The Story of Danny Dunn (55 page)

‘Yes, thank you, Mr Green. I think the court understands. Mr Riley received two copies and you kept one.' Danny turned to Harry Prout. ‘Your Worship, I submit to the court three unopened envelopes stamped and clearly dated, each approximately two months apart. Mr Green assures me they contain the appropriate carbon copies of the letters sent by him to Mr Riley. I invite the court to open them.'

Hammer jumped to his feet. ‘Your Worship, I beg leave of this court to consult with my client.'

‘Very well, Mr Hammer.' The coroner banged his gavel three times. ‘This court will adjourn for luncheon. We will resume at 2 p.m. sharp. In the meantime I shall retire to my chambers and examine these letters.'

At the resumption of the hearing, with no further questions for Lenny Green, Hammer requested permission to put Riley on the witness stand and also to examine the three letters Green purported to have sent to his client.

‘Mr Riley, would you please look at these three letters,' he began. Riley opened each in turn, read them briefly and replaced them in the envelopes. ‘Now, sir, do you recall having received the originals of these carbon copies in the mail?'

‘No, sir, I do not.'

‘Do you recall any instance when Mr Garry Griffin, your rent collector, verbally informed you of Mr Green's concern for the safety of the meter board?'

‘No, sir.'

Hammer turned to the coroner. ‘Your Worship, I ask permission for Mr Garry Griffin to appear.'

‘Permission granted.'

After Griffin was summoned and made his way to the witness stand, Hammer took him through the preliminaries, then said, ‘Mr Griffin, if you had been required to pass on a message, an
important
message concerning the
safety
of the residents of a particular boarding house, would you have neglected to do so?'

‘Of course not.'

‘Will you point out Mr Green in this courtroom, please?'

Griffin pointed to Lenny Green. ‘Yeah, him, there.'

‘Did you ever receive a message, or three messages in all, each on a separate occasion, to pass on to Mr Riley, concerning the safety of the meter board?'

Griffin shook his head energetically. ‘No, absolutely not.'

‘Your Worship, I put it to this court that Mr Green, for reasons of his own, has devised an elaborate plot to implicate my client in this meter-board
fiasco. I ask that you strike this evidence from the record.'

Harry Prout seemed surprised at the request, but apart from raising his eyebrows managed to restrain himself. ‘However interesting such a theory may be, this inquiry does not accept the notion of a plot to implicate your client, unless you are prepared to offer a great deal more evidence of Mr Green's ulterior motives, Mr Hammer. This suggestion, notion, request is not accepted and will not appear on the record of this inquiry unless you wish to offer such proof. Do you wish to do so now?'

‘Not at this time, Your Worship.'

The coroner turned to Danny. ‘Do you wish to cross-examine the witness, Mr Dunn?'

Danny rose to his feet and in a paraphrase of Steel Hammer said, ‘Your Worship, I put it to this court that my learned friend, for reasons of his own, has devised an elaborate plot in his lunch hour to implicate Mr Green in what he calls this meter-board fiasco!'

A roar of laughter travelled through the courtroom and was only silenced by a great deal of gavel banging from the coroner. ‘You will withdraw your statement, Mr Dunn,' Harry Prout demanded.

‘I withdraw the statement, Your Worship, and do not wish to cross-examine this witness. But I request permission to present a witness to substantiate Mr Green's assertion that Mr Riley visited the premises upon receiving the third notification of the faulty meter board, and that Mr Green did receive a beating instigated by Mr Riley on that occasion. May I call Mr Jack Steven Medlow, Your Worship? '

‘Call Jack Steven Medlow!' the clerk of the court announced.

It was the old man Danny had met on the night of the fire, who had congratulated him on putting away the son-in-law who had been beating his daughter and her kids and sexually abusing his granddaughter. ‘Mr Medlow, how long have you known Mr Lenny Green, the manager of the boarding house where you resided until it was recently burnt down?'

‘Ever since I moved in three year ago, Mr Dunn.'

‘Would you say he was a popular manager? Generally speaking, was he well liked?'

‘No, sir, he's a mong—, not popular.'

‘Is it true that you witnessed him being assaulted?'

‘Me and the lad, we seen it happen, Mr Dunn.'

‘The lad?'

‘Young Jimmy Clark.'

‘Can you explain the circumstances?'

‘Circumstances?'

‘Yes, where you were and what you saw?'

‘I don't know why he was beaten up. It happened about a month before the fire. We was in the back of the house, upstairs. I was helping Jimmy to make a kite when he looked out the window. “Uncle Jack, look!” he shouts. I go to the window and there's Lenny Green and these two men in the backyard. One's looking and t'other – a real big bloke – is standing over him and Lenny is on his knees in front of the first bloke – who looks like a toff, good suit and all, and he's begging him not to hurt him, sobbing like, and clutching his shiny shoes. But the bloke just looks down at him with this sort of smile on his face. He's got his hands in his trouser pockets like he's jingling change, then he nods to the big bloke who starts walloping the bejesus out of Lenny. He's using a pick handle and I think he's gunna kill him. But then Lenny collapses like and I reckon he's unconscious, because the big bloke kicks him in the ribs maybe three times and he don't move. Then he grabs him by the collar and drags him through the paspalum and the weeds into a big clump of blackberries that grows against the back fence.'

‘And the second man, can you tell me how he was reacting to Mr Green being beaten?' Danny asked.

‘Well, he didn't shout out or nothing like that, if that's what you mean. He just watched,' Jack Medlow replied.

‘Can you tell the court what happened next, Mr Medlow?'

‘Nothin'. They left. We heard the car but we didn't see it – we were in the back of the house, like I said. The boy was very upset and he wanted to run down and help Lenny Green. But I told him we couldn't get involved. It weren't nothing to do with us. I told him Lenny probably had it coming to him. But you know how it is with them kids when they, yer know, 'aven't got all their marbles; they don't see the harm in anyone. So the lad don't take no notice of me and he runs downstairs and the back door is open and he goes out to help Lenny, who hasn't moved in the blackberries. So I go down and together we carry him into the house. He's bleeding something terrible and I reckon we're gunna have to call an ambulance. I send the lad to fetch the kitchen workers but they don't want nothing to do with it. Then Lenny comes to and we take him to his room out front next to the office and he says not to call nobody – he can take care of himself.'

‘Mr Medlow, do you recognise anyone in this courtroom who may have been one of the men present in the backyard?

‘Yes, sir, Mr Dunn.' The old bloke turned and pointed at Riley. ‘He were the one that stood and watched with his hands in his pockets.'

Danny turned to Harry Prout. ‘Your Worship, I wish this court to record that the witness pointed to Mr Riley.' He turned back to Jack Medlow. ‘Thank you for your cooperation, Mr Medlow. I have no more questions.'

The court had come alive as the coroner turned to Steel Hammer. ‘Do you have any questions for this witness, Mr Hammer?'

Hammer rose, pushing out his gut and his chin, his right-hand thumb hooked into the waistband of his trousers. He stood silent for a moment and glared at Jack Medlow, then barked, ‘Mr Medlow, you constantly referred to . . .' he glanced down at his notes, ‘let me see, yes . . . the young lad, Jimmy Clark, Jimmy, the boy, and then someone who, I quote, “yer know, 'asn't got all their marbles”. What did you mean by that?'

‘Jimmy Clark has Down Syndrome, sir.'

‘And how old is Jimmy Clark?'

‘Fifteen.'

‘And, as you put it, he hasn't got all his marbles. You mean he is mentally retarded, is that right?'

‘Yes, but —'

‘Thank you, Mr Medlow. I don't require any more explanation. What is your age, sir?'

‘Seventy-nine.'

‘Mr Medlow, how good is your eyesight?'

‘It's real good now.'

‘Oh, how so?'

‘Well, sir, I had two cataracts removed and now I can see good as new.'

‘Mr Medlow, how far do you estimate the distance was from the upstairs window to where these two men were alleged to be in the backyard?'

Jack Medlow seemed to be thinking for some time.

‘Come now, Mr Medlow, did you not say it was the boy who was mentally retarded?' Hammer barked.

A murmur of protest rose from the gallery. ‘Counsel will withdraw that inference,' the coroner said. ‘It will be struck from the record.'

‘Certainly, Your Worship. I withdraw the inference.'

‘Forty feet for the bloke with the pick-axe handle, forty-one feet for Lenny.' He pointed at Riley. ‘Forty-two feet for jingle balls!' Jack Medlow said. ‘Yeah, I reckon that's it.'

The old man's certainty and irreverence brought another roar of laughter from the gallery and Harry Prout brought down his gavel repeatedly. ‘This court will come to silence!' he demanded.

Hammer had met his match. ‘Your Worship, both the testimony against and the identification of my client have come from a near-octogenarian who has had recent surgery to both his eyes and who claims to have acted in cooperation with a mentally retarded fifteen-year-old boy. I submit that his statement should not be admitted as evidence.'

Danny jumped to his feet. ‘Objection, Your Worship. While Jimmy Clark is too young to appear as a witness,' he turned briefly to Franz, who handed him two sheets of paper, ‘I submit for the court record a certificate from a leading psychiatric doctor that states that Jimmy Clark is perfectly capable of acting in a rational and responsible manner and has the mental age of an eleven-year-old. Furthermore, I have here the results of a recent eye test which indicates that Mr Medlow has excellent long-distance vision.' Danny handed the two certificates to the clerk of the court.

‘Objection sustained. Thank you, Mr Dunn.' The coroner turned to Steel Hammer. ‘I must remind you, Mr Hammer, that it is my responsibility to decide what evidence is acceptable to this court and what is not. There is no jury to influence here and, I assure you, I am not easily intimidated. You may continue.'

‘I have no more questions at this point, Your Worship.'

Harry Prout, still bristling with annoyance, glared at Hammer. ‘You do not make yourself clear, Mr Hammer. Do you wish the court to dismiss this witness or retain him for later questioning?'

‘I have no more questions for this witness, Your Worship,' Hammer said, his features turning a deeper shade of crimson. It was clear his easy day at the office was beginning to turn decidedly sour.

Danny rose. ‘I request permission to call Mr Robert James as an expert witness in relation to the true cause of the fire.'

‘Permission granted, Mr Dunn.'

‘Objection, Your Worship,' Hammer barked. ‘We already have expert testimony from the New South Wales Fire Brigade as to the most likely cause of the fire.'

‘No, Mr Hammer, your objection is overruled. Mr James has appeared before me on several occasions and I have consistently found his testimony to be cogent. I should remind you that eight people have died and it is my responsibility to investigate the cause of those deaths, and make recommendations to the attorney-general as to whether anyone should be charged with any relevant offences. You may proceed, Mr Dunn.'

‘Mr James, as a freelance loss adjuster, have you appeared for several major insurance companies?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘What, in your opinion, was the source of the fire and where did it start?'

‘From the intensity of the damage in the kitchen area compared to the remainder of the back of the house, it almost certainly started in the kitchen. The ignition site was either the electric stove or the electric water heater. I believe a short circuit in one of these two appliances melted the insulation, isolating the 415-volt circuits leading to the kitchen.'

‘Mr James, surely when a short circuit occurs, the fuse terminals contained in a normal domestic fuse box are designed to burn out, cutting the flow of current before a fire can occur?'

‘Correct. But in this case, the fuse terminals in both fuse boxes – the 220 volt and 415 volt – had been bridged with heavy copper wire.'

‘Ah, Mr Green's reference to copper wire,' Danny noted.