by M. R. Hall
'Good weekend, Mrs Cooper?'
'Yes,' Jenny lied. 'You?'
'Oh, all right.' There was something uncharacteristically girlish in Alison's non-committal reply.
'Not too lonely without Terry?'
'Goodness no. I think it's probably been good for both of us. Things get a bit stale after thirty years. We probably both felt like a bit of excitement, only he was the one who acted on it.'
'Do you think you'd have him back?'
'I'm not sure, Mrs Cooper. I suppose it depends what happens. People change.'
Jenny sensed she was being asked to delve deeper. Too proud to gush, Alison's way of revealing herself was invariably to drop tantalizing hints that she was supposed to pick up on. Something of the parent and teenage child had developed in their relationship, Alison craving Jenny's approval but never daring to let down her defensive guard.
'Have you met someone?' Jenny ventured.
'Me?' Alison said, feigning surprise. 'I've had a few dates. Why not? Terry's certainly making hay.'
With a knowing look, Jenny said, 'What's his name?'
'Who?'
'The man you were meeting on Friday night?'
'Oh, him,' Alison said casually. 'That was Martin. A friend put me on to one of these dating sites. It was the last thing I'd have done if she hadn't suggested it, but he turned out to be rather charming. Very gentlemanly.'
Jenny smiled. 'Sounds promising. What does he do?'
'He's a consultant, advising companies on their security, that sort of thing.' Alison's cheeks coloured. 'He's only forty-three. He thinks I'm forty-nine.'
Jenny had never seen her look this excited. 'Just dinner, was it?'
'Mrs Cooper. What do you take me for?'
Jenny offered absolution: 'I'm happy for you, really. You deserve some fun.'
Alison gave a grateful smile, knowing it wasn't just her wayward husband Jenny was referring to, but also Harry Marshall, Jenny's predecessor as Severn Vale District Coroner. Twelve months had eased the pain of his sudden passing, but during their five years working alongside each other, Alison had come to idolize him. In an unguarded moment, Alison had confessed that Harry had once tried to seduce her and that she had shied away. She regretted it still, and probably always would.
'I'm afraid there's not much fun in your postbag this morning,' Alison said. 'You might want to read that email first.' She handed a printout across the desk.
It was from Patrick Derwent, the father of the girl who had hanged herself in the Conway Unit. He was angry, and had been moved to write after reading local newspaper reports of the proceedings at Jacobs's inquest. Why was the truth of Jacobs's wholly inappropriate behaviour towards his daughter skimmed over, he asked? It wasn't just a matter of him attempting to subvert her psychiatrist's diagnosis; he had pestered her with his simplistic religious beliefs, plied her with evangelical literature and even forced her to pray with him, promising her that being born again could open the door to her recovery. It was bad enough that all this had been hushed up until after the cursory inquest into his daughter's death. It was unforgivable that it hadn't even been exposed following Jacobs's obvious suicide. Did Deborah Bishop's unit have something else to hide? How many other needless deaths had it contributed to?
'What do you think?' Alison said. 'His wife never mentioned any of that, did she?'
'I'd better talk to the coroner who dealt with Emma Derwent's death.'
'It would have been Mr Rogers. Do you want me to call him?'
'I'll do it.'
As Jenny picked up the phone to call her colleague in Bristol Central, she found herself wondering what it might do to Ceri Jacobs to reopen the wound. Who would it serve to go back and heap more ignominy on her dead husband's name? Weren't some things better left undisturbed?
Nick Rogers was of the curt, ruthlessly businesslike school of coroners, notorious for conducting his inquiries by the letter of the law and with the minimum display of compassion for the bereaved. Jenny secretly suspected the gruff exterior disguised a delicate soul, but Rogers would have scoffed at the notion and accused her of being a bleeding heart.
The girl never complained about Jacobs, Rogers said. As far as he had been able to ascertain, she had merely mentioned the prayer incident to her parents in passing. It wasn't strictly NHS practice, but it was hardly a crime in his book. It was only after the girl had hanged herself that the parents said anything to Deborah Bishop, and it was the first she'd heard of it.
'Did Jacobs give evidence at the inquest?' Jenny asked.
'Oh yes,' Rogers said. 'Poor man was visibly distressed.
He said the prayer incident was all at her request. They got chatting about this and that and she found out he was a believer. As far as I could tell it was all perfectly innocent. There was no doubting she was very sick. She killed herself during a major psychotic episode. I found no reason to suggest that he had contributed to it in any way.'
'The father says he pressed literature on her.'
'I felt he was wrong about that. Jacobs was a Catholic, or trying to be. What Emma Derwent had got hold of was some hardcore evangelical tracts from that bloody great place with posters all over town.'
'The Mission Church of God?'
'That's the one. Jacobs said other kids in the unit had brought it in. It was nothing to do with him.'
'Did you believe him?'
'I had no reason not to.'
Not altogether convinced by Rogers's bluff certainty, Jenny sent Alison to talk to Patrick Derwent. Her mind had moved on to Eva Donaldson. She needed Jacobs laid conclusively to rest.
Michael Turnbull's assistant offered Jenny a meeting with him at five p.m., informing her that he was attending a House of Lords committee all morning and had to chair a Decency board meeting back in Bristol during the afternoon. This was intended to impress, perhaps even to intimidate her; Turnbull's staff seemed to relish their connection with a powerful man. Jenny had read that he shuttled around the country in a helicopter, relentlessly spreading the word like some latterday apostle. His campaign was certainly gathering strength: the latest newspaper polls put public support for the Decency Bill at 74 per cent. Not for nearly two hundred years, the leader writer commented, had the country's mood jolted so radically in a puritanical direction. Why it had happened was a source of fevered debate. Some claimed it was a fearful retreat from modernity, others that society was finally striking a sane balance between permissiveness and personal responsibility. Jenny was torn on the issue. The pornography she had seen was crude and brutal, but she had always believed that censorship, too, bred hypocrisy and shame.
She had still reached no clear conclusion by the time she arrived at the Mission Church of God later that afternoon. School kids, some still dressed in their uniforms, mingled in friendly groups. Boys and girls were good-naturedly kicking a football together. There was an atmosphere of reassuring innocence, a sense of sanctuary, like the embrace of a large and loving family.
In the lobby more children were sitting at rows of trestle tables stooped over schoolbooks. A familiar voice called out to her. The red-haired boy jumped up from one of the far tables and bounded over. Along with all the others he was wearing a name badge. His said: Freddy Reardon.
'Hi. How d'you get on with the book?' His fingertips anxiously gripped the cuffs of his school shirt, his freckled face bright with excitement.
Jenny couldn't bear to disappoint him. 'I'm going to start it this evening.'
'You'll be blown away,' Freddy said. 'What happened to her, it's unbelievable. And when you've finished that one, you've got to read Forgiveness. She wrote that one with Lennox. You should hear him talk about it - they finished it in a week. That's not like humanly possible, so it means those words can only have been coming from one place, you know what I'm saying?'
'I'll make sure to give it a go.' Jenny smiled, his enthusiasm was infectious. 'So tell me, what's going on here?'
'Evening service is at five-thirty. You don't g
et in unless you've finished your homework.'
'Wow.' She looked at the children's faces, pictures of concentration, and recalled her nightly battles with Ross, having to drag him from the computer and stand over him like an ogre. 'Everyone's behaving themselves.'
'It makes you feel good,' Freddy said earnestly. 'Everyone here looks out for each other. No one's giving you any trouble.'
'Are you all like this at school?'
Freddy grinned. 'Not really, there's no Lennox Strong at school. I keep telling him he should set one up here. I'd come. It'd be wicked, man.'
Jenny said, 'He's got your respect, huh?'
Freddy said, 'They're gonna have to invent a new word for it. See that kid over there, the one with the Afro? He's at my school. This time last year he was smoking rocks and mugging, pulled a knife on me one time. Now he's in my study group. You want proof, you're looking at it.'
'I'm impressed,' Jenny said. 'And I'll read the book, I promise.'
Freddy beamed, confident he'd closed the deal. 'It'll change your life. Guaranteed. See you around.'
Joel Nelson greeted Jenny with a warm smile and a soft handshake and brought her tea while she waited for the board meeting to finish. The ten or so staff in the slick church offices could have passed for employees in an advertising agency. Young, stylish and quietly efficient, they radiated confidence. Pretending to be absorbed in the latest edition of the church's glossy magazine, Jenny strained to make out the odd muffled exchange that escaped through the closed boardroom door. She gathered they were discussing media relations in the run-up to the parliamentary debate, but the detail eluded her. What she did hear were snatches of Michael Turnbull's rousing final address to his colleagues: 'The public is with us, the newspapers are following and the politicians are being sucked along in their wake. What we've got, ladies and gentlemen, is momentum, and if it keeps building this fast, nothing on God's earth is going to stand in our way.' He was greeted with a burst of applause which prompted the office staff to look up from their desks and smile.
Jenny counted eight board members as they filtered out, upbeat and cheerful. Middle-aged, white, suited, six of them men, they looked a conservative bunch, but their excitement was palpable. Several of their faces were vaguely familiar. They weren't smooth enough to be politicians; Jenny guessed they were businessmen and other professional leaders.
Michael Turnbull came out to meet her, still bathing in the afterglow of a successful meeting. 'Mrs Cooper. Come on in.'
Jenny followed him into the cool, spacious boardroom, where two others were waiting.
'Let me introduce you,' Michael Turnbull said, closing the door behind him. 'This is my wife, Christine, co-founder and treasurer of the Decency campaign, and this is Ed Prince, our chief legal adviser.'
Jenny shook hands and exchanged polite greetings with Lady Turnbull, an elegant, well-spoken woman who, she had gleaned from a profile in the church magazine, was forty-two and the former director of a PR agency. Even in artificial light she didn't look a day over thirty. Jenny's confidence evaporated in the glow of her perfect smile.
'Mrs Cooper.' Ed Prince enclosed her hand in a powerful fist. He was in his late fifties, powerfully built and with a battle-ready glint in his eye. He reminded her of the lawyers she was dealing with in the crane collapse: hardened litigators with a merciless instinct for an opponent's weakness.
'It was Ed's idea that he and Christine sit in, if you don't mind,' Michael said, almost by way of apology.
Prince said, 'Lady Turnbull probably knew Eva better than any of us, and quite frankly I'm here to protect the interests of this campaign.' Ignoring Michael's glance, he pressed on. 'You know, Mrs Cooper, it would be greatly appreciated if you could delay whatever you have to do for a few weeks. The man's pleaded guilty - there's surely nothing more to be said.'
At least she knew what she was dealing with: a bully, and one who thought a provincial coroner would retreat in the face of a big hitter from the City. She felt prickles of perspiration on her back, but her heart wasn't threatening to explode as it often did in the face of unexpected aggression.
Helping herself to a seat, Jenny said, 'I'm sure I won't need to explain coronial procedure to you, Mr Prince, but in case you're not entirely familiar with it, I'll remind you that being an independent judicial officer means what it says. I carry out my inquiries independent of all outside interference or influence. And for the avoidance of doubt, I have had no contact with the media over Miss Donaldson's death, and I intend to keep it that way.'
'That's a little naive, isn't it?' Prince said.
Christine Turnbull interjected. 'Mrs Cooper, you'll understand our anxiety, nearing as we are the end of a multi- million-pound campaign in which Eva was so involved. I suppose what's making us anxious is the thought that something unexpected could come up.' She paused to consider her words carefully. 'I'm sure it won't have escaped your notice that we're threatening a very powerful industry, and not one renowned for its probity.'
Jenny said, 'My concern is to get full information about the circumstances of Miss Donaldson's death. I'd be grateful for your help with a few points.'
Michael Turnbull held up his hand to restrain Prince before he objected. 'Of course. We'll assist in whatever way we can, Mrs Cooper.'
The lawyer frowned, keeping his eyes trained on her as she took a legal pad from her briefcase. She guessed it was he who would have been part of the discussion with Eva's father; the complaint to the Ministry of Justice had probably been his idea. No doubt he was furious that she hadn't been warned off.
Jenny opened her notebook to a page in which she'd jotted some questions. 'This isn't a formal evidence-gathering session,' she emphasized, 'just a chance for me to find out what was going on in Eva's life.'
Prince couldn't help himself. 'Are you seriously entertaining the possibility that it wasn't Craven who murdered her?'
Calmly Jenny said, 'A coroner must entertain whatever possibility the evidence supports.'
Prince gave a dismissive grunt.
Ignoring him, Jenny continued, 'I understand Miss Donaldson had been working for Decency for a little over a year.'
'That's right,' Michael Turnbull replied. 'Though it seemed like a lot longer.'
His wife nodded in agreement.
'What would you say was her chief motivation?'
'She didn't want other women to suffer what she had,' Christine Turnbull answered. 'She wrote at length about it in her two books. There was the simple humanitarian side, the desire to prevent cruelty and exploitation; and there was the spiritual side. She genuinely believed that pornography is an addictive drug, something that destroys moral integrity.'
Jenny said, 'I've no doubt she was committed to the cause, but she was in trouble financially. Were you aware of that?'
Michael Turnbull cut in ahead of his wife. 'I'll be straight with you. This has only come to light since she died. Decency paid her a very reasonable salary, but obviously, if she'd told us how bad things were, we might have tried to offer more help.'
'She wrote to you last November asking for a rise.'
'That's right. Her request was put to the board and it was felt that increasing salaries wasn't the best use of funds. I talked to her about it afterwards: she perfectly understood.'
Michael and Christine Turnbull exchanged a glance, as if there was something they weren't sure should be said.
'Yes - ?' Jenny prompted.
'Of course, we knew the campaign wouldn't go on for ever,' Michael said. 'I'd talked with Eva about what she was planning to do afterwards, and to be honest she was struggling to decide between some quite profound alternatives.'
'Such as?'
'She had become a very committed Christian, but she was also a natural performer,' he said with a fond smile. 'I know she and Lennox, our chief pastor here, talked a lot about her maybe entering the ministry, but she was also attracted to a career as a serious actress. I couldn't tell you if she had made up her mind, but I k
now what I would have wanted for her.'
'She was a very powerful preacher,' Christine Turnbull added. 'Personally, I think she'd made a decision to minister.'
'And live on what?'
'A very modest wage,' Michael Turnbull said. 'Money can't buy a vocation. Even a well-endowed church like this one has to live by the obvious principles.'
Jenny made a note that Eva was on the horns of a dilemma. Maybe it began to explain the bizarre tattoo? Perhaps 'Daddy's Girl' referred to her relationship with God? It didn't seem the obvious way to express it, but what could she know about the mind of an ex-porn actress?
'How would you describe her state of mind in the weeks before her death?' Jenny asked.
Michael Turnbull gazed at the ceiling for a moment, a trace of sadness, or was it regret, in his expression? 'Like the rest of us she was apprehensive, anxious to succeed. But having become the face of the campaign she probably felt personally responsible in a way the rest of us didn't quite appreciate.'
'You mean she was showing signs of strain?'
'No more than any of us,' Christine Turnbull said. 'I suppose it just bothers all of us that she was at home that Sunday evening, too tired to be here as she usually was. She had been to Manchester and Birmingham and made several radio appearances that weekend.'
Yes, it was regret. Jenny saw it Michael Turnbull's face.
'If there's one thing I should have insisted on,' he said, 'it was that she have full-time security. I offered on several occasions but she always refused. I suppose we all had faith that we'd be looked after. But sometimes one has to stop and remind oneself that we live in a fallen world.'
'Did she receive much negative attention?' Jenny asked.
'Quite the opposite,' Christine Turnbull said. 'We had piles of letters and emails for her every day, from well- wishers all over the world.'
'No threats? She can't have had many admirers in the pornography business.'