A Fatal Truth. Faith Martin

her back into her seat in the front row. Her spouse then said something soothing to her, before striding across to take his place on the witness stand.

      In stark contrast to his wife, Kenneth Wilcox looked very business-like and calm. If he felt at all nervous at having to give evidence, it didn’t show as he was sworn in.

      Clement knew his age was fifty, but unlike his wife, he wore his age much better, and could easily have passed for a decade younger. He was around five feet ten inches tall, and huskily built. He had an abundance of sandy hair, which showed no signs of silvering, and bright, almost electric-blue eyes. A neatly trimmed beard and moustache, just beginning to go salt-and-pepper, only added to his overall attractiveness.

      ‘You’re Mr Kenneth Wilcox, son-in-law of the victim?’ Clement began mildly.

      ‘Yes sir, that’s correct.’

      ‘You’ve just heard your wife’s testimony. Perhaps you can now tell us what you saw the night her father died?’

      ‘I’ll do my best. Like Alice said, we had a little trouble getting the bonfire to catch light, so in the end we had to use a sprinkling of paraffin.’

      ‘Whose suggestion was that?’ Clement slipped in.

      The witness blinked slightly, then shrugged. ‘I’m not altogether sure. I think mine – or else maybe Godfrey’s?’

      ‘Go on,’ Clement said.

      ‘Yes. Well, we got the bonfire going. The kiddies were pleading with their grandfather to start letting off the fireworks, and I think he was teasing them, pretending he was going to make them wait or something, but I saw him eventually head off to the shed to collect them. He usually brought them out in a wheelbarrow.’

      ‘Were the fireworks stored in tin boxes, for safety?’ Clement asked sharply.

      ‘I have no idea, but I doubt it,’ Kenneth said flatly. ‘Otherwise, I can’t see how so many of them would have gone off like they did when the shed caught fire,’ he added logically.

      Clement made a note and sighed. If only people would be more careful! ‘And how do you think the shed did catch fire, Mr Wilcox. Did you see anything strike it – say, another firework from someone else’s display?’

      ‘No, I don’t think so. The only thing I can think of is that some burning newspaper from the bonfire must have blown in on the wind, through the open door, and landed on one of the exposed fireworks. I wish now we’d never used that damned paraffin. Mind you, it wasn’t only the embers from our fire floating about – the wind was so strong, I think plenty of other bright orange bits and bobs blew in from the neighbours’ bonfires too.’

      ‘Did you actually see any burning newspaper or embers blown into the shed?’ Clement asked sharply.

      ‘No sir, I didn’t,’ his witness admitted honestly. ‘But then, I wasn’t really looking or taking much notice. I didn’t realise at the time that it might be important, unfortunately. Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it?’

      Clement nodded, acknowledging the truth of the man’s wry comment. He also knew from the police statements that none of the family there that night could tell them how the shed had caught fire, with such tragic consequences.

      ‘I see. Did your father-in-law carry an electric torch with him? It must have been dark inside the shed.’ Clement tried a new tack.

      ‘Yes, he did. A big, heavy, black rubber thing. He certainly didn’t go in there with a box of matches or a candle or an exposed flame, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Kenneth Wilcox said smartly. ‘No one could accuse the old man of being such a fool!’

      Out of the corner of his eye, Clement noticed someone, he thought on the press bench, make a sharp movement of some kind, but when he turned his head to look more closely, saw only industriously bent heads as they took down the witness’s words in their best shorthand.

      ‘I see. Did your father-in-law seem himself that day?’ Clement asked next.

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Was he in good health? Did he have a cold, or was he in any way breathless?’

      ‘Oh, do you mean could he have been taken ill suddenly and somehow done something to set things in motion? No, I don’t think so,’ Kenneth Wilcox said, frowning thoughtfully. ‘He was always in good, hearty health as far as I know.’

      ‘I see. When were you first aware of there being a problem?’

      ‘When someone – I think it was Godfrey – said something like, “hoy, watch out, the shed’s on fire” or something along those lines. I looked, and sure enough, I could see smoke billowing out. Then the roof caught, and everything seemed to explode at once – whizzers and bangers, and what not. Rockets started shooting out – bloody dangerous it was, I can tell you. I realised at some point that my wife was asking everyone if they knew where her father was. And I suddenly realised that he wasn’t anywhere around, so he must still be in the shed. But it was impossible to get close to it. I yelled to Caroline to go inside and call the fire brigade. They arrived quickly, I’ll give them that, but by the time they arrived and hosed it down … well, they found my father-in-law’s body inside. Bloody awful it was, I can tell you.’

      Clement didn’t think there was any point, in the circumstances, in upbraiding the man for his use of bad language, so instead merely nodded.

      ‘I think, at this point, that we should hear from the Fire Brigade, and then we’ll have the medical evidence,’ he said instead.

       Chapter 2

      The Chief Fire Officer was a tall, lean, calm man in his mid-fifties, who’d testified before Clement many times before. He was a clever man but he spoke plainly, so that the jury could understand even the most complicated evidence, which sometimes bedevilled arson cases.

      Not that there was anything to suggest deliberate arson in this case, as was quickly made clear. In the Fire Officer’s opinion, the worst of the fire had started more or less in the middle of the shed, but with burn patterns that suggested multiple points of contact, consistent with fireworks shooting off in all directions and starting mini-blazes wherever they landed. These small fires were quickly acerbated by the likes of paraffin, bottles of white spirits, some bags of fertiliser and a supply of winter logs, which the family had all admitted were stored inside. Added to the fact that the walls, floor, roof and shelves were all wooden as well, it was hardly surprising that the shed had been reduced to a pile of ashes and bits of burned wooden planks.

      When asked how, in his opinion, the fire was most likely to have started, the Fire Officer was reluctant to give any definite opinion. In his view, too little remained of the shed to provide any positive answer – but he saw no reason why either a stray spark, firework or ember blown in by the wind shouldn’t have ignited a firework and set off a chain reaction, as suggested by so many witnesses.

      The coroner thanked him warmly and called his next witness.

      Dr Marcus Borringer took the stand and glanced at Clement with a brief nod. The two men knew each other, of course. Clement had been a surgeon in the same hospital as Borringer before his own health problems (which he’d been careful to keep concealed from everyone) had made him retire from the medical profession and retrain as a coroner. Since then, Doctor Borringer had regularly been called on to give medical evidence in his court. Whilst the two men weren’t friends exactly, they each respected the reputation for professionalism which they both enjoyed.

      ‘Thank you, Dr Borringer,’ Clement greeted him cordially. ‘You performed the autopsy on Mr Thomas Hughes?’ he began briskly, confident that the pathologist would have done a fine job.

      ‘I did – two days after he was presented at my mortuary.’

      ‘And can you tell the jury about your findings as to cause of death, please?’