by M. R. Hall
‘We’ll leave it for now,’ Jenny said. ‘I may not need him.’ Joe Cassidy was the final witness of the day and, save for Freddy Reardon, the last on Jenny’s list. He had cut his hair for the occasion and was dressed in a movie star’s suit, but beneath the slick exterior he was edgy and impatient and cast nervous glances at the lawyers, who whispered to each other behind their hands.
He stated his profession as company director and claimed to have known Eva for over five years. ‘We acted together, then we lived together,’ he said. ‘We broke up after her car accident, when she became depressed, but we stayed friends.’ He spoke directly to the jury. ‘I might not have been on the same religious kick, but no one could have known her better than I did.’
Jenny was taken aback by his abrasive tone. He was hardly recognizable as the tousle-haired TV producer who had tried to flirt with her over drinks.
Jenny said, ‘Shall we rewind a little and hear how you and Miss Donaldson met?’
‘Can I say something first?’ Cassidy asked. ‘In all the time I worked with Eva, she never once failed to turn up for work, even when it was the last place she wanted to be. I’ve heard a lot of speculation about her today, but one thing I guarantee is that she wouldn’t have let down four thousand people without one hell of a reason.’
Anticipating Sullivan’s objection, Jenny said, ‘Do you have any evidence for this, Mr Cassidy?’
‘Yes. This is a woman I’ve seen climb out of a sickbed at dawn and scrape the ice off her windscreen to shoot a gang bang with a bunch of strangers.’
‘I meant, do you have any evidence that she was told not to come to the Mission Church the night she was killed?’
‘I don’t know who told her to stay away,’ Cassidy said, ‘but I’m pretty sure I know why.’ He aimed his last remark at the press. ‘I don’t think Eva believed any more.’
FIFTEEN
CASSIDY’S STATEMENT CAUSED UPROAR. As the journalists rushed to file their second sensational story of the day, Sullivan furiously accused him of being in the pay of the pornography business, and of having used his sham TV company to solicit young women for adult films. Cassidy hit back with the claim that Eva wouldn’t have approached him to help her start a straight acting career unless she was planning on leaving the Mission Church of God behind.
Jenny fought a losing battle to restore order. The session ended in disarray with Cassidy swamped by reporters as he tried to leave the building, and Sullivan demanding that his evidence be ruled inadmissible. Shouting above the commotion, Jenny declared the day’s proceedings over and sought sanctuary in her office.
She emerged twenty minutes later to find Alison straightening the empty rows of chairs. She didn’t have to say I told you so – it was written in her every pernickety gesture, restoring order where Jenny had unleashed chaos.
‘Has everybody gone now?’ Jenny asked.
‘All except him,’ Alison said, nodding towards the exit.
‘Who?’
‘Who do you think? The Grand Inquisitor. I asked him to wait outside.’
‘Oh . . . Did he say what he wants?’
‘That’d be far too polite.’ She crossed to her desk and tidied her papers. ‘Are you planning on calling any more witnesses tomorrow? We’ll save fifty pounds if we’re out of this place by lunchtime.’
‘I haven’t decided. I might have to call Michael Turnbull back to answer Cassidy’s allegations.’
Alison looked up with a worried frown.
‘Why would you do that? There’s not been one shred of evidence that’s made me doubt for a second that Craven killed her. Don’t take this the wrong way, Mrs Cooper, but if you keep on, it’s just going to make you look worse.’
‘Worse than what, exactly?’
‘Than you do already. Someone has to tell you – that priest thinks you’re an easy touch. He preyed on your conscience because he’s feeling guilty for what Craven did. It’s not your job to make him feel better.’
Jenny picked up her briefcase and marched to the door.
He was waiting in the car park, standing with his back to the building and looking out across the choppy estuary to the shadowy Welsh hills ghosted on the horizon. He turned slowly, unsure of himself as he addressed her.
‘Am I permitted to speak to you during the proceedings, Mrs Cooper?’
‘I don’t see why not. I’ve no plans to call you as a witness.’
‘Then I’ll be brief.’
He moved towards her, hands clasped awkwardly behind his back. ‘You’re going to pursue this allegation of Cassidy’s?’ he asked.
‘I doubt it. My job is to determine cause of death, not to pick over her relations with her employer.’
‘If she was asked to stay at home that evening, it surely raises a number of questions. Other suspects may emerge—’
‘I can’t drag respectable people through the mud without a very good reason, you must understand that.’
‘She was clearly unbalanced. Perhaps they were frightened she would say something inappropriate, or damaging?’
Jenny said, ‘My apologies, Father. I made a mistake. This isn’t an appropriate conversation after all.’ She started to unlock the car door.
‘I see you have lost faith, too.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It was our friend Mr McAvoy who once told me that, for a lawyer, believing in a client’s innocence is like a priest believing in the possibility of redemption. No matter what the outcome, it is the pursuit of that belief that brings us closer to—’ He checked himself. ‘That dignifies us.’
Jenny rounded on him. ‘Is that your trump card, mentioning his name again? Do you really think I’m that stupid? I know what you want, Father. You want to believe your faith in Craven wasn’t misplaced. Because if you’re wrong about that you can be wrong about anything. Am I right?’
He looked at her defiantly. ‘I am not wrong about Paul Craven.’
‘Because he said some prayers and told you so?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, yes. I remember, God told you.’
‘Is it so ridiculous? It’s my job to act to the full extent of my faith, yours to act to the full extent of the law.’
‘There are limits. For both of us.’
She yanked open the car door and threw her handbag onto the passenger seat.
‘If it’s of any interest, I had a word for you, too, Mrs Cooper.’
‘Really?’ She climbed in and reached for the door handle to pull it closed. Starr put out a hand and held it open. ‘Please let me go,’ Jenny said.
‘I was told you’re carrying a terrible burden and want to be set free. Am I right, Mrs Cooper?’
She heard the telephone ringing from the street outside her office. As she pushed angrily through the door and made her way along the gloomy corridor it ceased as the answer-phone cut in, then seconds later it started again. She entered the empty reception area and glanced at the caller ID screen on the console on Alison’s desk. ‘Number withheld.’ She flopped into Alison’s chair, braced herself and lifted the receiver.
‘Mrs Cooper? Amanda Cramer here.’
She needn’t have bothered with the introduction. There was no mistaking the owner of the sinister, robotic voice. Jenny flicked on the monitor of Alison’s computer.
‘How can I help you?’ Jenny said, checking her email.
‘Have you seen the newspapers?’
‘I’ve glanced at them.’
‘You’ve certainly given the press a sensational story.’
‘Not me, the evidence did that.’ Her in-box started to load with the day’s messages.
‘But you called the evidence, and at a time of your choosing. All matters undoubtedly within your discretion, but a coroner does have a duty to use her discretion wisely.’
Jenny scanned the list of forty new messages. ‘In what way are you suggesting I haven’t, precisely?’
‘It’s not just the specifics, Mrs Cooper, there is a wider
public interest to consider – a highly sensitive bill being introduced to Parliament.’
Jenny struggled to hold her temper. Still furious with Starr, Amanda Cramer’s interference was making her feel murderous. ‘The day causing embarrassment to politicians is a good reason to soft-pedal an inquest is the day justice has died, don’t you agree?’
‘I should have known you’d be belligerent.’
‘Fearless independence is my legal duty.’ She arrived at the end of the list and a message marked ‘urgent’ from Bristol CID. She clicked it open.
‘All manner of sins can masquerade as principle,’ Cramer said.
‘What exactly are you asking me to do?’ she said, her attention shifting to the few brief lines of text on the screen. A young man’s body had been found on the Langan Estate.
There was a pause. ‘The right thing.’
‘Or?’ Jenny stiffened with shock. The brief email ended with: ‘. . . thought to be that of missing teenager Frederick Reardon.’
‘Let’s not be childish, Mrs Cooper. It’s in nobody’s interests not to bring this inquest to a rapid close.’
Jenny didn’t answer.
Amanda Cramer said, ‘Can we expect a conclusion tomorrow?’
‘I think that’s very unlikely now.’ Jenny put down the phone.
A small rag-tag crowd of residents had been drawn out of the surrounding tower blocks and stood at the cordon that marked off a section of the car park and the rough parkland beyond. Jenny pushed between them and announced herself to the young constable holding them back.
‘Can you wait a minute? I’ve been told not to let anyone through.’
‘I’m the coroner.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘Do you know what that means?’
He looked at her uncertainly. ‘Yeah—’
‘Dear God.’ Jenny ducked under the tape.
‘Ma’am—’
‘It’s all right, Constable, she’s with me.’ Alison hurried out from between the assortment of police vehicles.
‘Can you please explain to this idiot who the coroner is?’
‘Sorry,’ Alison said to the young policeman.
‘Don’t apologize, tell him!’
She strode off towards the scene of activity that centred on an area of undergrowth. It was near the bench on which she’d sat alongside Freddy only a few days before.
Alison caught up with her halfway across the grass, out of breath and perspiring.
‘I only just got here, Mrs Cooper. I tried to call you.’
Jenny cut through her lie with a look.
‘I was just about to.’ Alison searched for an adequate explanation. ‘I was trying to find a way of breaking it to you.’
‘Because I’m so unused to people dying.’
‘No. I just thought you might feel—’
‘What? Responsible?’
‘He hanged himself, Mrs Cooper. Some time last night they think.’
Jenny felt nothing. A complete absence.
‘Does anyone know why?’
‘There was a note in his pocket,’ Alison mumbled. ‘It said, “I’m no good.” ’
They approached a thicket of spindly birch and hazel clogged with nettles and bindweed. Two officers in white overalls emerged from a break in the undergrowth, peeling off their masks and hoods.
‘Jenny Cooper, Severn Vale District Coroner,’ Jenny snapped at them and pushed past with Alison at her heels.
DI Wallace was standing in his shirt sleeves talking into his phone as two officers dressed in white overalls zipped the body into a nylon bag. Directly above it a length of blue plastic washing line hung limply from a branch.
Wallace hurriedly ended his call as Jenny approached.
‘Hello again, Mrs Cooper,’ he said, a trace of apprehension in his voice.
‘May I please see him?’
Wallace gestured to his officers to comply.
The zip came down to reveal Freddy’s swollen face. A purple welt where the line had cut into his flesh circled the front of his neck and rose vertically behind his jawbone. He was dressed in the same yellow T-shirt he had been wearing the afternoon they had met at the Mission Church.
‘Time of death?’
‘Between one and three this morning.’
‘Where’s his mother?’
‘In her flat. Family liaison’s with her now.’
‘Have you spoken to her yet?’
‘No.’ He was in a hurry to get on. ‘Seen enough?’
Jenny nodded. ‘What about the note?’
‘I’ll get you a copy sent over.’ He gestured to the body. ‘To the Vale, is it?’
‘Yes.’
The two officers hoisted the stretcher and pushed out of the thicket. Jenny looked up at the dangling length of line.
‘Any idea why?’ Wallace asked.
Jenny pictured Freddy stooped forwards on the bench only yards from where they were standing, the way he’d gripped on to his cuffs with clenched fists as he told her, ‘God changes people. Not just a little bit, completely. And for ever. All you have to do is let him.’ It was the one thing he had seemed certain of, and the one thing that had reassured her.
‘He was fragile,’ Jenny said, ‘with a history of psychiatric problems. I don’t think his grip on life can have been very strong to begin with.’
‘I’ll tell you what, I’m happy to treat this one as suicide for now,’ Wallace said. ‘This looks more like your territory than mine.’ He turned to Alison. ‘You’ll drop me a copy of the p-m report?’
‘Of course.’
Wallace glanced up at the line. ‘I’ll have someone take that down.’ Dipping his head to avoid the low branches, he pushed his way out to the light.
Alison said, ‘You really mustn’t blame yourself, Mrs Cooper. If he’s had mental problems—’
‘I don’t,’ Jenny said. ‘When you lift stones you find worms. That’s just the way it is.’
Several ragged bunches of flowers wrapped in cellophane lay on the dirty tiled floor outside the door to the Reardons’ flat. Jenny pushed them gently aside with her foot and lifted the knocker. A female liaison officer who didn’t look any older than her son answered. Jenny asked to see Mrs Reardon alone, leaving the girl to dither over whether to bring the flowers in or to leave them outside. Were these unsolicited offerings which had become part of the modern death ritual, a private gift or a public memorial? It was hard to say.
Eileen Reardon was sitting with the curtains drawn in the airless sitting room. It reeked of stale smoke. Sniffling into a grubby handkerchief, she looked up at Jenny with eyes that seemed to have sunk into her face. Propped up against the empty cigarette packets littering the coffee table was a photograph of a smiling Freddy in front of a roller-coaster.
‘That was on a trip last year,’ Eileen said. ‘He went with the church.’
Jenny sat on the edge of the sofa opposite, trying to tolerate the foul-smelling air.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Reardon. I truly am.’
Eileen lowered her chin, her exhausted marbled features telling Jenny that Freddy’s death was less a complete surprise than a tragic conclusion to events she had been powerless to influence.
‘How had he been?’
‘Quiet.’
‘Last night?’
‘Went to church, came home about half-past ten. I left him in here watching the television.’
Jenny tried to imagine what it must have been like for Freddy returning from an evening of euphoria to this pit of despondency.
‘When did you notice he was gone?’
‘He gets up before me in the mornings, you know, takes himself to school.’
‘Did he mention the inquest?’ Jenny asked. ‘I’d asked him to give evidence today.’
‘I didn’t know a thing about it.’
‘There would have been a letter in the post.’
She shook her head.
‘The police came here today—’
�
�I don’t talk to the police.’ She glanced at the partially open door. ‘Rotten, hypocritical bastards.’ She looked at Jenny. ‘They can’t do enough for you when they’re dead.’
‘You’ve been told there was a note in his pocket?’ Jenny ventured.
Eileen nodded.
‘This probably isn’t the right time, but if there’s anything you want to tell me—’
The corners of Eileen’s mouth twisted downwards as she seemed to struggle against a feeling of overwhelming revulsion. ‘He’d talk to me about Jesus. Walk with Jesus, love Jesus. Jesus is going to save you. Jesus is going to heal you. All that crap.’ She spat out the words. ‘I told him I didn’t do bullshit any more. I’d had enough of that from his father and every other man I’d ever known. If there are answers in this world you find them yourself, you don’t get taken in by some church that wants to send us back to the Dark Ages.’
‘When I spoke to you before, I got the impression that you respected his belief.’
‘Sometimes I’d pretend to. I know you’ve got to try to let them have a mind of their own, but all this religious stuff . . .’ Running out of words, she shook her head.
‘Did he ever talk to you about Eva Donaldson?’ Jenny asked.
‘She’s sitting at the right hand of God, isn’t she? I’d rather he’d been watching her movies, if I’m honest.’
‘Did he ever talk about her death, the way she died?’
‘It was the devil, you know. He did it. And it was unbelievers like me who were helping him, of course.’
‘Freddy never talked about her wavering, losing her faith?’
‘Was she now?’ Eileen laughed, stirring the mucus in her rattling lungs. ‘Oh, my God.’
‘He never mentioned that?’
‘I think I would have remembered. Oh, yes.’ Her smile contorted into a mask of pain. ‘He worshipped those people. But I was the one who got him out of hospital, it was me who nursed him and got him back to school.’ She pounded her fist into her chest. ‘But I was the one who was damned because I wasn’t with Jesus!’
