The Chosen Dead (Jenny Cooper 5)

by Hall, M. R.

  Tintern Abbey stood luminescent beneath a moon brighter than a December sun. Jenny imagined the ghosts of its long-dead monks haunting its shadows, chanting their vespers to the silent valley. She shivered, her imagination running wild, conjuring malignant spirits in the hedgerows; every silhouetted tree a stooping monster. She pressed on up the lane to Melin Bach, anxious to escape the unnatural night. She swung left and right through the tight bends, the cow parsley erupting from the verges clawing at her car like outstretched hands. A rusted iron gate tied to stone posts with bailer twine signalled the final bend. She took it fast, the headlights sweeping left, but instead of picking out her cottage, they illuminated a stationary car parked outside. She stamped on the brakes, skidding to a halt inches from impact as the driver’s door flew open and an angry male figure jumped out.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Jenny!’

  She caught her breath, her heart ramming hard against her ribs. It was Michael, standing in the middle of the road, hands pressed to the side of his head. She opened the car door and climbed out, trembling.

  ‘You could have killed me.’ He was pointing to the gap, less than two feet wide, between her car and his.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘What am I doing?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘Forget it. Can we go inside? I’ve been sitting here for two hours.’

  ‘That’s hardly my fault.’

  ‘Look, I need to talk to you.’

  ‘About what a bad mother I am?’

  ‘No. About why I was met at work by intelligence officers.’

  They stood in the kitchen drinking cheap red wine. Michael drank his first glass in two mouthfuls and poured another.

  ‘It wasn’t even home base. I’d picked up clients at Biggin Hill and delivered them to Exeter. They hadn’t called the office to track me down, I checked.’

  ‘Who?’ Jenny asked, her arms folded defensively across her middle. She wasn’t ready to forgive him yet.

  ‘There were two guys. Thirties. Suits. Ex-military types.’

  Jenny thought of the man who had inadvertently caught her eye at the Diamond Light Source. ‘Short dark hair, square jaw. Knows he’s good-looking?’

  ‘Friend of yours?’ It was an accusation, not a question.

  ‘I might have seen him. Go on.’

  ‘No names, just a vague flash of some ID or other and mention of the intelligence service. They offered to take me to the local police station and have the conversation on tape, but to be frank, I didn’t fancy getting in their car. We spoke there, next to the Cessna.’

  ‘About what?’ Jenny snapped, impatient for answers.

  ‘About the nature of our relationship. Had you spoken to me about any of your current cases? Had you mentioned a man called Jordan? It was a bad mistake saying yes to that.’ He paused for another mouthful of Merlot, wiped his lips on the back of his hand. ‘What had you said? Did you believe it was suicide? If not, why not? What had you been doing in Oxford? Something about a woman called Blake. Oh, and what were you doing visiting something called the Diamond Light Source?’

  ‘Did they believe what you told them?’

  ‘No. And as a gesture of their goodwill they left me with this.’ He lifted his shirt to reveal a vicious, fist-shaped bruise on the left side of his ribcage. ‘That was the good-looking one. I got the impression he’d done it before.’

  ‘Oh,’ was all Jenny could say.

  He took another long drink. His hand had started to shake.

  ‘Sorry if I seem a little nervy. It’s not every day you get roughed up by government agents. I guess I ought to thank you for the lesson – I always vaguely thought they’d be civilized.’ He reached for the bottle again. ‘What the hell’s going on, Jenny?’

  ‘How long have you got?’

  ‘Try me.’

  They took the bottle through to the sitting room, and once more Jenny found herself retelling the story which seemed to become more incredible with each repetition. Michael demanded every detail, from the exact nature of Adam Jordan’s last project in South Sudan to Henry Blake’s fear that his ex-wife’s death might not have been an accident. Throughout, he maintained the focused intensity of the fighter pilot he had once been listening to a pre-sortie briefing.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Jenny asked when she had finished. She had been expecting a reaction, but Michael just stared into the empty grate.

  ‘Something happened in Africa,’ he said eventually. ‘Maybe Jordan couldn’t live with it.’

  ‘I’d guessed that much. But Slavsky, Sonia Blake, her father, all of that . . .’

  ‘It sounds like a small world,’ Michael said, ‘with everyone feeding off each other’s research. Sonia Blake had got herself deeply involved. From what you’ve told me, commercial secrets would be as dangerous to know as government ones. But the pair who paid me a visit wouldn’t have been protecting commercial secrets, would they?’ He was thinking aloud. ‘Unless they were Intelligence Corps. Did you say you had a witness who was a major from Bulford?’

  ‘Fielding – yes. But his connection seemed coincidental.’

  ‘Intelligence Corps observe. That’s what they do. Your man Jordan wasn’t a member of Hampton’s, was he?’

  ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t seem likely.’

  ‘He lived in a smart street in Bath. Wealthy in-laws, plenty of money in his account.’

  ‘His name wasn’t on the list of visitors.’

  ‘From what you’ve told me about him, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had an alias.’

  Jenny glanced at her watch. It was nearly 1.30, but the question felt too urgent to leave unanswered until morning. She picked up the phone and dialled Karen Jordan’s number. It rang interminably before Karen answered, dragged from her sleep, no doubt bracing herself for more bad news.

  Jenny apologized for getting her out of bed and got a scratchy response. ‘What the hell do you want?’ Karen demanded.

  ‘Did Adam belong to Hampton’s Health Club in Bristol, by any chance?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hampton’s. It’s in Clifton.’ Now Jenny felt foolish.

  ‘I know what it is. We both belonged to the one in Bath. What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Oh.’ Karen’s answer had thrown her. ‘I think Adam may have been followed there.’

  ‘Followed. Who by?’

  ‘This should wait till I know more. Sorry.’

  ‘Who by?’ Karen insisted, fully awake now.

  Jenny glanced over at Michael. He shrugged. Her call.

  ‘Military intelligence.’

  Silence.

  ‘Mrs Jordan, I’m sorry. Does that make any sense?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . I don’t know what to think.’ Her flare of anger had given way to confusion. ‘Something came back to me today – my memory’s been shot, but I keep getting little snatches, you know . . .’

  ‘What is it? What do you remember?’

  ‘Coming home the day I disturbed the burglars . . . I walked along the hall past the sitting-room door towards the kitchen. They stepped out behind me. It was an instant, a split second, two moving shadows on the wall to my right. And a man’s voice saying a word – it sounded like “koos” – just as the lights went out.’

  ‘Koos?’

  Jenny saw Michael’s eyebrows rise in surprise. He leaned over to the small table where she kept a message pad and pen.

  ‘Do you remember anything else?’

  ‘No. Just that.’ She sounded tired now, as if sleep was clawing her back.

  ‘Sorry again, Mrs Jordan. I’ll call you when I’ve got news.’ Jenny rang off and glanced down at what Michael had scribbled with a stub of pencil. Koos – Arabic – cunt.

  ‘Arabic? You’re sure?’

  ‘Picked it up in Iraq. They use it like we do – it’s the worst.’

  ‘Middle Easterners? Why would they have broken into Karen Jordan’s house?’
>
  ‘They speak Arabic in parts of North Africa, too. Listen to me, Jenny, I don’t think you should get any further involved. You’re dealing with dangerous people.’ He pointed to his injured ribs. ‘I don’t want a phone call telling me you’ve ended up alongside your clients.’

  ‘You’re forgetting a little thing called duty. I thought you of all people would understand that.’

  ‘Come on, Jenny—’

  ‘Come on, what? You think I should abandon my job?’

  ‘Have you forgotten what I told you already?’

  ‘Oh, no. I shan’t be forgetting that in a hurry.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ He reached for her hand. ‘Jenny, please. It’s late. Let’s go to bed. We can talk about this in the morning. I don’t have to be in Bristol until midday.’

  ‘Michael, I’m not giving up until I’ve found the cause of Adam Jordan’s death. Given how we met, I don’t think you can claim that comes as any surprise.’

  ‘I’m helping you out of a corner. You’ve told me what your psychiatrist said. Carrying on like this isn’t going to make you happy—’

  She wrenched her fingers out from between his.

  ‘I was married to a man who liked to give lectures on what would make me happy.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Jenny.’

  ‘Avoid the issue, have sex, and it’ll all be all right – is that your answer?’

  He moved away from her and stood up. ‘You can be vicious, you know that?’

  ‘You were honest the other night, I’m being honest now. I’m not going to change, Michael. This is who I am.’ Jenny looked at him, searching for the man she hoped was still in there, the decent, fearless, level-headed one she had fallen more than a little in love with.

  ‘I’m not going to prop up a self-destructive personality, Jenny. What would that make me?’

  ‘Are you asking me to choose between you and my case?’

  ‘Think about it, Jenny. You are loved. You just don’t seem to want to realize it.’ He paused at the door, as if hoping she’d change her mind and beg him to stay.

  Jenny woke to the sound of the outdoor brass bell clanging insistently. Not content with a noise to wake the whole valley, the caller started on the knocker. Jenny glanced bleary-eyed at the clock and saw that it was not yet 8 a.m., and it was Saturday morning. Half asleep, she swung out of bed and hauled on a robe over the top of a T-shirt that served for a nightdress. She caught her reflection in the mirror: her hair was a mess, she looked dreadful. She stumbled out onto the landing, her heart pounding.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Only me, Mrs Cooper.’

  It was Williams’s voice. Thank God.

  ‘Hold on. Coming.’ She walked stiff-backed down the stairs, her spine protesting at hours spent in the car over recent days.

  She slid back the iron deadbolt and opened the door to find him dressed in sky-blue slacks and a short-sleeved shirt intended to match, but failing by several shades.

  ‘I’m not stopping. Teeing off at nine sharp. The Rolls of Monmouth, if you please.’

  Jenny smiled weakly. His gaudy outfit was giving her a headache.

  ‘Had a bit of luck with your young African lady, though.’ He dipped into his pocket and handed her a USB stick. ‘One of my boys got hold of this – CCTV of your Mr Jordan with a girl who looks like she’s the one. Nothing fancy, just a bit of old-fashioned detective work. The nearest watering hole to the cashpoint he’d been visiting, actually – Revolution. Know it?’

  Jenny shook her head.

  ‘Can’t say it looks like my kind of place, either.’

  ‘Any idea who she is?’

  ‘I may well do, Mrs Cooper. There’s an email on there from a colleague in the Border Agency. It was sitting in my inbox first thing this morning; thought you’d like to see it soonest. We have a twenty-one-year-old female from South Sudan granted a six-month visitor’s visa on June 8th this year. A Mr Adam Jordan and a Mrs Sonia Blake are listed as her sponsors. Her registered address is in Redland, Bristol.’

  ‘You’ve contacted her?’

  ‘I thought I’d wait to be guided by you on that. Better be off – the vice-captain can’t be late. Gwent Constabulary versus West Mercia. I shan’t be getting up tomorrow if we don’t tan their English hides.’

  Jenny watched him go, and smiled at his retreating back; a boy in blue who’d just delivered her a stick of dynamite.

  Zetland Road was a leafy, gently sloping street of handsome semi-detached Victorian villas. But every now and then as she drove slowly downhill, Jenny noticed a property with a disorderly array of doorbells and a mismatch of curtains at unwashed windows. These would be student houses, rented out by landlords for tax-free cash in the hand. Fifteen young people at £100 a week was more than double the rent a pristine property could attract from a single tenant. Jenny had come to know such places well for their suicides and the accidental ‘party deaths’ that were an unlovely and recurring feature of a coroner’s caseload in a university city.

  The girl who had been captured in the fifteen seconds of colour footage had been tall and slender and wearing a simple cotton dress that came below her knees. She had followed Adam through the door of the bar, waited patiently while he ordered drinks, her hands clasped demurely in front of her. Then he had steered her out of frame with no sign of intimacy between them. They definitely were not lovers, Jenny had decided. Her impression was that he had been acting more as a tutor or guide. The girl had seemed a little lost standing in the bar, unsure where she was meant to place herself, waiting for Adam’s instruction.

  Jenny parked and made her way on foot the last few yards to the address which the Border Agency had supplied. She arrived at a chipped and scuffed front door surrounded by chained-up bicycles. She looked for the girl’s name on the ten or more bells: Ayen Deng. She found it second from the bottom. ‘Deng’ written in smudged ballpoint. She pressed the bell. If it had rung higher up the house, no sound reached her on the front step. She pressed again and waited. A minute passed and still no response. As she tried a final time she heard the chain slide back on the inside of the door. It was opened by a slightly built, dark-haired teenage girl with large trusting eyes. She scarcely looked old enough to be a student.

  ‘I wonder if you can help me,’ Jenny said. ‘My name’s Jenny Cooper. I’m the local coroner.’ The girl looked startled. ‘No need to worry. I’m just looking for someone who lives here – her name’s Ayen. Ayen Deng.’

  ‘Ayen’s not here,’ the girl said uncertainly. ‘She left about three days ago.’

  ‘Left for where?’ Jenny said.

  ‘No one knows. She just took her stuff and left. You can see her room – it’s empty.’

  ‘Would you mind?’

  The girl shook her head, too frightened of a coroner to refuse.

  They climbed eight flights of steps, arriving at a mansard level under the roof. The girl, who said her name was Lucy, opened the single door off the landing and let Jenny into a room barely big enough to hold the single bed and cheap wardrobe. The mattress was bare, no case on the pillow, blankets neatly folded.

  ‘Did you know her at all?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Only a little. She spent a lot of time up here by herself.’ There was something reticent in her tone, a trace of guilt perhaps.

  Jenny waited for her to offer more.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ Lucy said, looping her hair nervously behind her ear.

  ‘Anything you can tell me. She was seen with a man who died. I’m inquiring into his death.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’m not talking about a crime. But she might be a useful witness. I need to find her if I can.’

  Lucy started to gabble. ‘I didn’t really talk to her that much. She didn’t seem to want to. Some of the others tried. I know my friend Kathy spoke to her a few times, but she’s over at her boyfriend’s this weekend. She didn’t know if it was all made up or what. I mean, she wasn’t even studying. Kath
y said she was probably pretending to be an asylum seeker.’

  ‘Slow down,’ Jenny said calmly. ‘There’s no problem, I just need to know what she said.’

  Lucy took a breath. ‘She told Kathy she came from this village in Sudan where everyone died. She said she was the only person left alive. All her family had died, all her friends. Everyone.’

  ‘Did she say when this happened?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Jenny tried to appear to take the information in her stride, eager to keep the girl’s confidence. ‘Was there anything else? How did everyone die? Did she say the name of the place?’

  ‘Some sort of disease, I think. You can ask Kathy, I’ll give you her number. That’s all I know. Honestly.’

  Jenny brought out her phone. ‘Why don’t we give Kathy a ring?’

  Jenny’s call, made on speakerphone, was answered by a teenage girl who sounded as if she must still be in bed, fending off a playful boyfriend.

  ‘Sorry. Sorry about that,’ Kathy said, stifling giggles. ‘Who is this again?’

  ‘Jenny Cooper.’

  ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘She’s the coroner,’ Lucy butted in. ‘It’s serious, Kathy. It’s about Ayen. Someone’s died.’

  ‘Died? Who?’

  ‘A friend of Ayen’s,’ Jenny said. She finally had Kathy’s attention. ‘I need you to tell me everything you know about her.’

  Kathy repeated what Lucy had told her, adding little to the narrative.

  Jenny pressed for details of the deaths in the village. What had they died of? How many? But Kathy insisted that Ayen had said nothing more than she had already told her. It had been as much as she could do to get her to talk at all.

  ‘Can I ask what prompted you to do that?’ Jenny said.

  ‘I felt sorry for her. She was always hiding away in her room. I thought she must be lonely.’

  Jenny urged her to think hard and recall whether she had said anything else, however slight or irrelevant.

  ‘Something about a man who had helped her – Alan? Adam?’

  ‘Adam. Adam Jordan. What did she say about him?

  ‘That he helped her get out of Sudan.’ She paused. ‘Yeah, that’s it. I remember now – the place she came from was called Ginya.’ She pronounced it with a hard ‘g’, the ‘y’ almost silent.