outside the coroner’s court in Hornsey.
Lorimer walked slowly down the steps to the innocuous brick building – like a science lab in a new comprehensive school, he thought – not looking forward to his first appearance as a key witness and wincing as he inadvertently flexed the fingers of his left hand. Any movement seemed to affect adversely the big shoulder muscle (the trapezius, as he now knew it was called, having looked it up in an encyclopaedia), transforming itself into a pain-trigger, tracing itself back to the crushed fibres. His shoulder had now turned a lurid damson-brown, like some horrible algae infesting his epidermis.
‘Morning, Mr Black.’ Detective Sergeant Rappaport stood in the lee provided by the concrete columns of the main door, a small cigar in his hand. ‘Lovely day for it.’
Lorimer noticed that the coroner’s court was adjacent to an anonymous-looking building signed ‘Public Mortuary’. The disturbing thought arrived in his head that it might contain the body of Mr Dupree, awaiting the verdict on his passing. It was better not to know.
‘What exactly will I have to do?’ Lorimer asked.
‘A formality, Mr Black. Just tell them how you found Mr Dupree. Then I give my spiel. There’s a member of the family with a few observations on Mr D’s state of mind at the time of the incident. Should wrap things up inside of an hour. By the way, what’s happened to your car?’
Lorimer told him and they went inside and upstairs, where, in a dim hall, small groups of people stood around, hushed and nervous as if at a funeral, talking in low voices. Juvenile delinquents, washed, smart and contrite, squired by their parents, glum no-hopers, petty thieves, self-righteous merchants pursuing creditors through small-claims courts, traffic code violators, ashamed drunken drivers swearing sobriety. Lorimer felt cast down being amongst their number: ‘witness to a suicide’, that was his tag, his category, and somehow it reduced him to their level. Here were life’s niggles and gripes, not real problems – the snagged nail syndrome, the minor toothache disturbance, the sprained ankle effect. There was no drama or tragedy or big emotion about what happened here; instead there were misdemeanours, cautions, tick-ings-off, wrist-slappings, minor fines, licences endorsed, bans administered, debts verified, injunctions granted… It was all too tawdry.
Yet he still felt dry-mouthed and insecure when he took the stand and swore his oath and the coroner, a stout woman with a rigid ash-blonde perm, asked him to describe his discovery of Mr Dupree. He did so, recalling the day, the hour of the appointment.
‘You had no inkling such a likelihood – Mr Dupree’s suicide – was, ah…likely?’
‘It was a completely routine meeting as far as I was concerned.’
‘Could he have been suffering from depression?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose so. It had been a serious fire, his factory was completely ruined. Anyone would have been entitled to feel depressed in those circumstances.’
She consulted her notes. ‘You are a loss adjuster, I see. In what way were you involved with the deceased?’
‘Our job is to ascertain the validity of an insurance claim. We are employed by the insurance company – to see if it’s fair.’
‘And in this case it seemed fair.’
‘As far as I know,’ Lorimer said evasively. ‘There were some figures that had to be confirmed – the exact value of an order from the USA. I know our investigation was effectively over.’
Rappaport took the stand after him and read off the relevant facts: Mr Dupree’s age, the time of Lorimer’s phone call, the time of death, the cause of death, the authenticity of the death certificate, the absence of indications of foul play. His voice was strong, his pleasure in his role evident, so evident he seemed constantly to be repressing a self-satisfied smile.
Through the window to his right Lorimer could see a square of blue sky being invaded by some serious-looking grey clouds… His mind wandered, as he realized for the first time in his adult life he was going to have to ask his bank manager for an overdraft – a bad sign that, an evil omen. Damn Hogg. He did not hear Rappaport come down from the stand and was only half aware of the conversation between the clerk and the coroner. But he could have sworn that when they called the next witness the clerk uttered a name very similar to ‘Mrs Malinverno’. It just showed how she dominated his –
He looked around to see a thin, pale-faced woman with a weak chin and