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He said as much.
“When Vinny Delmarno was released, he swore blind that he would find out who put him away and would get his revenge.”
Warren still wasn’t convinced.
“There’s more.”
Sheehy opened the coat, revealing the concealed file folder, and removed a newspaper article, handing it over. A cutting from a local Hertfordshire paper from February, page one but not the lead. Stapled to the back was a narrow column from page four, continuing the story; a black-and-white headshot, formal-looking and probably taken from an official website, took up barely two inches.
Retired coroner and wife killed in drink-driving smash: Verdict
A former coroner, killed in the early hours of 31 December 2011, was driving too fast and was under the influence of alcohol, an inquest ruled today. The crash, which killed Dr Anton Liebig, 67, and his wife Rosemary, 66, instantly, happened after a sharp bend on the A5062, on the way back from an awards dinner at The Allingham Golf Club in Hertfordshire, where Dr Liebig—captain of the senior men’s team—had presented several trophies.
A police spokesperson said that skid marks at the scene of the accident revealed that Dr Liebig had rounded the blind bend at a speed in excess of fifty miles per hour, before apparently losing control and leaving the road, where he hit a tree. A post-mortem revealed a blood alcohol level of 85 milligrams per 100 ml. The legal limit is 80mg.
The coroner, Dr Lila Schiff, called upon North Hertfordshire District Council to look into the safety of that stretch of road, which has been the scene of numerous serious accidents in recent years, resulting in three fatalities.
Dr Liebig worked as a coroner throughout Warwickshire, before retiring. Rosemary Liebig was a keen painter. They are survived by a son and two grandchildren.
Warren finished reading the report and looked up at Sheehy. “So?”
The story meant nothing to him. He worked in Middlesbury CID. The incident would have been dealt with by traffic down in Welwyn. Besides which, Warren had had enough on his plate over the new year to worry about the ins and outs of some drink-driver.
Sheehy took a deep breath. “Anton Liebig was the coroner who oversaw your father’s inquest, Warren.”
Sheehy’s voice was fading out, replaced by the sound of blood rushing through Warren’s ears. His father’s inquest.
He still remembered that day. The courtroom had been nothing like he’d expected it to be from the TV. A small, wood-panelled room with a row of tables for the “interested parties” to sit—interested parties such as Warren, his mother and his grandparents. A chair sat empty for his brother who hadn’t come home the previous night. Behind them several lines of blue plastic chairs constituting the “public gallery” were mostly filled with journalists, representatives from the Police Federation and a few family friends. Nobody from the station that Niall MacNamara had worked at for more than half his career were present. None of his police “friends”. He’d been dropped; nobody wanted to be associated with him now, the thief who’d stolen drugs money then taken the coward’s way out.
The formal hearing had been a short, almost anti-climactic affair, delivered by the coroner sitting at his slightly raised dais, a much younger version of the man in the newspaper photograph. The family already knew the verdict, having been told quietly beforehand.
Suicide. Carbon monoxide poisoning from his own car engine, administered by a hosepipe attached to the exhaust, an empty bottle of whisky by his side. Found by his teenage son. No suspicious circumstances.
No mention was made of why he did it; that was beyond the purview of the court. But everyone in that room knew the rumours, were aware of the investigation underway. And you can’t libel the dead.
Sheehy’s voice pulled Warren back to the present. “Your father didn’t commit suicide; he was killed. Revenge for what he did? I don’t know. But I knew the moment I got the call about your dad’s death it wasn’t a suicide. I’ve known for over twenty years.”
He continued to avoid Warren’s eyes, having the sense not to try and apologise. He couldn’t; the words didn’t exist that could in any way lessen his guilt, to begin to atone for the literally decades of hurt that he’d help cause.
“Why?” That one word was all Warren could manage. A half-dozen questions were all rolled into that one word.
“Fear. I was scared, Warren. Shit-scared. They’d killed your father and covered it up. Somehow they hadn’t fingered me as his accomplice—too junior I guess. My name didn’t appear on any paperwork. So I kept quiet.”
He still wouldn’t meet Warren’s eyes.
“He was supposed to die in prison, kidney failure. He’d been on dialysis for years. They even put it forward in mitigation, tried to get him a shorter sentence. Perhaps it worked. With the case we had he could have gotten life with thirty years. He got twenty-two. I forgot about him. Got on with my life.
“And then he got a new kidney. God love the NH fucking S. His name came up on the transplant list as the best match and before you know it some poor donor’s kidney is inside that bastard’s body.
“The kidney took, he served the rest of his sentence and now he’s free.”
Sheehy’s voice was a mixture of bitterness and fear. “And now he’s clearing the decks. Settling scores and cleaning up his mess. Reggie Williamson for his betrayal and Anton Liebig because he was a loose end who could link him back to his first act of revenge—the death of your father.
“And that just leaves me. I’m the only one left.”
Warren found his voice. “I still don’t understand. What has this got to do with the current investigation into your misconduct?”
“It’s a set-up; it’s all fake. Delmarno wants his payback, but killing me would be too easy. He’s had two decades to dream about what he wants to do to me and he wants to do it slowly. He wants to ruin me, send me to prison and make me suffer like he did. And then, when I’m finished and due for parole, that’s when he’ll probably make his final move. I’ll be dead before I walk out that prison.”
Warren received a less than rapturous welcome when he returned to the station.
“My office, now.”
The roasting from Grayson was pretty much what he’d been expecting; the man had been unable to decide which of Warren’s misdemeanours should be addressed first and in the end had simply settled on a chronological listing: getting in a car with a potential killer, removing his earpiece so he could no longer receive instructions, leaving a contained area with a suspect, circumventing surveillance and ignoring procedures for the collection of a witness statement.
However, Grayson had reserved most of his vitriol for Warren’s apparent agreement to help his predecessor fight the charges against his name. Sheehy had said nothing about it where they could СКАЧАТЬ