The car drew away with Albie, wearing a private grin, at the wheel. The English couple watched. Schorner waved from the window. Parker stared straight and aloof to the front. Howard Evans said: ‘What a poisonous little bastard.’
‘Yes,’ nodded Beatrice. ‘Poor Colonel Schorner. He didn’t seem very happy about the company did he.’
They began to walk up to the village hall. They could see a clutch of people grouped outside. ‘Meg would have been pleased,’ murmured Howard. ‘Getting all this attention.’
‘What do you think will happen?’ she said, taking his arm comfortably.
‘Did she fall or was she pushed?’ mused Howard. ‘I must say I’d like to see our legal beagle fall on his face.’ He grinned wryly. ‘Meg would have been tickled,’ he said again. ‘God, she’s probably put the bloody invasion back by three weeks.’
There were times, in that place that spring day, when Schorner felt that he was enmeshed in some rustic dream. Sitting in the Wilcoombe Hall, surrounded by those earthy faces and observed by those ancient eyes, he wondered once again how even a war could have brought him from his familiar home to that foreign land. The room was high and tatty, cream-painted walls and tall dusty windows. Some of the panes, broken since the outbreak of hostilities, had been replaced by board or even slate, so that the light came through in chequered patterns. The floor was grimy and, he thought, was probably always so. In one corner was an obese but moribund stove, above which, browned at the edges by some previous heat, was a picture of Christ, a print of Holman-Hunt’s ‘The Light Of The World’. It was askew, and from its surrounding dust it was apparent that it had been for some time. Next to Christ was a dart-board.
But, as always, it was the people in this rough room that drew his eyes. The woman with the mad son who now was patting his head to keep him hushed; the labourer, Doey, whose ruby face he saw first on New Year’s Eve when they came to that place. The blank-looking vicar, whose name he had forgotten. Evans and his wife sitting together, seriously but with a short smile for the people who nodded to them or greeted them with a wave. Barrington, the farmer, Schorner’s unsought, unwanted adversary, solidly staring ahead, his huge head apparently built on to the collar of his coat, his wife meekly touching her fingertips together as if verging on prayer. He wondered where their daughter had gone. If she had escaped as she had vowed. A stirring at the door announced the arrival of Mrs Mahon-Feavor, with the escort of one of her military sons; the old lady flushed and feathered, the boy as blank as a dummy cartridge. She advanced towards the front of the public seats, authoritatively tapped Mrs Bewler and the mad boy on the shoulders and ushered them to the rear of the room. They made no protest. Schorner watched and saw that Burridge, the coroner’s officer, allowed them to stand in a corner to see the show. Burridge patted the idiot boy on the head. Mrs Mahon-Feavor sat ceremoniously in her seat and her army son, after standing to ritual attention, eventually sat beside her, arranging his mother’s heavy cape warmly around her.
The performance, fascinating as it was to Schorner, had no visible appreciation from the stranger, Captain Parker. His sulky expression remained on Private Wall, sitting apprehensively among the group of United States soldiers at the front on a long and polished new pew brought from the church. Ballimach, whom Parker watched with disdain, as if by his bulk he gave the US Army a bad name, sat next to Wall; Albie Primrose sat beside him, in stature like his son. Behind sat Gilman, the English soldier, studied closely by Parker as a potential enemy.
A rod of spring sun pierced the patched and dirty windows, striking by chance the sparse hair of Captain Parker, causing his cloudy curls to shine like a halo. He found the sun’s attention uncomfortable and moved irritably sideways. It was eleven o’clock; time for the inquest to begin.
As the church clock up the hill began to drum the hour, the bulbous Constable Burridge, the court officer, in his shiny police uniform, stood in front of the seated people and opened his mouth immensely wide, as though he was going to sing.
‘Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!’ he bellowed. The Americans, and many of the English who had never attended an inquest before, were taken aback by the ancient words of the opening. The Americans blinked with embarrassment, the English rustics smirked. Having called the words, each one distinct and loud, he closed his mouth with a plop of satisfaction. His fat chest heaved and he called: ‘All you good people of this land draw near and give due attention to the matters arising from the death of Margaret Victoria Pender –’ A low howl and a sniffle interrupted his words, coming from the seats behind, and many people turned to see a potato-faced man trembling there, his eyes afire with tears. He wore a rough jacket and a black tie circling a bare neck, since his shirt had no collar.
The coroner’s officer silenced the intrusion with a wide glare. The man dropped his face into scuffed hands. Then, as if he had lost his place because of the interruption, Burridge began again: ‘Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!’ Parker glanced caustically at Schorner, his eyes shrugging. The door at the rear, next to the lopsided Jesus and the dart-board, was rattled. ‘Everybody rise!’ bellowed the officer. ‘Everybody rise for His Majesty’s Coroner for this county …’
Obediently they rose but it was immediately apparent that His Majesty’s Coroner for the county could not get in. The door handle was again strongly rattled. Burridge turned like an actor who has missed a cue. He advanced with official strides on the door. He was one of those heavy men who somehow walk in silence. His boots made only padding sounds. Grasping the door handle he tugged. It refused to open. ‘You’ll ’ave to be goin’ round, zur,’ he shouted through the panel. ‘’Er won’t budge.’ The homely language after the official intonation caused Schorner to smile. Comments were whispered. Even the man in the black tie and no collar slowly looked up with curiosity from the sanctuary of his hands. Schorner glanced towards Evans and returned a scarcely less than broad grin.
Doey Bidgood stood at the front. ‘Be you wantin’ an ‘and, Ernie?’ he inquired of the official. ‘’Tis allus a right sod, that door.’
He moved forward and added his efforts jogging the brass door knob up and down with the same energy as he might use to milk a stubborn cow. ‘Stuck,’ he announced eventually. ‘Bluddy stuck. Oi reckon that bluddy caretaker been and left it locked. ’Ee’s a no-good bugger at the best o’ times.’
The incident was concluded by the coroner’s confused face appearing at the street door to the rear of the hall. ‘I’m coming in this way, Ernie,’ he called firmly over the heads which immediately turned.
‘Yes, sir,’ responded Burridge. ‘So be you, sir.’ He turned and bellowed again at the bemused spectators, ‘Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!’ The coroner, a stout, grey man in a black frock coat and benign countenance proceeded down the central aisle like a schoolmaster entering a waiting class.
The court official pulled the chair away from the scratched table and the coroner sat down. Everyone else did so too. A cardboard folio of papers was brought and placed at his elbow, next to a carafe of grey water and a glass. He looked up and smiled genuinely. ‘My apologies for the entrance,’ he said. ‘Not the best start for the proceedings. Perhaps, since we have present many who will be strangers to inquest proceedings in Great Britain, I may be allowed to introduce myself. My name is Doctor Eustace Wood and I have the title of His Majesty’s Coroner for the South Hams district of the County of Devon.’
Captain Parker immediately stood. ‘I am Captain Alvin Parker, sir, legal officer for the US Army Fourth Division.’
‘Thank you,’ said Dr Wood. ‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance. Today perhaps we may both learn something.’
The coroner turned his attention to the differing faces, the rustic expectancy of the local people, the thrust out chins and noses of the jury, the bemused calm of the American military men; the nervous eyes of the witnesses.
‘Before we proceed,’ he continued, ‘I must point out that the function of this inquest is to inquire into the death of Margaret Pender of this parish on
15 February 1944, and to ask the jury –’ he nodded in an encouraging manner to the eight men and four women on the cross benches ‘– to ask the jury to bring in a verdict.’ The people in the jury fidgeted impatiently. The foreman was Jenks, the undertaker who had buried Meg Pender. A frown touched Dr Wood’s disarming face. ‘I must warn you at the start to listen to the evidence and the evidence alone. And also I have to remind you that this is not a court of law in the sense of a magistrates’ court or an assize court. We cannot undertake their function here, even if it were desirable. That is for others.’
Parker bit his slim lip. ‘Prejudice,’ he hissed at Schorner. ‘Even the suggestion of criminal court proceedings is prejudice. We’re going to take a rough ride here, colonel.’
Dr Wood glanced inquiringly at the sound of the American legal officer’s whisper but Parker dropped his eyes to the papers in his hand. ‘Right,’ said the coroner. ‘Let us proceed. Call the first witness.’
‘Daniel Arthur Pender,’ called the court officer and the shaggy man with the black tie and no collar stood up, his expression as awry as his dress. ‘That be oi,’ he said defensively.
‘Take the stand then,’ returned Burridge as if talking to a dull child. He padded across the room with a Bible held reverently.
‘Where be it?’
‘This chair,’ the coroner called to him, pointing at a separate chair. ‘We don’t have anything resembling a stand.’ He smiled a little impatiently, but kindly, and Daniel Arthur Pender shuffled forward to give his evidence. He took the oath melodramatically, spat unnecessarily on the black binding of the Bible to seal the act, and stood to military attention facing the coroner.
‘You are Daniel Arthur Pender, the husband of the deceased?’
‘The dead lady, sir. Yes.’
An audible excitement brewed in the courtroom. Whispers shuffled along the lines of seats. ‘Silence please,’ called the officer.
Daniel looked belligerently at the spectators. ‘There might be them that don’t think I am, but I am,’ he said. ‘An ’ave been this many a year.’
‘When did you last see the deceased?’
‘You mean alive, sir, or dead and all stiff?’
‘Alive, please.’
Daniel put his rugged hands to his tie and pulled at it as a condemned man might try to get a moment’s relief from the hangman’s rope. ‘Now, that be a puzzler,’ he said conversationally. ‘Oi reckon it was just afore the war begun.’ He stared at the coroner and, as though the matter needed elucidating, added: ‘Against Hitler.’
‘Not since then?’ asked the coroner.
‘No, sir. Oi been away helping with the war.’
Dr Wood said hurriedly: ‘But you recognized her body.’
A thin sniffle, gradually transforming to a whine, came from the witness. ‘Aye, sir. Terrible that ’er was. I’d know my Meg anywhere. It was ’er all right.’ His face shivered and his eyes glazed. ‘There wadn’t nobody like my Meg.’
The coroner glanced at the court officer. ‘I think that is all,’ he said to the ragged, standing figure. ‘We only need evidence of identification from you. Please accept our sincere sympathy.’
The man gave a truncated sob, hardly more than a sniff. ‘Somebody pushed ’er,’ he said suddenly. He hung on to the back of the chair as though daring them to dislodge him. The coroner held up a warning hand, but Daniel Pender bravely ignored it. ‘They bloody Yanks!’ he cried. ‘They pushed my Meg. ’Twas them buggers what drowned ’er.’
Captain Parker was on his feet with such force that Schorner backed quickly away from him. ‘Objection, sir!’ he demanded. ‘This kind of thing –’
‘I know, I know,’ said the coroner pacifyingly. He turned to Pender. ‘I didn’t hear a single word of that,’ he said.
‘Then oi’ll be telling you again –’ started the man. The sentence was arrested by Burridge who, moving bulkily but silently forward, put his arms like a hoop around Pender and guided him towards the back of the court. The scraggy man was still protesting. ‘Oi be telling the God’s truth –’
The officer placed a broad hand firmly over his mouth, like a boy silencing the school sneak. ‘You b’aint allowed to say it,’ he whispered fiercely, close to the grubby ear. ‘Somebody else ’ull say that, Dan’l Pender.’
Parker had sat down again. At the constable’s words he made to leap to his feet but then sank back hopelessly. He said to Schorner: ‘This gets worse.’
‘Not one bit of what has been said will go down in the record,’ said the coroner easing forward and talking directly to the American. Parker nodded stiffly. ‘Next witness,’ called Dr Wood.
‘That’s all very fine,’ whispered Parker to Schorner. ‘It still remains that it has been said. Everybody in this room heard it.’
‘Dr Edward Burt,’ called Burridge, reading the name from a piece of paper. ‘Dr Burt, please.’
A puzzled whisper gathered in the room as a tall, tight-skinned man who had appeared at the back walked forward with brisk importance. He carried a folder. ‘You are Dr Edward Burt?’ said the coroner. ‘Home office pathologist?’
‘Yes, sir, I am.’ He did not look up but continued to rifle through the papers in his file as if uncertain which dead body to select.
An impressed buzz continued through the spectators. Doey leaned forward and said loudly to those immediately in front, ‘I saw ’is drawin’,’ he said. ‘’Ee scribbles on his papers. All guts, you know, loike livers and lungs and intesterines.’
‘Silence,’ demanded the court officer.
Doey acknowledged the rebuke with a stiff little bow and sat back smirking. He darted forward momentarily to whisper in Lenny Birch’s ear, ‘You take a look when ’ee comes by us.’ Then, looking slyly up to see the constable observing him sourly, he put his finger to his own lips, as if admonishing the officer, and settled in his chair.
‘The deceased,’ intoned the pathologist, ‘was a healthy, well nourished woman …’ There was a murmur of general agreement throughout the room. Schorner smiled into his hand. ‘… of thirty-five.’ A general expression of amazement, like a dozen seepages of gas, came from the people of Wilcoombe. Women whispered together and men raised their eyebrows.
But their attention was soon back to the witness. ‘My post-mortem examination revealed three pints of salt water in the lungs –’
A terrible howl came from the rear of the court. It was Pender again. ‘’Ee cut up my Meg!’ he accused, his face crumpling into a dozen bags. ‘My lovely Meg!’ He let his head fall once more into his wooden hands and rocked sorrowfully to and fro. Mrs Bewler and her son looked around sympathetically. Mary Lidstone put her thick comforting arm about Pender’s collarless neck.
Looking only mildly irritated, the coroner explained: ‘The pathologist has to perform a post-mortem to determine the cause of death, Mr Pender. It is his duty.’
‘Oi could ’ave told ye that she drowned without cutting ’er up,’ shouted Pender truculently. ‘She were pushed in the dock by they Yanks, that be ’ow.’
Captain Parker, his young, puffy face suffused and blotchy, sprang up and said: ‘I protest, sir, at the conduct of this inquest. That man must be removed at once. He should have been removed before.’
The coroner sighed. He whispered to the court officer, ‘Get him outside, Ernie, will you? Give him a shilling for a pint.’ Burridge moved forward with his great, soft footsteps and easing Pender from his seat, led him sobbing to the door.
‘Shame,’ muttered one of the women. ‘Jus’ for telling the truth.’
Parker clenched his pale fist. ‘I told you, sir,’ he said to Schorner. ‘We should never have let it be held here.’ He glared along the engrossed expressions of the jury. Jenks, the foreman, saw him looking and importantly wrote something down.
The coroner was leaning, confidingly, towards the American officer. ‘I must tell you, sir,’ he said mildly, ‘that such interruptions are not unknown to me. In these rural places passions run very
deeply. Deaths are felt more keenly than perhaps in your country with its gangsters and cowboys and suchlike. Or taken more to heart than perhaps in the army where death is an everyday matter. Here people have known each other for a long time, for generations, and the sudden demise of anyone is of great interest and importance, it’s a loss to the whole, and is liable to give way to unofficial passions.’
As he finished he smiled encouragingly towards Parker who, baffled, stood: ‘Can I assure you, sir,’ he muttered, ‘that no death – no matter whose it is – is taken lightly by the United States Government. That is why we want the truth in this unfortunate case. The truth is not helped by the kind of scenes we have witnessed here in this courtroom.’ He looked about him as if seeking support. Only Wall looked at him with any hope or sympathy. The pathologist drummed his fingers.
‘Quite so,’ answered the coroner quietly. ‘I want to assure you that I have heard nothing out of place, nothing that I will remember.’ He smiled at the jury who turned their faces to him like disciples.
‘No, sir,’ Jenks the foreman affirmed dramatically. ‘We ’eard it all right, but we didn’t take one bit o’ notice.’ He turned to the others: ‘Din we?’ They mumbled and nodded agreement.
The coroner’s smile towards Parker indicated that he felt sure that the reassurance would be accepted. Parker bowed sulkily, hardly taking his backside from the seat as he rose. ‘Gangsters,’ he whispered icily to Schorner when he had fully sat again. ‘Cowboys.’
The pathologist finished his evidence stiffly, like a notable dramatic actor taking part in an inferior repertory company farce. He nodded with some sympathy at Parker and left the witness chair stiffly, walking down the centre aisle and, as he passed Doey, deliberately covering the doodlings on the cover of his case file. Doey smiled and commented loudly: ‘There’s a nice suit ’ee was wearin’ w’ant it? Wonder ’ow many coupons ’ee gave for that ’un?’
At the back of the room the Home Office man climbed into his overcoat. But at the exit door he hesitated. Burridge quickly sensed his dilemma. He padded to him, touched him aside and put his head out of the door, like a lookout. ‘No, zur,’ he assured the pathologist. ‘Dan’l Pender be gone. I ’spect he’s over at the pub. They be open early today, on account of the inquest.’ He had a second look, his head turning both ways. ‘If you loike I’ll walk you to your car.’
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