I stole a glance at Jennifer Stallard. She looked twice as tense and nervous as her daughter on the witness stand. She leaned forward slightly and watched Lisa’s face with a desperate intensity. Her thin white hands were twisting a handkerchief into an unrecognisable rag. She’s lost her husband, I thought. Now she sees the possibility of losing her daughter, too, although in a different way. Has she guessed? Has she got some inkling of what Lisa really did down by the river that morning?
Lisa was speaking again. She explained that Simić had panicked on seeing the snake. He had stumbled backwards and fallen in the river.
‘And when Simić fell into the river, what did you do next?’ asked the coroner in a kindly way.
‘I panicked too,’ she said with a catch in her voice. ‘But I thought he’d be all right. I mean, I was sure he could swim. Anyway, I didn’t think the river was very deep. But I knew he’d be angry and I’d dropped the grass snake. It slid away, so there was nothing to stop him attacking me.’
‘So you simply left the scene?’ the coroner asked her.
She hesitated. ‘He was near the bank and I thought he would climb out.’ Her voice began to break. She stifled a sob. ‘I didn’t think he’d drown! I wouldn’t leave anyone to drown!’ Tears began to trickle down her cheeks and an usher offered more water but she gestured the glass aside. The tears burst out uncontrollably. I was more than startled. I was shocked. I had assumed she’d been acting her distress but this was all too real. I saw Jennifer begin to rise to her feet and Mickey Allerton put a hand on her arm. Jennifer sank back, her face a picture of utter misery.
Did my mother, I wondered, after she’d left us all, ever spend a night of misery like that, thinking about me? Had she loved me like that? I could never know now. For years Jennifer had been a prisoner in that house in Summertown with her invalid husband. No thought of her own freedom or of fulfilment, but comforting herself that Lisa, at least, had every opportunity and was making the most of it. And this was how it had ended, in a coroner’s court, cool and dim in marked contrast to the outside heat, already building up although this was still quite early in the morning. Here she sat and listened to all her dreams fall apart.
I looked across the room to Pereira but her face was expressionless.
Lisa was helped back to her seat where Jennifer put her arm round her shoulders.
Mickey was then presented to the court as Mr Michael Allerton, a businessman and club owner. He said he wished it to be known that although he had employed Ivo Simić, he had not sent the man to Oxford in pursuit of Miss Stallard. He had in fact been on the point of sacking Simić due to Simić’s unsatisfactory behaviour during his time in his employment. He, Allerton, had asked Miss Francesca Varady, a private detective, to go to Oxford and talk to Miss Stallard on his behalf. Miss Varady had done so. As a result, the matter under dispute between himself and Miss Stallard had been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties.
I must say, Allerton looked pretty satisfied when he said this.
‘Ah, yes,’ said the coroner, shuffling his papers, ‘we heard from Miss Varady the - ah - private detective at the previous inquest.’ Private detectives, in his view, were obviously to be categorised together with snakes.
A pathologist’s statement was then read to the court, stating that death had been from drowning.
What had been the result of the further forensic tests? Pereira was asked when she took the stand next.
‘Inconclusive,’ she said briefly.
‘So you have nothing further to add, Sergeant Pereira?’
‘No, sir.’
The coroner summed up with the air of a headmaster doing his best to be fair. This whole sorry affair had arisen from a dispute at her place of work between Lisa Stallard and her employer, Michael Allerton, a dispute the coroner understood had now been resolved. At the time of the tragedy, however, Lisa Stallard had left London in haste and in some mental confusion. The deceased, Ivo Simić, had followed her to Oxford and made contact, requesting a meeting. The coroner accepted that Lisa Stallard had been afraid that Simić had come to Oxford to force her to return to London with him. The court had heard from Mr Allerton, Simić’s employer, that this had not been so. Mr Allerton had in fact sent Miss Francesca Varady to make contact with Miss Stallard and as a result the matter under dispute had later been settled in a peaceful manner. But at the time Simić contacted her, Mr Allerton and Miss Stallard were not on speaking terms. Being with some justification afraid of Simić . . .
Here the coroner rustled papers and observed that police records showed Simić had a conviction for affray and another for assault and could therefore be assumed to have been a dangerous man. So, being afraid of Simić but aware Simić suffered a phobia regarding snakes, she had taken a grass snake from her family’s garden. Mrs Jennifer Stallard, who on medical advice was not being asked to give her evidence in person, had given the court a written statement that the snake had lived in her garden and been a pet of her late husband’s. The court was sorry to hear of Mr Stallard’s recent demise and the coroner would not prolong his summing-up unduly, causing more distress. However, Lisa Stallard took the snake as insurance, shall we say?
He peered at us over his spectacles as if this was the moment when one of us, had any of us an objection, should jump up and say so. Rather like a priest conducting a marriage ceremony.
If any one has just cause
. . . I had just cause but no evidence. The usher would probably eject me from the court if I made a fuss, Allerton would be seriously displeased and Pereira would tell me I was out of order and what the hell did I think I was doing? I sat on my hands. If ever justice was done for Ivo Simić, it wouldn’t be here.
The coroner took up his thread.Yes, an insurance against an assault on the part of Simić. Unfortunately, Simić’s reaction on seeing the snake had been so violent as to involve his stumbling back and losing his footing, falling in the river. While Miss Stallard should really have remained and made sure that he had climbed out, knowing him to be young and fit and seeing that he was conscious and moving in the water, she can be forgiven for believing he was well able to climb out unaided. Her explanation for leaving the scene was - ah - unfortunate but understandable.
Accidental death.
We all left the court. Lisa, her mother, Allerton and the sharp-suited lawyer formed a tightly knit group. I was standing alone on the pavement watching them when I heard my name called and turned to find Pereira standing nearby.
‘So, she got away with it,’ I said. ‘I knew she would.’
‘There was no evidence to support your theory, Fran,’ Pereira told me.
‘What about the branch?’ Despite Pereira’s warnings, I’d fixed my hopes on that branch.
‘It had been lying in the open for a while. Any DNA on it was too degraded. We couldn’t make a match. Anyway, if you’re right and one end of the branch had been in the river, the traces would’ve washed off - oh, we weren’t even able to get a trace of yours, Fran. Perhaps that was just as well. Think about it.’
I stared at her in horror. ‘You mean I might have ended up charged with killing Ivo?’
‘You were the one who was discovered in the river with the body,’ she reminded me. ‘You handled the branch. I think, Fran, you should go home and try and forget all about this.’ She paused. ‘As for the parentage of Lisa’s baby which you questioned in your interview with me, that did not arise. It’s a serious allegation, Fran, and I’d keep it to yourself, if I were you. You have no reason to believe you are right and unless Mr Allerton himself should get suspicious and ask for the relevant tests . . .’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to tell him. But I’ll tell you this: I wouldn’t want to be there if he ever finds out! Lisa’s going to have to worry about that for the rest of her life!’
I turned away and left her. I don’t know quite where I intended going, probably straight to the station and back to London; then I saw Jennifer Stallard had moved away from the others and was standing alone in the shadow of the building. Mickey, Lisa and their lawyer had their heads together, not looking my way.
I hesitated but common courtesy dictated I expressed my condolences to the widow. I went over to her, cleared my throat and said tentatively, ‘Jennifer? You remember me? Fran.’
She turned her head and smiled, a slow sad smile which didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Yes, dear, of course I do.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ I said, ‘about your husband.’
‘Thank you.’ Her gaze drifted away from me towards the group of three conferring together.
I said awkwardly, ‘He’ll look after her.’
‘Mr Allerton? Oh yes, you know Lisa’s fiancé,’ she said.
Fiancé? Mickey was making sure things were going to be done according to his rules from now on. I peered across at the consulting group of three again and could just make out a sizeable stone on Lisa’s ring finger.
‘He employed me,’ I said bleakly, ‘to come to Oxford, as you heard back there in court. I’m sorry about that, too. I didn’t do it by choice or for the money. There was another reason.’
She seemed not to have heard me. ‘I did hope,’ she said, ‘that one day Lisa and Ned might make a match of it. I suppose I knew it was unlikely but we’ve known Ned for years and he and Lisa were such good friends.’
‘Yes,’ I mumbled. ‘I suppose Allerton isn’t quite what you had in mind for a son-in-law.’
She hunched her shoulders. ‘I hoped she’d choose sensibly. I was worried when I knew she’d taken up with a married man but now that his divorce is going through and they are to be married . . . well, I have to accept it.’
I blinked. ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘You knew she’d taken up with Allerton? You knew before all this?’
Now she turned back to me and her smile was both warmer and more rueful. ‘It doesn’t do to check up on your adult children. They don’t like it. Lisa never knew but I did check up on her. I knew all along what kind of work she did at that club. I knew that man - Mr Allerton - had put her in a flat. I knew, when you came to our door, that you’d probably come from him. But I couldn’t do anything, say anything. I didn’t want Paul to find out. If Lisa had found out that I’d, well, snooped, she’d have been so angry. Even worse, she’d have been so upset. She didn’t want us to know. It would have hurt her terribly to find out we did know, or at least I knew. I couldn’t tell my husband. He had a rather unreal view of Lisa.’ Jennifer’s mouth twitched. ‘Men like to believe their daughters are always Daddy’s little girl. They don’t like the idea of them growing up. Funnily, when I did admit to Lisa, after Paul died, that I’d always known, she was relieved. We both cried. I told her I understood and that everything would be all right now. And it will be.’
She spoke these last words with a kind of serenity.
I stood there frozen to the spot and unable to breathe a word. Eventually I managed to croak, ‘It was you! You picked up that branch and pushed Ivo’s head under the water! Lisa knows you did it.’
She sighed. ‘I had to tell her after the police came to the house and it looked for a while as if they might accuse Lisa of causing his death. I told her not to worry. I had done it but I’d tell the police and Lisa would be in the clear. Lisa said I mustn’t breathe a word. Mr Allerton would get her a lawyer if she asked and it would be all right.’
Jennifer frowned and nodded towards the lawyer a little distance away. Allerton was shaking him warmly by the hand, a really happy little scene.
‘Certainly he seemed a very competent man when he turned up. He told us that the coroner’s verdict would almost certainly be accidental death. We were a little worried, Lisa and I, when the police spoke of further forensic tests. But Lisa said we were to keep our nerve and keep our mouths shut. We did keep our nerve and our silence but I can tell you, because I want you to know, that Lisa didn’t kill him and I know you won’t say anything to anyone. Mr Allerton pays you too, doesn’t he?’
I wanted to burst out that, whatever Allerton paid me for, it wasn’t to keep quiet about murder. But she was right. I would keep quiet. This unfortunate woman’s life had been devoted to an ailing querulous husband. Her one joy was her daughter. Jennifer now had a chance of a good life of her own, Mickey would see to that, and a grandchild to look forward to. I could destroy all that with a word in Pereira’s ear. It was a word I could never drop.
‘What did you do?’ I whispered. ‘Follow Lisa?’
‘That morning? Yes. Paul was asleep. He’d had a very bad night and eventually took some sleeping pills which knocked him out. I got up early and went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. I heard movement and looked into the hall. Lisa was sneaking out. I knew something was up. I was worried about her. I knew Paul wouldn’t waken until nearly lunchtime. So I hurried after Lisa and tracked her to Christ Church Meadow. I couldn’t imagine what she wanted there. Then I saw her meet that awful man. I could see from her body language how scared she was and from his how threatening he was. He was a strange-looking man, very tall and strong with blond hair, good-looking, I suppose, yet somehow, I don’t know how to describe it, there was something wrong about him. They began to argue and I was about to run out and let them see I was there. I was so frightened for my daughter. But then I saw her delve into a cloth bag she had with her and she brought out a snake. I’m sure it was the one from our garden, the grass snake my husband always called Arthur. She held it out towards the man and the result was remarkable, extraordinary. He became a gibbering wreck. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He waved his arms around and his eyes bulged. He was truly terrified. He staggered back away from her and he fell in the river with a tremendous splash, water going everywhere. Lisa ran away and I came out from my hiding place. He was threshing about and making for the bank. So, so I picked up the branch lying nearby and pushed him back in. I held his head under.’