by M. R. Hall
Jenny said, ‘How do you know Father Starr?’
‘We met through the Catholic Police Guild.’
‘That sounds very clandestine.’
‘Oh, we’re thick as thieves on our side of the Tiber,’ Coughlin said good-naturedly. ‘I suppose some officers might use it for advantage, but I’m more on the pastoral side.’
‘You’re not a priest?’
‘I did get most of the way through seminary when I was younger. Refused at the last fence.’ The joke was offered in a way that invited her not to venture any further in that direction. He was still in conflict, she sensed, and doubted there was a Mrs Coughlin.
The tide was at its lowest point and the water rushed noisily over rocks on which a heron stood, statue-still and inscrutable. Coughlin filled his lungs and took in the view: the mist rising over an enchanted landscape.
‘Beats the Caledonian Road, that’s for sure.’ He glanced back the way they had come. There was no sign of life except for a ginger tomcat that had wandered into the path and stretched out to bathe in a pool of sunlight. He turned to Jenny. ‘I don’t know if this is of any interest to you, Mrs Cooper, but I can call on certain resources to look into matters that require it.’
‘I thought you were going to offer me a revelation.’
‘I’ve read about the case and spoken to Father Starr about the evidence, that’s all. I can see that local detectives wouldn’t be inclined to reopen a matter they’ve already put to bed and, quite frankly, I wouldn’t be inclined to in their shoes.’
‘How does your Super’ feel about you going freelance?’
Ignoring her note of sarcasm, Coughlin said, ‘I’ve dealt with enough sexual psychopaths to know they don’t tend to stick in a knife and run. If Craven was the killer he would have done more than relieve himself on the doorstep. As far as I can tell, he didn’t even rifle through her possessions or look over the house. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a kill and run is either an execution or an accident.’
‘What do you think it was?’ Jenny said.
‘I wouldn’t put my money on it having been an accident.’
‘All right, let’s say we follow your logic. Who’s got a motive to kill Eva?’
‘The obvious answer would be someone from her old business, but then there are the two suicides – if that’s what you think they were.’
‘I think we can assume that. And I think we can assume neither Freddy Reardon nor Alan Jacobs killed Eva. For one thing they were both at church at the time, and for another I don’t believe either of them was capable of it.’
‘I’d agree with you. It sounds to me like there could have been something else going on, something bigger than all of them.’
‘Bristol CID don’t seem to think so.’
‘Police forces don’t spend money on disproving confessions.’
Jenny studied him for a moment, trying to decide what it was that was making her listen to him.
‘Why exactly are you here, Mr Coughlin?’ she asked. ‘And please don’t tell me God told you to come.’
‘I’ve a lot of time for Father Starr,’ Coughlin said with no hint of apology. ‘You’ve got to admire a man who truly acts on his faith. But there is a little more to it than that. I had a colleague in Bristol check out the crime desk logs. It turned up something you ought to know. On the evening of Monday, 15 March this year, a woman by the name of Eva Donaldson phoned up with a rambling complaint about someone – we believe it was a male – harassing her. She wouldn’t mention any names and the officer taking the call noted that she sounded drunk and incoherent. He checked the action log and saw that a follow-up call was made exactly a week later. The log says “caller denies all knowledge of having made the complaint”.’
‘Have you got a copy of this log?’
‘It’s been faxed to your office. I’m afraid the colleague who turned it up can’t be named.’
‘Is he a member of the Guild?’
‘That would be a reasonable assumption.’
‘Have you got anything else?’
‘Not yet, but from what Father Starr has told me I’m inclined to have a look at Alan Jacobs. I understand he’d had sexual relations with a man on the evening he died.’
‘Who told you that? I know, let me guess – Father Dermody?’
‘I don’t know Dermody personally,’ he said, avoiding the question, ‘but I thought you might like to know who Jacobs was with, whether he told him anything that could be useful to you.’
‘Of course, but I might need a little time to think this through. No offence intended, but I suddenly feel as if I’ve got involved with the mafia.’
Coughlin said, ‘We may behave like a family, but I can assure you that’s where the similarity ends. Any favours I do Father Starr are strictly within the law.’
‘A good Samaritan, hey?’
‘We all need one of those every now and then.’
After a moment, Jenny said, ‘Fine. I’m not sure why, but I think I’ll trust you.’
‘Wise decision. I’ll be in touch, Mrs Cooper.’
He shook her hand once more and turned to make his own way back. Jenny watched from a distance as he climbed into the BMW, flicked the switch that folded back the soft top and took off down the valley at high speed. There was definitely no Mrs Coughlin, she decided, or anyone closer to him than his priest.
It was only a few minutes after eight when Jenny arrived in the empty office clutching a coffee and croissant. She dumped the mail on Alison’s desk without checking it and went straight to the elderly fax machine. As Coughlin had promised, there was a single page copy of the crime desk log, Eva’s call marked with an asterisk: Caller at times incoherent, possibly intoxicated. Refuses to name male harassing her. In the right-hand column was the follow-up note: Caller denies all knowledge of complaint. Jenny took it through to her room. She would have to fetch out all of Eva’s papers to search for any clue as to what was happening in her life around 15 March.
She unloaded the document box that she had ferried to and from the inquest and reached for the bundle of papers dealing with her various engagements. There was a printout of an email dated 11 March giving details of three local radio interviews Eva was scheduled to conduct on Friday the 12th, but no hint as to what was in her schedule for Monday. Turning to the bundle of correspondence, she flicked through letters to and from her bank and mortgage company for dates in January and February. They showed that she was struggling with arrears – that much Jenny already knew – but a phrase leaped out of a letter dated 18 February that she hadn’t accorded any significance to before. An executive from her mortgage company had written:
In the light of representations received via your solicitors concerning your anticipated income in the second half of this year, I have decided to grant your request for a five-month period of interest-only payments. Arrears to date will be rolled over into the principal sum.
Jenny leafed back, looking for any sign of the solicitors’ letters being copied to Eva but none had made it to the file. The several letters that followed were dry, administrative pro formas confirming the adjusted payment schedule, but the last in the sheaf was the letter headed Reed Falkirk & Co. that Jenny recalled seeing the previous week. Since her meeting with Coughlin its date now held more significance: 13 March. She re-read its three paragraphs carefully:
Dear Ms Donaldson,
Further to your instructions we have reviewed your contracts with GlamourX Ltd and as agreed have sought counsel’s advice. Simeon Hargreaves QC has confirmed that clause 3.2 of the contract dated 23 September 2005 clearly entitles you to 4.6 per cent of sales revenue generated by Latex Lesbians Parts 1 to 4 and all six films in the Lil’ Miss series. As we anticipated, he advised that all films in the Whorehouse Vixens series are subject to the buy-out agreement between you and GlamourX dated 2 November 2005 and that no royalties are owing.
In the light of GlamourX’s failure to respond to correspondence to date, we advise tha
t there is little prospect of reaching a settlement, and that High Court proceedings should be commenced forthwith. We would, however, remind you that our invoice dated 26 February in the sum of £14,675 remains outstanding and that no further action can be taken in this matter until payment is received. In accordance with standard practice, we will require the sum of £10,000 to be paid on account of fees that will be incurred in the preparation and issuing of proceedings.
We await your instructions.
Yours sincerely,
Damien Lynd
A glance in Chambers and Partners Directory confirmed that Lynd was one of four partners in the firm of Reed Falkirk & Co. His specialisms were listed as media and corporate law.
There was no subsequent correspondence from Mr Lynd or his firm. Extrapolating from what she had read, Jenny assumed that the bill for £14,675 had been incurred in fending off Eva’s mortgage company with the promise of unpaid royalties and commissioning an opinion from Queen’s Counsel. But why hadn’t Eva pursued this before? Out of distaste, Jenny presumed, but her circumstances had become too straitened for such scruples. The March letter left her with the tantalizing prospect of money from GlamourX, but as lawyers do, Reed Falkirk had demanded payment on account that she couldn’t afford.
One other thing struck her. Eva had negotiated five months’ grace with the mortgage company. That would have taken her to the end of July. There was no significance in the date that Jenny could think of other than the fact that, if everything went to plan, the Decency Bill would have passed the major parliamentary hurdles by then, leaving her free to take up the acting career she had discussed with Cassidy. But the prospect of a TV show was far from money in the bank. It was likely that Eva felt that she couldn’t be seen to sue GlamourX for personal gain until the Decency campaign was at an end, in which case might she have asked Turnbull for money? Perhaps, but Jenny was doubtful. And might the person ‘harassing’ her have been her lawyer, holding a gun to her head in his demand for fees in advance?
There was too much missing from the paper trail to get beyond speculation, but it raised a lot of questions. One was how Eva had racked up a lawyer’s bill of nearly £15,000 for simple written advice from counsel and a handful of letters. Returning the documents to their box, Jenny thought about calling one of Eva’s executors to give evidence about the state of her personal affairs, guessing her father was likely to be one of them. She racked her memory for the rules of executor confidentiality, a subject she hadn’t touched on since law school. They refused to come, but by some mysterious process of association, another forgotten phrase floated to the surface: a lien on the papers. In Eva’s case it meant that as long as her bill remained unpaid, her solicitors would have the legal right to retain her files and therefore all documents relating to her claim against GlamourX. They would eventually be paid out of her estate, but a grant of probate took months, sometimes as long as a year.
Jenny needed to speak to Damien Lynd.
She grabbed the phone and fetched out the March letter to find Reed Falkirk’s number. Her call was answered by a machine. She was ready to leave a message when it occurred to her that Ed Prince and Annabelle Stern were likely to have made contact with Lynd already. Putting him on notice of her interest would only give him the opportunity to let them know. Far better to surprise him. She checked the time: eight-twenty. If the traffic was kind she could call past their offices in Queen Square and still make it to the inquest for ten.
She grabbed her briefcase and the box of documents and hurried out. As she clattered through the door and into the hallway she bumped into Alison.
‘Mrs Cooper, I need to speak to you,’ she said urgently.
‘It’ll have to wait. I’ll see you at the inquest.’ Jenny pushed past.
Alison pursued her.
‘Mrs Cooper, I was approached by a reporter.’
Jenny stopped abruptly and turned. ‘About what?’
‘You,’ Alison said hesitantly. ‘Something about a police inquiry into your past.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘The truth – I had no idea what he was talking about.’
‘If he calls again, tell him he’ll be hearing from my lawyers.’ She turned to go.
‘He didn’t call—’
Jenny looked back, responding to the alarm in Alison’s voice.
‘I was sitting outside a restaurant in Bath. I was with Martin. He took a picture of us.’
‘Last night?’
Alison nodded. ‘But how did he know I was there? I can’t have that in the papers. I’ve only just met this man . . .’ She was almost in tears. ‘God knows what he must think of me.’
‘Oh, I see . . . I thought you meant you were worried about your husband—’
‘Sod him. He’s got no right to be angry.’
‘Look, even if this person was a reporter, you’re not the story.’
‘Who else would he have been?’ Alison said, panicked.
‘That woman lawyer who turned up yesterday has made a career out of keeping her rich clients’ grubby secrets out of the press. I wouldn’t put anything past her.’
A look of relief spread across Alison’s face which Jenny found curious, but their whole exchange had left her more than slightly confused. The love-struck Alison wasn’t a person she knew or understood.
‘I’ve got to go,’ Jenny said, and hurried for the door.
The short drive into the city centre turned into an agonizing twenty-minute crawl through a solid jam. By the time she had made it to Queen Charlotte Street Jenny had lost all patience and cut across a silver Mercedes to beat it to a parking space. She met the driver’s protest with a raised finger and a volley of abuse. She felt her face burn with shame as she hurried into the Georgian splendour of Queen Square; under pressure, she was no more civilized than a sewer rat.
Reed Falkirk & Co. occupied an elegant double-fronted building named Montego House. A frieze carved into the stonework depicted a ship in full sail with Caribbean palm trees in the background. Like all those in the square, it dated from the city’s heyday, when local merchants and their bankers had grown rich on slaves, sugar and tobacco.
She climbed the stone steps and pressed the intercom.
A clipped female voice came over the speaker. ‘Hello?’
Jenny turned to face the camera, trying to look imposing. ‘Jenny Cooper, Severn Vale District Coroner. I’m here to see Mr Lynd.’
She entered a vestibule that opened into a spacious reception area set out to resemble a Regency drawing room: dark wood furniture upholstered in button-down velvet. Empress of this domain was a receptionist with perfectly painted nails and a silver brooch at the fussy collar of her blouse. Jenny approached her desk feeling irrationally timid.
‘Good morning.’
The woman glanced up from a slender monitor. ‘Do you have an appointment, Mrs Cooper? I don’t see one.’
‘No. But I won’t take long. Five minutes at most.’
‘I’ll see if Mr Lynd’s available.’ She lifted the receiver and dialled a number with sharp, disapproving stabs of her immaculate fingers.
Jenny glanced up at the vast oil painting hanging above the mantelpiece. It depicted a tall wooden ship being unloaded by piratical-looking stevedores, dogs and ragged children at their feet. A young black man in a wig and frock coat stood in the foreground; an older clerk at his side was recording figures in a ledger with a quill pen.
‘He’ll be down in a moment,’ the receptionist said coolly.
‘Thank you.’ Jenny was struck by the fact that the young man in the picture had fine features but strangely unforgiving eyes.
‘It’s called The Sugar Man,’ the receptionist explained, more friendly now. ‘The one in the wig is William Clayton, the first owner of this building.’
‘Really,’ Jenny answered, surprised that a black man had been that wealthy.
‘He had a white father and a slave mother. He was one of the richest men in Bristol in the
1790s.’
At that moment a man came down the ornate oak staircase. He was younger than she had expected, and more fashionable than the lawyers who appeared at her inquests; his prematurely bald head was close-shaved and he wore expensive Italian glasses.
‘Mrs Cooper?’
‘Yes.’
‘Damien Lynd.’ He turned to the receptionist. ‘Is the meeting room free, Susan?’
‘Mr Reed has a conference in ten minutes.’
‘We won’t be long.’
Lynd steered Jenny to a door leading to a conference room which, apart from a plasma TV screen, could have been the same one in which William Clayton had entertained his business associates two hundred years before. Dark polished boards creaked underfoot as they sat at opposite sides of a cherry-wood table.
‘What can I do for you?’ Lynd asked.
‘I’ve seen from correspondence that you acted for Eva Donaldson. I’m sure you know that I’m currently conducting an inquest into her death.’
‘One could hardly avoid it.’
‘May I ask if you’re acting for her estate?’
‘No, we’re not. I believe her executors instructed someone else.’
‘Her executors being—?’
‘Her father and his long-standing solicitor, as far as I am aware.’
‘I see. Then I presume you’re still in possession of her files, at least until her bill is paid.’
‘Yes,’ Lynd said cautiously. ‘That would be the usual situation.’
‘Then, if you don’t mind, I’d like to see the originals and to have copies made.’
The lawyer studied the backs of his hands. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Mrs Cooper.’
His objection came as no surprise, but Jenny was curious to see how he would justify it. He must know as well as she did that her next move would be to make an order requiring their disclosure, and that failure to obey would amount to contempt.
‘You no longer have them?’
‘I’m afraid I find myself in the position of being unable to answer any questions on this subject.’
