by M. R. Hall
They parted amicably with a handshake and pecks on the cheek. Simon climbed into a waiting taxi and gave a friendly wave as he departed. As an exercise in washing his hands of a troublesome coroner, it couldn’t have left a smaller stain on his conscience.
Jenny retraced her steps across the city oblivious to the passing showers. Simon hadn’t spelled it out in terms, but he had told her that despite all the high-blown academic theory there were situations in which the law came a distant second to politics, and this was one of them. The government had read the public mood and quietly agreed to smooth the way for the Decency Bill. It was a near-perfect manoeuvre: a private bill claiming massive support, striking a death blow to permissiveness that previous administrations could only have dreamed of. And Eva’s short and tragic life neatly told the story: slain by a monster she helped to create, saved by a faith that redeemed her. Nothing must be allowed to sully her memory.
Jenny found herself asking what Alec McAvoy would have said. From wherever he was, he answered her loud and clear: Would that oily wee bastard from the Ministry have come all the way from London if he’d nothing to hide? Who’re you kidding, woman?
A news bulletin blaring out of the open door of a builder’s van told her it was three o’clock, a thought which brought her back to her appointment later that afternoon at Weston police station. Turning the corner from Whiteladies Road, she pulled out her phone and tried to reach Steve.
He answered with the impatient tone of a man who didn’t appreciate a personal call intruding at the office. ‘Hi, Jenny. Look, I’m just going in to meet clients.’
‘When can I talk to you?’
‘I can’t say – it could be a few hours.’
‘Your detective came to see me. He wants me to go to Weston police station this evening to give a statement.’
‘My detective?’
‘Sorry. It’s not what I meant—’
‘I really can’t talk now. I’ll call you when I’m done.’
He rang off.
‘Screw you, too,’ Jenny said out loud to herself.
Alison emerged from the kitchenette in a pair of spiky heels that Jenny didn’t recall her wearing earlier in the day.
‘There you are, Mrs Cooper,’ she said, sounding a little flustered. ‘I’ve had a consultant surgeon from the Vale on the line who’s just lost a twelve-year-old girl to peritonitis. He sounded in a dreadful state.’ She handed Jenny a note bearing his name and direct line. ‘And you had another call from Father Starr. He doesn’t give up, does he? He’s like some sort of incubus.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Do you think he’d tell me?’ She sat in her swivel chair and turned to her computer with exaggerated primness.
The consultant’s voice was weak with exhaustion. The fight to save the dead girl had lasted nearly two hours. She was from a strict Muslim family who had left it far too late to bring her to A & E for fear of her being examined by a male doctor. A ruptured appendix had caused septicaemia and multiple organ failure. Jenny did her best to reassure him that her inquest was likely to be a formality, but she could hear the fear in his voice. Successful litigation would push his insurance premiums through the ceiling and kill his private practice. No more house in the country, no more private school fees. She feared he might break down and weep: there was no one quite as pathetic in adversity as a professional man used to nothing but praise.
There was nothing brittle about Father Starr’s voice as he answered the communal telephone in the Jesuit house, nor any trace of surprise that she had responded so obediently.
‘It’s absolutely essential that we talk, Mrs Cooper, as soon as possible. Are you free now?’
‘I could be. I don’t have long.’
‘I’ll come straight to your office.’
‘That wouldn’t be appropriate.’
‘Because—?’
Because I don’t want anyone to know, she said to herself. Because I’m confused. Because I don’t know if you’re mad, obsessed or the one person I should be listening to.
‘I have to drive out of town. I’ll be passing through Clifton.’
‘No.’ He lowered his voice. ‘But I can be on the Downs side of the suspension bridge in fifteen minutes.’
The heavy clouds had blown over and bursts of sunlight cast the Downs in a luminous golf-course green. Jenny picked her way past lazing groups of college students catching the precious rays as she made her way from her car towards the toll house at the end of the bridge spanning the Avon gorge. She had been waiting no more than two minutes when a figure she only half recognized as Father Starr emerged from the pedestrian entrance to the suspension bridge. He was wearing a navy polo shirt and sand-coloured chinos, no dog collar. Without the authority of priestly clothes, his dark, intense eyes seemed more unsure than threatening: a window to a complex soul.
He glanced over his shoulder as he approached, then seemed to scan the expanse of grass behind her and the bushes beyond.
‘I nearly didn’t recognize you,’ Jenny said.
‘You mean I look human?’
‘Almost.’
He smiled.
‘Where do you want to go?’ she asked.
‘We’ll just walk. It won’t take long.’
He struck off across the grass, hands clasped behind his back as if he were heading for somewhere. Jenny followed in his wake, resenting the fact that he felt entitled to dictate events.
‘What is it you want to discuss?’ she asked, trying to regain control.
His answer came after a short pause, as if a final mental obstacle had first to be crossed. ‘There are people who might help . . .’ Another hiatus. ‘As it seems you have reached the limits of your resources, I thought it appropriate that I should draw on theirs.’
‘Who exactly are we talking about?’
‘Friends. Sympathizers.’
‘Would these be Roman Catholic friends?’
‘Of course. What of it?’
‘I’m a coroner in the middle of an inquest, Father. The only things of any use to me are credible witnesses and verifiable facts.’
‘I appreciate that, Mrs Cooper. I can’t provide you with witnesses at the present moment, but I can offer you information. Verifiable information.’
Jenny waited to hear it.
‘As you probably know, the Decency campaign has a board of eight members, mostly respectable business people as well as a retired diplomat, I believe. For various legal and no doubt tax reasons, it has chosen to organize itself as a limited company. The Mission Church of God, however, is a registered charity, but with only three named trustees: Michael and Christine Turnbull and the lawyer, Edward Prince. But the actual governance of the church is conducted by a council of five. Michael Turnbull is one of them, Ed Prince another, then there’s a former Assistant Commissioner of police, Geoffrey Solomon, a banker turned philanthropist named Douglas Reynolds and the American pastor, Bobby DeMont.’
‘No women?’ Jenny said.
‘I get the impression they’re rather conservative.’
‘That’s something, coming from a Jesuit.’
‘Not a Jesuit quite yet,’ Starr reminded her.
They had rounded a thicket of tall shrubs that shielded them from the road and the eyes of passers-by; he slowed his pace to a stroll as he glanced left and right.
Jenny wondered who it was he was frightened of; were his Jesuit brothers watching his every move?
‘And why do you think the identities of these men are so important?’ Jenny enquired.
‘It’s not so much who they are, as their agenda, Mrs Cooper. You won’t find it written down in black and white because they prefer to pursue it from the shadows. But these men are puritans, in the truest sense of the word. They have an unswerving, absolutist commitment to their doctrine. Nothing is more important to them than realizing their vision of God’s kingdom on earth.’
‘Is that so different from yours?’ Jenny asked.
Star
r came to a halt and turned to her, his face filled with conviction. ‘You have to understand what is most significant to these people. In my church we strive for purity, but we know it will only arrive through grace; we seek to allow God his room to move, to touch lives and to change them from within. The puritan mind insists on purity, demands it, imposes it. It believes a simple declaration can effect a personal and immediate relationship between man and God no matter how ignorant and sinful the man.’ His eyes danced as he gesticulated with his hands. ‘That is why it strives for phenomena, for evidence of the Holy Spirit entering the physical body. You must have heard them pray? They lecture and barrack and demand their immediate reward. They are impatient with this world, Mrs Cooper, and also with its creator. They have no humility.’
‘You may be right,’ Jenny said calmly, ‘but how does this affect Mr Craven?’
Starr clasped his hands tightly in front of his chest. ‘Mrs Cooper, you would listen to a doctor of seventeen years’ standing and give weight to his opinion?’
‘Of course—’
‘And equally to a lawyer, or an engineer?’
She nodded, her heart growing heavier as she anticipated his point.
‘My expertise is in the condition of the human soul. God called me to live amongst criminals and minister to them. I have accompanied Paul Craven on a journey lasting many years; I have witnessed his redemption as proof of God’s grace. If it is false, then so am I, so is my faith and so is my church.’
‘Father, your faith isn’t evidence.’
‘Perhaps not in the legal sense, but as God is my witness that will come. I have someone working on it as we speak, all I ask is for you to maintain a little faith.’ Softening visibly, he said, ‘If I could give you some of mine, I would.’
Jenny said, ‘The inquest finishes tomorrow. If you wish to bring any further evidence to my attention you haven’t much time.’
‘I understand, Mrs Cooper.’
She felt a sudden and powerful urge to unburden herself, to tell him he was insane to stake his vocation on a woman in her predicament, but he was immovable, she realized, clinging to his belief like the last piece of wreckage in a storm-tossed sea.
NINETEEN
THE POLICE STATION AT WESTON was uncomfortably hot and Detective Sergeant Gleed was badly in need of a shower. Seated next to him, Detective Constable Alan Wesley appeared oblivious to his superior’s overpowering body odour, and sipped slurry-coloured coffee from a thin plastic cup. Jenny had taken one mouthful of hers and abandoned it.
Gleed turned slowly through the pages of a small black policeman’s notebook. Jenny tried to remain calm, but her body defied her. Her heart rate picked up to a gallop, pins and needles spread from her fingertips and her vision clouded at the edges: all the symptoms of ensuing panic. She wished Steve were with her and she offered a silent prayer that he would forgive her. She needed no more proof; she wasn’t strong enough to cope without him.
Gleed looked up from his notebook with a downturned, bulldog smile.
‘Are you sure you don’t want a solicitor, Mrs Cooper?’
‘I thought I was writing a statement, not being interviewed.’
‘No harm in having a little chat first.’
‘Under caution?’
‘If you’d prefer.’
‘Is this an interview or isn’t it?’ Jenny demanded.
Gleed settled himself in his chair. Jenny felt his smell at the back of her throat. ‘I see it more as an exploratory discussion at the moment, Mrs Cooper. No need for formality for formality’s sake.’
‘You say this all started with a retired detective?’
‘That’s right. He says it’s always niggled at him.’
‘Do I get to see his statement?’
Gleed gave a saggy smile and shook his head. ‘You know that’s not how we do things.’
‘What about my cousin? Has he given a statement?’
‘No. As you said, he never even knew he had a sister. But he finds it strange that you never said anything to him.’
‘I didn’t know she existed until a few months ago. And I haven’t seen Chris in twelve years – his father’s funeral.’
Gleed picked up his notebook. ‘Still happy to proceed informally?’
Jenny was too tense to argue. All she could think about was escaping into the fresh air. ‘What would you like to know?’
‘Katy Chilcott, she died on Thursday, 19 October 1972, at her home at 28 Pretoria Road, Weston. She was five years old.’
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Jenny said, sounding more agitated than she had intended.
‘You don’t remember?’
‘No.’
‘But you were there, Mrs Cooper, in the house. The neighbour opposite saw you leaving with your dad.’
‘Then you know more than I do.’
Consulting the notebook, Gleed scratched his sandpaper chin.
‘She says you went there every day after school – two o’clock until half-past five. It must have been your first year.’
Jenny said, ‘I have a memory blank. I’ve virtually no recollection of what happened between the ages of four and five. I’ve tried to remember, but I can’t.’
‘Really?’ Gleed sounded interested. ‘What do you mean, you’ve tried? In therapy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you mind my asking what you have been undergoing therapy for?’
‘I’m recently divorced. There’s been a lot of fallout.’
Gleed nodded. ‘And then you started seeing Stephen Painter?’
‘He has nothing to do with this.’
‘Bit of a pot-head, isn’t he? He has a recent conviction.’ He glanced at DC Wesley, who gave an affirmative nod.
Jenny swallowed her anger and answered as calmly as she could. ‘Can you please ask me what you want to know?’
‘Your dad was quite the local character, by all accounts. Businessman. Freemason.’
‘That sounds perfectly respectable.’
‘The problem with small towns,’ Gleed reflected, ‘is folks sometimes get a little too close for their own good. And when your coppers are drinking pals with a fella they’re investigating, things can slip by.’
Jenny took a deep breath, suppressing the rising urge to bolt from the room. His smell, the heat, the clumsy insinuation was more than she could bear.
‘Mr Gleed, I’m not an idiot. There is no way on God’s earth my father could be made to stand trial. We both know why you’ve asked me here and it’s got nothing to do with what happened thirty-eight years ago.’
He studied her with patient, puffy eyes. ‘The officer who was in charge of the investigation is very much alive and well, Mrs Cooper. If it turns out he was – how shall we put it – less than conscientious, then it’s his head on the block, isn’t it?’
‘And the timing of this investigation is purely coincidental?’
‘Perhaps our complainant read your name in the paper. Even I’d heard of you, and the only paper I ever see is covered in budgie crap.’
Wesley snorted with amusement.
‘So it’s this retired detective you’re investigating?’ Jenny said sceptically.
‘His name’s Ronald Pope, lives down on the south coast. He was a young DI back then, same lodge as your dad.’
Ron Pope. The name did have a distant echo. Why Ron? It was her mother’s voice she heard saying it, casually in conversation, through the open door of the kitchen in their family home; Jenny standing somewhere around the corner in the hall, aware of serious adult talk she didn’t understand.
‘Ring a bell?’
Jenny shrugged. ‘Not particularly,’ she lied.
Gleed arched his back a little, lifting his arms a fraction, giving Jenny a glimpse of the damp pits of his shirt.
‘You see, we think you must have spoken to Mr Pope at some point, or perhaps he spoke to you? The problem is there’s no trace of the files, otherwise we’d have more to go on.’
Je
nny shook her head. ‘I don’t remember.’
Gleed waited a moment, as if expecting her to change her mind, then nodded to Wesley, who reached into his inside pocket and drew out a photograph. It was an early colour picture of a man in his thirties with long brown hair, and a full moustache that dipped, bandit-style, around the sides of his mouth.
‘That’s Mr Pope. We dug out his old personnel file.’
The face was distantly familiar. She stared at it, searching her memory for the reason why. No image came to mind, but there was something else – a dim recollection of the sharp smell of tobacco smoke on a man’s breath . . . and a deep voice, a smoker’s voice.
‘I can see it’s stirring something,’ Gleed said.
‘Perhaps.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Let me tell you what happened, Mrs Cooper, so far as I can. Your dad was seen hurrying from the house tugging you behind him at about a quarter to six in the evening. An ambulance arrived ten minutes later. They found your auntie Penny with your kid cousin lying on the hall floor. She’d cracked her skull and died of a haemorrhage. Your uncle James turned up in the middle of all the commotion and took a swing at his wife, had to be pinned down by a couple of our boys. According to Pope, your auntie’s story was that your dad had already been to pick you up when Katy fell down the stairs. Your dad backed her up, said she was right as rain when he left with you.’
Jenny said, ‘Wasn’t any of this discussed at an inquest?’
‘We don’t know,’ Gleed said. ‘There’s nothing at the coroner’s office but a report from the doctor in A & E pronouncing her dead on arrival: head injuries consistent with a fall.’
You killed her. Her father’s words rang through her head. You keep my secret, I’ll keep yours.
‘Are you feeling all right, Mrs Cooper? You look a bit queasy.’
‘I’m fine,’ Jenny said, but she had no feeling beyond her wrists, and now sensation was leaving her feet and legs too. It felt like the beginnings of what she termed her deep panics. There were no tangible thoughts attached to the building sensation of dread; it emanated from an unreachable place beyond the realm of words. She had once described the feeling to Dr Allen as like a seizure of the soul.
