‘I am indebted to you, Dr Atkinson,’ said the Coroner. ‘Am I correct in thinking that the police are no longer pursuing this as a criminal investigation?’ he asked, looking over to the officer attending.
The constable stood and said, ‘no sir. My colleagues in CID carried out a painstaking probe into the matter and the file remains open but no evidence was gathered indicating foul play of any kind.’
‘Thank you, officer. Now, ladies and gentleman I am about to start summing up the evidence we have heard so far,’ said the Coroner. ‘I note that several members of Zachariah’s family are present today, would any of you like to address the inquest? You are more than welcome to do so.’
A man, who looked to be in his late 60s, got to his feet. ‘Mr Coroner I would like to address you if I may. I am Zachariah’s father, Ezekiel Penhaligon.’
‘Please go ahead,’ said the Coroner, gently.
‘Sir, my son, he were a bad man in some ways,’ said Mr Penhaligon senior. ‘He were always getting into mischief ever since he were a boy. But I tell you this, sir, he had a heart of gold underneath and was much loved by my wife and myself. We are heartbroken at our loss. If he met his death out at sea then he died where he most loved to be. For the sea were his ’ome and he knew of its dangers.’
His voice faltered and Mr Penhaligon could only croak, ‘thanking you for the opportunity, sir,’ before sitting back down.
Emma was shaking with distress and Dan and John were getting alarmed. She looked at Mr Penhaligon with abject misery in her eyes. The boys understood how she must feel but were terrified she might start attracting attention to herself. Louise, meanwhile, still seemed in a world of her own, seemingly more bothered about the airless surroundings and having her right flank squashed by one of the burly Penhaligon clan.
‘Thank you very much, Mr Penhaligon, for that touching tribute,’ said the Coroner. ‘It is always the most distressing aspect of my job holding inquests into tragedies such as this to meet members of the family who must come to terms with the untimely death of a loved-one. It is regrettable that having heard the available evidence it is not always possible to conclude with absolute certainty how and why death occurred.
‘In summing up, I am satisfied that the body of the man found in sea water adjacent to Gunwalloe Cove was that of Mr Zachariah Penhaligon on the evening of Tuesday, June 12th, a 45-year-old man from the nearby village of Porthlevnack. I am satisfied also that death occurred at some stage during the 24 hours prior to discovery.
‘There remains doubt, however, about the actual circumstances of his death with the most likely explanation being that it was directly caused or at least, triggered, by a severe trauma to the head. We don’t know how or where this was sustained but it seems likely that Zachariah Penhaligon was injured while crewing at sea since he was wearing a ship’s safety harness and that he was subsequently lost overboard.
‘However, if this was so, it is noteworthy that the skipper of the vessel in question has never been traced, nor did he seek to report the loss of a crewman to the authorities. One can only speculate as to the reasons for such reticence. Given what I know and the mystery surrounding the exact circumstances of Zachariah Penhaligon’s death, I hereby record an Open Verdict.
‘Mr and Mrs Penhaligon you will now be able to obtain a death certificate for your son from the registrar. A small charge of £3.50 is payable. Thank you everyone for your attendance,’ said the Coroner rising to his feet.
‘Court rise,’ bawled the usher again.
This time, John and Dan weren’t going to risk hanging about and getting trapped in their seats for a third inquest. As the extended Penhaligon family staggered, snuffling, to their feet, they politely offered several ‘excuse me’s’ as they bundled Emma out.
The Penhaligons noticed Emma’s distress and a woman who looked likely to be Zak’s mum thrust out a fat arm to her as she passed.
‘Thanks for coming, luv,’ she said, dabbing her eyes with a soiled hanky. ‘Zak were always a one for the ladies, it be right nice that one of ’is fancy pieces could make it. He’d be made up that you came and ye havin’ yeself a good sob in his memory.’
Emma nodded at her through her tears as John and Dan gently led her away. Louise followed behind looking bemused, having failed to make the connection with Zak. Of course, it was sad that this sailor had lost his life at sea but what had that to do with them?
‘Come on Emma, let’s get out of here. Hold it together until we’re clear of this place and we’ll have a talk,’ whispered Dan in her ear. He was relieved when they got her outside the court precincts which bristled with police officers, lawyers and security staff, and where every wall had ears.
‘Let’s go to the park,’ suggested Dan, trying to sound matter of fact, ‘and digest everything we have learnt this morning.’
‘What we have learnt,’ said Emma, in a tremulous whisper as they walked through the court car park, ‘is that I killed Zak. I murdered him, didn’t I?’
Chapter XXVIII
‘No, Emma,’ said Dan sternly, a hard edge to his voice. ‘You must not say that. You wouldn’t be capable of such a thing, at least not on purpose. Now come on please, this is not the place for us to hold this conversation.’
‘Dan’s right, Emma,’ said John. ‘Let’s walk to the park and find a bench to sit on and we’ll talk things through calmly.’
The four of them trudged without further conversation to the park in St Perro. It was a warm October day and the great horse chestnut trees looked splendid in the sunshine, their leaves starting to turn slowly from green to yellow, orange and brown.
‘Let’s grab that bench,’ said John, pointing.
Emma had managed to compose herself now, although her face looked pale and her eyes puffy and bloodshot. ‘Actually, can we sit in a circle on the grass if it’s dry,’ said Emma. ‘That way we can look at each other properly as we talk.’
‘Yes fine,’ said John, and he shot an uncomfortable glance at Dan which Emma noticed.
‘Ok,’ said Emma, as they spread their coats out under a horse chestnut. ‘Let’s talk about exactly what happened to Zak. Looking directly at the boys, she said, ‘I killed him – didn’t I? It was the whack on the head that I gave him. According to the pathologist, he died from a single sharp blow.’
John and Dan said nothing.
‘Now Emma, be reasonable,’ said Louise. ‘The pathologist said that in his opinion, that’s what caused his death. He made clear that the fatal blow was sustained at sea – either killing him outright or causing him to fall overboard unconscious and subsequently drown. Clearly, that wasn’t your doing since in order to have got on a boat, Zak must have picked himself up from the tunnel floor – no doubt with a sore head thanks to you – then made off down the tunnel to the shore. He was fit enough to board a dodgy boat engaging in God knows what, drug smuggling probably, and had some sort of accident which cost him his life.’
Well done, thought John to himself, it sounds fairly plausible. Emma might buy that.
She didn’t.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t add up. Like I said, the forensic pathologist identified a single blow to his head, delivered with sufficient force that his skull caved in, causing severe brain injury. Regardless of where Zak actually passed away, that must have been the blow that I inflicted, or there would have been two separate injuries.
‘I had no idea at the time that I’d caused such damage, but if I did, Zak would have been in no position to walk off rubbing his head and boarding a boat, would he? From what we now know, it sounds highly implausible that he could even have got up from the bottom of the shaft after he fell. So how come his body was found in the water, the other side of the bay?’
‘Precisely for the reasons I’ve outlined,’ said Louise, impatiently. ‘We’re going round in circles. The glancing blow you inflicted did him no real harm. The fatal thump came later, out at sea. It has nothing to do with you, so stop torturing yo
urself.’
Emma fell silent. Could a serious injury in exactly the same spot on Zak’s forehead have masked a lesser one sustained beforehand? It would be a remarkable coincidence. She turned towards the boys who seemed to be strangely ill at ease.
‘Why aren’t those pair saying anything?’ she asked. ‘Why aren’t they jumping into this conversation right now and agreeing with you, Louise?’
John and Dan remained silent, not knowing what to say for the best or which tree to gaze at next.
‘I want to know what you’re hiding,’ said Emma. ‘You both behaved oddly in that inquest. Why, when the name Zachariah Penhaligon was read out, did you both stiffen and look alarmed? It was as if you had come across his full name before. Why did you fidget so uncomfortably during much of the hearing and why did you keep glancing at each other?’
‘Come on, Emma, are you seriously suggesting that John and Dan killed Zak?’ asked Louise, horrified.
‘Of course not,’ said Emma. ‘I have got a dreadful feeling that I did. What’s more, John and Dan would have known it, because they would both have seen Zak lying there in the tunnel. And . . .’, Emma paused, barely able to get the words out, her voice quavering, ‘they must have decided to secretly dispose of the body. Yes, it makes sense now! He didn’t die at sea – he was dumped at sea.’
‘How come the police found a ship’s safety harness around Zak’s chest?’ objected Louise. ‘I don’t recall seeing him wear that when we crossed his path. Answer that!’
Emma couldn’t. That didn’t make much sense. It strongly reinforced the theory that Zak had been on board ship when he was injured. Could that be true? If only.
John and Dan looked at each other, trying to read each other’s minds as to what they should do next. Their silence spoke volumes. They simply had to say something. But what? The moment had come either to step in with monstrous lies to throw Emma off the scent or come clean. John was still trying to decide which way to leap when Dan spoke up, unable to deceive his girlfriend any longer.
‘The safety harness around Zak’s chest came from the stores in the outbuilding,’ Dan said, quietly. ‘It probably belongs to your parents, Louise. Emma’s right, John and I discovered that Zak was dead and we put the harness on him because it allowed us to winch his heavy body up the shaft. We would never have been able to shift him otherwise.
‘It wasn’t done on purpose to make it look like he’d fallen overboard, that never occurred to us. Admittedly it subsequently proved useful that the police made that assumption. We carried him, wrapped in tarpaulin, to Louise’s boat. We took the body out to the entrance to the caverns near the bay and rolled him into the sea. We brought the tarpaulin back and washed it in a rock pool. An obscure one, I should point out, not one that we would ever have been likely to bathe in.’
Emma sobbed uncontrollably as Dan confessed. ‘Oh God, oh my God, it’s true. I killed Zak. I killed him, I murdered him, I took away a father and mother’s beloved son. That woman, his mother I presume, who grabbed my arm at the end of the inquest and thanked me for coming and for the grief I showed, was unwittingly talking to her son’s murderer.’
‘Emma, listen to me,’ said Dan, looking at her earnestly. ‘You did not murder him, you must not use that word. Murder is to take someone’s life deliberately. You killed Zak accidentally in the most trying of circumstances.’
‘I still killed him though, I killed another human being,’ wailed Emma.
‘Yes, but you were suffering enormous distress,’ said John, aware that it was time he said something. ‘You sincerely believed that the boyfriend you loved dearly had been stabbed to death by Zak – as we all did – and as he heaved himself out of the shaft with that cutlass held aloft you honestly thought that we would be his next victims.
‘You acted in legitimate self defence of your life and ours, with no intention of doing anything other than repelling him. No jury would find you guilty of murder for that and probably not even manslaughter.’
‘If I had such a wonderfully strong case, why did you agree to move the body?’ said Emma, struggling hard to bring her emotions under control and to discuss things calmly. ‘I suppose you did it because you didn’t want such an inconvenient matter as a dead body hanging around a few yards away from the place where we had found the treasure. You didn’t want us to be called to give evidence to two inquests, one after the other, the first into the treasure we had found and the second into the man we, or rather I, killed as we sought to guard it from him. We were like a pack of wolves.’
Dan took her hand in his but she pushed it away angrily.
‘Emma, you can believe what you like, but the reason we decided to move the body was above all to protect you,’ he said, softly. ‘To spare a sensitive, vulnerable, wonderful individual like you – who wouldn’t harm a hair on anyone’s heads – the ordeal of knowing what had actually happened and the possibility that you would unjustly get into serious trouble over it.’
‘I harmed far more than the hair on someone’s head, didn’t I?’ retorted Emma, furiously. ‘I literally stove someone’s head in with a spade.’
‘Look, Zak was a miserable, gloating, greedy creep who not only wanted our treasure but also tried to force Louise into having sex with him and Jake,’ pointed out John. ‘He then made us fear for our lives. As Dan has already said, you did what you did instinctively, to protect us all.’
‘Emma, we weren’t willing to let you face the invidious prospect of a police investigation, possible charges, and a Crown Court trial,’ said Dan, looking her directly in the eyes. ‘Of course you would most probably have been acquitted eventually, but I did not want to see you put at risk of going through that with all the damage it could do to your university course and your future – as well as the psychological harm it would cause.
‘Zak brought his death on himself and while nobody would have wished it on him, that’s the truth. I acted as I did in helping John because I love you with all my heart and I did not want you to suffer. John felt the same way.’
Emma looked at him stony-faced then turned her attention to John. ‘Is that right, John, were your motives purely about looking after my best interests?’ she asked him.
‘Yes to a large extent because we are very fond of you Emma. I’ll admit I was also worried that our title to the value of the treasure would have been compromised if criminal proceedings had arisen,’ replied John.
Emma nodded. They were both, belatedly, being frank with her, it would appear. Dan had clearly acted out of love and devotion and John also, but to a lesser extent and with an eye firmly on the treasure, although that was understandable. Either way, it didn’t change anything.
‘I still killed Zak, and now by being party to a cover-up, I am committing a further serious and imprisonable offence – attempting to pervert the course of justice,’ she said. ‘I am also denying his family the right to know the truth about their son’s death and withholding crucial information which was not available to either the police or the Coroner.’
‘It’s the right decision though Emma, given the circumstances,’ said Louise.
‘I haven’t made a decision!’ shouted Emma at her, coldly and furiously. ‘And you are not going to tell me how to think or what to do, Louise. I cannot leave things as they are, it is immoral and I am an honest and decent person – well, I thought I was. I must tell the police what has really happened and put myself at their mercy. It is my Christian duty.’
‘Listen Emma,’ persisted Louise, not knowing when to shut up, ‘all this is very noble but in a sense you ought to be thanking John and Dan, not making them out to be some sort of villains. They risked their own skin to save yours and if you go and fall on your sword on this matter to salve your own conscience, you take other innocents down with you. For their sake, please don’t carry this on any further – they don’t deserve it after all they’ve done to try and help you.’
Emma’s eyes blazed.
‘What did you say?’ she sna
rled at Louise, her voice icy and harsh. ‘Did you use the word “innocent” just then? Did you seriously say that I will “take other innocents” down with me? They aren’t even remotely innocent, nor am I and I’ll tell you this Louise, nor are you. You yourself are now complicit in the crime of perverting the course of justice by actively seeking to dissuade me from doing the honourable thing.’
‘Yes Louise, keep out of it,’ snapped Dan at her, his soft grey eyes hardening. ‘I will not have you emotionally blackmailing Emma. Can’t you see how distressed she is?’
‘In fairness to Louise,’ said John, ‘she is simply trying to protect us now, as we tried to protect Emma. The ones in line to face criminal trial and forfeit their right to the treasure are the three of us,’ he said, pointing to himself, Dan and Emma. ‘Louise has done nothing wrong. She might even stand to be declared sole beneficiary and inherit every penny. So don’t accuse her of acting out of self interest.’
Emboldened by John’s support, Louise wrapped an arm around his neck and had another try. ‘Come on Emma, let sleeping dogs lie, for everyone’s sake. Don’t do this to John and Dan and above all, don’t do it to yourself.’
‘Try and see that we acted in your best interests, Emma, and the best interests of securing the wealth that is our due,’ chimed in John, ‘wealth that will give us financial security and allow us to finish our degree courses without having to worry about how we’ll pay for it. You were struggling the most, you deserve this money more than anyone.’
‘I deserve a gaol cell,’ said Emma, sobbing again. ‘Whatever I did to Zak, however terrible, I can at least say that it was never my intention to fatally injure him, but if I say nothing now, I am wilfully taking a decision to cover up what I did which will make it look tantamount to murder.
‘I have to tell police the truth, I simply have to. If it ever came out that Zak died at the hands of a gang who had just discovered over £1½ million of treasure and who then disposed of his body, it would look pretty grim for the four of us, including you, Louise.’
Wreckers Island (romantic suspense) Page 20