by M. R. Hall
Above them a door closed. Ross’s footsteps sounded on the stairs.
‘Give up my career as well as everything else, is that what you’re suggesting?’
‘Please don’t be like that. You know what’s right, I know you do. And our son has problems of his own to work through. He needs security.’
Ross reached the bottom of the stairs.
‘We’re in here,’ Jenny said, as brightly as she could manage without sounding hysterical.
The latch lifted. He looked in, pale and awkward.
‘Hi, Mum.’ He glanced to his father.
‘It’s OK, Ross. We’ve had a chat.’
Jenny forced a smile. Words wouldn’t come.
‘We’ll sort something out with weekends and what have you,’ David said, more to Ross than Jenny. He got to his feet. ‘We ought to hit the road. I’m sure you’ve got work to do.’
Ross looked at the floor. ‘I’ll see you.’
‘Soon, I hope,’ Jenny said.
He nodded, hair flopping over his eyes.
David moved towards the door placing a fatherly hand on Ross’s shoulder. ‘We can see ourselves out.’
Their footsteps retreated swiftly down the path. The boot clunked, the engine fired and David sped off down the hill, leaving a silence as absolute as the blackness of the night.
Jenny lowered herself into an upright chair and sat quite still, wishing she could feel the shame that should have accompanied the images playing through her mind: waking in her clothes, the pills spilled across the floor, the incoherent scrawl in her journal lying open at the foot of the bed. He would have read it, of course, if only for a clue as to why his mother had arrived home staggering, unable even to make it to her own bed. He would know about a man called McAvoy, her guilt, her lust, her ghosts. He wouldn’t tell his father of course; that would only double his confusion at having a semi-lunatic for a mother. He would keep it to himself.
And the worst of it was David was right. She wasn’t fit to nurture an adolescent with troubles of his own. She’d deluded herself into thinking that Ross had straightened himself out under her roof, when in fact his relative calm was due to her drama constantly upstaging his own. She hadn’t given him space, she had stifled him.
It felt indecent to think in terms of irony, but she remembered what her late mother, who had abandoned her own family while Jenny was still at school, had once said when she had first talked of divorcing David – that children fared better with unhappy parents together than happy ones apart. How she had railed against that thought. How she had resented the notion that a woman oppressed and miserable could do better for her child. Another of her mother’s axioms forged from bitter experience: a woman who leaves home, leaves everything. Perhaps she was right after all. She had experienced nothing to disprove it, nor for that matter had Mrs Jamal.
The telephone rang with a suddenness that jarred her nerves. She answered with a clipped hello but was met with an electronic voice informing her that she had messages on her answer service. Dumbly, she obeyed its request to play them.
There were eight. DI Pironi had called twice, first to stress that events at Mrs Jamal’s flat were strictly a police matter, and second to emphasize that the investigation into the source of the radiation was secret. The press had been told that the white-suited operatives who had descended on the apartment block were searching for further forensic evidence. There were two calls from local journalists fishing for information, one from Gillian Golder asking abruptly for Jenny to call at her earliest convenience, and two from Simon Moreton, the senior official at the Ministry of Justice with responsibility for coroners. In the polite, faux-friendly manner he adopted with his wayward charges, he asked her to call ‘on a matter of importance’, leaving his home number. The last message was from Steve, asking how she was, and saying he’d like to come over if she was around.
With blunt fingers she punched in his number, not sure why, or what she would say to him. He answered on the second ring.
‘It’s me. You left a message,’ she said.
‘Yeah. Look, I . . . I shouldn’t have left it like that the other night.’ There was a quiet urgency in his voice, as if he had been on tenterhooks waiting for her call.
‘Right,’ she said distantly.
‘I’ve been going through some things myself, you know . . .’
‘Uh huh.’
A pause. He sighed, impatient with himself. ‘What I was saying to you – about choices – it cuts both ways. I’ve been hiding away for ten years trying to avoid the issue.’
She knew she was meant to say something meaningful, meant to react to the subtext, but she couldn’t fathom what it was. ‘What issue?’ she said.
‘Commitment,’ Steve said. ‘What I stand for. What I feel.’
‘I see.’
‘I need to speak to you, Jenny. There’s something you should know.’
‘Steve, I’m very tired . . .’
‘Jenny—’
‘David took Ross away.’
‘Oh. You’re by yourself?’
‘I’m no good to you right now. Don’t come over . . . I need to sleep.’
‘Jenny . . .’
‘Please, don’t.’ She set down the receiver and felt only relief.
She was tempted to destroy her journal, to throw it into the grate and reduce it to ashes. She carried it from her study to the hearth and reached for the matches, but was seized by an overwhelming curiosity to read her last entry, to glimpse into the madness that had brought the world crashing around her ears.
I don’t know what happened tonight. That man . . . he does something to me. I don’t even find him attractive – he’s so tired and used up. But when he looks in my eyes I know he’s not afraid of anything. What does it mean? Why him? Why now? It’s as if She had a partial recollection of writing it, of sitting at her study desk seized with a sense of profundity which she couldn’t transfer to the page. A nervous tap at the door. Ross had come in and told her it was late. She’d clasped the journal to her chest as he urged her up the stairs . . . Her shoulder had grazed the wall, she’d faltered, the climb too steep. And there her memory faded to black.
She snapped the notebook shut with a pang of self-disgust, but could only stare at the matches. She could hear Dr Travis back in the early days, warning her to rein in her imagination and not to let instability tempt her into believing nonsense, or finding connections where none existed. ‘Stick to terra firma,’ he had said, ‘even the tiniest piece of land is better than all at sea.’ For the recent casualty it was sound advice, but there had to be a time to move on, to strike out to new territory.
It’s as if . . . It came to her now. She reached for a pen, turned back to the page and completed the sentence: . . . he’s come to tell me something I need to know.
It was nearly midnight. She took the journal upstairs and hid it in her special drawer. As she climbed into bed and huddled against the cold, she realized that something had changed. For the first time in hours she felt a flicker of sensation, of fear and anger, and a hint, the faintest suggestion of excitement.
TWENTY
SHE DRESSED IN THE BLACK two-piece she normally reserved for formal occasions: an ivory silk blouse, a plain silver necklace and narrow, elegant shoes that squeezed her toes, dabbed perfume on her wrists and put on her best black cashmere coat. She swallowed a Xanax, checked her makeup and set out along the valley through drifting mist.
As she cleared the Severn Bridge she called the office number, knowing Alison would not yet have arrived, and left a message saying that she had a stop to make on her way in. She switched off the phone and tossed it into her bag. She drove past her usual exit, continued on to the next and headed towards the city centre and the Law Courts.
Outside on the steps tired lawyers and a cluster of slouching, hooded young men with their sulking, pinched-faced girlfriends smoked cigarettes and avoided each others’ eyes. She picked her way through them, drawing stares, and pushe
d through the doors into the atrium, thankful that no one had spat at her. She cleared the security check and scanned the noisy crush of lawyers, clients, witnesses and court ushers. If it had been a County Court every other face would have been familiar, but she had never practised criminal law and the Crown Court – where criminal cases were tried – was an alien and daunting world to her.
She skirted through the crowd and looked into the steamy, crowded cafeteria but couldn’t see McAvoy’s face. She would have glanced into the solicitors’ room but shyness held her back. Instead, she stood in line at the reception desk until, after a ten-minute wait, the heavy-set girl behind the desk came off the phone for long enough to bark out an announcement over the tannoy: ‘Would Mr McAvoy of O’Donnagh and Drew please come to reception immediately.’
She hovered self-consciously by the desk, watching the barristers and their clients arguing and horse-trading. There was an atmosphere of barely suppressed anger: the air was filled with expletives and the police officers who passed through walked quickly, eyes fixed on the ground. Near to where she was standing a young woman suddenly wailed then swore violently at a lawyer who had delivered bad news. Two other girls held her back as she lashed out at him. She struggled, wrenched free and had dug her nails into his face before a court usher and an elderly constable came to the man’s rescue. He stood dabbing incredulously at his bleeding cheek with a crumpled handkerchief as his ungrateful client was dragged away.
‘It wouldn’t be you taking an honest man from his work, Mrs Cooper?’
She looked round from the commotion to see McAvoy approaching, carrying an untidy bundle of papers under his arm.
‘I’ve a man downstairs with his life in my hands – the barrister’s proving himself a useless shite – so I can’t be long.’
‘Is there somewhere we can talk in private?’ she said. ‘A conference room?’
‘At this time of the morning? You’ll be lucky.’
‘There’s a café over the road.’
‘I’ve a bail application in ten minutes. Fella’ll have my guts on the floor if we don’t spring him – he’s got a plane to catch at lunchtime.’ He glanced around the atrium then motioned her to follow him. ‘Let’s see what we can do.’
Jenny followed him through the shifting crowd that smelled of poor homes and stale sweat and into a small, empty courtroom. The advocates’ benches were piled high with thick files and textbooks, suggesting a long-running trial was in progress.
McAvoy glanced up at the clock above the door. ‘We’ve got five minutes.’
She’d prepared a speech which she’d spent the entire journey into town reciting. She was Her Majesty’s Coroner, she was going to say, a judicial officer charged with a grave and serious task, and he had not only interrupted her investigation, he had misled her. He had failed to tell her that eight years ago he had discovered facts about Nazim Jamal that could have a material bearing on the case. If he didn’t explain himself he would be fortunate not be charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice for a second time in his dubious career.
She steeled herself, but was torn from her moorings by a rush of anger. ‘Who the hell do you think you are, McAvoy? What the fuck are you playing at? You spoke to Brightman eight years ago. You knew about Sarah Levin and Nazim.’
The smile faded. He glanced to the door, then looked back at her with a convict’s eyes.
‘There’s nothing to know.’
‘He saw them together. This teenage jihadi was screwing a white girl who was the only person to say anything about him going abroad.’ She felt her face glowing with rage.
McAvoy shrugged. ‘The boy was a hypocrite, or he got lucky. What of it? Hadn’t his poor mother suffered enough? She was a very conservative woman.’
‘His mother’s dead.’
‘I’m as shocked as you are.’
She took a step towards him. ‘Why did you lie to me?’
‘I told you. He was all she had. Why not let her believe he was the only woman he’d ever loved?’
‘You bastard.’
She went to hit him. McAvoy dropped his papers, caught her wrist and gripped it hard.
‘Are you crazy?’
‘Fuck you.’
As if by reflex, she grabbed a ballpoint from the desk to her right, swung her arm wildly and stabbed it hard into the side of his shoulder. McAvoy exclaimed in pain, releasing her wrist as he clutched at his shoulder.
‘Je-sus.’
Jenny stepped backwards, breathing hard, the pen still gripped tight in her left hand. McAvoy looked up at her, jaw clenched. He flicked out a hand, smacking her smartly across the face and sending her tumbling back against the rail of the dock. She caught hold of it and pulled herself upright, more stunned than hurt. She turned to see him straightening, catching his breath. She flinched, expecting another blow, but he stooped and gathered his scattered papers from the floor.
Holding a hand to her stinging cheek, she watched him sifting and checking the disordered documents as if she wasn’t there, grimacing at the pain in his shoulder. There was something obsessive, pathetic almost, in the way he fussed over them.
‘I shocked you, didn’t I?’ Jenny said, feeling a pulse of adrenalin coursing through her veins. ‘You weren’t expecting that.’
‘I think you shocked yourself,’ he said, without looking up.
‘I knew you’d be an unrepentant liar.’
‘You know what you are? A danger to yourself.’
‘And what are you? A coward? Are you frightened I’m going to have you put in jail?’
McAvoy shuffled his papers against the surface of the desk and turned to face her. ‘And why would you do that?’
‘For trying to hijack my inquest. Trying to use it to reinstate your tawdry career. I can’t imagine how humiliating it must be going from big-shot partner to outdoor clerk.’
‘At least I never cracked in court,’ he said. ‘No one could ever say I flinched.’
Jenny had wondered when he would reveal the fact he’d dug the dirt and use her past against her. It was a relief. She could see him for what he was now.
‘You lied with a straight face – is that the best you can say about yourself?’
‘I’ve never lied to you. I tried to push you towards the truth.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘I gave you leads, evidence you wouldn’t have got anywhere else. I got you Madog and Tathum.’
‘How can I trust you? How do I know Madog is for real? He could just be another one you’ve bought.’
‘You’re the coroner, Mrs Cooper. Work it out. I’ve got a hearing to get to.’
As he stepped past her, Jenny said, ‘You look terrified.’
He paused at the door and looked back at her. ‘Maybe if you’d been a stronger woman I might have found a little more courage, but you’re really quite a fragile flower, aren’t you, Jenny? Damaged, I’d say. So why don’t you let yourself off the hook. You’re out of your depth.’
‘You’re full of shit.’
McAvoy said, ‘I’m sorry. I made a mistake upsetting you. And as you said, Mrs Jamal’s gone, so what does it matter any more?’ He smiled faintly and turned to go.
Jenny said, ‘You still haven’t explained why you hid things from me.’
He hesitated a second time, then dipped his head. He addressed his quiet words to the door. ‘I drink, Jenny. It eases my burden but it makes me trust others even less than myself. I look at people I’ve known for years and they change before my eyes.’
‘What were you thinking? What do you want from me?’
‘It’s of no interest to you.’
‘Try me.’
He shook his head.
‘Tell me, Alec. Let yourself off the hook.’
A pause. ‘Proof, I suppose . . .’
‘Of what?’
‘That He hasn’t completely got me yet.’
‘Who?’
‘The author of all this sadness.’
&nb
sp; ‘You’re not making sense.’
‘No . . .’ He glanced back at her briefly with pale, red-rimmed eyes. ‘What happened at her flat? I heard there were men in white suits there all weekend.’
She hesitated. ‘Something was found on her body, a substance.’
‘You trust them? Who knows what dirty tricks they’d play. She was a very inconvenient woman, Mrs Jamal.’
‘I’m not sure who to trust.’
He nodded with a heavy sadness. ‘Maybe you are better off out of it. If they’ll bury the truth, they won’t worry about burying you.’
He pushed out into a busy corridor.
‘Alec—’ Jenny called out after him, but he was gone.
McAvoy’s expression lodged behind her eyes like a vision of a drowning man. She was left with the unsettling feeling that she had got barely to the threshold of something; that he had darker secrets to tell but had spared her for fear of dragging her down with him. She had gone to him hoping to exorcise one ghost, but had come away pursued by several. She should have felt shock or humiliation at her behaviour – no better than the girl lashing out at her lawyer – but the sense of disjuncture she felt was overwhelming. Her mind, body and emotions seemed to occupy three separate spheres that were tugging apart.
Alison looked up from her desk as she entered and spoke in an urgent whisper.
‘There you are, Mrs Cooper. Mr Moreton’s here to see you. I sent him through.’
‘Moreton? What does he want?’
‘He wouldn’t say. He’s been waiting nearly an hour.’ There was a definite note of censure in her voice.
‘I was busy.’
‘Wait till you see what’s come in over the weekend.’ Alison pointed to a thick pile of fresh death reports.
‘I’ll get to them later.’
Jenny braced herself and went through to her office.
Moreton set down his newspaper and greeted her warmly, but with a certain reserve. ‘Jenny. How lovely to see you again.’
He extended a hand.
‘Simon.’
‘It’s been far too long. When was it, August?’
