by M. R. Hall
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 are 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.'
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 th
ere 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.
Starr 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 imm
ediate 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.
Chapter 19
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.
