Where the Truth Lies

by M J Lee

  The barrister stood up and bowed his head once.

  ‘Representing the pathologist, Dr Harold Lardner, is Ms Stacey Hardisty.’

  She also rose and bowed to the court.

  ‘A gentle reminder to my learned colleagues. This is not a court of law. I will ask each witness questions as I see fit. My learned colleagues will have their opportunity to question the witnesses when I have finished. Carol…’

  The senior coroner stepped forward. Ridpath could see her hair was decorated in an elaborate bun, and her suit was a severe shade of black.

  ‘Please call the first witness. Chief Superintendent John Gorman.’

  The short man strode to the witness box and took the oath on a Bible held by Carol Oates. As Margaret Challinor began questioning him, he ran his finger around the inside of his shirt collar, as if giving himself more room to breathe.

  Please state your name and occupation.’

  ‘Chief Superintendent John Gorman, at present head of the Major Incident Team for the Greater Manchester Police, based at HQ in Newton Heath.’

  ‘Thank you, Chief Superintendent Gorman. You were in charge of the investigation into the disappearance of five women, four of whom were murdered, in 2008?’

  ‘I was. Through the efforts of my officers we managed to rescue the final victim, Freda Scott, before she could be murdered by James Dalbey.’

  Margaret Challinor raised an eyebrow at the mention of the name but carried on anyway. ‘This series of murders was commonly referred to as the “Beast of Manchester” case?’

  ‘The tabloid press did give it that name. It was not something I encouraged amongst my officers.’

  ‘Oh, why not?’

  ‘The name suggested someone who was out of control, a beast, but James Dalbey was very much in control, a psychopath.’

  ‘James never killed anybody,’ shouted Tony Seagram.

  The coroner fixed him with her blue eyes. ‘Mr Seagram, we appreciate the concern of the family regarding this case. However if I have another outburst, you will be removed from my court, do you understand?’

  ‘But he keeps referring to James as the killer. James wouldn’t hurt a fly, never mind murder my sister.’

  ‘I asked if you understood me?’

  His mother, sitting next to him, patted his arm. Tony Seagram nodded once and looked away.

  ‘What were your reasons for believing James Dalbey to be guilty of the crimes?’

  ‘He had opportunity to murder all four girls. He could not account for his movements when they disappeared. He knew victim number four, Alice Seagram. He confessed to killing her in a police interview. And he was caught in possession of the keys to a lock-up where the fifth victim was imprisoned.’

  ‘You say he confessed?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘A confession later rescinded…’

  He smiled at the reporters. ‘Criminals often rescind confessions. It’s to be expected.’

  ‘In the same confession, didn’t he also talk about a man who had given him the keys to the lock-up?’

  ‘An invisible man. We could find no trace of such a man.’

  ‘So you investigated this “invisible man”?’

  ‘Of course, if Dalbey had an accomplice we wanted to find him. But, despite our investigation, we could find no evidence of his existence. Nor has any proof of his existence come forward in the last ten years. I think it is significant that since we have locked up James Dalbey, there have been no further murders by the Beast of Manchester.’

  Mrs Challinor frowned. ‘May I remind you, Chief Superintendent, that the absence of something is not proof of the existence of something else,’ she admonished him, brushing a grey lock of hair from her eyes. ‘Just a few more questions… Your men found the fifth victim, Freda Scott, alive and manacled to a wall in a lock-up garage, after James Dalbey had been chased there. Is that correct?’

  ‘That is correct. We arrested him in the lock-up and released her. Unfortunately she committed suicide three years later. A consequence, I’m sure, of her experience at his hands.’

  ‘Did you question her after her release?’

  ‘We did. Understandably, she wasn’t coherent; the affair had been a terrible shock to her.’

  Did she identify Dalbey as her assailant?’

  ‘She did and she didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Chief Superintendent.’

  She described a man of the same age and height as her assailant, but she never saw his face as he always wore a mask – a black mask.’

  ‘So it may or may not have been James Dalbey?’

  ‘From the other evidence, I believe it was him.’

  Mrs Challinor frowned again. ‘One last question, Mr Gorman, did you apply any pressure on the pathologist, Dr Harold Lardner, to revise his time of death?’

  The chief superintendent looked surprised. ‘Of course not. And I resent the inference the police would ever put pressure on an independent forensic witness to change their findings. In fact, Dr Lardner approached me with a revised time of death. I did not ask him.’

  ‘We will be asking Dr Lardner later.’

  ‘I’m sure he will confirm what I have just said.’

  ‘Thank you, Chief Superintendent.’ She turned to the barristers at their table. ‘I have no more questions. Mr Chambers, do you have any for this witness?’

  The barrister stood up and smiled. ‘Just a few, Mrs Challinor, for clarification,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘Chief Superintendent Gorman, did you ever find any evidence of another man being involved in the killings.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No fingerprints in the lock-up?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No DNA on any of the murder weapons?’

  ‘None, other than those of James Dalbey.’

  ‘No fibres, hairs, shoe prints or any other physical evidence of another man?’

  ‘None whatsoever.’

  ‘So this man who, according to James Dalbey, committed all these murders and ordered him to go to the lock-up, didn’t exist forensically?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Did any other witnesses testify to seeing him with Dalbey?’

  ‘No. We spent over 400 man hours looking for him but could never find any trace of his existence. Dalbey said they met in secret, nobody ever knew.’

  ‘The unknown man?’

  ‘You could say, Mr Chambers, I could not possibly comment.’

  ‘Finally, Detective Superintendent, you never found the bodies of the other victims of the Beast of Manchester.’

  John Gorman’s face blanched and, for the first time, he looked uncertain and anxious. ‘No, we never did, he finally answered, ‘Dalbey refused to tell us where he had hidden them.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Challinor. I have finished with the witness.’

  She turned to Gorman. ‘You may leave the witness stand, Chief Superintendent, but you remain under oath. It seems a good time to break for 15 minutes. We return at 11.15.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  On her way out, Margaret Challinor indicated to Ridpath he should follow her to the office. Once inside, she closed the door. ‘It’s not going well, Ridpath. The barrister has him well coached and the jury is not buying the existence of the other man at all.’

  Ridpath sat down in the bentwood chair in front of her.

  Margaret Challinor remained standing. ‘We have to speed it up. The longer we take to get to the key point, the harder it will be to get him to make a mistake. Are you ready?’

  Before he could answer, there was a light tap on the door. Without waiting for Mrs Challinor to respond, it opened and the tall man in the expensive black suit entered.

  ‘I just thought I would introduce myself, Mrs Challinor. My name is David Merchant from the Ministry. I do hope you were warned in advance that I would be observing the proceedings of this inquest.’

  Margaret Challinor held out her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Merchant. This i
s my officer, Detective Inspector Thomas Ridpath.’

  The man from the ministry shook Ridpath’s hand. His touch was cold and clammy, like a dead squid.

  ‘The Ministry did inform me somebody would be coming. I hope you enjoyed the journey up to Manchester.’

  ‘Enjoy is not a word I would use in conjunction with Virgin Trains. Their service leaves a lot to be desired, even in first class.’ The man’s voice was educated and from the Home Counties, the thin top lip hardly moving as he spoke.

  ‘But at least you are here.’

  He pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. ‘The morning has been interesting, Mrs Challinor.’ He stressed the word interesting as if it were the strongest obscenity.

  ‘Really, Mr Merchant, how so?’

  A pink tongue came out to lick the thin top lip. ‘It was almost as if this was a court of law, not a coroner’s court, and you were more interested in discovering who the murderer was, rather than the circumstances of the death.’

  ‘Sometimes witnesses take us into interesting territory, Mr Merchant.’

  He smiled a thin smile. ‘I often find it is the line of questioning that takes us into interesting territory rather than the witness, don’t you?’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more, Mr Merchant, but our job is to find out the truth, is it not?’

  The smile again. ‘It is, but within carefully defined boundaries, Mrs Challinor. Boundaries delineated by the chief coroner and his officials at the Ministry of Justice. I wouldn’t want you to’ – here he paused for a moment and pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose – ‘overstep those boundaries and expand the role of the coroner. That wouldn’t be appropriate, would it? Anyway, I just thought I would come in and have a chat. I’m sure you need time to prepare for the next stage of the inquest.’

  He stepped back to open the door, stopping just before he left the room. ‘Just so you are aware, the Ministry has tasked me to make a full report of the proceedings, Mrs Challinor. I hope the rest of the inquest is…’ – a pause and a lick of the top lip – ‘less interesting.’

  He left the room, closing the door gently behind him.

  ‘Bastard,’ said Ridpath. ‘Have you just been threatened?’

  Mrs Challinor nodded. ‘Done with all the subtlety of the Lord High Executioner.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘My job, Ridpath. And my job is to find the truth. Is your witness ready?’

  ‘As ready as he’ll ever be.’

  ‘We’ll call the pathologist next. Wait for my signal.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  ‘I’d like to call Dr Harold Lardner as the next witness.’ Margaret Challinor made a note in her legal pad as the pathologist walked to the witness box.

  Jenny Oldfield came forward. ‘You have decided to affirm?’ she asked.

  Dr Lardner nodded and held up his hand.

  ‘Do you solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that you will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?’

  ‘I do.’

  The coroner jumped straight in as soon as he had finished.

  ‘Your name is Martin Lardner and you were the pathologist who performed the post-mortem on Alice Seagram?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Dr Lardner, we have heard testimony from Chief Superintendent Gorman that it was you who requested to re-examine the body of Alice Seagram.’

  ‘That is not exactly correct.’

  A buzz went round the coroner’s court. John Gorman looked surprised.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand, Dr Lardner.’

  ‘It is true I requested to revisit my post-mortem on Alice Seagram, but I didn’t re-examine the body, I revisited my notes.’

  Margaret Challinor’s eyes lit up. ‘Is that normal? To re-examine notes from a post-mortem?’

  The doctor was calmness personified. ‘Not normal, but not unusual.’

  ‘And on re-examining your notes, you decided to broaden the estimate of the time of death.’

  ‘That is correct. I felt I had been too narrow in my estimate. The weather was unusually warm for the time of year and the body had been placed in the open before it was found. Based on those two facts I revised my findings.’

  ‘Was this before or after you learnt James Dalbey had eaten dinner with the victim’s family that night?’

  Dr Lardner scratched his head. ‘I don’t need to remind you the evaluation of time of death is not an exact science. After re-examining my notes on the post-mortem I felt I had been too restrictive in ascribing a time of death to between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. on the day in question.’

  Mrs Challinor took off her glasses. ‘Could you answer the question, Dr Lardner? Was this before or after you found out where James Dalbey was that evening?’

  The doctor smiled. ‘I misunderstood you, Coroner. I only found out about James Dalbey’s dinner with the victim’s family two days after I revised my findings.’

  ‘Liar.’ The shout was from Tony Seagram.

  ‘I have warned you once, Mr Seagram, there will be no more outbursts in this courtroom, am I clear?’ She stared at him; waiting for a reply.

  He nodded once and looked away.

  ‘Dr Lardner, do you own a company called Prospect Limited?’

  He smiled once more. ‘Prospect Limited? Never heard of it.’

  ‘Apparently, neither has Companies House. And yet it was this company that placed Alice Seagram’s body at a research facility called TRACE, in north Lancashire. Have you heard of TRACE?’

  ‘Of course, most pathologists have heard of its existence.’

  ‘Have you ever been there?’

  The smile vanished. ‘Once or twice.’

  ‘Did you go there two weeks ago?’

  He smiled again, looking towards his barrister. She stood up on seeing the discomfort of her client. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t see what this has to do with my client and his examination of Alice Seagram ten years ago.’

  ‘I shall attempt to enlighten you, Ms Hardisty. Her body was discovered in a cold store at TRACE on Saturday. It had been left there ten years ago by a Mr Don Brown, working under the instructions of the undertaker, Frank O’Shaughnessy.’

  Mrs Seagram began sobbing loudly. Her son put his arm around her, whispering into her ear.

  ‘I fail to see what this has to do with my client, Dr Lardner. He has already stated clearly he has no knowledge of the company mentioned and there seems to be no documentary evidence linking him to it in any way, shape or form. Perhaps, we should be asking Mr Brown these questions rather than my client.’

  ‘Thank you, Ms Hardisty, we will get to Mr Brown in good time. However, I accept there is no evidence linking him to Prospect Limited.’ She turned back to the doctor. ‘Thank you, you may step down, but please remember you are under oath in case we need to call you as a witness again.’

  The doctor smiled, stood up and smoothed down his tweed trousers. ‘Of course, Mrs Challinor.’ He then walked back to his seat next to Protheroe.

  The coroner examined a note on her desk and turned towards Ridpath who was standing at the door. ‘Could you bring the next witness into court?’

  The two barristers looked towards each other; Stacey Hardisty stood up. ‘I must object, Mrs Challinor, there is no other witness down to appear before the court.’ The barrister held up a piece of paper.

  ‘This is an emergency witness, Ms Hardisty. There was no need to inform anybody of his appearance.’

  All eyes turned towards the entrance to the court as Ridpath appeared first, followed seconds later by a man wearing an ill-fitting suit, two sizes too large for him, carrying a beige folder under his arm.

  ‘Mrs Oldfield, please swear the new witness in.’

  Jenny held the Bible out and the man stepped forward to place his right hand on it. ‘Do you swear by Almighty God you will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?’

  ‘I do.’

 
‘Your name?’ asked Mrs Challinor.

  ‘Patrick Downey’

  ‘Your occupation?’

  ‘I am the manager of TRACE, an experimental research facility attached to the University of Lancashire.’

  ‘And what research do people do at TRACE?’

  ‘Mainly forensic science. Rates of decay of bodies. The effect of wild animals and insects on bodies deposited in the open, and other primary forensic research.’

  ‘Do you use human bodies for your research, Mr Downey?’

  ‘Never. There are no body farms in the UK at present. We use animal carcasses, mainly pigs.’

  ‘And yet you had a human body found on your facility on Saturday, didn’t you?’

  Another buzz went round the court. The three reporters scribbled frantically in their notebooks.

  ‘In fact, we found five bodies over the weekend at our facility. Four from 2008 and one which was only deposited with us two weeks ago.’

  Margaret Challinor spoke directly to the court. ‘A pathologist will confirm later that this last body is that of Irene Hungerford, a sex worker from Newcastle who disappeared in Moss Side. The police are currently investigating that disappearance.’

  Charlie Whitworth looked across at John Gorman. The senior policeman nodded to the coroner, his chin jutting out.

  ‘Mr Downey, I want you to look around this court today. Do you remember the man who brought this body to your facility?’

  Theatrically, Downey scanned the court before reaching out with his arm and pointing. ‘Him.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  Dr Lardner stood bolt upright. ‘I’ve never seen this man before in my life,’ he shouted.

  ‘Remember you are still under oath, Doctor.’

  ‘I don’t know who this man is and why he is accusing me of taking bodies to his facility.’ The doctor stopped for a moment, realizing he was shouting. A smile crept across his face and he frowned, the voice softening. ‘I have never seen you before, and the last time I visited TRACE was four years ago.’

  Ms Hardisty jumped up. ‘I must object, Mrs Challinor. You have ambushed my client, accusing him of being involved in some sort of body-snatching.’