A Call to Witness by Spencer Coleman

Author:Spencer Coleman [Coleman, Spencer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Caffeine Nights Publishing
Published: 2014-08-08T04:00:00+00:00

And finally there was Maggie. With her sister now dead, it was she who carried the threat of revenge upon all of their lives. Was this her only motive? Could Terry believe in this portrait of a killer, painted in graphic detail by Michael, a man who by his own admission was bordering on the insane at that time? Was Maggie real or a figment of Michael’s imagination? Who could Terry trust in his quest for the truth? Could he track Maggie down, assuming Michael was correct in his assumption that she was stalking him in London and hell-bent on wanton destruction?

His head pounded. After examining all the information he had at his disposal, certain issues began to gnaw at him. For instance, how did the fire really start at the barn? Michael said (and the police corroborated on this in all their statements), that it was an accidental fire, started when an oil lamp toppled over as Bruno, the dog, went berserk. This seemed reasonable, but the fire department suggested that the seat of the fire ignited at the far end of the barn, where Marcus stood after he had gained entry from the secret tunnel which led from the main house. Surely the lamp would have been in the middle of the barn, where Lauren held Kara captive? And if the fire had originated at this point, then it would have stopped Marcus escaping by this route, especially as the fireball was sudden and fearsome. This led Terry to agree with the theory that the inferno started behind where Marcus stood. How could this be so? If this was the case, what really happened and what were they all hiding? Had Marcus started the fire deliberately…and if so, was he therefore responsible for the death of Lauren? Was this the real reason for Michael’s insistence on protecting this young man?

The Coroner’s verdict was ‘death by misadventure’. The police file was unofficially closed. The only issue unresolved was which sister perished, as forensic evidence was inconclusive. Michael was convinced that Maggie had escaped. He swore by it, insisting that he saw Lauren succumb to the flames, hit by a blazing roof timber. This image still haunted him, he confided to Terry. But how could he be so positive as to which sister fell, with thick, toxic smoke hindering his view? Marcus, in the mayhem, told the inquest that could not recall this fateful moment with any real clarity, concentrating instead on saving Michael from inevitable death. It was only afterwards, dragging themselves to safety, that they all understood that the barn had become a tomb. All that mattered was that the three of them (Kara included) were alive and out of harm’s way.

Terry tried to imagine the utter chaos and panic during these vital seconds. He had visited the farm and saw first-hand the devastation. Oddly, Marcus and Kara stuck to their stories, word for word, according to police files. Almost as if they had rehearsed their version of events, rather like the actors learning their lines from a script.

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