River Deep

by Priscilla Masters

  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 y
our 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.”

  The hat-brim dipped again.

  “What will happen now is that when the police finally feel they have all the facts, hopefully after they have made an arrest, we will re-open the inquest and return a verdict of homicide. Opening the inquest means that at least you can make funeral arrangements for your husband, Mrs Haddonfield.”

  Lindy gave a watery smile and Martha felt an edge of sympathy for her. “I am sorry,” she said.

  Lindy nodded. “It was …”

  Martha never knew what she had been about to say. The Asian man was tugging at her arm. “Come on, darlin’,” he said. “Time to go.”

  20

  Alex was hovering at her elbow, giving her that ‘knowing’ look. She turned to face him and had the horrible feeling that he read something into her plain disguise. Something gleamed, hot, curious and mellow, in the grey eyes. She met whatever it was boldly.

  “How are your investigations going, Alex?” A formal question, formally asked.

  “They’re going,” he answered, equally formally.

  “In what direction?” He was forcing her to ask the questions.

  “We’ve got people checking up on every single piece of clothing in that damned ragbank,” he said. “We’ve made a little map of exactly where and how each article was discarded, tagged with dates, so we can make a little more than a guess when exactly Haddonfield’s body was dumped.”

  “Mmm.” She hesitated. “Alex – I’ve been wondering. How did they get the body into the waste-clothing container without being seen? Haddonfield was slim … but not that slim. Certainly not slim enough to have been posted through the mouth of the bin.”

  “My private opinion is that they kept his body in a large plastic sack, one of those huge bin liners or something. If anyone saw they’d simply assume it was a rather large bag of clothes. People expect the ordinary. I have mentioned this to DI Aitken and she agrees it’s a possibility. They wouldn’t have risked posting a naked body into the clothing bin at any time of the day or night. There is a limit to what the public will keep their curiosity in check. Sullivan thinks that the way the body was placed suggests he was dropped in rather than placed in which would fit.”

  “I see.” But she didn’t really. Something was very wrong here. And she couldn’t simply rely on the fact that Randall was too experienced and intelligent not to pick it up. She remained in the courtroom minutes after it was empty, frowning, trying to work out an explanation for why she felt so unhappy with the case and came up with nothing specific. Except … She’d tasted the excitement of investigating for herself. She was tempted to pursue the instinct.

  She called in to an empty home in the middle of the day, chiefly to return to normal – change clothes, alter her makeup and comb her hair – but Bobby greeted her so delightedly she did not have the heart to turn down his doggy-beg for a walk. So she unhooked the lead and stepped out into the muggiest, foggiest, dampest March day she ever remembered. Too miserable for even Calliphora to fly.

  The fog had dropped low to river level and with the Severn encircling the area she knew it would not hastily lift but would sit, immobile, and cling to the marshland. As she closed the door behind her she regretted her capitulation to the dog. It was a horrible day for a walk. But Bobby was, as always, oblivious to the weather. He scampered and tugged and she followed. The fog was so thick she could hardly see her hand in front of her face. It was a good job she knew the woods as well as the back of the hand she could not see, but still she stumbled once or twice over fallen branches and invisible logs which Bobby must have leapt over. She kept him on the lead for the first hundred yards but he kept pulling and she finally gave in. He shot off and vanished.

  She walked on for twenty minutes or so, wishing the fog would lift. She missed the view and the reassuring landmarks. One path looked very like another; one tree the same as all the rest. It was easy to feel disorientated. She began to feel uncomfortable and called the dog over sharply. Heard his bark a good way off. Knew now why she was uneasy. Because in her ears the words still rang. Message for Martha. The phrase haunted her, threatened to saturate her thoughts. Finally she felt Bobby’s damp snout pushing into her hand and turned to walk back towards the house. She was unnerved. It would not do for her to start growing paranoid and imagining episodes.

  She spent the afternoon working at her desk, dealing with paperwork and telephone calls, ringing and speaking to a few doctors who hesitated about giving causes of death. By five o’clock she was again fiddling with her pencil and she stood up. It was simply an excuse. She needed to walk.

  What she would have liked to have done was to have rung Alex Randall and tried to push him in the direction of Lindy Haddonfield. Check out her alibi a little more thoroughly, investigate the man who had accompanied her to the inquest. She would have liked to have confided in the policeman about her conviction that Lindy Haddonfield knew plenty more about the murder. She even wondered about ringing Wendy Aitken and finding out how her investigation was going but in the end she didn’t.

  The only action she did take was to ring Freddie Bosworth to ask whether her husband’s funeral had taken place yet. But there was no answer and she declined to leave a message, at the same time knowing that if Mrs Bosworth dialled 1471 her number would be withheld. There was so much she wanted to know but her hands were not only tied, but tied tightly and behind her back. She was powerless – a wolf with no teeth.

  So she walked out into the hazy evening, into the town still shrouded with the fog which made the interiors and the shops appear ten times more colourful, clear and alluring. She was tempted to call in at the Lion & Pheasant. It looked so pretty viewed through the looped back curtains, a fire blazing in the grate. Instead she walked past, hesitated outside the antiques shop and was spotted by Finton Cley who pushed the door open.

  “Hello again,” he called. “Am I right in thinking you were contemplating walking straight past?”

  She laughed – out of embarrassment.

  He took no offence. “Busy day?”

  “It has been.”

  “Mmm.” He chewed his lip. An awkward silence dropped between them.

  “Well, are you coming in?”

  “Of course.” She laughed again and heard the shop door jangle behind her.

  She browsed round the contents for a moment or two while he watched. “We decided about my son in the end,” she
offered – more to fill the silence than because she thought he really was interested.

  Maybe she had misjudged him. His smile almost divided his face in half. “That’s great, Martha,” he said. “Just great.”

  “I mean – it’s up to the Club – Liverpool, that is.”

  “Oh exactly. But I’m glad you came to a decision. It must be hard … being on your own.”

  His eyes flickered with something as he looked at her. Something she could not interpret. He reached into a dusty cupboard and drew out a bottle of port and a couple of tiny green glasses. “Let’s,” he said and she nodded. Needing the reassurance in the strange shop and the confident, almost arrogant masculinity of Cley.

  She sat on the settle while he perched on a duet stool badly in need of reupholstery. His bottom dropped so far through he rested on the front rail. They chinked glasses and sipped. The port was strong and would have been more to her taste with a slice of lemon but it gave her warmth and comfort and after the stresses of the day she felt happy. They both fell silent for a time.

  Then her mobile phone rang and broke the spell. She could have left it but mothers always answer their mobiles. They dare not ignore them or switch them off just in case it’s the one, vital telephone call that could affect their children’s welfare. She didn’t even apologise to Cley and he acted as though he hadn’t heard the tone, still sipping his port with a slow rhythm. “Hello?”

  “Martha – it’s Mark Sullivan here.”