by M. R. Hall
‘I said nothing of the sort.’
‘Then I suggest you issue a press release and clarify the situation. Coroners can hardly be effective without the support of the police. Goodbye, Mrs Cooper.’
Jenny collapsed into her chair. She felt shaken without knowing precisely why. There had been several run-ins with the Ministry over the past year, and each time she had been vindicated. Perhaps that was the problem: she had proved rather too good at unearthing the truth.
‘Hello?’
She jumped at the sound of the voice in reception. Forcing a breath past her racing heart, she stepped out to see Father Starr standing in the middle of the room as if he had appeared out of thin air. In the shadowy light she could see the sharp outline of his skull beneath his face.
‘I’m sorry if I alarmed you. One of your upstairs neighbours was leaving as I arrived.’
‘You could at least have knocked,’ Jenny said. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘You might answer my calls. Pay the slightest attention.’
Jenny bristled. ‘I have been conducting an inquest.’
‘So I understand,’ Starr said. ‘I hear you behaved very compassionately.’
She felt the tightness again, a spasm beneath her ribs.
‘What is this, a Catholic conspiracy?’ Jenny said, only half-jokingly.
‘As we sow, so shall we reap. It may be coincidence, but experience tells me they don’t happen often.’
‘You’ve lost me,’ Jenny said. The disturbing sensations gripping her body were hardening into panic. She hated being spoken to cryptically almost as much as being caught by surprise. ‘What do you want, Father?’
‘For you to have courage, Mrs Cooper.’
He held her gaze with a self-assurance that was not quite human. Without fear or self-consciousness he seemed to reach inside her.
‘When you came to the prison I mentioned a mutual friend—’
‘You mean Alec McAvoy.’
‘Yes. I met him a number of times through my work there. He spoke of you once.’
‘Is he alive?’
‘Honestly, I couldn’t say.’
‘When did he mention me?’
‘I took his confession while he was assisting in your investigation last year into the missing young men. It’s not betraying a confidence to say that he thought very highly of you.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That you were one of the few. I took him to mean one of the few people in his orbit worthy of complete trust. I have formed a similar opinion.’
‘Even though I don’t answer your calls?’
Starr smiled. It was a warm, spontaneous gesture that showed him to be human after all. Jenny felt a wave of relief pass over her.
‘I’ll confess,’ Starr said, ‘I observed your reaction when I mentioned him. It was probably a little unfair of me, and it’s been weighing on my conscience. He is, or was, a very charismatic man.’ He glanced towards the partially open door to her office. ‘It is safe to discuss such matters?’
‘There’s no one here but us.’
‘It’s only right that I tell you –’ Father Starr paused and gestured with his hands, as if rehearsing what he had to say – ‘he described you as a beautiful and a troubled woman whom he felt fated to meet. I don’t think I would have felt prompted to mention it were it not for that word – fated. It stayed with me for some reason. Finally meeting you in person seemed to suggest an answer, or at least the route to one.’
She felt herself blush. There were butterflies in her stomach. Why torment her with this when McAvoy was already dead?
‘You would tell me if you knew anything, even if only a rumour—’
‘You have my word. Well, there you are. My conscience is clear –’ he hesitated – ‘well, almost. Forgive me, I’m a priest, and sometimes far too conscientious for my own good, but I feel I ought to ask – are you troubled, Mrs Cooper?’
‘I think the lines have become blurred enough already, don’t you?’
Starr looked at her, as if about to say something which he then decided against. ‘I apologize. It wasn’t my intention to make you feel uncomfortable. You are going to conduct this inquest, yes?’
‘If I were to say no?’
Father Starr looked into her eyes, then dipped his head and slipped from the room as quietly as he had arrived.
Jenny pulled up on her ex-husband’s spotless driveway and parked her scruffy Golf next to a brand-new Mercedes Coupe´. It was the house she had lived in for the best part of fifteen years, but crossing the immaculate paving she felt like a ragged trespasser. David demanded the same spotlessness in his garden as he did in his operating theatre. Since Jenny had left, she had noticed this tendency becoming even more acute. No imperfection was permitted. A weed between the manicured shrubs was as unthinkable as a casual slip of the scalpel: a matter of life and death.
It was his young girlfriend, Debbie, who answered the door. Not yet thirty, she was pretty, pink-cheeked and blonde, and now happily pregnant.
‘Oh hi, Jenny,’ Debbie said sweetly. ‘Come in.’ She called up the stairs: ‘Ross, it’s your mum.’
Jenny followed her into the large, open-plan kitchen, which shone in a way it had never done when it had belonged to her.
‘Can I get you anything?’
‘No thanks,’ Jenny said. Drinks were too risky when she was this nervous. She’d fumble it and make a mess on Debbie’s gleaming floor. ‘Is David around?’
‘He’s late back. It was a long list today. He’s getting things clear for the weekend.’
‘Are you doing something special?’
‘It’s my birthday. He’s booked a couple of nights away. Don’t ask me where, it’s a surprise.’
‘Great,’ Jenny said, remembering several such trips, David booking the big suite and expecting non-stop sex while her idea had been to catch up on some sleep. She glanced at Debbie’s pert little pregnancy bump. ‘How are you feeling? It can’t be long now.’
‘You know, I hardly notice it, except when it kicks.’ She patted her stomach. ‘According to the scan it’s going to be big, though. David says Ross was a big baby.’
‘Yes,’ Jenny said. ‘But a word of advice – it’s better to have the cut before it comes out than risk what happened to me.’
Debbie winced.
‘Two hours stitching up. Probably why I didn’t do it again.’
Ross’s footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Jenny said, ‘Good luck. I’m sure you’ll be fine.’
The sinful pleasure of seeing Debbie’s smile replaced by a look of horror stayed with her all the way to the restaurant. Hopefully it would put a damper on her weekend too.
Ross chose the little French bistro in Clifton they used to visit when David still indulged Jenny in her occasional attempts to reconnect with her brief bohemian youth. She was glad it had good associations for Ross and hadn’t been tainted by his father’s scathing remarks about the streaky cutlery and bad wine. She guessed he almost felt part of the university crowd that gathered here. She had to remind herself constantly that he was very nearly eighteen, a young adult, old enough to fight in a war. He had changed again in the month since they’d spent an evening together. The mid-teen gawkiness was almost gone, along with the semipermanent sneer and ever-ready put-downs. She recognized aspects of his father in him: hints of fastidiousness in the careful way he held his cutlery, a sense that his intellect was asserting control over his emotions. And as the evening wore on, he started to ask her questions, which was another new departure. He enquired after her recent cases, whether she had plans for a holiday, and whether she seeing much of Steve. Jenny was touched.
‘So you’re not actually together, then?’ Ross said.
‘We’re good friends—’
It could have been David looking sceptically back at her.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘I thought you liked him. He likes you.’
‘When d
id he say that?’
‘He didn’t have to. It’s obvious.’
Jenny sensed she wasn’t getting the whole truth. ‘Have you been speaking to him?’
Ross shrugged. ‘He’s called me a couple of times, that’s all, to see how you are.’
‘What’s wrong with calling me?’
‘He says he’s been trying to . . . He worries about you, you know.’
‘Oh, does he?’
‘In a good way. Why wouldn’t he? We all do.’
‘All?’
‘I didn’t mean . . . sorry. That came out wrong.’
‘Who exactly sits on this committee of the concerned?’
‘It’s only Dad. He thinks you’re working too hard, that’s all.’
‘Really? When exactly has he been making these pronouncements – around the dinner table with Debbie there?’
Ross squirmed in his seat. ‘Look, I didn’t mean to start something.’
‘No, I want to know,’ Jenny insisted. ‘I’m your mother. If you’re worried about me, ask me. I might be able to reassure you.’
Ross looked at her guiltily. She hated herself for hurting him, but she couldn’t bear not to know what David was saying about her.
‘He thinks you seem a bit—’
‘What?’
‘Shaky. He thinks you could do with a rest.’
‘From a man who works fourteen-hour days, that’s a bit rich.’
There was a spark of anger in Ross’s eyes. ‘Just because you’re divorced doesn’t mean he’s stopped caring about you. He’s worried you’re going to push yourself too hard and go under again.’
‘If being appointed coroner is his idea of going under, I can’t imagine what he thinks success would be. You know, Ross, perhaps your father is just a little bit jealous of me. I won’t deny he’s a great surgeon, well respected and all that, but it’s uncanny how he always seems to notice when I’ve had my name in the paper.’ She poured more mineral water into her glass, wishing it were wine. ‘Shall we change the subject?’
‘Is it something that happened to you?’
‘What?’
‘Dad says it sounds like post-traumatic stress disorder. Apparently sometimes it can be some tiny thing that sets up a reaction in the brain, like being frightened by a dog. Something can trigger it years later.’
‘He’s a psychiatrist as well as a heart surgeon now, is he?’
‘Was there something?’
‘Ross, please. We’ve talked about this before. I’ve been through a tough time and now I’m getting better.’ She forced a smile.
‘Mum, you’ve started not looking at people when you’re talking to them. Your hands shake. You don’t get better by taking more pills. Someone’s got to be honest enough to tell you that.’
Neither of them spoke as she drove him home. It was meant to have been a relaxing evening but instead it had ended with Jenny feeling betrayed. David had primed Ross to confront her and suggested the bistro as the place most likely to take the sting out of her own son telling her she was a basket case. She pulled up on the road outside her sterile former home, fighting a losing battle against anger she could no longer contain.
‘How dare your father do this to me?’
Ross sat silently in the passenger seat.
‘You know what his problem is? He feels guilty. He wants me off his conscience so he can pretend everything’s wonderful in his bourgeois bloody life. Well, it isn’t. He’s making a fool of himself with that girl. She’s young enough to be his daughter, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Mum, that’s not fair.’
‘I know. I should be a bloody saint who never gets angry, never criticizes anyone, never shows any emotion.’
‘There’s no danger of that.’
Ross slammed out of the car and ran towards the house. Jenny wound down the window and called after him, but her apology came too late. He was already through the door. Lost to her.
She shed angry tears as she gunned home along empty roads, throwing the Golf around the steep corners on the valley road, grinding through the gears and stamping on the brakes. Her anger with David spilled over into fury at the world at large. Everyone wanted something from her, she was surrounded by people passing judgement. It was as if, resenting her authority, they had to do all in their power to diminish her. Even her father had managed to lash out from his senility to land a sickening blow.
No more. She was Jenny Cooper, Severn Vale District Coroner, a woman who had every right to demand respect.
She pulled onto the old cart track at the side of the house as the last of the late evening light bled away. She couldn’t care less if her insecure ex-husband disapproved of the way she lived or had convinced himself she was a breakdown waiting to happen. That was his problem. When Debbie was cooing over a baby he’d be desperate for an intelligent woman to talk to. There’d be no more dirty weekends for a long time, just a lot of dirty nappies. There was some justice in the world.
The creak of the gate’s rusty hinge echoed off the front of the cottage. The air was dead still and humid, not a hint of breeze to stir the leaves. She stopped halfway up the path and groped in her handbag for her keys. Where the hell were they? She delved beneath the jumble of make-up, pills, purses and assorted hair brushes. She checked the zip compartments. Nothing. She shook the bag to hear the rattle that would tell her they were in there, but somehow she lost her grip and dropped it, scattering the contents over the ground.
Damn! Damn! Stooping down to snatch them up something caught her eye: flashes of colour on the flagstones. In the dim light she made out a pattern of pink and yellow chalk lines: hopscotch squares and numbers drawn in a childish hand.
Her head spun and her heart exploded. She grabbed her car keys and ran.
EIGHT
JENNY SPED ALONG THE THREE miles of winding lanes, careered down the narrow dirt track through the woods and juddered to a halt in Steve’s yard. The stone farmhouse, still rented out to the weekenders from London, stood in darkness. Steve’s ancient Land Rover was parked outside the barn in which he’d improvised a flat in the upper storey, but there was no light at the window. She groped for the torch she kept in the glove box. It glowed dully for a second, then died. Jenny flung it over her shoulder. Too frightened to leave the safety of her car to stumble across the yard and pick her way through the blackness of the barn, she leaned on the horn.
No response.
She pressed it again, its ugly sound splitting the night.
Wake up! Wake up!
Maybe he had someone else up there with him? One of the admiring girls from the office he occasionally mentioned. The bastard. She fired up the engine, rammed into reverse and sped round in a backwards semi-circle. Shoving the stick into first, she shot forward, kicking up dirt and gravel, tore through the gate and slewed around the tight left bend. Two bright green eyes stared into the headlights from the centre of the track. It was Alfie, Steve’s sheepdog, with Steve right behind him. She stamped on the brakes. Steve and Alfie dived into the neck-high cow parsley on the verge as she slid past and skidded to a stop.
Untroubled by his brush with death, Alfie rested his head on her lap as she sat on the corner of the dusty old sofa, gazing at her with needy eyes. The boarded-out barn loft was more of a den than a flat. There was a bed, a draughtsman’s drawing board, a few items of ancient furniture and a makeshift kitchen. A solar panel rigged up on the roof provided an occasional trickle of tepid water to the sink. It smelled of straw, dog and tobacco smoke.
Steve brought her some camomile tea and sat next to her. At least his cups were clean.
‘How are you feeling?’ he said.
‘I don’t know,’ Jenny whispered.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’
Alfie nuzzled her, demanding a stroke. She put a hand on his soft head and scratched gently behind his ears. He closed his eyes in bliss.
‘I’m not sure I can explain. You’ll think I’m stupid.’
>
‘Try me.’
Jenny struggled against a feeling of unreality. She felt foolish, humiliated.
Steve put a hand on her knee. ‘What’s frightened you, Jenny? It’s not work this time, is it?’
She shook her head. ‘How can you tell?’
He shrugged. ‘I guess I must know you.’
‘Those people you saw waiting outside my house the other day, what did they look like?’
‘The guy was a bit older than me, the girl was very little. Blonde hair, two little pigtails at the back.’
‘I know this is going to sound strange—’
‘Go on.’
‘The man . . .’ Jenny faltered, scarcely believing she was asking the question. ‘Did he look to you like he belonged in the past?’
‘What do you mean? I only saw him for a moment.’
‘What about the girl? What was she wearing?’
‘Something pale blue, as far as I remember. A sort of knitted cardigan thing. Why? Who are they? Hey, careful—’
He grabbed the cup from Jenny’s shaking hand, slopping tea onto the floor.
‘Come on,’ Steve said. ‘Let’s have it.’
‘You won’t think I’m crazy? I need to trust you.’
‘You know you can. I keep telling you.’
She nodded, and edged a little closer to the precipice. Once over she knew there was no going back. She stepped out.
‘You know my psychiatrist is convinced I’ve got some buried memory, some trauma—’
‘Uh huh.’ He took her hand and stroked it, gently urging her on.
‘I’d been having dreams about this little girl. In one of our sessions a name came up, Katy. Just the name. No memory, but it was connected to my childhood. I was about five or six. He kept pestering me to research my past, family records, anything that might stir up memories. I don’t have much of that sort of stuff. I couldn’t find anything except a few old pictures. My mother’s dead, I’ve no brothers or sisters. The only person left is my father. Physically he’s OK, mentally he’s completely shot.’
‘I remember. You went to see him.’
Jenny drew in a long breath. It was too late to stop now.
