Monday, 20 March, 11 a.m.
After the sensational circumstances of her death, Gina’s inquest could not have been less dramatic. It was quiet, subdued and orderly. Coroners’ courts are not backdrops for drama but a civilized, rational setting for a verdict.
Martha began with the almost-forgotten Graham Skander, first on the scene, still more concerned about his damaged wall than a woman’s death, a woman who, after all, he’d never known in life. He gave his evidence in brisk, unemotional fashion.
‘I was … asleep. I heard a loud bang.’ He hesitated, frowning. ‘I think it was about three a.m. I knew instantly what it was. It wasn’t the first time a car had hit my wall.’ He couldn’t quite obliterate the note of severity from his voice. His eyes skittered along the floor. ‘The police have suggested I have some chevrons put there. But …’ His frown deepened as though he now felt in some way responsible. And who did not feel responsibility in this crowded courtroom? Martha glanced around the faces, Bridget, Julius, Curtis Thatcher – not Terence, thank goodness. She homed in on Julius Zedanski, who was sitting in a dark grey suit, eyes half closed. What was he thinking?
Alex and a couple of his officers sat in a stiff row near the back. She would only be calling the officer who had been first on the scene, PC Gethin Roberts, a young officer who had the knack of turning up almost whenever there was a dramatic event. As she understood it wedding bells were about to ring for the PC.
Mark Sullivan, the pathologist, sat in front, watching everyone, listening intently. He looked very alert. It was his way to absorb all the information that surfaced. She smiled inwardly. She had a great fondness for the pathologist and respected and admired his work. He had had a drink problem in the past caused, she believed, by a bitter and unhappy marriage, but an internet date with a divorcee with three children appeared to have cured him of alcoholism. And the medical pathology department had benefitted as a result.
And Alex? As always, Alex’s legs appeared too long for the seating. They stretched out in front of him. Their eyes met for an instant and she felt the connection as physical as if there was an invisible line of silken thread that attached them unseen by anyone but themselves. He grinned at her and, in spite of the surroundings and the circumstances, she felt warm and relaxed.
She turned her attention back to Graham Skander. She could guess what he was about to say. ‘Carry on,’ she prompted gently.
‘I, umm. My house …’ His voice was confrontational, slightly aggressive, defensive. ‘It’s over three hundred years old. Built way before cars came careering around the corner. I have had the wall rebuilt numerous times. The council have offered to have markers put there to draw attention to the sharp bend. They’ve already erected road signs. But I don’t want some brightly coloured chevrons right outside my house. They would be out of character for what is a Georgian building.’ Like Zedanski, he too half closed his eyes then, hiding his emotions behind hooded lids. ‘But I suppose,’ he conceded. ‘Maybe.’ He squared his shoulders and pulled his face into a tight frown. ‘I think maybe, under the circumstances, I should reconsider.’
Said with admirable dignity. A little wave of appreciation rippled around the room. There is nothing people like better than for good to result from bad.
Bridget and Zedanski were sitting next to each other and now they leaned in very close. Bridget had her hand on his forearm. What a shame, Martha thought. They would have got on like a house on fire. Terence too. The family unit would have worked so well. But now there was this black hole right in its centre. Like a sink hole they would all tumble in. And the three people most affected by tragedy would inevitably drift apart, like planets after an explosion finding their own new orbits.
Graham Skander finished his statement sympathetically. ‘Poor woman. I think she was already dead when I reached the car.’ And then, addressing both Bridget and Zedanski directly, he finished with a gruff, ‘I’m so sorry.’
Almost, Martha thought, as though his wall had been the villain here.
‘Thank you.’ She dismissed him gently.
And then she heard the testimony of Zedanski, spoken in a quiet, dignified voice, that they had been planning to marry and he knew of no reason why Gina would want to take her own life.
Bridget added her response to this, as did Dr Milligan and Curtis Thatcher.
All spoke of Gina as being happy, clever, beautiful, vivacious with everything to live for. These were the words spoken in tribute. But it could not be true. She might have had everything to live for but, if her mother’s observation had been correct, maybe she’d also had something to die for.
The emergency ambulance team of paramedics and the police were factual. They gave no opinion but simply reported their findings. No pulse. Not breathing. Not conscious. Pronounced dead at the scene by the police. An attempt at CPR had proved futile. Life extinct had been pronounced at 04.27 a.m. Body transferred to the mortuary for the post-mortem.
And then over to Mark Sullivan who related his PM findings, the long list of injuries. Broken bones, torn blood vessels, catastrophic haemorrhage, head injury, brain trauma.
Martha closed her eyes. A textbook example of multiple injuries due to high-speed vehicular impact.
She could have uttered the verdict of suicide then, but something was holding her back. She looked at the waiting faces and knew something was missing here. There was that part of the story that Bridget had picked up on. Until she had that missing piece she would adjourn the inquest pending enquiries. When she said this she felt a shiver of relief in the room.
It wasn’t over yet. She set a date for a review and set the case aside.
Alex was waiting for her outside and he agreed with her. ‘Yes,’ he said in response, ‘we know only part of the story. There’s something behind this. I have the feeling Gina was cornered. Someone else is involved. I’ll make gentle, tentative enquiries, keep an eye on what’s going on and …’ He grinned. ‘Report back to you.’
‘Thank you.’
His eyes were far away now. He was somewhere else. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘the brick wall she drove into is almost an analogy for where her life was. No escape.’
Something about his tone and the abstraction in his eyes sent a shiver up her spine. He wasn’t talking about Gina Marconi’s death. She knew his home circumstances were not happy. She put her hand on his as a gesture of friendship. ‘You’re being very deep today, Alex.’
But the moment had passed. His face lightened and he smiled at her. He met her eyes without flinching or looking away. ‘This suicide,’ he said, ‘feels like it is the beginning of something. Oh.’ He scolded himself. ‘Take no notice. I’m just being fanciful.’
Which was not like him. He was the pedantic police officer. It was she who sometimes took flights of imagination. He turned to leave and she watched him stride out of the building in a firm, even step, soon joined by DS Paul Talith and, trailing behind them, the gangly frame of PC Gethin Roberts.
But his words had left her wondering.
So what, she wondered, was the back story? Would she ever know it? And if Alex was right and this was the beginning of something, what was it the beginning of?