B006U13W The Flight (Jenny Cooper 4) nodrm

by M. R. Hall

  Jenny looked over at Mrs Patterson. Suddenly animated, she was conferring with Galbraith and Rachel Hemmings.

  Wait until you hear what’s coming next, Jenny thought to herself.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Evans. You’ve been most helpful.’ She looked at the lawyers. ‘Any questions for this witness?’

  ‘If I may?’ Rufus Bannerman said, polishing his glasses with a handkerchief as he stood to cross-examine. ‘Mr Evans – you said it yourself, there were tens, if not hundreds of boats out searching for survivors on the estuary that day. You were aware of them no doubt.’

  ‘Yes, I was. I was listening to them on the radio, in fact.’

  ‘The ship-to-shore radio on your yacht?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you see any search boats come as far as where your boat was moored?’

  ‘They definitely came up as far as Beachley.’

  ‘Which in effect is the mouth of the River Wye?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Evans, that’s all.’

  So much for her amateur oceanography. Bannerman hadn’t only holed her theory beneath the waterline, he had sunk it without trace. She released Evans from the witness chair and asked Alison to fetch Lawrence Cole.

  Her fears about his credibility as a witness were more than realized when she saw him approaching from the back of the hall dressed in a suit which had evidently spent thirty-five years in the wardrobe save for the occasional – and ever more uncomfortable – wedding or funeral. He looked exactly what he was – a petty criminal who’d done a bad job of scrubbing up for his day in court.

  When Alison handed him the oath card, he reddened with embarrassment. ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he muttered, ‘not too good with letters, like.’

  Hartley sat back in his chair with a smile, enjoying the prospect of an illiterate witness to taunt.

  ‘Repeat after me,’ Alison began, ‘I swear by Almighty God that I shall tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

  Cole mumbled his way through a rough approximation of what he had just heard. It would have to do.

  Jenny led him gently through the preliminaries, aware that the only times he would have seen the inside of a courtroom would have been when he was facing a criminal charge. He gave his name as Lawrence Arthur Cole, he was sixty-three years old and a casual labourer by profession.

  ‘Mr Cole, can you please tell the court what you saw on the morning of 9 January.’

  He scratched his head and looked vaguely puzzled. Hartley raised his eyebrows.

  ‘The morning the plane went down,’ Jenny prompted.

  ‘Oh,’ Cole said, ‘yes, well, let’s see now –’ he cleared his throat noisily – ‘I’d been fishing down on the river. Not much luck that morning, far as I remember. The tide was too high, the water was all stirred up. Your fish won’t see the bait when it’s all dirty, like.’

  Jenny waited patiently for him to get to the point.

  ‘I was just giving it up for a bad job when I heard the plane coming over. Making a sound like one of those World War Two bombers, it was.’ He gave a low growl for the benefit of the jury. ‘I looked up and there it was – appearing out of the fog. Huge great thing. I’d never seen one like that before, not there anyhow.’

  ‘Can you describe what it looked like? Was it intact? Could you see any flames?’

  ‘I didn’t see nothing wrong with it,’ Cole said. ‘It looked normal, but like it was coming in to land.’

  ‘Did you see it touch the water?’

  He shook his head. ‘Too foggy. It disappeared off to the west. I heard it come down though. It wasn’t a bang, more like a rumble of thunder – a boom, that’s what it was.’

  Jenny became aware that the room had fallen eerily silent. She realized it was the first time that anyone had heard live testimony of Flight 189’s last moments. The lawyers were all taking careful notes; Mrs Patterson was wiping tears from her cheeks.

  ‘I knew what had happened – it was plain as day. I packed up my kit and hurried back up the lane – I wanted to hear what they were going to say about it on the wireless. Anyway, it was no more than ten minutes later, I was just about to turn down the track to my place when I heard this chop-chop-chop coming from the same direction the plane had come. I turned round and saw these two black helicopters skimming over the water, like. No more than a few feet up they were. And the one in front had this orange searchlight.’

  ‘Was there anything else that struck you about them?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Little wings, they had – on the underneath, like.’ He produced a folded scrap of paper from his jacket pocket. ‘I drew a picture.’ He held up a sketch similar to one he had made for Jenny in his caravan, only substantially larger and more detailed. He had an unrealized talent.

  Jenny gestured Alison to hand it to the jury first, making the impatient lawyers wait their turn.

  ‘Where did the helicopters go, Mr Cole?’

  ‘Same way as the plane.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘It was only a couple of minutes later – I was going through the gate to my place when I thought I heard a bang. It wasn’t as loud as the first one, and it was different – like when you hear a shotgun echo off the side of a valley.’

  ‘Just the one bang?’

  ‘That’s all I heard.’

  ‘Did you see or hear the helicopters again?’

  ‘No, I was inside listening to the news. I couldn’t believe it—’ He shook his head. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t drag me onto one of those things.’

  Jenny gave Rachel Hemmings the privilege of being first to cross-examine. Stoically ignoring the constant flow of whispered instructions issuing from Mrs Patterson behind her, she treated Cole with the kid gloves she must have used so effectively in the family courts.

  ‘Mr Cole, would you say you’re an observant man?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘You spend a lot of time by the estuary?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Have you ever seen anything like those helicopters before?’

  ‘I can’t say I have.’

  ‘And you’re sure about the timings – less than ten minutes after the plane went down.’

  ‘Certain of it. It’s not half a mile from the beach to my place. I was in a hurry, too.’

  ‘Have you ever seen a search and rescue operation mounted on the water?’

  ‘Once or twice. I’ve seen the rescue helicopter go over quite often, mind. This wasn’t one of them – they’re bigger like, and they don’t have the wings.’

  ‘That is unusual, I agree.’

  Galbraith thrust a note in front of her. It was clear that this was an instruction from Mrs Patterson that she wasn’t being given the option to ignore.

  ‘What you describe as the “wings” on these two helicopters – did they appear to have anything attached to them?’

  Cole looked blank.

  ‘What you have described is, I’m given to understand, a military-style helicopter that might have guns or missiles.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’d be lying if I said there were. I didn’t get a clear enough look at them, to be honest.’

  ‘But the bang you heard a few minutes later – you described it as an explosion?’

  ‘Like a big firework going off, that’s what it sounded like.’

  ‘I understand. Now one final thing – you said that you saw no obvious damage on the aircraft or smoke trailing from it as it passed over.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Would I be correct in assuming you only saw one side of the aircraft – its right-hand side?’

  ‘Yes – that’d be it.’

  ‘And there was dense fog over the water, from which smoke may have been indistinguishable?’

  Cole thought for a moment. ‘I hadn’t thought of that, to be honest with you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Cole. You’ve been most helpful.’

  ‘Does anyone else have questions for t
his witness?’ Jenny asked.

  Bannerman nodded towards Hartley, who was looking at something on a laptop screen which had been shown to him by his instructing solicitor. Jenny caught a glimpse of a page from an online newspaper. Hartley rose to address the witness, wearing a faintly amused smile.

  ‘Would you say that you are a trustworthy man, Mr Cole?’

  ‘If I can trust you, I am,’ Cole answered defensively.

  ‘What an interesting answer,’ Hartley said. ‘Well, I’m sure we can trust you to be honest under oath, so would you please tell me this – given the fact that you pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing diesel fuel last October, can I ask if you have been convicted of any other offences in the past?’

  Cole turned warily to Jenny.

  ‘He’s entitled to test your credibility, Mr Cole,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to answer.’

  He turned back to Hartley, who was waiting expectantly. ‘It’s no secret. I’ve been in court a few times over the years.’

  ‘What sort of offences have you committed? Perhaps we could begin with the most serious.’

  Cole scowled. ‘Burglary.’

  ‘Domestic or commercial?’

  Jenny cut in. ‘How many years ago, Mr Cole?’

  ‘I was no more than a kid.’

  ‘Any offences of violence?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Theft?’

  Cole gave a reluctant nod.

  ‘How many convictions?’ Hartley asked.

  Cole shrugged. ‘Ten or so.’

  ‘And you nevertheless consider yourself trustworthy.’

  ‘I know what I saw.’

  ‘You didn’t see any smoke or flames, did you?’

  ‘I never said I did.’

  ‘Quite. And neither did you see anything to connect the bang you claim to have heard with any of the aircraft you claim to have seen.’

  ‘It came from that direction.’

  ‘I’ll treat that as a “yes”, shall I?’

  Cole shrugged. He was getting impatient with Hartley’s tone.

  Hartley continued. ‘These helicopters with “wings”, how many were there?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Had you been drinking, Mr Cole?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Had you been drinking down by the river? It’s not unusual for an angler to have a nip or two, is it?’

  ‘A drop to keep warm, that’s all.’

  ‘You don’t think it might have been a drop too many?’

  Cole’s face hardened. ‘I wouldn’t come all this way to tell lies, would I?’

  ‘Of course not. All I’m suggesting is that your recollection may not be altogether sound. One’s perception of the passage of time, as we know, is apt to become a little distorted under the influence of alcohol, and senses somewhat dulled. Perhaps you saw a rescue helicopter twenty minutes later and heard a search flare being fired?’

  ‘You can twist it whatever way you like, I know what I saw.’

  ‘The question is, whether what you perceived corresponded with reality.’ Hartley smiled at the jury. ‘I wonder, Mr Cole. I wonder.’ With a little theatrical shake of the head, he sat down. He didn’t need to labour the point any further.

  Susan Roberts, the farmer’s wife whom Jenny had briefly spoken to nearly a week ago, had probably never been in a courtroom before. An anxious witness, her eyes darted from one lawyer to the next, then back to Jenny as she struggled to control her nerves while going through the preliminary formalities. She had given Alison only a brief, one-page statement and Jenny had it on the desk in front of her. If she repeated what she had told her officer, it would be enough to bolster Cole’s shaky testimony, but no more.

  ‘You were in your kitchen overlooking the estuary with your husband and child when the plane went down?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘How far from the crash site is your house?’

  ‘A mile or so.’

  ‘The D-Mort is set up on one of your fields, is that right?’

  She nodded, preferring to speak as little as possible.

  ‘Tell me what you saw, Mrs Roberts?’

  ‘Nothing. I was feeding the baby.’

  ‘Then what did you hear?’

  She paused and tugged at her cuff. ‘A bit of a bang, that’s all.’

  ‘Can you be any more specific?’

  She shook her head. ‘Could have been a bird scarer, I suppose. That’s what it sounded like.’

  Jenny looked at the statement in front of her. It wasn’t what she had told Alison less than forty-eight hours before.

  ‘Did you hear anything else after that?’

  ‘No. My husband thought he heard something. He went down to the field and saw the rescue helicopters and that. It was too foggy to see the plane.’

  Jenny studied her face. She could tell the woman was lying, but why?

  ‘You made a sworn statement to my officer the day before yesterday. In it, you say you were in the kitchen when you heard a loud explosion coming from the direction of the river. Your husband went outside to investigate. Later he told you that he had been hearing helicopters from the moment he set foot outside your front door, and that shortly afterwards they moved away. Isn’t that what you said?’

  Mrs Roberts gave another fearful glance in the direction of the lawyers, each of whom had been handed a copy of her statement by Alison. Mrs Patterson was craning over Rachel Hemmings’s shoulder to read it.

  ‘It’s the way she asked the questions – those weren’t my words, exactly.’

  Jenny looked at Alison and saw her bristle with indignation.

  ‘Are those your words or aren’t they?’

  ‘No.’

  Alison’s face had turned a bright shade of crimson. Jenny had never before heard her accused of not recording a witness’s words accurately.

  ‘You signed the statement, Mrs Roberts.’ She held it up for her to see. ‘There’s your signature.’

  ‘There was a bang, an explosion, whatever you like to call it. My husband went outside to see what it was. That was the beginning and end of it.’

  ‘Has someone told you to downplay your evidence, Mrs Roberts?’

  Her eyes fixed on the floor, Susan Roberts shook her head. If she were an advocate, Jenny would have been permitted to harry and cajole her, but as a coroner she had to avoid the appearance of bias at all costs.

  ‘Mrs Roberts, what did your husband tell you about hearing helicopters?’

  ‘He said he heard some. They were buzzing round all day.’

  Giles Hartley and Rufus Bannerman exchanged a glance of mock consolation.

  Jenny tried one more time. ‘Have you discussed the contents of your written statement with anyone other than your husband since you put your signature to it?’

  There was a pause that stretched for several long seconds.

  ‘No,’ Mrs Roberts said finally.

  It was the one of the baldest lies Jenny had ever heard from an otherwise honest witness, but there was nothing she could do. From the corner of her eye Jenny saw Simon Moreton’s mouth curl into a smile.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE HELICOPTERS FADED FURTHER into the mist with the arrival of Brigadier William Russen in the witness chair. A trim, compact man with an impatient military manner, he had provided only the briefest statement affirming that he was aware of no helicopters in the vicinity of the Severn Bridge until the arrival of the first rescue helicopters nearly forty minutes after Flight 189 went down. There was only one helicopter at his camp on that morning, a Puma, and it was out of action undergoing routine maintenance. He insisted that there were not, nor had there ever been, any Apaches at the camp or any other aircraft that resembled one.

  His evidence was precisely what she had expected it be. Hartley and Bannerman both looked delighted by what they were hearing, if not somewhat baffled as to why Jenny would have called a witness who was so obviously going to contradict the already tenuous evidence of Lawre
nce Cole. But there was more than a hint of method in her madness, and it would take a little while longer for it to play out.

  ‘Brigadier,’ Jenny continued, ‘if two such helicopters had indeed flown past your camp, would you necessarily have noticed them? You’re not an airport, you don’t have radar, and I don’t suppose you have people visually scanning the estuary at all times of the day.’

  ‘I accept it’s possible that aircraft might pass by with which we have no radio contact. Not every civilian helicopter pilot flying at low altitudes does us the courtesy of announcing himself.’

  ‘So it is possible that two helicopters passed by without you noticing them?’

  ‘Possible, but unlikely, especially the kind of machines you’ve mentioned. As far as I’m aware, all those operated by the British forces are currently abroad.’

  ‘And just so that I’m clear about this – if you were to see two suspicious aircraft over the estuary, what action would you take?’

  ‘We would seek to make radio contact, and if that failed or proved unsatisfactory, I would refer the matter up the chain of command.’

  ‘There is a prescribed procedure for dealing with potentially hostile aircraft, I take it?’

  ‘Yes,’ the brigadier said smartly, ‘but of course I’m not at liberty to disclose precisely what that is in a public arena.’

  ‘If the aircraft was deemed a sufficient threat, I presume an RAF jet would shoot it down.’

  ‘That has never happened in the UK, but yes, it is theoretically possible.’

  ‘Thank you, Brigadier.’ Jenny turned to the lawyers. She could see that Rachel Hemmings was being loaded with questions from Mrs Patterson, who had been furiously writing notes throughout the witness’s evidence. ‘I’m going to ask the brigadier to remain in court until the final two witnesses have been heard. He may have something to say about their testimony. I suggest you may want to save your cross-examination until that time.’

  Hartley, Bannerman and a brooding Crowthorne were more than happy to cooperate, and after a brief skirmish with her client, Rachel Hemmings too agreed to hold fire.