise he’d actually seen her before somewhere. Many years ago – in circumstances that, he rather thought, hadn’t been particularly comfortable.
But before he could pursue the elusive memory, he lost sight of her as the room began to slowly empty, with spectators and court personnel filing out through the narrow doorway.
For a few minutes he remained in the empty room, sitting as still as a hunting heron on his chair, and thinking furiously. Just where had he seen those green eyes, set in that pale face and with that dark frame of hair, before?
He had a brief flashback – an impression of her stoic calm and dull voice – and was convinced she’d somehow known great pain and loss. And yet she hadn’t been a participant in one of his courts, of that much at least he was sure. He had a clear and precise recall of all the cases he’d presided over – and there was nothing wrong with his memory.
Unless this damned disease had begun to rob him of some of his mental faculties? Angrily, he shook his head, stubbornly refusing to give credence to such a disaster.
And yet… Yes – it was coming back to him now. And he had seen her in a coroner’s court before – just not one he’d been presiding over!
When he’d first decided to become a coroner, he’d started haunting the courts, sitting in the public gallery and watching as case after case was heard, listening and distilling the essence of what was happening. And one particular case…
Suddenly he snapped his fingers and, reaching forward, picked up his copy of the McGillicuddy folder and stared intently at the victim’s name.
And suddenly he had it.
McGillicuddy.
Of course, that’s where he’d seen her before.
Slowly, he leaned back in his chair, a small smile playing on his lips. Now he understood what had brought Beatrice Fleet-Wright to this inquest.
And he wondered.
He wondered quite a lot.
He’d thought there had been something very wrong about the Fleet-Wright case. But at the time he’d been in no position to question the residing coroner’s verdict. He hadn’t even started his training then. But that hadn’t stopped it from grating on him. He’d been convinced then that a number of the witnesses in that case had lied. Lied and lied again. And that one of the worst of these offenders had been Mrs Beatrice Fleet-Wright.
He hadn’t liked the evidence of the PC either – the first responder at the scene. He hadn’t trusted him one inch.
And Clement had had no doubt that the verdict handed down had been wrong – very wrong.
Naturally, he’d known it would be pointless to interfere. The coroner, one of his now-retired but very esteemed predecessors, wouldn’t have listened to the opinions of a man – no matter how eminent in his own field – who hadn’t even had the benefit of any legal education.
Besides, Clement had got the distinct impression that, behind the scenes, some very delicate wrangling was going on. Not that he’d ever have been able to prove it.
So, he’d had to just let it slide – much as it went against the grain. And it was one of the many reasons why, when he’d taken office, he’d sworn to himself there would never be anything iffy about any of his cases. Everything would be out in the open and above board, able to withstand any amount of public scrutiny.
He knew his way of doing things had made him a lot of enemies, but everyone, from the police and the Town Hall, to Oxford’s wealthiest and most prominent people, knew he couldn’t be bought, cajoled, fooled or lied to. He simply wouldn’t tolerate it.
And now, finally – perhaps he just might be in a position to do something about that earlier case as well? If he was very careful and rather clever?
DI Jennings returned to his office with the satisfied air of a man who had just completed one hurdle and now faced several more. Not that he’d expected any trouble at the inquest, of course, but with Dr Clement Ryder presiding, there was always that chance.
The coroner was notorious for his unpredictability, a fact Jennings and the rest of the city police knew only too well. Oh, he was a very clever man, the Inspector willingly conceded, and without doubt knew his stuff – both legal and medical. Everybody knew he’d once been a surgeon, and many was the time he’d tripped up the police surgeons or other professional medical witnesses when they’d been giving evidence, catching them out on some minor point or honing in on something they’d been trying to fudge over. Which hardly endeared the coroner to them, naturally. Medicos were used to getting their own way, and it definitely didn’t please them when the man they were giving evidence to clearly knew more about medicine than they did!
Not that the police got off lightly either. Many a PC – and occasional sergeant, or even DI – had felt the cutting, sardonic lash of Dr Clement Ryder when they’d tried to pull a fast one in his court.
But the man was scrupulously fair and, to give him due credit, had a legal mind every bit as sharp as his medical one, allied to an uncanny instinct and nose for the truth, which