Crowner and Justice

by Barrie Roberts

  ‘Humph!’ she snorted. ‘Sociologists are a bunch of superstitious parasites, who take the carefully garnered work of social historians and extrapolate it into ludicrous generalities. Go and change!’

  ‘I think I’ll go and change,’ I said and fled.

  When I came back, Doc Macintyre was sprawled in a chair on the patio, wineglass in hand, and Sheila was loading the table with enough grub to feed a regiment.

  The old Scotsman is a good friend of mine and, over the years, has taught me all I know about dead and injured people. He has a profound knowledge of his subject and lives for the mortuary, good food and malt whisky.

  We ate hard for a while, until Doc eased himself in his chair and announced that he couldn’t take another mouthful.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Sheila remarked. ‘There’s a summer pudding with a drop in it.’

  His eyes lit up again. ‘He can’t have that,’ I said. ‘He’ll get nicked driving home.’

  ‘It’s a fine night. I’ll walk,’ he announced. ‘Anyway, I’ll say that someone spiked my orange juice.’

  I laughed. ‘I can just see you telling the Magistrates that you drink orange juice. You’d get done for perjury as well.’

  ‘Well then, I’ll tell them I was led astray by an alcoholic summer pudding.’ By this time a large portion had appeared in front of him.

  ‘Won’t work,’ I said. ‘Somebody’s already tried that one. DPP — v — Wynne. Not a summer pudding but three slices of Christmas cake that put her over the limit. The magistrates found it a special reason not to disqualify her, but the Court of Appeal sent it back, said the story was preposterous, so I don’t suppose summer pudding’d work either.’

  ‘Then I’ll walk,’ he repeated, finishing the pudding swiftly.

  Another portion went the same way before he leaned back from the table again.

  ‘Now, young Tyroll,’ he began. ‘Time was when you were a married man whose wife would not give me house room because she thought that talk of dead folk was disgusting. Then you were divorced and used regularly to invite me to share a takeaway by way of relieving your bachelor state. Now you have a beautiful and intelligent fiancée and only allow her to invite me to feed when you want to pick my brains. What is it this time? Have you stumbled across another murder? Inspector Parry’s always complaining that you two keep finding murders that he has to explain.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said, ‘but it’s peculiar. Tell me about suicide.’

  ‘I’ve thought about it,’ he said. ‘Who hasna?’

  ‘Not you,’ I said. ‘Suicides in general.’

  ‘It’s a growth industry,’ he said. ‘About ten young men a day commit suicide in Britain.’

  ‘As many as that?’ I asked. ‘Young men?’

  ‘Aye, and about half as many women, but mostly young men.’

  ‘Why do they do it?’

  He looked at me in amazement for a moment.

  ‘How the blazes would I know? My patients don’t talk to me.’

  ‘Come on, Doc,’ said Sheila, ‘You must have pretty good ideas about the whys and wherefores.’

  ‘Everybody does it, lassie. All manner of folks commit suicide. Young folk do it because they’re lovelorn or they’ve got sexual problems or exam problems; middle-aged folk do it because they’re lovelorn or they’ve got sexual problems or they’ve got money worries; old folk do it because they’re lonely or poor or depressed.’

  ‘Who doesn’t do it?’

  ‘Healthy, well-balanced people, with a realistic view of life’s wee ups and downs, and people whose religion makes it a sin.’

  ‘Like Catholics?’

  ‘Like Catholics,’ he agreed. ‘Was she a Catholic?’

  ‘He was a Catholic,’ I said. ‘You say that all sorts of people do it because they’re lovelorn. What about people who are in love?’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. ‘Being in love is the biggest kick in the world. People stop smoking when they’re in love; they take to writing songs and poetry; they bathe more often and tidy up regularly. Depression’s the disease of being human. Being in love is the only guaranteed cure.’

  ‘What about being in love with someone you can’t marry?’

  He shook his shaggy head. ‘Doesna usually end in suicide,’ he said. ‘Divorces, runaway romances, Gretna Green weddings, even murder sometimes, but not often suicide.’

  ‘What about people who are ill — or who think they’re ill?’ asked Sheila.

  ‘Was he ill? If he knew he’d got something fatal, maybe, though not often. Cancer, AIDS, they don’t make people do it. They hang on to life. People with the chronic diseases, they’re the same — they hang on. What had your fellow got?’

  ‘Headaches,’ I said.

  ‘Headaches!’ he exploded. ‘If everybody who had a headache topped themselves, they’d be bringing truckloads into my wee mortuary.’

  ‘Do they always leave notes?’

  ‘Mostly. Not always. A lot of folk do it to get their own back on somebody, so they want to be sure they’ve made their point, so they leave a note, saying, “Dear Ethel, I cannot live without you a day longer”. That’s supposed to make Ethel feel bad about the fact that she’s run off to the Seychelles with the rent man.’

  I nodded. ‘What methods do people use?’

  ‘Painless ones, usually. It usetae be the gas oven till North Sea gas came in. Now everybody’s got a medicine cabinet with enough painkillers to wipe out a herd of buffalo, so it’s often an overdose. Sometimes it’s a gun, if they’ve got one. Occasionally it’s slit wrists in the bath, but not very often. That takes a certain amount of cold nerve. Then there’s exotic ones with fancy ideas — they’re usually men. Women take the soft options.’

  ‘Like what fancy ideas?’ asked Sheila.

  ‘There was a fellow once who took his lawnmower extension lead, stripped off, stood in his garden pond and jabbed the bare end of the lead up his bottom.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, he got a few nasty burns in some strange places and all his puir bloody goldfish were killed. If you’re going to do it, keep it simple, laddie.’

  ‘What about car exhausts?’

  ‘Aye. They’re quite popular. The modern version of the gas oven.’

  ‘Do they always put a hose in the exhaust?’

  ‘Usually. Otherwise it takes longer, unless it’s a very small garage.

  ‘Do they sit in the front or back seat, Doc?’ asked Sheila.

  ‘In the front — always. It’s their car for Heaven’s sake and they’re going to die in it, so they sit in the driver’s seat.’

  ‘What about one who didn’t?’

  ‘Didna what?’

  ‘Sit in the front seat. He was sitting in the back seat and the front passenger seat was out on the garage floor.’

  He looked at me sharply. ‘You’re talking about that laddie off the Wednesfield Road a couple of months ago. What was his name? — McBride, aye, that’s it.’

  I nodded. ‘That’s the one. You were at the Inquest. What do you think? — Suicide, accident, murder?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It had grown dark, but it was still warm. We sat in the light from the windows, Sheila and I looking at Mac. I had been relying on the experienced old pathologist to put an end to my doubts about Sean McBride’s death, and to do so on a solid factual basis. Instead, he had laid his doubts on top of mine.

  In the silence he hunched forward, taking his whisky glass in both hands and gazing into it as though it were a scrying glass.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘what you know about young McBride’s death — just the facts, none of your lawyers’ opinions and possibilities.’

  He remained hunched over his glass while I recited what I knew of the case. He half-closed his eyes and nodded occasionally as I mentioned something that he remembered. When I had done, he looked up, reached for the bottle and poured his glass full, takin
g a long sip before he spoke.

  ‘Sean McBride,’ he began at last, ‘was a perfectly healthy eighteen-year-old, so far as I could see. All his organs were healthy. There were no lesions or tumours of the brain to account for any headaches. I was told that the body had been found in a lock-up garage off the Wednesfield Road, slumped in the rear seat of his car. Examination of the blood established the cause of death as carbon monoxide poisoning. I was told that there was no hosepipe from the exhaust.

  ‘Examination of the lungs showed that there had not been — there was no soot in the lungs. I was also told that there was no suicide note, that the garage door was locked and that only the boy had a key to it. On those facts I would not say suicide, though it might be. I would most probably say accident.’

  ‘What kind of an accident?’ I asked.

  ‘I was shown photographs of the scene,’ he said, ‘and, as you say, the body was sprawled in the rear seat with the left foot in the space where the front passenger seat normally fits. That seat had been removed and was standing away from the car. It seemed to me that there was only one reason for the removal of the seat and the position of the body.’

  He sipped his drink while we waited. ‘Sex,’ he said at last. ‘Young McBride had been engaged in what, in my youth, we called the “Backseat Foxtrot”, hence the removal of the seat and the body being in the back instead of the front.’

  We nodded. ‘Right,’ I said, ‘that makes sense, but...’

  ‘It more than makes sense,’ he said. ‘Because the body was not found for days I couldn’t fix a precise time of death, but I could say that he had had sexual activity shortly before he died. It leaves physical and chemical indications and it’s a routine check in dealing with a dead youngster.’

  ‘You never said that before the Coroner,’ I said.

  ‘No, I didnae, and that was because I was most particularly asked not to.’

  ‘Who by?’ asked Sheila.

  ‘By the Coroner’s Officer. He explained to me that the boy had been having an affair with Tom Wellington’s schoolgirl daughter and that it would only cause grief and attract unnecessary publicity if I mentioned it. I had no problem with that. Strictly speaking it wasn’t the Coroner’s business. Under the Statute of Coronary his function is to enquire into how a dead person came to be one, not what they were doing when they were alive. I can tell you something else, as well. McBride and the girl — or a girl — had been using that garage regularly as a trysting place.’

  ‘You couldn’t tell that from the body,’ I said.

  ‘No, I couldnae, but I could tell it from the photographs. Along the side of the car was a litter of used condoms.’

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘Sean’s reason for going to the garage was an assignation with Sylvia Wellington and they had sex, but how do you reckon that he came to die by accident?’

  ‘They did their business,’ he said, ‘and she went home. If it was Sylvie Wellington she wouldnae stay out late. Daddy would never stand for it. She slipped away home and left him sitting in the love seat. He lit a cigarette and stayed there — there were fag ends on the floor of the car and one burned down between his fingers. He also ran the engine to warm himself. It was a chilly night.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Aye. The nights were chilly all that weekend. I checked with Edgbaston Observatory. Anyway, he ran the motor, the fumes built up and he died quietly.’

  ‘Why did he run the motor in a closed space? He was garage mechanic — he must have known the risk?’ asked Sheila.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, testily. ‘You’ll be asking me next why he was wearing white underpants and not blue yins! That meets most of the evidence and doesnae contradict anything. Perhaps he asked her to leave the door a wee bit open and she didn’t, who knows. But it was an accident, you mark my words.’

  ‘You could have said that at the Inquest,’ I remarked.

  ‘Aye, so I could and what good would that have done. His poor bloody mother has three choices — suicide, accident or murder. If it’s suicide she has to live with the idea that he was so unhappy he killed himself; if it was accident she has to live with the fact that his death was totally pointless. At least if it was murder there’s a villain behind it, one who can be caught and punished. Why would I tell her it was an accident, when I don’t have to?’

  ‘You crafty old bugger! You always thought it was an accident. You checked with the Observatory,’ Sheila said.

  Mac eyed me sadly. ‘Why d’ye have to take up with clever lasses?’ he asked.

  ‘Because they’re the first to spot my attractions. Anyway, my ex-wife wasn’t very clever, so that’s only one out of two.’

  Sheila laid a firm hand on my arm. And there isn’t going to be a third,’ she announced.

  ‘You’re that sure?’ said Mac.

  ‘Too right I am! If I suspect anything, he’ll suddenly predecease me.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘getting back to where we were — you’re sure it was an accident?’

  ‘It’s the simplest explanation, Chris, and the simplest explanation is usually the right one.’

  ‘Not always,’ I said, and got up to go indoors.

  I brought Kath McBride’s tape and a cassette player back to the table. I told them about the phone calls and I played them the whole of the tape. All three of us sat in silence while the plaintive old air floated over the dark garden.

  ‘Sounds like Delia Murphy,’ said Mac when the music ended. I switched off.

  ‘Who’s she?’ asked Sheila.

  ‘She was an Irish singer from before your time. Wife of the Irish Minister to Australia. Made records of sentimental Irish ballads, “The Spinning Wheel”, “Three Lovely Lasses From Bannion” and that. She probably did “She Moved Through The Fair”. It certainly sounds like her.’

  ‘Does it matter who she is?’ said Sheila. ‘What’s it mean?’

  She looked at me. I shook my head. ‘You tell me. I don’t know. Perhaps it means he was murdered.’

  ‘It means somebody thinks he knows something about it, anyway,’ Mac said.

  ‘Why that song?’ asked Sheila.

  We went at it. As the moon came up we sat around and argued every reasonable and many unreasonable theories about the song. It turned cold and we moved indoors for coffee, still arguing. Mac wandered deep into Celtic folklore and the significance of swans, I argued the differences between events in the song, Sheila kept coming back to the point at which the recording ended.

  ‘It’s the same tape being played on each call,’ she said. ‘It’s been recorded from an old-fashioned disc — you can hear someone taking the pick-up off. So, there’s a deliberate choice to end at that point in the song. It has to mean something.’

  ‘Then it’s emphasising the reference to a secret,’ I said.

  ‘But what secret can it be? A secret between Sean and the girl? A secret about Sean and the girl? A secret about how he died?’

  We gave up and the Doc rang for a cab. As it arrived and he stood up to go a thoughtful expression crossed his face.

  ‘In the song the girl dies and comes back for the boy. It was the boy who died in reality. Does that mean that the girl’s next? Is that what it’s saying?’

  CHAPTER TEN

  The morning mail in the office brought a letter on an unfamiliar letterhead. My client Samson had given me a plain name and an address in Shropshire as the details of the landowner who had nicked the ponies belonging to Samson and his pals, but the reply was on the notepaper of something called ‘The Maiden Group.’

  The interests listed on the heading were varied and impressive — construction, freight haulage, vehicle hire, security — even leisure and entertainment. The owner of all this profitable activity was the landowner, Dennis Maiden, whose vigorous signature was scrawled under a short, blunt text. It said:

  ‘Re: Trespass by Ponies — Thank you for your letter. I am not prepared to let my field to your clients. I enclose my bill for their use of my la
nd and for my expenses in rounding-up and removing the animals. If this sum is not paid within seven days, I shall dispose of the animals as I think fit.’

  Well, he was quite entitled not to let his field if he didn’t want to, and his charges for grazing were perfectly reasonable. It was the second part of the bill that raised my hackles. It seemed that it had taken two drivers, two hired vehicles and six other men, a total of six hours to travel to the field, round up two tame ponies and transport them to wherever they were. Since it had been done on a Sunday, all these men had been paid at double-time, and none of them were casual labourers. You might have thought that an enterprise as big as the Maiden Group could have found a few blokes who’d like to earn a few quid on a Sunday, but it seemed not. The labour employed had been a crane-driver, a bulldozer driver, a security supervisor and assorted craftsmen — very well-paid craftsmen by the look of their double-time rates.

  It was a blatant try-on and it made me angry — so angry that, without thinking much about the accessibility of the owners of fat companies, I snatched up the phone and punched out the Wolverhampton number at the top of the letter.

  By the time the number was ringing I realised that I was going to end up being bounced around the Maiden Group’s switchboard and end up leaving a message with a secretary. I was wrong. To my surprise I was quickly connected to the man himself.

  ‘Dennis Maiden,’ said a strong Black Country voice.

  I introduced myself and said that I’d received his letter.

  ‘So, when can I expect your cheque?’ he said.

  I gritted my teeth. ‘My clients,’ I said, ‘are quite willing to pay your reasonable charges for the period that the animals grazed on your land, and I’ve no quarrel with the amount you suggest.’

  ‘It’s not a suggestion. It’s a demand,’ he interrupted.

  I gritted my teeth again. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I’ve no wish to argue about the grazing charge, but your expenses for rounding-up the animals are completely over the top. Added to which, the local police knew whose ponies they were. All you had to do was contact my clients and ask them to shift the animals.’