by M. R. Hall
Jenny steeled herself and leaned in for a closer look. The tattoo said: Daddy’s girl.
‘That’s something for the old man to be proud of,’ Andy said. ‘Maybe the decent thing would be to let it go un-mentioned.’
Jenny looked at it again.
‘It’s real,’ Andy said. ‘I checked. She’s got another one at the base of her spine, a little butterfly.’
The two words were small enough for you to miss them at a fleeting glance, but once you’d noticed they were all you could see. The pictures Jenny had seen of Eva on the internet flashed before her eyes, most of them featuring her in close-up gynaecological detail. Surely she would have noticed the tattoo?
Jenny said, ‘How recent would you say it was?’
‘Hmm. I don’t know if there’s any way of telling. It takes a number of years for the ink to start spreading.’ He reached for a magnifying glass and studied it for a long moment. ‘Actually, you know what, there’s been some recent scabbing, I can see where the skin’s been abraded. I think there’s a chance she had it done not long before she died.’
‘Months, weeks?’
‘If that was scabbing from the tattoo, I’d say within her last month. Interesting choice for a devout Christian, don’t you think?’
Jenny looked away, feeling suddenly queasy. ‘Do me a favour – don’t mention this in your report. Some things are better left for court.’
SIX
MANY PHONE CALLS AND MUCH cajoling later, Alison had succeeded in calling in a long-overdue favour from the administrator of Short Street Courts and secured the use of their smallest, stuffiest courtroom for Friday morning. Jenny didn’t mind that it was windowless and painted the same dull institutional green as prison corridors, she just wanted the Alan Jacobs case dealt with and another burden lifted from her shoulders. The previous day had been spent cooped up in her office attacking her backlog of paperwork. She had made progress, but only by ignoring everything and everyone else. Repeated messages from Father Starr and several concerned text messages from Steve had gone unanswered. She had even managed to miss her Wednesday night call with Ross. It was now officially undeniable: being professionally competent meant being a bad mother.
As well as sending Alison out to round up witnesses and gather statements for the Jacobs inquest, Jenny asked her to make enquiries about Eva Donaldson’s tattoo. Since seeing it she’d scoured the internet for images of Eva and couldn’t find a single one in which it appeared. She’d tracked down her last known contribution to the adult genre: Devils Bi Night. The butterfly on her back was much in evidence, but there was no Daddy’s girl. A trawl through her bank statements and credit-card transactions failed to cast any light, leaving Alison to work through every tattoo parlour in the Bristol Yellow Pages. She drew a blank. The artists who answered their phones either couldn’t recall or wouldn’t discuss their clients on principle. Resigned to a longer search than she had anticipated, Jenny wrote to Kenneth Donaldson telling him that she would have to break her promise to release the body, only saying obliquely that further tests might prove necessary.
The call made, Jenny pushed Eva temporarily from her mind and turned to Alan Jacobs.
She was determined that the inquest would be a discreet, low-key affair. A finding of suicide was a virtual inevitability; she didn’t want it to be any more painful for Mrs Jacobs than absolutely necessary. As the death couldn’t be said to have occurred in circumstances with implications for the health or safety of the public at large, it would be conducted without a jury. Jenny would consider the evidence and reach her verdict alone.
She entered from the cramped, windowless office behind the courtroom and took her place on the judicial seat. On the rare occasions on which she held an inquest in a dedicated court rather than one of the draughty, far-flung village halls to which she was normally consigned, she had mixed feelings about her elevated status. A coroner wasn’t like a judge arbitrating from on high, she was a judicial officer with the role, unique in the British justice system, of asking whatever questions were required to determine the true facts of an unnatural death. Drawing the truth out of a witness was best achieved through striking up a rapport, which was far harder in a space designed to inspire fear and awe.
There were two lawyers present: Daniel Randall, a genial, silver-haired solicitor, represented Mrs Jacobs, and Suzanne Hayter, an austere young barrister with scraped-back hair and small, rimless glasses, appeared for the Severn Vale Health Trust. Immediately behind her sat an in-house solicitor named Harry Gordon, whom Jenny recognized as the Trust’s chief litigator. In his two years in post he had earned an awesome reputation for fighting every negligence claim and slashing their damages bill by two-thirds. The rows behind the lawyers were filled almost to capacity with witnesses and members of the Jacobs family. Ceri Jacobs sat at their fore alongside her mother, both women in identical black two-piece suits. Determinedly in control of her emotions, the widow fixed her cool, expectant gaze on Jenny and seemed to demand an answer that would fly in the face of the facts she was about to hear.
Jenny began by explaining to the family that the purpose of the hearing was simply to call evidence that would assist in determining the cause of death. There was a range of possible verdicts including accident, suicide, unlawful killing, misadventure (meaning that the deceased took a risk which resulted in unintended fatal consequences) or, where there was no conclusive evidence as to the immediate cause of death, an open verdict. Addressing the waiting witnesses, Jenny reminded them that they would be giving evidence on oath, and that failure to answer truthfully was a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment. Family members exchanged glances, an elderly priest sitting at the back of the room frowned gravely, Ceri Jacobs stiffened. Jenny felt for them all, but unlike some coroners, she was not inclined to massage the truth to save people’s feelings. Her inquests were conducted strictly in the public interest.
Mrs Jacobs was the first witness to be called forward. Composed, dignified, and displaying no outward sign of nervousness, she placed her hand on the Bible and swore to tell the truth. Repeating what she had told Jenny during her visit to her home, she said that she had enjoyed six happy years of marriage to Alan, during which time he had showed himself to be a loving husband and father and a deeply committed psychiatric nurse. Unprompted, she produced a number of letters from former patients and requested permission to read sections aloud. Jenny granted it. In a letter dated the previous February, Chris, an eighteen-year-old drug addict with a history of suicide attempts, wrote to thank her late husband: ‘for showing me that life is the most precious thing there is, no matter how hard it gets. You’ve taught me there’s always something better to hope for and I’ll always, always remember that. Thank you, Big Al. You’re the reason I’m still here.’
‘It was the successes that gave him the strength to deal with the failures,’ Ceri Jacobs said. ‘You couldn’t find a nurse more devoted to his patients.’
‘Did this dedication take a personal toll?’ Jenny asked. ‘Did your husband show any signs of depression?’
‘He was low sometimes, it was inevitable. But he was never moody or bad-tempered.’ She was adamant. ‘I’ve seen depressed people. I would have known.’
Jenny said, ‘Do you accept that he wasn’t telling you the truth when he said he had been called in to work on the afternoon before he died?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he make a habit of lying to you?’
‘He did not.’
‘You say he left home around four o’clock on the Saturday afternoon. According to the pathologist, he died approximately five hours later. His body was found in a graveyard a little over two miles from your home. His clothes were in a nearby bin along with the packaging for a quantity of phenobarbital. This is an anti-convulsant drug, fatal levels of which were found in his bloodstream.’ Jenny paused to take a mouthful of water and seize the momentary opportunity to avoid Ceri Jacobs’s gaze. ‘Do you have any idea what led him to that graveyard, Mrs Jacobs
?’
‘None at all,’ she retorted, as if Jenny’s question was nothing short of indecent.
‘A sign of the cross was cut into his torso with a small kitchen knife that was found close to where he lay. It seems likely he did it himself. Do you know why?’
‘I don’t believe it’s at all likely,’ Ceri Jacobs said. ‘I don’t believe my husband took his life. I think he was molested and left to die.’ She lifted her gaze to the old priest. ‘If he did make that cross, it was as a sign to me, and to God, that he was leaving this world in faith.’
‘The forensic evidence shows that your husband had intercourse with an unidentified male in the hours immediately preceding his death. Are you able to shed any light on this, Mrs Jacobs?’
The widow took a moment to compose herself, then answered with a level of certainty that took Jenny and the entire courtroom by surprise. ‘If it happened, it was not consensual. My husband worked with the ill and disturbed, with people who are dangerous to themselves and often to others. He wasn’t just a nurse to them, he was a friend. The only explanation that makes sense to me is that he went in good faith to meet someone who attacked him. I also believe that there was some hint of this meeting on his computer, and that for whatever reason that evidence was destroyed by the police, who have chosen not to pursue this line of inquiry.’
Her accusation was met with silence from her family, a look of suppressed pain from her priest and one of resignation from DI Wallace. Alison caught Jenny’s eye, her expression suggesting there was little point in prolonging her ordeal; she would only embarrass herself further.
Jenny said, ‘I note your theory, Mrs Jacobs, and I can assure you your solicitor will be able to explore it fully with the other witnesses.’ She addressed the lawyers: ‘Any questions?’
‘No, ma’am,’ Randall said, with a reassuring smile to his client.
Suzanne Hayter stood abruptly, extracting a document from amongst her orderly notes. ‘Mrs Jacobs, at the police’s request the pharmacist at the Conway Unit carried out an audit of the stocks of phenobarbital and found that two packets, each containing a sheet of twelve tablets, were unaccounted for. Here is the report.’ She held up the document. ‘Your husband had access to the pharmacy and regularly signed drugs out. The pharmacy is outside the locked unit. Patients have no access to it.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Ceri Jacobs answered defensively.
‘But you do know that your husband had a recent history of impropriety in matters concerning drugs and their prescription.’
‘It wasn’t Alan at fault,’ Mrs Jacobs snapped back. ‘It was the psychiatrist. You know that.’
Sitting in the row behind, Harry Gordon, the Trust’s lawyer, wore the smug expression of a man who felt that things were about to turn in his favour.
‘The patient who killed herself following his unauthorized intervention in her drugs regime was called Emma Derwent,’ Suzanne Hayter said.
‘Alan saved her life. It was Dr Pearce who made her suicidal.’
Suzanne Hayter belonged to the tungsten-shelled breed of advocates Jenny had once envied with a passion. Mrs Jacobs’s emotion seemed only to harden her further. ‘Did you notice any change in your husband’s mood following Miss Derwent’s death?’
‘He was always upset when a patient died.’
‘I’m sorry to have to be so blunt, but what I am asking is whether his remorse at having interfered with her treatment and her subsequent suicide could have driven him to take his own life.’
Ceri Jacobs erupted. ‘How dare you accuse my husband of harming that girl. It’s Dr Pearce who should be feeling sorry, and all the people who have covered up for him.’
Unmoved, Suzanne Hayter turned to Jenny. ‘No further questions, ma’am.’
Jenny thanked Mrs Jacobs for her patience and told her she could return to her seat. Refusing to step down, she said, ‘I am not going to let them tell lies about my husband. You can see what they’re doing, they’re just trying to protect themselves.’
‘I appreciate how you feel, Mrs Jacobs, but all parties are entitled to ask questions.’
Randall intervened before Ceri Jacobs retaliated. ‘Thank you, ma’am. I’ll make sure my client fully understands the position.’ With a gentle smile he coaxed her from the witness box, whispering comforting words as he guided her to her seat. Her relatives traded uncomfortable glances that told Jenny they suspected Suzanne Hayter had hit a raw nerve, and quite probably the truth.
DI Wallace was showing increasing signs of impatience, but Jenny made him wait his turn and called for Deborah Bishop, director of the Conway Unit. With her untinted hair, and clothes that failed to flatter her spreading figure, she looked older than her forty-four years; a woman, Jenny speculated, struggling to manage a high-pressure job as well as care for her family.
Deborah Bishop read the oath with a nervous briskness. Jenny noticed her cast Harry Gordon a mistrustful glance. He would have briefed her exhaustively, instructing her on pain of death to stick to the corporate line and never to admit to mistakes, even honest ones. It occurred to Jenny that the future of Deborah Bishop’s career might hang on her performance in the next few minutes.
Bishop told the court that she had been director of the Conway Unit for a little over two years and had been Alan Jacobs’s line manager for the entire period. He was the senior psychiatric nurse in the young persons’ ward and had performed his duties admirably, helping the unit gain a three-star government rating. They had held regular weekly meetings and as far as she was concerned he was as happy as could be expected, given the extraordinary pressures of his job. In fact, he coped better than most: his personnel file showed he hadn’t taken a day off sick for over fifteen months. Her last meeting with him had been on the Friday morning, thirty-six hours before he died. Their discussion had been perfectly routine, and was mostly concerned with how he should deal with a black female nurse suffering racist taunts from a deeply disturbed young woman on the ward. The nurse claimed a right not to be abused, and Jacobs had argued for the patient’s right not to be medicated to insensibility.
‘Did you resolve the issue?’ Jenny asked.
‘Alan suggested the nurse be transferred to other duties. I pointed out that was a luxury we couldn’t afford. We agreed to think on it over the weekend and discuss it again the following Monday.’
‘Was it something that might have weighed heavily on his mind?’
‘It may have done, but similar issues present themselves all the time.’
Jenny glanced at Harry Gordon, his eyes fixed on Mrs Bishop, willing her to stick to the script.
‘Reading between the lines,’ Jenny continued, ‘do I detect a suggestion that he suspected the patient was more likely to be chemically silenced than the nurse transferred from the ward?’
‘He wasn’t unrealistic. A touch idealistic sometimes, but that’s what made him such a good nurse.’ She attempted a smile. Ceri Jacobs glared at her. With a glance at Harry Gordon, Deborah Bishop continued unprompted: ‘I had only known him make one serious lapse of judgement, which was why I felt able to excuse it.’
Jenny said, ‘You’re referring to the Emma Derwent incident, when he felt a doctor had misdiagnosed her as paranoid schizophrenic.’
‘Yes. And unfortunately he altered the patient’s medication. As I said, I took no formal action against him on that occasion.’
‘Tell me, Mrs Bishop, when it was discovered that Mr Jacobs had taken the patient off her anti-psychotic medication, did he express regret?’
Mrs Bishop’s eyes flitted to Harry Gordon and Suzanne Hayter. Jenny got the impression it was a question for which she hadn’t been primed.
‘Mrs Bishop?’
‘He made a formal apology to Dr Pearce, of course.’
‘But he remained adamant about the misdiagnosis. And shortly after the patient resumed the medication he thought had contributed to her symptoms she took her own life.’
‘This was a suicidal patient. She
was being correctly treated by a consultant psychiatrist. As far as I am concerned, the only clinical error was committed by Alan Jacobs.’
Ceri Jacobs’s mother laid a hand on her daughter’s arm, urging her to remain calm.
‘Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, Mrs Bishop, but I’m assuming Mr Jacobs remained convinced this patient was misdiagnosed, which leads me to wonder if the only reason he didn’t seek a clinical review of her case before she died was that you could have dismissed him on the spot.’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment on his state of mind.’
‘Try to see if you can comment on this: if Emma Der-went’s death was on his conscience, would it have been because of what he did or because he wasn’t prepared to lose his job for what he thought to be right?’
Mrs Bishop shot back with an answer which Jenny had no doubt had been scripted by Harry Gordon: ‘When a respected professional has a serious lapse of judgement it can be a very traumatic event. He hid it well, but my personal belief, for what it’s worth, is that it caused Alan Jacobs to suffer a shipwreck of self-esteem.’
‘One last thing,’ Jenny said. ‘Did you have any email correspondence with him concerning Emma Derwent either before or after her death?’
‘No, I did not.’
Suzanne Hayter offered no cross-examination. Randall, who was not a gifted advocate, attempted to extract the names of any dangerous former patients at the unit who might have lured Alan Jacobs to his death, but Mrs Bishop refused to be drawn. She had made all the patient records available to the police and detectives had spoken to each of the nursing staff. As far as she was aware, Jacobs had had no personal contact with ex-patients; it would have been highly unprofessional, and she was sure he would not have succumbed to any further lapses of judgement.
Harry Gordon smiled as Mrs Bishop stepped down from the witness box. His woman had survived her brief ordeal and kept the reputation of the Conway Unit intact. Jenny had begun to suspect there were deeper layers to the Emma Derwent story, but none of the nursing staff Alison had taken statements from would admit any knowledge of the matter. Either they were hiding something, or, just as likely, Jacobs had dealt with her alone and very much in secret.