The Widow(91)

Jean pulled her handbag onto her knee and undid a small packet of tissues ostentatiously, unfolding one to wipe an eye. She’s not crying, Kate thought. She’s faking.

The bus driver was next. His tears were real as he told of the flash of a man falling in front of his cab window. “I never saw him, so there was nothing I could do. It all happened so quickly. I braked, but it was too late.”

He was helped from the box by an usher, and then Jean was called.

Her performance was polished, too polished. To Kate’s ear, every word sounded like it had been practiced in front of the mirror. The shopping trip was walked through, step by step, around the aisles, out of the automatic doors and into the High Street. The discussion about cereal and Glen Taylor’s stumble into the path of the bus. All told in a low, serious voice.

Kate wrote it all down and glanced up to capture the expressions and any emotions.

“Mrs. Taylor, can you tell us why your husband stumbled? The police examined the pavement and could find nothing to make him lose his footing,” the coroner said kindly.

“I don’t know, sir. He fell under the bus right there in front of me. I didn’t even have time to call out. He was gone,” the widow answered.

She can do this without thinking now, Kate thought. She’s using identical phrases.

“Was he holding your hand or your arm? I know I do with my partner when we’re out together,” the coroner persisted.

“No, well, perhaps. I can’t remember,” she said, less sure of herself now.

“Was your husband distracted that day? Was he himself?”

“Distracted? What do you mean?”

“Not concentrating on what he was doing, Mrs. Taylor.”

“He’d a lot on his mind,” Jean Taylor said, and looked at the press benches. “But I’m sure you know that.”

“Quite,” the coroner said, pleased with himself for prying out some new information.

“So, what was his mood that morning?”

“His mood?”

This was not going the way Jean had planned, Kate thought. Repeating questions back to the questioner was a sure sign of stress. You did it to buy time.

The reporter leaned forward to make sure she didn’t miss a word.

“Yes, his mood, Mrs. Taylor?”

Jean Taylor closed her eyes and seemed to sway in the witness box. Tom Payne and the coroner’s officer leaped up to catch her and lower her into a chair as the court hummed with concern. “It’s a line, I suppose,” the reporter behind Kate muttered to a colleague. “Widow of Bella suspect collapses. Better than nothing.”

“It’s not over yet,” she hissed over her shoulder.

Jean gripped a glass of water and stared at the coroner.

“Better now, Mrs. Taylor?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you. Sorry about that. I didn’t eat anything this morning and . . .”

“That’s perfectly all right. No need to explain. Now, shall we get back to my question?”

Jean took a deep breath. “He hadn’t been sleeping properly, not for ages, and he’d been getting bad headaches.”

“And had he been treated for his insomnia and headaches?”

She shook her head. “He said he wasn’t well, but he wouldn’t go to the doctor. He didn’t want to talk about it, I think.”

“I see. Why not, Mrs. Taylor?”

She looked at her lap for a moment, then raised her head. “Because he said he kept dreaming about Bella Elliott.”

Hugh Holden held her gaze, and the room stilled as he nodded to encourage her to continue.

“She was there when he closed his eyes, he said. It was making him ill. And he wanted to be with me all the time. Following me around the house. I didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t well.”

The coroner noted it all down carefully as the reporters scribbled furiously to his left.

“Given his state of mind, Mrs. Taylor, is there a possibility that your husband stepped in front of the bus on purpose?” the coroner asked.

Tom Payne rose to challenge the question, but Jean waved him away.

“I don’t know, sir. He never said anything about taking his own life. But he wasn’t well.”

The coroner thanked her for her evidence, gave her his condolences, and recorded a verdict of accidental death.

“I’ll be on the news tonight,” he told the court usher gleefully as the press filed out.





FIFTY-THREE


The Detective

THURSDAY, JULY 1, 2010


Glen Taylor’s dreams of Bella led the news bulletins on the radio all afternoon and came a respectable third on the evening television news. In the dog days of summer—the media’s “silly season,” when politicians are on holiday, schools close, and the country gently grinds to a halt—anything with a hint of a news angle plays well.

Sparkes had heard it all from Salmond straight after the inquest, but he read it anyway, scanning every word in the papers. “Jean’s beginning to unravel, Bob,” Salmond had said, puffing slightly as she marched back to her car. “I tried to talk to her afterward. All the reporters were there—your Kate Waters was there—but Jean wouldn’t say another word. She’s still in charge, but only just.”