Authors: M.R. Hall
'Yes?'
Defying the
threatening glares coming from Stern, he turned to the jury.
'Exorcisms.
People like my colleague, Joel Nelson, and his friends believe that people's
afflictions are caused by evil spirits that possess them. We're talking about
people with mental illness - depression, anxiety, paranoia, schizophrenia;
sick, unhappy people in need of God's help, but not like that. It was Eva who
told me it was happening. They would meet in the prayer rooms at the back of
the church, the old part of the building that we're still fixing up - that's
where those fibres come from, we had rolls of the stuff waiting to go in the
roof. Joel and his friends would take them there to drive out the devils, in
the little room at the far end where you can't be heard. It was Freddy who
first told Eva about this practice. He was going along with it. He said it was
making his voices go away, but it didn't sit right with her, nor with me.'
'Did you or Eva
witness these exorcisms?'
'She did. She
walked in on them praying over Alan Jacobs. He was crying like a child, she
said, begging them to make him clean. She didn't know what to do - he was there
of his own free will, but it's not the way we would pray for people, telling
them they're possessed by devils. I went to the trustees thinking that as
pastor they'd respect my wishes.' He dipped his head in shame. 'I was told that
Bobby DeMont exorcized homosexual people all the time and that I should be
grateful we were doing God's work. The next day I was called in by Mr Prince,
the lawyer. He made me sign a document promising I wouldn't discuss any church
business with anyone outside the organization. If I did, I'd lose my job. Eva
held out for a few weeks, but eventually he bullied her into signing too.'
'When was that?'
'March. She was
furious. She said Michael and Christine were running the church like a cult. I
tried to talk her down, tell her we'd sort it out, but she disappeared inside
herself. She would hardly talk to me.'
Jenny said,
'What was going on the night she was killed?'
Lennox shook his
head. 'I came into the office about quarter to seven looking for her. Joel was
making phone calls saying he didn't know where anyone was, not Eva, Michael or
Christine. We had four thousand people coming and I was the only one of the
team who'd showed.'
Annabelle Stern
suddenly rose and stepped forward to Sullivan's vacant seat. She was
brandishing her phone. With no trace of emotion, she said: 'Ma'am, I have to
inform you that as of this moment, these proceedings are stayed pending full
judicial review. Any attempt on your part to call further evidence will not be
lawful.'
All Jenny could
do was stare at her and wonder what unearthly hour she had to get up in the
mornings to look that perfect.
'Y
ou couldn't have done any more
,
Mrs Cooper.' Alison spoke quietly, hovering in the doorway to Jenny's office in
Jamaica Street.
'No,' Jenny said
from under a dark shroud of failure and humiliation.
'It's not even
as if you wanted it to get this far. It was virtually forced on you.'
'Yes . . .' she
answered, wishing Alison would leave her alone.
'I'll see you in
the morning, then. You're sure you can manage?'
'I'll be fine.'
'Thank you . . .
thank you, Mrs Cooper.' With one last anxious glance in Jenny's direction
Alison closed the door and left the building as swiftly as she could without
appearing indecent. If she had been disappointed by the eleventh- hour
abortion of their inquest, she had yet to show it. Jenny worked out that she
must have been on the phone to her new boyfriend, Martin, within minutes of
Annabelle Stern bringing down the guillotine. She'd retouched her makeup even
before they had left the empty clubhouse. It was a powerful drug, sex.
Observing Alison's conscience dissolve under its spell, she could begin to
understand how people could kill for it.
Jenny looked
again at the order issued by Mrs Justice Delaney, a newly appointed judge, who,
a little research revealed, had been instructed many times by Ed Prince and
Annabelle Stern during her career at the Bar. They had been clever. They had
not argued that Jenny had been biased or had mismanaged proceedings: rather
they had persuaded the judge that her decision to hold the inquest in the first
place was wrong; that she had never possessed any evidence that would begin to
displace Craven's plea of guilty to murder.
There was
nothing in the dry wording of the order to suggest that the judge had been
informed about Jenny's personal history, and perhaps it was never mentioned in
open court, but one way or another she would have been told. And later, in the
privacy of her chambers, she would have lifted the phone to Simon Moreton to
ask if it were true. And Moreton, the snake, would have replied that on
reflection perhaps this wasn't the best moment for Mrs Cooper to be conducting
such a sensitive inquest. . .
In a day or two
he would call to commiserate. He'd tell her she was lucky to have survived as a
coroner at all, and that if she wished to continue she would have to be
altogether more sensitive to her place in the system. No more upsets, no more
embarrassments. This was to serve as her final warning.
She looked at
the fresh heap of papers on her desk with a sense of foreboding. More deaths,
more tears, more loose ends and jagged edges. She was tired. She needed some
respite before starting over again.
She had no right
to expect Steve to respond, given the way she had treated him, but she had at
least to try to salvage the wreckage of their relationship. And besides, there
was no one else, nor likely to be. She dialled his number.
'Jenny?' He
sounded concerned.
'I'm sorry. I
was busy.'
'I've been
worried sick. The story in the paper—'
'I know . . .
It's complicated. They stopped the inquest.'
'Because of your
past?'
'No . . . Not
that they'd admit to. I'll have to explain.'
She paused, not
sure how to make the move, or even whether she still wanted to.
Steve said,
'Have you spoken to Ross? I've tried to call him.'
'I've left
messages, but he's not called back . . . I'm almost glad. I don't know what I'd
say.'
It was Steve's
turn to fall silent.
'Steve? Are you
still there?'
'Jenny, look . .
. the reason I was trying to call you,
one
of the reasons,
is that the firm in France wants a decision. They'd need me in September. I
thought things might work out here, but the Edinburgh contract's got snagged up
with egos and politics ... I don't want that.'
'You're going?'
'What do you
want, Jenny?'
'Right at this
moment? Some company would be nice.'
At five-thirty
she was locking the office door and thinking of what she would wear that
evening for Steve. She had a daisy-print sundress which she'd only worn once,
but which he'd gone wild for, saying it made her look girlishly beautiful and
innocent.
'Mrs Cooper?'
Startled out of
her daydream, she looked left to see Sean Coughlin climbing out of his
double-parked BMW, the engine still running and the roof down. Father Starr was
in the passenger seat wearing sunglasses, a character from a gangster movie.
Coughlin walked
towards her. Starr stayed in the car, letting the detective handle the business.
'I hear you've a
problem,' Coughlin said.
Jenny wondered
which one he meant. 'The police at Weston? I doubt that'll go much further.'
'With the
inquest.'
'It's been
stopped, Mr Coughlin. I did my best to explain to everyone present - Father
Starr was there.'
'I understand
that they got you on a technicality - not enough evidence to justify the
inquiry.'
'Something like
that.'
He nodded.
'That's good, because I've found you some.'
He let the
statement hang in the air, waiting to see her reaction.
Jenny said,
'It's over.'
'We've taken
advice from a friendly lawyer: with evidence, you could start another
inquiry.'
'Now really
isn't the best time. Why don't you call me on Monday?'
She started
towards her car. Coughlin's footsteps followed her.
'It's only circumstantial,
but it's solid. A detective constable in CID took a statement from a woman who
lived across the road from Eva. She said she saw a maroon- coloured sports car
taking off from outside her house, at about eight forty-five on the night she
was killed. He was trying to trace the vehicle when Craven put his hands up. DI
Goodison told him to forget it and put him on another case.'
Jenny stopped at
the driver's door of her Golf and stuck the key in the lock. It jammed halfway.
Damn. She been meaning to do something about it for weeks.
Coughlin came to
her shoulder, close enough that she could hear him breathe. 'This came from a
colleague of his, one of the faith. I've no doubt it's true. Mrs Cooper, do you
know who happens to own a maroon-coloured sports car?'
She stopped her
struggle with the key. She'd just remembered the car she had seen parked
outside the Mission Church.
Coughlin said,
'What do you know, Mrs Cooper? What happened on your trip to London that made
them so panicky?'
Jenny looked
from Coughlin to Starr and noticed they had the same stillness about them, the
same certainty behind the eyes. A pair of celibate warriors who wouldn't have
much sympathy with her plans for the evening.
'I'm not sure
how much good this will do any of us,' Jenny said.
'It's not about
us, is it, Mrs Cooper? It's about a man who's in prison for a crime he didn't
commit. Surely you can't sleep easy with that on your conscience?'
'Take my advice
and get him a good lawyer.'
She tried the
key again. It refused to turn.
'We're all
afraid of the dark, Mrs Cooper,' Coughlin said, 'none more so than those of us
who have found ourselves lost in it.' He spoke to her softly, like a priest.
'Don't you believe that we find ourselves at these crossroads for a reason?
It's a privilege to be truly tested, don't you think? Imagine a life without
even the opportunity for redemption.'
He reached for
Jenny's car key and turned it in the lock without effort.
She touched the
handle, but her fingers stiffened. An image of Freddy's fragile body lying on
the mortuary slab flashed before her eyes, and she experienced a moment of
overpowering grief. Coughlin sensed it and leaned in even closer.
'Let your
conscience speak, Mrs Cooper.'
Jenny felt her
resistance fall away. She began to talk.
'Before he was
saved, Turnbull had parties for his business associates,' Jenny said, the
words spilling out of her.
'Eva was at one
of them as part of the entertainment. It seems she reminded him of it when she
was arguing for a pay rise. He got a court order gagging her. Her lawyers can't
discuss her affairs with anyone - it's a total blackout. I persuaded a judge to
grant an exception for the purposes of my inquest, but the Ministry of Justice
stepped in to shut me up.' She paused. 'This bit I shouldn't tell you . . .'
Coughlin stayed
silent, leaving her to make up her own mind.
'I've been
promised the police will investigate Turnbull eventually, but only after he's
got his law passed.'
'And you gave
what in return?'
'I promised not
to rock the boat. . .' She glanced over at Starr. 'It seemed like the best deal
at the time.'
'This order you
got from the judge - could you still use it?'
She shook her
head. 'My inquest is over.'
'It was stayed
for want of evidence - that's different, surely?'
Jenny thought
for a moment, guessing he had been on the phone to a friendly lawyer. 'I can
see there might be an argument.'
'Eva's lawyers
are the firm in Queen Square, right?'
'You know them?'
'The DC who took
the statement about the sports car says they make most of their money from the
pornography business - everyone in the trade uses them. One of the partners
even owns the warehouses out in Filton where they shoot all the films. He tells
me it's a regular little blue Hollywood out there.'
'If that's true,
I'm surprised they didn't put up more of a fight against Turnbull,' Jenny said.
'A well-placed leak and they could have wrecked him.'
'A man with his
money would have shut them up for small change.'
Jenny thought of
Damien Lynd and his pretence of being ethical. No doubt he had performed the
same routine while telling Eva that he couldn't sue GlamourX until she had paid
his bill for contesting Turnbull's injunction. And at the same time he and his
partners would have been negotiating their pay-offs with Ed Prince.
Jenny said, 'Why
don't I talk to them after the weekend? I need to think this through.'
Coughlin said,
'I understand Mr Craven didn't take the news of what happened today too well.
Between you and me, Father Starr's worried he might do something stupid.'
Before Jenny could object, Coughlin said, 'Why we don't we pay these crooks a
visit now, while the spirit's with us?'