The Sun Will Still Shine Tomorrow (17 page)

“Very thorough, Chief Superintendent Roddam, if I may say so, and what conclusion did your force arrive at the second time of asking?”

Rod dam’s composure flickered for a second. A sickly cramp welled up in the pit of Ashley’s stomach. He was aware that his lips had suddenly become very dry. Roddam looked down at his notes and he involuntarily wiped at the sweat on his brow regretting his decision to knot his tie so tight.

“My officers checked every hotel on the island, interviewed more or less every adult living there. They checked out the pubs, the tourist information office and interviewed the owners of the pleasure boat cruises and fishing trips.”

“And, Chief Superintendent Roddam?”

Chief Superintendent Roddam pawed nervously at his collar.

“I’m afraid, sir, we found nothing to suggest the late Thomas Wilkinson visited Holy Island prior to his death.”

Ashley’s instinctive reaction superseded any rational thinking as he leapt to his feet and blasted at Chief Superintendent Roddam.

“What do you mean, you found nothing? His mother took a call from him on the island. A bank statement shows he was–” “How dare you speak to this inquest unannounced,” the

coroner shouted angrily at Ashley Clarke.”I have not called any additional witnesses nor do I intend to. Sit down immediately or I’ll have you thrown out.”

All at once Ashley regretted his actions. This was no way to act in a coroner’s court; he of all people should have been aware of that. He tried to rescue the situation.

“I apologise, sir, but we have evidence that–”

“Silence!”

“But, sir, I–”

“Quiet, do you hear, and sit down right this moment or I’ll have you ejected.”

Ashley groaned as two uniformed officers made their way into the courtroom. A young courtroom official pointed in his direction and he eased back into his seat. In the meantime Chief Superintendent Roddam had approached the bench. No doubt the coroner would be told he was a bitter ex-member of the Northumbria Police Force and the chances of being able to address the court had been slashed to zero.

Kate placed her hand on his knee, gave him two or three pats as if to say thanks. But he’d screwed up, he knew it. He’d screwed up big time.

Chief Superintendent Roddam continued where he’d left off.

“As I was saying, sir, before I was so rudely interrupted,” he glowered at Ashley, “two investigations concluded nothing. We are fairly certain Thomas Wilkinson intended to go to the island but accept the fact that he never actually arrived. We also interviewed a very reliable individual at Whitburn near Sunderland who gave a very accurate description of a man that could have been Mr Wilkinson fall from the cliffs there. The local police and the coastguard carried out a search but nobody was ever recovered at the time.”

The coroner flicked through the papers on his desk.

“Ah yes, Tamara Shearing.”

“That’s her, sir. I interviewed her myself; no reason to suspect she made the story up and a very detailed description right down to Mr Wilkinson’s black leather bomber jacket.”

The coroner turned over the sheet of paper he was holding up. He held it at arm’s length, tilted his head slightly.

“And that was about three weeks prior to the body being washed up?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anyone else report the incident?”

“No, sir.”

“And how old was this girl?”

“Fourteen, sir.”

“Any evidence of any clothing found at the scene?”

“No, sir.”

“And any bloodstains.”

“No, sir, but then again it was raining at the time.”

The coroner added one or two sentences to his pages full of notes and then looked up in the direction of the court officials.

“I’d like to recall Dr Alex Morgan please.”

A man in a police uniform cursed under his breath.

The coroner took the pathologist through his earlier statements and the public gallery listened intently. He asked him to repeat the injuries and reaffirm his suspicions. Ashley never took his eyes from Chief Superintendent Roddam whom he hated more and more as each minute passed but couldn’t think why.

The pathologist was even more forthcoming, obviously more comfortable on stage, so to speak, this time around. At one point Ashley even thought he was about to deliver the death by misadventure verdict himself. A verdict that Ashley now thought was imminent.

One time Ashley wavered on an open verdict but, after the details of the fourteen-year-old’s interview and the fact that no blood or clothing was found at the scene and the compelling evidence of Tom’s injuries described by Dr Morgan, misadventure was the only alternative open to the coroner.

A journalist in the public gallery doodled on his notepad thinking up the headline for tomorrow’s front page.
Murder!

He’d scrawled in big bold letters at the top of his report. Poetic licence, they call it in the trade, the right to exaggerate; after all that’s what sells the papers and it’s what this pathologist was insinuating.
Beaten and pushed in the sea, murder victim washed up on Redcar beach,
he added in the margin on a page of his notepad.

The journalist chewed at his cheap Biro and just wished something positive had come from the Holy Island investigation. Now there really was a good headline:
Island of Horror
or
Holy Hell
he’d scrawled in oversized capitals at the bottom of his notes.

The coroner had heard enough. He dismissed the pathologist and thanked him politely.

“I’m calling a short recess,” he announced.”I’ve heard all I need to hear. I’ll return in thirty minutes with the verdict.”

Ashley looked across at Kate; she gave a hesitant smile. Her eyes had lost that glazed over look. As much as Ashley had wanted the accidental death verdict so everyone could get their lives back together, Kate Wilkinson needed justice.

After what had been revealed in Number Two Court at Middlesbrough’s Russell Street Crown Court building he felt sure she would at least get the chance of a thorough investigation into her son’s death. They would reopen the case, take it seriously this time, and possibly bring in a different constabulary to oversee the enquiry. He would present them with the evidence of the bank statement, Kate would tell them about Tom’s phone calls from the island.

They hung around the corridor outside Number Two Court.

An exhausted coffee machine spewed out yet another lukewarm Styrofoam cup of something that loosely resembled coffee. The drinker regretted the purchase as soon as it passed over their lips.

Sure enough, thirty-eight minutes after they’d left the courtroom, a court official announced to the overcrowded corridor that the coroner was ready. Without delay the throng poured into the small courtroom.

The coroner looked organised and confident as he took his place at the large desk. Ashley thought perhaps he’d even taken a shower and changed his shirt, such was his demeanour.

He took a final look around the courtroom, placed a fisted hand over his mouth and cleared his throat.

“The evidence I have heard today, from both the pathologist Dr Alex Morgan and from the Northumbria and Cleveland Police Forces, has left me in no doubt as to the verdict I am about to deliver. A death is always hard to accept particularly when the deceased is so very, very young, a man in the prime of his life. My sympathies extend to the family and, in particular, the mother of Thomas Wilkinson.

“However, that misery and suffering is compounded when the cause and place of death is unknown or, indeed worse, if foul play is suspected. Dr Morgan is a highly respected and long-standing professional and indeed has been a great servant to the district of Cleveland for more years than I care to remember.” He smiled.”I count him as a friend. He is convinced that Thomas Wilkinson was assaulted prior to his death.”

Ashley glanced at the pathologist. His expression didn’t flicker, perhaps a look of mutual respect as he looked up at the coroner’s desk, though Ashley wasn’t sure. A low murmur had started in the courtroom, an odd whisper, the coroner seemed to have paused for dramatic effect.

“However I also need to take into account the investigation and personal interviews conducted by Northumbria and Cleveland Police and in particular those of Chief Superintendent Roddam, an officer with an exemplary police record, over twenty-five unblemished years. During the recess at lunchtime I spoke at length with the members of the two forces and with Dr Morgan. I called Dr Morgan yet again in the final session, such is my respect for him.”

Ashley became aware of a dry sensation in his mouth; he tongued at his palate searching for saliva but found none. The hollow feeling was back in the pit of his stomach.

“But… try as I might, I cannot accept his claim that the injuries were consistent with a beating. That is, I am not one hundred per cent convinced. I asked him if it were remotely possible that similar injuries could have been caused with a fall from a cliff or mountain where the body may have came into contact with a softer contact point, a grassy mound or compounded sand, for example. Dr Morgan thought it unlikely but conceded that it was possible.

“I have in my possession a report and photographs from Police Constable Dalton of Whitburn who has taken several pictures of the area where the young girl witnessed a young man fall. While I’m no expert on the geological make-up of a cliff, the photographs clearly show that the vast percentage of the area is covered in grass and fauna.”

“No, no, no,” Ashley whispered under his breath, “this can’t be happening.”

“By the powers vested in me by the Home Office, I therefore have no option but to deliver the only verdict open to me.”

The coroner paused for a second, looked across in the direction of the uniformed police officers on the far side of the courtroom. He cleared his throat again and announced:

“Accidental death.”

The two colleagues climbed into the unmarked Northumbria Police squad car in Russell Street. The doors safely closed, their conversation now private.

“The Brothers got to the coroner, didn’t they?”

The older man grinned, stayed silent, enjoying the ignorance of his colleague.

“How much did we pay him?”

“Pay him, constable! Pay him? I can assure you there was no need to pay Dr William Douglas, the highly respected coroner of Middlesbrough and Cleveland district.”

The penny dropped with the young officer.

“Douglas… a Holy Island name… the coroner was an islander?”

The older man smiled, turned the ignition and shifted the automatic into drive. The car lurched forward, out of the city centre car park.

“Not exactly, he’d never ever lived on the island. His father moved down south just before he was born. But Dr Douglas’s grandfather was a Keeper and handed down the teachings and principles of the order to his son and Dr Douglas’s father passed them on to him.

“Pay him, no. In fact, Dr Douglas contributes five per cent of his annual income to the Order. So you see, he actually pays us.”

The older man laughed at the irony; his colleague grinned.

“Well I never.”

“The order is probably more far-reaching than you would care to imagine, constable. Let me give you a history lesson. Back in the eighth century when the Keepers were initially formed our numbers were just a few dozen, though strictly only thirteen in the temple at any one time. We carried on that way for a few hundred years and the Order moved with the times. We were a peaceful and charitable organisation confining the membership to the church-going men living on the island.

“We practised our rituals in secret, respectful and yet wary of the power of the Church. Occasionally a Brother did move away but consequently had to resign his position. Naturally we took care of the wrongdoers; after all that’s the principle that the Order was founded under: the wrongdoers, the heretics and atheists.”

Protect the island and all those born under the star of St Cuthbert.

“St Cuthbert gave us the ceremony and the ancient rites and symbols. And then came the inquisitions.”

The car made its way to the outskirts of the city and the driver headed out towards the A19 northbound. It was the best part of a minute before he spoke again. The passenger thought better of prompting him to continue and glanced across at his superior officer. He noticed his eyes glistening with every beam of light from the cars passing in the opposite direction. His cheeks remained dry as he spoke.

“Many of our members were persecuted and even burned at the stake during the medieval inquisitions. It nearly wiped us out. In fact, any organisation that even looked a little different to standard Catholicism was held to ridicule and yes…”

The man sighed, peered out into the gloom of the ever darkening Cleveland late afternoon sky.

“…even cleansed by the Church. It was ironic; our very organisation was dishing out similar punishments to the nonbelievers and yet, just because we were a little different, had our own ceremony, the Church condemned us.”

The driver indicated left and turned up onto the slip road