The Case Against Owen Williams (11 page)

“Perhaps you could tell us where your church is, Reverend Clemens,” McKiel interrupted.

“Yes, of course. I'm getting ahead of myself. My church is on the corner of Lloyd Street and Broad Street. You may know that Sarah Coile was a member of my church and that she was buried from there.”

“And the gravel pit where Sarah Coile was found,” McKiel said, “is between Lloyd Street where your church is and the Hannigan Road.”

“That's right.”

“So you went to your church that evening. What time was that?”

“I think around half-past seven. I had supper and did a few chores and then drove to the church. I remember that it was very hot. I worked in the church for a couple of hours. I don't pay much attention to the time when I'm there like that. Sometimes I stay for just an hour, sometimes much longer. That night it was dark when I left, but it hadn't been dark very long.”

“Perhaps ten o'clock?” McKiel suggested.

“I would think so. Yes. Sometime about then.”

“And then?”

“I got into my car and drove along Broad Street and up the Hannigan Road a little way to the home of Ada and Thomas Salcher. Some people here may know them. They are an elderly couple who paid me the honour of attending my church but who are now not very well, and so sometimes, every week or so, I visit them. We talk and pray together, and I try to make their lives a little brighter by reminding them they are not alone.”

The pale eyes drifted away from McKiel to the mass of spectators, rested momentarily on Dorkin, then Williams, then drifted back.

“I stayed there about an hour and then drove back to the church. It must have been about eleven when I left. When I had been back at the church for a while doing a few final chores, I did look at my watch, and it was around eleven-thirty.”

“So, allowing for your uncertainties, you would have left the Salcher house, let us say, somewhere between ten to eleven and ten after. Would that be fair to say?”

“Yes, I think that would probably be right.”

“Now would you tell us what you saw on the way back to the church that has a bearing on this enquiry?”

“Yes. As I was turning off the Hannigan Road onto Broad Street, I saw a soldier and a woman in a light-coloured dress standing by the side of the road just on the corner by the old churchyard. They were under one of the trees, and I think that they must have been standing there talking.”

“You are sure of the location?” McKiel asked. “This is a matter of great importance. Private Williams said that he left Sarah Coile at the point where Birch Road joins Hannigan Road fifty yards further down. You are sure that the couple you saw were not at that point on the road?”

“Yes, positive. I didn't drive that far. I turned left onto Broad Street, and they were there on the corner.”

“As if they might have been going to walk along Broad Street?”

“Maybe. But I couldn't say that. They could have gone other ways too. They weren't walking. They were just standing there. When I came along, they turned away, as if they didn't want anyone to see who they were.”

“And did you recognize them?”

“I recognized Sarah Coile.”

“And the man?”

“I didn't recognize him, but I could see that he was a soldier in uniform.”

“Is he someone whom you see in this court?”

“I couldn't say that. I really didn't see his face at all. He turned away before I could get a look at him.”

“Could you tell us what he looked like? Was he tall, short, medium?”

“Not tall. A little taller than Sarah. He wasn't very big. I mean he wasn't a heavy man, just average. And he had dark hair. I could see because he didn't have his cap on.”

“Was his appearance consistent with that of Private Williams?” McKiel asked. “You understand that I am not asking whether or not you can say definitely that it was Private Williams, merely whether there was anything about his appearance that would make it evident to you that the person whom you saw could not possibly have been Private Williams.”

“Perhaps Private Williams might stand up,” Thurcott said.

Carvell got Williams awkwardly to his feet, and Clemens studied him.

“If he turned around,” Clemens said.

Carvell put a hand on Williams's shoulder, and Williams turned.

“I do not want to be guilty of bearing false witness,” Clemens said. “The man I saw could have been Private Williams, but he would no doubt resemble other people in this room too. I didn't notice anything special.”

“But you can definitely state that somewhere near eleven o'clock on the night of July 1, you saw Sarah Coile standing on the corner of Broad Street and Hannigan Road by the old churchyard with a soldier in uniform.”

“Yes, that is so.”

“Thank you,” McKiel said. “I must compliment you on the care which you have taken to be accurate in the evidence you have given.”

Clemens descended, and Thurcott glanced at the pocket watch on the bench in front of him. It was now four o'clock, and the sitting had been going on for two hours without interruption.

“I have only one more witness,” McKiel said. “With your per-mission I would like to recall Corporal Drost of the
RCMP
.”

“I understand,” McKiel said when Drost had taken his place, “that under your supervision an investigation was conducted of the people known to have been at the dance at The Silver Dollar on the night of July 1. I would be grateful if you would give us the results of that investigation.”

With nothing substantial to base it on, Dorkin had conceived a dislike for Corporal Drost, though he could not help but admire the meticulousness of the investigation that his office had conducted into the movements of everyone who had been at the dance hall or had been seen around it. Of all the men known to be at the dance hall, Drost concluded, only Private Williams remained unaccounted for for any substantial period of time between 10:30
PM
and 2
AM
.

“But is it not possible,” Thurcott asked, “that there could have been a man or men outside the dance hall whom you did not find out about?”

“Yes,” Drost said. “That is possible, but in view of our detailed enquiries, it seems very unlikely.”

“In the light of Reverend Clemens's testimony that he saw Sarah Coile on the Hannigan Road with someone whom he took to be a soldier about 11 pm,” Thurcott asked, “did you check the movements of soldiers other than those at the dance? I am thinking of other soldiers in the garrison and soldiers who may have been home on leave.”

“We questioned all the other soldiers at the armoury,” Drost said, “and were satisfied that they were not at the dance hall that night. We have no way of knowing for sure how many other soldiers may have been in the area on leave, but we did make enquiries. We learned of five soldiers who were on leave, and we questioned all of them and found nothing to suggest that they had been anywhere near the dance hall on the night of July 1.”

“I see,” Thurcott said.

McKiel's summary of the evidence against Private Williams was a model of clarity and brevity. He began with what he took to be the indisputable facts. So far as Sarah Coile was concerned these were that at around 10:30
PM
, she left The Silver Dollar in the company of Private Williams and was not seen again by anyone whom the police questioned other than Private Williams until her body was found four days later in the gravel pit off Broad Street, some half a mile or so from the dance hall. She had been dead since the night she disappeared or very shortly after.

So far as Private Williams was concerned the indisputable facts were that he left the dance hall with Sarah Coile at approximately 10:30
PM
and was next seen at approximately 11:50
PM
, an hour and twenty minutes later, at The Maple Leaf canteen, which is only some fifteen or twenty minutes' walk away. Evidence by one witness at the canteen suggested that Private Williams had been lying on the ground. When first questioned about his whereabouts that night, Private Williams said that he had left the dance hall with Sarah Coile and had walked her along the track behind the dance hall which became Birch Road until they came to Hannigan Road, where he left her to walk home by herself while he went down the Hannigan Road to the canteen and then back to the armoury. When subsequently confronted with the fact that his description of his movements left nearly an hour unaccounted for, he testified that he had been drinking and must have left the dance hall later than he had thought and that he and Sarah Coile had stopped for a while outside the dance hall to talk before walking out to the Hannigan Road. None of the witnesses who saw Private Williams that night considered him to have drunk excessively.

Reverend Clemens testified that at approximately 11:00 he had seen a girl whom he recognized as Sarah Coile with a soldier, not at the junction of Birch Road and Hannigan Road, where Private Williams asserted on two occasions that he had left Sarah Coile, but some fifty yards further up the Hannigan Road at the junction with Broad Street. Assuming that the girl was Sarah Coile, McKiel asked whether it were really plausible that she had left the dance hall with Private Williams at 10:30 and within half an hour appeared with a different soldier who nevertheless resembled Private Williams in general height and build, while Private Williams vanished into thin air for nearly an hour before re-materializing at The Maple Leaf canteen.

Surely, McKiel said, the truth was more simple, and the truth was that Private Williams left the dance hall with Sarah Coile at 10:30, was seen with her some half an hour later by Reverend Clemens on Broad Street, and then lured or chased her to the nearby gravel pit where he assaulted and brutally murdered her for reasons which he alone knows, perhaps because she had resisted his advances, perhaps because he was the father of her child.

McKiel remained standing briefly, then returned to his place and sat down beside Whidden, who rolled his leonine head to one side and said something into his ear. McKiel pursed his lips and nodded. As he spoke to McKiel, Whidden's eyes rested on Dorkin, unseeingly, as they might have rested on the tabletop or a section of the wall.

At six-thirty, Thurcott sat on the bench, unhappily, as he had seemed to do all day.

“I must ask you, Private Williams,” he said, “if there is anything you wish to say about the evidence which has been given here today.”

Williams stood up, and, his voice threatening to break, said, “I didn't do anything to Sarah Coile.”

At the back of the courtroom, someone made a sound more like the growling of a dog than a form of articulate speech.

Thurcott cleared his throat.

“Nevertheless, Private Williams,” he said, “in view of the evidence presented here today, it is my duty to commit you to stand trial in this court in the last week of September for the murder on or about July 1, 1944, of Sarah Coile. In the meantime, you will be confined in the county jail adjacent to this court. I declare this hearing concluded.”