Silver (9 page)

“Imogen?”

        A dark canvas cloth was pulled over my father’s corpse and, once removed from sight, the spell of calm seemed to break and I was all at once aware of the commotion about me. Geoffrey’s voice was full of concern and he lowered his face level to my own to enquire again.

“
Imogen. Do you want John to take you home?”

       
From somewhere, I steeled myself against the raging desire to run from the room and I blinked back the tears which had been building.

“
Thank you but no.”

“
Imogen, this is hardly suitable,” John interrupted.

“
On the contrary John,” I countered levelly “This is entirely suitable.”

“
Gentlemen, please.” Having nodded his gratitude to the clerk, the Coroner directed his attention to the two remaining men stood by the table who glanced up, first at the Coroner and then rather sheepishly at one another, unwilling to acknowledge the thought which had been occurring to them both. The Coroner watched over the top of his spectacles as they returned to their seats. “Thank you.” He turned his attention to the gallery where Geoffrey, John and I were seated.

             
“My apologies.” He attempted what seemed to be a placatory smile toward John but which presented itself instead as a grimace. John muttered something inaudible but the Coroner’s attention had already been drawn by the files upon his desk. He read some notes from the top file then motioned towards the clerk and whispered something in his ear before continuing.

“
Gentlemen, you have had the opportunity to view the body and ask questions relating to what was discovered during the Post Mortem. You will now have the opportunity to question witnesses in order to form your conclusions upon the matters already discussed. May I remind you again that no foul play is suspected in this case and your primary purpose as a jury is to agree on both the cause of death and, in this particular case, the gender of the deceased. Again, this is not a criminal court but rather your decision here will be used in any civil disputes over the last will and testament of the deceased and, most importantly, in ensuring the accuracy of the death records. For the benefit of the clerk, I shall now summarise the findings of the Post Mortem and the initial viewing of the body.”

       
On cue, the clerk placed his spectacles on his face and took up his position with his stenograph. He coughed lightly; a well-practiced mannerism which seemed to indicate his readiness as the ringleader of the circus. The Coroner shifted in his seat and turned his attention directly to the table before him, as if in viewing my father’s body he could better recall the facts of the case. As in many vocations, each person has something peculiar to the way they work. With this Coroner it seemed he had a certain word blindness for, as verbose and as verbally effusive as he seemed, he was quite unable to retain facts when he read them written down. He was a tactile man and had found in his line of work that he could better recall a corpse’s bruises if he has touched them himself rather than read a report of his own writing with detailed findings.

“
The deceased lain before you has been positively identified as having been known by the name, Avery Silver of Hamble Gardens, Parsons Green. The first identification was made by a long serving member of staff who was the same person who made the discovery of death, one George Heston. The second by a locum GP, a Dr. William Stevens and thirdly by his daughter Mrs. Imogen Bancroft. The deceased was discovered in the morning of 4th January 1911 lain in bed by the aforementioned Mr. Heston. The alarm was raised to call for a GP who confirmed, as must have already been evident…,” he added raising his eyebrows across to the jury in a conspiratorial fashion. ‘…that the deceased had been so for some hours.”

       
The coroner leaned forwards across his desk on to his elbows and crossed his feet at the ankle underneath his chair. He continued.

“The police report, of which you have been given a copy, does not detect anything unusual in the accounts of any witnesses, nor was anything untoward present at the scene of death. No burglary was made of the premises, no intrusion, and no violence was committed upon the body.”

       
He allowed a brief silence to fill the room, for those listening to absorb his words from the air, before he added, in a yet more superior tone.

“
It has, apparently, come as a great shock to all three of the persons aforementioned that the deceased’s gender is in question. Put plainly, they believed the deceased to have been a man and that closer inspection reveals this to be in doubt.”

       
There was a shuffling beside me and I glanced to my right to look at Leech. Although he was sitting with his body turned away from that of my father, his head was bowed reverentially and inclined towards the Coroner, I noticed his attention was not on the words being announced but rather his attention was wholly on not looking at the body of his friend. I looked around the rest of the room and took in the faces of the men which made up this court. There was an all pervading feeling of curiosity within the room that seemed to soak up the facts which the Coroner was reeling off and what was left seemed only to be mere fiction.

“
…bilateral incision of the abdominal cavity revealed ovaries and fallopian tubes. A further incision to the uterus revealed a small tumour…”

       
His confident voice was obscured by the fug of confusion around the room and, despite the clarity of his voice and of the medical facts he was regurgitating for them all, the faces of the men before him were clouded with doubt.

“
...Hypertrophy of the Labia Majora and Labia Minoris and an enlarged Clitoris.”

       
This last word hung in the air for a few moments as it dawned on everyone that the Coroner had finished. The words meant very little to them all a few hours ago but the image of that little piece of flesh being cut away from its surrounding tissue was fresh in all their minds. The shape of the head and the hood of protective skin gave even the least squeamish among them a shiver of queasiness.

“
In my opinion, the case is as clear, not so much by what we have found as by what we have not found.” The coroner tilted his head, addressing the balance of his own words. Evidently, he considered it an adequate summary of the case thus far and he removed his spectacles. He used them to indicate across the room towards Geoffrey Leech, who had only half listened to the summary. I noticed as I watched him that he had winced at the intimacy of the details but as yet, had not once looked in the direction of the table and where his client, his friend now lay under that thin shroud.

“
This is Mr. Geoffrey Leech. He is a solicitor who, as I understand it.” Here he replaced his spectacles and quickly glanced back down to his notes.  Evidently having not inspected Leech first hand, he was unable to summarise him. “Ah yes, here we go. Leech has been the family solicitor since 1880. He has dealt with all aspects of the deceased’s affairs from property acquisitions, land registry, probate, wills and marriage.” He looked at Leech with incredulity, as if he could not understand how such a simple matter of a client’s gender had been missed. Leech rose and made his way to the front of the courtroom to a leather chair placed in good view of the jurors.

“
Mr. Leech is a witness who has a vested interest in today’s outcome. There will be quite some unpicking to do of the deceased’s affairs if the result is not found in favour.”

       
This last statement was not said too loudly, evidently being for the benefit of the clerk who was busily taking notes at his side. The officious looking man glanced up at his superior, a quizzical expression on his face.

“Shall I note that last bit, Sir?”

        The Coroner rolled his eyes heavenward and clapped his hands on the table before leaning backwards in his chair. The noise was loud and punctuated the end of his monologue. His official role now being to orchestrate and steer the jury before him to the obvious conclusions, he seemed pleased to announce to the room that the witness may be questioned. Having listened intently to the Coroner’s diatribe it was clear how he viewed the verdict. However, there appeared to be some considerable thought going on with some members of the jury. I had been watching one of the young men who had been slow to return to his seat after the physical examination and who still wore an expression of utter puzzlement. He had not taken his eyes from the body. As the Coroner raised his voice to invite questions of them for the witness, the young man started in his chair and looked guiltily at his feet.

“
Mr. Leech, Sir. How well did you know the deceased?”

       
A well-dressed young man with a finely clipped pencil thin moustache and well-oiled hair addressed him.

“
I have known Avery for just over thirty years.  We were introduced by a mutual friend at the St James club in Mayfair. I saw him a few times again, once or twice to play cards with or to have a drink and a chat too. Then he came to see me in the summer of 1880 with a property acquisition. The family home as is. A nice house in Parsons Green, somewhere he and his wife could bring up their daughter.”

       
The man behind the speaker coughed loudly to interrupt Leech straying from the point, and looked a little embarrassed on the old man’s account.

“
Sir,” continued the moustachioed gent. “Are you saying that at no time during your first meetings with the deceased that you found anything out of the ordinary?”

       
Leech took a moment. He had wanted to respond confidently to any questions and he gave this question much thought. As he cast his mind back, he considered the smooth and ready face of his friend. Had he thought anything unusual about him when first they met? In truth there had been one thing, a small thing at the time that now seemed an obvious oversight and he considered not mentioning this to the assembled room.

“
Mr. Leech?” the juror prompted.

“
His voice,” Leech responded quietly. “Avery was a tall man and his frame was solid. When he first spoke, he had much less of a presence than I had expected. Nothing incongruous or strange just…,” he tried to think of the right word. “…surprising,” he decided after a moment.

       
The juror nodded and looked over towards the body. He was trying to imagine the corpse of my father in life, animating this figure with the form of a woman and a softly spoken voice and trying to imagine how, and if, he could be fooled. It was all too obvious by his superior smile that he thought he would not be. Having decided the fate of this verdict in his own mind, he was already considering how he may spend the rest of his day’s leisure. His suit was fine and striped like many of John’s colleagues. He was a man of the city; his trade probably stocks and shares; paper not people. He belonged to the new century and like many of those of his generation, already considered himself several steps ahead of the likes of Leech, the Coroner and my father. These dusty, grey haired relics belonged to the last century and he would not be fooled by the small footed corpse that kept him from his city bank on a trading day. As he calculated the potential losses from his earnings through this day’s duty, the thought made him cross and cast a shadow across his features. The man behind him who coughed, his lips parted wishing to speak, finally interjected into the silence, raising his hand as he did so as he if wished to use the bathroom.

“
If I may, Sir?” he addressed the Coroner who gestured towards Leech with a wide sweep of his arm. “Thank you. Yes. Mr. Leech. This may sound unorthodox but could you describe the deceased for us. It is difficult, on the face of the evidence, to imagine how on earth this fellow conducted himself.”

“
Or herself?” his neighbour piped up. A long faced old man, his arms folded guardedly. He blushed slightly as attention was drawn upon him and he proceeded to shuffle awkwardly in his seat, adjusting his position until he was back in exactly the same pose, closed.

“Of course, or herself,” the original speaker agreed.

       
The hairs on the back of my neck had begun to rise and I was shocked by the impertinence of these young men. In life, my father had run rings around men like them. I was growing frustrated at the manner in which these people referred to him. Leech however, had been prepared for this. As he had travelled by cab this morning from his home in Battersea, he had tried to imagine what he would be asking someone if he was placed in a similar position. He cleared his throat; age was beginning to endow him with troublesome phlegm that settled on his chest, promoting a rather unhealthy rattle.

“
Silver was someone upon whose judgment I relied very heavily. He was a sober and astute man who was strong in character but who reserved judgment on people and issues.” As he spoke, he levelled his gaze upon each juror individually, most of whom were listening intently but some men’s attention had strayed to the clerk, the corpse or their fellow jurors. “Avery was about as solid a friend as a man could choose. He was knowledgeable, loyal and a convivial companion.”

“
You were friends a long time. Twenty years you say?” the Juror prompted.