The Redeemed

CHAPTER 7




The relief of seeing the Jacobs family greet her inconclusive finding with smiles and grateful embraces was short-lived. As if to punish her for her weakness, Alison pursued Jenny into the corridor behind the courtroom and handed her a list of urgent calls that had to be made before close of business. Jenny promised to deal with them later and locked herself in the tiny office for a few moments' peace.

She made the return journey to Jamaica Street on foot. It was only a mile across the city centre and the afternoon was warm enough for road-menders to be working shirtless and teenagers to be paddling in the public fountain while perspiring policemen stood by smiling. A few rays of sunshine and the city was transformed. All was peace and goodwill. She fetched out her phone and tried Ross's number.

To her surprise he sounded almost pleased to hear her. 'Mum. How are you?'

'Feeling guilty. Sorry I missed our call. Things got a bit frantic.'

'No problem.'

'I don't suppose you're free tonight.'

'Could be-'

'I thought we could go for dinner. It's been ages.'

'Why not?' Ross said, trying hard not to sound over- enthusiastic.

'Pick you up around seven?'

'I could come into town.'

'No need. I ought to say hello to your father.'

The heat must have gone to her head. Having friendly feelings towards David had to be a sign that she wasn't in her right mind.





Alison shoved a note into her hand the moment she stepped through the door. 'Simon Moreton called, twice. You're to phone him back immediately.'

'What does he want?'

'Didn't say. But I'd guess it was your blood.'

'What have I done now?'

Alison shrugged and went back to her emails. Jenny noticed that she had swapped her dark trouser suit for a slim-fitting skirt and matching jacket that was stretched a little too tightly across her shoulders.

'Are you going somewhere?' Jenny said.

'Just meeting a friend.' 'Oh?'

'Yes.' Alison thrust a second piece of paper in Jenny's direction, her cheeks colouring. 'You might want to look at this.'

Jenny cast her eyes over the email from someone calling himself Doc Scratch.

He claimed to be the tattoo artist who had drawn Eva Donaldson's design. He said his diary showed she'd come on the morning of Friday, 23 April, a little over two weeks before she died. She had called herself Louise Pearson and paid in cash, but everyone in the studio had recognized her from the television. You couldn't mistake the scar.

Alison said, 'I sent emails to all the studios I could find. There seems to be one on every street corner these days.'

'Have you spoken to him?'

'Only briefly. He said she was very quiet. She came in knowing what she wanted, lay back and let him get on with it.'

'Is that all?'

'He said she seemed subdued, not down, but as if she were preoccupied with something.'

The phone rang. Alison checked the caller display. 'It's Moreton again.'

Jenny hurried through to her office.

'I'll see you on Monday, Mrs Cooper,' Alison called after her. 'I'm off now.'

'Have fun.'

Jenny snatched up the receiver with a sense of dread. 'Hello, Simon. I've been wondering where you'd been.'

'It's Amanda Cramer,' a humourless voice replied. 'You may have seen the circular; I was recently appointed assistant director for coroners. Simon's concentrating more on strategy. From now on operations and personnel will be chiefly my responsibility.'

'Oh, I see,' Jenny said, taking an instant dislike to Amanda Cramer. 'I don't think we've met.'

'Briefly, at the Christmas drinks.'

Jenny cast her mind back to the tedious evening in Gray's Inn Hall spent sipping orange juice amidst a sea of anonymous, suited officials getting drunk on cheap wine. Oh God. Now she remembered. Moreton, who for all his conformism was good fun at parties, and Jenny had been laughing at one of his suggestive jokes, when a joyless young woman with bad skin and flat shoes stepped between them. 'Dear God,' Moreton said when Amanda Cramer had finally taken the hint and moved on. 'I've never said it about any woman I've worked with, but I just couldn't, not even with Viagra.'

'Of course, I remember,' Jenny said. 'How can I help you?'

'Two things. Firstly, we've received a complaint about your handling of the death of Eva Donaldson. We understand there's no reason cause of death couldn't have been formally recorded after the verdict in the criminal trial, but for some reason you've neglected to do so.'

'That would be because I'm conducting an inquest.'

'Why would you do that? The superior tribunal has reached its decision. There's no possible justification for more public money to be spent on a needless formality.'

'With respect, Ms Cramer, that is a matter in my discretion. And the Crown Court is not a superior tribunal. It has an entirely separate function.'

'But you have no power to contradict its verdict.'

'I'm well aware of my powers.'

'Then I would advise you to exercise them appropriately. You could start by releasing the body. This should have been done immediately after the Home Office post-mortem.'

'The release form is on my desk ready to sign at the appropriate moment. Is that all?'

'No. We'd like your assurance that Mr Donaldson and his family won't be caused any more distress.'

Jenny felt her fragile patience ready to snap. Civil servants had a flimsy grasp on the concept of judicial independence at the best of times. Simon Moreton would at least have tacitly acknowledged that he was merely playing the part expected of him; Cramer was a straightforward bully, unafraid to do the Minister's dirty work. The morning newspapers had reported that the Decency Bill was on the brink of winning government support. That meant Michael Turn- bull and his new political allies would be desperate to avoid any hint of negative press surrounding the final surge of their campaign.

Jenny couldn't resist a retaliatory blow. 'You're surely not attempting to influence the judicial process, Ms Cramer?'

'Not at all, Mrs Cooper, but if you won't abide by your wider responsibilities, we can't be expected to abide by ours.'

'And what does that mean?'

'Let me put it this way: you'll be sailing into this particular storm without a lifeboat.'

'I can't say I haven't been warned,' Jenny said sarcastically. 'You said there was a second matter.'

'Yes: your erroneous verdict in the Alan Jacobs case. Bristol CID is furious. Your local paper is running a story saying they failed to investigate the possibility of murder.'

'I said nothing of the sort.'

'Then I suggest you issue a press release and clarify the situation. Coroners can hardly be effective without the support of the police. Goodbye, Mrs Cooper.'

Jenny collapsed into her chair. She felt shaken without knowing precisely why. There had been several run-ins with the Ministry over the past year, and each time she had been vindicated. Perhaps that was the problem: she had proved rather too good at unearthing the truth.

'Hello?'

She jumped at the sound of the voice in reception. Forcing a breath past her racing heart, she stepped out to see Father Starr standing in the middle of the room as if he had appeared out of thin air. In the shadowy light she could see the sharp outline of his skull beneath his face.

'I'm sorry if I alarmed you. One of your upstairs neighbours was leaving as I arrived.'

'You could at least have knocked,' Jenny said. 'What can I do for you?'

'You might answer my calls. Pay the slightest attention.'

Jenny bristled. 'I have been conducting an inquest.'

'So I understand,' Starr said. 'I hear you behaved very compassionately.'

She felt the tightness again, a spasm beneath her ribs.

'What is this, a Catholic conspiracy?' Jenny said, only half-jokingly.

'As we sow, so shall we reap. It may be coincidence, but experience tells me they don't happen often.'

'You've lost me,' Jenny said. The disturbing sensations gripping her body were hardening into panic. She hated being spoken to cryptically almost as much as being caught by surprise. 'What do you want, Father?'

'For you to have courage, Mrs Cooper.'

He held her gaze with a self-assurance that was not quite human. Without fear or self-consciousness he seemed to reach inside her.

'When you came to the prison I mentioned a mutual friend—'

'You mean Alec McAvoy.'

'Yes. I met him a number of times through my work there. He spoke of you once.'

'Is he alive?'

'Honestly, I couldn't say.'

'When did he mention me?'

'I took his confession while he was assisting in your investigation last year into the missing young men. It's not betraying a confidence to say that he thought very highly of you.'

'What did he say?'

'That you were one of the few. I took him to mean one of the few people in his orbit worthy of complete trust. I have formed a similar opinion.'

'Even though I don't answer your calls?'

Starr smiled. It was a warm, spontaneous gesture that showed him to be human after all. Jenny felt a wave of relief pass over her.

'I'll confess,' Starr said, 'I observed your reaction when I mentioned him. It was probably a little unfair of me, and it's been weighing on my conscience. He is, or was, a very charismatic man.' He glanced towards the partially open door to her office. 'It is safe to discuss such matters?'

'There's no one here but us.'

'It's only right that I tell you -' Father Starr paused and gestured with his hands, as if rehearsing what he had to say - 'he described you as a beautiful and a troubled woman whom he felt fated to meet. I don't think I would have felt prompted to mention it were it not for that word - fated. It stayed with me for some reason. Finally meeting you in person seemed to suggest an answer, or at least the route to one.'

She felt herself blush. There were butterflies in her stomach. Why torment her with this when McAvoy was already dead?

'You would tell me if you knew anything, even if only a rumour—'

'You have my word. Well, there you are. My conscience is clear -' he hesitated - 'well, almost. Forgive me, I'm a priest, and sometimes far too conscientious for my own good, but I feel I ought to ask - are you troubled, Mrs Cooper?'

'I think the lines have become blurred enough already, don't you?'

Starr looked at her, as if about to say something which he then decided against. 'I apologize. It wasn't my intention to make you feel uncomfortable. You are going to conduct this inquest, yes?'

'If I were to say no?'

Father Starr looked into her eyes, then dipped his head and slipped from the room as quietly as he had arrived.





Jenny pulled up on her ex-husband's spotless driveway and parked her scruffy Golf next to a brand-new Mercedes Coupe. It was the house she had lived in for the best part of fifteen years, but crossing the immaculate paving she felt like a ragged trespasser. David demanded the same spotlessness in his garden as he did in his operating theatre. Since Jenny had left, she had noticed this tendency becoming even more acute. No imperfection was permitted. A weed between the manicured shrubs was as unthinkable as a casual slip of the scalpel: a matter of life and death.

It was his young girlfriend, Debbie, who answered the door. Not yet thirty, she was pretty, pink-cheeked and blonde, and now happily pregnant.

'Oh hi, Jenny,' Debbie said sweetly. 'Come in.' She called up the stairs: 'Ross, it's your mum.'

Jenny followed her into the large, open-plan kitchen, which shone in a way it had never done when it had belonged to her.

'Can I get you anything?'

'No thanks,' Jenny said. Drinks were too risky when she was this nervous. She'd fumble it and make a mess on Debbie's gleaming floor. 'Is David around?'

'He's late back. It was a long list today. He's getting things clear for the weekend.'

'Are you doing something special?'

'It's my birthday. He's booked a couple of nights away. Don't ask me where, it's a surprise.'

'Great,' Jenny said, remembering several such trips, David booking the big suite and expecting non-stop sex while her idea had been to catch up on some sleep. She glanced at Debbie's pert little pregnancy bump. 'How are you feeling? It can't be long now.'

'You know, I hardly notice it, except when it kicks.' She patted her stomach. 'According to the scan it's going to be big, though. David says Ross was a big baby.'

'Yes,' Jenny said. 'But a word of advice - it's better to have the cut before it comes out than risk what happened to me.'

Debbie winced.

'Two hours stitching up. Probably why I didn't do it again.'

Ross's footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Jenny said, 'Good luck. I'm sure you'll be fine.'

The sinful pleasure of seeing Debbie's smile replaced by a look of horror stayed with her all the way to the restaurant. Hopefully it would put a damper on her weekend too.





Ross chose the little French bistro in Clifton they used to visit when David still indulged Jenny in her occasional attempts to reconnect with her brief bohemian youth. She was glad it had good associations for Ross and hadn't been tainted by his father's scathing remarks about the streaky cutlery and bad wine. She guessed he almost felt part of the university crowd that gathered here. She had to remind herself constantly that he was very nearly eighteen, a young adult, old enough to fight in a war. He had changed again in the month since they'd spent an evening together. The mid-teen gawkiness was almost gone, along with the semi-permanent sneer and ever-ready put-downs. She recognized aspects of his father in him: hints of fastidiousness in the careful way he held his cutlery, a sense that his intellect was asserting control over his emotions. And as the evening wore on, he started to ask her questions, which was another new departure. He enquired after her recent cases, whether she had plans for a holiday, and whether she seeing much of Steve. Jenny was touched.

'So you're not actually together, then?' Ross said.

'We're good friends—'

It could have been David looking sceptically back at her.

'What?' she asked.

'I thought you liked him. He likes you.'

'When did he say that?'

'He didn't have to. It's obvious.'

Jenny sensed she wasn't getting the whole truth. 'Have you been speaking to him?'

Ross shrugged. 'He's called me a couple of times, that's all, to see how you are.'

'What's wrong with calling me?'

'He says he's been trying to . . . He worries about you, you know.'

'Oh, does he?'

'In a good way. Why wouldn't he? We all do.' 'All?

'I didn't mean . . . sorry. That came out wrong.'

'Who exactly sits on this committee of the concerned?'

'It's only Dad. He thinks you're working too hard, that's all.'

'Really? When exactly has he been making these pronouncements - around the dinner table with Debbie there?'

Ross squirmed in his seat. 'Look, I didn't mean to start something.'

'No, I want to know,' Jenny insisted. 'I'm your mother. If you're worried about me, ask me. I might be able to reassure you.'

Ross looked at her guiltily. She hated herself for hurting him, but she couldn't bear not to know what David was saying about her.

'He thinks you seem a bit—'

'What?'

'Shaky. He thinks you could do with a rest.'

'From a man who works fourteen-hour days, that's a bit rich.'

There was a spark of anger in Ross's eyes. 'Just because you're divorced doesn't mean he's stopped caring about you. He's worried you're going to push yourself too hard and go under again.'

'If being appointed coroner is his idea of going under, I can't imagine what he thinks success would be. You know, Ross, perhaps your father is just a little bit jealous of me. I won't deny he's a great surgeon, well respected and all that, but it's uncanny how he always seems to notice when I've had my name in the paper.' She poured more mineral water into her glass, wishing it were wine. 'Shall we change the subject?'

'Is it something that happened to you?'

'What?'

'Dad says it sounds like post-traumatic stress disorder. Apparently sometimes it can be some tiny thing that sets up a reaction in the brain, like being frightened by a dog. Something can trigger it years later.'

'He's a psychiatrist as well as a heart surgeon now, is he?'

'Was there something?'

'Ross, please. We've talked about this before. I've been through a tough time and now I'm getting better.' She forced a smile.

'Mum, you've started not looking at people when you're talking to them. Your hands shake. You don't get better by taking more pills. Someone's got to be honest enough to tell you that.'





Neither of them spoke as she drove him home. It was meant to have been a relaxing evening but instead it had ended with Jenny feeling betrayed. David had primed Ross to confront her and suggested the bistro as the place most likely to take the sting out of her own son telling her she was a basket case. She pulled up on the road outside her sterile former home, fighting a losing battle against anger she could no longer contain.

'How dare your father do this to me?'

Ross sat silently in the passenger seat.

'You know what his problem is? He feels guilty. He wants me off his conscience so he can pretend everything's wonderful in his bourgeois bloody life. Well, it isn't. He's making a fool of himself with that girl. She's young enough to be his daughter, for Christ's sake.'

'Mum, that's not fair.'

'I know. I should be a bloody saint who never gets angry, never criticizes anyone, never shows any emotion.'

'There's no danger of that.'

Ross slammed out of the car and ran towards the house. Jenny wound down the window and called after him, but her apology came too late. He was already through the door. Lost to her.





She shed angry tears as she gunned home along empty roads, throwing the Golf around the steep corners on the valley road, grinding through the gears and stamping on the brakes. Her anger with David spilled over into fury at the world at large. Everyone wanted something from her, she was surrounded by people passing judgement. It was as if, resenting her authority, they had to do all in their power to diminish her. Even her father had managed to lash out from his senility to land a sickening blow.

No more. She was Jenny Cooper, Severn Vale District Coroner, a woman who had every right to demand respect.

She pulled onto the old cart track at the side of the house as the last of the late evening light bled away. She couldn't care less if her insecure ex-husband disapproved of the way she lived or had convinced himself she was a breakdown waiting to happen. That was his problem. When Debbie was cooing over a baby he'd be desperate for an intelligent woman to talk to. There'd be no more dirty weekends for a long time, just a lot of dirty nappies. There was some justice in the world.

The creak of the gate's rusty hinge echoed off the front of the cottage. The air was dead still and humid, not a hint of breeze to stir the leaves. She stopped halfway up the path and groped in her handbag for her keys. Where the hell were they? She delved beneath the jumble of make-up, pills, purses and assorted hair brushes. She checked the zip compartments. Nothing. She shook the bag to hear the rattle that would tell her they were in there, but somehow she lost her grip and dropped it, scattering the contents over the ground.

Damn! Damn! Stooping down to snatch them up something caught her eye: flashes of colour on the flagstones. In the dim light she made out a pattern of pink and yellow chalk lines: hopscotch squares and numbers drawn in a childish hand.

Her head spun and her heart exploded. She grabbed her car keys and ran.