Wednesday, 15 March, 4 p.m.
Terence Marconi came in with his grandmother. He was a quiet, contained, thin boy with a strange, shadowy presence, almost sliding into the room after Bridget, a set expression on his face, eyes fixed on the floor, determined not to cry. Martha picked up on a wary, watchful child with a guarded demeanour. Whatever he knew he was not going to share. Martha recognized his stance. The boy had his defences up. He had his mother’s dark hair and was not unlike the stepfather he would not now have.
Bridget, Gina’s mother, looked like a bag of sagging, empty, pale skin, as though the personality Dr Milligan had described had had the life sucked out of it. She was tidily dressed in a dark woollen jacket over black trousers and was surprisingly short. Her hair was salt and pepper, cut neat and framed a face that was alert and, before this incident, would probably have looked lively – even merry. Not now. Like her prospective son-in-law, she too must have lost weight over the last few days. Her clothes were loose, the skin on her neck saggy. She had a pleasantly quiet and polite manner, a soft voice with only the tiniest hint of an Irish brogue. Gina’s voice had been louder, more commanding, but she had also been easy to listen to, judging by the crowd of listeners at the ball. It had been a voice that would lull the court into agreeing with her. Maybe that was one of the reasons for her success as a criminal lawyer – a pleasant voice must be an asset to persuade a jury of your client’s innocence.
Even if he was guilty? Perhaps Gina’s voice had been instrumental in freeing felons.
‘Thank you so much for seeing us,’ Bridget opened with as though they had been the ones to request the meeting. Polite and charming; her daughter had been the same.
Martha responded in neutral gear, simply nodding. ‘I generally do,’ she said, ‘in cases which are tragic and unusual.’ Her eyes were on both of them, detecting, picking up on anything that passed between them, anything that would give her a clue. She spent the next few minutes running through the procedure of an inquest and preparing them for the sequence of events.
The boy’s eyes lifted and flickered over her, briefly appraising before dropping back to the floor. She had the uncomfortable feeling he’d been sizing her up. Wondering whether to confide in her?
Bridget continued. ‘Needless to say, we’re …’ She waited a long time before selecting her word. ‘Confused,’ she finally settled on, faded blue eyes bearing out her statement.
Martha probed gently. ‘I’m sure you’ve tried to come up with a reason why your daughter … why Gina …’
The boy’s eyes definitely were challenging her now, warning her not to trespass into forbidden country, not to use the words though they hovered in the air like a cloud of poisonous gas. Committed suicide.
Martha chose a neutral word. ‘Died.’
‘It doesn’t make any sense.’ Bridget leaned forward to give her words some weight. Her tone had turned steely and vaguely hostile. Her defences were up too. There was no doubt she was defending her daughter. ‘She had everything to live for. She was successful and beautiful.’
To her shock Martha read scorn in the boy’s eyes as he glanced across at his grandmother. He was mocking her for believing this fable. He knew something. But he was eight years old. A minor. Martha felt suddenly uncomfortable. How much could an eight-year-old know and how much would he understand? She met his eyes and read something else there. The boy was holding his breath, watchful and waiting, wondering whether she would pick up on something. What, for goodness’ sake? She turned all her attention on to him.
‘Terence,’ she said gently, then with a brighter smile, she tried to win his confidence by spending some time on safer ground. ‘Do you like to be called Terence or Terry?’
‘Terence,’ he said steadily, adding very politely, ‘if you don’t mind.’ His private school education was paying off.
‘I’m sorry about your mummy.’
His eyes dropped quickly. Deliberately hiding his expression.
She continued to address the boy. ‘I wonder …’ Granny Bridget’s hand was tight on his arm. Restraint? Warning?
Martha continued anyway. ‘I wonder if you thought your mummy had seemed …’ She rejected the words ‘distracted’ or ‘depressed’, substituting instead, ‘Sad? Different. Lately.’
The boy opened his mouth ready to speak but his grandmother’s grip tightened. He dropped his eyes, shaking his head. Martha felt frustrated.
If there was a truth behind this, Grandma Bridget didn’t want it to come out. So there was little point continuing the interview. Neither would speak in front of the other. Access to the child without a responsible adult was not possible, or in fact legal, and the obvious responsible adult was his grandmother – the grandmother who would not speak in front of the child. Both were bound to silence by the other. Hands tied behind their backs.
Bridget Shannon made an attempt to cheer up the boy. ‘At least we didn’t have to find the body,’ she said.
It was such a small consolation that Martha didn’t respond immediately, instead focusing on the interview. ‘Mrs Shannon,’ she said gently, ‘shall we have a chat on our own? Jericho, my assistant, can keep an eye on Terence.’
Bridget knew exactly what was coming. Defeated, she nodded.
Jericho came when summoned and led the boy away, closing the door very carefully and deliberately behind him. It was time to stop chasing around the bush.
‘Mrs Shannon,’ she said, ‘there must be something behind your daughter’s suicide.’
The woman’s eyelids flew open at the word but Martha remained steadily on course. ‘I don’t inevitably find the verdict suicide unless there is a note or incontrovertible evidence. Understand?’
Bridget nodded, eyes wary, hands gripping each other as though left would support right and vice versa.
She looked far beyond the window, perhaps seeing her daughter’s face in happier times hovering over the dome of the church.
‘At least I didn’t have to find her body. She spared me that. But I feel so guilty that I didn’t pick up on it.’
Martha murmured something neutral.
‘I don’t know any details,’ Bridget added quickly, getting that out of the way, ‘but a month or two ago, sometime over the winter, something happened. Gina was always a very happy person. Always happy with her place and status in life. My daughter,’ she said, ‘had a very strong sense of right and wrong. And then six or eight weeks ago I found her sitting in her lounge, lights turned off, just staring into space. It was so unlike her that I felt cold, almost frightened. You know that saying “someone just walked over my grave” – well, it was as though someone had just walked over her grave. Understand?’
‘Yes, I do. What did you think it was?’
‘That’s the trouble. I don’t know. She said to me then: “If anything happens to me you’ll look after Terence, won’t you?”’ Bridget’s face froze, her eyes screwed up against tears. ‘I was really frightened. I thought she must have cancer or something.’
‘I’ve spoken to Doctor Milligan,’ Martha responded. ‘There was nothing like that. Gina was in perfect health.’
Bridget nodded. ‘Yes – she assured me she was well, she was fine, but I knew there was something.’ She halted so abruptly it was as though a thought had just hit her. ‘Mrs Gunn …’
Martha anticipated her question. ‘Anything you say to me,’ she said, ‘will be kept in the strictest confidence. Nothing need come out into the public domain unless you want it to.’
Bridget let out a breath. ‘I saw it in her eyes. A look I’ve never seen before. She was ashamed of something.’
‘To do with her personal life? Julius?’
‘Oh, no.’ The denial came sharp, hot and strong. ‘Julius is a saint. A lovely boy. We adore him, Terence too. No, whatever it was I don’t think it was anything to do with Julius.’
‘Then her work? Someone she was maybe defending?’
Bridget’s face, turned towards her now, was pitiful, ageing in front of her eyes, collapsing in on itself. ‘I just don’t know.’
‘Does Terence know?’
‘I don’t know that either. We’re finding it difficult to talk.’
Martha was silent for a moment, absorbing this. Then, ‘I’ve spoken to Julius Zedanski,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘He doesn’t seem to know anything, so what are we left with, Mrs Shannon? Her professional life? She dealt with some …’ She recalled Alex’s words.
Nasty people.
‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’
‘Do you know anything about the cases she was involved in?’
Bridget shook her head. ‘She didn’t tend to talk about it that much. To be honest, most of the time we were together lately we were discussing the wedding. It was going to be …’ And then she did lose it, shoulders heaving with sobs.
Martha had seen tears before – too many, truth be told. She’d learned to put a wall between herself and her professional role. In this job it was essential to preserve her sanity. But the abject misery confronting her now was so raw it affected her.
She asked Jericho to bring in a cup of tea for Gina’s mother and Terence returned, putting his arms around his grandmother, comforting her as though he was a fully grown man.
The boy was intriguing her. Martha met his dark eyes and assessed him as he returned her gaze. Mature beyond his years with an almost adult understanding. Perhaps even beyond adult. She felt that he had a better handle on his mother’s state of mind than poor Bridget, who was distraught.
Ten minutes later, they had discussed the release of the body, which could go ahead now the cause of death was not in any doubt. Gina had died of a high-impact vehicular incident. That was the easy bit. The difficult part was why.
Bridget told her of the plans for the funeral. Heartbreakingly Martha’s instinct had been correct. St Chad’s Church, a distinctive landmark with its round shape and high tower standing over the quarry, which was the town’s play and recreational area and site of the famous annual flower show.
It was only once the pair had left and the room returned to its usual stillness that something Bridget had said assumed a new significance.
At least I didn’t have to find her body.
Could this be the reason behind the manner and place of Gina’s suicide? Had she thought that carefully about location and planned to spare her mother or her son from making the discovery?