by M. R. Hall
'Not particularly,' Nelson said. 'When you've so many members these sorts of things are to be expected.'
But how many study groups had two members who had killed themselves within days of each other? She would like to have rubbed Nelson's nose in the circumstantial evidence until he was forced to say that Eva must have known things about them that no one else did, that she was their confidante and confessor, their channel from the darkness to the light and perhaps back again. Jenny had to be cleverer than that; she had to find the single weakness that would cause Nelson to stumble and drop his guard.
'Mr Nelson, as the administrator of a church with such a high public profile, you must have been particularly alarmed at Mr Jacobs's death, given his close association with Eva Donaldson.'
'As far as I know the police saw no connection, and nor did we.'
'"W, being—?'
'The church's trustees.'
Ruth Markham, solicitor for Kenneth Donaldson, stood up from her chair and broke her morning-long silence. 'Ma'am, if I may say so, it strikes me that this inquiry is in danger of straying some distance from the narrow issue of what caused Eva Donaldson's death. Clearly while the relevance of evidence is a matter for you to determine, the influence of irrelevant evidence on the jury could affect the sustainability of a verdict.' She gave an almost apologetic smile.
It was a muted interjection, but the message issued in lawyerly code was loud and clear: Stop this fishing trip and stick to hard facts or we'll have the High Court tear up your verdict before the ink's dry. Jenny watched Sullivan and Markham exchange a glance. Working in concert, they were sharing the load, making the record show that it was clear to all parties present that the coroner was trespassing where the law said she shouldn't. She was caught in a catch-22: despite her duty to seek out and determine the truth, the ever-tightening case law told her she could only cast her net in certain well-defined waters. She desperately wanted to make the connection between Freddy, Jacobs and Eva, but almost any line of questioning hinting at one would suggest pre-judgement and bias. Reluctantly, she accepted that for present purposes Jacobs's and Freddy's deaths were off- limits.
Thanking Markham for her observation, Jenny addressed her final question to Nelson: did he know of anyone other than the man convicted of her murder who wanted to kill Eva Donaldson?
'No, ma'am. I firmly believe her killer is already behind bars, where he belongs.'
Jenny's mind swam with questions and half-made connections as first Sullivan, then Ruth Markham led Nelson through a series of questions and answers designed to banish any suspicion that Eva's mental state was anything less than stable, or that the untimely deaths of Alan Jacobs and Freddy Reardon were anything other than a cruel coincidence. The Mission Church of God had suffered more than its fair share of suicides among its congregation, Nelson admitted, but as the last stop for the ill and the desperate it was only to be expected. If they had made one mistake it was in failing to protect Eva from its most troubled souls.
Closing the door of her office to await Turnbull's arrival, Jenny attempted to crystallize her suspicions into a theory that might be tested. She had grown increasingly certain throughout the morning that what linked Eva to Alan Jacobs and Freddy Reardon went beyond the simple fact of their acquaintance and into much darker places. She recalled Freddy's hostile reaction when she had mentioned Jacobs's name to him. They had met at the Conway Unit, but Freddy had violently denied that Jacobs had steered him towards the church. Eva had spoken to Freddy frequently, telephoned him and shared her insecurities. Why him? Did she sense a kindred spirit? And what had caused Freddy's bleak mood the night three months ago when he arrived late for his dinner with his kindly neighbour, Maggie Harper?
Jenny's two brief forays into the Mission Church had taught her that it was a place of drama and catharsis; a crucible of emotion in which buried pains and passions were encouraged to erupt and spill out to the applause and wonder of the excited crowd: a theatre of the soul. It didn't surprise her that Eva had been drawn from pornography to the Mission Church's particular brand of religion. It was no coincidence that 'ecstasy' invariably described either sexual or religious euphoria.
She lifted the phone and dialled Andy Kerr's direct line at the Severn Vale District Hospital's mortuary. She had hoped to reach him in person, but her call was answered by his machine.
'Andy, it's Jenny Cooper. I need you to run a DNA test for me. It's just a hunch, but could you please establish if the semen found in Alan Jacobs's body came from Freddy Reardon. I need to know as quickly as possible. Thanks.'
She looked up to see Alison framed in the doorway.
'There's someone to see you, Mrs Cooper,' she said guiltily.
She stepped aside to make way for two men.
'Good morning, ma'am,' the older of the two grunted. 'Detective Sergeant Simon Gleed.' He passed her his warrant card and nodded to his younger colleague. 'Detective Constable Alan Wesley.'
The junior detective gave an embarrassed nod. Not yet thirty, he held a briefcase awkwardly in front of his body and glanced around the shabby room to avoid meeting Jenny's gaze. Gleed was closer to fifty and hadn't worn well; a beer drinker's stomach strained against his shirt, and his bald head was coated with a thin sheen of perspiration.
'You can leave us, Alison,' Jenny said.
She waited for the door to click shut before addressing her visitors.
'Do you make a habit of interrupting judicial proceedings, Mr Gleed?'
'We're answering your enquiry, ma'am,' he said with a pronounced Somerset burr that made him sound almost quaint. 'I understand you've been trying to reach me.'
Jenny sighed: an outward show of impatience to disguise the sensation of panic tightening her chest. 'Let's not play games. What do you want?'
Gleed helped himself to a seat, leaving his subordinate standing.
'A statement might be useful.'
'Concerning?'
'We've had a complaint, Mrs Cooper,' Gleed said, as he reached a handkerchief from his pocket and swept it across his forehead, 'relating to an investigation that happened rather a long time ago.'
'You're referring to the death of my cousin.'
He nodded. 'I am indeed.'
'A complaint from whom?
'Officially it's from your surviving cousin, Mr Christopher Chilcott. But I'll let you into a secret - it was a retired police officer who alerted him to the situation.'
'Situation?'
'Let's just say that police investigations sometimes weren't as thorough back then as they would be now.' He gave an apologetic smile.
'Hold on a moment,' Jenny said. 'I was a child. I have no recollection of the circumstances and until three months ago I had no idea I even had a cousin Katy. A little girl died tragically, but her parents are both dead and the only other adult with any connection is my father, who you may already know is so senile he doesn't recognize his own daughter.'
'Your father's medical condition is certainly something the Crown Prosecution Service will consider,' Gleed said, 'should it ever come to it. But it's not a matter that I can let stand in the way of an investigation - there's the public interest to consider, and the victim's.'
'What victim? Christopher Chilcott never even knew his sister.'
'I can appreciate a woman in your position not wishing to have this raked over, Mrs Cooper, but you'll understand my position too.'
'You don't find the timing of this complaint a touch coincidental?'
Gleed glanced at his colleague and shook his head.
'The fact that I'm in the middle of an inquest which might impact on a major murder investigation carried out by your colleagues in Bristol.'
'Nothing to do with me, nor the old fella who came forward. He's a Weston man, born and bred.' Folding his damp handkerchief back into his pocket, the detective said, 'We could take it now if you like, but I'm sure you'd prefer to make an appointment to come to the station. Would later this afternoon suit?'
'And i
f I tell you I have nothing to say?'
Gleed fixed his small, black eyes on her. 'We'd both know you weren't telling the truth, wouldn't we?' He heaved his bulk up from the chair. 'We'll say five-thirty, shall we?'
The detectives left as abruptly as they had arrived. Jenny went to the window and peered out from behind the curtain as they walked, unnoticed by the news crews, to their unmarked car parked at the edge of the road. She was in no doubt what was happening: fearing another humiliation at her hands, Bristol CID had dug deep and found a nugget. If she brought her inquest to a quiet close, perhaps the complaint would vanish and DS Gleed could return to chasing pickpockets on the promenade.
It was between her and her conscience. She pulled the curtains tight shut and wandered back to her desk in a semi- daze. What was she hoping to achieve? Her two main suspects were Jacobs and Freddy and they were both dead. Was it right to risk her reputation and livelihood merely in search of truth for truth's sake? Weren't some secrets better left undisturbed?
There was a knock at the door.
'I'm busy.'
Pretending not to have heard, Alison entered. 'Mr Sullivan would like to address you, Mrs Cooper - in open court this time.'
'What about?'
'He wouldn't say, but I think it might be about his witness.' She pressed the door shut behind her and kept her hand on the handle as if it might suddenly be opened from the other side. 'That new lawyer has been talking to him, the woman. She looks to me as if she's in charge.'
'Do we know her name?'
'According to the attendance form she's called Annabelle Stern. She's from the same firm as Mr Prince.'
'All right,' Jenny said, 'I'll hear him.'
News of the application hadn't filtered through to the journalists and reporters milling outside the hall. Aside from Kenneth Donaldson and Father Starr there was barely anyone occupying the rows of seats behind the lawyers. Jenny could tell at once that this was Annabelle Stern's play. While Prince sat back disinterestedly with arms folded, she leaned forward, watching Sullivan intently as he rose to address her.
'Ma'am, it's with great regret that I have to inform you that my client has been unavoidably delayed in the Lords - I understand he has been required to participate in a whipped vote. I'm afraid his business there may not be concluded until later this evening.'
'I thought I made myself perfectly clear, Mr Sullivan.'
'Ma'am, you did.' He hesitated momentarily as if losing courage. 'But those instructing me have suggested that as you have doubtless so much to consider, a short delay would make no material difference.'
Annabelle Stern and now Fraser Knight turned their gazes to Jenny, their hard, determined expressions and the empty seats behind her telling her all she needed to know: they would keep her secret if she didn't pry any further into theirs.
Chapter 18
She sat in the office with the curtains tightly drawn, aware of little except the sound of departing vehicles and the overpowering smell of mildew. Unable to form coherent thoughts, she watched the silverfish dart out from between the cracks of the bare, worm-eaten boards and go about their business of slowly reclaiming the flimsy building for the earth. Whatever Alison knew or had been told, she kept to herself as she tidied the chairs and emptied the lawyers' water jugs in the empty hall. Once finished, and knowing better than to intrude, she called to Jenny through the closed door.
'Shall I see you back at the office, Mrs Cooper?'
'Yes, thank you, Alison.'
'I'll leave the key on my desk.'
Jenny listened to her fading footsteps. Then all was silence.
But Jenny wasn't alone. Behind her, in the corner of the room where she dared not look, sat Eva, Freddy and Alan Jacobs, heads bowed and faces twisting in unanswered prayer. Outside, a small girl played hopscotch on the crumbling concrete slabs.
'Memories, and indeed the imaginings they provoke, are nothing more than chemical ones and noughts,' Dr Travis, her first and most uncompromising psychiatrist, had once pronounced. 'They may affect us adversely in the same way that a faulty code upsets a computer program. Our work is simply to isolate and overwrite the bad data.'
It had been a comforting thought, faced with the acute and exquisitely bewildering pain of her 'episode': isolate and destroy, what could be simpler?
But she, like Dr Travis, had been a rational person then, one who believed that problems could be solved by a series of logical steps, that reason and good intentions alone would triumph. She had never considered the possibility that doing the right thing could bring about the worst possible consequences.
Ed Prince, Annabelle Stern and the rest of them would bury her sooner than risk letting the truth, whatever that was, come to light. How deep had they had to probe? How many resources had they poured into excavating her past to come up with an obscure retired policeman with a lingering doubt over a case nearly forty years old? How could she meet such force and hope to achieve anything other than self-destruction?
She wanted to be brave, to shine as a light in the world and to hell with the consequences, but it took energy she no longer possessed, courage that she could no longer dredge up from her exhausted well. She was paralysed, trapped, and realized with a bitter smile that she had merely arrived at her inevitable destination several months later than she would otherwise have done. The last time she had been confronted with the end, all that had saved her had been Alec McAvoy's suicidal recklessness.
This time she had no saviour. She was alone and her own resources were not enough.
Resigned to defeat, she gathered her papers into her groaning briefcase and forced it shut. She snatched the key from
Alison's desk and retreated hurriedly from the hall, the ghosts trailing in her wake. Slamming the front door, she locked them in, feeling like a jailer turning the key on the condemned.
Hurrying across the uneven ground, she turned the corner of the building and saw another car parked alongside hers. Father Starr climbed out of the driver's seat and strode towards her as she made a dash for her Golf.
'Was that an admission of defeat, Mrs Cooper?' It was more an accusation than a question. 'One could be forgiven for forming the impression that your inquest won't be hearing from Michael Turnbull again.'
Jenny rummaged clumsily through her pockets in search of her keys.
'An innocent man is still in prison,' he said accusingly. 'I know you find me troublesome, but he has no voice but mine.'
He drew closer as she switched her search to her handbag.
'You're a woman of conscience, Mrs Cooper. If you stop your ears to him now, I can promise his cries will never leave you.'
Jenny's fingers at last closed on the keys. She thumped her bag on the roof of the car as she unlocked the door. Starr was only inches from her now, all inhibitions gone.
'Is this the woman I was told would tolerate no impediment to justice? If I weren't so angry, I'd pity you. Do you honestly think you'll find any comfort in lies, any peace though colluding with this travesty?'
Jenny flung open the door and turned on him. 'Has it ever occurred to you that it might be you who's wrong?'
'A comment unworthy of your intellect, Mrs Cooper. All I am asking on Craven's behalf is for his legal entitlement, for due process fearlessly administered.'
'That is exactly what he is getting.'
Starr gave her a wearied yet knowing look, one that penetrated her feeble protest and seemed to probe at the heart of her fear. Quietly he said, 'Do you assume that you are the only person being tested?'
She climbed into the car and pulled at the door. Starr grabbed the outer handle, refusing to let it shut.
'Please, Mrs Cooper, don't be intimidated.'
Jenny yanked hard, hit the locks and turned the key in the ignition.
Starr shouted at her through the closed window. 'Then at least afford me one last chance. There are people I can go to for help. Good people.'
She slammed into reverse and stamped on the thrott
le, forcing the priest to jump clear. He was still calling after her as she sped away.
Dull with indecision, Jenny arrived back in the office to find that Alison had already gone to lunch, leaving a tell-tale trace of perfume in the air. She tried to clear her head, to concentrate on the hundred mundane tasks with which she could fill the afternoon, but even lifting the overnight death reports from her in tray was an energy-draining effort.
Among the neat stacks of files on her officer's desk she noticed the latest edition of Chambers and Partners Directory. The annual listings usually lived on the shelves in Jenny's office. She picked it up to find a scrap of paper marking a page. It opened at the professional biography of Annabelle Stern, listed as a partner in the firm of Kennedy and Parr. The portrait photograph was several years out of date, but the reported cases in which she had featured were recent and dealt exclusively with the fast-evolving field of personal privacy. The names of show-business celebrities featured alongside football managers and a leading case described only as A v. B which, it was claimed, had set a new benchmark in curbing newspaper intrusion. The British civil courts accorded total anonymity only to royalty and the extremely rich. Whatever the identity of her clients, Annabelle Stern was trusted by the biggest players and had made her reputation protecting their dirty secrets.
As Jenny reached for Alison's keyboard to see what the internet might reveal about her newest adversary, her mobile rang. Simon Moreton's name blinked up on the caller display. Jenny was tempted to ignore him. She had nothing to say to her notional superior from the Ministry of Justice except that she wanted the inquest to end and as quickly as possible. But a nagging sense of duty forced her to answer and utter a matter-of-fact hello.
'Ah, Jenny. Glad I got you. I happen to find myself in your part of the world on a bit of business. Just got word you might have come free for a spot of late lunch. Shall we say the Hotel du Vin? One-thirty?'