Slipknot

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘Well,’ Miranda said, ‘so how are you?’ She opened her blue eyes wide.

  ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘You look well. Really well. Better than I’ve seen you look for ages. So tell me your secret. What’s going on in your life?’

  Martha started laughing. ‘Enough.’

  ‘A little bird told me you’d been wined and dined by a certain businessman?’

  ‘I suppose you’re talking about Simon Pendlebury.’

  ‘I suppose I am,’ Miranda said coyly. ‘Well?’

  ‘How the hell do you know?’

  ‘A friend of mine was in the restaurant that night.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve had dinner. We’re friends. Why not?’

  ‘No reason why not,’ Miranda said. ‘Except I wouldn’t have thought he was your type.’

  ‘No – I’m not sure he’s my type either. But we enjoy each other’s company.’

  ‘I’m intrigued. So?’

  ‘So nothing, ‘Martha said, laughing. ‘We have dinner sometimes. That’s it. Period. End of story.’

  ‘Well – he’s a widower and you’re alone too.’

  Martha was glad Miranda hadn’t said the word, widow. She hated it. It sounded so hopeless, as though nothing was on the horizon, as though she was squeezed dry of all romance.

  ‘We do enjoy each other’s company,’ Martha said. ‘But as for love – marriage. Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s a big thing second time around. I have Sukey and Sam. And I’m not a young girl any more. I’m older – more cynical. More guarded, I suppose. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Experience,’ Miranda said, almost shuddering.

  The waiter took their order, red onion tart for Martha, sausage and mash for Miranda.

  ‘So what’s Steven been up to now?’

  ‘Oh – the usual mind games. Not bringing the children back when they’re due, sitting, watching me from his car when I leave for work, sending me bunches of dead flowers. Honestly, Martha. I don’t think he’s right in the head. Something about that – business – has damaged him. I can’t recognise him for who he was. Sometimes he even frightens me.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Do you think he blames me for all the business?’

  ‘He blames the entire medical profession, Martha. He holds them personally responsible for what happened.’

  Miranda nodded, glanced out of the window. ‘Oh no,’ she said.

  Steven was a thin, bespectacled man. He’d always been pale but the face pressed against the window was bone-white. Even Martha shrank away from him. He bared his teeth at her, mouthed something then turned away leaving her wondering. Was he her secret stalker?

  Miranda turned back into the restaurant. ‘He’s always there,’ she said simply.

  ‘Doesn’t he go to work?’

  ‘I think he’s off sick,’ Miranda said. ‘He’d be better if he did go to work. Give him something else to think about. As it is, he hasn’t moved on.’ Her face looked weary.

  Martha decided it would be cruel to tell her about her stalker. She sneaked another glance out of the window. Steven Mountford had vanished.

  ‘So what are you up to,’ Miranda asked brightly.

  ‘The schoolboy suicide and murder.’

  ‘Oh, that nasty stabbing in the school. And in Shrewsbury too.’ Miranda was affronted. ‘So the boy committed suicide in remorse?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Martha said. And in her voice she could hear creeping doubt.

  They talked some more but they both knew that their lunch had been soured – as no doubt Steven Mountford had meant it to be.

  They ordered coffees, tried to avoid looking in the direction of the window and their conversation dried up while Miranda looked more and more abstracted.

  Martha drove back to the office in thoughtful mood.

  It didn’t help that Roger Gough’s inquest was looming and she expected trouble – some sort of outburst from his parents. It would be yet another set of headlines for Shelley Hughes to endure.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Martha usually set some time aside before an inquest to speak to the relatives and try and prepare them for what lay ahead but the Goughs arrived late, and she had the feeling that it was deliberate.

  Christina had had a black T-shirt printed with a picture of her son as though he was a Catholic saint or a pop star. It sat on her plump figure, the boy’s face distorted over her ample bosom, his eyes very dark and staring but the plump cheeks making it easy to identify him. Underneath Roger Gough’s face was his name and the date of his birth and death. 15th March 1992 – 16th September 2005. It had been a short life.

  Dramatically underneath that was a blood-stained knife and a single word: ‘Murdered’.

  Today Christina was wearing an ankle-length black gypsy skirt with a wide, leather belt slung around her plump hips, high-heeled boots and huge, jangling earrings. She stood in front of Martha, staring hard, breathing heavily. Then she dropped heavily into the seat Jericho showed her. Martha acknowledged her with a nod. She knew instinctively that a smile would be misinterpreted as improper levity on her part.

  At Christina’s side, her husband was more soberly dressed, in a dark suit, white shirt and black tie. He didn’t look at Martha as he sat down but alternated his stares between the floor and his wife’s profile, his eyes sliding up in an arc between the two.

  Martha gave an inward groan as the Press filed in at the back. Five of them. Two were cub reporters from the Shropshire Star and the Shrewsbury Chronicle and would be no problem. She knew their style – to report without fanning the flames. But there were another three who were unfamiliar. At a guess the skinny girl with the sharp features, flicking her ponytail behind her, was from a tabloid. She would almost certainly already have taken a preliminary statement from the parents of the dead boy and that was why Mr and Mrs Gough had entered the courtroom late. To add to Martha’s concern, just as she was about to open the inquest, she saw Shelley Hughes scuttle to the very back of the room, her head bent, as though to avoid being recognised. Luckily neither the Goughs nor any of their party noticed her or there would have been a scene. And she appeared to have passed unrecognised by the Press.

  Martha opened the inquest in the normal way, giving Roger Gough’s name, the date and place of his death and immediately the trouble started.

  Christina Gough stood up. ‘Why don’t you say,’ she said savagely, ‘what he was doing in the hospital in the first place?’

  ‘We’ll get to that,’ Martha said calmly, ‘in time. You’ll have your chance to speak, Mrs Gough.’

  It should have been enough. But Christina glared at Martha defiantly. ‘I’m warning you. We don’t want no cover up,’ she said, jabbing her finger into the air towards her. ‘We want what’s right by our lad.’

  Martha nodded. ‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘And that is what you will get. Now please – Mrs Gough do sit down. I do understand your distress but this must be done properly out of respect for your son. Your turn will come but first of all we need the police evidence.’

  It was unfortunate, to have to relate the circumstances which had led to Roger Gough being hospitalised but a necessary step. Wherever her sympathies or desire for a balanced hearing lay Martha knew she could only return one verdict – homicide. And there was no doubt who was responsible. Rarely had a murder been witnessed by so many.

  So it fell to Sergeant Paul Talith to step up to the witness box and take the oath to swear by Almighty God to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  Like most police he used accepted police jargon.

  ‘At four-thirty-five on September the sixth of this year Police Constable Gethin Roberts and myself were called to Hallow’s Lane Comprehensive School where we had been told there had been a serious assault. The caller had told us an ambulance was also needed as a boy had been stabbed in the chest. We arrived at the same time as the ambulance crew who dealt with the boy who was seriously injured. We took statements from the witnesses and
apprehended a class mate of the injured boy.’ Talith gave Martha a swift glance.

  ‘The boy who was injured was identified as Roger Gough. An officer accompanied him in the ambulance to the hospital while I called for assistance and accompanied the perpetrator to Monkmoor police station.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  A member of the ambulance crew was called next and proved to be a young blonde woman in a dark uniform who identified herself as Janey Fryer, a qualified paramedic for five years.

  She repeated much of what Paul Talith had said, adding her own contribution.

  ‘We found the boy identified as Roger Gough lying on the ground. He was shocked and gasping for air but conscious.’

  Martha stole a look at Christina Gough. She was ghost-pale, gripping her husband’s hand, and staring at Janey Fryer, with her mouth slackly open.

  ‘Roger Gough was bleeding from a chest wound just below his left nipple. We were unable to stabilise his condition. His blood pressure was dropping. We were unable to staunch the flow of blood. Under the circumstances we decided that the best thing to do was to advise the hospital we were on our way and administer intravenous fluids. We drove him at speed to the hospital using the siren and the blue light. PC Roberts sat in the back with him. On our arrival at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital major injuries unit the doctors took responsibility for our patient. His condition was then critical. He was still losing blood and was barely conscious.’

  Christina Gough wiped her eyes.

  Martha dismissed the paramedic. ‘Thank you.’

  Next she called on the young doctor who had been working on the emergency surgical team the afternoon that Gough had been admitted.

  She was a slim, young, Indian woman, dressed in a dark green sari. She had long, black hair, rolled in a neat bun on the nape of her neck and a red spot in the centre of her forehead. She gave her name as Sarinda Begum.

  In a quiet voice she continued the story.

  ‘At a quarter past five on Tuesday afternoon, September the 6th, I was bleeped and informed that a serious chest injury was expected, a stab wound. We prepared the theatre staff for emergency thoracic surgery. When Roger Gough, the patient, arrived, his blood pressure was unrecordable and he was still losing blood. He had a stab wound a little below the left nipple and a punctured lung. He was in a collapsed state, unconscious and unresponsive but breathing for himself at that point. We gave him oxygen and intravenous fluids. A chest x-ray showed he had a large pneumothorax, air in the lung, and we inserted a chest drain. His ecg was normal. We decided to try and stabilise his condition before deciding whether he needed chest surgery or not. By that evening it appeared that his condition was stabilising. His blood pressure, though still low, was recordable and the air on his chest was draining through an underwater seal. We had him on a ventilator. He was still a very sick boy but off the critical list.

  ‘By the Wednesday Roger Gough looked as though he would recover but on x-ray the pneumothorax was not getting any smaller and we were concerned that air was still leaking in so we decided he needed surgery to repair the stab wound. It proved very difficult. The point of the knife had penetrated within millimetres of the heart and major blood vessels. We did the best we could but when he came out of the anaesthetic he was unable to breathe for himself and had to be ventilated. To keep a patient on a ventilator it is necessary to sedate them and sometimes this immobility can lead to a chest infection. This was the case with Roger Gough. In spite of prophylactic intravenous antibiotics he developed a severe chest infection and on the Thursday his condition was giving us concern. Ultimately he did not regain consciousness and on the Friday morning his condition deteriorated further. His heart could not cope and developed arrhythmias. On the Friday evening, following consultation with Roger’s parents, the decision was taken to switch the ventilator off. The damage to Roger’s major organs made life unsustainable. His parents sat with him. He was pronounced dead at six p.m. that evening.’

  Her black eyes displayed no emotion even when they flickered over Roger Gough’s parents. To Doctor Begum this was her job. She had done the best she could, been professional, taken the recognised steps, lost a patient. Not the first and in her job it would not be the last.

  Martha picked up a movement at the back of the court. Faced with the consequences of her son’s action Shelley Hughes was slipping away. Martha glanced at Gough’s parents. They were sitting hand in hand, stone-still, too shocked to react.

  It was time to take a break.

  The Goughs were chastened when Jericho handed them some coffee and Rich Tea biscuits. They accepted them as though they were zombies, each action slow and automatic. Martha had seen this before. They would not have heard their son’s death described in such graphic details. Christina Gough looked as though she had been punched in the solar plexus. Billy Gough spoke then. ‘There’s lots of his pals what want to speak up for him. That’s allowed, isn’t it?’ His voice was truculent.

  ‘Yes – within limits. Best to restrict it to one or two.’

  Christina dabbed her eyes with a white handkerchief. It came away blackened with mascara. ‘He had loads of friends, our lad.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘That villain, on the other hand, had nobody.’

  Martha felt compelled to speak. ‘This is a double tragedy – for both sets of parents.’

  Billy Gough snorted. ‘Hughes started it.’

  No he didn’t, Martha thought. It was your son who set in motion this trail of events.

  ‘I want you to say that,’ Christina Gough said, her eyes fixed on Martha’s face. ‘I want you to say it. Say something about my lad being innocent and…’

  ‘It wouldn’t be appropriate,’ Martha said. ‘It isn’t my place. I don’t know why Callum Hughes set on your son.’

  ‘’Cos he were a psycho,’ Billy Gough said grumpily.

  ‘I’ve heard other coroners say things about people. Why won’t you?’

  ‘Not in this case,’ Martha said firmly. ‘I’m sorry. It wouldn’t be appropriate.’

  Billy Gough stared at her.’You’ve more sympathy for the little killer than our lad,’ he said.

  Martha took comfort in her usual role. ‘It isn’t my place to have sympathy, Mr Gough,’ she said. ‘I simply have a job to do.’

  They both treated her to a long, hard stare and then filed out, muttering.

  Mark Sullivan was next to give evidence.

  He was factual, describing the state of the lungs, the course of the original stab wound. ‘On more detailed examination,’ he said, ‘I found a large clot in the right lung.’

  Martha interrupted. ‘In your opinion was this a direct result of the assault on Roger Gough?’

  Mark Sullivan looked squarely at her and not for the first time she thought what a waste – an intelligent man with clear blue eyes. He gave her a tentative smile. ‘A pulmonary embolus or clot on the lung is a recognised complication of a stab wound to the chest,’ he said. ‘While it is noted in otherwise healthy individuals, particularly following air travel or in smokers, it would be most unusual for this to happen in an otherwise healthy youth. I can only conclude, therefore, that Roger Gough’s death was as a direct result of the assault which had taken place a few days earlier.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Martha drew in a deep breath. She had expected nothing else but…

  She addressed the Goughs next. ‘Before I pronounce the result of this court,’ she said, ‘you have the opportunity to speak about your son or to elect a friend or two to pay some tribute.’

  Christina Gough turned in her seat to speak to someone behind her. Martha had hardly recognised Katie Ashbourne in her deep black, her hair closing like a curtain around her face. She stood up resolutely, teetered in a pair of black, high-heeled boots towards the witness box, faltered when her eyes rested on the Bible and looked up at Martha.

  Martha felt a faint pricking of unease. Surely the girl would not recognise her?

  Ap
parently not.

  ‘You don’t have to take the oath,’ Martha said gently. ‘You’re not called as a witness but as a friend of Roger Gough’s. Just speak up.’ She gave the girl an encouraging smile.

  Katie Ashbourne tossed her hair away from her face, fixed her eyes on the back row of the gallery and spoke in a high-pitched, nervous sounding voice.

  ‘I was Roger’s girlfriend,’ she said, reading from a scrap of paper. ‘We was going out for more than a year.’ Her dark eyes scanned the room defiantly, as though she was challenging each and every single person there to contradict her. ‘He was a gentle soul who wouldn’t have hurt anybody. He was always kind to weak people and very fond of his mum and dad and little brother. Everyone liked him at school. He didn’t have no enemies except the one. And that was enough. I can’t think about nothin’ since he died. Life isn’t the same. I’ll never forget ’im.’

  Her eyes flicked across towards Martha and Martha nodded and made an attempt at a smile.

  This wasn’t the truth and she knew it. A month – a year – two years even. But Roger Gough would ultimately fade from her memory.

  A boy was next in the witness box, a large, lumbering lad of thirteen or so who identified himself as Dave Arrett. He was wearing school uniform, maroon blazer, charcoal grey trousers, black shoes, apart from the black tie. He mumbled his tribute to his friend, that Gough had been the best friend he could ever have wanted, that Gough was true and loyal and…