by Hall, M R
Karen Jordan shook her head. ‘I want to see all of him.’
Jenny glanced at the technician. ‘Can you show us the hands, please?’
He leaned down to pull back the flap of plastic at waist level.
‘I said, I want to see all of him,’ Karen Jordan insisted.
‘I really wouldn’t advise—’
‘Are you telling me I can’t see my husband’s face?’ She spoke with a level and determined assurance that didn’t seem to come from the same woman that Jenny had met outside the paediatric ward. It was as if the drugs had allowed only the coldest part of her to remain conscious.
‘If you’re absolutely sure.’
‘Show me.’
Jenny nodded to the technician, who pulled the flap back a little more.
‘All the way,’ Mrs Jordan said.
The hands and arms came into view, and then the savage, crudely stitched autopsy scar than ran from neck to navel along the midline. A separate, oval-shaped piece of plastic covered the staved-in features.
‘I said all,’ Mrs Jordan said. ‘Do I have to do it myself?’
She moved half a step forward. Jenny touched her arm, holding her back, and indicated to the technician to do as she requested.
He lifted the covering clear. Jenny glanced away, but Mrs Jordan’s gaze held steady. She took in every detail, forcing herself to record the image that would never leave her.
‘It’s Adam,’ she said, then dipped at the knees and touched his still-perfect fingers with a whispered goodbye. As she straightened, she turned to Jenny and said, ‘I suppose we should talk. You probably know more than I do.’
They sat in the staff section of the hospital canteen where they served strong, rich Italian coffee that wasn’t for sale at the public counter. Karen Jordan glanced out of the window, her expression saying she was trying to find something that would make sense of it all.
Jenny said, ‘I spoke to a girl called Eda – at the office in London. She said your husband was there last week and in good spirits.’
‘He always was,’ Karen said. ‘He was laughing and fooling about with Sam when I left yesterday morning. He doesn’t—’ She paused to correct herself: ‘Adam didn’t get depressed. It wasn’t in his nature.’
‘Nothing had upset him recently?’
She shook her head. ‘Not that he told me.’
‘No arguments?’
‘No … No more than usual.’ She pushed her hair back from her forehead, a nervous gesture. ‘We’re both busy with work, we’ve a young child – you know how it is.’
‘Was Adam good with your little boy?’
‘Always.’
They lapsed into silence, Jenny beginning to feel that maybe it was too soon to push Karen for reasons. She had yet to encounter a suicide of a grown man that defied explanation, but sometimes it took a bereaved wife a little while to admit to herself that she hadn’t read the signs. The best Jenny could do was to ease the process along.
‘You should understand, Mrs Jordan, that people determined to kill themselves don’t want to be stopped. The pathologist found no alcohol or drugs in your husband’s system. He died in full control of himself.’
‘He hardly drank anyway. He certainly didn’t touch drugs.’ Karen Jordan seemed offended at the suggestion that he might have done.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything.’
‘We’ve known each other four years, been married for two, and for half that time he’s been in South Sudan. When he’s home we get along, and when he’s away …’ She faltered, aware that she’d mixed up her tenses again. ‘We didn’t know everything about each other, but who does? We didn’t choose to live in each other’s pockets, but Adam was very committed – to his work and to me. We trusted each other completely. We had no reason not to.’
‘And your marriage—’
‘We didn’t sleep with other people, if that’s what you mean,’ Karen Jordan said sharply.
‘It isn’t.’
‘Really?’ Karen looked at her accusingly. ‘It didn’t happen. The plan was that when I’d finished my PhD we were going to find an African project to work on together. We didn’t choose to live apart deliberately, it was just how things worked out.’
She felt guilty. Jenny could feel it seeping its way out from beneath the chemical layers.
‘Eda Hincks told me your husband had been working with a man called Harry Thorn.’
‘That’s right,’ Karen answered flatly.
‘Were they close?’
‘They’d worked together for the best of three years. Ethiopia, then Sudan.’
‘You sound a little …’ Jenny searched for the appropriate word, ‘ambivalent.’
Karen shrugged. ‘There’s no rule saying that only saints can work in the aid business.’
‘Would you like to tell me about him?’
‘About Harry? What for?’
‘I ought to talk to him, Mrs Jordan. It would help me to have some background.’
She gave a reluctant sigh. ‘He’s worked in the field for over twenty-five years—’ She stopped herself mid-sentence. ‘I don’t want to talk about him. You can judge for yourself.’ She turned her gaze out of the window, retreating inwards again.
Jenny said, ‘There was a wooden figurine hanging up in the car your husband was driving.’
‘What about it?’ she said, from far away. ‘It was just something Adam brought back from Africa.’
‘The police haven’t given it to you?’
She shook her head, still distracted.
‘Does it hold any significance?’
‘It’s just a Dinka doll. I think someone out in South Sudan gave it to him.’ She breathed out sharply.
‘Do you know who?’
‘No. He didn’t say.’ She was growing impatient. ‘I should be with Sam now. I have to go.’
‘Of course.’
Karen pushed unsteadily to her feet, leaning on the table for support as she fought against the light-headedness caused by the drugs.
‘What’s “Dinka” mean?’ Jenny asked.
‘They’re a race of people who live in South Sudan.’
‘I suppose I should know that.’
The widow looked at her for a moment as if there was something more she wanted to say but couldn’t find the words. And then, just as they seemed to form, a silencing shadow appeared to pass over her. She turned away, and walked quickly to the exit.
FIVE
Jenny had become used to sleeping alone. During the rare nights Michael stayed over she would often find herself lying awake, disconcerted by his presence and unsettled by his fitful dreams. But after several weeks without his company the lonely ache returned and she wished he were next to her again. They had never settled anything that could be called an ‘arrangement’, but had simply fallen into an irregular routine of spending the odd night at each other’s homes, and somehow it seemed to work. Dr Allen had, of course, isolated the one problem that was nagging at her during their final appointment: she and Michael didn’t talk, or at least not in the way that lovers were meant to. When she had been married to David they had found themselves with less and less to say to each other except during their frequent and eloquent arguments. Her former lover, Steve, had been the opposite: sensitive and concerned, almost too eager to prise her open and share her most intimate thoughts. Michael was neither intrusive nor hostile; like her, he was naturally self-contained. And there was the nub: they ran on parallel rails. Both damaged goods, both healed just enough to get by, but both frightened of taking the next step for fear of missing it and finding themselves floundering in midair.
Drawing back the curtains, Jenny blinked in the piercing morning light and looked out over the valley falling away from her window all the way down to the River Wye. Here and there clusters of stone-walled fields interrupted the ancient woodlands that had hugged the hills for millennia. A memory surfaced: she had been looking out at the same view on another summer mo
rning with Steve. It’s all there waiting for you, Jenny, you just have to reach out and take it. For a moment she could almost feel his hands resting on her hips and the warmth of his breath on her neck, and she wished she had never let him go. He was living happily in France now with a beautiful young wife and a newborn; he had moved on, but she remained behind the same glass, still looking out. She caught her reflection ghosted in the pane: time was tugging at her face. She stiffened with defiance. She had to resist; she had to do something.
‘Michael? It’s Jenny. Are you free this evening?’
‘Mmm? I think so …’ Hisvoice was still thick with sleep.
‘Sorry. Have I woken you?’
‘It’s all right, I should be up. I’ve got a round trip to Le Mans.’
In the height of summer he was at his busiest. As a pilot for a small commercial firm, when he wasn’t flying jockeys between race courses, he was ferrying wealthy businessmen and their over-indulged families between their summer playgrounds and the city. It was hardly the adrenalin rush he had experienced in his twenty years flying RAF Tornadoes, but it had its dramas. When the phone rang at unexpected times, she would often find herself worrying that it was a call to say his Cessna had failed to arrive at some obscure airfield, that he was missing.
‘You won’t be able to come to dinner then?’
‘I didn’t know I was invited.’
‘I’m picking Ross up from university today. He’s staying for a couple of weeks. I thought you might start getting to know each other.’
Jenny waited for his excuse, expecting him to avoid anything that sounded like a dangerous step on the road to commitment.
He surprised her. ‘Sounds good to me. Is eight all right?’
‘Great.’ She hesitated. ‘And you’ll stay over?’
‘With your son there?’
‘He won’t mind.’ She added, ‘It’s been ages.’
‘Nearly two weeks.’
He’d been counting. She was touched.
Jenny had arranged to collect Ross from the Goldsmiths student halls at four, and planned to spend the early afternoon shopping for clothes in Covent Garden, a luxury so rare and indulgent, the prospect felt almost sinful. She told herself she would be looking for a suit to replace the tired two-piece she wore to court, but as she headed out onto the motorway, she was already putting together the outfit she would surprise Michael with: she pictured herself slim, stylish and elegant, looking ten years younger. Absorbed in the fantasy, she didn’t notice the miles passing. Alison’s several phone calls barely registered as she enjoyed the heady rush of a day unchained from the office. Freedom. As she approached Heathrow the phone rang again. She glanced at the caller display, expecting another query from Alison designed to make her feel guilty for deserting her post, but it was a number her phone didn’t recognize.
‘Hello. Jenny Cooper.’
‘Are you the woman who left a message this morning?’ The man spoke with a thick, deep South African accent.
‘I’m the Severn Vale District Coroner. Who am I speaking to?’
‘Harry Thorn. I worked with Adam Jordan.’
‘Ah yes. I did leave a message.’ She proceeded delicately. ‘I presume you’ve heard what’s happened to him.’
‘Of course. What do you want from me?’
‘I spoke with Mrs Jordan yesterday,’ Jenny said tactfully. ‘I’ll be conducting an inquest into her husband’s death. When you’re able, I was hoping to meet with you – to get a picture of what he’d been doing recently, his state of mind, whether anything had been troubling him. Might tomorrow suit you?’
Thorn said, ‘I’ve no fucking clue why he jumped off a bridge, if that’s what you’re fishing for.’
‘I appreciate now’s not the time.’
Thorn gave a low grunt. ‘Your office said you’re in London today. Why don’t we get it over with?’
‘If you’re sure.’ Jenny felt her day darken. ‘Where will I find you?’
‘15a Quentin Mews, off Portobello Road.’
Jenny’s hazy memory of Portobello Road was of the Saturday antiques market, the narrow street crammed with stalls selling Victorian prints, cracked china and the kind of old trinkets that used to fill her grandmother’s house. But on a weekday it was almost deserted. All that remained of the market was a handful of fruit-and-vegetable stalls.
Quentin Mews was off the poorer, dirtier end of the street within yards of the Westway, the thundering flyover that carried four lanes of traffic between White City and Marylebone. Picking her way over its rough cobbles in her narrow heels, Jenny realized that the outward scruffiness was an illusion. There were no electric gates guarding the mews entrance or neatly clipped bay trees either side of the front doors, but money, even the kind that tries to hide itself, has a smell, and it leached out of the artfully soot-stained bricks.
15a was at the far end of the cul-de-sac, the house furthest from the street. She rang, and waited for some time for Harry Thorn to come to the door. Closer to fifty than forty, he stood barefoot in jeans and a crumpled linen shirt; his thick grey stubble was longer than the hair on his broad, sunburned scalp. He was tall, with square shoulders that suggested he had once been well built, but his muscles had withered onto a bony frame, and his yellowing eyes were those of a man whose lifetime of hard living was fast catching up with him.
‘Jenny, is it?’
She nodded. ‘You’re Mr Thorn?’
‘Harry.’
He turned and led the way through the short hallway into a compact sitting room with French windows that opened onto a tiny courtyard barely big enough to hold a table and two chairs. A set of louvred doors divided the room from a galley kitchen. Thorn had been smoking marijuana; Jenny could smell it on his clothes, as distinctive as leaves on an autumn bonfire. He pressed a heavily veined hand to his forehead as he surveyed the furniture: a low-slung sofa and several African floor cushions, none of it appropriate for conducting a formal discussion.
‘Guess we’d better sit outside.’
Jenny heard footsteps from the floor above, then music: a slow heavy bass rhythm that pulsed through the whole house.
‘Will you turn that damn thing off, Gabra,’ Thorn yelled. ‘I’ve got a meeting here.’
‘Fuck you, Harry,’ a relaxed female voice called back.
He waited, looking thunderous. When she had made her point, the woman upstairs lowered the volume slightly.
Thorn shook his head. ‘Sorry about her. She can be a pain in the ass.’
Jenny said nothing and followed him outside, where they sat on iron chairs at a marble-topped table.
‘Mind if I smoke?’
‘Go ahead.’
Thorn took a soft leather pouch from his shirt pocket and proceeded to roll a joint.
Jenny glanced away, thinking her time would have been better spent shopping after all.
‘What can I tell you?’ he said.
‘Were you close to Adam Jordan?’
‘Shared a tent with him for the last year, and most of the two years before that.’ He twisted one end of the cigarette paper and put the other to his mouth. Jenny noticed the tremor in his fingers as he struck a match.
‘Sounds like you were somewhere pretty remote.’
‘South Sudan. I guess that’s about as far off the trail as you can get outside of the Sahara.’
‘Putting in irrigation, I hear.’
‘No,’ he corrected her. ‘We subsidize the kit, show them how to dig the trenches, hook it all up to a well. They do the work.’
‘Helping them to help themselves.’
‘Only way.’ He dragged the fumes into his lungs and held on to them, the tight lines on his forehead starting to slacken as the dope seeped into his blood.
‘Does it work?’
‘Like a dream – until some bastard comes along and rips it all out again.’
‘Who would do that?’
‘That’s Africa. Tribal factions slitting each other’s throat
s since the dawn of time. It’s like a bad habit.’
Jenny felt his anger buffeting against her like a hot wind. She waited until she sensed the flare of emotion had burned itself out.
‘Something must keep people like you and Adam Jordan going back.’
‘You get to save a few, sometimes even a whole crowd. It’s a numbers game: life in your average East African village is plentiful and cheap.’ He leaned back in his chair and slowly blew smoke towards the sky like an offering. ‘If you’re keeping more above ground than beneath, you’re ahead.’
Jenny said, ‘Did Adam enjoy his work?’
‘Oh, yeah. He’d talk irrigation like a born-again talks Jesus. He was going to help them bypass all the industrial crap we’ve been through the last two hundred years and lead them straight to eco-paradise. I’m not making fun of the guy – it’s what you need out in the field to keep going: a vision.’ His eye was caught by something inside the house. ‘Shit.’
Jenny glanced round and saw a tall, slender woman strolling naked across the sitting room. She was beautiful and graceful, her skin the colour of oiled ebony.
‘Will you put some clothes on, Gabra, for Christ’s sake,’ Thorn shouted.
Ignoring him, she continued into the kitchen. Her voice travelled through the open window. ‘You two want something to eat? I’m making eggs.’
‘I want you to get fucking dressed.’
Jenny shrugged, as if to say she had no problem with Gabra going naked if that’s how she liked it.
‘I must be getting old,’ Thorn said. The tension lines reappeared on his face. He sucked hard on the joint. ‘What else?’
Jenny said, ‘Any indication as to his recent state of mind?’
‘He was a serious guy. Motivated. Had a Master’s degree in environmental science. The kind who’s always in a book or at his computer. Drank a little beer but never so much as you’d see any change.’
‘Was he happy?’
‘He seemed to be. We had a good project, left a village with green fields where there’d been a dust bowl. We had to quit a little early because of some local trouble, but that’s how it goes. It doesn’t get much better than that out there.’
