A Fatal Obsession Page 6

  Although she had not loved Reginald when she married him, she had grown fond of him over the years. She’d always loved her children, naturally. But even here she had never worn blinders, or been one of those mothers who insisted on seeing their offspring as veritable angels.

  Which had been just as well.

  Beatrice had always insisted on seeing life as it really was. And past bitter experience had taught her that, when faced with adversity, it was no use trying to bury your head in the sand. You had to face things head-on, and try to find a way to make the best of it.

  So she quickly swallowed back the bile that had risen to her throat, and put down her toast with only a slight shaking of her hand. A quick glance told her that neither of the men at the table had noticed anything amiss.

  This didn’t surprise her either. To her husband, over the years, she had become more or less a fixture of the house – a vaguely valued one, like a really good chesterfield sofa, or a rather elegant painting that hung on the wall, quietly accruing value. And to her son…Beatrice sometimes wondered if Rex was actually aware she existed at all.

  ‘I shall need to see that idiot over at Binsey Lumber again,’ her husband was saying now. ‘What on earth made him think he could just order twenty lorries at five minutes notice and ex…’

  Beatrice had no problem in tuning the droning words out, while giving every appearance of hanging on to his every word – and even offering a sympathetic murmur at just the right moment. She’d had years of patient practice with that particular skill, after all.

  And if she thought she caught Rex eyeing her closely, she ignored that too. She was used to his silent antagonism. And understood it. Not that there was anything she could do about it.

  Ostensibly Rex was a student, but he seemed to spend little time at college, and even less time studying.

  But while she hadn’t entirely given up on mending her broken relationship with her son, now wasn’t the time to worry about that. She had a more immediate problem at hand.

  Instead, her thoughts went back to the first time she’d seen Jonathan McGillicuddy, almost seven years ago now. A handsome, golden Adonis of a youth, she could remember that long-ago summer as if it were yesterday.

  It had been the summer that her life, and that of her family, had turned to ashes.

  And now he was dead too. And not only dead, but murdered.

  She took a deep, shaky breath.

  Surely this could have nothing to do with her, though? It couldn’t affect her, or her family, could it? It had to be a coincidence. People died all the time. And she hadn’t seen or spoken to him since…

  Time passed in something of a fog. Her husband kissed her on the cheek, as he always did, before leaving for the office. Rex made some laconic comment about what he was going to do with the rest of his day, and sauntered off.

  Beatrice was only vaguely aware of it all. Her tea went cold, her toast was left uneaten.

  Jonathan McGillicuddy was dead. And somehow, Beatrice Fleet-Wright just knew this was going to spell disaster all over again. Disaster for herself and her family, just when she’d thought they’d finally managed to emerge from all the anguish and despair of the past, and those awful events.

  She’d thought, then, that nothing could be worse than that.

  And on the face of it, the death of someone from her past could hardly compare with the loss of a child and the scandal of the coroner’s inquest. And all the long years of loneliness, guilt and fear she had endured since.

  When you thought about it logically, what could possibly be worse than that?

  And yet, as she forced herself to read the scant details about the death of a landscape gardener she had once, briefly and tragically, known, Beatrice could just feel in her bones that the worst was yet to come.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The coroner’s inquest into the death of Jonathan Paul McGillicuddy was opened six days later, on a cold and grey windswept day in late January. All of those with business at either the court or the mortuary, which both shared a courtyard at the end of Floyds Row in the city of Oxford, were huddled up in their warmest clothes, and were glad to get in out of the elements.

  Dr Clement Ryder watched his court filling up from a half-open doorway in the corridor connecting to his private rooms, and waited for the moment he would be called in by the usher.

  He felt well today, his body free of aches and any damned tremors, and he was mentally reviewing the morning ahead and what needed to be done – which, at this early stage, would be very little. Experience had quickly taught him just how brief the inquest itself would be, unlike the general public, who’d come out in droves expecting to see some kind of spectacle. This rather ghoulish phenomenon was something the coroner was used to now, and he had little sympathy for the morbidly curious masses who would go away sadly disappointed.

  He’d already spoken to the investigating officer on the McGillicuddy case, DI Harry Jennings, a sound enough police officer in his opinion, if rather lacking in imagination. They wanted an adjournment, of course, to give them time to gather more evidence, and naturally he’d ensure they got it.

  It wasn’t an unusual request in the early stages of a murder inquiry.

  He heard his cue to enter and walked confidently into the court, feeling, as he always did, a certain sense of satisfaction in the sudden silence that fell over the room as he appeared. Taking his seat, he looked around the packed room. He noted, with a wry smile of distaste, the presence of the press. Then he glanced at the front seats, where members of the families concerned were usually to be found, and quickly picked out the victim’s mother.

  A small, shrunken lady, she looked pale and bewildered and lost.

  He caught her eye, and nodded gently at her. He didn’t smile. He never did smile while in court. He hadn’t gone around grinning like a loon when he’d been in the operating theatre, and he didn’t see why he should set about doing so now he was the public face of the judiciary system.

  Mavis McGillicuddy, looking up at the silver-haired, smartly dressed and rather distinguished-looking man who seemed to rule over this baffling world of law and medicine like a demi-god, swallowed hard and managed to nod back.

  She understood nothing about what was about to happen, and a lot of the traditional pomp and circumstance surrounding the proceedings swept right over her head. But she instinctively felt that the man who was clearly in charge of everything would do right by her son.

  But, in truth, she was finding it hard to care about the pursuit of truth and justice. The police had talked to her endlessly the past few days, asking questions about Jonathan and his life. At one point, they even seemed to suspect that she and her boy weren’t close, and that all wasn’t well at home, but she didn’t care about that either. She’d been too tired to even get angry. Her neighbour had now all but taken over looking after Marie, but, so help her, she couldn’t even seem to care about that either.

  The only thing she knew or cared about was that her son was gone and she’d never see him again.

  Clement firmly moved his gaze on from Mavis McGillicuddy’s blank-eyed face as he called the court to order and proceeded along the well-worn and now-familiar path of opening a coroner’s court proceeding. Once the initial preliminaries were over, the members of the jury had been instructed as to what was expected of them, and the clerks were happy with the state of their paperwork, DI Jennings was called to the stand.

  As expected, the policeman made short work of stating the facts surrounding the case, giving away as little as possible about what the police were thinking, and asked for an adjournment in order for the police to gather more evidence.

  Clement succinctly gave it.

  He nodded to the clerk to make a proper record of this concession and, as he did so, eyed the journalists and reporters scribbling in their notebooks with a jaundiced eye. Early on, when he’d first been appointed, one or two of them had thought they might be able to take advantage of his inexperience and ge
t a few morsels of information out of him regarding one of his more lurid cases. His response had since become legendary, and now no reporter, even the most ferociously ambitious or impertinent, would ever dream of approaching him.

  It was while DI Jennings was leaving the witness stand, and his eyes were roving generally around the room, that Clement first noticed the woman sitting in the public gallery. At first he couldn’t have said why she should have caught his attention. She was perhaps a shade better dressed than most of those in the packed room, but while she was handsome enough, she was hardly eye-catching. Perhaps it was the air of stillness that seemed to surround her, or the look of calm but razor-sharp focus in her gaze as she watched DI Jennings, that tweaked his inner radar.

  Perhaps it was just instinct.

  She certainly didn’t have the look of the average bystander, or one of those repressed members of the public who came in hopes of hearing some titillating secret being unearthed, or else gruesome descriptions of death and injury.

  He was so busy trying to figure out why she interested him that it actually took him a moment to realise he’d actually seen her before somewhere. Many years ago – in circumstances that, he rather thought, hadn’t been particularly comfortable.

  But before he could pursue the elusive memory, he lost sight of her as the room began to slowly empty, with spectators and court personnel filing out through the narrow doorway.

  For a few minutes he remained in the empty room, sitting as still as a hunting heron on his chair, and thinking furiously. Just where had he seen those green eyes, set in that pale face and with that dark frame of hair, before?

  He had a brief flashback – an impression of her stoic calm and dull voice – and was convinced she’d somehow known great pain and loss. And yet she hadn’t been a participant in one of his courts, of that much at least he was sure. He had a clear and precise recall of all the cases he’d presided over – and there was nothing wrong with his memory.

  Unless this damned disease had begun to rob him of some of his mental faculties? Angrily, he shook his head, stubbornly refusing to give credence to such a disaster.

  And yet… Yes – it was coming back to him now. And he had seen her in a coroner’s court before – just not one he’d been presiding over!

  When he’d first decided to become a coroner, he’d started haunting the courts, sitting in the public gallery and watching as case after case was heard, listening and distilling the essence of what was happening. And one particular case…

  Suddenly he snapped his fingers and, reaching forward, picked up his copy of the McGillicuddy folder and stared intently at the victim’s name.

  And suddenly he had it.

  McGillicuddy.

  Of course, that’s where he’d seen her before.

  Slowly, he leaned back in his chair, a small smile playing on his lips. Now he understood what had brought Beatrice Fleet-Wright to this inquest.

  And he wondered.

  He wondered quite a lot.

  He’d thought there had been something very wrong about the Fleet-Wright case. But at the time he’d been in no position to question the residing coroner’s verdict. He hadn’t even started his training then. But that hadn’t stopped it from grating on him. He’d been convinced then that a number of the witnesses in that case had lied. Lied and lied again. And that one of the worst of these offenders had been Mrs Beatrice Fleet-Wright.

  He hadn’t liked the evidence of the PC either – the first responder at the scene. He hadn’t trusted him one inch.

  And Clement had had no doubt that the verdict handed down had been wrong – very wrong.

  Naturally, he’d known it would be pointless to interfere. The coroner, one of his now-retired but very esteemed predecessors, wouldn’t have listened to the opinions of a man – no matter how eminent in his own field – who hadn’t even had the benefit of any legal education.

  Besides, Clement had got the distinct impression that, behind the scenes, some very delicate wrangling was going on. Not that he’d ever have been able to prove it.

  So, he’d had to just let it slide – much as it went against the grain. And it was one of the many reasons why, when he’d taken office, he’d sworn to himself there would never be anything iffy about any of his cases. Everything would be out in the open and above board, able to withstand any amount of public scrutiny.

  He knew his way of doing things had made him a lot of enemies, but everyone, from the police and the Town Hall, to Oxford’s wealthiest and most prominent people, knew he couldn’t be bought, cajoled, fooled or lied to. He simply wouldn’t tolerate it.

  And now, finally – perhaps he just might be in a position to do something about that earlier case as well? If he was very careful and rather clever?

  CHAPTER TEN

  DI Jennings returned to his office with the satisfied air of a man who had just completed one hurdle and now faced several more. Not that he’d expected any trouble at the inquest, of course, but with Dr Clement Ryder presiding, there was always that chance.

  The coroner was notorious for his unpredictability, a fact Jennings and the rest of the city police knew only too well. Oh, he was a very clever man, the Inspector willingly conceded, and without doubt knew his stuff – both legal and medical. Everybody knew he’d once been a surgeon, and many was the time he’d tripped up the police surgeons or other professional medical witnesses when they’d been giving evidence, catching them out on some minor point or honing in on something they’d been trying to fudge over. Which hardly endeared the coroner to them, naturally. Medicos were used to getting their own way, and it definitely didn’t please them when the man they were giving evidence to clearly knew more about medicine than they did!

  Not that the police got off lightly either. Many a PC – and occasional sergeant, or even DI – had felt the cutting, sardonic lash of Dr Clement Ryder when they’d tried to pull a fast one in his court.

  But the man was scrupulously fair and, to give him due credit, had a legal mind every bit as sharp as his medical one, allied to an uncanny instinct and nose for the truth, which allowed him to spot the lies witnesses slipped past the jury. And he would have none of it. Once the coroner’s inquest was called into session, there was no doubt at all who was in charge. To be fair again, he had a real passion for seeing justice done.

  Perhaps, Jennings thought wryly, therein lay the problem. Sometimes Dr Clement bloody Ryder thought he knew better than the police did. Four times in the past, he’d strongly called into question the line the police were trying to take in a case. More annoyingly still, in all four cases he’d eventually been proved right – to the intense embarrassment of the police team investigating the cases. And while he and his colleagues knew that a coroner’s jury, made up of ordinary members of the public, could be steered, very gently and carefully, into giving the verdict the police favoured, you didn’t try that on when Dr Ryder was overseeing the case.

  Still, so far, Harry Jennings had never fallen foul of the egotistical, astute coroner, and would take pains to make sure he never did. The last thing he wanted to do was lock horns with the likes of Dr Ryder. The man might be a menace, but he also had friends in high places.

  So now, as he sat down behind his desk, he breathed a gentle sigh of relief that the McGillicuddy inquest had gone so smoothly and, pulling open a file, began rereading the latest findings on the Deering case.

  When Sir Marcus had finally come clean about what might have been behind the chilling anonymous letters, he’d had his team investigate the fire at once. At first it had seemed such an obvious and overwhelming lead; but the more they’d gone into it, the less likely it seemed. As Sir Marcus had insisted, it was hard to see how anyone could blame him for what had happened.

  The facts were simple. When Sir Marcus had left university, nearly thirty years ago now, he’d taken a position as personnel manager at a large retail warehouse in Birmingham. The warehouse had been the repository for a wide range of merchandise that qui
ckly found its way to shops in the area, including everything from bed linens and ceramics, to gas tanks for domestic use, to wooden furniture and cleaning agents. In other words, several items that were highly flammable.

  One autumn day, when there had been a brisk wind blowing, a forklift operator, taking a break and smoking a cigarette, had accidentally started a fire that had quickly swept through the large building, killing three and badly burning five more people, including the forklift operator. The blaze had been made worse by the high winds, which had helped sweep it to all areas, creating a veritable inferno.

  The company had admitted responsibility, and their insurance had made payments to the next of kin of those who had died, and had also made some reparation to the injured – although, at the time, the victims hadn’t been overly impressed with the generosity of the payments.

  The fire had naturally been thoroughly investigated, and been adjudicated an accident. The forklift driver had been spared prison on account of his serious burns, but had died barely a year later – some said of guilt, while others insisted he’d drunk himself to death.

  But as Sir Marcus had pointed out, no reasonable person could ever have said or believed that he was in any way personally to blame for the tragedy. He wasn’t the employee in charge of health and safety, he wasn’t a fire marshal, and hadn’t even been at work on the day of the accident. In fact, the only way he could be said to have any connection to it at all was that, as the personnel officer, he had been responsible for the hiring of the forklift driver. But even then, the man had had a spotless record and, before the accident, had certainly not been known to be a heavy drinker. So how could anyone hold him responsible? And why now, after all this time, would they be seeking retribution?

  While Jennings was inclined to agree with Sir Marcus that no reasonable person would blame him, it was also a fact that no reasonable person would write threatening letters and then make good on those threats by actually murdering a totally innocent man.