London, the inquest
Madeleine arrives last, standing at the back of the courtroom, near the exit. From here her eyes scan the backs of heads. It’s busier than it was yesterday on the press benches, the sharks swarming in preparation for the final day, due to begin any moment.
The coroner rustles papers at the front of the room, ahead of the first witness statement of the morning. Why is she taking so long? This is partly why Madeleine hates coming to court; the whole bloody thing is so protracted. She should have finished her second coffee after all, but she had been worried she would be late. Again, she had struggled to sleep, thoughts rattling through her mind.
Her eyes move to the clock at the front of the room. Ten o’clock.
Time takes on new form in this room, and new meaning. Time is all they have, the dead whose final moments are sieved through and assessed in small, digestible pieces. Time and the prospect of justice, or – as often as not – no justice at all. Either way, whatever decisions are made in this room are only ever made after the fact, and what use is that to the dead?
As she looks away, a head turns from the press benches, and Madeleine blinks as though her eyes might be deceiving her.
Harry doesn’t notice her and instinctively she feels herself lean back, out of view. What the hell is he doing here?
There is a rustling of papers as the coroner looks up and Madeleine’s attention is drawn back towards the front of the room. ‘The court will now hear from Sarah Marshall.’
The woman taking the stand is in her early forties. She is what might be described as frumpy, the very opposite of the image of Anna, the elusive socialite, depicted in the papers. But then friends don’t have to be alike, do they? Madeleine’s mind slides towards Gabriela. They’d had hardly anything in common, besides their jobs. But then look how that friendship had ended … She blinks, blotting out the image of the children. How could Gabriela have let it happen? How could she have drawn her family into something so devastating? She thinks, then, of Ivan, trying to imagine what he must be feeling in his jail cell, awaiting trial. Does he feel an inch of remorse for all of this? Something tells her he is not the sort of man who would accept blame for anything, even the loss of his own child, and her mother.
‘Mrs Marshall,’ the coroner says, as the woman facing the court finishes her oath. ‘Could you please explain how you knew Anna Witherall?’
‘Our daughters were friends from nursery. I, too, had lost my husband, a couple of years earlier. After Rose and Stella’s father passed, I offered to help occasionally. Anna …’ Sarah pushes a piece of hair away from her eyes. ‘She didn’t appear to have a huge number of friends …’
‘And please could you tell us what happened the night Anna died.’
Sarah stops and closes her eyes, taking a moment to collect herself.
‘Anna had something she needed to do in the day. I took the girls; it was only going to be for a couple of hours but when I spoke to her on the phone to check in on her, I offered to keep them a bit longer.’
‘Check in on her?’
Sarah pauses. ‘I mean, I just wanted to see if she was all right.’
The coroner waits encouragingly. ‘And how did she seem?’
‘She seemed … I don’t know, I mean her husband had recently died and she had two young children to look after alone. I would say she seemed distracted, tired, maybe in shock?’
‘And what happened next?’
‘I offered to look after the girls a little longer and bring them home around six.’ Her voice cracks.
‘It’s OK,’ the coroner says. ‘Take your time.’
‘We live just on the other side of Hampstead, but it was freezing so I decided to drive. I didn’t want to risk Rose and Stella catching a cold.’ Sarah swallows at the memory of the girls, looking down at her hands.
‘Please, take your time,’ the coroner says.
‘When we got to the house I left Mabel, my daughter, in the car. The lights were off, which I thought was a bit odd, I suppose.’
Sarah breathes deeply.
‘I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt something wasn’t right as we approached the house so I told the girls to get back in the car with Mabel. I can’t explain it. It was just a feeling. And then, I knocked on the door and there was no answer. When I tried Anna’s phone, I could hear it ringing inside so I looked through the letter box to see if there was a light on in the kitchen or …’
There is silence as Sarah stops, moving her hand to her mouth. Tears stream down her cheeks and the coroner says nothing, leaving the witness to gather herself.
‘I could see her, hanging from the stairs.’
She nods, as if confirming something to herself.
‘If I hadn’t offered to keep the girls later …’ Her voice cracks and there is a cry from the front row that Madeleine can’t place. ‘I called the ambulance, but I could already see that it was too late.’
* * *
Madeleine waits outside the courtroom for Harry at recess while they prepare for the coroner’s conclusion but he is nowhere to be found.
She hasn’t seen him since Gabriela. They had spoken briefly on the phone but they hadn’t met face-to-face: what would be the point? She knows exactly what happened to them, and she has told herself it is understandable that Harry would want to keep as much distance as possible from the case.
She tries his phone but it is off. As she slides the handset back into her bag she looks up and another face in the crowd catches her attention.
‘Isobel?’ The reporter looks up at Madeleine as she approaches, smiling in recognition.
‘Madeleine? Oh wow. How are you doing? I didn’t expect—’
Madeleine’s mind returns to the article she had read in the Camden News, before Sean mentioned the connection between Vasiliev and Witherall. A month of digging later, they were hardly any further than they had been, though that was hardly surprising with a case such as this – everywhere they turned, walls seemed to rise up in front of them, blocking any kind of meaningful progress. Even with the testimony of Popov’s maid, things weren’t exactly progressing. Still, the years of work on breaking the phone encryption was at last appearing fruitful and if they could pull that off, there would be hope …
It is unlikely that Isobel will hold any meaningful answers, but it’s worth a shot. From the little she knows of the young reporter, she is nothing if not tenacious.
‘Would you be free for a chat later?’ Madeleine asks.
‘I can’t today.’ Isobel takes a drag of her roll-up. ‘I’ll have to run straight off to file my copy as soon as the conclusion is announced, but I can manage tomorrow. This is my card …’
‘That’s fine,’ Madeleine replies. ‘Actually, I’ve got to look for someone quickly—’
She is interrupted by the sound of the coroner’s officer calling them inside.
‘Oh,’ Isobel says, grinding out her rollie with the sole of her Converse boot. ‘Sounds like we’re going back in.’