The Chosen Dead

by M. R. Hall

  Nearly two hours later Jenny found herself dog-tired, hungry and alone in a stark office on the second floor of St Aldate’s police station. She had heard nothing more about the circumstances of Sonia Blake’s death, or even if it had been confirmed. A detective constable scarcely older than her son had taken her statement before asking her to ‘wait a moment’ while he consulted his boss over whether he could let her go home. A moment had stretched to an hour and Jenny was at the end of her tether. DI Gregson hadn’t even done her the courtesy of putting his head around the door.

  She was on the verge of making a unilateral decision to walk out when Gregson finally deigned to appear. No older than thirty-five, he was one of the polished, well-spoken new breed of officer whom Jenny suspected had come up through the graduate fast track. But what he possessed in intelligence, he lacked in grace. In the few minutes she had spent in his company at the college she had got his measure as a man who went about his work with a belligerent neutrality that treated everyone with equal disdain. Alongside him was a woman no older than he was, but from the quality of her suit and the lightness of her bearing, Jenny could tell that she wasn’t a police officer.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs Cooper,’ Gregson said without feeling. ‘You’ll appreciate we had to verify a few of the facts in your statement.’

  ‘No,’ Jenny said, ‘I don’t.’ She glanced at the woman taking a seat next to him behind the desk. ‘Jenny Cooper, Severn Vale District Coroner.’

  ‘Ruth Webley,’ the woman said politely. ‘I work for the intelligence service – anti-terrorism.’

  Jenny tried to appear unfazed.

  ‘You’ll probably know that our two services work closely together,’ Gregson explained. ‘Miss Blake’s death prompted an alert.’

  Ruth Webley cast Gregson a glance that said she would prefer to speak for herself. ‘Obviously there are thousands of people who come to our attention in various ways,’ she explained. ‘Mrs Blake was simply someone who, in her professional career, had associated with various persons of interest to us. The fact that she appeared on our database doesn’t necessarily carry any sinister significance, but we would like to rule out the possibility that anything untoward occurred.’

  ‘Of course,’ Jenny said, resolving not to say a word more than she had to.

  Ruth Webley waited, and when Jenny offered her nothing, smiled in a patient way that said she had suspected Jenny would be less than forthcoming. ‘I ought to begin by saying that initial indications are that Mrs Blake died from natural causes. She seems to have collapsed while out jogging. We’ve not had post-mortem results yet, but we’ve no reason to think her death itself was suspicious.’

  Jenny waited for the ‘but’.

  ‘The situation with her room was a little odd, however,’ Webley said. ‘We’ve spoken to an occupant upstairs who passed by her door approximately thirty minutes before you say you arrived. He’s sure the outer door to her rooms was shut fast.’

  ‘I’ve told you how I found it.’

  She referred to a copy of Jenny’s statement. ‘You also say you went inside. Why did you do that?’

  ‘As I said, I called her name, looked through the open door, then noticed the upended cup on her desk. It seemed odd – suspicious, I suppose.’

  ‘An upended cup prompted you to trespass into the room of a woman you had met only once before?’

  ‘Not trespass, I was concerned.’

  ‘Because . . . ?’

  ‘I assumed you would have read my statement.’

  ‘I have, several times. But I’d appreciate hearing it in your own words, Mrs Cooper.’

  Jenny had told the detective constable only what she thought the police needed to know. She had no intention of giving Ruth Webley any more. While the coroner’s job was to root out the truth and publish it the world, she had learned from her two previous encounters with the security services that Webley’s concern would be to make sure that any inconvenient facts remained well hidden.

  Choosing her words carefully, Jenny repeated the story she had told earlier. She was inquiring into the death of an aid worker named Adam Jordan, and Sonia Blake was one of the few people he had spoken to in his final days. One of Jenny’s lines of investigation was into whether his apparent suicide was linked to his work in South Sudan. During her first meeting with Sonia Blake she had established that Sonia had sought Jordan out during her research into the political situation in that country, but she had seemed too shocked by the news of his death to give all the answers Jenny would have liked. She had arranged today’s meeting to fill in the gaps. It was as straightforward as that.

  Ruth Webley took careful notes throughout.

  ‘Mr Forster tells me that you initially made contact with Mrs Blake through him. How was that?’

  Jenny had slipped. She must be more tired than she thought. Now her explanation would sound as if she had been concealing something. As casually as she could, she explained how a receipt found in Jordan’s car had led her to the nearby cafe where the waitresses helped her discover Sonia Blake’s identity through her frequent companion – Alex Forster.

  Ruth Webley swept her hair back from her forehead, which Jenny saw was furrowed with frown lines. ‘You must have read a lot of significance into this meeting to go to such lengths.’ She was no fool. Far sharper than the detective.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve read your files, Ms Webley. It’s not the first time.’

  ‘What was the significance, in your mind?’

  ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘Really? You weren’t influenced by the fact his wife had no knowledge of his visit to Oxford?’

  Jenny met Webley’s gaze and decided it was time to go on the offensive. ‘You’ve spoken with Mrs Jordan?’

  ‘Her husband worked in a sensitive field. Surely you would be more surprised if we hadn’t, Mrs Cooper?’

  ‘If you have information relevant to my inquiry, I’d be grateful if you would disclose it immediately, Ms Webley.’

  ‘Mrs Cooper, I hardly need remind you, of all people, that certain information remains privileged in the interests of national security. If there is anything that can lawfully be released to you, I assure you it will be.’

  ‘You’ve approached his former colleague, Harry Thorn, too. What do you suspect him of? I’m entitled to know.’

  ‘I’ve already answered you, Mrs Cooper.’

  ‘Then we have nothing more to say to each other.’ Jenny rose from her chair. She addressed DI Gregson, who remained seated. ‘I’ll see myself out, shall I?’

  ‘We haven’t completed our interview.’ He remained the impassive bureaucrat. Jenny would have preferred a straightforward bully.

  ‘Are you going to arrest me?’

  He looked impatiently down at his notes.

  ‘Then good night.’

  She walked to the door and let herself out.

  ‘Busy night, Mrs Cooper?’

  Jenny had arrived late in the office the next morning and had yet to shake off the effects of two sleeping pills swallowed deep in the night to switch off her racing thoughts.

  ‘I had a call from a woman named Webley,’ Alison said, ‘at about midnight. Apparently you made a quick exit from St Aldate’s police station in Oxford.’

  ‘What did she want?’

  ‘What business you had with a woman called Sonia Blake, and what did she have to do with Adam Jordan.’

  Jenny rubbed her aching temples. ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘The truth. I’ve never heard of her.’

  ‘Did she believe you?’

  ‘I got the impression she was rather frustrated.’

  ‘Good. Did you get my email?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alison said cagily. ‘The printouts are on your desk.’ Jenny saw Alison look at her with concern. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me? It does sound as if you’ve got yourself mixed up in something. Just because I’m under the doctor doesn’t mean you have to carry it all on your
shoulders.’

  ‘I appreciate the thought,’ Jenny said, and changed the subject. ‘I don’t suppose we’ve had an answer from the manager of Hampton’s Health Club?’

  ‘That’s on your desk, too.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Jenny headed for her office. ‘I could do with some coffee. As strong as you can make it.’

  She threw her bag and jacket over a chair, her impatience to see the message from Hampton’s bringing her back to life. A list of names and their contact details stretched over three sides of paper. She scanned through them, noting the proliferation of expensive addresses. No wonder the manager had sounded anxious. Every top-rate taxpayer in Bristol seemed to be a member. Halfway through the third page an entry leaped out at her: Fielding, Christopher, Major (Salisbury member). The address next to his name was a military one: Bulford Camp, Salisbury, Wiltshire. A quick check on her computer confirmed that Bulford, home to several regiments, was only ten miles from Porton Down. Containing her excitement, she reminded herself that the small cathedral city of Salisbury was home to hundreds, if not thousands, of military personnel. It was the Army’s principal centre in the south of England. It was hardly surprising that the only Army officer on the list should live within commuting distance of the government and military laboratories. Still, it was a lead.

  Alison arrived with coffee. ‘What have you found? It’s Jordan, isn’t it? I knew there was something more going on with him.’

  ‘Actually, it’s Sophie Freeman.’

  Without naming Dr Kerr as the source of her theory, Jenny told Alison that one of the laboratories where rarefied strains of the most dangerous diseases were to be found was at Porton Down, and that she had just discovered a potential connection with the dead girl.

  ‘Then why don’t I deal with that for you?’ Alison said, reaching for the list.

  Jenny placed her hand on top of hers. ‘Not yet. I haven’t been through it properly.’

  ‘This is what I’m worried about, Mrs Cooper – you’ve really got to trust people. You mustn’t let yourself get paranoid.’

  ‘Is that what you think I am?’ Jenny said defensively.

  ‘Why don’t you try to take it easier today?’ Alison said, avoiding the question. ‘Now, what can I help you with?’

  ‘I’ll let you know.’

  Alison gave her the kind of look a mother would give a wilful teenager. ‘You won’t be able to keep this up, you know.’ And having uttered her warning, she left Jenny alone.

  Jenny didn’t need Alison to tell her she was slowly coming apart at the seams. After many months of keeping her anxiety contained, she felt it stirring again. She could trace its arrival back to the moment Alison had shown her the photographs of Adam Jordan’s car, when she realized that the Dinka doll was missing. A childish, superstitious part of her had read it as a portent.

  She studied the slightly indistinct colour printouts of the photographs she had hurriedly taken in Sonia Blake’s study room. Apart from the spilled coffee they were wholly unremarkable. There was no sign of disturbance, no drawers left open, no books pulled from the shelves. If there had been a deliberate break-in while Sonia was out on her regular evening run, the intruder had come for something specific. But what? She pored over the images, trying to isolate some small clue, some object out of place, but found nothing. It was just an untidy academic’s room.

  Resigned, she was pushing the pictures aside when she registered a detail she had entirely forgotten: during her initial visit several days before, she had spotted an identity tag on the desk. She looked again at the close-up shot of Sonia’s desk; there was no tag. She remembered the two words she had seen printed on it: Diamond Light.

  Switching on her computer monitor, she entered the words into a search engine and came up with an immediate result: The Diamond Light Source. She clicked the link and found herself looking at an image of a large circular building in the Oxfordshire countryside at Harwell which, she learned from the accompanying text, was home to the UK’s national synchrotron. She read on, picking her way through the jargon and learning that the synchrotron was a particle accelerator, a 561-metre-long circular tube through which electrons were accelerated close to the speed of light. But unlike its famous cousin at CERN, the Diamond synchrotron didn’t collide particles together. Its function was to collect the energy they shed in the form of light to use for scientific experiments.

  But this was no ordinary light. The kind the synchrotron generated was at the far end of spectrum between X-ray and infrared and invisible to the human eye. Having been collected, it was channelled into twenty-two separate ‘beamlines’. The light was many millions of times more powerful than any that could be produced from a conventional source, and in the X-ray spectrum was at such minute wavelengths that a beam could be focused to create an image of something as small as a molecule. It was, in short, one of the most powerful microscopes in existence.

  What had Sonia Blake been doing there? Her field was international relations, not science. Jenny scouted further through the website and learned that it was a publicly funded facility available free of charge to scientists who intended to release their research to the public domain, and for a fee to commercial companies or researchers whose results were to remain confidential. The beamlines were used by scientists from a host of different disciplines to examine samples down almost to the atomic level. Life scientists used them to analyse the chemical make-up of the most fundamental parts of the human organism.

  Jenny tried to think of a reason why Sonia Blake would be visiting such a facility. Could it have been entirely innocent? Perhaps, but two facts told her she had to look further: Blake’s late father had been just the sort of scientist who would now be using the Light Source to peer at the building blocks of life; and according to the map on the website, the facility was fourteen miles from Great Shefford and almost exactly the same distance from Oxford.

  Jenny was considering her next move when her mobile phone rang. Another unknown caller. Anticipating Webley, she answered frostily, ‘Jenny Cooper.’ It was even worse.

  ‘Detective Inspector Ian Gregson. Thames Valley Police.’

  ‘What can I do for you, Inspector?’

  ‘I thought you might like to know the result of Mrs Blake’s post-mortem examination.’

  ‘I’d be grateful.’

  ‘As we hoped, it’s nothing sinister – cardiac arrest caused by something called endocarditis. Apparently it’s an infection in the lining of the heart. Feels like a head cold, but physical exercise is about the worst thing you can do for it, I’m told. Just one of those things, the pathologist says. Plain bad luck.’ He delivered the news with the same deadpan tone she had grown to loathe the night before. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve thought of anything overnight that might be of interest to us.’

  ‘I thought Mrs Blake’s death wasn’t being treated as suspicious.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid I don’t follow.’

  ‘I’ll leave it with you, Mrs Cooper. I’m sure we’ll be in touch.’

  The conversation was over in less than a minute. No apology for holding her like a prisoner for most of the evening, just a vague hint of a threat. If she had been tempted to share anything with him, he had ensured she never would now.

  Jenny had recorded endocarditis as a cause of death several times in her career. From memory, the infection clustered in the heart valves and caused the surrounding tissue to swell. Its victims were usually old, infirm or rundown. Sonia Blake could easily have fallen into the latter category. A driven professional woman was just the sort to deal with a niggling symptom by trying to jog it off.

  There it was. The exit sign was lit. Sonia Blake was dead and would never be able to testify to what had passed between her and Adam Jordan. Jenny was free to forget about her. Except that she couldn’t. Gregson’s call had been a crude attempt to trade one piece of information for another. Webley’s involvement was proof that Sonia Blake and Adam Jordan were susp
ected of being part of something far bigger. She wasn’t being paranoid: she was in a simple race to get to the truth before it was buried.

  Jenny grabbed her bag and pushed through into reception, where Alison was gathering yet another pile of papers to burden her with.

  ‘I’m going out to fetch some coffee,’ Jenny said.

  ‘You just had some—’

  ‘Won’t be a minute. See if you can get hold of Major Fielding. You’ll find him on the list from Hampton’s.’

  ‘Mrs Cooper—’

  Jenny slipped out through the door and dashed down the corridor.

  SEVENTEEN

  SIMON MORETON’S VOICE BARKED OUT of all six speakers as Jenny once again headed east on the motorway.

  ‘What the hell’s going on, Jenny? I’ve got the top brass at the HPA on my back saying you’re refusing to conclude a perfectly straightforward inquest.’

  ‘ “Straightforward” is not a word I would use.’

  ‘It’s a death from meningitis.’

  ‘That’s part of the story.’

  ‘There’s only so much of this I can tolerate. It’s not just the HPA. I’m told the parents of the dead girl are deeply distressed by the delay.’

  ‘Believe me, Simon, if you had half the facts you wouldn’t be saying any of this.’

  ‘Such as?’ he challenged.

  ‘Nice try.’

  ‘Jenny, unless the Freeman case is resolved by the end of the week we are going to have to carry out an urgent review of how you conduct your business.’

  ‘Is that a threat to remove me from the case? On what grounds – being too conscientious?’

  ‘Jenny, please—’

  ‘Who’s been talking to you, Simon?’

  His momentary pause was enough to confirm her suspicions.

  ‘Let me guess – a rather attractive young woman named Ruth Webley.’