The Redeemed

by M. R. Hall

  She had had five days including the weekend to prepare and summon witnesses, and had fully expected the Ministry of Justice to intervene to make her think again. But apart from a solitary email from Amanda Cramer, they had remained eerily silent. Cramer's message had been tersely headed 'FYI', and contained a link to a newspaper article reporting insider gossip that the government and Decency were in advanced negotiations to secure the Decency Bill's safe passage through Parliament. It was to have its first reading in a week's time. Michael Turnbull himself was slated to open the debate in the Lords. Jenny interpreted it as a warning for the long term rather than as a threat. It was intended to remind her that as a junior member of the Establishment, she had a duty not to throw a spanner into the machinery of government. Even if she was technically within her rights to conduct an inquest, it would count as yet another black mark against her.

  To make matters worse, Steve had been asked to stand in for his boss at a series of meetings with prospective clients in Edinburgh. He had been stuck in the office at the weekend, and Ross had cancelled their fortnightly Sunday lunch, claiming he was overwhelmed with coursework. Jenny had made the mistake of calling her ex-husband while she was still smarting with the pain of rejection, and had humiliated herself by bursting into tears. It was the excuse David needed to suggest she should try a new psychiatrist. He recommended a colleague at the hospital. She had felt so wretched she had taken the woman's number. Before he rang off, David said, 'I'm so glad you can talk to me like this now, Jenny. You do realize how far you've come in three years?'

  Pushing open the creaking door to the former Severn Beach and District Working Men's Club, Jenny couldn't be sure if this was progress or not. Before her 'episode', the formal beginning of which she marked as the day she dried up and broke down in the middle of a family court hearing, she had been a well-respected lawyer running an entire local government department. Colleagues told her she could have applied to any of the big London law firms specializing in millionaire divorces and negotiated a six-figure salary with prospects for an equity partnership. By the time she was forty-five she could have been earning more than David and heading for a place at the top of her field.

  Instead she was a local coroner making just enough to get by, and surviving on ever-increasing doses of anti-anxiety medication. Ignoring Dr Allen's warnings, she had been taking double doses for most of the past week and was still starting at shadows and imaginary phantoms. Entering the clammy, featureless room that had once been the club bar felt strangely like reaching the end of a long road. As soon as this was over, she told herself, she would take a holiday. Then she would attempt to drain the poison once and for all.

  She retreated to the former committee room which would serve as her office, while Alison directed workmen arriving with hired-in chairs and trestle tables to set out the main room in a way that vaguely resembled a court. In between sips of coffee from a Thermos flask, she touched up her make-up with shaky fingers and tried to resist the temptation to swallow another Xanax.

  Even with her lipstick perfect and all her lines concealed, she remained too edgy to rehearse the questions she had planned for her first witnesses. Unable to relax, she closed the tatty brown curtains, leaving a tiny gap through which she watched a steady stream of people start to arrive. Despite the sign saying CORONER'S COURT Alison had planted outside, prospective jurors, witnesses, press and lawyers all appeared equally baffled by the incongruous building. Jenny smiled to herself as she watched Ed Prince and his entourage disembark from a chauffeur-driven Mercedes van and drag their smart pull-along briefcases across the rough gravel between a jumble of parked cars. The squalid building had one virtue: it would be a great leveller.

  Alison knocked shortly before ten and announced that Dr Kerr and all the police witnesses were present.

  'What about Craven?'

  'The prison has promised to get him here later this morning. That's the best they can do.'

  'Then we'd better make a start,' Jenny said with starchy formality, but under her tightly buttoned jacket her heart was racing. The air felt suddenly muggy, a bead of perspiration trickled down the centre of her chest.

  Alison stepped out in front of the now crowded courtroom. 'All rise.'

  There was an obedient scraping of chairs and a subdued chorus of coughs.

  Jenny entered and took her place at the head of the room at a table which had been draped with green baize. Fifty people waited obediently for her to sit before they resumed their seats. She picked out the face of Eva's father, Kenneth Donaldson, sitting alone at the end of a row, surrounded by a brood of journalists eager for a titillating story. From the brief statement he had reluctantly tendered, Jenny knew that he was sixty-six years old and the recently retired managing director of a respected and successful local company which engineered aircraft parts. Sitting stiffly in a pinstriped suit, he looked every inch a man used to being in command who wasn't going to let his suffering show in public. Three rows behind him, also unaccompanied, sat Father Starr. He fixed her with a still, penetrating gaze designed to remind her that she was answerable to only one authority, of whom he was the official representative.

  No fewer than eight lawyers were spread across the two rows of tables ranged opposite Jenny's. The most senior of them, Fraser Knight QC, rose to make the formal introductions. A tall man with elegant features and an aristocratic bearing, he had earned a formidable reputation representing the Ministry of Defence in a succession of awkward inquests involving the deaths of badly equipped British soldiers in Afghanistan. An eloquent advocate whose deadliest weapons were studied charm and feigned deference, he greeted her with a courtly nod and declared that he represented the Chief Constable of Bristol and Avon police. Two further members of his team sat behind him: junior counsel and a young instructing solicitor. Representing Kenneth Donaldson was Ruth Markham, a solicitor from Collett Abrahams, one of the oldest and most prestigious firms in Bristol, though one noted for its expertise in wills and probate rather than coroners' inquests. In her late thirties, expensively dressed and with a slender figure of which she was evidently very proud, she exuded confidence. In a team of one, Ruth Markham gave the impression of being more than able to cope alone. Decency and the Mission Church of God were jointly represented by a pugnacious rising star of the criminal bar, Christopher Sullivan. Good-looking in a slightly rough-hewn way, and supported by Ed Prince and two further junior solicitors armed with laptops and imposing piles of textbooks, Jenny recognized Sullivan from a recent article in the Law Society Gazette. Tipped to become the youngest Queen's Counsel of his generation, Sullivan had battled his way up from tough working-class roots in Bradford to a Cambridge scholarship. But rather than turn his skill into millions at the commercial bar, he had chosen criminal law and become a notoriously fearless prosecutor. The pundits said he was certain to make a move into politics before he was forty.

  It was an impressive array of legal talent and the nods and smiles they exchanged amongst themselves told Jenny that despite representing different clients they were united in wanting the same result, and quickly. Her suspicious were confirmed when, as Alison swore in the eight jurors who had been chosen by lot from a pool of fourteen, the lawyers huddled and whispered to one another, as if finalizing battle plans.

  The preliminaries dealt with, Jenny turned to address the newly empanelled jurors, who sat in two rows of seats to her left positioned at ninety degrees to her and the advocates' desks. In an arrangement far more intimate than that found in a regular courtroom, the six women and two men would sit in the thick of the action, almost within touching distance of the small table and chair which would serve as a witness box; close enough to Jenny and the lawyers to spot every tic and gesture.

  Hoping that only she was aware of the hint of a nervous tremor in her voice, Jenny explained to the eight puzzled faces that a coroner's jury had a completely different task from that in a criminal case. Their job was to listen to all the evidence called concerning the viole
nt death of Eva Donaldson, a twenty-seven-year-old former adult movie actress whom they had doubtless known as the public face of Decency. At its conclusion they would be asked to use their common sense and good judgement in completing a questionnaire known as a 'form of inquisition'. The most important questions they would have to answer were when, where and precisely how she died. Finally, Jenny reminded them that there had already been a brief but well-publicized criminal investigation into Miss Donaldson's death, which had concluded with Paul Craven's confession and subsequent guilty plea to her murder. Given that fact, they might be forgiven for thinking there was nothing more to be investigated, but, she stressed, the coroner's court had a duty to look at the evidence independently from the criminal court. What had gone before must not influence them in any way.

  Sullivan couldn't contain himself. 'With respect, ma'am,' he said in a thick, combative Yorkshire accent, 'the jury must be reminded that they have no power to contradict the finding of the criminal court. Craven has been properly convicted of Miss Donaldson's murder and therefore this tribunal cannot, under any circumstances, contradict that finding.'

  His aggression hit her like a fist. Battling a fresh eruption of anxiety, Jenny said, 'I don't agree, Mr Sullivan. The law is very clear on the point. In the Homberg case the High Court said, "The coroner's overriding duty is to enquire how the deceased died, and that duty prevails over any other inhibition."'

  'As I understand the law, ma'am, the only verdict this jury is entitled to return is one of unlawful killing. And with all due respect, given Craven's conviction, it could be argued that these proceedings are of doubtful legitimacy at best.'

  Jenny's apprehension was overwhelmed by a rush of anger. 'I will forgive you for not being familiar with the status and procedures of the coroner's court, Mr Sullivan, but you should know that it is neither inferior nor superior to the Crown Court. Although there are many who wish it were not so, a coroner has an entirely separate jurisdiction and must conduct her inquiry in a spirit of uncompromised independence. Is that understood?'

  Rocked by the ferocity of her response, Sullivan was briefly silenced. 'We'll have to agree to differ,' he muttered, and returned slowly to his seat with a look to the jury as if to warn them that they were being sorely misled.

  With adrenalin now coursing through her veins, Jenny informed the jury that despite what Mr Sullivan might believe, their duty was only to the truth, whatever they found that to be. They would spend the morning hearing from police witnesses and the pathologist who had most recently examined Eva Donaldson's body. Later in the proceedings they would hear from her friends and colleagues, and finally from Paul Craven himself.

  Sullivan and Fraser Knight exchanged a glance. They were looking forward to that.

  Dressed in a crisp charcoal suit with a purple silk tie, Detective Inspector Vernon Goodison strolled to the witness chair with the air of a man only too happy to help. Jenny immediately marked him down as one of the new breed of media-savvy detectives, outwardly benign and aware that every word they uttered in public and published by the press would be forever recorded on the internet. Jenny watched the jury respond warmly to his trust-me smile.

  With impressive fluency, Goodison recounted how he received a call early on the morning of Monday, 10 May to say that Eva Donaldson's body had been discovered by her cleaner. Together with four scene-of-crime officers, he had arrived twenty minutes later. The paramedics had had the good sense to realize she was irretrievably dead and had left the scene virtually undisturbed. Alison handed the jury copies of various police photographs showing the body lying on the kitchen floor, and views to and from the front door through the hallway. Jenny saw several of them flinch at the pin-sharp images: Eva curled up like a baby, her silky blonde hair trailing in a huge, sticky pool of coagulated blood.

  Goodison confirmed that there was no sign of forced entry to the property, nor any indication that it had been ransacked. An extensive search had been made for the murder weapon - presumed to be a knife with a blade approximately seven inches long - but none had been found.

  Jenny said, 'You must have seen many murder scenes in your career, Inspector. What was your initial assessment?'

  'I thought it was a domestic,' Goodison said, 'a row with a boyfriend that had got overheated. But there again you take care only to respond to the evidence.'

  'Was there evidence that anyone had been in the house with her?'

  'Nothing that we could find. None of the neighbours had heard anything. There was a bottle of wine open on the counter, only one glass.'

  'Where did you and your team conclude the stabbing had taken place?'

  Goodison held up the photograph that was taken from just outside the front door. 'It's exactly twenty-seven feet from the threshold to where she was lying. There was no evidence of blood in the hallway, but some spots were found just inside the kitchen here. It's possible they could have sprayed out from across the room, but my best guess is it happened here, near the kitchen door. If I was forced to speculate, I'd say she was backing away from someone who'd come through the front door.'

  'And there were no signs of sexual assault?'

  'No.'

  'Did that strike you as odd?'

  Goodison said, 'When he got to the house, I don't believe Craven had the courage to go through with what he intended. She opened the door to him, he forced his way in, stabbed her and ran.'

  'Not pausing to steal anything?'

  'There was no evidence of that. Nothing of interest was recovered from his bedsit.'

  'But there were items missing from Miss Donaldson's house you might have expected to find: a personal computer, a mobile phone.'

  Goodison smiled patiently, as if to congratulate Jenny on spotting the obvious. 'We were informed by Miss Donaldson's employers that they had advised her to cease electronic communications in February of this year. We think she may have disposed of her laptop computer altogether. We do believe she possessed a mobile phone, though she hadn't retained a regular contract for more than a year.'

  'Was it recovered?'

  'No. But there are several possibilities. Craven may have taken it, or even an opportunist thief. Miss Donaldson may have mislaid it. We simply can't say.'

  'Did you discover her phone number?'

  'Yes. I'll have one of my officers provide it if you wish.' He nodded to Fraser Knight and his team. The police solicitor made a note.

  Jenny said, 'You didn't recover the murder weapon either?'

  'No. That was slightly more troubling. Craven said in interview that he threw it in some bushes, but he couldn't remember where. It's seven miles from Miss Donaldson's home to his address, and he claims to have covered the entire distance on foot. We did all we could within our resources.' He turned to the jury. 'Obviously once Craven had confessed and his DNA was confirmed at the scene, our efforts were better spent elsewhere.'

  The power of a taped confession was such, Jenny soon realized, that only the most cynical and experienced of lawyers could resist its allure. As the film played on an old- fashioned television monitor, Jenny observed the jurors frown and shake their heads as Craven told his story about going to visit Eva to help her with her good works, and claimed that she had touched him, saying, 'Fuck me for the devil.' She studied their faces as Goodison teased out his final admission: 'And that's when I picked up a knife from the counter and stuck it in her, right there, in the chest.'

  They shuddered, appalled at the casualness of his delivery. His obvious lies and vagueness Over detail only confirmed the impression of guilt. He was the perfect embodiment of the inexplicable face of evil.

  'Did you collect the doormat before or after this interview?' Jenny asked Goodison when the film was over.

  'We already had it bagged up. It was sent for analysis after Craven said he had urinated on it.'

  She cut to the chase. 'I appreciate you had a confession from a man a psychiatrist deemed sane enough to be telling the truth, but once he had said those words, did
you consider any other possible explanation for Miss Donaldson's death?'

  'No, ma'am,' Goodison answered. 'There was no need.'

  'Did you ever doubt the reliability of his confession?'

  Goodison considered his answer carefully. 'He clearly wasn't as sane as you or I, but this was a man who had killed before, and once we had his DNA on the doormat there was no question.'

  Jenny gestured to Alison and handed her a copy of the list of people Goodison's team had spoken to at the Mission Church of God. Alison passed it to Goodison, who pulled a pair of designer reading glasses from his breast pocket and took his time fully digesting it.

  'One of your officers recorded the names of people your team spoke to informally. I presume these conversations happened on Monday, 10 and Tuesday, 11 May before Craven presented himself at the police station.'

  'I would presume so,' Goodison said.

  'Do any records of these conversations exist?'

  'It's unlikely unless anything of interest was said, in which case we would have taken a statement.'