The Redeemed (32 page)

Jenny was grateful for the mania that had gripped her since
her meeting with Eileen Reardon. It pushed out her fear and banished her
ghosts. The message from Steve on her answer- phone had gone unanswered. The
desk in her study was strewn with papers which she had covered with notes and
diagrams exploring every possible connection between the spinning fragments of
evidence.

She had yet to find the missing piece that linked Eva's death
with those of Freddy and Jacobs, but she felt that at last she was drawing
close to its essence. In life, as in nature, there were two types of
attraction: the healthy sort born of affection and generosity, and the
compulsive craving of the kind that had killed the moths whose burnt remains
lay beneath her anglepoise lamp. Watching their death throes, she was reminded
of the outstretched arms and convulsing bodies of the worshippers at the
Mission Church. They had found a light, too, and it wasn't the sun.

Her hair was still wet, there had been no time to put on
make-up, and three cups of strong coffee had left her feeling jumpy. The
early-morning sun was blindingly bright as she reached the bottom of her lane
and dog-legged across the main road towards the abbey ruins. There was only one
other vehicle in the visitors' parking area, a dark blue BMW cabriolet with the
roof up, not a car that looked like it
belonged to a
policeman. Jenny pulled up and saw that it was empty. Maybe she had misheard?
Her exhausted yet heightened state made her feel as if she were in a waking
dream, not quite certain of anything. She turned off the engine and climbed out
to get some air. It was cool and fresh against her skin. A halo of mist hung in
graceful suspension over the river, tracing its serpentine path through the
steep sides of the wooded valley. The abbey, a vast stone skeleton that once
would have been as gilded and opulent as an Italian cathedral, was a dark,
commanding shadow against the brilliant sky.

She heard the
sound of solid, even footsteps. A male figure appeared around the corner.

'Mrs Cooper?'

'Yes.'

He was a man of
uncertain age, somewhere between forty and fifty, tall and wiry with
close-cropped greying hair.

'Sean Coughlin.
Pleased to meet you.' He extended his hand.

Jenny shook it,
noticing the inlaid silver crosses on his cufflinks.

'Inspiring,
isn't it?' he said of the abbey. 'You live in a beautiful part of the world.'

'And you, Mr
Coughlin?'

'London. I'm
with the Met.' He seemed anxious to change the subject. 'Fancy a stroll down to
the river?'

'Don't you think
I should have a little more proof of who I'm talking to?'

Coughlin reached
into his pocket and handed her his wallet. She opened it to find his
Metropolitan Police ID, driving licence and credit cards. In the photo pouch
there was a picture of the Virgin and Child.

Satisfied, she
handed it back and decided to give him a hearing.

They wandered
across the empty tarmac and turned right down the lane to the water's edge.

Jenny said, 'How
do you know Father Starr?'

'We met through
the Catholic Police Guild.'

'That sounds
very clandestine.'

'Oh, we're thick
as thieves on our side of the Tiber,' Coughlin said good-naturedly. 'I suppose
some officers might use it for advantage, but I'm more on the pastoral side.'

'You're not a
priest?'

'I did get most
of the way through seminary when I was younger. Refused at the last fence.' The
joke was offered in a way that invited her not to venture any further in that
direction. He was still in conflict, she sensed, and doubted there was a Mrs
Coughlin.

The tide was at
its lowest point and the water rushed noisily over rocks on which a heron
stood, statue-still and inscrutable. Coughlin filled his lungs and took in the
view: the mist rising over an enchanted landscape.

'Beats the
Caledonian Road, that's for sure.' He glanced back the way they had come. There
was no sign of life except for a ginger tomcat that had wandered into the path
and stretched out to bathe in a pool of sunlight. He turned to Jenny. 'I don't
know if this is of any interest to you, Mrs Cooper, but I can call on certain
resources to look into matters that require it.'

'I thought you
were going to offer me a revelation.'

'I've read about
the case and spoken to Father Starr about the evidence, that's all. I can see
that local detectives wouldn't be inclined to reopen a matter they've already
put to bed and, quite frankly, I wouldn't be inclined to in their shoes.'

'How does your
Super' feel about you going freelance?'

Ignoring her
note of sarcasm, Coughlin said, 'I've dealt with enough sexual psychopaths to
know they don't tend to stick in a knife and run. If Craven was the killer he
would have done more than relieve himself on the doorstep. As far as I can
tell, he didn't even rifle through her possessions or look over the house.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a kill and run is either an execution or an
accident.'

'What do you
think it was?' Jenny said.

'I wouldn't put
my money on it having been an accident.'

'All right,
let's say we follow your logic. Who's got a motive to kill Eva?'

'The obvious
answer would be someone from her old business, but then there are the two
suicides - if that's what you think they were.'

'I think we can
assume that. And I think we can assume neither Freddy Reardon nor Alan Jacobs
killed Eva. For one thing they were both at church at the time, and for another
I don't believe either of them was capable of it.'

'I'd agree with
you. It sounds to me like there could have been something else going on,
something bigger than all of them.'

'Bristol CID
don't seem to think so.'

'Police forces
don't spend money on disproving confessions.'

Jenny studied
him for a moment, trying to decide what it was that was making her listen to
him.

'Why exactly are
you here, Mr Coughlin?' she asked. 'And please don't tell me God told you to
come.'

'I've a lot of
time for Father Starr,' Coughlin said with no hint of apology. 'You've got to
admire a man who truly acts on his faith. But there is a little more to it than
that. I had a colleague in Bristol check out the crime desk logs. It turned up
something you ought to know. On the evening of Monday, 15 March this year, a
woman by the name of Eva Donaldson phoned up with a rambling complaint about
someone - we believe it was a male - harassing her. She wouldn't mention any
names and the officer taking the call noted that she sounded drunk and
incoherent. He checked the action log and saw that a follow-up call was made
exactly a week later. The log says "caller denies all knowledge of having
made the complaint".'

'Have you got a
copy of this log?'

'It's been faxed
to your office. I'm afraid the colleague who turned it up can't be named.'

'Is he a member
of the Guild?'

'That would be a
reasonable assumption.'

'Have you got
anything else?'

'Not yet, but
from what Father Starr has told me I'm inclined to have a look at Alan Jacobs.
I understand he'd had sexual relations with a man on the evening he died.'

'Who told you
that? I know, let me guess - Father Dermody?'

'I don't know
Dermody personally,' he said, avoiding the question, 'but I thought you might
like to know who Jacobs was with, whether he told him anything that could be
useful to you.'

'Of course, but
I might need a little time to think this through. No offence intended, but I
suddenly feel as if I've got involved with the mafia.'

Coughlin said,
'We may behave like a family, but I can assure you that's where the similarity
ends. Any favours I do Father Starr are strictly within the law.'

'A good
Samaritan, hey?'

'We all need one
of those every now and then.'

After a moment,
Jenny said, 'Fine. I'm not sure why, but I think I'll trust you.'

'Wise decision.
I'll be in touch, Mrs Cooper.'

He shook her
hand once more and turned to make his own way back. Jenny watched from a
distance as he climbed into the BMW, flicked the switch that folded back the
soft top and took off down the valley at high speed. There was definitely no
Mrs Coughlin, she decided, or anyone closer to him than his priest.

It was only a
few minutes after eight when Jenny arrived in the empty office clutching a
coffee and croissant. She dumped the mail on Alison's desk without checking it
and went straight to the elderly fax machine. As Coughlin had promised, there
was a single page copy of the crime desk log, Eva's call marked with an
asterisk:
Caller at times incoherent,
possibly intoxicated. Refuses to name male harassing her.
In the right-hand column was the follow-up note:
Caller denies all knowledge of complaint.
Jenny took it through to her room. She would have to fetch out all of Eva's
papers to search for any clue as to what was happening in her life around 15
March.

She unloaded the
document box that she had ferried to and from the inquest and reached for the
bundle of papers dealing with her various engagements. There was a printout of
an email dated 11 March giving details of three local radio interviews Eva was
scheduled to conduct on Friday the 12th, but no hint as to what was in her
schedule for Monday. Turning to the bundle of correspondence, she flicked
through letters to and from her bank and mortgage company for dates in January
and February. They showed that she was struggling with arrears - that much
Jenny already knew - but a phrase leaped out of a letter dated 18 February that
she hadn't accorded any significance to before. An executive from her mortgage
company had written:

In the light of
representations received via your solicitors concerning your anticipated income
in the second half of this year, I have decided to grant your request for a
five- month period of interest-only payments. Arrears to date will be rolled
over into the principal sum
.

Jenny leafed
back, looking for any sign of the solicitors' letters being copied to Eva but
none had made it to the file. The several letters that followed were dry,
administrative pro formas confirming the adjusted payment schedule, but the
last in the sheaf was the letter headed Reed Falkirk & Co. that Jenny
recalled seeing the previous week. Since her meeting with Coughlin its date now
held more significance: 13 March. She re-read its three paragraphs carefully:

Dear Ms
Donaldson,

Further to your
instructions we have reviewed your contracts with GlamourX Ltd and as agreed
have sought counsel's advice. Simeon Hargreaves
QC
has confirmed
that clause
3.2
of the contract dated
23
September 200j
clearly entitles you to 4.6 per cent of sales revenue generated by
Latex Lesbians
Parts 1 to 4 and all six films in the
Lil' Miss
series. As we anticipated, he advised that all films in the
Whorehouse Vixens
series are subject to the buy-out agreement between you and
GlamourX dated
2
November 20o5 and that no royalties are owing.

In the light of
GlamourX's failure to respond to correspondence to date, we advise that there is
little prospect of reaching a settlement, and that High Court proceedings
should be commenced forthwith. We would, however, remind you that our invoice
dated 26 February in the sum of £14,675 remains outstanding and that no further
action can be taken in this matter until payment is received. In accordance
with standard practice, we will require the sum of £10,000 to be paid on
account of fees that will be incurred in the preparation and issuing of
proceedings.

We await your
instructions. Yours sincerely,

Damien Lynd

A glance in
Chambers and Partners Directory
confirmed that Lynd was one of four partners in the firm of Reed Falkirk &
Co. His specialisms were listed as media and corporate law.

There was no
subsequent correspondence from Mr Lynd or his firm. Extrapolating from what she
had read, Jenny assumed that the bill for £14,675 had been incurred in fending
off Eva's mortgage company with the promise of unpaid royalties and
commissioning an opinion from Queen's Counsel. But why hadn't Eva pursued this
before? Out of distaste, Jenny presumed, but her circumstances had become too
straitened for such scruples. The March letter left her with the tantalizing
prospect of money from GlamourX, but as lawyers do, Reed Falkirk had demanded
payment on account that she couldn't afford.

One other thing
struck her. Eva had negotiated five months' grace with the mortgage company.
That would have taken her to the end of July. There was no significance in the
date that Jenny could think of other than the fact that, if everything went to
plan, the Decency Bill would have passed the major parliamentary hurdles by
then, leaving her free to take up the acting career she had discussed with
Cassidy. But the prospect of a TV show was far from money in the bank. It was
likely that Eva felt that she couldn't be seen to sue GlamourX for personal
gain until the Decency campaign was at an end, in which case might she have
asked Turnbull for money? Perhaps, but Jenny was doubtful. And might the person
'harassing' her have been her lawyer, holding a gun to her head in his demand
for fees in advance?

There was too
much missing from the paper trail to get beyond speculation, but it raised a
lot of questions. One was how Eva had racked up a lawyer's bill of nearly
£15,000 for simple written advice from counsel and a handful of letters.
Returning the documents to their box, Jenny thought about calling one of Eva's
executors to give evidence about the state of her personal affairs, guessing
her father was likely to be one of them. She racked her memory for the rules of
executor confidentiality, a subject she hadn't touched on since law school.
They refused to come, but by some mysterious process of association, another
forgotten phrase floated to the surface:
a lien on the papers.
In Eva's case
it meant that as long as her bill remained unpaid, her solicitors would have
the legal right to retain her files and therefore all documents relating to her
claim against GlamourX. They would eventually be paid out of her estate, but a
grant of probate took months, sometimes as long as a year.

Jenny needed to
speak to Damien Lynd.

She grabbed the
phone and fetched out the March letter to find Reed Falkirk's number. Her call
was answered by a machine. She was ready to leave a message when it occurred to
her that Ed Prince and Annabelle Stern were likely to have made contact with
Lynd already. Putting him on notice of her interest would only give him the
opportunity to let them know. Far better to surprise him. She checked the time:
eight-twenty. If the traffic was kind she could call past their offices in
Queen Square and still make it to the inquest for ten.

She grabbed her
briefcase and the box of documents and hurried out. As she clattered through
the door and into the hallway she bumped into Alison.

'Mrs Cooper, I
need to speak to you,' she said urgently.

'It'll have to
wait. I'll see you at the inquest.' Jenny pushed past.

Alison pursued
her.

'Mrs Cooper, I
was approached by a reporter.'

Jenny stopped
abruptly and turned. 'About what?'

'You,' Alison said
hesitantly. 'Something about a police inquiry into your past.'

'What did you
tell him?'

'The truth - I
had no idea what he was talking about.'

'If he calls
again, tell him he'll be hearing from my lawyers.' She turned to go.

'He didn't
call-'

Jenny looked
back, responding to the alarm in Alison's voice.

'I was sitting
outside a restaurant in Bath. I was with Martin. He took a picture of us.'

'Last night?'

Alison nodded.
'But how did he know I was there? I can't have that in the papers. I've only
just met this man . . .' She was almost in tears. 'God knows what he must think
of me.'

'Oh, I
see
...
I thought you meant you were worried about your husband—'

'Sod him. He's
got no right to be angry.'

'Look, even if
this person was a reporter, you're not the story.'

'Who else would
he have been?' Alison said, panicked.

'That woman
lawyer who turned up yesterday has made a career out of keeping her rich
clients' grubby secrets out of the press. I wouldn't put anything past her.'

A look of relief
spread across Alison's face which Jenny found curious, but their whole exchange
had left her more than slightly confused. The love-struck Alison wasn't a
person she knew or understood.

'I've got to
go,' Jenny said, and hurried for the door.