The front row in the wooden benches nodded like mechanical dummies and the crowd on the plastic chairs at the back found themselves nodding also.
‘May I remind you all that the purpose of this court is to establish the cause of the death of Ms Marianne Shearer, the deceased. How, not why, except insofar as it influences the verdict. We’re looking at the death, not the life. Let’s start with you, DC Jones, if you’d take the stand. Just the salient points, please. We’re not here to entertain journalists.’
‘I swear by Almighty God to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth…’
He looked as if God would strike him down if he did not. He speeded up his delivery to keep pace.
‘The deceased took a suite in the Imperial Hotel on the evening of December 28. She had a small suitcase containing nothing but personal effects, toiletries and nightwear. She left her credit card at the desk and requested nothing further from the staff. At seven thirty the next morning, she was seen sitting on the balustrade of the balcony of her room by a chambermaid who had stepped out of the next door room she was cleaning to have a cigarette. The maid saw a woman. She said to Ms Shearer, hello, are you OK, you’ll get your skirt dirty, would you like a cigarette? The maid, sir, had limited English and has since left the hotel’s employment. Ms Shearer is reported to have said, No thank you. Then she jumped. Mr Paul Bain, a photographer, who happened to be walking to work in the street below, also saw Ms Shearer stationary on the balcony. He recorded her last movements with his camera.’
‘We should have Mr Bain at this point,’ the Coroner said.
One man shuffled out of the witness box, and another shuffled in, the latter looking embarrassed. The Coroner looked at him with concealed curiosity, as if he was examining a curious species of lizard, and Bain shrivelled under his scrutiny.
‘Won’t keep you long, Mr Bain. You took your snapshots and remained at the scene, did you?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long were you standing there before she jumped?’
‘Less than a minute. I just looked up and saw her there.’
‘No doubt you moved to get a better angle?’
Sitting in the first row of the plastic seats at the back, next to Hen, Peter could see Thomas Noble bow his head. Bain remained silent.
‘Mr Bain, the suggestion’s been made that there was another person in the room behind Ms Shearer. Did you see any other person either on the balcony or in the room? A shadow, even?’
Bain looked at Thomas Noble, who looked away.
‘There were net curtains behind her, billowing out slightly. A bit theatrical.’
‘I wasn’t asking for your comments on how it looked. Did you see anyone else? The merest suggestion hinting at the presence of someone else behind her?’
‘No. I couldn’t see into the room at all. She was the only person on the balcony. She didn’t look back into the room. She looked sideways to the next balcony, and then she jumped.’
He began to shake. It was not quite what he had wanted to say.
Then the Pathologist, intoning details without relish, respectfully, the bloodiness downplayed with scientific terms. It seemed almost polite of him to mention that the deceased had normal heart and lung functions and was free of any notable disease; it sounded as if he was complimenting her. Thomas remarked later that it was as if he was saying she wasn’t in bad nick for her years and still had good legs, too. All in order, apart from being dead. Injuries: ruptured spleen, severed spinal cord, multiple fractures to the skull, as if, the witness said, she had twisted mid air, defied the gravitational pull of her own weight and allowed her skull the first impact with the ground. Death instantaneous: cause of death multiple injuries, some twenty of which would have been individually sufficient to achieve the end result. Insignificant traces of alcohol in her blood. No medication.
Perhaps she really was trying to save the skirt, Peter thought. You don’t have to hear this, he whispered to Hen. Yes I do, she said. She deserves that I do. I wish she had been drunk.
It was the Coroner’s choice how much or how little he said about all the other information at his disposal. He was not there to reveal the life, only to reach and deliver a reasoned verdict. No one cared about this woman except the journalists; he was free to say as little as he liked, and still he faltered.
‘Facts dictate that the deceased killed herself by jumping from a height. She appeared to have dressed for the occasion. Did she fully intend the consequences of her actions, or was she acting when the balance of her mind was disturbed, by which I mean, was the mental state of the deceased such that her actions were unpredictable, the result of loss of mental balance, something she would not have done unless her mind was disordered? If you take the example of a person who climbs to the top of a tall building while under the influence of drugs and then leaps off because he thinks he can fly, that is death where the balance of the mind is disturbed or at least confused, if you take my meaning. It may look like suicide, but it isn’t suicide according to law. That dead person intended to fly, not to die in the attempt. A person who takes too many pills when drunk and depressed, for instance, is not a suicide, either. That’s closer to death by misadventure.’
He cleared his throat, which had become oddly constricted.
‘Suicide requires more elements than disorder. For suicide to be the proper verdict in this court, it must be proved beyond doubt that the deceased intended to die, planned to die by self-infliction, gave notice of that intention and really meant to carry it through. Suicide, in the strict legal sense, is the act of a rational mind.’
He paused again, upset by his own words.
‘I wouldn’t have considered a verdict of suicide here in the absence of evidence from Ms Shearer herself as to her intentions. I have never given a verdict of suicide without some form of suicide note, however deliberate the actions of the deceased. It’s the most distressing verdict of all. Why? Because it leaves the survivors, the family and friends with a colossal burden of guilt. They should have known; they should have prevented it. They bear the accusations, the mistrust of the deceased whom they thought they knew and they did not offer help. They are rendered impotent. I cannot approach such a verdict lightly.’
It was strange, Peter thought, how much it mattered. Nothing to do with heaven and hell. How much it would have mattered to the Lover. How much it mattered to himself, although he scarcely knew her. They would all have preferred death by misadventure or the act of a disordered mind. The voice went on.
‘Suicide is the proper verdict. Ms Shearer was possessed of a highly rational mind. She left an abundance of suicide notes in various protracted forms. She showed her intentions in the plans she made which I do not have to describe here. The verdict is suicide, beyond reasonable doubt. The only thing I can say to comfort those who admired her is that it does seem to have been, in her case, a peculiarly positive act.’
‘What did he mean, “positive”?’ Thomas said later, facing them both across the table and wafting away the steam from a cup of foul-looking herbal tea. The late February rain streamed down against the windows of the coffee shop and the traffic rumbled by on High Holborn. The table by the window was too small for three and too low for comfort. Thomas adored Hen’s suit. So good of her to dress formally for an inquest she need not have attended. He supposed she had come to support Peter, in case he should be called to give evidence. It had not happened: thank God for a coroner of such discretion, even if his verdict depleted an estate.
‘Positive?’ Thomas repeated. ‘How did he make a positive out of such a negative? Still, I liked his style.’
‘I can see what he meant,’ Peter said. ‘Rick Boyd is dead and Frank Shearer is in prison. Marianne’s wealth will be fairly distributed. That all flows from the suicide. Seems pretty positive to me.’