A. I’ve told you. I conspired to kill my own daughter. Death’s the proper penalty.
Q. Oh, come on. Was there malice aforethought? Recklessness? An intention to do her serious harm? Any of the ingredients that would make this homicide rather than misadventure?
A. Are you trying to help my conscience?
Q. Too late for that, since you never had one. I’m only trying to understand it for posterity. You won the case by use of your forensic talent, so what? That’s what you do, isn’t it? Conscience never bothered you before. You’re a professional left-wing liberal; you don’t believe in hanging.
A. There was recklessness and there was malice. I humiliated the witness. I made sure she was marooned and isolated. I took away all the supports that could bolster her. I undermined her sister and made the jury laugh at her. Then I set about her until she lost control and came across as a spoiled child. I drove her to desperation and she killed herself.
Q. Why so cruel? You could have won without that.
A. I hated her. She reminded me of myself as a girl. She made it so easy. And I wanted to win. I had to destroy her, so that Boyd wouldn’t have to take the stand. The case had to be demolished before that. I didn’t want to call him. He would have been a dreadful witness, such an obvious liar.
Q. You knew he lied?
A. Oh yes. I couldn’t take the risk of him lying in public, it would be obvious as soon as he spoke. They had to be diminished first.
Q. Ms Shearer, your career has been made by bullying and undermining witnesses. You’ve made a fortune out of dirty tricks. What made this exceptional?
A. Because I did it to someone who might have loved me. The only one. Whom I might have loved. Mine. She reminded me of me when I was powerless. She was so easily had. She began to haunt me, even before I’d finished with her. I’d forgotten my daughter’s date of birth, forgotten it, or put it out of mind, until I remembered it on the last day. When Rick Boyd shook my hand, and shouted after me, did I know she was adopted? I remembered it. I thought he knew. It was as if I had conjured her up, and then, well, there she was. Not what I would have wanted her to be. There she was. Crucified. I put in the nails.
Q. Such sentimental shit. A woman like you, being haunted by a baby you’d never given a damn about?
A. When the trial was over and I knew that this girl was dead because of me, I had to find out. Everything I’ve ever done went up in flames.
Q. Like what? Like defending people by subverting others? Your life work and bogus idealism? Same thing as defending the innocent?
A. I never cared about innocence or guilt. I wanted to win and it’s easier to do it working with the wicked. Truth has all these inhibitions, lies don’t. I used my left-wing, anti-authority liberal credentials to feather my nest quickest and win, win, win, no matter what harm and who got hurt. I’m a sham, a complete sham.
Q. So what’s different? Why can’t you go on being a sham?
A. Because I’ve lost sight of everything about me which might have been decent. Because I know I can’t ever do it again and there’s nothing else I can do. Because I could never look at myself in the mirror and feel proud of what I was unless I was dressed in my best. And now, even in my finest finery, I can’t bear to look at all. I see her.
Q. But it was Boyd who tortured your daughter, wasn’t it?
A. I fetched the axe. I always fetch the axe. Or the nails, or the scissors. The murderer’s little helper.
Q. Speak up. The jury needs to hear you. Say it again.
A. I can’t live with it. I want to kill myself before it kills me.
Peter read this portion of the transcript while sitting in a bus shelter. He could see a bus shelter was a good place to be, a sort of spiritual home for a soul in transit. The shelter faced a half lively sea caught between moods. It was a grey mid morning with a sky that seemed at first perfectly colourless until he looked more closely, and then it was everything from pink to black, and the sea itself a spectrum of colours from creamy white through brown to blue, graded by constant movement into fractions of colours. The waves, almost too lazy to be as cross as they looked, approached the shingled shore with fake aggression, and then when they broke into foam, nibbled at the shingle, withdrew as if sated or defeated and then came back, starved and curious, looking for somewhere to go. Waves with parents, pulling them back into the deep and saying, you are too young yet. Come home.
He was piecing it together. He would never know when Marianne Shearer had written this, or when the copies had been added to the transcripts that had been sent from Ms Shearer’s chambers to himself, long before her death, and to Thomas Noble the day after she died. Whatever happened, it had always been there to be found by anyone who looked. She had wanted them to know, later rather than sooner, deprived them of anything else and then, in case no one looked at all, sent him a reminder. He would have got there without her. He had almost finished his reading.
She had been kinder to him with the copy sent by post via the Lover, which ended with a postscript. She had added to his version a longer recitation which she would certainly have interrupted if it had come from a witness hostile to her cause, or anyone who stood in the way of winning.
I don’t know why, Peter, believe me.
I can’t do anything straightforward. I was reading through the transcript (for the tenth time), and I thought I’d continue it. Why couldn’t I just write it down?
I was thinking of her before that trial, and there she was, as silly and small and malleable as me, the self I hated. This is crap. I was looking for her, thought I recognised her, got a detective, costly, but so easy. It’s all about birth certificates. I did it to prove I was wrong, but then, horrors, I found out I was right. I got as far as finding out that Angel Joyce was adopted, one of two.
So silly Angel it was. NB, I hoped it was the other one, Henrietta, because she survived. I found out all about her, too. What she does etc. I wish I had a sister like that.
I knew what I had done, and to whom, by the time Henrietta Joyce sent me the post-mortem report. Thank her for underlining it.
I had delivered my daughter to suicide and granted her tormentor the freedom to do the same to someone else.
The shame makes me squirm; it’s like I’ve drunk the acid I’ve been pouring down other throats all these years. Got to stop myself doing any more harm.
They were right, all those mothers. It’s not the same if it’s yours. As if all the others weren’t somebody’s child too.
Tell me I’ve still got style.
Peter got up and walked against the wind as far as the next shelter. People said hello and he said it back. He admired her lack of self-pity. He had been acting as interlocutor, again, between Henrietta Joyce, her parents and the law. It was a role he had wanted, in case she needed him, which he doubted she did. You are always too late, Peter: you always get there too late. You’re a post-hoc thinker, a lawyer, not a doer.
He was being a doer, now. He was waiting for a white van to take him back to London. The loose ends were unravelling and ravelling again, like unpicked knitting wool about to be made into a new garment. He had enjoyed the learning of new facts, like how, thirty-odd years ago, an original birth certificate was superseded by another in the case of children adopted at birth. The first, with the mother’s name, remained in the archives of the agency of adoption, and the one created by the adoption order remained with the parents. Birth certificates were unalterable, but you could have two; one you saw and one you did not know about. No one need know the birth-mother’s name, not then, neither daughters – nor sons – or substituted parents. It could stay secret.
He had been afraid that Hen had known all along.
She didn’t know. She could not have known, could she?
The van arrived.
January 17
‘Pray stand for Her Majesty’s Coroner.’
All stood.
The Sergeant bowed. They all bowed as the Deputy Coroner for the county a
mbled in like the best man at a shotgun wedding, determined to make things easy. Not much of a crowd, witnesses only; therefore the usual pall of worry attendant on any sudden death but without the sharper, more unpredictable overtones of grief. The Coroner had served this court for twenty-five years and detested wastage of effort when there were no relatives to mollify. After all, the deceased was not local.
Thomas Noble imagined that as he grew older, all the funerals and all the inquests might meld together in one, long memory with only occasional highlights. He could write a style guide to funerals and inquests, including how to show the necessary respect, what to wear, etc. He was keeping his powder dry for the next one that would surely have a better attendance than this miserable gathering. The ambience and decor of this room was familiar, dressed as it was in the same, anonymous style, but he was slightly off familiar territory here and he felt conspicuous. Acting as moral support for the new clients, grateful for the mercy of working for nice people, although why Marianne Shearer had left a will – hidden along with a laptop, a phone and various other invaluable sundries in the back room of a Ukrainian dressmaker – leaving the bulk of her estate to Mr and Mrs Joyce, was a tad beyond his comprehension. Conscience was a strange thing. A client was a client; one did one’s best.
Tut, tut. He supposed the powers that were had scoured the length and breadth of the land to find a living relative willing to own Rick Boyd. Perhaps the absence of same was his problem. Either the man had never had loving arms around him or perhaps he had hacked them all off, long since. That handshake of his alone would do it; he could see Boyd shaking off a whole arm and eating it. The two Joyces stood so close they could have been formed from the same substance. Unlike himself, they had authority in this room; they were local, and therefore beyond reproach. The Coroner nodded towards them like an old friend; everyone nodded to one another.
‘Perhaps I can begin with a brief recitation,’ the Coroner said, ‘of the facts as I know them. Who do we have here? Ah, yes, Mr and Mrs Joyce, thank you so much for coming along. There was no one else to identify the deceased, very obliging of Mr Joyce in the circumstances. Could we agree on the salient facts? Is there anyone here representing the deceased? No?
‘I must remind you that my duty is to pronounce upon the cause of death, rather than why. I have no comment to make on the circumstances of the death or the penultimate reasons why it occurred when it did, only what caused it. Which disease took its own moment to strike, if you get my drift. The fact that Mr R Boyd appears to have precipitated his own demise is not my business, or the business of this court. Here are the facts and the pathology.
‘Mr Richard Boyd and an accomplice who remains at Her Majesty’s pleasure, embarked upon burglary in a self-storage unit whilst it was closed to the public.’
There was a pause to consider the enormity of this. He made it sound like public sodomy and Thomas wanted to giggle.
‘It would appear that they had prevailed upon the manager to give them keys to several individual units and it would also appear that they argued as robbers do, although in what order they argued and struck one another is subject to conjecture and criminal proceedings. Mr Boyd’s accomplice was found in one unit, with a blood-alcohol level off the stratosphere, the deceased was found in another. They appear to have injured one another in a series of fights. Mr Boyd, the deceased, had superficial injuries to his skull. Two of the digits on his right hand were broken.
‘Alerted to the burglary, Mr and Mrs Joyce (well-respected proprietors of WJ Storage), attended the premises.
‘The deceased was comatose when tended by the ambulance service. He died, at a moment that cannot be exactly specified as yet, of systemic heart disease. Post-mortem analysis revealed long-standing heart problems. He could have died at any time.
‘The cause of death was heart failure. There are possible ancillary causes; the condition is historically exacerbated by abuse of steroids, substance abuse, abuse by anything, including electric shocks, nicotine, cannabinol derivatives, you know what, but essentially he died from a genetic disease of the heart. Possibly precipitated by shock: with similar, post-mortem symptoms as those found in suffocation, such as petechiae under the skin, but the man was a walking time bomb. Ours is not to reason why. Blocked ventricles kill in time.
‘We can surmise that a better way of life may have assisted the deceased to live longer, but then again, it might not have.’
Praise be, Thomas said to himself. He was already thinking of the shop he had passed while walking through the unfamiliar town en route to here. An antique shop with interesting porcelain displayed in the window, including a small, silver jug, not quite his style, but definitely appealing.
Inquest adjourned for six weeks.
They stood outside, arm in arm, she with an embroidered hankie pressed against her face. Elderly parents, he noted, must have been well on in years before they acquired their kids.
‘Oof, Mr Noble, I thought he was going to ask questions, I really did. Like what Hen did to him first. Like how I took her away to go and phone and everything and left him with Father. Poor lad, silly boy.’
The sun came out and illuminated Ellen Joyce’s pale face. Such a deceptive glint in her eye, almost triumphant. Father patted her elbow and that had the effect of quietening her without him making any request. Father, Thomas noted, at least knew not to trust any lawyer with indiscreet words or admission, especially when the lawyer was your own. They smiled at one another. Yes, Thomas thought, they really are nice people. I would not cross either of them. They would cut me up in little pieces and put me in bags and store me away until everyone had forgotten about me if I crossed them. He shook them by the hand and promised to speak soon. Father’s handshake was remarkably strong for a man of his age, but then he had been lifting and carrying and burying things for half a lifetime.
‘Thank you for coming,’ Father said, echoing the Coroner. ‘It’ll be all right, you know. Half the police force store stuff with me. And he wasn’t much of a loss, was he?’
Walking back through the town in search of the shop, Thomas reflected that his reasons for attending this formality of an inquest were perfectly sound. He was protecting the interests of his clients and Peter Friel would not have been good for this occasion. The facts would have worried him. He would have managed to feel sorry for Rick Boyd and he would have questioned the manner of his dying. Peter’s great imagination would have gone into overdrive; he was like that. He would want to know the truth of it while Thomas himself definitely did not. If it was Hen Joyce or her father or her mother or all of them together who had smothered that bastard with stored rubbish, he definitely did not want to know. There were remembered fragments of Mrs Joyce’s statement that could easily be forgotten. He seemed to be having a fit, he was very cold. My daughter and I ran back to the office leaving my husband to try and keep him warm.
On balance, Thomas decided it was definitely Dad. A dutiful man doing his duty, saving society the expense of another trial and saving his daughter from ever having to give evidence again. Such a practical man, hated clutter, would do anything for his daughters, wasn’t going to take any more risks. Thomas found the shop he had seen before and secured for himself the purchase of a small silver jug. A sweet thing with a fat little belly embossed with flowers, standing solidly on three slender legs. Not Georgian; an excellent copy. Thomas loved a good fake, but what a mistake it was to think you ever got a bargain out of town.
One more inquest to go. What a shame the Joyces would not get a hundred per cent of the estate.
‘This is definitely the best,’ Hen said, ‘as well as the oldest.’
‘What is it?’
‘A Delphos gown, designed by Fortuny, early nineteen hundred. He made a lot of dresses, invented all sorts of new ways of dyeing and printing textiles, but this sort of gown was a hallmark, I suppose. Often made in black, much rarer in red, like this. It’s a featherweight multi-pleated silk sheath which just flows over any shape
, so light it would float away if it wasn’t weighted with tiny Venetian glass beads at the side and the shoulders and the hem. You’d have to kick it gently as you walked. Sarah Bernhardt and Isadora Duncan probably wore one of these. It’s a miracle. Looks simple, is anything but. Like that skirt. A woman assumes exceptional importance when wearing this dress.’
‘Not for everyday use,’ Peter said. ‘Might go to her head.’
‘No, but durable if well kept. There’s no strain on the seams, no strain in wearing it, so it doesn’t wear out. I reckon if she wore this she might have covered it up with that Hardy Amies cape. Dark blue, floor-length, rather severe and wintry. Or this Trigere cashmere evening cape, it’s sort of shadowy grey, floating warmth, could almost double as an elegant dressing gown. But look at this slip of a thing, isn’t it clever? The sort of garment you keep for ever and wear again and again in all sorts of different ways.’
‘Looks nothing to me. An underslip? A black petticoat?’
‘Wash your mouth out, you philistine. An underdress, more like. It’s Hartnell, heavy crêpe de Chine, with a simple highwaisted bodice, V-shaped over the bust and thin straps over the shoulders. The skirt’s made of panels, giving it shape and the hem’s extra deep and heavy, to keep it all in place. It never rides up, the creases hang out, the hem gives it the weight and sort of releases it to do its own business. She packed this up with the gowns she could wear with it, one gown over another. There’s one in cream lace, up to the neck with three-quarter sleeves, don’t know what vintage, greatly discreet. Then there’s this wraparound dress, Ossie Clark, 1970s. See? Diaphanous material over a soft, solid base. Wonderful soft ruffles at the neck, edged in satin with satin ties and flared sleeves. Hardy Amies and Ossie Clark. Quite a mix of generations. She had no brand loyalty, that Marianne Shearer. She liked the best and she liked it useful. The fewer fastenings the better. There’s a beaded black flapper dress, House of Adair, it’s got no zips or hooks, just glass bugle beads and seed beads in silver, gold and fuchsia, quite fragile really, already repaired, I reckon she might have danced in that. Or someone did.’
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