Jenny Cooper 03 - The Redeemed

by M. R. Hall

  ‘And if 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.

  EIGHTEEN

  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.

  Star
r 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 throttle, 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?’

  It had taken her many months in post to appreciate the full absurdity of the genteel code in which Simon spoke. She was undoubtedly the business and there would be no ducking his summons.

  Jenny made her way across the city centre on foot. A journey that began in sunshine descended into gloom as a cool westerly breeze picked up and blew in a slate-coloured mantle of cloud from across the Bristol Channel. The first fat drops of rain were splashing the pavement and filling the air with the scent of damp concrete when she entered the restaurant. Simon came to meet her, looking trim and energetic in a summer-weight suit and Liberty print tie. Running was his latest passion, she recalled, and his suntan and newly defined cheekbones were a testament to his hours of training. He could have claimed to be forty, rather than fifty-three, and probably did.

  ‘Jenny. You’re looking well,’ he said, squeezing her hand.

  ‘You too,’ she replied stopping short of the compliment on his newly honed physique that he was evidently fishing for. Experience had taught her that flirting with Simon wouldn’t end with a playful exchange.

  Ever the gentleman, he summoned a waiter to take her coat and led her through to the dining room. A sliver of Temazepam before she left the office had taken the edge off her anxiety, and a glass of Pouilly Fume´ while they waited for their salmon – no starter for the figure-conscious Simon – lulled her into a state approaching relaxation. It was strictly small talk until lunch was cleared: office gossip from the Ministry, the stupidity of politicians and a handful of anecdotes about lesser coroners designed to make Jenny feel good about herself, or at least less insecure. You may be wrong-headed, but we know you’re not stupid or sexually incontinent, was the subtext.

  It was Jenny who was first to grow tired of the pretence. ‘I had a call from your number two the other day, several actually.’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘A bit keen, isn’t she?’

  ‘You normally make the awkward calls yourself.’

  ‘I’m afraid she took the initiative on that one. I was otherwise engaged at the time.’

  Jenny looked at him over her wine glass, letting him know she didn’t believe a word.

  ‘I know she lacks a certain finesse,’ Simon said by way of apology, ‘but she’s not a bad girl.’

  ‘She was trying to persuade me not to conduct an inquest.’

  ‘That’s a little strong. Advising you of the potential hazards might be a fairer way to put it.’

  ‘And you left it to her because you didn’t want to be tainted by association. Better to keep clear completely than to try to dissuade me and fail.’

  Simon studied the tablecloth with a thoughtful smile. ‘Surely you can see it from my perspective, Jenny. Craven freely confessed to murder. He pleaded guilty in court. A coroner’s function isn’t to subvert the criminal process.’

  ‘Particularly when a major witness, who happens to be a close friend of the government, is about to steer his bill through Parliament.’

  Her petulance confirmed his instincts. ‘I admire your tenacity, Jenny, you know I do, but the one element of holding judicial office you can’t seem to grasp is your duty to the administration of justice as a whole.’

  ‘The last time I checked, the coroner’s duty was to be fearless and independent – as I pointed out to Miss Cramer.’

  ‘But you and I both know the dividing line between admirable independence and perversity can be razor thin. It’s the ability to execute that fine judgement that we look for in our coroners. Can I put it any more clearly than that?’

  ‘I’ve hardly done anything outrageous.’

  ‘Holding Lord Turnbull in contempt was a little over-zealous.’

  ‘He ignored a summons – what else would you call it? I’ll probably stop short of having him locked up if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  ‘It would be appreciated.’

  ‘Is that all this is about?’

  ‘Not quite.’ He tapped the ends of his fingers together nervously. ‘There is something else, something rather more significant, you might say.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ll level with you, Jenny. Even before this case there were moves afoot to ease you aside, perhaps to a post some considered more suited to your specific skills.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I did hear something in the family law sector suggested; an advisory role of some sort.’

  ‘Sounds fascinating,’ Jenny replied caustically.

  ‘I managed to head them off, persuaded them your successes outweighed any “temperamental” issues –’ he looked her in the eye – ‘and that I could guarantee an improvement in that department.’

  ‘That was rather presumptuous.’

  ‘Yes.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘It was probably a little rash of me. Foolish even. And now this matter of your past—’

  ‘There’s nothing to know.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘My cousin died. The police were involved. No one was charged. The coroner recorded accidental death.’

  ‘But the police are looking again, I hear.’

  ‘That’s hardly a coincidence. Have you read the names of the lawyers the Decency campaign has employed?’

  ‘You can hardly be surprised, Jenny.’ He wore an expression of pained regret. ‘The thing is, it’s not something we can weather that easily, or perhaps at all.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  Simon leaned forward, adopting a cosy, familiar tone. ‘You’ll have to believe me when I tell you this is an entirely informal visit. No one knows I’m here; it’s not even in the diary. And the reason I came was to warn you –’ his face twitched in a nervous smile – ‘that if you should cause undue embarrassment, any influence I once had over your security of tenure will be gone.’

  ‘Since when did causing embarrassment amount to unfitness for office?’

  ‘There ar
e more than enough grounds on the file, Jenny,’ he said. ‘We both know that.’

  He was alluding to her psychiatric history, which she had neglected to mention when applying for her post. The antidiscrimination laws were moving in her favour, but not quickly enough to save her if Simon’s superiors decided her time was at an end.

  ‘And if I play to the rules?’

  ‘You may survive. But you’ll be under scrutiny, of course. Trust will take time to restore.’

  It was the fact that he had behaved so impeccably which told her that for once he was deadly serious. On every other occasion they had met he had contrived to brush her hand, or to touch legs beneath the table, but today he had kept to himself. Even his eyes had remained chastely fixed on her face. There was a time, not so long ago, when she would have told him to go to hell and lectured him on the separation of powers, but somehow she had lost the stomach for the fight. Without the strange comfort of his flirting she felt very alone. Yes, that was the sensation hovering beneath the dulling haze of alcohol: a fear of being abandoned, a dread of finding herself at forty-five, washed up, unloved and unemployable.

  They lapsed into silence as coffee arrived, then, sensing her need to reflect, Simon chit-chatted about a sailing trip he’d recently taken with friends. Jenny smiled, but it was only a surface gesture. And she knew that despite his bonhomie Simon could see that he had brought her to the point that they had both known she would eventually reach: would she give in and finally become one of them, or would she strike out alone into the wilderness?

  As he called for the bill, Simon allowed himself a final, dangerous moment of sincerity. ‘I do hope you make the right decision, Jenny. I’ve grown fond of you, I really have.’ He reached across the table and patted the back of her hand, and when she didn’t recoil, he let it settle and closed his fingers around hers. ‘There’s a lot you can achieve without going to war every time, you know. You could still be a real asset to the service.’