The Coroner (57 page)

    Those
who understood smiled. The rest were losing interest. Jenny nodded to Arvel,
certain she'd soon have their attention again. 'Would you please hand the
envelope to Mr Grantham.'

    As
Arvel carried the Jiffy bag across to the witness chair, Jenny said, 'Do you
recall the date Mr Marshall suffered his fatal coronary?'

    Not
liking the turn her questions were taking, Grantham twisted his neck in his
collar, as if it were too tight. 'Not the exact date, no.'

    Jenny
double-checked her notes. 'He died in the early hours of Friday 4 May. On
Thursday the 3rd he posted an item of recorded mail to you. I have the receipt
if you wish to see it later.'

    He
looked suspiciously at the envelope that had been handed to him.

    'Do
you recognize the handwriting on the address label as Mr Marshall's?'

    Grantham
peered at the distinctive, looping script. 'It resembles his.'

    'The
envelope was addressed to you at your office but you didn't sign for it. Why
was that?'

    'The
post goes to our mail room. I'd never be there to sign for anything
personally.'

    A
fact Marshall must have known, surely. Jenny wondered if he ever meant for it
to arrive, or if he had seen as far as the situation they were now in, his sins
and Grantham's dragged simultaneously into the public gaze.

    Jenny
said, 'For reasons of confidentiality I don't intend the contents of that
envelope to be made public, but would you please look at them.'

    Arvel
stood in front of Grantham, screening him from the rest of the courtroom,
affording the jury only a sideways view. With clumsy fingers, Grantham reached
into the envelope and brought out the photographs with Harry's handwritten note
attached:
Dear Frank, Your friend. H.
She watched his expression turn
from apprehensive to horrified as he glanced at the first photograph, then the
second and third.

    'Hand
them back to the usher when you've seen enough.'

    He
fumbled the photographs back into the envelope, which Arvel took and carried to
his desk. A room full of reporters saw the undisguised shock on Grantham's
face. Williams, standing against the wall at the back of the room, gave Jenny a
look of approval, admiring the elegant way she'd handled him.

    With
no trace of admonishment, she said, 'I appreciate you oversee a department that
must be dealing with literally hundreds of issues at any one time, but I would
ask you to cast your mind back and think again. Are you sure you know nothing
about a tender?'

    Pamela
Sharpe and Hartley both rose at once with the same objection. Miss Sharpe got
the first word in. 'Ma'am, can the witness please be informed of his right
against self- incrimination?'

    'Certainly.
Mr Grantham, you do not have to say anything which may incriminate you.' She
turned to the jury. 'In other words, a witness does not have to answer a
question the answer to which may lay him open to criminal charges.'

    The
lawyers resumed their seats, leaving Grantham on the horns of a dilemma. Jenny
watched him look out at the rows of eager press, calculating how much they
would dig out in any event, and weighing it against what would be made of his
silence if he refused to answer. With admirable nerve, he turned to the jury
and said, 'Obviously we deal with thousands of planning applications. Now that
I'm thinking about it, I do recall an enquiry relating to some sort of juvenile
prison.'

    Jenny
said, 'Do you know if the plan was to build the prison on local-authority-owned
land?'

    The
flare of alarm in his eyes gave her the answer, but Pamela Sharpe's look
stopped him from giving it. Jenny wanted to push him, to get the fact admitted
so she could legitimately go after the details until the whole rotten core of
the deal and the reason for UKAM's cover-up had been exposed, but she sensed he
had gone as far as he would. His expression now became one of entrenched
stubbornness. He had calculated that he could distance himself from the
photographs of Harry Marshall, leaving him only one problem to deal with, on
ground he controlled.

    She
probed one last time. 'You must know if your authority was doing a land deal
with UKAM Secure Solutions Ltd on a multi-million-pound contract.'

    Calling
her bluff, Grantham said, 'I would have to consult with those who handle such
matters and come back to you.'

    What
worried her was the fact that, given time, he could bury the trail, spend the
night in the office feeding the shredders, but any more questions would meet
with the same resistance. She agreed on a compromise. 'I'll stand you down
while I take evidence from the next witness. You can make the necessary
enquiries by telephone. Please don't go any further than a hundred yards from
this building. I expect an answer by the end of the morning.'

    He
hurried from the witness chair and marched outside, pursued by his twitching
solicitor. From the back of the hall Williams gave her a nod, as if to say
she'd done what he needed, enough to get him through Grantham's office door.

    Moving
straight on, she called Dr Peterson forward. She had expected the lawyers to
rise as one to demand a private audience in chambers, where they would demand
to know what it was in the envelope and what exactly Grantham was accused of
being involved in. But as Peterson threaded his way to the front, the three
counsel were locked in secret discussion: Hartley and Golding seemed to be in
cahoots and Pamela Sharpe appeared to be hearing something shocking for the
first time.

    Peterson's
face was lined with fatigue; it wouldn't have surprised her to learn that he
hadn't slept since receiving his summons. While she had no sympathy for
Grantham, there was a part of her which felt for the overworked pathologist.
There could be no way back for a member of his profession who had wilfully
covered up evidence which might have proved an unlawful killing.

    'Dr
Peterson, you examined Danny Wills's body on Monday 16 April and concluded that
his death was a simple case of suicide - that he asphyxiated by hanging himself
from the bars of his cell window with a strip of bed sheet.'

    'That's
right.'

    'And
that is what you told the inquest Mr Marshall held on i May, isn't it?'

    'Yes.'

    He
couldn't have sounded more contrite, but Jenny noticed Golding was showing no
obvious signs of concern. The lawyers' attitude was disconcerting.

    'Could
you confirm, please, that you conducted a second examination of Danny's body on
Monday 2.3 April.'

    There
was an excited rustle of paper as the journalists who had followed the story
scented a revelation.

    Peterson
said, 'Yes. On the Monday morning Mr Marshall asked me to examine the body
again.'

    The
fact that he had answered at all was surprising. She had expected him to claim
his right against self-incrimination. What it meant, she didn't have time to
think through. She had to plough on.

    'Can
you tell me why you carried out that second examination?'

    'Mr
Marshall telephoned me on that Monday morning and asked me to. He said that he
had received information that Danny might have been involved in violence of
some sort prior to his death and requested that I check for any signs of
injury.'

    'Did
he say that this information had come from a fellow inmate at Portshead Farm,
Katy Taylor?'

    'No.
He didn't tell me where it came from.'

    Jenny
tried to read him. He was flat, solemn, but not shocked like Grantham had been.
He was
resigned.
She glanced again at Golding and it dawned on her that
he and Hartley already knew the worst, perhaps even about the photographs of
Marshall, and were somehow prepared with a tactical response. She took another
mint from her packet.

    'What
did you find when you examined him again?'

    Peterson
reached into his pocket and pulled out a document. 'Would you like me to read
you my report?'

    Jenny
said yes, if he wouldn't mind. While she struggled to make sense of what was
happening, he read out his report concluding that Danny had suffered restraint
injuries at a time proximate to his death, and could have been partially
conscious or even unconscious when he was hanged from the sheet.

    'Does
that mean, Dr Peterson, that it's possible in your opinion that he didn't hang
himself, but was hanged by someone else?'

    Simone
Wills held on to her friend's hand, too shocked for tears.

    'All
I can say is that it's possible. I see lots of hangings where there are signs
that the victim has tried to loosen the ligature and a number where there
aren't any. I couldn't possibly say either way.'

    'But
he did have injuries consistent with forced restraint, to the extent that a
patch of his hair had been pulled out.'

    'Yes.'

    'And
you gave this second report to Mr Marshall?'

    'Yes,
I did.'

    Jurors
exchanged looks. Journalists whispered to each other, but the lawyers barely
reacted. The lump in Jenny's throat swelled, a rock sitting in her oesophagus.
She took a gulp of water.

    'The
question then remains why you didn't mention this second examination at the
inquest into Danny's death held by Mr Marshall?'

    'On
the Friday beforehand, 27 April, he telephoned me to say that he had received
evidence that Danny had been involved in altercations with staff which
explained the injuries. He said could I please not mention them in open court
because it would lead the family to believe he had been murdered when clearly
he hadn't been: all the evidence, including CCTV, he said, proved that Danny
was alone in his cell at the time of his death.'

    'He asked
you to suppress evidence to stop his family jumping to conclusions?'

    Peterson
glanced apologetically towards Simone. 'I'll put it in context. For the entire
fourteen years I've been in my job, Harry Marshall was the coroner. From time
to time we dealt with distressing deaths, usually suicides, where he was very
keen to deliver a clear verdict. He said to me on many occasions that if
families didn't come away knowing exactly how their loved one had died, it
could destroy not just one but many lives. I didn't always agree with him, and
on this occasion I'm not afraid to say I was wrong not to make these findings
public. Since that inquest I had resolved to make them known, and I am grateful
now for the opportunity to do so. I would add, however, that I would not alter
my original finding of suicide. I firmly believe that Danny Wills died by his
own hand.'

    Her
lunch lay uneaten on her desk, her stomach so tight with tension she could
barely swallow her own saliva. Every calculation she had made was wrong. Not
asking Grantham to explain the photographs in public, and not having forced him
to an answer on the tender, had allowed him to slip through her fingers. He had
come back to the box before the recess with a vague formulation about the local
authority having been approached by UKAM over a possible purchase of land, but
flatly denied any personal involvement. She could have pushed him harder, asked
him to deny outright any contact with UKAM, but she'd succumbed to her desire
not to appear oppressive. She'd let her own weakness get in the way of exposing
the ultimate motive for UKAM's cover-up. Maybe Williams would find evidence of
his corruption eventually, but it would be too late to have any impact on her
inquest.

    The
revelation of Peterson's second examination had also misfired. She had expected
him to deny it, or at least to have refused to answer, creating a cloud of
suspicion that would have left the jury in no doubt there was a reason for his
previous silence which amounted to deliberate deception. Instead, he had
expertly shifted the blame to Harry Marshall and at the same time neutralized
the evidence of Danny's injuries. How he had found the courage to take such an
audacious risk, she didn't know. Perhaps he had so much dirt on so many
surgeons at the Vale he had frightened his bosses into letting him keep his job
in exchange for his silence on their negligence and misdemeanours. However he
had arrived at his decision, it was clearly one the lawyers knew about. Their
expressions during his testimony had confirmed to her beyond doubt that they
were playing to a plan. And so far it was going their way.