by M. R. Hall
‘Aren’t all radicals outcasts?’
‘Try being on the receiving end of them – see if you still feel as reasonable.’
‘You’ve had personal experience?’ Jenny said, sarcastically.
Alison set her jaw and looked away. ‘Mrs Cooper, I’m quite capable of putting personal feelings to one side when I’m at work. I was a police officer for twenty-five years.’ She turned and walked out of the door, leaving a toxic wake.
SEVEN
THE INQUEST HAD BEEN ARRANGED for Monday morning, the second day of February. In common with many coroners throughout the country, Jenny was still without a permanent, or even a semi-permanent, courtroom. Alison leaned on her contacts in the Court Service, but was told that none would be available in the Bristol area for several months. Jenny had grown used to this sort of low-level obstruction. She had no objection to the range of village and community halls she had used over the previous months – some coroners had been known to convene in scout huts and the function rooms of unlicensed restaurants (by law inquests could not be held in licensed premises) – but part of her secretly craved the recognition and gravitas a proper court would bring. Alison had suggested the former Methodist chapel in which her New Dawn Church met each Sunday. Jenny politely declined. They had compromised on an unassuming venue at the northern end of the Severn estuary. It was in a village close to the Slimbridge bird sanctuary, of which Alison was a life member and which had an excellent cafe, she said.
Such were the trivialities which competed for Jenny’s attention, along with stolen corpses, a steady stream of paranoid text messages (which had replaced the phone calls) from Mrs Jamal, and planning tactics to extract maximum information from the police and Security Services. And all the while she was staving off the symptoms of acute anxiety with extra beta blockers. She had tried emailing Dr Allen for advice, but received an out-of-office reply that said he had gone skiing in the Italian Alps for a week. Lucky him. She had a mobile number for critical emergencies, but feared that the moment she called it he would be forced to sign her off sick, with or without her consent. She had little choice but to manage as best she could.
Ross came home late on Saturday night. Jenny was woken by his and Karen’s stifled giggles and two pairs of clumsy footsteps on the stairs. They retreated to his bedroom, and moments later music started. It had been part of their deal that he could have his girlfriend over to stay if her parents agreed, and Jenny had a certain self-satisfaction in being cool enough to suggest it in the first place. The reality was a pain. She resented him wanting to be treated like an adult without being prepared to take an ounce of responsibility. And she was childishly jealous. She was still just about young enough to have the kind of good time they were having next door, but the chances of it ever happening for her seemed increasingly remote.
The teenagers lay in bed until close to midday, then appeared yawning and dishevelled, complaining of being tired. Despite her disturbed night, Jenny had spent a productive morning in her study planning questions for the witnesses at her inquest. A rush of adrenalin had temporarily pushed her subconscious anxieties aside. Focused and purposeful, she carried her energy into the kitchen and set about preparing lunch. Her sense of achievement gave her the tolerance not to be irritated by the sight of the two of them slumped on the sofa with the curtains half drawn to keep the daylight – God forbid – from hitting the TV screen. With forced cheer she fetched and carried cups of tea, even drawing a smile and a thank you from Karen.
The kids were still glued to a movie when Jenny emerged from the kitchen having produced a full-scale Sunday lunch. She gazed on her achievement with pride: she was capable of being a good mother.
Jenny laid the table at the far end of the living room and they sat down to eat, Ross and Karen appearing surprised at the sudden magical appearance of food. She attempted to make uncontroversial conversation. It was tough going. Terrified of being embarrassed in front of his girlfriend, Ross shot her silencing looks each time she opened her mouth. His timidity was baffling. He was being allowed to behave however he wanted – Jenny was doing all in her power to treat him as a grown-up – yet he was cringing like a frightened child.
Tired of treading on eggshells, Jenny said to Karen, ‘Did Ross tell you what happened on Friday? A body was stolen from the hospital mortuary. It completely vanished.’
‘God. That’s awful. Why?’
Ross threw her a glance. She ignored him.
‘We’re not sure. The best guess is that she was murdered and whoever killed her is trying to dispose of the evidence.’
Ross said, ‘Do we have to talk about your gross work all the time?’
‘I don’t mind,’ Karen said. ‘It’s interesting.’
‘Not to me it isn’t. Dealing with dead people all day, it’s sick.’
Jenny said, ‘We have to know how people died.’
‘I don’t. It gives me the creeps.’
She held up her hands. ‘Sorry I mentioned it.’
‘I’m only saying – you don’t have to get uptight about it.’
She snapped. ‘Me uptight? I was trying to make an effort so we wouldn’t have to sit here in silence.’
‘Well, don’t bother.’
‘Fine.’
She helped herself to more potatoes, smiled at Karen and ate in silence. What she should have done was tell him to behave properly or leave the table, either to contribute to the household or put up with being treated like the baby he was. Instead she let the silence yawn and open up to a chasm. Her positivity drained away and a sense of rising panic rushed in to take its place. Her stomach began to knot and her hand trembled as she lifted her glass to take a sip of water. God, she wished it was wine. Just a little alcohol would take all the pain away, dissolve the tears that wanted to come and make her relaxed enough to turn the atmosphere with a single light remark.
Jenny gathered the empty plates quickly and offered to heat up some apple pie. Ross refused on Karen’s behalf and announced they were going to her house for the afternoon. He made for the door without lifting a finger to help.
Jenny said, ‘Ross, could I have a word with you, please?’
‘What about?’
‘Karen, could you take those dishes out to the kitchen? Thanks.’
Jenny silenced her son’s protest with a look that promised a scene way beyond merely embarrassing if he objected. He traipsed sulkily after her into the hall.
‘Maybe you can tell me what it is about letting you have your girlfriend stay the night then cooking you both lunch that’s so unreasonable that you can’t even bring yourself to say a civil word to me,’ Jenny said.
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘No, you just sit there giving me looks as if you wished I’d curl up and die.’
‘You’re so moody all the time. Why can’t you just relax like other people?’
‘Dear God, I’m doing my best.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘What?’
‘The atmosphere in this place . . . I don’t know what’s wrong with you.’
‘With me? I’ve kept my side of the bargain. How could I possibly try any harder – tell me, I’d love to know.’
‘You never calm down. Never.’
Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but the words caught in her throat and she felt her eyes welling.
‘See what I mean?’
‘Ross—’
He shook his head and went back through the door to join his girlfriend.
Jenny hid in her study trying to stifle the tears that wouldn’t dry up, wanting desperately to go and make peace but with no way of doing so without appearing red-eyed in front of Karen. Trapped, she listened to them clear the table and load the dishwasher, then leave quietly through the back door so as not to risk meeting her on their way out.
The sky was bluer and sharper than it ever was in summer. The brook at the end of the garden beyond the tumbledown mill was clear and deep. Tiny brown trout gathered i
n a pool of sunlight to soak up the first warming rays of the year, and along the shale banks fragile crocuses and snowdrops burst through the cold earth. It had been a revelation to her that nature didn’t sleep through the winter. When she lived in the city she had only noticed the trees as they came into leaf in April. Living among them during a whole winter, she had seen how even as the last of the leaves fell in late December, new buds were forming. There was no time of stillness. Life was in constant, unstoppable rotation.
She comforted herself with these thoughts as she drifted around her third of an acre, trying to absorb its peace before returning to her desk. She ran her fingers over soft, deep moss on the mill shed’s crumbling stone wall and felt the tenderness of fresh holly leaves on a tiny sapling which had sprung from the decaying lime mortar. Everything old and rotten was fertile ground for something new.
As pricks of hope slowly began to pierce her veil of melancholy, she allowed herself to believe that Ross was merely going through another inevitable and necessary phase; that to grow into an individual in his own right he had to reject her with or without just cause; that if she could only understand, it would be bearable. He’d move away, find his feet, and one day soon would return again as a sure and confident young man. It wasn’t her he objected to, or her atmosphere; he was tugging against the chains of childhood. She wished him more luck than she had had: heading into middle age and still in mental shackles that seemed to grow tighter the older and rustier they became.
There was a sound of breath and rushing feet behind her. She turned to see Alfie bounding across the grass from the old cart track at the side of the house. He plunged into the stream and snapped at the rushing water as he lapped at it. Steve followed some moments behind, dressed only in T-shirt and jeans, a sweater knotted over his shoulders.
‘Beautiful day,’ he said, wandering over. ‘Am I interrupting?’
‘No.’
He came to the stream’s edge and stood alongside her. ‘Busy week?’
‘Yes . . . you?’
‘Had to look at a job we’re pitching for in Manchester. Hated it. Architect’s curse – you want to tear everything down and start again.’
‘I wondered where you were.’
‘I was going to call you—’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘But maybe I should?’ He glanced at her with a smile that seemed somehow expectant.
She shrugged, wishing she could be more expansive, but feeling her delicate equilibrium tip and the emotion which she thought had washed through her rise up again.
‘You OK?’
‘Yes.’ She glanced away over the wall to the three-acre meadow and woodland rising behind it. Several sheep, uncomfortably pregnant, stood in ankle-deep mud.
She felt his warm hand slide over her shoulders, another loop round her waist. He stood behind her and held her close. And as he leaned her weight against him, he touched her hair and face, saying nothing as he felt her tears.
She wiped her eyes with the cuff of her coat. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
She moved round to face him and shook her head. He leaned forward and kissed her gently.
Later, they sat at the scrub-top table on the lawn, wrapped in sweaters, drinking tea. Steve smoked a skinny roll up and Jenny stole puffs as she grudgingly confessed that her old symptoms had come back to haunt her since her last session with Dr Allen. He listened in silence, letting her talk herself out while he rolled a second cigarette.
When she’d finished, he said, ‘You had these dreams when you were what, twenty?’
‘About that.’
‘Just becoming an adult. Have you ever thought it could be as simple as grief for lost childhood?’
‘My childhood wasn’t bad. Not blissful, but not particularly sad, either. Not until my mum went at least, and I was nearly a teenager by then.’
‘That still fits. It’s innocence that vanishes in your dream. It’s one of the many human tragedies: once you’ve lost it, there’s no way back.’
‘So why doesn’t everyone feel it?’
‘We can all get stuck at a certain point, God knows, I did – ten years hiding in the woods.’
‘So where am I stuck, Dr Freud?’
‘You married a domineering man when you were still very young.’
‘David was not a father substitute.’
‘I’ll bet you’ve got to know yourself a lot better since you left him.’
‘I’ll give you that.’
‘And for all of your marriage you worked with troubled kids.’
‘And your theory is?’
‘I’m still working on it.’ He lit his cigarette with the antique brass lighter she had given him as a birthday present. ‘It all gets on top of you, you break down—’
‘Yes . . .’ she said, sceptically.
‘And then . . . then to recover from all this stored-up crap, you get yourself a career trying to find out how people died.’
‘Which means?’
‘Part of you died?’
Jenny sighed. It was all territory she’d visited before in one way or another. ‘My first psychiatrist, Dr Travis – I know he was convinced someone had abused me. I don’t know how many times I’ve thought about it, but I know it didn’t happen. It just didn’t.’
‘Can I say one more thing? Do you think this job is right for you? I mean, do you think part of you is trying to do the impossible, bring the dead back to life when really you should be letting life move on?’
She fell still. His words were well meant but they landed like a wounding accusation.
‘That sounded harsher than it was meant to—’
‘Actually, people tell me I’m pretty good at what I do.’
‘All I’m saying is maybe there’s room for more joy in your life, if you’d just let it in.’
‘What was this afternoon?’
‘A start.’ He smiled. ‘But you know, however you’re feeling inside, you’re looking fine.’
Something inside her sank. She hated being told that. He might as well have said she was making a fuss over nothing.
He reached over and stroked the soft side of her wrist, a gesture which meant he was angling to take her back to bed.
She drew her hands back under her arms and shivered. ‘I’d better get on.’
A little hurt, Steve said, ‘Sure.’ He stood up from the table and whistled to Alfie, who bounded over from where he’d been scratching for mice behind the mill. Pulling on his sweater, Steve looked over at the ash trees silhouetted against the twilit sky, and said, ‘I’ve told you before – you live in a beautiful place. Listen to it, it might be telling you something.’ He touched her lightly on the cheek as he passed and left her to her thoughts.
Back at her desk, she took out her journal and tried to put her confusion into words, but they wouldn’t come. There was no reasoning it out. She had gone round and round in the same circles for over three years and gained no insight other than a twenty-year-old dream and a few snatches of uncomfortable but far from life-shattering childhood memories. For all her agonizing, and for all her attempts to improve her situation and career, nothing had shone a light into the dark place. Looking into herself only seemed to make it worse. She felt as if she were crossing a marsh: walk quickly and the ground might hold you, but stop for a moment and the mud would suck you under.
All she could think to write was: Things have got to change. Thinking’s got me nowhere. From now on I simply go where my instincts tell me and hope I reach the other side.
EIGHT
ROSS NOTICED THE UPTURN IN her mood during their rushed breakfast and managed a semi-apology for his behaviour the day before. Jenny told him to forget about it, just hurry up and get ready – she had an inquest to get to. As he disappeared upstairs to gel his hair and spray on too much deodorant, she dashed to her study to swallow her pills. As the chemicals hit her bloodstream she lost the heightened sense of excitement she ha
d woken with; her heart slowed, her limbs grew heavier and her scattered thoughts drew gradually back towards the centre. She told herself that Friday’s panic attack had been a blip, a subconscious way of testing her resolve. She had seen it off and had grown stronger.
And now she had a job to do.
Alison had made limited progress working through the list of Bristol alumni from Nazim and Rafi’s year. So far, only Dani James, the girl who had given a statement describing the man hurriedly leaving Manor Hall at midnight, had come forward as a witness. Dr Sarah Levin had agreed to make herself available on the second day of the inquest, but said she had nothing to add to what she had told the police at the time. All the others who had been contacted claimed to have little or no recollection of the two boys, let alone any information to shed light on their disappearance. It left Jenny with a very short list of witnesses for her opening day, but it would ease her gently into day two, when several police officers and a since retired MI5 agent named David Skene were listed to testify.
The room she’d been allocated as an office in Rushton Millennium Hall had an internal window overlooking the main meeting room, which also doubled as a gymnasium. Insofar as it was possible, Alison had arranged the furniture to resemble a court. Jenny took a perverse pleasure in looking down at the arriving lawyers who huddled together and shook their heads in disbelief at their incongruous surroundings. In the foyer there were notices advertising an over-sixties quiz night and photographs from the recent village pantomime.
As she seated herself behind the table at the head of the hall, she was pleased to see that there was only a handful of reporters in the two rows of seats which served as a press gallery. The presence of too much news media tended to frighten – or at the very least excite – witnesses to the point where they were no longer reliable. To their right sat a pool of fifteen jurors, from whom eight would be chosen. Mrs Jamal was sitting unobtrusively in the second row alongside another Asian woman, who looked as though she might be related. Both were dressed in black salwar kameez and head-scarves. The second woman held Mrs Jamal’s hand tightly in her lap. A cluster of witnesses including Anwar Ali and a pretty young woman Jenny took to be Dani James sat in the front row. Tucked away discreetly in the right-hand corner of the hall behind the reporters was Alun Rhys, the young MI5 officer.